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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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ChronOblivion said:
I have serious problems with making choices based on characterization here, as justification for the Pacify vote. It's one thing to do that in our EPC dream, where characterization is literally one of the main purposes, but we're on the job here. And we as a voterbase should be making our decisions entirely based on risk/reward assessment and the orders of our superiors. Explicitly been told not to overreach ourselves for glory here, and gunning for that here could be huge negative consequences potentially. We've been doing really well so far, we don't need to pick this fight, let's do the sensible thing once again. Something that is quite within our capabilities and won't leave us completely exhausted even if we win.
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So that's true in some settings.

We have to always take characterization into consideration in this genre if we expect to build a coherent and powerful Way.
 
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.

Let's kill a hill.
 
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.

This is the only option that seems to have any chance whatsoever of providing information, even if it's minuscule. After being dicked out of lore by mutual meta miscommunication, this is maybe the only possible small salvation of the arc in terms of reward. I doubt a gross hill has anything worth killing over anyway.
 
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.
 
TehChron said:
I mean, taking out the enraged berserking double corrupted mountain with SS ranked health seems like it'd be fairly relevant for both those tasks, yanno?

So what? By all accounts, we're super ahead of schedule by locating and removing obvious problem points of corruption to give the rearguard full reign with sealing it off as efficiently as possible, and the main force can focus on pacifying the various other problem areas that have been identified. As well as tracking down the relevant Barbarian incursion in the zone.

Liao Zhu's already praising Ling Qi's performance. Securing this zone to end the day is just piling on more success, not getting ahead of herself.
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To the first point, I agree, it would be relevant to both of those tasks. The question then becomes, which way, simply try to pacify it so that it can be purified without too much trouble, or kill it which would exhaust us. Should we be successful in pacifying it, then we will have all the more energy to go out and deal with additional troublesome spots.

To the second point, it's more of the same as the first. Should we be able to pacify it, we have that much more energy to pile on even more success by doing even more work throughout the day.

To be clear, I'm not advocating running away from it, as I think that is the worse option out of the three. Ling Qi seems to believe that she can handle this hill, one way or another, and this is certainly not something that we want the army to be worrying about.

However, this is entirely moot because apparently, Yrs said this regarding the length of the arc:
YrsillarYesterday at 21:03 well I mostly didn't want the arc to end on a bleh note, so I figured... why not kaiju fight?
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And so, if the arc is going to be ending anyway, and there won't be significant drawbacks to having a lack of energy later on in the arc, my entire apprehension regarding the choice is irrelevant.

So, screw it,

[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.
 
Actually, I said "kill" at least had exciting action, but I'm now going to argue against that.

The thing is that, as we all know, fights gain emotional power and meaning when they are woven into the character arcs and emotional conflicts of the characters. Mere action for the sale of action is limited in impact.

And killing a random kaiju thrown in here for the sake of adding some drama to the end of the arc doesn't really have any meaning. There is nothing interesting here characterwise.

So yeah. I'll push back against the idea that killing a random monster of the week will provide much engagement, and suggest that the other options would offer more in that regard.
 
I just want to reiterate the point that Pacify allows our OS Subordinates to shine and allows us to accomplish this in a way that could only be done as a team.

That's good rep right there, and builds on the Fish. People already know we can wreck face from the Ba...Bandits.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.

Literally every piece of media I've ever consumed tells me that trying to contain the zombie-creature is going to end badly.
 
[] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.

[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.

Im ok with either of these, but I'm honestly kinda hoping there is a combined option- pacifying it might force the corruption out and have it manifest as a another, weaker spirit, while the hill itself becomes grateful and willing to answer questions due to the removal of pain.

or mercy kill. I hate to leave it here to suffer.
 
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[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.

We've got at least a decent shot to pull it off, and killing it is more likely to slow the corruption than just leaving it be for however long it takes for someone to get out here, considering it actively pumps out more slime whenever it's disturbed. Especially since it seems very easy to disturb. And even if we fail to kill it, we should be able to retreat, since it's slow and apparently easy to escape the notice of.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.


i wanna throw the hill too senpai!
 
I think characterization is a pretty strong argument for pacification here. When possible, communication has generally been the way Ling Qi has solved or attempted to solve conflicts with spirits throughout the series. This is exemplified in how Ling Qi received Zhengui, her interactions with Zeqing and Hanyi, and her experiences in the King of the Forest Arc. I feel that continuing down this path would make her a more compelling character, although there are solid arguments for the other options as well.

Abeo's point about obtaining more information on what's going on is solid. The arc so far has felt like a series of events without much to link them together. Learning more details about what the hill spirits mentioned earlier would do a lot to improve this arc.
 
[X] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.
 
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.

Ling Qi seems to think she can do this and from there I think on success this would give the superior result.
 
[X] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.
 
[X] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.


Why even kill this spirit? It did nothing wrong, and all it did was get awoken while it is being corrupted. If we Pacify the spirit, it just might make it easier to find out the root cause. And I dont want Ling Qi to go for uneccessary kills, since lethal action on this fight is uneccessary.


And another more pragmatic reason, if we kill the spirit, that means there is one less Hill spirit here. One less resource the Empire can utilize. This place is considerably Hilly and Mountainous. So one less hill might not make a difference, but it would still mean one less hill to uphold whatever the balance is here.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.
 
[X] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.

Okay I'll throw my two cents in. To me this is the best choice overall. For one, I feel like people are twisting what this option really is. People talk like it's bad or boring characterization, the common option. But read the text, she's Ending it. She is looking at this spirit in terrible pain, and she is thinking of ending, and that ties in quite well to her beliefs of an ultimate end. Also it seems to be less dangerous then attempting to pacify it. Also the walking it option leaves it to do what it wishes, which is not wise.

[X] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.

Okay, even though I said it can be dangerous to do this, it is also the no risk option. At least short term. It also follows the "Chase no Glory." But in the end this is my second choice because it gives the corruption more time and makes us purely reactionary.

And lastly the pacify option. I honestly don't trust this one. It seems like bait. People speak of how it is good character building or makes sense. But pacify depends on what we did to the last hill, in which we stopped it and had a talk. That was it, there was no true control, no true influencing. We stopped it and chatted. This thing is heavily corrupted, in pain, seems to have a great deal of killing intent. With Spirit Ken C I doubt we can talk-no-Jutsu it Naruto style, the only character I can think of that is good with pacifying with words. It just seems stupidly risky, with a high chance of failure. Also, for the "mercy" option argument....are you blind? It's in incredible pain. It's not having a good experience right now, and it's likely to be irreversible. And even if it is reversible, the army is unlikely to do that. Stop being naive, they are going to run tests on it, and most likely pretty harmful ones. Overall I just can't get behind this option.
 
Alectai said:
Well, yes, that's the issue at hand.

You're assuming that Ling Qi, with a base Spirit Ken of C, will be able to kitbash together a song that it'll care about enough to be pacified, while dodging a bloodraging mountain hydra thing that breathes poison, on the fly, when her only experience with spirits of that base (Before being double corrupted), from the day before, and it's already working against it.

Like, that's the issue at hand. Even the best argument in the world will fall flat if the target just doesn't care about the things you're arguing about. Spirit Ken is what gets you that knowledge, and at only C-Rank, I don't feel it's enough to work something that can work out without cost, or with any real assurance of it lasting long.
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Hm. This issue is why Ling Qi is using music instead of a spirit kin ritual though? Like fundamentally pacify comes down to whether, or not Ling Qi can use her musical talent to impart in her audience a particular emotion that gives an opening for her subordinates to work their rituals.

There will certainly be trial, and error to figure out the specifics of the song to make it work, but Ling Qi is someone whose shown herself to go the extra mile when faced with hardship twice in this very arc, which makes a third time in her specialty/passion isn't a stretch imo.
 
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