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Our purses empty, our handcart full of rice wine, we thanked the Lily Women and headed back north. I was seeing less of a reason for this conflict than ever.

“So, it sure seems that most things you need to live are here.” I said to Huang Lan.

“Ah. Things.” He said from the other side of the cart. Each of us had a handle, and we pulled mericilessly, drunken Kumanchu prancing about us. “The older you are, the less things will matter to you.”

“I don’t think the dragons see things that way.”

“Lung dragons do. You barbarians have offended your dragons. Of course, yours are meaner.”

“Somehow, I think the issue is a bit more complicated than that.”

“The young always do. Oh, here is an exception. But these circumstances, they are special. You know what religion teaches me? The Celestial Bureaucracy doesn’t do exceptions. Or special. Things are right, or they are wrong.”

“I am not thrilled with how these rules on magical creatures work. But... how are they enforced? Is it mind control?”

.....

“Ah, you already seek to escape.”

“Stop trying to think up ways to escape.” Kumanchu told me. In his drunken mind, that must have been focused, but the command came at me wavering.

“Drown Curse!” I called.

Huang Lan laughed as I grappled with it. “That’s not a curse, scaly one. You can’t fight it like a curse just because you don’t like it.”

It sure felt like a curse. It reacted like a curse. It hurled me a good four lengths of my body like no curse ever had, settling on me even as I struggled to rise.

Okay, it was a curse with a magnitude above what I’d been dealing with up until now.

But there was no reason to try fighting it. Why had I even attempted that? Hadn’t I just said that everything a reasonable person needed was right here on the island?

“So,” I said, taking up my pole of the cart again, “If it’s not about things, then I’m guessing it’s about freedom?”

“Freedom? No, no. People don’t want to be FREE of the Empire. This conflict is because Lord Zaodong Hwang desires to REJOIN the empire. You can tell the residents here that it’s all taxes and laws and tradition, but most who are from the Empire don’t remember it clearly. And those fools are the ones who taught their children, so that one day, should the Shining Empress will it, they could blend back into mainstream society. Like civilized people should.”

“I’m guessing the Shining Empress has no such intention?”

“Stupid scale-kin. I doubt the Shining Empress knows this island is claimed, much less who ends up here.”

“It seems that it would be hard to hide an island the size of this one.”

“Not from an entire world away. Oh, I’m sure the Empress knows people she exiles go somewhere, but I’m also reasonably sure she has no clue they go here.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing, our tax rate is too low. Where do you think all the metal for swords and armor came from? It’s metal not taxed by our overlords. The wine in the cart behind us? In the Empire, this would have been the property of someone even before the fermentation process began. People just don’t understand what being away from the wealthy and powerful DOES for us.”

“So you are opposed to the war?”

“Opposed? Idiot. I am one of the chief planners of this war.”

Kumanchu snickered.

“YOU are a magical creature, and will be collared again.” Huang Lan told him.

“Not likely. Why bicker, anyway? It certainly won’t make you smarter. The sun is..”

“That’s it!” he hollered, dropping the cart to fling himself bodily at the fu dog.

“Keep up, mageslave!” he called, dancing away from the man.

I ran to catch up to them.

“No, no. Bring the cart!”

“I’m not strong enough!” I said.

“Well, grow stronger.” He rebuked. “In fact, sell back what you have to. Start with that annoying brainpower of yours.”

Wait! My... brain? I LIKED my brain! It was the one and only true advantage I had over...

[Traits cannot be sold automatically through magical compulsion. Focus here to sell anyway.]

With thirty points of Physical Training regimen, and six from my Labor cultivation, I purchased a rank each in the Might substats of Strength and Labor.

While screaming from the sudden changes THAT evoked, I flagged the start of second-tier muscle tissue.

And that took care of that part of my compulsion. The rest was just endurance; I’d done what I could to make sure I could resist pain, but as organs literally shrank to provide my body fodder for more and denser muscle, as muscles literally tore themselves apart into new shapes...

And then I passed out, because I only had eight health points and the transformation ate clean through the meager pain tolerance those provided.

#

I awoke in a puddle of my own blood and excrement, smaller and more compact than I had been that morning.

I whimpered, every one of some seven or eight hundred muscles tingling. Six hundred points of biomass, gone just so that my entire muscular structure would have a further boost in a week. I’d have to be careful not to break my own bones until I could afford to strengthen them as well.

Those development points, that biomass, they had been intended for greater things.

My mind went white for a moment. What had I been about to do? Clearly, it had involved Wrath, based on an unimportant message sent by my System.

Kumanchu cleared his throat, spoke again. “I said, get up, and start pulling the cart.”

“Yes.” I said. “I shall pull the cart.”

“See?” he told Huang Lan, “Not the use I’d intended for him, but he CAN still be of use. And without the ability to figure out how to free himself, he’ll be oh so much easier to handle. Tell your master how much smarter than you he is, slave.”

Crap. My Truthspeaker oath locked down my vocal cords. “Master has me at a disadvantage.” I finally said.

“Woohoo! I feel like running all the way there. Can you keep up?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think, slave. It’s no longer your strong suit. You didn’t want to be friends, amigos, pals, and now you can’t. Good work, not drooling all over yourself.”

We took off on a run that lasted all of twelve seconds, until the cart hit a pothole. For just an instant, the cart was extra light. Then, it was extra heavy, and we were down two gourds of wine and an empty.

“Noooooo!” he screamed. “Idiot slave! Useless, brainless oaf!” He had some other choice comments, but we did slow to a moderate walking pace.

“If you think he was harsh and arbitrary with you earlier,” warned Huang Lan, “You just wait until he sobers up.”

“Okay.” I said. No need to let on that I was still exactly as smart as before.

Because... because...

My vision became washed with white at the edges, but try as I might, I couldn’t remember why. Something to do with the magic coiled around the back of my head, motionless in exactly the way lightning couldn’t be.

Whatever. It had nothing to do with pulling the cart, and that was my compulsion of the time.

As I pitched camp, Huang Lan fiddled with prayer beads, and Kumanchu helpfully counted the number of pottery gourds of wine we had remaining. He even sampled a whole one, before burping and pronouncing that it had lost none of its potency.

There were thunder and rain that night, but Kumanchu ordered me to protect the wine with my life, so that is what I did. So fearsome I must have been, for nothing dared risk the storm to threaten the wine.

There was a cost in healing and sanity and serenity for that action, a price I’m reasonably certain I wouldn’t have paid on my own. Not because the wine wasn’t important...

No. No, that was exactly it, the wine wasn’t important. Only following the orders of the Celestial One were important. As I expected, the order to make breakfast came soon. The order to stop using goblin cold-cooking methods and use a proper fire came after, an order that took so long to fulfill that none of us were happy with it.

And, briefly, there was a thought. A thought squeezed out of my mind by the curse. Oh, well, if it were important, I’m sure it would come back.

“When we reach Zaodong Hwang, let me do the talking.” Huang Lan said.

“Sure.” Kumanchu agreed. “You do the talking, and I’ll do the drinking.”

And so, I followed my compulsive desire, to haul the cart of wine behind Kumanchu and his human companion, Huang Lan, directly into the camp of the army that wanted me beheaded. There was....

? Some reason ?

Why I didn’t want to do that.

Oh well, if it was an important reason, it would come back to me sooner or later.