Metal and Wind is an interesting combination, as we learn more about Xia Lin, her disposition, struggles, and history. Metal represents logic, self-control, rationality, and even rigidity. Wind's the opposite in a lot of ways; formlessness, freedom, flexibility.
Given the, imo, implied metal defense art as well as her extreme confidence in it and mention of her aunt's project, I wonder if she was deeply steeped in Metal to start out and branched out to Wind after whatever events shifted her from her original, "simpler", Way.
It wouldn't be a mismatch with her relative openness to our/Renxiang's funky cultural misadventures and her own doubts surrounding the identity of her heritage, at least.
Elixir Syndrome is a real thing, and it's something that you can't really outgrow, or easily ignore without having a mindset so alien to the human experience that most of our build should be failing from the get-go. (I think this would work even against the Ith-ia, it's not like Sacrifice is a desirable state for them, just that they're willing to do so to win if need be, making them hesitate to wait for the 'Best Moment' is still within the reach of this move)
And giving us time to set up by making them think to be wary of hitting us first is benefiting our build.
Elixir Syndrome is a real thing, and it's something that you can't really outgrow, or easily ignore without having a mindset so alien to the human experience that most of our build should be failing from the get-go. (I think this would work even against the Ith-ia, it's not like Sacrifice is a desirable state for them, just that they're willing to do so to win if need be, making them hesitate to wait for the 'Best Moment' is still within the reach of this move)
And giving us time to set up by making them think to be wary of hitting us first is benefiting our build.
Elixir Syndrome is a real thing, and it's something that you can't really outgrow, or easily ignore without having a mindset so alien to the human experience that most of our build should be failing from the get-go. (I think this would work even against the Ith-ia, it's not like Sacrifice is a desirable state for them, just that they're willing to do so to win if need be, making them hesitate to wait for the 'Best Moment' is still within the reach of this move)
And giving us time to set up by making them think to be wary of hitting us first is benefiting our build.
I don't think I was even seeing this in terms of our upcoming enemies--I feel like this will combat the Ith-ia uniquely, perhaps subverting more sacrificial techniques by pushing that idea of "we could use this for a more critical moment than fighting Ling Qi's party" or sonething. Always bigger fish to fry in one's eye if your opponent can make you shy away from big finishers or utilizing all of your strength.
I know both were valid options, but it's interesting...would the Ith-ia have become more dangerous if we provoked glory-seeking in combat with them? Would they pull out all the stops instead beyond what is required to just finish a fight / get a victory?
The only downside I can see with this choice, if a higher Ith-ia cultivator taps their underlings for a mass sacrifice or can spare attention towards LQ's fight to notice what's going on and pass an order to our opponent.
"I would wield it to put them on the defense, to be miserly with their power and resources, and loathe to expend anything that is theirs." Ling Qi said after a long moment of thought. Her first idea seemed obvious to her: to drive their desire for victory to greater heights. Desire compounded easily, and greed quickly became bottomless.
But the rampage of a higher cultivator pushed them to the point of risking their survival to risk everything to fulfill their dream.
The terrible oppressive might of Still Waters Deeping loomed large in her mind, even through the General's fire. "My Way benefits from time to build and does not necessarily give as much threat in its earlier stages..."
She could certainly make it so. "More than that, it's not even a matter of putting them on the defense… by inflating their sense of possessiveness, I might make them second guess expending resources even to defensive ends… Inspiring passivity through greed."
"Not the destructive end, one might think. But then we are discussing the methods usable on a peer in the heat of battle, something so destructive as the past weavings," Shu Yue said thoughtfully. "I ask this question, though. Do you choose this because your soul cringes from a worse twisting?"
"Hey, now!" Sixiang complained, their voice snapping back into physicality.
"It's a fair question, Sixiang," Ling Qi said. She let her vision return, her mortal senses reasserted fully, and looked at the shadows dancing through the motions of life around her intently. They moved around and through each other, dancing in more dimensions than physical eyes could easily parse.
They all felt so solid, though, so complete. "It is. I've glimpsed something of the Hui clans 'cultivation. It makes me feel ill. Shu Yue, what is this place in now? You implied that it wasn't a ministry building any longer."
Now that she could see them again, Shu Yue crouched spiderlike only a little ways from her, surrounded by the withered, dead remains of nightmare hands… hands that were reaching toward Ling Qi, each and every one. "I did. This place remains an office. Only now related to Commerce; it is where the distribution of Xiangmen's bounty is coordinated between the district kitchens."
Ling Qi inhaled deeply, pulling in with the 'air' the taste of the spirits and the dream. "Not every shade here is a thing of the past."
Shu Yue did not respond.
Sixiang gave her a curious look before swiftly turning her head to look around them, squinting their eyes as if to sharpen their vision. "The heck are you talking about Qi? I don't see any living dreamers here."
"Teacher is disrupting our vision. Maybe yours more strongly than mine since this is my lesson," Ling Qi said. "You intended to select the next test phantom."
"The next phase of the lesson is to test your skill against three phantoms of differing dispositions, selected by myself for difficulty, yes," Shu Yue agreed.
They spoke without answering the question. Ling Qi met their empty black eyes unwaveringly. "Would it have been the second or the third that was an actual person? A sleeping mortal whose dreams are dancing here, ill at ease."
Shu Yue's long, long fingers twitched, drumming on the tiled floor, the sound like raspy leaves rustling. "The first. It would be too easy to tell the difference between the more complex phantoms and a living mortal dream otherwise."
"You asshole." Sixiang snarled, rising to her feet, the expletive hung in the air on rippling wine-scented qi.
"You'd have let me twist, even break an innocent person, just to test a technique?" Ling Qi said, feeling sick. "I… you…"
Sixiang shouted something at Shu Yue, but she didn't quite hear it, sinking into her own thoughts. She remembered the first day she had gone into the Sect Town as a third realm. She remembered how insubstantial the mortals had seemed even then, gray and predictable, almost painfully slow and transparent in their intent.
It wasn't until she met her mother again that she was forced to confront the spark of… realness, the personhood that was undeniable there if she just bothered to really look. Gods and spirits, how easy would it be for many, if not most, cultivators to fail to notice the distinction? How easy would it be to decide the distinction wasn't really there? To rationalize that her mother and her sister were just a categorically different matter than some… random mortal.
"...You wanted me to see the difference and refuse you."
Sixiang's voice died down. They turned back to Ling Qi.
"Did I?" Shu Yue said. "I am the Faceless Killer, the Laughter of the Forgotten, the Weeping Wraith. I am the hands that crush the throats of those whose victims cannot reach them. Do you think these hands are clean of blood that could be called innocent? You go to war soon, student. Do you childishly imagine all of those you slay and hurt will be villains?"
She grimaced harshly. They would be soldiers fighting for a realm that had aided raiders against them, who had sunk whole blocks of a town into poison-choked mist, who had just weeks ago attempted to spread a plague through the Central Valley. But she knew better than to think that only soldiers suffered where cultivators fought.
"Even if you did not intend me to refuse you, that is what will happen," Ling Qi said. "I will find phantoms to practice with on my own… things which threaten my home, beasts and the like, or hostile nightmares in my expeditions," Ling Qi said.
Shu Yue considered her silently. "A student who refuses lesson plans is not worth a teacher's time."
"So be it," Ling Qi replied stubbornly. Even if this were not a test, she would refuse, and she knew a cultivator of Shu Yue's caliber could see the honest truth of that.
"Hah," Shu Yue said. "I would have let you do harm."
The words hung in the air. Ling Qi frowned.
"A test that is impossible to fail is worthless," Shu Yue ground on. "I would only have stopped you short of permanently maiming a man. If you had failed, the victim would have suffered for it."
"Because these arts are cruel things, and if you integrate them without understanding their cruelty, it will taint you in turn," Shu Yue finished.
Sixiang still glowered at them, but half turning, they looked at Ling Qi's expression and sighed.
"I thank teacher for the lesson," Ling Qi said, standing up.
At that height in the dream, she could look the crouching cultivator in the eye. Shu Yue regarded her with a hard gaze now, and Ling Qi felt the elder cultivator's attention piercing through them. It felt like being a gem scrutinized for flaws under a jeweler's glass.
"Such a difficult student. You are not meant to detect the hidden test before it is fully presented," Shu Yue huffed. It was a raspy sound, like dead leaves scraping over each other. "But your resolve was true, that I could see."
"It deflates a little of the drama, but… no, even if it cost me further lessons, I would not deliberately hurt an involved person just for a training exercise. Not purposely."
"And that is why you pass regardless."
"...Should I not still practice on actual phantoms?" Ling Qi asked.
"If you wish, but it need not be here. In truth, you shall get as much good from the mental exercise of mapping out your manipulations while observing a target. I cannot give you true practice at affecting a peer. Given your resolve, you should seek… volunteers from among your companions for that."
Ling Qi frowned. The spars with her fellow retainers could serve that. She could also arrange training exercises with the soldiers of Shenglu, green as they were. Though, was that really volunteering?
She shook her head; today was not one for meditating on the concept of 'consent' and its relation to choice. That was… probably a whole meditation session and delve into the depths of the mind on its own, and she did not have the energy for that now.
Sixiang slung an arm around her shoulder, and gave her a squeeze. It was… well it was definitely improper, but she really didn't care at the moment, she reached up to clasp Sixiangs shoulder as well as they turned for the exit of this place. Shu Yue rose to follow them.
And as the door opened, Ling Qi caught the scent of roses. Out there is the dim, cramped streets, a woman sat by a fountain that had not been there before. It was a humble thing a simple stone stone which rained a trickle of cloudy grey water into the rippling basin below.
Diao Linqin was still clad in her wedding dress, and radiance still crawled along its hems, searing even the idea that the filth of this place could touch her.
"You are too light a taskmaster, Shu Yue," Diao Linqin said absently.
"I did not think the Lady Diao would have a mote of attention to spare, this night of all nights," Shu Yue said quietly.
"Only because we are in the final stages of ceremony," Diao Linqin said, turning from her overlook of the twisted nightmare facsimile of athe rootways which stretched out before her.
Ling Qi's breath hitched as the Sovereign's eyes fell upon her.
"You have continued training those eyes and ears."
"They are vital to me, and what I wish for. I cannot bridge gaps I do not clearly see," Ling Qi said quietly.
"You have at least left room for disparity, cleared yourself a way to dehumanize and dismiss those you wish to make enemies," Diao Linqin said. "So your errors are not irreparable. Do not sand that away from yourself. Not all points of view deserve equal consideration."
Ling Qi frowned. "You say things like these, prime minister, but, I have felt your Way. How can you say things like this? You are couching it wrongly too, I do need to be able to harm my enemies, but I still need to understand them, to know why they are my enemies. You know most of all that enemies are still people."
Diao Linqin smiled mildly. "I do. It is unfortunate. That I must hurt myself as well as my enemy when I kill them. Girl, I am only prodding you to avoid that path. You mistake my chiding for dislike."
Sixiang took half a step forward, as if to say something, only to fall silent as Diao Linqin fixed them with a look. "Love must have limitations to have meaning. An all encompassing understanding understands nothing at all, it is only a cipher for others with the ability to be selective to use, consider well how you shape that selection."
She glanced over to Shu yue. "Are you teaching the three poisons arts suite, or allowing her to reinvent them on her own."
"Can you not tell by looking," Ling Qi grumbled.
Diao Linqin arched an eyebrow, communicating 'would you like me too?' without saying a single word.
"Her own construction. Today we were focusing on a combat useful technique to the perception art she has been learning from me," Shu Yue said.
"I see, the name of the technique?" Diao Linqin asked.
Ling Qi pursed her lips. She had only really just begun to think on it…
[ ] Write in technique name
AN: I will take twenty four hours for proposals, and then put the three I like the most up for vote.
G6
Type: Scry, Compulsion
Duration: Variable
The sharp eyes cultivated by the thief of names may be difficult to wield in battle, but by focusing upon a target you may glean something of the things which bind them to this world. You have chosen to wield greed and desire, and so it is that which you may pluck and manipulate.
You may compel a single target by heightening or lessening their core desires. Against weaker targets these actions may be sudden and dramatic, the stronger the target the more subtle the manipulation must be. These effects operate at a G4 potency, and have a short duration.
The most potent effect you may wield is an installation of a sense of possessiveness and greed which causes the target to be reluctant to expend qi and consumable resources or to take risks beyond the bare minimum. This effect may last for an entire scene if unnoticed.
This is an art based of a GM art that has had a lot things that tie you to this world theme and chains would fit the negative aspect of that restricting what a person can do.
Destiny dragons seem more obsessed with hierarchy than with greed, to me.
Though the Dragon Gods were certainly insanely greedy. Not even the dead were safe from exploitation.
Yrsillar said:
There was a Dragon God of Death and one of Dreams
they were both Underworld dragons in type
but they used it like they used everything else
there was as noted less seperation in those days
So the Dragon God of death was in charge of 'processing' the dead in... various ways
Destiny dragons seem more obsessed with hierarchy than with greed, to me.
Though the Dragon Gods were certainly insanely greedy. Not even the dead were safe from exploitation.
I don't know, I'd argue that between our introduction to Heizui and 'his' tree at the low end and the vault of absurd treasures described in the Wind Thief story at the high end, dragons are at least as obsessed with property (greed) as they are with hierarchy. They might even consider the two inextricably linked.
Maybe something like rotting granary? A way to get across that the hoarded wealth or resources can more than just be not used optimally, but go to waste while someone is paying too much attention at the amount of what they have to notice?
