Remove ads

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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
yrsillar said:
"You have done well, but with the target in place, your role has come to an end. Your gift will flower and activate the party favors. That girl will be removed from the board, ending the farce in the south, and the wretches of the Emerald Sea destabilized. Hail to the Twilight King, live in death, disciple."

Her thoughts spun. Removed from the board, her, the Twilight King? Cults of such dark things existed, usually small and petty committing minor terrors, but the sheer sarcasm in that catechism left her with little doubt that it was anything but a cover.

Things slotted into place, the cardinal locations he had visited over the last few days, a map assembled in her mind, lines drawn, this little cubby the center. She hadn't sensed any formations at the locations, but if there were, something of this size, hidden in the lines between the cities wardings…

Yan Shenyi's eyes bugged out and he stumbled forward grasping the crystal. "You-no, you promised, you unfilial little shit!"

"Come now Cousin, it's… nothing personal."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yan Renshu's nature fucked him here.
He felt the need to gloat to the agent he's killing off.
yrsillar said:
"Stop," she spoke and he froze. "What do you know about these 'party favors'?"

"Seeds. Seeds in the sewers, rat men, corpse eaters, needed guidance. Not any formations I've seen Had… friend in the Ministry of Works, got maps. In the cisterns, had to be.... watered regularly." he wheezed. "Lady Ling, I-"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Which meant that this guy even knowing he's going to be executed, went the extra mile to fuck him back.
 
TimEd said:
It doesn't not matter what they have or don't have. We don't know that yet. The important thing is keeping them informed and on the loop.

DOCUMENTATION is the name of the game. This is a novel(ish) attack from an enemy they didn't feel the need to be on guard against. And doing that is quite literally part of the job of both the ruling family and the Ministry of Investigation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Cool, they have done a shit job at being on guard then. And we already informed then broadly.
Deadly Snark said:
Yes that's how it tends to go. Institutions arent magic, they are made up of people. Which have their biases, and this is a new attack from a new enemy. So they didnt notice.

But then when we informed them they did notice that something was wrong, not the exact thing because they didnt have the intel. But they had an operation tailing YR's cousin up pretty fucking fast.

If they hadn't done that. We wouldnt be here and LQ wouldnt have been able to disable to trigger implemented in his ribcage. Because we wouldnt have been tailing him.

Again, its not a Epic Sage announcing their heroic omni competence. Just a demonstration that when they are given the information they can do their job. And that's what we need them for right now, because we have the intel to give them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Literally if anyone else but ling qi was here for this his plan would have worked and the city would have gone up in flames. I will give the ministry that their fast at covering their asses when a person of higher influence comes knocking. But that's all I'm giving them.
"They weren't given critical information." Yes well their supposed to find that info on their own. Like that there's a bomb threat to their city...
 
[X] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.

I'm just going to follow one of the lessons from our time serving in the Sect's scouting corps. When big picture stuff is on the table, actually coordinate with your own forces. Don't go running off half-cocked like a glory-seeking Young Master to pursue cool solo battles against nebulous enemy forces, or Commander Guan Zhi will be very disappointed in you.
 
[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
 
Tobtorp said:
"They weren't given critical information." Yes well their supposed to find that info on their own. Like that there's a bomb threat to their city...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Again institutions arent magic. In a perfect world, every institution should be able to get all the information they need on their own. But that's often not the case even for the most well-meaning of them.

Biases cloud their judgments, info gets lost in the cracks and paperwork.

Furthermore, institutions work at their best when they have a good communication pipeline between them and the community-society-culture. An army gains far more from a local guide than drones. A cop can do far more work with local friends than all the formal canvassing in the world. etc, etc, etc.

What LQ and the Ministry did here today is exactly how this type of stuff is supposed to work in reality. You take either elements away and it will not work anymore. Which does eventually happen as part of institutional decay and the bonds between the institutions and the people they serve decay. But that is neither here or not.

Perhaps they dont care for the people anymore. But we are the direct servant of the Ducal Heir, we answer to the Duchess herself, and this is a war the Duchess has personall intervened in. We have a stick to beat them into action or else. Instead of lamenting that reality of power, its more useful to lift that stick and start beating.
 
Last edited:
Deadly Snark said:
Again institutions arent magic. In a perfect world, every institution should be able to get all the information they need on their own. But that's often not the case even for the most well meaning of them.

Biases cloud their judgements, info gets lost in the cracks and paperwork.

Furthermore, institutions work at their best when they have a good communication pipeline between them and the community-society-culture. An army gains far more from a local guide than drones. An cop can do far more work with local friends than all the formal canvassing in the world. etc, etc, etc.

What LQ and the Ministry did here today is exactly how this type of stuff is supposed to work in reality. You take either elements away and it will not work anymore. Which does eventually happen as part of institutional decay and the bonds between the institutions and the people they serve decaying. But that is neither here or not.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ok but why are you so sure then that the institution will not fuck up the response too? They already fucked up the detection.
 
@Deadly Snark i think you can chill a bit on the subject, it's quite apparent that most voters are inclined to wait and regroup.

Adhoc vote count started by Ayashi on Jun 28, 2022 at 7:04 PM, finished with 172 posts and 38 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Deadly Snark said:
Yes that's how it tends to go. Institutions arent magic, they are made up of people. Which have their biases, and this is a new attack from a new enemy. So they didnt notice.

But then when we informed them they did notice that something was wrong, not the exact thing because they didnt have the intel. But they had an operation tailing YR's cousin up pretty fucking fast.

If they hadn't done that. We wouldnt be here and LQ wouldnt have been able to disable to trigger implemented in his ribcage. Because we wouldnt have been tailing him.

Again, its not a Epic Sage announcing their heroic omni competence. Just a demonstration that when they are given the information they can do their job. And that's what we need them for right now, because we have the intel to give them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And we're trying to make friends with these institutions. It's already going to be a mess with probably an inquest on how they missed this, it would be tactless of us to not give them the opportunity to be the hero so they can salvage some reputation from all this.
 
[X] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.

Bring the lackey to justice, get more info where it needs to go. Expose corruption if they try to slow us down.
 
Tobtorp said:
Ok but why are you so sure then that the institution will not fuck up the response too? They already fucked up the detection.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They didnt fuck up by getting us into the position to stop the bomb. Again, you have an impression of incompetence that is not borne by the text. We are here thanks to them. We gained access to the knowledge we now have via working with them. That's no real fuck up. Its the reality of dealing with a novel adversary.

But if they do fuck up. Shenhua will kill them all and that's not our problem anymore so.
 
Last edited:
Deadly Snark said:
They didnt fuck up by getting us into the position to stop the bomb. Again, you have an impression of incompetence that is not borne by the text.

But if they do fuck up. Shenhua will kill them all and that's not our problem anymore so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...they literally didn't know there was a bomb threat, your attributing success to incidentals. Your saying "oh they had success because they involved us into catching our own mail thief and we found a bomb threat at the same time." But that's not how that works.

Their job is it to protect the city, not to hope some incidentally visiting cultivator will uncover the city wide threat for them, because that is what happened.

And yes, if everything goes to shit ling qi will only have to live with the death of a few thousand innocents on her mind. It's not her fault but that hasn't stopped ling qi yet...
 
Tobtorp said:
...they literally didn't know there was a bomb threat, your attributing success to incidentals. Your saying "oh they had success because they involved us into catching our own mail thief and we found a bomb threat at the same time." But that's not how that works.

Their job is it to protect the city, not to hope some incidentally visiting cultivator will uncover the city wide threat for them, because that is what happened.

And yes, if everything goes to shit ling qi was ill only have to live with the death of a few thousand innocents on her mind. It's not her fault but that hasn't stopped ling qi yet...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They had the prime suspect, and turns out human trigger, sussed out and was tailing him before LQ got here. Even without her, they probably could have caught him because he was already on their radar thanks to our intel.

The issue is wheter they could have disabled the trigger in time, and that's definitely an unknown. But there is no point in going over the what ifs. Only the what has happened matters, and what has happened is that their operation did succeed, LQ was there to disable the trigger and they have been roused into action.
 
[X] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.
I know it's a bit early to be saying this but I have to wonder what a personal favor from a viscount clan would do for our clan. This is Ling Qi's first big foray into the Emerald Sea as her own political entity. She isn't a member of the Argent Sect, or the retainer of the provinces heir. Right now she's acting as the head of the Ling Clan dealing with a disaster that has a minor personal tie to her spirit. If things go well and she gets the credit for helping limit and or stop the damage that could create a tie to a clan that wants to see us rise instead of wanting to deal with us as part of Cai Rexaing's entourage
 
Deadly Snark said:
They had the prime suspect, and turns out human trigger, sussed out and was tailing him before LQ got here. Even without her, they probably could have caught them because he was already on their radar thanks to our intel.

The issue is wheter they could have disabled the trigger in time, and that's definitely an unknown. But there is no point in going over the what ifs. Only the what has happened, and what has happened is that their operation did succeed, LQ was there to disable the trigger and they have been roused into action.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Again, they had the prime suspect for bloody mail theft! Nothing else. They didn't suspect anything else.
They would have caught him and Ren shu would have activated the trigger and blown up the whole city.

They didn't know jack about any triggers or what was going on.
 
[X] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.

Gotta flex on Yan Renshu some more. Roll up with everything he ever desired from the Empire.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top