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The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

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Silverking said:
What about Brother Crab? Has Zhuan Kun still given him the fight to inspire him to go out and explore the world? Will he be joining us for the Boss Battle?
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(RE4 Leon voice) "Hey, it's that crab!"

...

Actually... It'd be really cool/funny if the dog, after untold centuries, were skilled enough to make a difference in this fight somehow.

Silverking said:
...We're going to be able to harvest SO many Time-aspected crafting materials out of that Kukuni.
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I definitely think we're getting a Time material. Maybe Time/Perfection. I wouldn't expect it to be very big necessarily, but that's because even small amounts of rare aspects can do things in charms that more common aspects simply couldn't even if the latter are much more potent.

Like, think of Brother Crab's stash: We could choose between an Ocean 6 or a Salt 9 material. Ocean anam is presumably rarer than Salt anam and might be composed of Salt, so to make these two mats competitive with one another, the former is slightly weaker. That, and the shapes are quite different and would be used differently in charms.

So I'd be happy even with a relatively minor Time/Perfection material, because we are a Kong and we can make true marvels with even small amounts of very rare stuff.
 
Yeah Kong Zhi has been getting cycling checks every time the erase attempt occurs. After said checks he absorbs the Time Anam and improves his techs. Seems pretty clear that trying to use Time on a Time Artist has consequences.

(I wonder if, say, a Light Artist could potentially cycle a light attack thrown at him, or if this is a special feature of Time. Probably special, Time being weird has been a consistent theme throughout this quest).
 
[X] Yes! Greatness and trauma for all!

I'm actually a big advocate of Quest authors taking direct control of certain events. Dice can enhance a story but they can also lead to deeply unsatisfying results thematically and narratively. The culmination of a large effort of Questor planning, direction and dice rolls coming through as a Narrative Cutscene just makes sense sometimes. Sometimes this can happen because it's the end of an arc. Sometimes it happens because a protagonist stumbles into something they really shouldn't be able to influence at a certain scale and tattles to authority about it (looking at you, strange thing we found in the depths which the Elder had to put down personally).

This is the culmination kind of moment. Not only is the author so excited about the groundwork the questors have lain out that they've asked permission to take control, it'll also allow for the circumvention of random chance at a point that's actually a point that's a bit more than just the end of the time loop arc. It sounds like this is potentially going to be the last big major wowie setpiece before we're finally back at the Sect. That'd make it the culmination of an arc of the story much bigger than just this loop.

And you know what? Engineering a situation where The Perfect Day can't even have a possibility of winning (getting the author so excited to write that they offer direct control) feels good to slug the inevitability time-looping critter with. It's sort of like doing so well against The Perfect Day that a higher order agent of Fate (the author) said "hell, you know what? Good job. I'll guarantee you win (and leave you some trauma to tribulate about). Kick that thing's ass on behalf of creation. Hell yeah."

~~~~~~~~~~
Separately my guess for some of the trauma is that "the time looping has allowed your friends to understand the existential horror of Shattering the Mirror" lol
 
ImperatorV said:
Yeah Kong Zhi has been getting cycling checks every time the erase attempt occurs. After said checks he absorbs the Time Anam and improves his techs. Seems pretty clear that trying to use Time on a Time Artist has consequences.

(I wonder if, say, a Light Artist could potentially cycle a light attack thrown at him, or if this is a special feature of Time. Probably special, Time being weird has been a consistent theme throughout this quest).
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Personally, I suspect it's less just that Time is special, and more so that Time, Fate, and other twelfth-order aspects (if any exist) are just so abstract and elevated that throwing raw anam at a target is often enough to destroy it, and thus developing proper techniques is not strictly necessary, and for a loose cultivator like this kukuni, consequently uncommon.
 
Aabcehmu said:
Personally, I suspect it's less just that Time is special, and more so that Time, Fate, and other twelfth-order aspects (if any exist) are just so abstract and elevated that throwing raw anam at a target is often enough to destroy it, and thus developing proper techniques is not strictly necessary, and for a loose cultivator like this kukuni, consequently uncommon.
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It's also in many ways inexperienced. It's powerful from centuries of reliving its moment, but it's got no outside knowledge or expereicne to really develop new ideas or insights, it basically needs to wait for anything like that to stumble into it.
 
ImperatorV said:
Yeah Kong Zhi has been getting cycling checks every time the erase attempt occurs. After said checks he absorbs the Time Anam and improves his techs. Seems pretty clear that trying to use Time on a Time Artist has consequences.

(I wonder if, say, a Light Artist could potentially cycle a light attack thrown at him, or if this is a special feature of Time. Probably special, Time being weird has been a consistent theme throughout this quest).
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I think it's because it's not using a technique at all per se, just throwing raw anam at the problem (Zhi being the problem). It has raw power in an obscure area, I'm not sure it knows how to use it at all.
 
[X] Yes! Greatness and trauma for all!

I'm not really a big fan of transitioning a quest into a fic in an abstract sense, but this was a great mystery event that you clearly put a lot of work into, and you've been at this long enough that this is almost certainly just gonna be a one time thing and not some slippery slope situation, so...go for it!
 
[X] No! Roll them dice!

I just like voting. Gonna vote to get another vote just so that we can vote to give the QM control a second time.

Well, rather than rolling dice and doing the fight within the bounds of the system, my actual preference would be a 'suggestion list' vote prior to the fight in which we make fight plan ideas that our QM could potentially incorporate into their chapter while still leaving it ultimately up to them.
 
ImperatorV said:
I wonder if, say, a Light Artist could potentially cycle a light attack thrown at him, or if this is a special feature of Time.
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Like others said, it's probably more a consequence of the Kukuni doing its customary "lazy", brute force method of throwing a mass of potent anam at the target of its ire rather than utilizing a proper offensive technique.

Because it likely doesn't know any, as it never had to learn/create one before. There was never anything powerful enough to really oppose it in its vicinity.
 
[X] Yes! Greatness and trauma for all!
Dice are great for determining the direction of a story and creating a ludonarritive for the audience, but i think fights/important climaxes like this should really be left in full control of an author.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Knight-Radiant on Apr 26, 2025 at 6:29 PM, finished with 140 posts and 111 votes.
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