Molting the Mortal Coil

None of the insects casually living in the area were very valuable. Instead he found they were mostly species that were the most favored food for others. As a clan of Insect Tamers, it would make sense to fill their city with food for their pets. Sage captured a few more and passed them to the Dragoons and Hoplites in the Universe Ring to breed. Once he had a good number he’d introduce them to his Inner World.

Just as the attendant had said, a few days later he was summoned to a meeting. He didn’t hesitate to take Tujiu along. Going alone would just make him seem weak or overconfident, while taking too many with him would offend his hosts. The attendant, a different one than before, led them to a set of double doors nearly twenty feet tall. They were thick and banded with heavy metal, looking more like the gates of a castle than the door to a room. The attendant stopped outside and indicated for them to enter, at which point the doors slowly swung open on their own. Sage admired the arrays he saw flare to life to control the motion. It was quite an extravagant expense. Moving physical objects with arrays expended no small amount of energy, which is why the self-loading crossbow was normally so expensive and vehicles like his Steamcoach were not common. Sage used mechanical gears, levers, and pistons to drastically reduce the costs.

Passing through the giant doors he was greeted by an equally massive hall. The Chong Clan maintained their theme of mixing nature into their architecture. The pillars in the room were actually the trunks of still living trees, and looking up Sage realized there wasn’t a roof over this ‘hall’. After a moment he realized that instead of a ceiling or roof, they used an array to control the weather. Sage had done a similar thing in one of his habitats long ago, but on a very small scale. The sheer size of this room meant that they likely expended a small fortune to keep it running. The wealth of a large clan really wasn’t something to scoff about. He likened it to huge corporations on earth spending huge piles of cash to create impressive building lobbies and decorations to impress their customers and business partners.

On the ground, large stone blocks lifted the ‘floor’ up nearly a foot off the ground, with bugs, snails, worms and other little creatures living in the gaps. Thankfully, the stone blocks were about a yard wide so it didn’t take much effort to avoid the spaces. The tree pillars were only loosely arranged with only a wide corridor free down the center of the room. Sage walked forward from the big entry doors and advanced towards a huge stone altar. Getting closer, he didn’t see any dais like he was used to in most throne rooms. Instead the view was dominated by a huge slab of stone that looked like it could be a shrine or flat altar, except it was massive. The flat stone tabletop was ten feet in the air, and somewhat shaped like a wedge, it rested on the ground on one side and was propped up by a large boulder on the other. In front of this huge altar there was a similarly rough hewn stone chair. These rocks were all rough and had moss growing on them, they weren’t cleanly cut and polished like the blocks that were used for the flooring and had a very ancient feel.

Contrary to the appearance of that rough throne/altar, there was a row of exquisitely crafted wooden chairs with embroidered cushions and covered with scrollwork carvings on either side of the path. The stone throne had a single chair to its left and right facing forward. There were six chairs to either side of Sage as he walked up with Tujiu at his side. Of course, all of these chairs were currently filled, and each had two or three others standing behind them. Almost instantly, Sage could see the divisions of the group in front of him as they all wore slightly different colored robes. The style of their clothing was all quite similar, something of a Clan Uniform, with splashes of gold highlights but with different base coloring.

Three of them wore rust colored robes, a deep orange brown, and all remarkably had a wart on their exposed skin. Next to them were three beautiful women in red dresses, the three looking almost like triplets. Across from them were a group wearing dark green with familiar looking lizards on their shoulders and three others in dark brown that also wore black masks over their eyes. The masks were quite distinctive, with a dozen little beady compound eyes and shiny like it was made of chitin. In the center, upon the throne sat a kindly older gentleman with a stately older woman at his left and a young man to his right, the three of them wearing uniforms of pale yellow.

Sage almost instantly recognized one of these groups as his enemy, those centipede fellows having tried to kill him in the past. It was also easy to pick out the ones in dark green as being from the same group that had been harassing Xiezi earlier. He also had a hunch that she was from the group led by the three women in red. As for the ones in rust, and pale yellow he wasn’t familiar. Even so, from the position on the throne, he assumed the pale yellow was the group in charge.

Sage walked up to where the chairs started and clasped his fists, giving a bow to either row of chairs. Then he stepped forward a few steps and gave a low bow to the three at the head of the chamber, “Lang Sheng greets these Seniors.”

He didn’t know anyone or their titles, so he wasn’t foolish enough to just guess randomly and put his foot in his mouth. He didn’t lift his head from his bow, erring on the side of formality for now. After a few very long moments, he heard a soft and gentle voice call out to him, “Rise, Child. No need to be so formal, we’re all family here!”

Sage lifted his head, and Tujiu did the same. He’d stayed a few paces back with his head bowed while Sage stepped forward to bow the second time. Sage smiled in thanks for the old man’s words, but despite the kindness in the words, the looks on the faces of many in the hall did not match. Particularly the people still standing in the hall. The ones in the chairs maintained their decorum, some not bothering to look at him but the rest seeming somewhat neutral, yet behind them, some of the others were glaring at him. Especially one of the ones with the centipede mask, he was sneering so hard his teeth were showing. Which was quite the opposite of the three men with masks that were seated, the lower halves of their faces frozen like stone.

The old man didn’t seem to notice and continued, “We were all very pleased to hear that someone from the Lang Clan survived. When I heard I wanted to send someone to help protect you, but you disappeared again before they even left Golden Cricket Cove. You can imagine my relief when you reappeared and with such strength! Congratulations, Little Sheng.”

Sage cupped his fist and gave the old man another bow, “Your praise is unnecessary, this Junior was just lucky. How should this one refer to you, Sir?”

“Oh, poor thing. You’ve been gone so long you don’t even know that? This old fogey is the Patriarch of the Clan. This is my Wife, Young Master Po, and these are the Elders of our Chong Clan.”

He indicated the two people sitting at his sides and then to the people sitting on the chairs. Sage had guessed as much, but he saluted them all again. With the introductions out of the way, the Patriarch smiled again, “So, do you know why we summoned you here, Little Sheng?”

How the hell would I know that, you old fossil!