An oily, purple-black sheen coated the surface of the lower mountain stream, carrying a foul stench of rotted copper and burned bone.
By dawn, three junior disciples from the outer dining hall dropped their wooden buckets onto the gravel path, screaming in sheer terror.
The clear mountain water running from the stone cisterns had turned the color of stagnant ink. Dead mountain trout floated belly-up along the banks, their scales peeling away in greasy black strips.
Elder Wu arrived at a dead sprint, thrusting a silver examination needle into the flowing trough.
FZZZT.
The silver needle corroded instantly, dissolving into a black crust of smoking slime before Wu could even blink.
“Blood-Core dregs!” Elder Wu gasped, his face draining of all color. “Corpse sediment from the Regent’s secret slaughterhouses! They’ve dumped fifty carts into the upper reservoir!”
Within thirty minutes, the entire inner courtyard was in an uproar.
