Raika lands in a puddle that almost immediately turns electric, only barely dashing out of it in time to avoid the smell of burnt flesh. Then she's forced to duck beneath a bush that has whips instead of branches, and then weave past a cacti that's literally bursting with water, pressurized streams of it firing…

Ugh.

That's enough.

There's training, and there's wasting time. That's enough.

She heals the ragged skin over the areas where she blocked the attacks, armor-plating holding firm underneath, and lets loose.

She might not have much Qi- but not everything needs a lot.

She inhales, firms her stance, and then speaks.

Intent washes out from her, a roiling wave of transmitted information and understanding, and she speaks with all the force she can muster.

Touch Me And Die.

Her body language, shape, her very concept morphs, the meaning of her every action in perfect synch as she lets a wave of lethal Intent wash out from her across the surrounding forest. She does not exude new power, or transmit alien energies, or affect the pattern of reality- Intent is not a power in and of itself, not like that. But through it, there can be no miscommunication, no uncertainty in meaning- it alters the context of what is happening through the intentions and awareness of who it comes from.

In an instant, the constant movement and chaos of the forest stills, the number of attacks diminishing to nothing.

Raika snarls, before taking a seat on a root protruding from the earth, letting out a tired huff. She can sense the number of syringe-like needles beneath the bark, full of some unknown toxin to inject her with, but the "words" she spoke are absolute, and it wisely doesn't react to her.

It's not the Overgrowth's fault. It really isn't! This is the way it was designed, the way the creatures and life-forms within it survive- but the fact that she has to make threats like that is annoying. On the one hand, not provoking Beasts capable of speaking with Intent seems like a perfectly reasonable evolution to have. On the other, it's annoying that she has to sincerely and entirely know, and transmit that same certainty, that she will kill the next motherfucker who attacks her.

If she could shift together some chromatophores permanently, alter the makeup of her skin, decode the right chemicals to send the right signals or go entirely unnoticed…

But noooo. Gotta learn the hard way, which yeah, is the way she learns best, but still. You wouldn't see Warform!Raika dealing with this sort of bullshit…

Raika sends a pulse of annoyance at herself, and she rolls her eyes at it. Ok, so maybe technically Warform!Raika is dealing with way worse shit, but at least she gets to have fun with it! That's the point she's trying to make!

Ugh.

There's a fine line between grumbling and whining, and she's just about reached the end of it. She's not a whiner, it's just… uncomfortable. And frustrating. And itchy.

It's fine.

She gets up and keeps moving, reforming her "clothes" from where the root tried its luck at dissolving her stealthily. She's nearly there, and then…

Ugh, it'll be even more boring just walking through non-hostile terrain, won't it? Fuck.

She retracts some of her Intent. Not all of it- just the amount necessary that only the stronger creatures around here should mess with her. In theory.

After about two hours of walking, she dejectedly concludes that there's really not all that much that's very strong around here.

Approaching the Republic has the Overgrowth become less and less violent over time, to the point that even as she fully removes her Intent, things just aren't bothering her all that often. The formation carved into her skin (which technically still exists? Somehow? Arrays are weird, curse-arrays all the more so) still limits her Qi exposure, acting as impromptu camouflage, and while that wasn't nearly enough to hide her from the proper biomes of the Overgrowth, it seems to be enough here. There are still more than a few lethal creatures and flora, but they become fewer and fewer the closer she gets.

And then, she finds the border.

She crouches down, tilting her head at the strange rock in her way. It's a small stone pillar, about three feet tall and relatively slender, carved with rough but efficient runes that tug lightly at the Qi all around. They seem to let Qi in, but only after a delay, leaving one side of the boundary with a slightly higher amount than the other. It's not enough to shield anything or block passage, not by a long shot, but it doesn't seem geared to. It's more like something one would plant to discourage growth in a specific direction without entirely blocking off Qi flows.

Ain't that something. It's no Wall, no defense against a wandering Beast, but with just a nudge, it provides a far more natural, fluid block. Add in a few alarms to the barrier and it's probably better at diverting more dangerous creatures than the Wall is (though admittedly, she's pretty sure diversion isn't its job).

And that's beside the fact that it goes on.

Her sense of smell remains the primary organ she feels Qi through, but synesthesia is a hell of a drug. A flex of neural tissue connecting some of her modifications pushes the smell into color, and she looks at the boundary as it goes up… and up… and up.

It's not a dome, she's fairly certain, and it does seem to fade away far above, but it's still an absolutely massive project, a Qi-filter and subtle defense that surrounds an entire geographic region. Any boundary big enough to encompass several mountain ranges, and the farmlands to sustain them out halfway to the horizon, is an incredible undertaking, and more than that, it's old. The stone here is weathered, though untouched by any signs of plant life or animal markings, meaning that it's gotten that old due to the literal weather, eroding it over…

Fuck. Centuries. Millenia, maybe. She never actually asked Many-Grasping or her guide how old the Republic is, and she's not sure they'd know even if she had, but rock, left untouched in a place with no real wind tunnels, doesn't just degrade. It takes time.

She takes a long, slow breath.

This is either going to be extremely fun, or extremely traumatic. Possibly both. Either way, it needs to be done.

She cracks her neck, cracks her knuckles, rolls her shoulders, and steps through the boundary.

…

Nothing happens.

She frowns, looking back at the barrier. No pulse of alarm, no change in its structure, its color, its scent, nothing. Like there's no defensive setup on it at all. What the hell? She doesn't emit much Qi, and maybe a motion sensor would be overkill in an area with ever-evolving hyper-mobile organisms, but nothing?

…Well, if they're just going to roll out the welcome mat, better get to it.

She takes a long, deep breath, smelling as much as she can, expanding her senses to detect everything in a broad range.

While the Overgrowth continues on past the boundary, it resembles mundane plants more and more, the number of Qi-rich, mutated, or concept-shaped life forms turning to nothing almost entirely. She can still detect a few, here and there, on this side of the barrier, but they're smaller things, isolated examples rather than the norm. Further out, the wildlife continues to thin, eventually turning from over-growth to just growth, and then to something almost resembling a "mundane" forest (though the term feels strange, considering what's technically "natural"), and then…

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Mmh. The smell of shit. The first and greatest sign of civilization. The farmland she glimpsed from afar, fertilized and ripe with the dung of work animals and what smells like crushed plants, mulched into a relatively Qi-rich paste and beneath a layer of topsoil that is quickly becoming loamy. She can smell the seeds cracking through their shells, the stalks creaking as they push against the earth and out into the sky- it would seem she's arrived at the start of a planting season, rather than harvest time.

And further out, past the smell of the fields, she can smell pathways. Dirt, pressed down by sandals and cart wheels, both made of simple wood in the style of some of the less industrialized parts of the third ring. Cloth woven into clothing, the sweat and musk of human existence, the occasional hint of perfumes and beneath it all the impression of lives.

Raika blinks, swallowing back some of the drool pooling in her mouth.

It's fine. She's fed by the main body, through Qi and whatever the hell else she's doing, and she's spent the last two weeks of travel chewing through every other thing that's tried to kill her. She's not hungry.

But man does it smell good here. There's a certain sense to civilization, and as she jogs towards it (fast enough that trees blur and the wind whips over her horns) there's a faint but distinctly appetizing touch to it. The wilds suit her deeply, and she doubts she'll ever live in a town or city proper, but people themselves…

It's the sapience, she's pretty sure. The self-awareness, the social constructs. As alive as the Overgrowth is, as alive as any natural area is, people smell distinct, their personalities and thoughts and emotions flavoring the Qi that travels through them and out into the world. It's like analyzing the scents of all the powerful monsters she deals with on a daily basis, but at a level where they're not a challenge or an overwhelming glow, more like a series of smaller lights making gorgeous mosaics. People are just sort of wonderful in a weirdly unique way, be they human or any other species, race or type- it's the difference between seeing a singular work of art and awe, and seeing a field of flowers. Both are great, but the latter is just different, no matter how incredible that single work, or even gallery, might be.

Frankly, the hunger might just be her body reacting to the sense of something she thoroughly enjoys, a physical response to a mentally and emotionally fascinating stimuli.

She wishes she could tell Maen about this, compare notes with the whole "enhanced sense of smell" thing.

She shakes her head. No time for reminiscing now. The edge of the woods is coming up, and she's about to cross that threshold.

Time to make a good impression.

She launches herself out from the woods like a speeding bullet, momentum carrying her from a "light jog" into an arcing leap that takes her over an entire field- and just a few feet short of the road she smelled.

Ah well. At least she cleared the field.

She straightens up, rolling her shoulders, and gives a big old grin to the half-dozen farmers currently carrying carts full of… hmm. Clay-sealed pots. Something pickled?

All six of them stare at her, eyes wide, unmoving.

Hmm. Synapses still going. No major adrenal reaction yet, not besides to the sound of her landing. No one's pissed themselves. Yet.

Good start.

She gives a polite quarter-bow, leaning into it as dreadlocks of sunrise-colored tendrils drape over her shoulder, matching well with the skin she's shaped to look like a rudimentary toga.

"This one is honored to greet the esteemed workers of this fine land, and apologizes for any shock my arrival may have caused!" she says, her voice polite but carrying easily over the small crowd. "You wouldn't happen to be heading to town, would you? I'm afraid I've only just arrived, and I'm eager to familiarize myself with your customs. My name is Raika- who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

Dead silence. Now there's fear, but it's still muted, quiet. It falls more into the category of shock than dread, though there is absolutely a bit of animal panic there. Raika towers by a foot and a half over anyone in their little group, and while they may not have great Qi-senses, or be able to feel her if they do, she doesn't need Qi to be intimidating. Her biceps are nearly the size of an average human torso at this point.

"If it puts you at ease, I'd be happy to carry some of the weight for you. Call it an exchange, hmm? You give me information, I help get your supplies where you're going?"

She takes a half-step forward, obliquely towards the carts, and that, at last, shocks one of them out of the stunned silence.

An old man, wearing a truly impressive beard and simple, homespun robes, leaps forward in front of the rest of the group, howtowing to the ground.

"Honored cultivator, we-"

"Ah! Not a cultivator."

That stumps him for a second, but he recovers quickly.

"Great one, we lowly, unworthy lessers would not dare to ask of you anything! We would never disrespect-"

"You smoke?"

She grins, chuckling a bit as he ends up torn between wanting to look at her in confusion and keep his "unworthy gaze" off her form.

"I… um…"

"Cause I have been getting really good at rolling cigarettes, and I have been wandering through the woods for almost two weeks with absolutely zero conversation. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my own company plenty, but every now and then you want people to talk to. These are your farms, right?"

"...we tend to these fields, over which we have been given generous stewardship of by the great ones."

"Hmm. Well, you're doing a pretty good job of it. Soil around here is solid, smells well-fertilized, lots of good growing going on. What is this stuff, anyways? Corn? Cucumbers? Wheat? Don't think I've seen these particular crops before."

She reaches back off of the path, kneeling to pull back one of the small but thick blades of stems. It's fibrous, full of water and even a little touch of Qi.

"Hmm. Feels like… not a root vegetable. Not too starchy, not quite a grain…"

She pulls a bit of her mixed moss-herb and a bit of rolling paper, pulling them up out of storage. She may not be able to transform as fluidly or totally as usual, but there's a difference between limiting herself and trying to remove crucial pieces of herself; her body is still part of her Body, and comes with all the storage and spatial warping that entails.

A raised eyebrow sent the way of the farmer as she rolls is enough that he clears his throat, looking back at the others in a mix of alarm and confusion. Two of the other elder farmers seem to share his concerns, both of them middle-aged, but the three younger ones are more varied, their responses similarly mixed. One is barely a teenager, while the other two are young men, younger than Raika but not by much, and while they seem plenty intimidated, they don't seem to have the instinctive and well-trained respectful terror of their elders.

"If it's some sort of special secret, you don't need to tell me," she says with a shrug.

"I- no, honored one! It's just… an unexpected question. But of course your wisdom would be beyond the ken of us lowly ones. These are Zimate, gifted to our stewardship by honored ones from the mountains above. They are a versatile crop, and your wise and knowledgeable analysis of-"

"Can you make booze out of it?"

"...yes, great one, but the taste is often quite harsh, and the process is hard to balance."

"Cool. Those jars, they full of pickled 'Zimate', or rice, or…"

She can't help it- it's a little endearing how confused he is. She pulls a match from out of her "toga", igniting it against her skin and lighting the end of the cigarette, puffing lightly to help the flame take hold. She exhales out a little cloud, and to his credit, the old man doesn't cough even once- though he does flinch, ever so slightly.

"It's strong stuff, elder." She shows some teeth as she takes another puff, trying (and failing) to blow a little circle of smoke in the air. "Should be mortal-grade, though. Might knock you flat on your ass, but you'll live. Probably."

This time, the farmer just… sort of stares.

One of the young men does… something. A little sign, something like a prayer, maybe.

She blinks as the boundary ripples.

A small but noticeable burst of color ripples out from the sign he made, down into the ground, into the crops, into the Qi all around…

Damn. Boundary is even more impressive than she noticed at first. Maybe she should've gone to the Fallen Kingdom and Array!Raika should've come here.

Either way- the color echoes faintly, like a little ripple in the world.

Raika sighs.

"Damn, kid," she says, blowing out some smoke. "Really wasn't trying to make trouble. You could've had a day off from cart-carting, but noooo, had to ring the alarm."

The others all turn to look at the man she pointed to, all three of the older men with terror, the other two with a mix of surprise and dread that he was found out. Ah, the folly of youth- she's no exception, and respect to him for the gumption, but this could be a problem.

It's not just the mountains in the distance that stand out- between the farmlands, laid out in rigid, square grids, there are homes and village-clusters (or at least she assumes they're village-clusters), and in some of them, spread out, there are a few larger buildings. One such building lights up to her senses, the presence of a cultivator appearing as a literal glow in her mental map of the terrain.

She lets out a long sigh, tinged with bluish smoke. "Damn. Well, let it never be said I don't introduce myself on arrival, I guess. You guys should probably head out- it's gonna be messy when your friend gets here."

The farmers are more than willing to oblige (with the oldest of them, she notes, slapping the shit out of the back of the young man's head as they run), dashing away and leaving the carts right where they are.

Hmm. She's got… like, ten more seconds before they arrive?

She pops the lid off of one of the jars, giving it a sniff.

Huh. Apparently, this "zimate" stuff pickles pretty well. She's not familiar with all the spices used, but it smells pretty fragrant.

"Halt, intruder! Foul beast of the wilderness!"

Hmm. She almost missed that sort of arrogance.

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