Starling- A Lovecraftian Comedy Chap. 1 Welcome To Raleigh. Again.

“It’s been years since I saw [[Marti]],” I thought as the police snipers lined up their shots. “Her cooking is great, and she’s even better company. Fantastic gardener too. Yeah, this loop, I’m going to play with Marti.” I turned my head slightly and drew a little circle just above my ear. Sometimes the snipers needed a little prompting, and it was embarrassing for everyone when they just missed. I waved the “detonator” and flicked up the “arming lever” just to hurry them along a bit. 

Reality gave a little lurch, and I was standing in Willoughby Park, flying sword in my left hand and a sack of seeds in my right. Back to the beginning. Again. I smiled. This time would be fun. I’d focus on gardening. And Marti.  

“Sword, come!” I cried, looking like an asshole. The sword refused to leap out of the sheath and float at a convenient height for me to jump on. Which was fair enough, given that I had no qi to power it. I keep trying, and it just keeps on not working. The sword never budged.

I sighed and looked at the “starting kit” I had been provided. A steel ring with a picture of a black dot on it. The ring did nothing, but I couldn’t remove it for some reason. A bag of strange, occasionally glowing, seeds that would grow into… something. I assume they will, anyway. I have never managed to get them to grow before the reset. I also had a “flying sword” that wouldn’t leave the sheath and a perfect understanding of “The Supreme Jade Lotus Sutra of Divine Transcendence.” The Sutra would, apparently, let me suck in magical energy, turn it into qi, become immortal, and eventually transcend God.  

Which, you know. Sure. It does raise the question of why the author wrote down the Sutra instead of transcending God or whatever, but… You do you, I guess. Not that I could judge. It’s just that I was raised vaguely Christian. At least, I think I remember being raised vaguely Christian. Basically secular. Magic cultivation systems were not a “thing” for us.

Not that anyone here knows what a Christian is. Or cares.  

I couldn’t even manage the first step of the first level of this “supreme” cultivation method. Apparently, you need a spirit root, and apparently, I don’t have one. This is supposed to be a fixable problem, but I haven’t figured out how just yet. I would assume the seeds would supply… something. I tried eating them all in different run-throughs. Sometimes they killed me, but they never gave me a spirit root.   

I spent the last… however long. Five years? Ten? Screwing around. Just adapting at first, and then it just became a thoughtless, repeating pattern. I’m stuck in a giant, L.A.-sized city filled with magic, cultivators, and alchemists; giant spirits just wander around, EVERYTHING is incredible, and best of all, they have all the modern conveniences. Flushing toilets, the internet, everything! Almost everything. Most things. They have… I’d say 65% of the things. But they have other things, and that counts for a lot.  

Eventually, hedonism loses its charm. The needle skips out of its grove, the record screeches, and now both needle, record, and listener have to answer the question- “Now What?” It was time to figure out how to cultivate. Being stuck in a time loop is fun and all, but there is something exhausting about it. Knowing that your relationships with everyone and everything will keep resetting. The longest I could stretch a loop was one year.  

Still, I got to know the City (it’s called Raleigh) and its people very well. The whole situation let me “speed run” relationships, tweaking variables to change outcomes. For example, Marti. And others. I got walking.   

Around the corner was an unattended bicycle. In about 70% of my starts, it was the first item I acquired. Not that I’ve been keeping stats these fifteen years. Wait, how long did I say I had been here? Eh. Time loop. Definitionally unimportant.   

I hopped on and rode away. It was a long schlep to Marti’s, and this thing had a basket for all my stuff. 

I pedaled through the streets, watching the cultivators whizz around overhead on their flying swords, flying boats, flying clouds (both seven-colored and plain white,) and flying beasts. Only some of the beasts were, I dunno what to call it, so let's say… housebroken. There should be a law against a fifteen-foot-long bear with forty-foot wings shitting on you from a great height, ok? I lived just long enough to understand what happened before the smell killed me. Literally killed me. Not cool, bro. Not cool at all.   

Although, it did happen after one of my more colorful runs. I pedaled a little more quickly. This pocket world, whatever it was, clearly didn’t operate on a morality system. It did, however, start to retaliate if the changes got too dramatic.

After the fiftieth, or five hundredth (or whatever) run-through, it’s hard to still see them as people, you know? They are just… NPC’s, living in the same endless loop as me. Consequences, definitionally, don’t exist. It took me a while to snap out of that headspace.

I dodged around the street hawkers, buskers, the food carts with their boiling curries and frying sandwiches. They crowded the streets, sidewalks being a sometimes thing in Raleigh. As was zoning. 

There are tall spires made of mottled horn, so tall you could lose them in the cloud layer, plonked next to bamboo shacks, or craftsman bungalows, or conch houses, or a convenience store in a building designed to look like a temple dog and with four times the internal volume it’s exterior promised. Under promise, over deliver, that’s the N-Mart Way! 

They had some ok taquitos too, but when the street food was this good, and there was this much of it, it was strictly an impulse buy. I slapped my head. Of course! This was going to be a normie run! I needed to stock up on cash before crashing with Marti.  

I looked around. Stock opening, so there should be… Ok, I got this. I hyped myself up. I must make it on time. I must make it on time. I MUST MAKE IT ON TIME! 

My face was a mask of furious determination. I pedaled as hard as my merely mortal body could manage. The bike rocketed forward toward the intersection. There was a gap in the traffic. I WILL make it! FORWARD!

The flying serpent came out of nowhere. A big blunt nose the size of me and the bike combined plowed right into me, smashing me sideways. I flew across the intersection, in the air long enough to know my pelvis and legs were gone. Smashed into trash. Leaking sacks of pain attached to my torso. I didn’t like to think about what it did to my groin. 

I managed to get my arms over my head as I crashed into the asphalt. The street ground away my skin. Ribs broke, then my arms, then my elbows. My shoulders dislocated as the shoulder blades shattered. My organs were pulped, shredded, and torn by the force of the impact. My little life hung by a thread. The merest, fraying thread.

“Merciful Heavens, Jerry, what did you do?”  

“He came out of nowhere, Marcy! I didn’t see him. No way Sssnnsssss could have stopped in time.”

“Give him a pill, hurry!”  

“I can’t give him a pill, Marcy. Do you want him to explode? Alright, alright, I’ve got this.” A surprisingly soft hand pressed on my forehead. Cooling energy seemed to pour into me. Qi- airy yet somehow thick and heavy. Like windy chowder. It coiled through me, circulating, repairing. The cultivator let out a repressed grunt.   

“Jerry?”

“I’m doing it, Marcy! He’s going to be fine. Maybe you could find his stuff? I think he had a bike and stuff in a basket.”

“Are you sure he’s going to be ok?”

The cultivator took a deep breath and, with forced cheer, said, “Of course! He’ll be better than new. But he’s going to want his stuff back, right?”

“Right. I’ll go get it now.” There was a dramatic whooshing noise.

“C’mon, buddy. Pull it together. That’s not where your liver belongs, and you know it.” Jerry muttered. 

I groaned, pitifully and sincerely, in reply. 

“Oh nice, your lungs are working again. That’s lucky. And your spinal cord is knitting back together. Great hustle, little guy. Keep up the good wor… oh man, your nuts are going to need extra attention, huh. Oof. Plus side, how often do you get to use the word “rupture” in a conversation? Or “torsion?” Not for nothing, but did you know that you have an enlarged prostate? I don’t know if that’s a trauma thing, but you might want to get it checked out. A mortal… butt doctor? Something like that.”

“I found a sword and a sack of something. The bike is scrap, but these clearly belong to a cultivator.”

“Damn. Do you think we killed a delivery guy?”

“KILLED?!”

“Not killed, not killed! Look, he’s breathing and moaning and all that. Recovering. I’m even helping him with his nuts.”

“Jerry, of all the times to make a stupid joke! This is so you. Just so, pathetically you. You damn near kill a man, and all you can do is make sick, stupid jokes.”

Have you ever felt your shattered tibia re-fuse in the span of a few seconds? It is an… unusual experience. I think most people would use the words “Novel” or “Unique.” Not me, obviously. But most people. 

The soupy qi wrapped around the various bone fragments, hauled them together, and fused them into place. While it was doing that, it drilled into the bone and started recreating the destroyed marrow. Fortunately, the qi numbed the pain. Unfortunately, it did no such thing for the mental trauma.

“Marcy. Are you serious? Are you seriously saying to me, as I knit together the chunked remains of his gastrointestinal system, that all I’m doing is making stupid jokes? You want to talk about something being so you? How about the way you always find some reason to undercut me, huh? Try to make me look like the bad guy!”

I cried a little. The nerve endings in my ruined hand had reconnected before the flesh had been repaired, and, ahahaha. Ohgod. Agony. Pure, distilled, triple filtered, and factory sealed for maximum freshness PAIN.

“You are the bad guy! You, Jerry, are the bad guy! You killed him, and now you are making him cry!”

“You know, you talk an aaaaaaawwwwwwwwful lot for someone whose big contribution was grabbing two things.”

“I wasn’t the one steering Sssnnsssss, Jerry.

“I wasn’t the one pointing behind us and yelling “Oooh buy me that, buy me that,” Marcy.”

I managed to crack open one tear-blurred eye. It was filled with the sight of Sssnnsssss. A snake should be physically incapable of expressing emotion with its face. And yet, somehow, its apology for its owners was plain. We bonded in that moment, he and I. Miserable companions on a journey without meaning.

The stitching together went faster than a mortal might reasonably expect, but it seemed to be agonizingly slow by cultivator standards. Judging from the dramatic sighs from Marcy. Still, that crucial, unmissable moment came. I had just enough strength… to strike!

With a snakelike speed worthy of Sssnnsssss, I rolled over and grabbed Jerry by the ankles, ruthlessly rubbing my cheek against his shin. “PRAISE THE GLORIOUS IMMORTAL HERO!” 

“Wha-?”

“Oh, your kindness knows no bounds! To bestow this lowly mortal worm with some of your precious qi, even if I were to die ten thousand times, I could never repay a fraction of your divine generosity!” 

I really ground my cheek in there, and then once I thought the point was made, I went for smooching the tops of his feet. Not enough. Time to get vicious. I let my tongue flop out, getting ready for the big lick.

“What? No, stop that, no, please. Marcy? Help. HELP.”

I felt strong hands pulling me up, but I had a firm hold on Jerry’s ankles. Against the mighty strength of a cultivator, my meager strength counted for nothing. My tongue flopped desperately, tip extended, reaching for the boot. I did my best, I swear, but she was too strong for me. My fingers lost their grip one at a time, and with a regretful cry, I was set on my feet.

“Why, WHY? Why would you pull me away from the Immortal like that? Beauty, have you no pity for commoners?”

Jerry had his face buried in his hands. “Thank you, Marcy.”

I looked back and forth between the two. “You don’t mean… CURSE MY USELESS EYES! OH, THAT I SHOULD EVER HAVE BEEN BORN SO BLIND!” I screamed.  

“Naturally, a peerless, jadelike beauty must be pursued by the greatest of heroes, and all of heaven and earth know that Immortal Heroes are well loved by Holy Faires. How could I have not known you were an divine, golden couple?” They gawped at one another.  

“My wretched eyes have sinned too greatly. Atonement is impossible. BEGONE, EYEBALLS!” I screamed again. A sizable crowd had gathered. I held up two fingers of my right hand and drove them forcefully at my eyes. Jerry caught my hand at the last instant.  

“NO! No, your eyeballs are fine! Great eyeballs, just, just wonderful eyeballs. Here, look, we picked up your sword and the bag you had.” Jerry frantically waved over Marcy, who was still carrying them. I looked at them, looked at the couple, and burst into tears.   

Big fat drops, rich in saline and pathos, rolled down my flooded cheeks. Wracking sobs accompanied them. Wailing, I shot for Jerry’s legs again, going for the double-leg takedown. With a blur and a twinkle of golden light, he quickly dodged. I landed on my knees

“MERCIFUL IMMORTALS! Oh, this worm, this dust beneath a worm, is beyond blessed by your charity!”

“No, no, it’s alright, we just…” Marcy started waving her hands, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

“To think, after my petty bicycle offended the dignity of your mighty steed, you still found the largess to collect the paltry goods I was entrusted to deliver. Ah, it is only a matter of skipping a few meals for a few months, and a new bicycle can be bought, but the honor of such a glorious existence… how can any price be put on that?”

“A few months… Jerry.”

“I know, I know. Do you have any Pesos?”

“Why would I have any Pesos, Jerry? Give him yours.”

“Why would I have any Pesos, Marcy?” He hurriedly fished around in his cosmic pouch. “Alright, you can turn spirit stones into Pesos, right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can. Five. Here are five… whole… spirit stones?”

It was enough to put a down payment on a shitty house. I looked at Jerry with big, wet eyes, my lower lip wobbling. Then, sensing a distracted target, I launched from my knees to grab Marcy’s feet. SHE WAS TOO SLOW!  I showered them in kisses, sobbing at the top of my lungs. “BLESSED FAIRY! I AM UNWORTHY OF YOUR MERCIFUL INTERCESSION! BWAAAHHAHAHAHAAAAA.”

“He’s doing it again. Jerry. Little help Jerry. Right now, Jerry.”

“Even if I live ten thousand years, I could never repay such generosity. Such boldness. Such breadth of heart.” I suddenly shot to my feet before Jerry could reach me.

“I know now what I must do. What my true purpose in life is. I shall complete this delivery, then immediately take a wife. We must breed an army. Generations after generations of my line must be born so that we may be your vanguard. Sweeping the world, that the dust of it may not stain your dainty feet.”

“Please. Please don’t do that.” Marcy was backing away slowly.

“Immortal Fairy, it is the very least we can do. Please, a final blessing- Let me know your name, that I may send the generations of my daughters to serve as your handmaidens.” 

I looked over at Jerry. “I assume the Hero will want those not needed for earth-sweeping to labor in your mines? Do you have mines? Should I get you mines? Immortal Hero, but speak your favorite mineral, and it shall be heaped in front of you. HEAPED, by the mountain!”

“Oh… thanks. Whoops, look at that time. Back to the Sect, everyone!” There were two golden blurs to the top of Sssnnsssss, who set off in a furious writhing of green. Racing into the sky. 

“Please, your names! Your Sect! I WILL FIND YOU! YOUR ARMY AWAITS!” Sssnnsssss seemed to speed up. Was it a secret art? Damn, it looked cool to be a cultivator. 

I dusted myself off as I stood. There was a crowd looking at me, but I was used to that. A bit of face wiping, a bit of a wriggle through the gawkers, and in seconds, I was safely invisible amongst the throng. 

Pretty good run, there. It had taken a few dozen repetitions to figure out how to optimize that interaction, and that was about as good as it got. Hopefully, this would help bring Jerry and Marcy a little closer together. Their relationship was in a rough patch, and this event often helped them reframe. 

It was still a long walk to Marti’s place. Was there a stealable bike near here? Well, yes, of course there was, but I couldn’t think of a specific one. Damn. By the time I got there, I’d miss the window for my favorite route to her good graces. On the other hand, I’d be turning up with some serious moolah, so… definitely a win there. Meh. No such thing as a perfect run. There were always trade-offs.  

I walked briskly along. The next good window was in a few hours, so no huge rush. Besides, Raleigh is an incredible city. After decades of living here, she still shows me something new every day. Today, I was enchanted by the people.   

I was passing through a pretty neat area- all coral and spires twisted around by unseen ocean currents, with forests of kelp filling public parks. You could watch the neighborhood kids diving in and out of the kelp. Some had breather bubbles, providing water to their gills. Some had more boring lungs but still kept the squiddy tentacles around their face and the beaklike maw in the middle. Occasionally a parent would reach in and pull out some squealing child, hauling them away for… who knows what. School, perhaps.  

Not a fish pun. I swear, I didn’t mean to make a fish pun. They only look like fish, ok? Fully sentient. Sapient. Whatever. Look, you see a canid beastkin lifting a leg to piss on a fire hydrant, it’s because she’s drunk as hell, not because she’s a canid. Believe you me, we have no patience for that speciesist nonsense around here!  

I mean, we still absolutely do it. We just say we don’t, loudly and often. You would look like a complete tourist if you just came out and said it directly. Take Elves, for example. Even saying that was reductive- we have dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties of beings that could be classified as “Elves.” 

I could see one in front of me. Some Ehrendil or Elario, or Saevel or some other “Very Culturally Important Name,” wearing a trenchcoat and breathing heavily as he bought a balloon animal from a street clown. The little balloon cat squeaked as he held it. This Velethuil, or whatever, shuddered, gasping wetly, before spinning on his toes and waddling for home. Like we couldn’t see the tips of his long ears flushed red.

Every Elf is a stone freak. Just completely, profoundly depraved. But you can’t just go and call them moral degenerates who stain the earth with the passing of their shadow. You have to be catty and snide about it so everyone knows you’re polite.

Whoops! Can’t use “catty” anymore. Not with all the felinid beastkin around. And yes, the males fem up nicely, and the cat girls are as tasty as you think, but DAMN. You need to have some patience. They aren’t crazy. They’re neurotic. They make you crazy. Which is a shame because they are some of the best artists in the city. And you haven’t lived until you have been to a Raleigh City artists’ party.  

You might not have lived after you went to a Raleigh City artist’s party. Some of them have been known to make such persuasive pieces that their models disavowed their own former identities and became the people in the pictures. I love this city so much.

Eh, I guess there are macho cat people? Some have really big hair and beards. But they’re all pricks, so I ignore them. 

I picked up my pace, actively looking for another bike to steal. Marti is an elf of some unknown woodland variety. She screamed like a goat in the throws of passion. It was wild. I guess I could stop off somewhere and make change for my spirit stones, but… I wanted the visual impact. I wanted to rock up with a massive fistful of cash and just WOW her.  

Did… she restart me a couple of times? I feel like I kind of remember her doing that. Which, ok, isn’t a problem per se, but still… Ah. Hell with it.   

Someone almost crashed their flying carpet into the pavement, rushing for the office building. He was waving some papers around- “I have it! I have it! Stop the procedure! We can still do the musical!”   

Lawyer shit, I guess. Oh well. I hopped on his carpet. He hadn’t deactivated it yet. Oops. I chanted the spell words to start the carpet flying again, and then gave it directions for the bar nearest Marti’s place and sat down to enjoy the ride.  

It’s a douchebag’s ride, a flying carpet. It looks cool, sounds cool, but you know what? It sucks. No seats. No windscreen. You want to keep bugs out of your teeth? Better have the pesos ready for the dealership's “optional upgrades.” And it’s cold at altitude. And it’s noisy because you have no sound isolation. The only thing it has going for it is that it looks fancy, and everyone gets to admire you and your fancy, fancy ways.  

I’m glad I stole it.   

It only took twenty minutes to reach Marti’s local boozer. It was in some tree-heavy part of town. Which, yeah, yeah, elf equals tree, but not in Raleigh. Around here, elf equals 75th-floor duplex penthouse with hot and cold running servants and at least six rooms dedicated to their favorite sickening hobbies. 

Marti was a freak in so many wonderful ways. She had a one-room studio in some basic scrubby pine. Of course, she was an elf-freak, so there was more than met the eye there.   

I hopped off the carpet, which continued into the alley next to the bar and directly into a dumpster. Practice makes perfect, and all that. Leeroy’s Bar and Grill. It wasn’t my favorite, but how many thousands of hours had Marti and I laughed at the bar here? Shot pool? Ate people?  

Wait, no. That wasn’t right. I shook my head. No, I don’t eat people, and neither does Marti. Where the hell did that thought come from? I shook it off and pushed the door open.   

“Yo, Suzie,” I called out to the bartender, who I knew well but who had never met me before. “A couple of Dreamy Dunkels, please!”  

“SWEET P’TAGH! Do you need an ambulance?” Suzie yelled. She’s good people and not usually excitable.  

“I’m sorry? Why would I need an ambulance?”  

“You are covered in blood! Your clothes are torn to shreds!”  

“Oooh, right. No worries, a passing cultivator healed me right up. Thanks for asking, though. Two dunkles, please, on Marti’s tab.”  

“On my what now?” Marti spun around on her stool. Marti is… well, Marti is a vision.   

God, where to even begin? From the top? Long black hair, glossy black, the black of caviar or a raven caught by a sunbeam. Pale skin, as though the sun never reached the floor of the woods where she doubtlessly danced naked beneath the ancient canopies. A high brow above strong and delicately arched eyebrows. Ears that swept up and out to a fragile peak. Eyes the color of tawny port, sticky and sweet enough to drown in. A little straight nose over a small but ever-so-tasty mouth, itself suspended over an adorably pointy little chin.   

To describe her body in excessive detail would be crude and beneath me. She was generous where she ought to be and slender where she ought to be, and her every movement and breath inspired a terrible carnal desire in me. A tinge of madness crept in as the edges of my vision turned red, and a desire to breed and father endless slavering young to devour this world and every other sprung like a sudden banyan tree in my trousers.   

I mean, you got used to it eventually. This happened every time with her. Still, she was awfully pretty.   

She was also dressed all in black- black combat boots with black fishnet stockings rising up and being lost under a gloriously short black pleated mini-skirt, a tight, belly-revealing black tank top, and a black satin choker.    

I don’t wish to be crass. Let me merely state that I would verb her nouns so hard her black hair would turn white. I would snap that damn choker. I would do it all goddamn day.   

Why did that remind me of something? She did reset me, didn’t she? But I couldn’t remember how for some reason. Oh well, normie run!   

“Hiya Marti! I’m the Mysterious Stranger. I’m here because I’m looking for a roommate with gardening expertise, and you were clearly the best pick.”  

“You, blood-stained and likely insane stranger who I don’t know from a hole in the air, want me to come live with you because I am good at gardening?”  

“Oh, heavens no. That would be super creepy and weird. No, I want to come live with you. I have a literal bag of magic seeds that I want to germinate and grow. The ultimate goal would be to see if they could be used to give me a Spirit Root.”  

“Magic seeds, yes, this is sounding more and more normal by the moment. Suzie, I think I will have a Dunkel, and we will need an ambulance for our friend here.”  

I plonked the bag of seeds on the bar next to her and grandly displayed the five spirit stones. Her gemlike eyes narrowed.  

“Make that two Dunkels, hold the ambulance.”   

“So, who are you?” Marti asked. We had shifted to a booth. She seemed to think this conversation required privacy. She had her funny little ways, sometimes. I had already told her who I was.  

“I’m the Mysterious Stranger.” 

“No, but really.”  

“Really. I blow into your life, act in mysterious ways, then leave, more a mystery than ever. I am the very model of a Mysterious Stranger, and I take great pride in my calling.”  

She tried not to laugh, her kissable, bitable lips quivering. “And why did your mother name you Mysterious, Mr. Stranger?”  

“I haven’t a clue. I remember I had a mother, but I really can’t recall her.”  

“Ah. Raised by your father?”  

“Nope. Second verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.”  

“You just… knew one day that you were the Mysterious Stranger.”  

“Yes, exactly. At some point during my journeys through Raleigh, I realized that was who I was- the Mysterious Stranger. My ways are mysterious, so are my means, and I am a stranger to all. Which is pretty mysterious!”  

“And you want to grow some magic seeds, so you can become a cultivator?”  

“Yes, it’s a good life, being the Mysterious Stranger, but you do get a bit tired of it all. I think that if I finally manage to become a cultivator, I can have a history again, you see. A defined chronology."  

“And you don’t presently have that.”  

“Not in the conventional sense, no.”  

She leaned back, her mouth widening into the most remarkable smile. Sometimes I thought she had a double or triple row of teeth, like a shark, but that was silly. Of course she didn’t. Her smile was beautiful and wonderful and fascinating. 

“How very Mysterious."  

“Thank you. I do take pride in my work.”  

“So what exactly do you propose, Mr. Stranger?”  

“You take the five spirit stones as a combination rent, a fee for building a plant cultivation area in your apartment, and a fee for your services as a gardener. In exchange, I will sleep on your sofa, have use of the apartment within reason, and when you decide to invite me to your bed, you will discover that I am a very generous, very giving lover.”

She laughed, throaty and deep at that. “Oh, I will, will I? And you are, are you?”  

“I am prepared to provide references if necessary.”  

She really started laughing at that, the warm throaty chuckle rising up to an almost bleating shout of mirth. She was beautiful, unrestrained, and wild. I wanted to have sixty-six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six children with her. But even for me, that would be a lot of loops. Ah, dreams.

“Alright, bet. I’m older than dirt and not much makes me curious anymore. You seem like a good, momentary, distraction, brief mortal that you are.”  

“Great! I can’t wait to get started. Neck your pint, and let’s get going. My carpet is in the dumpster, but it’s a nice day. Shall we walk?”  

“Lets. So… why the urgency to become a cultivator? I can think of at least one much more fun way to achieve immortality.”  

“What can I say? I’m stuck in a rut, and things are drifting away. Before I become just another part of the city, I want to see if I can break out,” I smiled. It was hard not to smile at her.  

I didn’t remember much about the before times, but I could remember… Newport. Visiting those old mansions along the breakers. The whispering mirror, the leering grin of my reflection as the hands reached out and the reflection’s mouth opened wider and wider and wider, and the darkness crept in, and the darkness held the cold between the stars, the stars, the mirror of the mind and the unspeakable colors of space!  

“And being a cultivator just seems super fun, you know? Who doesn’t want to ride a flying sword?”