Dueling Fate

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The statue, a monolith perhaps to a great beast of the sea catches your eye for a few moments. Made of the same smooth stone that makes the floor of the chamber but while the floor has remained smooth over time, the cracks which run along its sides show its age. How long has this chamber existed? How long since it had been abandoned? Had it always been underwater? Questions which flow through your mind as you stare at black, obsidian eyes and a maw filled with teeth.

But while the statue is interesting, you're more fascinated by the water around you. You've never tried to breathe underwater before. All universal logic had made it seem like a bad idea and you doubt it's something you could do all your life. Yet here you are, breathing and out. The water is different from the air you've breathed all your life, you can feel it seeping down your throat, filling your lungs, yet your body doesn't scream in panic, or terror. You inhale, and as you exhale you feel it all rushing back out, the only thing left the air in your lungs.

As it rushes back out, something connects. You feel it rush back out and as you breathe back in again, you feel it everywhere. Coursing through your body and not just your lungs. Flowing deep in your gut, coursing through your veins. Water is everywhere, flowing unendingly.

Even flowing through your blood and bones.

Technique Unlocked – Waterborn

Water courses through you, it courses through everyone. Now though, you feel this intimately.

+ 1 Affinity to Water (1.1 multiplies To Dice Rolls when cycling Water Qi, reduced thresholds for tech development) – Lind can also breathe underwater in areas with high Qi concentration aka Qi Spots.

Affinities – When you have cycled enough of one type of Qi (This will be at the discretion of the QMs) you will gain an affinity for cycling that Qi aspect. This will be shown through bonus dice, or reduced requirements to develop a Technique

Location Unlocked – The Forgotten Tyrant – Water/Beast Qi Spot

You look around you as you wait for the others to finish. Qian Xia has her eyes closed, black ichor you're all too familiar with floating from her. As the ichor flows into the water, she's obscured amidst a sea of shrimp and other life in the temple that swirl around her, picking up any scraps they can. You didn't know others could feed off the impurities within you, but you can see the animals growing, and glowing, brighter with each morsel they consume.

You turn your gaze away from the inky blackness, and focus on the Captain, kneeling before the throne. Where the water around Qian Xia is tinged with darkness, the Captain is glowing. His eyes gone from a bright green to filled with blue whisps of smoke, the back of his throat also illuminating the water in front of him. You extend your senses towards him, gently.

And you feel almost sucked into the sea itself.

The Qi around him swirls like a maelstrom, and the Captain is at the heart of it. Your natural cycling feels like a drop compared to the amount that roars into his spirit. Adeba, the Captain's first mate sitting further behind you all but still cycling is the same. Together, the pair of them feast off the Qi like they'll never have the opportunity again and the Qi responds effortlessly to their demands.

Is this what you could be capable of? In enough time?

You're still deep in thought when the Captain tugs on your arm again and guides you back out of the temple.

You emerge from the water onto the small dinghy which had brought you here. You grasp onto the edge and haul yourself up. Looking at your fellow divers as they paddle towards the boat you recognise the inky black stains which coat Qian Xia's clothes, the water not even enough to wash it out. Meanwhile, the Captain and Adeba are as clean as when they entered, long past the stage of purging impurities. Adeba shoots a curious gaze at you as she looks at your sodden, yet unstained clothes. If she has questions, she doesn't voice them, and you are satisfied enough in the time you spent down below.

Perhaps it looks like wasted time to others, but not to you.

As gently as before you and Qian Xia row yourselves out of the cave, the bright orange light ahead signals the crest of the sun over the horizon and the world feels colder than it had been on arrival. Goosebumps ripple across your arms and the splashes of the water against your cheek feel like slivers of ice, closer to the home you knew than the temple underneath. As you emerge from the cave and into the open sea the light continues to grow dimmer and dimmer, but not so much that you can't see the anchor has been dropped and that you won't be going elsewhere for the night.

Clutching the rope offered by the crew you haul yourself back up onto the deck.

Night falls quickly. Downstairs you're with the rest of the ship, the Captain and Adeba having followed you and Qian Xia downstairs and joined in for the evening. The food is fresh, fish caught while you had been swimming through the tunnels below accompanied by fruit freshly purchased from the markets. Breads and cheeses adorn the table, all of you free to come and go as you please and take what you want.

Tonight, and while they were in Port the crew could live like kings. Or as kingly the life of a sailor was ever likely to get, which amounted to a full stomach, some good wine and staying dry. The lack of rain hitting the deck above meant that for now at least, they had everything they needed for a happy night at sea.

"Lind!"

One of the crew waves you over to a table. You see the same game of dice which had seen you fleeced of more than one coin on your way over here.

"Fill in for me while I get a drink." The man, you remember his name as Sheng tells you, his breath filled with alcohol. He claps you on the back before he leaps away from the table and grabs another of the crew, turning them around, the pair roar with laughter, stumbling to the table.

"You won't have any money left Sheng!" One of the men at the table calls out after him and the rest of the table laughs at your expense.

Sheng hears nothing, too far gone as you settle in and stare down at the meagre tally of coins in Sheng had left you with.

You look at the five dice next to Sheng's coins.

The Fool's Crew.

It was a simple game, based almost entirely on luck. You rolled the dice three times. If you rolled a six, then you owned a ship and you set that dice aside. If you rolled a five, you had a captain. Roll a four and you had a crew. As you gained each piece you set a dice aside until you had two dice left. Except you couldn't have a Captain without a ship, or a Crew without a Captain. Fail to get everything in place and you lost at the end of the third turn. If you got all of them together, then the last two dice were your 'loot.' Whoever had the biggest amount of loot won.

Simple, easy.

And you had never won.

You would swear you'd offended some god of luck in a past life.

"How much do you want to lose?" One of the men ask you, his grin unhidden from the messy beard that runs down to his chest.

You look at Sheng's pile and throw half of it down, he won't mind.

Probably.

The rest of them match it and you throw the dice with wild abandon, watching them scatter along the table.


Nothing.

Your fists pound the table as the rest of the group howl at your expense, except for Pan who has dice that are somehow even worse than yours with five ones staring back at him.

The pair of you grit your teeth as you gather them in hand again, and this time…


A ship and a captain make their way into your greedy palms as you set them aside. Pan takes the bottle on the table and drinks it long and deep as he comes up short again and you look across the table to see two others at the same point as you, and one who's already got all three pieces.

This might be the closest you've ever been. Weeks of watching them laugh at your expense, and now you could finally claim your revenge. You shake the dice in your hand, victory gleaming in your eyes and…


Lai Wei takes every coin set on the table with a victorious smirk as you groan in defeat. Pan grunts in surprise as you rip the bottle from his hands drowning your sorrows away as Sheng walks up and stares blankly at his missing coins. The rest of the table laughs at his misfortune, and you join in as the bottle leaves your hands and makes its way around the group.

Quickly booted from the table, Sheng burying his head in his hands, you look around the room for what you should do next.

Other games of Fool's Crew are arranged around the tables, and you feel the weight of your silver pieces in your pocket. Further down at the back of the room you see the men gathered around a small stove, keeping themselves nice and warm as they share stories. You see Qian Xia in the mix, enthralled by one of the stories as a man depicts a battle between two beasts, using shadows on the wooden wall.

At the head of the table, Captain Yang and Adeba are quiet, occasionally they share a few words of conversation but for the most part they're content to spend time together. Talking with members of the crew who walk past every so often. Your eyes hang on the free set of chairs next to them, but perhaps that would be too presumptuous? After all he's already given you and Qian Xia attention today. Still, it's not often you can just speak to people who are far and beyond your level of cultivation, and you've yet to really pick the Captain's brain about anything.

"Oi, Lind." A familiar voice drawls behind you, snapping you out of your reverie as you turn to look at Sun Feng hovering by the stairs to the deck a group of men behind him.

"A few of us were heading up to spar, want to join?"

It's rare for the deck to be empty, usually always sailing. You had no idea this would be how they'd spend their time but seeing as you had no idea that they used to be sect members before now you're not sure what you should've expected.

What should you do?

[] Play Fool's Crew with the rest of the… Crew, surely you'll win something!

[] The group at the back are currently enthralling each other with stories, stories that you would love to hear. The heat from the flames wouldn't go amiss either.

[] Captain Yang and Adeba have seats near them, take one and pick their brains, while you can.

[] Sun Feng and the crew are former members of the sect, it's not often you can receive pointers from your fellow alumni, go with them and see what they have to teach you.