Joshi spoke in a low murmur, "We'll need to draw them away from the women."

Chang-li had been thinking something similar. He was prepared to take on any cultivators they found at the Yellow Masks Camp, but a cultivator duel would put innocents at risk. As far as he could tell, the only actual innocent parties here were the captive women.

"Do you have any ideas?" he asked.

"I do," Joshi said. "Can you keep their attention for a minute?"

"Absolutely," Chang-li agreed.

And that was all they had time for as their prisoner stumbled out of the forest, a few paces ahead of Chang-li, into the encampment. It was as Joshi had described. There was an open flat space in front of two walls of rock that came together steeply and rose overhead to form a great mountain. Ruined buildings dotted the area, what Chang-li thought must once have been at least a dozen small structures.

It was far smaller than the cultivator camp at Golden Moon, and he found himself bitterly disappointed. If this was the Morning Mist headquarters, he had built it up far too much in his mind.

A pair of fires were burning with a cookpot over one of them. At the end of the camp, beside a low long building of wood and scavenged stone, three men stood. They looked startled as Joshi and Chang-li emerged from the jungle behind the prisoner, and they strode forward. The man in the lead had long, flowing, dark hair and a thin dangling mustache. His eyebrows were so thin as to be almost invisible, and he had a sword at his hip. He wore a long, flowing, silk robe open and unbound over top of a fine tunic, pants, and boots.

The bandit boss had clearly done a bit of cultivation. His core held lux and was denser than the bandits Chang-li and Joshi had slaughtered in the forest. But if he had reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement, he hadn't gone past it.

The other two men, though, were at the Peak of Mental Refinement. Their cores were tight, solid balls, brimming with lux. Their lux channels seemed well defined. These men might be more formidable adversaries than he had expected. They wore robes of a cut similar to Chang-li and Joshi's, but in gray—sectless cultivators who could claim no name or affiliation.

Chang-li sized them up. They were both considerably younger than the man he assumed must be the bandit leader, in their mid-30s at most. One was nearly bald with a fringe of scraggly dark hair around the back of his head and a wicked scar down his face. The other man kept his hair in a neat queue down his back.

"How dare you invade our sanctum!" the Yellow Mask boss began to bluster. "Did the villagers hire you? They will pay for this! I told them before, if they attempted to interfere with us again, they would suffer twice what the first town did!"

The cultivator with his hair in a queue returned. "Boss Narim, may I speak to them?"

"Very well," the boss said with some ill grace.

The two sectless cultivators glanced at each other, giving a subtle nod, and then the man with a queue came forward. "I am Cultivator Nao Hien, and this is my associate, Cultivator Dai Noc. We are here to pursue excellence in cultivation, as I presume you are as well." He eyed them.

Chang-li cleared his throat officiously. "You claim no sect then?"

"For now, though that is to change once we have successfully completed our mission," Nao Hien said.

He hesitated, as though considering saying more, but Chang-li didn't give him the chance. "Then I need to see your license." Chang-li held out a hand. "You'll understand, of course, that I cannot trust the word of a cultivator who is associating with the likes of these."

The Yellow Mask Boss was fuming now. He stepped forward. "Who are you to make such demands?"

Chang-li put his hands together and bowed. "I am Young Master Wu Chang-li of the Morning Mist Sect. I am also a licensed scribe, having graduated from Yellow Sky City Scribe College Number Two at the top of my class. I am certified able to inspect official paperwork."

That was all true. Not that it mattered here, but Chang-li continued on. His intent was to keep them off guard until he and Joshi could find the right moment to pounce.

The two cultivators looked at each other with confusion. Chang-li realized he should not have mentioned the name of his sect. If they were here specifically to look for Morning Mist relics, they would be suspicious. But perhaps they didn't know that name, because Cultivator Dai Noc looked at him, shaking his head.

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"You can't be a young master of a sect and a licensed scribe too, can you?"

"You are contradicting me, an imperial official," Chang-li declared. "I will have to report this when I file my report on this incident."

"We don't have licenses. We were sent off from our sects," Cultivator Nao Hien said. "But it doesn't matter. We're well out of your jurisdiction. This is the edge of the empire here."

"The emperor's authority is everywhere," Chang-li snapped as he drew himself up. He channeled his most officious bosses as he spoke to the others. "Where is your deed of patronage for this region? That should have been sealed by one of the provincial governor's head scribes, and then endorsed by the local magistrate and judge. Without it, your demands upon the people of these villages are clearly illegal."

"Well, now, isn't this interesting?" a woman's voice said, ending her words with a chuckle.

The woman emerged from one of the crude shelters. This was no terrified peasant woman. She wore a low-cut silk shirt showing off her cleavage and billowing pants that were gathered just above her ankles. A sash from neck to waist offset the vibrant reds and blues of her outfit with bright yellow. But her hair was the most striking feature, the same yellow as her sash.

"What fools are these?" she asked, striding forward.

The bandit chief and the cultivators bowed to her. "Forgive us, mistress."

"I had trusted you to take care of such small matters," the woman said with a frown. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she tapped her lacquered nails against her pale skin. Chang-li couldn't take his eyes off her. She had an aura about her, a sense of power he'd only felt from high-level cultivators.

Joshi cleared his throat. "Are you with these bandits?"

"With them? No." The woman inspected her nails, then turned back to the others. "Merely using them, but they've proved utterly incompetent at delivering what I'm seeking. I will be returning to my mistress with word of your failings. I've wasted enough time here. The treasures you promised are lost to the ages. Our dealings are over," she told the cultivators, their mouths dropping open.

"Your mistress?" Chang-li asked.

"Prism Eri has sent me to do her bidding," the woman said. Chang-li swallowed hard, his heart racing even faster at the prism's name. What did Eri wants here?

"My name is Mistress Yoren," she said haughtily. "I won't bother to ask for yours. You worms aren't worth my time or my memory. Now," she said to the two bandit cultivators, "if you wish to redeem yourselves in the Prism's eyes, you will handle these upstarts yourselves. Since your own skill is lacking, have a taste of something better." She tossed each of the Mental Refinement cultivators a small shining object. They caught them in their hands, stared, before quickly clasping them to their lips. Too late, Chang-li realized that she'd given them some sort of enhancement.

The cultivators began to cycle anew, and he could feel the sudden fire in their lux cores, as though they had just undergone another core condensation. Suddenly, the density of their lux was increased.

The woman laughed. She leapt, soring though the air to land atop of one of the buildings, and from there another leap took her to a ledge on the rock wall. Seconds later, she was gone, vanished from sight.

She had been far above the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. Chang-li was certain of that, though likely not as high as Prism Eri. He worried she would come back, but that was a concern for later because the two cultivators were facing off against him. Chang-li set himself, Joshi beside him.

Dai Noc and Nao Hien both took a step toward Chang-li.

"Go!" he shouted to Joshi, who lashed out with the Binding Chains he had been preparing and pinned Cultivator Dai Noc to himself with a 30-foot length of lux chains. Chang-li tossed a Firepot at Nao Hien, then lunged to the side, racing for the boss bandit. He drew his sword while weaving a technique with his right hand. He threw the Blindfold as soon as it was complete. The boss ducked it, but Chang-li was there with his sword, sweeping down, inflicting a cut and imbuing Bloodflame Venom into the man's veins at the same time. He disengaged, twisting away as the boss gasped and drew his own sword too late.

Joshi gave a shout and charged at the boss. The chain that connected his waist to Dai Noc's ankle reached its full extent and yanked, knocking the bald cultivator off balance.

Cultivator Nao Hien had recovered from the surprise of the Firepot. He stepped out of the smoke and flame and wove a technique of his own, conjuring a great yellow, green, and blue teardrop in his hands, the size of Chang-li's head. Then he pushed lux into it, swelling it even further.

Chang-li raced forward as he wove Mirage Blade. Nao Hien hurled his now three-foot-across web technique at Chang-li. It was similar to techniques Chang-li had woven himself, so he was ready. He slashed at it with his illusory right-hand blade, cutting apart the strands of lux. They dissolved around him, but his false blade went with them. No matter, he was diving in through the remains of the technique to fall on Cultivator Nao Hien.

He had underestimated the other cultivator. As he brought down his sword, Nao Hien conjured one of his own weapon out of pure yellow lux and caught Chang-li's blade with a three-pronged sai. He pushed Chang-li back. Nao Hien outweighed Chang-li, and his whole lower body was reinforced with red lux. He was weaving a technique with his left hand.

Chang-li threw out another Firepot, just behind Nao Hien. It exploded loudly. Nao Hien didn't even wince. He had a steady cycling technique of his own going. Chang-li needed to disengage. He stepped back, but Nao Hien was right there, pushing in on him, changing his trident into a longer short sword, which he brought down hard against Chang-li.

Chang-li parried. He heard the boss shouting something. There was fire and smoke everywhere. Joshi and Dai Noc were locked in combat, throwing blows at each other, exchanging punch after punch. They were far too evenly matched.

Chang-li realized with horror that his lux was beginning to run out, and his opponent showed no sign of tiring. Meanwhile, he sensed and saw the return of other bandits. They were huddled along the edges of the encampment, talking together and preparing, no doubt, to interfere.

Chang-li was stretched to his limit with his enemy already. If they did intervene, he wasn't sure what he'd do. Then, with a shout, Joshi's enemy caught fire.

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