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The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

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[X] Hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.
-[X]Find samples of Lirens handwriting and leave a note with the best forgery you can make. Explain that Liren had to leave town quickly as a life saving medicine had been found for him, and that he will be back soon fit and healthy.

Liyu supposedly believed that Liren was getting better before the loop began, so I think we can end the perfect day with the perfect moment of Liren leaving to finally get 'healthy'. It's not the nicest thing to do to lie like that, but I think it would sell this as the perfect day to the Kukuni.
 
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Mozzy said:
I think the way to fix this is to have the Headman arrange a funeral for Liren with a last will read out to explain the time loop. Ideally, we have Liren write it out in the time he has, but we might need to forge it if we do not have one more loop. That should give Liyu the closure she has not had since the loop began because presumably she has not been able to talk to her father in centuries. A message from him telling her to go with the sacred artists to experience new things might be able to make the day perfect because he is telling her to let go of him and move on.
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I don't think we have one more loop, and the headsman is already compromised.

TimEd said:
Agreed on the funeral. It's the best we have yet, and barring a larger effort to coordinate a village wide funeral, removing him from the loop is our second best bet. We do still have to make sure to deliver the news to his daughter though.
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If we need to complete a Perfect Day, then I don't think we can create a situation where she gets to know that her father is dead. It's what started the whole thing after all. I don't think it'd matter if she found the dead body all by herself or someone had told her.

A perfect day for Liyu would be that her father is cured. He's dead so we have to fool her.
A forged letter from the father with a message saying he's out for the night. Might let her hold onto the tiniest shred of hope that he's been cured.
 
[x] Hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.
 
[x] Hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.
-[X] Use SEG on the local area to try and spot any anomalies, then investigate as appropriate
 
[X] Plan A Perfect Ending
-[X] Remove the body from the home. Hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.
-[X] Tidy up the house as best you can so when Liyu comes home everything looks good. Most importantly, make Liyu's bed so it looks as inviting as possible.
-[X] If possible, wrangle the dog to be at the home when Liyu returns. Friendly dogs bring joy and comfort.
 
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Ratato said:
She partially remembers the time loops, so that seems a little difficult, considering that she will likely just go look for her father instead, especially if that is OOC for her father?
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Dunno, the father was rancher so he was likely out a lot of times. She'll for sure look for him if the body is gone and there's no note. And time will reset if she learns that her father is dead.

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[X] Put Liren's body in the storage ring.
-[X]Find samples of Lirens handwriting and leave a note with the best forgery you can make. Explain that Liren had to leave town quickly as a life saving medicine had been found for him, and that he will be back soon fit and healthy.
-[X] Use SEG on the local area to try and spot any anomalies, then investigate as appropriate
-[X] When you are sure you won't attract attention; hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.

A bit worried that burning the body will attract attention. Zhi did sneak a lot to get into the house unseen. Burning the body inside doesn't seem like a good idea, so he'd have to get out.
 
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We aren't trying to fool Liyu here, we are trying to fulfil the Kukuni's Moment of Perfection and it clearly does not care about what the humans are actually feeling, it just wants the optics to look good. Liyu coming home after a great day to see that her father has left to get healthy is a perfect ending to the day, it doesn't really matter if it's bullshit, it just needs to fulfil the narrative that the Kukuni is crafting and come full circle for Liyu.

Liyu is also unlikely to work against us here, even if she knows the letter is a lie, I think she would go along with it and act happy if it gets the day finished. The disruption to the ending of the perfect day just needs to be removed, and a digestible lie should get us across the finish line. Having her father just straight up disappear with no explanation feels like it invites investigation and uncertainty, whereas leaving a note gives Liyu an easy out to not actually look into it too deeply.

Edit:

[X] Put Liren's body in the storage ring.
-[X]Find samples of Lirens handwriting and leave a note with the best forgery you can make. Explain that Liren had to leave town quickly as a life saving medicine had been found for him, and that he will be back soon fit and healthy.
-[X] Use SEG on the local area to try and spot any anomalies, then investigate as appropriate
-[X] When you are sure you won't attract attention; hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.
 
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I still think searching for any time wonders is a good idea, though. Finding that would be a good way to end the loops
 
The answer likely lies in how the Perfect Day began—by the village unanimously choosing to lie to a child for what they believed was kindness. But this lie was built on silence, on pretense, on delaying grief. The intent was good, but the execution gave birth to a moment twisted by regret and unfulfilled closure. That's what the Kukuni latched onto.


We don't need to complete the Perfect Day, we need to deny it its power by subverting the lie.


Maybe we should let Liyu know what's happened—what her father tried to do, what the village did for her, and why it has all gone wrong. Let her feel the grief that the Day tried to shield her from. It will hurt her—but in doing so, she may reject the Day. If she mourns her father now, if the grief is processed in this moment rather than endlessly deferred, the Kukuni's loop may unravel.
 
Maybe we should dispose of Liren's body, make it seem like he got up and started doing chores, that way, if Liyu comes back home she dosn't find him dead

Man I'm stumped, i don't know the answer xD
 
CT also had this to say on discord:

'it must keep the day imperfectly perfect. if the day is perfectly perfect it loses. but also if the day is...'

Completing the perfect day seems to me the best way to beat the Kukuni, anymore disruption is just going to cause a reset. So making things easy for Liyu to believe here after has just left home to finish healing seems like the best way to complete the day
 
[x] Hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Say a prayer to usher him to the ancestors, use the Everdistant Flame to burn his corpse and hopefully erase him from the loop through use of Time, and then scatter the ashes with the Worldstream, so he can never be called back.
 
What about getting Kun and Daiyu to fake Liyu passing the exam and escort her out of the village. She's a cultivator now, and off to a new adventure at a sect. She never goes home, never finds the body. That's a perfect, alternative end to the day
 
A bit of a leap but could we somehow start a fire using everdistant flame before the day even starts? I don't know how exactly the technique works, but my thinking is that one thing we could do to disrupt the perfect day is make sure it never starts and to do that we can burn the house down.

It's established that while the details can change, the essential bits cannot so by destroying the house we effectively close the loop. The creatures entire attempt at a perfect day can never actually be fulfilled which will hopefully draw the creature into the open for us and our team to kill.

Other than that the fact that it attacks via ambiant anam makes me think that we could potentially sense its presence with the garden, and I don't even know whether or not it will physically manifest. So either we burn the house down and try to close the loop that way or hope that the action will draw the creature out in a way Zhi is still able to kill it.
 
The Kukuni's moment is one created by a perfect day twisting into a tragedy. So, the way I see it, is that the way to beat it involves stopping the perfect day from starting or ensuring that it doesn't end in tragedy.

We can't stop the start of the perfect day. We are too far away to do that, and it would require another reset. A reset we will not survive.

Which leaves ensuring that the perfect day doesn't end in tragedy.

The tragedy occurs when Liyu comes home to find her father dead. The tragedy also occurs when Liren speaks to his daughter earlier but still dies. Ultimately, the tragedy is that Liren is dead. And he has died. We can't change that.

We can, however, create the scene as if Liren got better. We can make it so that Liyu comes home to a house that looks like her father healed.

[X] Plan: These are the days to remember
-[X] Dispose of Liren's body. Burn it, store it in the Estate, dump it into a well, anything to get it out of sight as thoroughly as possible.
-[X] Clean the house. Open the windows, put away the blankets, trim the lanterns, anything to make the house look like it had been taken care of.
-[X] Forge a note from Liren. Something about going back to work, out in the woods, will be back after dusk.
-[X] When the scene is ready, light a fire in the fireplace with lots of smoke going through the chimney. That will signal the entire village that someone is up and about in Liren's home.
-[X] Hide. Hide in the rafters and make sure you are as invisible as possible. Ensure there is no evidence that Kong Zhi was ever in the home.

The goal here, is to get Liyu to rush home and find the scene that she always dreamed of. Her father hale and healthy. We can't give her Liren, and I have no confidence in pretending or acting as if we were, so the next best thing is to make it seem as if her father got healthy, cleaned up the house, and went back to work.
 
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Hrrrm…
Well some sort of send-off sounds good but if the girl fights it we are screwed…
And more importantly it seems to me that helping a girl come to terms with things isn't the right move…
…
Yanno something horrifying I just thought of? The idea that the villagers have been replaced over and over again, by different people over time, so the original group is all gone and only Liyu is left, of the original village.

But then again…
It could be that the answer is to trash the place/target the girl but uhh. Feels like an easy way to just eat a reset and get wrecked too.

Peaceful ending is probably the correct option, mostly because plan murder the core feels too easy a conclusion to come to while plan funeral for the day requires enough stuff that you'd probably need an Artist for that we could conceivably be the first one who tried that.
 
Thor's Twin said:
-[X] Forge a note from Liren. Something about going back to work, out in the woods, will be back after dusk.
-[X] When the scene is ready, light a fire in the fireplace with lots of smoke going through the chimney. That will signal the entire village that someone is up and about in Liren's home.
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Dusk might be too soon though, wouldn't we want Liyu to sleep through the night? Better to have a time ensuring that she doesn't wait up. Or maybe get her to sleep at a friend's place?
Is it necessary to signal to the whole village? Wouldn't the kukuni want to investigate?
 
[] Hold an impromptu funeral for Liren. Investigate his house using SEG, remove anything Liyu might need in the future, and then burn the house with the Everdistant Flame as a funeral pyre.

I think the candle burning down might have caused the fire that made Everdistant Flame into a technique the kukuni engraved on us, and that it's resetting when the house burns down. I don't think Liyu ever found her father's body, she just thought he burned to death. I also think that no happy ending could come to the perfect day, what with all the endless torment, but a day to mourn what's been lost, and all the pain she's gone through, would be the best thing for Liyu right now. She's been here a long time, and never had a chance to grieve.
 
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Edkose said:
Dusk might be too soon though, wouldn't we want Liyu to sleep through the night? Better to have a time ensuring that she doesn't wait up. Or maybe get her to sleep at a friend's place?
Is it necessary to signal to the whole village? Wouldn't the kukuni want to investigate?
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Dusk might be too early, but I'm not sure that we need to wait until dusk. I think simply Liyan getting to the home in good order with a note from, ostensibly, her father will complete the perfect day. I don't think a specific time is entirely necessary.

As for the signal to the whole village, I think it's important. It's proof that someone was moving about in the home, but, perhaps more importantly, that something has gone very differently in this loop. That Liren is better and moving about.

The perfect day was made by the efforts of the whole village working to ensure that Liyu had a good day before her father died. Informing the whole village that Liren is actually doing fine would throw the premise of the perfect day into question. It also tells Liyu to come home, ideally before she is tested so she doesn't have a chance to mess with the testing treasure.

Ultimately, though, I think we need some sort of signal to Liyu to come home, some reason to speed up her efforts to get home before something Daiyu or Kun do accidentally triggers the reset.
 
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