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

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ActionKermit said:
[x] The lesson of the roots

I love the idea of visiting the palace at some point, but then I thought about it more and remembered how LQ thought when fighting that corpse immortal about how she would never write a song about a flower without singing a verse about the muddy roots. Let's acknowledge the nightmare along with the dream to keep ourselves grounded.
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i had forgotten that. That's a good reminder.

[X] The lesson of the roots
 
[X] the lesson of the palace

I would prefer Roots with Shu Yue since there is a personal connection but at this point, in LQ's journey, she doesn't need another reminder of how bad humanity can get due to selfishness. She is perfectly aware of that part. what she doesn't have any idea about is the danger of hope, how the things she considers good such as tight-knit communities, interclan cooperation, and united province can be twisted for the worse. As for those who argue that Palace of One is better suited to peak green or cyan LQ because she would be closer in power, it also means LQ is less flexible. Cyan or peak green LQ might get closer to the palace of one but she is already calcified once since she would be the post-name quest version. we need to get this danger of nationalism into LQ'S way before we get our first word.
 
I feeli like people are cope-ing about us being able to get this lesson from the palace later. Maybe we will get another lesson from it - but not this one. Vote for what you want instead of thinking that a choice is not a choice at all, so that later you don't gnash your teeth and wail when Yrs reveals that this was, in fact, a choice.

[X] The lesson of the palace
 
[X] The lesson of the roots

I'm hoping to see the palace post skelly uncle tribulation. I recall him having something about the best ways are those that have followers and I think looking at the palace with the idea of what is a follower in mind will be fun.
 
yrsillar said:
The room darkened. Cold, oily tendrils of qi crept across her skin, made her throat constrict. Black, empty eyes crept into her sight, as hanging strands of twisting black hair tickled her neck.

She let out a breath, tilting her head up to look at Shu Yue, who stood behind her, leaned overtop her to look down from above.

"You do actually have to do that, don't you?" she griped, taking hold of her heart rate and slowing it down manually with a small fluctuation in her qi.

"Yes." Shu Yue said agreeably. Her office flickered and wavered, growing fuzzy before her eyes as her sometime tutor vanished, reappearing in front of her desk, long fingered pale hands steepled in front of their chest.
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Shu Yue's nature is pretty creepy like that and it's even by necessity.

yrsillar said:
"I'm sorry Lin Hai had to go so soon," Ling Qi said. "Did you want me to send for anything?"

"The tides of fate carry us all into different times and places. We will meet again soon enough," Shu Yue said. "And you need not."
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Shu Yue for all that they're weird and in many ways not human still cares for their comrades.

yrsillar said:
"Is this about my lessons? I understand I wasn't fit to practice."

"You were not. Though you have proven the resilience to keep yourself intact through many more lessons," Shu Yue said, their fingers dryly tapping against one another. They seemed pensive. And the silence between them stretched. Ling Qi could sense that they had more to say.

"You have impressed me. I deeply dislike what I asked of you. In truth I was uncertain if you would survive it."
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LQ has been through some pretty brutal lessons that she's endured and grown a lot through.

yrsillar said:
Ling Qi inhaled deeply. "It was not a light thing to ask. But if I am not willing to put my life on the line for what I cultivate, the path to higher realms will never open, will it?"

Shu Yue's eyes did not contain pity or regret, only a teacher's satisfaction. "Yes. One who values their own existence more than any goal or ideal cannot tread in the realms of Sovereigns."
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Your way has to matter more than anything to reach that level.

yrsillar said:
"It is not a good thing for most people to do," Shu Yue replied gravely. "But your mind is tempered now, you have tasted obliteration, and remain on your Way. I do not doubt you will forge a true Name for yourself soon enough, should you weather this war."
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It's incredibly impressive that LQ has gotten to that level at her age, her forging her true Name will be a glorious moment.

yrsillar said:
Shu Yue nodded, and she did her beast to ignore the unsettling crackling of shifting vertebrae. "There is a unique opportunity. You have mastered the maintenance of the self. If the General did not burn you away, only a clash with the most terrible lurkers of the liminal, or a failed invasion of a higher realms mind will break your self."
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She's pretty much survived enough that anything below a certain level won't break her.

yrsillar said:
"We focus then, on the outer expressions of the art. The faults and fissures and imperfections of identity. The ways in which it is worn away. The methods by which it is broken," their voice was low and cold. "This is the opportunity. You will walk in the Dream of Xiangmen with me, and together, we will look on what lingers there."

"You intend to take me where I promised not to walk during my last visit then?" Ling Qi asked.

"The roots would be a strong lesson," Shu Yue agreed. "You have seen the surface of it in your own life."

Ling Qi gave a small nod. The streets of Tonghou; privation, desperation, the wear it left on you, the crumbling of your boundaries. "You call it the surface only."

Shu Yue's smile was gone, their thin lips pressed in an unhappy line. "Yes. I would never have warned you away if it were only that. In the depths of the great tree, there were far greater horrors and nightmares. The whims of the liar lords, the dream makers, there in the dark, there was never any pretension that they were not absolute.That reality was not their clay to shape as they would. Even two hundred years and the scouring of Her radiance cannot remove that shadow."

Something about the way Shu Yue spoke sent a shiver up her spine, the whispers it sent clawing at her mind, like the whispering laughter and sobs of countless children, made her heart freeze in her chest more than any encounter with a winter spirit.

"There, you would learn of the tools which abrade a person down to their least selves," Shu Yue said. "You have learned to walk in the mind, in the personal Dream of a cultivator. Here you would learn to hurt, with the deliberation of a surgeon's scalpel."

"It will not be a kind lesson."
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The Roots is a lesson that LQ wasn't ready for back then but now she'd be able to handle it, but it would still be a harsh lesson but one with a lot of benefits.

yrsillar said:
The corner's of her tutor's lips curled back up. "It is a choice. There is another lesson. You have seen her. The vortice in the canopy. The Empty Ascension. The Palace of One. She whose dream was never shared, the throne of ideals. You have floated in her orbit. I would take you deeper. To know the terrible, scouring fire that is hope. To know how minds may bend toward a distant and unreachable dream. And how these things may be turned. How they may be broken and twisted, the lesson the descendants took from her. This would be another lesson of sight. But as befitting the coming war, it too is a lesson of hurt, if one lesser than the roots."
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Learning more about the ideal is an important thing.

[X] The lesson of the roots

I feel like this is the most narratively fitting, both in LQ has been building up to this with her growing Dream Walking skills and her going to more and more dangerous areas, it's also the thing that gave birth to Shu Yue and as LQ's mentor it's fitting she learns this lesson. There's also the fact that it's the harshest possible preparation for the war and could turn LQ into someone even more dangerous.
 
[X] The lesson of the roots

By learning how to 'break ways' in q more surgical way, we build the ability to surgically cut out the gui rot from the Palace of One when we explore it. So that we don't accidentally destroy the good parts
 
I am genuinely frustrated at the idea that we are given an empty, meaningless choice. No, we will not get to explore the palace in this context again. We will not be given a chance to learn this lesson later. Cause otherwise, Shu Yue would have mentioned that both lesson would be available later.
 
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