Be Gentle, Immortal Master

I stayed still in his arms this time, meekly letting him groom me to his satisfaction. It was for the best, I suppose, as it helped my body to cool off at last. When we finally got dressed and found a place to camp at the end of the day, I was clean and refreshed, and I even managed to get a reasonably comfortable sleep overnight.

The next morning, I woke up to a bundle of freshly picked fruit lying by my side.

"I hope you'll find these satisfactory," Bai Ye said. "I won't be able to find anything new for you for the rest of the day if we are going into the cave."

I got out of my bedroll and started readying myself. "The cave?" I asked.

He nodded. "I thought about the yazi some more last night. I've never seen one of those out of all the times I've been here, but if the bixie mentioned it, then there must be a lair somewhere in this mountain range.. The only place I haven't explored much is the cave."

"Has anyone been down there before?"

His expression grew pensive. "I've read plenty of records on the Misty Mountains, but the cave was never mentioned in any of them, which is strange given how large it seems to be." He paused for a moment. "Be very careful there and stay close to me. We might find more than just yazi inside."

A chill climbed up my spine despite the morning sun already heating up the woods. Yazis were ferocious beasts with a penchant for carnage, if there was a whole lair of them deep within the caves … I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near them on my own.

"I won't take a single step away from you," I reassured him, deciding that I would hang on to him like an ornament on his belt, and dug into my breakfast.

~ ~

We entered the cave through a different opening this time to avoid running into the bixie again. The air inside was cool and moist just like the other entrance, and as we walked further into the interior, it started growing a little chilly. My damp clothes clung onto me from the humidity, and the drop in temperature gave me a tiny shiver.

Bai Ye noticed and pulled me closer to him, wrapping an arm around me. "Guardian beasts don't usually come this far below ground," he said. The echo of his voice seemed endless in the depth of the cave. "You can use your spiritual power to warm up a little."

"I'm not that fragile!" I mumbled, not remembering how many times I had said this to him already. Besides, why would I try other ways to keep myself warm if I could stay in his arms instead?

He smiled and didn't persist. We kept walking, and when we reached further inside where the light became too dim, he fetched a night pearl from his sack and chanted a spell. The pearl levitated above us, its soft glow illuminating the path ahead. "This spell will make it follow you wherever you go," he said as we continued forward, "but the night pearl is only bright enough to light up twenty paces. Keep your ears sharp for anything farther away."

I nodded and strained my ears at the sounds around us. There was water dripping all over the cave walls, and I could vaguely hear the churning of running current somewhere below. It was the river carving the cave, I realized. It wasn't far beneath us.

"How do you know which way to go?" I asked him as we went through the maze of interconnected tunnels and cave chambers. There was nothing else around except rocks and occasional puddles, but he seemed certain of the direction where we should be heading, leading me forward without hesitating at all at the crossroads.

"I'm following where the spiritual power is the strongest," he said. "I can sense them flowing through these tunnels."

I concentrated and reached for the power in our surroundings, though I felt nothing. It was only expected, I thought, since his senses were much sharper than mine and would be able to notice tiny fluctuations of power that were too subtle for me to discern, so I gave up and followed him quietly, paying closer attention to my footing rather than figuring out where the path might lead us.

The sound of running water grew louder, signaling that we were nearing the bottom of the cave. The puddles beneath our feet became deeper and larger as well, and we were soon treading through them. Bai Ye walked in front of me, holding my hand. "Try to step exactly where I do," he instructed me as he slowed down and gingerly inched forward.

The cave floor was slippery under my feet. I tried my best to stay sure-footed, keeping my steps precise. "Do yazis live underwater?" I ventured. "We are getting so close to the center now, but there's still no sign of them. What if—"

A roar swallowed my next syllable, resonating throughout the depth of the tunnel ahead of us, so loud that I felt the whole cave shake. I gasped, and the shock made me lose my balance. My feet slipped on an uneven surface, and I fell backward.

I thought I was going to splash into the water and hit the ground beneath, but I felt nothing touching my bottom. Instead, my body kept sinking into the shallow water, as if someone was pulling me from behind into a hole that didn't exist. Bai Ye yanked me hard from my wrist, but the force sucking me away was too strong, and my hand started slipping from his grip, inch by inch.

"Bai Ye!" I screamed. What was pulling me down? And how could there be a hole in the floor of the cave, under the water?

My hand slipped free at last, and I fell through the impossible opening on the bottom of the puddle. Everything turned dark in front of my eyes.

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