37.i The Divine Cave of Three Stars

Hello, Dear Traveler and welcome to the next phase in our silly little saga. You’re about to hear of The Divine Cave of Three Stars – a most exciting and monumental turning point in our humble monkey god tale.

At least, that’s what I’m supposed to tell you. Honestly, just be prepared for a lot of collisions between big personalities.

What’s that, Dear Traveler? You have questions before we begin? Well all right, let’s hear them then.

Is Sun Leaf my real name? Of all things to ask me…. No, it is not. My real name is embarrassing. What’s your other question?

Oh. Sweet immortal – no! I wouldn’t do that to you, Dear Traveler. Sure, I will have to leave you at some point. But I don’t have any intentions of doing what Sun Duza did and just ghost you like that. When I run out of tobacco, that’s my cue to move on, but I will absolutely let you know first.

Right. Let’s get into it.

The Divine Cave of Three Stars begins with our oh so cautious and ever observant spider…

~

~ Anari ~

Contrary to popular belief, the bulk of an assassin’s job had less to do with the killing and more to do with sleuthing.

Anari didn’t carry weapons on her person. Such a thing was considered illegal in many parts of the Ninth Heaven. All she had were her fangs, her poison, and her silk. She could make her silken threads softer than a luminary’s hair or make them cut like the sharpest wire.

You may not remember, but the source of Anari’s weakness all boils down to running out of venom and silk. She absolutely must dedicate the energy reserves towards producing them on her own time before setting out on any serious mission.

Though Anari had worked under Sun Bai for many, many seasons, she had always felt like a stranger in a strange land. There were no other spider spirits that she knew of in the whole special ops department at Next Dimension. Or in the whole Ninth Heaven for that matter.

This fact both benefited and set Anari back. Due to the likelihood that her targets would be unfamiliar with her kind, it made them extremely vulnerable in the sense that they greatly underestimated or overlooked her potential to end their lives.

The flipside to this was that Anari had no reliable mentors while she was coming up as a newly groomed assassin. The truth is, spider spirits are not born with potent venom. At most, the poison from their fangs merely stings or slightly disorients a target if released directly into the bloodstream. That killing effect must be cultivated over time.

As you can probably surmise, many spiders don’t have any reason to turn themselves into killing machines. They’re much more concerned with having enough groceries to take care of their families or reinforcing their homes to weather the harshest tropical storms.

Anari is a bit of an anomaly among her own kind in that regard. She has always been. It’s why she left the peaceful island giant where she was born. But more on that later, Dear Traveler.

As Anari reacclimated to living inside of HQ, she had one goal in mind: Find out if Sun Surina had ever been employed by Next Dimension. Her true aim was to learn the reason behind the collapse of the bridge. The unfortunate spirits who had been crushed could not replenish their essence in the Lake of Ninefold Darkness. In a sense they were both trapped and dead. Anari wanted to know if this was intentional and if not, what Bai’s response would be for this sort of tragedy. The crushed spirits had been neither construction workers nor contractors — they were prisoners of the Kawaii Village judiciary complex. What was the reason behind that when Next Dimension could have easily employed more qualified labor?

It was dangerous for Anari to approach the question of the Kawaii bridge head on. Her investigation required a level of finesse. This is why she chose a roundabout approach. If she could link the staff-stealing Sun Surina to Next Dimension, then it would be far easier to track the sun clone down and see what information she may have on the bridge.

Digging through records on the bridge project itself might alert Bai too fast — especially if it had been marked as sensitive information. Anari had no doubt that it had. Even if the project was under heavy classification, her search could set off an alarm, notifying Bai that she was snooping around.

Going through Sun Surina might just be the safer route. There was the plain fact that Surina wouldn't know a damn thing about Next Dimension’s collapsed bridge. She might not even be under Bai’s employment now or ever. But if there was a chance that they were all connected, Anari could possibly be in possession of more truths than she bargained for.

The spider spirit stood on the balcony of her apartment floor – a featureless shelf of cement jutting out of a salmon-shaded high rise. Each balcony edge was overflowing with waxy hoyas thanks to the special troughs carved into the top of shelf.

Nothing, however, was real. Because everything from the permanent midday sunshine down to the tropical succulents was a simulation.

Next Dimension HQ functioned inside of a paper space. This particular space happened to be the top of the line premium model, but it was a paper space nonetheless. As a rising company, you couldn’t get more modest than that.

Anari missed her old paper space – the one that projected an actual sunrise and sunset. This one, once inside, gave the impression of being in a high rise at the edge of a beach city. Below her pink concrete balcony, she saw pedestrians and the occasional rollerblader moving along wide, curvy boulevards.

The scenery never changed. Not since Bai first settled his offices here. Ironic given how much Next Dimension had expanded.

Anari’s toaster made a binging noise from inside her kitchenette. She left the balcony and went to catch her waffle. The spider spirit ate her breakfast dry as she made her way to the basement floor. That’s where all of the archives were kept. She moved with purpose, taking the longer, security personnel routes so she wouldn’t bump into any coworkers on the way down and be forced to engage in small talk.

Her plan worked. She got to go over her other strategy while making her way down to the archives. The whole floor was dedicated to filing shelves that stretched all the way up to the ceiling. Nothing was damp and dusty like you would expect, but the floor was dark. The only other spirit who spent time down there was the clerk — a crepuscular owl spirit who went by Pang, if Anari remembered correctly.

The spider ventured as deep as she could go down the aisles before taking a seat at an old computer. Then she cracked her knuckles and got to work.