Well, I can think of two right off the bat as being Sun Liling and Meizhen with their mantle arts. This means that Han Jian, Meizhen, and Lady Cai are probably the only people other than us with the potential to have 3 armor.
Since the dress gives 2 armor and is the best we will get for the foreseeable future, I believe that I can safely assume that most dresses will have 1 armor (that is barring a hulking metal giant). An art that gives 2 armor will probably be just as rare and valuable as our dress for the simple reason that armor stacking exists.
Li Suyin and Fan Yu have both shown arts that increase armour, or at least seem to. Likewise, our dress is stealth focused. While it's as high quality as we can expect for a long while, Gan Guangli's own armor is probably by default going to be 4 or so, and his art most likely gives him another +3 at the very minimum. Note that even before he got his new shiny armour, Hong Lin couldn't actually do damage to him and she had a weapon that penetrates 3 armour by default.
The way to deal with extremely armoured opponent is not armour penetration (unless you are a brute type fighter, and in that case you need a lot) but it's bad touch effects. Ling Qi is good at those, and 'tank type' enemies are actually fairly simple to deal with. We aren't a Meizhen or Huang Da, using poison, but we do have our methods.
Our +2 armour penetration with our bow is basically "you can penetrate armour of enemies that don't depend on armour as their main strategy", and that's just fine. We shouldn't expect to negate an enemy's main strategy with incidental benefits.
A stronger opponent is likely to have more qi, more and better arts, and a more developed spirit beast. The chances that a stronger opponent will actually have more armor than us are actually slim to none, as we have one of the best battle dresses at the sect. This battle dress provides 2 armor. Anything more than 2 armor piercing will more than likely be overkill as the additional armor piercing will not translate into extra damage and could be considered a wasted stat.
Nah. People with mountain, earth, or wood is going to have defense bonuses, and those are not rare. Suyin has wood armor, Fan Yu will have some sort of mountain armor, Gan Guangli has some sort of mountain armor too. Anyone who's melee focused has armor or soak arts.
So, what advantage does a spear do in defeating a stronger opponent? The bonus to armor piercing is substantial if addressed in a vacuum. However, we already have a bow that gives 1 armor piercing as well as an art that naturally gives another armor piercing.
This is a ridiculous comparison. The only reason you'd use a spear is in melee range. A bow is not going to help in melee, even if it does have AP effect, so it has no relevance at all in comparing between gaundao and spear.
In this instance, we are not playing offensively or trying to deal as much damage as possible, but trying to survive the encounter and because of that goal the guandao provides much more than the spear, without an art or talisman.
The goal is to disengage - whether that's through damage or survival. Note that the only reason we'd pull out a melee weapon is where we're alone. If we're with allies, the flute will be a better option even with 2+ enemies on us specifically like here (with the bear and thunder boy after us). Which means the question is what to do if we have someone on us while we're alone. Pulling out a guandao in this situation is a slow way to lose because survival doesn't do much for our buffs without someone to buff and if we're using a guandao, we're not using our debuffs. The only way it's helpful is if we're buying time for an ally to surprise show up that's not already in the fight, but that's not going to help if the tournament is as we expected: 1v1 fights (+ spirits).
So I don't consider it helpful at all. I'm not sure if a spear will help either TBF. The answer might just be level up ZB to increase that wind blast back attack. Alternatively, gain some ridiculously good melee art and just use whatever weapon that requires.
Honestly I feel like just force binding a couple grade 2 beasts could make our mist+wind+Forest buffs shine on solo missions, but we'd have to work on Qi pool probably, and that get's in the way of our current plan.
To be honest I just don't think multiple force bindings are worth it. For one, like you said, the required qi increase would conflict with our predicted schedule. Other than moral considerations though there's also the fact that qi cost is less with better relationships so if we're going the way of multiple spirits inclined to dislike us, we'd need an extreme amount of qi or time to make them warm to us. Our slow and steady method of increasing our relationship with Zhengui as well as out qi pool is probably our best bet. Plus there's the fact that we'll probably not want to waste time on scrubs so as to avoid the sunk cost fallacy.
Honestly I feel like just force binding a couple grade 2 beasts could make our mist+wind+Forest buffs shine on solo missions, but we'd have to work on Qi pool probably, and that get's in the way of our current plan.
If one of your spirits was bound involuntarily, you get passive benefits from the spirit, but you don't get an ally, at least until/unless you can convince or coerce it into helping you after you bind it.
To be honest I just don't think multiple force bindings are worth it. For one, like you said, the required qi increase would conflict with our predicted schedule. Other than moral considerations though there's also the fact that qi cost is less with better relationships so if we're going the way of multiple spirits inclined to dislike us, we'd need an extreme amount of qi or time to make them warm to us. Our slow and steady method of increasing our relationship with Zhengui as well as out qi pool is probably our best bet. Plus there's the fact that we'll probably not want to waste time on scrubs so as to avoid the sunk cost fallacy.
I'm basically right there with you, since I don't really like Pokémon master build, I was just saying that if we were going to do that, we could start low but I guess it would be even more action expensive than I thought since...
If we meet a spirit that's amiable, I bet it would be easier for us than a lot of people to convince it of a partnership because of our relatively high Talent. I say that because I assume being bound to a stonger Immortal grants spirits power.
At any rate, we should probably wait to collect more Spirits until Best Turtle is full grown so we can be sure we're not biting off more than we can chew.
Li Suyin and Fan Yu have both shown arts that increase armour, or at least seem to. Likewise, our dress is stealth focused. While it's as high quality as we can expect for a long while, Gan Guangli's own armor is probably by default going to be 4 or so, and his art most likely gives him another +3 at the very minimum. Note that even before he got his new shiny armour, Hong Lin couldn't actually do damage to him and she had a weapon that penetrates 3 armour by default.
Well, remember, that Gan Guangli actually uses a different defense stat that we do. I don't remember seeing the numbers as to what actually happened in the training duels (which I assume is what you are talking about, as I can't remember a time outside of it when Gan fought Hong Lin) so we don't know for sure if he just weathered the attacks with his stamina or if he was actually damaged.
As for having 7 armor, I find that highly unlikely. That would make all but the heaviest weapons do nothing against him and he could easily steamroll pretty much everyone, which we know is not the case as he has been injured in the Thunderdome fight even before Sun Liling started specifically targeting him. It's quite apparent to me that his qi is able to be drained by regular attacks which would not occur with 7+ armor.
Remember, not everyone has armor piercing. In fact, I can think of about 4 people that have it. Hong Lin, Sun Liling, Random Archer mook, and us. There are probably a lot of people out there who do have armor piercing, but I don't think it is as prevalent as people think. Otherwise, the spear wouldn't be appealing for offering basic armor penetration.
As it stands, I think we are going to have to disagree about how prevalent armor is and how much the defensive arts actually give dice rather than flat armor.
This is a ridiculous comparison. The only reason you'd use a spear is in melee range. A bow is not going to help in melee, even if it does have AP effect, so it has no relevance at all in comparing between gaundao and spear.
It's not as ridiculous of a comparison as you might believe. You are correct in that all melee weapons, including spears, must be used in melee range. However, the reason why you would use a spear is A) it's your primary weapon, or B) you are using it to get around highly armored foes. There is no specific reason for us to use the spear in melee other than if we are afraid of highly armored foes. However, because of our bow and our arts, we are not particularly afraid of heavily armored foes due to the armor piercing nature of our bow and FSA. As such, the bow and the spear would serve the same purpose in our arsenal, getting through heavily armored foes. In fact, that was one of the reasons why we picked up FSA in the first place.
The goal is to disengage - whether that's through damage or survival. Note that the only reason we'd pull out a melee weapon is where we're alone. If we're with allies, the flute will be a better option even with 2+ enemies on us specifically like here (with the bear and thunder boy after us). Which means the question is what to do if we have someone on us while we're alone. Pulling out a guandao in this situation is a slow way to lose because survival doesn't do much for our buffs without someone to buff and if we're using a guandao, we're not using our debuffs. The only way it's helpful is if we're buying time for an ally to surprise show up that's not already in the fight, but that's not going to help if the tournament is as we expected: 1v1 fights (+ spirits).
Well.... yes? I mean the exact context of what you are quoting is meant to be where we are in a tournament fight with our spirit as support. As Elder Ying said, we are never going to be truly alone anymore and we will always have someone to buff in a fight (once Zhengui gets big enough for the fights). So, in the instance where we are being gangbanged in a tournament by a cultivator and spirit beast together in order to knock us out before we can stack our debuffs and buffs, the guandao helps by preventing the multi attacker penalty allowing Zhengui that much longer to take out one of the other combatants and allowing us to conserve qi (from the avoided damage) to counter-attack against the other cultivator.
In that sense, the guandao is superior to the spear because it helps us with our defenses rather than our attempts at trying to get one of the attackers out of the fight. A guandao would even help us run away because we would not have the -1 to avoiding snares or other traps. As long as we are going to be an attrition buff/debuff specialist, the defense will be our first priority and the spear will almost never help with that (unless we got a special spear talisman).
Furthermore, I would like to make something clear that seems to have been missed in the last post of mine. So I will state it bluntly, I do not want a guandao by the time the tournament rolls around. I do not want a spear by the time the tournament rolls around. I do not want a melee weapon by the time the tournament rolls around. These discussions are discussions about which is superior to our build, a guandao or a spear. A spear covers the exact same function our bow and arts cover (dealing damage to heavily armored targets) while the guandao will help with our ability to defend ourselves from attack. The spear does not stack very well with what we already have to deal with armor, while the guandao does stack with some of our various defensive buffs.
A discussion on what we should do by the time the tournament rolls around to deal with our melee weakness is something else entirely. As such, I can agree with the focus on knockbacks or roots or additional stuns.
'Disengage' is entirely defensive, really. There's been no sign of a melee penalty for ranged weapons other than the stat tradeoffs required to offset the fact of having range. And Ling Qi can use all of her buff and debuff effects just fine whether there's someone at zero- or close-range or not.
"I just… I don't… I like men," she said, blushing hotly as she turned away. That was… if it was anyone else she would have screamed, or slapped them or something, probably worse really, if she had a knife. She didn't know what to do here.
...
And so, on that somewhat unsettling note, the night ended.
WE FINALLY GOT MEIZHEN AS A WAIFU EXCEPT WE ARE A WAIFU AAAAAAAAAARGH!
Yrs how could you play with my heart this way ;_;
Bugger it, I will not lower the flag, captain goes down with the ship
EDIT:
The pale girl paused for a moment at the door, glancing back over her shoulder, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "I appreciated your effort as well," she said simply. "It is for the best that we avoid such overt familiarity in the future though, for both of us. I am sorry Ling Qi."
Then she was gone, disappearing through the doorway, leaving Ling Qi with the cold feeling that she hadn't helped anyone at all with this.
I suspect that this trial is going to be fairly different from the last one, and that things we're worried about like the Choice of DOOM won't actually be a thing.
Let's look at the details of the last trial. It required 2 people of at least yellow. The challenges were bugs, mimic worms, mass combat, and then The Choice. The requirements line up with the challenges very well. The yellow requirement makes sense - the beasts inside would be too dangerous for reds. The other challenges seem deliberately designed to test our bond - the mimic worm tests how well we know each other and can detect impersonators, the bats test our ability to work together, and then The Choice provides perhaps the ultimate test of friendship. This is why two people are required.
Now lets look at what we know about our new trial. There's some kind of maze, there's no restriction on cultivation, and it can be done by 1 or 2 people. The lack of level gating suggests two possibilities: Either a) any beasts are so weak that even a red should be able to handle them, or b) the challenges aren't physical, and so there's no need to gate them in the same way to protect people. We aren't required to have two people, so it seems less likely that the challenges will be trying to test our bonds the same way that the other trial did.
Hence, I speculate that this trial is likely to be more of a tricky intellectual kind of challenge than the more physical ones that we had before. So, maze, illusions, formations, riddles, that kind of thing. If there are spirits, it's likely that we'll be having to outwit or negotiate with them rather than actually fighting them.
Suyin or Su Ling might actually be quite good at it.
Well, remember, that Gan Guangli actually uses a different defense stat that we do. I don't remember seeing the numbers as to what actually happened in the training duels (which I assume is what you are talking about, as I can't remember a time outside of it when Gan fought Hong Lin) so we don't know for sure if he just weathered the attacks with his stamina or if he was actually damaged.
As for having 7 armor, I find that highly unlikely. That would make all but the heaviest weapons do nothing against him and he could easily steamroll pretty much everyone, which we know is not the case as he has been injured in the Thunderdome fight even before Sun Liling started specifically targeting him. It's quite apparent to me that his qi is able to be drained by regular attacks which would not occur with 7+ armor.
He didn't have his new funky robe during the thunderdom fight... and armour is not what you make it out to be. Durability is a thing, which means that if you do take 4 damage blocked by armour most armour would be half broken, and break next time it happens, etc. I'm not actually sure what you mean by 'weathering the attack with his stamina'. If you mean block it, sure, but 'weathering' implies armour to me.
It seems that your view of armour is something that does not work. I am not sure why it would even exist if it was the case, though. An enemy having 8-9 armour is not 'invincible', he just has a soak art/armour that needs to be taken into account, and so on. It cost Qi and it can get broken, and it's a tactical choice, the same as having a lot of Qi reduction or clash dice is.
Remember, not everyone has armor piercing. In fact, I can think of about 4 people that have it. Hong Lin, Sun Liling, Random Archer mook, and us. There are probably a lot of people out there who do have armor piercing, but I don't think it is as prevalent as people think. Otherwise, the spear wouldn't be appealing for offering basic armor penetration.
As it stands, I think we are going to have to disagree about how prevalent armor is and how much the defensive arts actually give dice rather than flat armor.
I think we'll probably disagree yeah, but, huh, everyone does have armour piercing: We got out first armour week 11, and from then to now it has never actually mitigated any damage. This means 'random undead spirit', 'random corpse mimic', 'random spirit bats', 'random flying puppet', 'random guard puppet', and so on and so forth all had it. The amount of armour piercing varies, but everyone has it.
Having Armour 1 is the equivalent to having no armour... unless you also have an art that increases your armour value like we know Li Suyin and Fan Yu do. In those cases, well, it means their soak actually do work against enemy that have only 1 armour piercing. However, most people who rely on raw damage don't have '1 pierce'. Hong Lin had at least 3 pierce from weapon alone, and probably has 5-6 with arts and passives.
If we had a ten stone spear and IWA, for example, we could have 2 pierce from spear and maybe 3/4 from IWA passive + tech. Not that we want to do that, though.
Just finished catching up on this quest. Again, utterly fantastic work Yrsillar, another amazing ensemble of characters with their own impetus and conceits. Meizheeeeeeeeeeeeen~!
Will be going off and reading the other threadmarks now.
You want a light, stealthy, defensive weapon?
War fan for president.
Works well as a light defense by warding off attacks, quick and light for counter action or for throwing.
As a bonus it can keep you cool on a warm day :u
Just don't expect to punch through armour with it. Everything has its strengths and weaknesses.
This is basically a bunch of knives with a shield cloth between them.
The lack of level gating suggests two possibilities: Either a) any beasts are so weak that even a red should be able to handle them, or b) the challenges aren't physical, and so there's no need to gate them in the same way to protect people.
Alternatively any level gating is already met by Ling Qi or any possible friends of hers and she didn't care/think to check if any companions would need to meet any requirements. It's not like Yrsillar mentions obsolete prerequisites for Arts, either. Meizhen had a serious problem in finding a Yellow companion but that was much much earlier in the year when hardly anyone at all was Yellow.
That's not to say that I don't disagree that it's a 'sneaky thinky test' instead of a partially physical one but that doesn't mean we should totally dismiss the possibility of a difficulty of a combative type.
Anyway, Ying's trial stressed her values, and while 'formations+sneaky test' makes a mind leap, it should be kept in mind that there's surely more Elders Ling Qi has never heard of. Kind of riding on the tips of my toes trying to see over the hill of the future and get a peek of the trial at the moment...
Meh, I'm less for 'j-jam it in!' and more for improving utility and traps; it seems that since the guy we pushed down in a well, we have been more reactive than proactive when it comes to entrapment shenanigans - heck, Chu Song actually pulled one over on Ling Qi!
Imagine if, in addition to our enemies getting robbed blind, they came to realize the intruder had inscribed delayed/triggered cloth-disintegrating formations on their formal apparel! Or slime blomb formations, or foul body odor formations!
Plus we need to find a way past those annoying boy-cooties formations so that we can also pull pranks on the male persuasion!
(Just kidding)
I like formations, it is probably tied for my favorite cultivation method alongside alchemy.
However given the limitations of the quest format and the likely massive increase in workload a comprehensive formations system would represent for yrsillar I haven't tried to push it.
Besides, one of the elders said we weren't the type for it so i'll take that as the hint it is and avoid going down that line more than needed.
@yrsillar - have you been counting the Armor from our first gown, or was it something that had slipped you mind? @Arkeus has rightly pointed out that we haven't exactly seen it stopping any damage; is that an oversight or does everyone actually have AP?
Hong Lin had at least 3 pierce from weapon alone, and probably has 5-6 with arts and passives.
If we had a ten stone spear and IWA, for example, we could have 2 pierce from spear and maybe 3/4 from IWA passive + tech. Not that we want to do that, though.
First, Hong Lin did not have 3 AP. Her weapon says "ignores armor less than three"; that that only pierces 2 armor. In fact, by the wording along, it sounds like this wouldn't stack with other sources of AP, though that may not be intentional so I can see it going either way.
Second, what makes you think that a 10 stone spear has 2 AP?
Imagine if, in addition to our enemies getting robbed blind, they came to realize the intruder had inscribed delayed/triggered cloth-disintegrating formations on their formal apparel! Or slime blomb formations, or foul body odor formations!
I mean, part of the reason Ling Qi didn't nab that jade slip when dunking on Wen Ai's security system is to make it hard to date exactly when she broke in. If you do anything noticeable like trap their stuff or steal something high-profile and high-use (like a jade slip or fabulous clothing/gear) then it narrows the timespan from use to use. For letters Ling Qi has a gap of a month between hers, and while it's certainly less than that for Wen Ai's letters, letting her pinpoint the (possibly as little as) two-or-three-day span between her instances of checking on her letterbox would make any investigation literally exponentially easier.
So what we really want is not just simple delayed/triggered formations, but formations that count activations of their trigger mechanism, and THEN go off. Let them pinpoint the wrong two-or-three-day span.
(Basically, I agree. Sounds legit, though since Ling Qi sort of 'specialises' in Security formations, as always it might be tricky to fit in among everything else she needs.)
First, Hong Lin did not have 3 AP. Her weapon says "ignores armor less than three"; that that only pierces 2 armor. In fact, by the wording along, it sounds like this wouldn't stack with other sources of AP, though that may not be intentional so I can see it going either way.
Second, what makes you think that a 10 stone spear has 2 AP?
Well, Spears have a natural 1 AP no matter how low level the actual spear is, so the spear should have only 1 AP for it to be capable of piercing 2 Armor.
Not that I think a 10 stone spear is capable of that, because I think that's ridiculous. We had to buy a 40 stone Bow for us to have 1 AP so I imagine it'd be in that range.
"We each get something for our victory," Ling Qi decided, casting a glance at Meizhen and Chu Song as she and Su Ling helped Li Suyin stand. Her friends arm was still twisted badly, and Ling Qi could see a massive bruise forming across her side through the rips in her gown. Su Ling was less badly off, being in a similar condition to Ling Qi save that she lacked the benefit of clothing that repaired itself.
She could feel the deep ache that she had come to learn meant that she probably had a slight crack in her ribs at least, from being caught out by the axe wielding boys ranged attacks. "Are you alright Li Suyin?" She asked, looking back to her most wounded friend.
"I will be fine," the one eyed girl responded with a wince as her broken arm shifted, and she leaned more heavily on Su Ling's shoulder. "C-can we finish this please?"
"Right," Ling Qi responded decisively, sharing a look with Su Ling as she stepped away. "Why don't I grab your tokens for you? Do you have a preference?"
Chu Song let out a snort of laughter, even as the boy under her clenched his fists where he kneeled, exhausted on the ground by the unconscious girl. Ling Qi eyed him carefully, she still wasn't the best at reading people… but he mostly just seemed frustrated and irritated. It didn't look like any of their enemies was showing genuine resentment.
"I'll take a storage talisman if they have one," Su Ling responded, eyeing the massive bear sitting on its haunches off to their right.
"Anything is fine," Li Suyin said with a wince, biting her lip as she ran her free hand over her broken limb, fingers aglow with quickly guttering qi. Ling Qi did her best to ignore the painful sounding grinding noise of bones being pulled back into alignment. It looked like her friend had picked up some real pain tolerance.
She looked to Meizhen, and the pale girl simply looked impassively back before glancing at Chu Song. "I have little need for such things… but the clasp in your hair will do. That is what allowed you to resist my poison, did it not?"
Ling Qi tuned out Chu Song's response as she approached the boy and the downed girl, who still breathed erratically, expression twisted with pain even in unconsciousness. The red lines crawling out from her shoulder wound were fading at least.
"I request that you take your spoils from me and not from Luli," the boy spoke up as she approached, wavering slightly on his feet as he forced himself to stand straight, looking her in the eye unwaveringly.
"...Sure," Ling Qi replied glancing over the girl, none of the talisman's she could see looked to be something she intended to keep. The guandao lying off to the girls side was tempting, given her practice with the weapon, but a quick look over revealed it to be an earth aligned talisman. She was probably going to take something from Chu Song anyway. "Do you have a storage ring?" She asked brusquely.
"Yes," the boy responded shortly, she watched him carefully, ready for him to try something as he slowly raised his hand and tapped his finger against the dull grey ring there, a small number of spirit stones, beast cores and other miscellaneous goods poured out. He placed the newly emptied ring in her hand with only a slight grimace. Ling Qi's eye caught on something in the pile of goods then, a gleaming dagger with slightly wavy blade, it was a wood talisman, that would be good for Li Suyin, the girl could use a holdout weapon for when she got forced into melee, and if she didn't want that it looked like it would sell well.
She crouched down and took that too, giving the boy a simple nod before walking toward Bai Meizhen and Chu Song. "Looking to get a piece of me yourself huh?" The muscular girl said as she approached, though she remained still given the presence of Bai Meizhen's flying sword at her back.
"No more than I deserve for the trouble," Ling Qi replied mildly, nodding to Bai Meizhen, who was studying the jade braid clasp in her hand curiously. She gave the girls ragged outward a appearance a look over, studying the possible talismans. "I'll take the armband," she decided after a moment, she wasn't sure if she would use them yet, but they could be useful.
Champion's Band: A plain and unadorned steel armband. Reduces the cost of spine arts by two to a minimum of one.
-Adrenaline Rush: By paying three qi, the user may ignore up to four die worth of penalties to their dice pool for a single clash.
"If you return to this vent Chu Song, you will not be let off so lightly," Meizhen said quietly. "Do not so invade our space again."
"Gotcha," the taller girl sighed irritably, brushing her now partially loose hair out of her eyes. "Bei, help Luli up. Yan, back to me," she commanded as she stood. The spirit beasts on the field dissolved, returning to their binders, and the boy finished gathering his things, and picked up the girl Luli in his arms. The older girl stood up slowly, and took a step back, careful not to appear threatening. "Any objections to me being on my way?" You see her eyes briefly flick toward Li Suyin and then away, as if she is listening to something else.
"We're done here, yeah," Ling Qi replied bluntly. Meizhen too gestured for Chu Song to go, and so they did. It irked Ling Qi a little to let potential enemies just walk away with their heads mostly held high, but that was the way things were she supposed. "How did you know I was in trouble anyway?" Ling Qi asked looking askance at Meizhen even as she moved to hand over Su Ling and Li Suyin's prizes.
"I was informed by your companions that you were in under attack," Bai Meizhen replied cooly, vanishing her own prize with a flick of her wrist. Ling Qi noticed a brief pause in her friends speech before the word 'companions' left her lips. She had a feeling that her serpentine friend had been about to call them subordinates. Still, she followed Bai Meizhen's gaze and gave her other two friends a questioning look.
"I was… experimenting a bit," Su Ling grunted in response, not quite meeting Ling Qi's eye as she took the ring from her. "I picked up a new trick, but it's hard to work. I can sorta… get a feel for things that are happening in the near future. It's spotty and hard to control though."
"Divination is not an uncommon skill among more potent fox spirits," Meizhen mused, giving the ragged girl an assessing look. "Interesting."
Su Ling bared her sharp teeth in response, but she looked down, crossing her arms and remaining silent. The motion drew Ling Qi's eyes to her hands… which she now noticed were covered in small burns and cuts. There was a moment of awkward silence before Li Suyin coughed into her good hand, having tucked the dagger under the sash of her gown. "Ah… I am glad this turned out well, and that you are safe Ling Qi… but perhaps we should go? I suspect I will be needed at the medical hall soon and it seems like there are many other troubles brewing…"
Ling Qi nodded, and Bai Meizhen looked away, freeing Su Ling from her unsettling gaze. "Right, we should get going," she replied distractedly, drawing a pair of wellspring pills from her ring with a flick and popping the restoratives in her mouth.
-2 Wellspring Pills
36/50 Qi
Even as the pills dissolved on her tongue though an alarming thought crossed her mind. Han Jian and Han Fang were both absent from the mountain as far as she knew, or at least in closed cultivation of some kind. Which meant…
"Shit," she cursed, drawing a surprised look from her friends as they approached the cliff. "I need to check on Gu Xiulan. If there's widespread trouble, there's no way the people we've beaten are going to leave her be."
Meizhen frowned. "Have you and that girl truly sown so many grudges?" She asked, pausing at the cliffside. "If this is part of that barbaric girls plot, I think it wiser to coordinate our efforts with Cai Renxiang to limit the damage."
Ling Qi looked away, glancing to her other friends. The both of them looked pretty drained, even if Li Suyin had reduced the worst of her wounds to a manageable level. "Maybe, but I don't want to leave a friend at the mercy of enemies," she replied, not quite meeting Li Suyin's eyes. "Her own allies are absent too. I can't help but think that it isn't a coincidence."
Meizhen pursed her lips, but nodded after a moment. "A fair point, if this is meant to damage and fragment resistance... then it is well timed. Thinking on it, it is likely that the barbarian has been free for at least a few days, laying low and plotting. It seems she no longer regards simple and open assaults as viable." Ling Qi saw a brief flicker of discomfort on Meizhen's expression as the girl looked away. "...Yet I would still prefer that we go to Cai Renxiang's aid."
"We can split up to cover more ground," Ling Qi replied lightly. "I can be pretty hard to catch when I try," she said, ignoring the unpleasant spike of irrational temper at her friend choosing to aid someone else over her. It was a terribly selfish thing to think. Meizhen had already helped her a lot today. She still didn't like it.
"How about we all get to the market first," Su Ling spoke up carefully. "It's best to stay together till we get our wounds tended at least right? Then Suyin and I can lay low, and you can both do your thing."
"We shouldn't delay too much regardless, especially if trouble is happening as we speak," Li Suyin added quietly, glancing between Ling Qi and Bai Meizhen with a worried look.
She was right of course, and so they got underway, going as quickly as could be managed without splitting up, while taking care of their wounds, between her salve, and Li Suyin's help, Ling Qi felt much healthier by the time she split from her friends to seek out Xiulan.
However, despite Su Ling being able to give her a vague directive to search around the base of the mountain, her search does not go easily. Things are chaotic on the mountain. More than once she passed ongoing duels and other less fair fights, often between members of Cai's enforcers and other disciples… but also instances of white armband wearing disciples fighting each other.
It is not exactly conducive to searching for her friend. Ling Qi couldn't bring herself to ignore things either. While she refused to become embroiled in combat, there was no reason she couldn't sink an arrow into the lower back or leg of those ganging up on singular enforcers.
Despite her speed though, the base of the mountain is a large place, and even with her aiding beleaguered enforcers, it takes some time before she received a hint of her friends location, on the word of a girl she had helped, apparently she had been one of the ones observing a series of duels Xiulan had been challenged too before the chaos had broken out. She soon found further evidence in the form of a rather damaged battlefield and a groaning boy who is likely to be spending the next few months regrowing his hair and eyebrows.
He needed a few kicks to shake awake, but given his depleted qi and the fact that he had apparently already been thoroughly looted, she was rather confident that he wouldn't try anything, particularly with her knee on his chest and a knife hovering just above his eye.
It would be a shame if he struggled too much and made her slip after all. That excuse had worked fine for the one who assaulted Suyin. "Don't move," she said harshly as the boy stirred awakened by a bit of shaking. Looking closer, she vaguely recognized him as one of the older disciples she and Xiulan had beaten, furthering her suspicion. "I know you were fighting Gu Xiulan," she bluffed. "So tell me what you and your friends were up to and where they are."
To his credit, the boy didn't fold immediately. "I do not need to tell you a thing. You cannot do a thing to me," he responded scornfully, glaring at her past the knife in his face.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Ling Qi replied coldly, the girls word on what had happened with Xiulan, first one challenger, then another and another, wearing her down until the enforcers had been drawn away, dampened any sense of fair play she might have had. "At the very least I can strip you down to the small clothes, and make sure the rest of your year is miserable. Lady Cai supports her allies, you know? And she doesn't approve of rebels," she didn't hesitate to make use of the girl's name as a threat, whatever she might think of her. "Of course, I can make you pretty miserable myself, you know? Talk, or my hand might slip. I'm just a clumsy peasant after all."
"You wouldn't dare," he replied, seeming slightly less sure. "My family would…"
"They won't do a thing," she bluffed again. He was only just into the late second stage of his physique, with his spirit lagging, and he was at least a year or two older. "Not for a crap talent like you," she said bluntly. "Are you an idiot? Gu Xiulan has a sister nearly in the core sect, I'm friends with the heir to the province and a scion of the Bai. That's not even mentioning the Han family, you know? Look me in the eye and tell me you think I wouldn't get away with it."
She was playing by ear, but it sounded good to her, and going by the sweat on the boys brow he was beginning to put her point together himself. If she were a better person, she supposed she might feel bad, but right now her friend was in danger.
"It was Brother Renshu's idea!" the boy exclaimed as her knife traced the skin just under his eye. "He-he said that… that there was a plan to get back at the first years, and that we could take care of the Gu girl and he would make sure no one interfered!"
Who was Renshu? One of the older disciples certainly. One of the others Chu Song had mentioned as being a peer? "Oh, you must not be very confident in that."
"It was only meant to be a humiliation," he responded defensively. "But after she defeated three of our brothers in a row… Brother Renshu's men attacked everyone, Lady Cai's subordinates, us and her as well. I don't know any more than that! Her and that boy with her ran off to the east," he carefully pointed out one of the several trails where it looked like a fight had exited the clearing.
Ling Qi scowled at him, but didn't detect any duplicity. "If I find out you lied. I will do everything I can to make your life miserable," she warned, pricking his skin with the tip of her knife. She didn't bother waiting for a reply before rushing off in a blur of shadow, the shade from the thick trees and the late afternoon light enough to allow her to activate crescents grace.
The trail of destruction was thankfully easy enough to follow, Xiulan was hardly subtle. The still smoldering trees and torn up turf told the tale of a running battle, but not one she had the time to decipher. She quickly became aware that danger still remained, loose groups of qi signatures hunting through the woods. She was able to avoid them with a bit of effort, but she had to wonder why they hadn't simply followed the obvious trail she was using to guide her.
It stunk of a trap of some kind, but she could feel Xiulan's qi in the fires that still burned along the path, so she couldn't exactly turn away.
Her route eventually lead her to a cleft in high cliff, stained with soot and ash, within which she could feel Xiulan's qi. None of the other sources are nearby, but something still seems not quite right.
Wits+Formations+FVM+Equip. 11 dice +6 auto for cultivation
9 6 1 7 6 7 2 8 6 6 3. 4 successes. 10 total
After a moment, she figured out what was wrong, amid the battle damage to the trees surrounding the clearing, there were inconsistencies, and after squinting at the closest for a moment, she saw what it was. Simple, well hidden formation characters carved roughly into tree bark.
They were the simplest of things, no more than an alarm set to alert the caster if a significant amount of qi left the encircled area. They were hastily set up… but that very sloppiness was a defense, leaving it on a hair trigger, any damage at all would cause them to go off. She was unsure if she could disable them without setting it off, even if she was confident in her ability to slip past the ring unnoted.
Gu Xiulan would have more trouble though… and if Fan Yu was with her, the chances became near zero unless he had been training his ability to sneak in secret.
She needed to confirm if they were alright first and foremost though, and so after another moment's inspection, she quietly approached, and allowed her control of her own qi to slip as she called out to her friend. "Gu Xiulan? Are you here? It's me Ling Qi. I followed your trail."
The clearing was silent for several seconds as Ling Qi stood in the open, so she could be easily seen. In the end though she heard Gu Xiulan call out from inside the crevice, her voice strained and tense. "And how am I to know if you are not some figment of the cowardly trash that has been hounding me, hmm?" She asked haughtily, despite the fatigue in her voice. Ling Qi couldn;t see her, she must have been hiding behind a twist further in.
Ling Qi pondered for a moment. "Gu Xiulan, just a few weeks ago, you confided in me that you were worried that our outings to the sweet shops between duels had added to your…"
"Do not just say things like that aloud," her friends voice cut her, sounding exasperated. She could see the girl scowling at her, having poked her head out from around the corner she had been hiding behind.
"Would you rather I say something actually private?" Ling Qi replied dryly. "Gu Xiulan, are you alright?"
The girl peered at her suspiciously for a moment before stepping out, looking rather ragged, her hair was askew, and her hands were stained with soot. She also walked with a slight limp and had an ugly bruise beneath her right eye. "Well enough considering," she replied, crossing her arms as she peered warily into the woods. "How did you know where to look for me?"
"Su Ling gave me a place to start. She's working on a new art," Ling Qi replied easily. "From there I just had to follow the fires."
"Hah," Xiulan replied dryly to her jibe, even as her expression twisted in distaste. "I suppose that m…" she paused, glancing at Ling Qi. "I suppose I will owe her thanks then. I do not suppose you have anyone else with you?"
"No," Ling Qi shook her head. "Sun Liling is raising the hells again, so only I could come," she added, not letting the touch of bitterness reach her voice. "Is Fan Yu with you? Or one of the others? The one I interrogated mentioned you were with a boy."
"That idiot fiancee of mine took one too many blows to the head throwing himself in front of attacks for me," Xiulan replied, her lips twisting into a disdainful sneer. Her heart didn;t seem to be in the insult though. "As if I could not dodge myself," she grumbled. "He was knocked out for a time, but he is conscious now, if weak from some effect for another of the blows he took."
Ling Qi grimaced, that wasn't great, Fan Yu was an ass… but she wasn't just going to leave him behind. He was still Xiulan's fiancee and Han Jian's friend. "Do you know what the people attacking you are doing?"
"No," Xiulan replied angrily, smoke curling from her hair as she clenched her red gloved fist. "It is as if they are merely trying to cage me here," she replied, her expression growing sour. "...As if I am meant to be bait," she added darkly, glaring at the woods. "Worse, I have fought off two cowardly little probing attacks, I cannot even meditate and recover."
Ling Qi plucked nervously at the trailing edge of her mantle, glancing at the treeline herself. That… had been something she felt worry for. Had Sun Liling created a secondary distraction for her, or was this meant to divert Han Jian and Han Fang if they returned? "We need to get out of here. If we can link up with more of Cai's people, we can get back to everyone else and face this together."
She was dubious of her own words. It would be dangerous and she didn;t even know if more than a handful of Cai's minions would still be standing on return. There were at least eight or nine people in the woods around them, none below late second realm.
"Going deeper into enemy controlled territory may be rash," Xiulan pointed out, proving just how tired she was. "...I had intended to meet my sister in town today to discuss some things," she added slowly, as if she had to drag the words from her own lips. "If we can reach the base of the mountain I can signal her."
"I thought inner disciples couldn't interfere in the affairs of outer disciples?" Ling Qi asked. It would mean covering less distance, if they could though, even if it meant losing still more time to turn things in favor of Cai Renxiang's regime.
"They are not allowed on the mountain," XIulan replied still looking sour. It seemed like she didn't like the idea of relying on her Elder Sister. If a foolish outer disciple attempts to accost one while they have guests, well…"
Ling Qi got the point. Any way she looked at it, the situation wasn't great, she could slip out easily by herself, or at least she thought she could, but getting Xiulan and Fan Yu out would be harder. What should she do?
[] Slip out alone, gather what support you can manage at fast as you can then return and break them out of their entrapment.
[] Break out with Xiulan and Fan Yu, gather support and fight back toward the main part of the mountain to link up with the rest of the council
[] Break straight for the border of the mountain. If Xiulan can really bring her sister down, you should be totally safe
[] Write in?
Well this got longer than intended and took waaay longer than intended. Gonna keep the voting period down to 24 hours this time so no moratorium.
