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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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Hangwind said:
[x] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

Part of what we're supposed to be working on is our social abilities in high society. This is probably the best training/test we're going to get that doesn't involve potential damage to Cai or death.
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...

Except how.

Like, we're getting warned by everyone who's allowed to talk to us that "This is not the time to be meeting papa deer, not when he's in a bloodrage".

Like, there's taking risks, and there's schmuck bait.

And people have constantly rejected training Spirit Ken in missions.

The correct way to train isn't "Throw yourself in a potentially suicidal hellpit", it's "Get the basics locked down first and then work your way up" And beyond that, this isn't 'High Society' as would be expected by your argument anyway.
 
[X] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

Curiosity killed that cat, but nobody tells the story of that cat that minded it's own affairs.
 
rogthnor said:
[X] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

Curiosity killed that cat, but nobody tells the story of that cat that minded it's own affairs.
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Yeah, but getting killed isn't something to be considered desirable.

Remember, even if we get covered for, there's still bad consequences for fucking these sorts of quests up. We could have lost weeks if we fucked up the Moon Rave for instance. And we can't afford any such setbacks.

And literally everyone on the table here who can talk to us said 'You don't want to meet the King of the Forest when he's in a bloodrage' including a literal fucking temporary spirit of vengeance and hate.

The thing about a Wild Hunt is... You don't want to cross paths with the Wild Hunt, because even if they like you and decide to make you join up, they don't tend to let people leave
 
Neat to see TRF's creators. I expect, though, that a TRF-related reward is closed to us now.

[X] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

Most of him's missing because this is a dream, similar to that spirit in the well in Jiao's section of Zhou's test. And I think this is way cooler than going to speak to mortals. How many times have the peasants understood their lords' wars through history?
 
[X] Go with Shen Hu, sometimes the unambiguous route is the best one.

I've been going back and forth between these two options.
In the end I'd rather not split the party and I think that heeding the spirits advice is probably a good idea. While we could prpbably learn more about whats going on from hanging arround there's a decent chance that the King is in Kill Everything Not a Tree mode so let's heed the nice Vengeful Trees advice and see what else is going on.
 
Given that Vengeance told Ling Qi the prince's side was guilty of burning the forest to deprive his enemies, and the defaced Weilu sigil, my immediate assumption is that Ling Qi is currently in the middle of a Weilu civil war.

As @Alectai noted the prince assumes that Ling Qi has a big supporting structure behind her, and given his comments about his own side as well as being a prince suggests it's bigger than just a few cultivators brawling.
 
Alectai said:
Yeah, when the guy we did a good turn for says "Yeah, you probably don't want to be here when the King arrives", you should take his advice.
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Alectai said:
you should strongly consider vacating the premises
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Alectai said:
"This is not the time to be meeting papa deer, not when he's in a bloodrage".
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Alectai said:
The thing about a Wild Hunt is... You don't want to cross paths with the Wild Hunt, because even if they like you and decide to make you join up, they don't tend to let people leave
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Alectai, you're being a wimp. No risk no reward, Ling Qi is going to get nowhere if she flinches back every time there's a little bit of danger. This is literally training wheels for these situations, if Ling Qi can't be brave to figure out what the fuck is going on now, when is she ever going to take her head out of the sand?
 
Beyond that, well.

People were asking for context earlier? Well, now we have a free opportunity to get context without committing fully to an angry wild hunt.

DeAnno said:
Alectai, you're being a wimp. No risk no reward, Ling Qi is going to get nowhere if she flinches back every time there's a little bit of danger. This is literally training wheels for these situations, if Ling Qi can't be brave to figure out what the fuck is going on now, when is she ever going to take her head out of the sand?
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this isn't a little danger.

This is "Go into the presence of at least a Grade Four Spirit, that is currently in a bloody frothing fury at the treachery of man, and expect to walk away with something useful without crippling costs".

I've little doubt we'd learn a lot there!

But... It'd come at a price, one we can't necessarily afford.

There is a time to be bold, and there is a time to be prudent. And ignoring literally everyone's advice on a nebulous possibility of shinies is hilariously bad
 
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Hell even the king, with blood in his head (literally), is doing us a solid by walking slowly here. If he wish to our company he would say so.

Plus the fact that is bringing complete darkness in a night with a full moon (I think) is not a thing that make me think he want company in this moment.
 
[X] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

I'd like to be bold and not miss the chance to meet a powerful moon spirit.
 
Alectai said:
I've little doubt we'd learn a lot there!

But... It'd come at a price, one we can't necessarily afford.

There is a time to be bold, and there is a time to be prudent. And ignoring literally everyone's advice on a nebulous possibility of shinies is hilariously bad
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Screw shinies, that isn't what this is about. We're in the Inner Sect. We're just starting to build our domain, to find our Way. Isn't this supposed to be a time to learn, to grow? How can Ling Qi do that if she's always afraid? If the nebulous price of knowledge and power is too high? Is that going to lead her down a path of making the right decisions in the future? If we're too afraid to confront some jumped up Cyan spirit today, why are we entangling ourselves so tightly in the affairs of Shenua Cai?

The Moon is being incredibly generous here, giving us a chance to learn about high stakes situations before we're actually in them 100% for real. Are there going to be consequences if we fail? Probably yes. Are we literally going to die? No, I don't think that's a reasonable fear. This is a risk. You have to risks to learn and to grow.
 
[X] Go with Shen Hu, sometimes the unambiguous route is the best one.

If the King is a moon spirit of some sort, he's much faster than even that Weilu guy. And while I trust that LQ can negotiate something eventually, it doesn't change the fact that the guy'll lash out in blind fury faster than she can dodge or talk him down. So commoners it is for me then.

There is also Shen Hu's impression to consider. If we split now and come to different conclusions about who's wrong here, what's LQ going to do, fight Shen Hu as well?

Besides, I trust LQ to be able to read any commoner, with King I'm not sure.
 
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Alectai said:
...

Except how.

Like, we're getting warned by everyone who's allowed to talk to us that "This is not the time to be meeting papa deer, not when he's in a bloodrage".

Like, there's taking risks, and there's schmuck bait.

And people have constantly rejected training Spirit Ken in missions.

The correct way to train isn't "Throw yourself in a potentially suicidal hellpit", it's "Get the basics locked down first and then work your way up" And beyond that, this isn't 'High Society' as would be expected by your argument anyway.
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D Spirit Ken is the basics. There's only one more rank before it specializes and it's four ranks up from negligible and four down from cap.
 
DeAnno said:
This is a risk. You have to risks to learn and to grow.
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And a risk we've been specifically warned to not take by someone who would probably have a good understanding of the situation. If the main argument you have for a choice is "we should take more risks" then it's a bad choice to make.
 
adaer said:
And a risk we've been specifically warned to not take by someone who would probably have a good understanding of the situation. If the main argument you have for a choice is "we should take more risks" then it's a bad choice to make.
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We've been warned by a days old spirit who doesn't know he's in a dream. Pardon me if I don't let him do all of our risk assessment for us.
 
[x] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

Now that we are not limited by a scenario that demands split-second decision making, acquiring more information from someone that should have high level knowledge of the situation is a good idea. That was even a point from the last vote.
 
George said:
We've been warned by a days old spirit who doesn't know he's in a dream. Pardon me if I don't let him do all of our risk assessment for us.
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A spirit being a day old means something very different than a person being that age. And he knows the King better than anyone else here. It seems entirely possibly the the King is currently in "squish all the humans" mode at the moment.
 
yrsillar said:
However, as she considered changing melodies, she felt something far on the edge of her senses approaching at an unhurried pace. It was a presence that had a terrible weight too it, a thing of baying hounds and bloodied silver spears, borne under the moon. It was strange though, for all that the qi she felt was incredibly potent, comparable to Zeqing at least…. It felt strongly reduced, as if the greater part of it were missing somehow.
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Hey King of the Hunt how you doing?

yrsillar said:
Her eye twitched, that was true but also kind of unfair wasn't it? She pasted on a smile as the tree turned to her with a look of thoughtful examination. "I had been on a journey through the southern mountains, and returned to find this. Sir Vengeance, I could not aid one who would deface his clans sigil so. Please tell me what is happening?" Lying on the spot like this was a skill she had grown rusty in, unneeded as it had been for most of the last year, and yet thankfully the tree seemed to believe her.

She needed him to, since Sixiang's voice was a muffled buzz, it sounded like they were arguing with someone. Also, that presence… the patriarch, it was still approaching though at a strangely slow speed, as if its source was merely on a casual stroll.

"There is no need to honor this old husk," the tree rumbled. "Vengeance-of-Burning-Grove was born only days ago, and shall be gone before the next cycle of the moon. The traitors sought to destroy these woods, and deny them to their foes. Mine only purpose is to ensure that they pay for that."

Ling Qi shared a look with Shen Hu, as the faint sound of baying hounds reached her ears. "What exactly caused their betrayal?" She asked delicately.

"Human matters," the tree rumbled. "The traitor sought to break old ties, and with the old patriarchs death, his meddling is no longer tolerated. Too long have we suffered for the Oathbreakers gain, so this could not have come sooner. They refused to kneel, and so the King will bring them to heel."

"Right," Ling Qi replied uncomfortably, that seemed simple enough, but…

"You may wish to get hence, little shadow," Vengeance-of-Burning Grove, said, not unkindly. "Aided me you have, but to meet the King of the Forest under the light of the red moon is a dangerous thing."
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Something to note is that this dream is very clearly scaled to the level of people who enter it, probably some artifice or natural result of dream mechanics. We saw it in the stat sheets, and we saw it in the mention of a "greater part of it were missing" in the description of the King. Ling Qi has dealt with Zeqing level spirits before and knows how to do so. Shen Hu can also take care of himself because he has Lanhua and Sunrise(provisional name for his sleep spirit).

The thing is though is that with this shadow play, this dream, the actors perfectly follow the script and do not remark on their lesser power nor understand it because they are inside and part of the play. Thus this statement by Sir Vengeance is aimed at Ling Qi as if the King had his full power. Now there's another thing to consider as well. The King has to be coming here for a reason, even at a stroll, and I want to find out that reason.

[X] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear

This option is also how we find out the most history for this time. I agree with the idea that's been raised that this is probably part of the fall of the Weilu. As for why it happened like this, I expect it was suppressed by their descendants because who wants to be descendant from Oathbreakers or lost in the burning of the Sage's Archives or both.
 
I'm torn between husbando and shinies.

Worth noting is that the warning wasn't quite as dire as discussion is making it out:
"You may wish to get hence, little shadow," Vengeance-of-Burning Grove, said, not unkindly. "Aided me you have, but to meet the King of the Forest under the light of the red moon is a dangerous thing."
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Even allowing for translation from Ancient Courteous Chinese Culture, this is a long way from "bitch you gonna die if you stay." I read it more like if she sticks around and then also screws up she's in trouble.
 
To his credit, the prince landed on his feet as he fell from the crater in the ancient bark, the right side of his robe wet with blood where the thorny spikes on the tree spirits fist had dug into his side. "Miserable assassin," he whispered in a furious hiss. "Did your Elders pluck that art from the corpses of my brothers?"
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Oh hey so we might be dealing with a Weilu civil war between the Elders, and the younger generation? Also the similarity to Weilu arts means Ling Qi will probably be judged as one of them by anyone who'd recognize their arts.
However, as she considered changing melodies, she felt something far on the edge of her senses approaching at an unhurried pace. It was a presence that had a terrible weight too it, a thing of baying hounds and bloodied silver spears, borne under the moon. It was strange though, for all that the qi she felt was incredibly potent, comparable to Zeqing at least…. It felt strongly reduced, as if the greater part of it were missing somehow.
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Huh is the King of the Forest the Sublime Ancestor of the Weilu, and in this instance a fragment of him split off to carry out justice against the Oathbreakers?
"That murderer is no king," the prince hissed, slamming the butt of his spear into Shen Hu's chest and driving her companion back a few meters, splattering mud in every direction as he skidded back. Beneath his feet a patch of burning brambles erupted from the fertile mud, and his blurring spear carved them to pieces. She saw him tense, wind qi gathering in his legs, and for a second their eyes met. She could have hit him then, perhaps interrupted his technique…. But she did not. A windstorm erupted and Ling QI shielded her eyes as the gale that burst forth extinguished fires for a hundred meters around and drove them all back.
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The King of the Forest killed someone that kicked off this war?
"There is no need to honor this old husk," the tree rumbled. "Vengeance-of-Burning-Grove was born only days ago, and shall be gone before the next cycle of the moon. The traitors sought to destroy these woods, and deny them to their foes. Mine only purpose is to ensure that they pay for that."
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So yea civil war among the Weilu seems a reasonable explanation for the Elders sending an assassin, attempts to deny resources for the other side by the Prince, and the prince crossing out the clan signal.
"You may wish to get hence, little shadow," Vengeance-of-Burning Grove, said, not unkindly. "Aided me you have, but to meet the King of the Forest under the light of the red moon is a dangerous thing."
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This is incredibly sound advice. Because if the King of the Forest is a lesser fragment of the Weilu Sublime Ancestor he will recognize the arts Ling Qi as Weilu, and well does anyone think Ling Qi can talk down a spirit in a blood rage?

[] Stay here and meet the King, hopefully he can make the situation more clear
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Points at analysis above. So Nope!, All my Nope!, and Ling Qi has zero Moon patron bonuses to talking down an enraged spirit Nope!.

[X] Go with Shen Hu, sometimes the unambiguous route is the best one.
 
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