Sorry bout the delay doods, fight scenes can be kinda hard to write, particularly with all the dice getting thrown around. Will you guys be cool if I cut down on the amount of displayed dice? Stopping every other paragraph to format dice blocks kinda breaks flow alot
I like seeing dice, but I like reading your writing more. However, you want to format it would be fine. My suggestion is that if it is the formatting that is difficult, then just make annotations on where the dice would have been displayed and have a block with all the dice at the end. This would allow us to see the dice and see where they were rolled without hurting the formating.
Sorry bout the delay doods, fight scenes can be kinda hard to write, particularly with all the dice getting thrown around. Will you guys be cool if I cut down on the amount of displayed dice? Stopping every other paragraph to format dice blocks kinda breaks flow alot
In before Ling Qi is this guy's bastard half-sister and his family sent him here to avenge the "stain" on their honor that their shared father's defection and fathering a non-tribe child caused and he'll be a recurring rival/eventual ally
In before Ling Qi is this guy's bastard half-sister and his family sent him here to avenge the "stain" on their honor that their shared father's defection and fathering a non-tribe child caused and he'll be a recurring rival/eventual ally
That and/or he's going to be apart of the quirky miniboss squad that ling qi has to beat before facing her father atop of a exploding volcano while ridding her turtle like a surf board down.
Sorry bout the delay doods, fight scenes can be kinda hard to write, particularly with all the dice getting thrown around. Will you guys be cool if I cut down on the amount of displayed dice? Stopping every other paragraph to format dice blocks kinda breaks flow alot
BTW, an easy way to transcribe rolls for battle is rolz.org. Those rolls are pretty easy, right? Just count up number of dice, 7 or greater is success. We don't really have much rerolls (if any) going on for combat.
Well, this would have been a terrible roll, but still.
BTW, an easy way to transcribe rolls for battle is rolz.org. Those rolls are pretty easy, right? Just count up number of dice, 7 or greater is success. We don't really have much rerolls (if any) going on for combat.
Well, this would have been a terrible roll, but still.
Sorry bout the delay doods, fight scenes can be kinda hard to write, particularly with all the dice getting thrown around. Will you guys be cool if I cut down on the amount of displayed dice? Stopping every other paragraph to format dice blocks kinda breaks flow alot
Sorry bout the delay doods, fight scenes can be kinda hard to write, particularly with all the dice getting thrown around. Will you guys be cool if I cut down on the amount of displayed dice? Stopping every other paragraph to format dice blocks kinda breaks flow alot
It's all the same to me. My only concern is having a roughly accurate gauge of the number of turns passing. It reveals much of the behaviour of our battle style.
But we don't actually care about the boy in an concrete sense - we'll care about him in an abstract way of 'this is how Ling Qi will feel about the situation', but he isn't a character we're invested in. This shaman has sacrificed a bunch of people up till now - the boy being dead when he got here would add nothing to the scene that they don't.
So from a purely Doylist sense the boy should never be dead when we get here unless we do something wrong. We where told we went pretty much blindingly fast through everything this time, yet we're at the point of the sacrifice. If we tried the villages, we would have gotten hints about it, and when we got here the boy should still have been in the exact same position.
But from a narrative logic sense, we could have explored the ruins for hints or started at either of the other two starting location, done a proper investigation and setup so that we had more information to work with, and still made it on time.
They only path I can see where he should narratively speaking be dead, is if we investigated the site first, noticed the signs of recent passage, then left to speak with the guards or the villagers. At that point the kidnapping has just happened, we saw the signs of it, and we still left. At that point he would need to die to create the illusion of time.
Which would have been a waste in story terms, as... well... we wouldn't actually care that much. But it would be needed to create the sense of time passing as we did things.
Eh. We could have started this mission earlier, you know?
Maybe a week or a couple of weeks before, there would be more villagers to save, or that the river spirit is less corrupted and easier to negotiate, etc., etc.
If we didn't take the mission, the next week might have an uproar as a wave of dead spirits invade when an elder Outer Disciple stumbles into a barbarian shaman's safehouse as he receives several more barbarian infiltrators. Or there would be no news at all, just the vanishing of said Disciple...
She met Su Ling's eyes, and a moment of silent communication passed between them. Ling Qi pulled her bow from within her storage ring with a tiny pop of displaced air, the firm grip wrapped around the slightly warm horn settling comfortably in her hand. Su Ling began to circle around the edge of the chamber, clearly meaning to flank the man and separate him from his ritual site… and the child.
Ling Qi for her part drew an arrow from the quiver on her back, and nocked it in one smooth motion, drawing the string back past her ear as she fixed her gaze on the silvery talisman dangling from the leather wraps on the shaman's wrist. Wind kicked up and electricity crackled along the length of the missile, and in that instant the shaman's eyes flicked toward her, but it was too late. She had already loosed her attack.
Ling Qi
Dex+Archery+Zephyr+Stars+First Strike+Bow+Luminescent Star. 22 dice +4 auto due to cultivation
5 7 3 4 6 10 7 3 6 7 5 7 10 10 10 4 2 9 7 6 10 9. 12 successes. 16 total
6 damage total, due to DV Cap
4 damage required to destroy talisman, including unblockable damage.
Remaining two damage blocked by 4 qi.
41/44 Qi
At this distance her arrow needed less than a fraction of a second to cross the distance between them, and it struck the talisman with a booming gong, sounding more like she had shot a huge temple bell than a tiny piece of jewelry. For an instant, it seemed like her arrow was going to be deflected, the qi in the talisman pushing back against her own own offensive qi, but then with a sharp report, it cracked and shattered to pieces, the shaman's own qi flaring as the arrow tore through the leather wrap on his wrist.
He spun toward her a grimace of pain on his face, and a flicker of alarm and anger in his cold eyes. He raised the implements in his hands, but she already had another arrow set and ready to fly, this time aimed at his chest.
Dex+Archery+Zephyr+Stars+Bow+Luminescent Star. 18 dice +4 auto due to cultivation
7 10 4 3 7 4 6 7 4 3 6 7 2 7 3 5 3 7. 7 successes. 11 total
This time her arrow met with resistance though, as the hazy smoke in the air condensed around him, forming shadowy pinions of air and dust that absorbed the qi of her attack as they wrapped protectively around him.
Even as she began to move, circling for better position though, her sense for qi returned, and she nearly stumbled, gagging as her gorge rose, eyes watering from the terrible feeling that assailed her.
The closest comparison she could make was a time when she was very young, young enough to be with her mother, and plague had swept through one of the neighboring wards of the city. It had been barricaded off and quarantined of course, but she could still remember the smells and the sound of disease and suffering.
It did not break her concentration fully thankfully, as the shaman beat his baton against the drum of stretched hide in his hand, the panic and anger in his gaze already fading into absolute, unwavering determination. She felt the winds shift around her, and the moisture in the air gathering, the dark chamber growing even more cold and damp as the shaman beat his drum, and clouds began to form across the ceiling overhead, dark and crackling with electricity.
It was almost enough to mask the dark and gangly shape that emerged from the muddy ceiling above, dropping down with it's chipped and rusted spear extended.
Even with her movements sped by the dark qi rushing through her channels she was not quite fast enough to fully dodge as the skeletal figure struck, spear cratering the ground where she had stood, and immediately lashed out with a mud caked claw, her qi prevented the raking skeletal fingers from finding purchase on her flesh though.
She felt Su Ling's qi flare from across the room, and saw the shaman's expression twitch minutely as he shook his head like a bull being bothered by flies, it did not stop him from continuing to beat a steady and ominous melody on his drum, as he moved from his starting position, seeming to be looking to circle out from between the two of them.
There was an odd rhythm to his steps though, his unseen feet striking the ground in time with the steadily louder beats of his drum.
Totem curse takes. Reduce all physical attributes by one.
Then of course things went worse, as Ling Qi warily eyed the rising muddy skeleton before her, clad in the remains of a guardsman's armor, save for the crude birdlike mask on it's head and the cloak of black feathers over its shoulders, the bone totem pulsed, a rippling ring of visible sickly green qi washing over them all.
Ling Qi nearly wretched, stumbling as he stomach roiled and sweat broke out on her forehead. She blinked away the spots that had suddenly appeared in her vision and tried to steady suddenly shaking limbs. She felt ill and weak.
"Incomplete though it might be. Our vengeance will be felt, lowlanders," Ling Qi stiffened as she heard words spoken in heavily accented imperial, spoken by the shaman. His voice rang out loud over the steady, thunderous beats of his drum, and Ling Qi's instincts screamed at her to escape, move, or at least react.
She would have liked to throw up her mist, but toring her bow and drawing her flute from the ring would take precious seconds she didn't have. Besides, in this case, was she not the one more suited to dealing out damage? Such were her thoughts as she breathed out, channeling cleansing qi at the same time that she prepared a shot to disrupt the shaman's defenses.
She loosed her arrow, and it struck home, her enemy was slow, almost ridiculously so to her eye, but she supposed his defense was suppose to take care of that. Unfortunately for him, his face was locked into a rictus of pain as her arrow cut through his shield of wind and dust, sending snakes of electricity crackling over his limbs as the arrow dug into his side, punching through his heavy robe.
Her concentration cost her though, as the filthy skeleton proved unnervingly fast, crossing the distance she had put between them in only a few instants and thrusting it's spear out, blindingly fast, to score a wound across Ling Qi's thigh, the worst was absorbed by her qi, but she could still feel blood beginning to flow down her leg.
Meanwhile, she caught sight of Su Ling crouched low near the altar the boy was bound too, her tail waving freely behind her as a second ghostly flame appeared above her head, and the shaman's head twitched, nearly causing him to stumble as his eyes grew unfocused. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to stop the completion of his technique, as the clouds gathering across the ceiling grew dark and crackled with lightning. Actinic white bolts shot down from the ceiling, and though Ling Qi managed to throw herself out of the way, she saw Su Ling get struck with several bolts, protected only by the rapidly dimming flare of her qi, as she snatched the boy away from the altar and the strike zone.
To make things worse, she could hear the sound of splintering wood and eerie cawing from the stairwell, it seemed that the shaman's crow puppets would soon be arriving to aid their master, and the clouds overhead were only growing larger and darker with the beat of the shaman's drum. She caught Su Ling's eye and made her decision, though it galled her to not use her best arts… right now, they were best served by putting down their enemy fast. She could see the two glowing flames over Su Ling's head, despite the smudges and ash on the girl's skin and clothes. She would be able to use that art she had used to blow up the cliff side at this point. If she could land another shot as well, she was sure the shaman would go down, either from lack of qi or from his wounds.
So she drew back her bow one more time, even as she shaman met her eyes and spoke again. "My death means nothing, but I will not die easily." She had no time to be worried about that statement as she let her arrow fly
For the third time today, her arrow flew true, this time striking the taller man dead center in the chest, his qi flared, but the arrow punched through, and he was flung back by the force, slamming into the totem with a pained grunt. Ling Qi had to desperately roll to the side to avoid the skeletal guardian's spear again, and was forced to expend qi as the butt of the weapon smashed into her jaw, snapping her head to the side despite the cushioning.
16/44 qi
At the same moment, she heard a chain of explosions, as the faint sparks that had lingered around the shaman from Su Ling's techniques exploded, setting the shaman's robes aflame and leaving swathes of burned flesh.
Despite the flames even now smoldering on his clothing though, the barbarian pushed himself up, leaving an ashen, bloody handprint on the eerily glowing bone. "Tch, still this weak…" He bared his teeth in a bloody smile. "This one's life will not complete thing's, but it will have to be enough. Let the black spirits and the Gnawing Ones curse your very bones."
"Will you just shut up and die already," Su Ling snapped, weighed down by the unconscious child in her arms, but her complaint was shortly drowned out as Ling Qi felt the totem flare, and shaman's eyes rolled back in his head, flesh visibly withering, the arrow she let fly struck nothing more than a corpse, even as she felt the disgusting qi in the totem drive upward mingling with the river's own energy. The man's puppets clattered to the ground, lifeless a moment later.
It was suddenly very cold indeed and Ling Qi shuddered as she heard a madness tinged wail, that seemed to echo through the muddy walls from every direction at once.
"Pretty sure the wards just broke," Su Ling said dully as she staggered to her feet, palming and consuming her second wellspring pill. "We need to start running now." The child under her arm still did not stir, though he was obviously breathing.
Ling Qi followed her lead, taking a second wellspring pill as well to restore her qi, but she wasn't sure she agreed. Wouldn't that only make them more vulnerable? This room was defensible, and she could fill it entirely with mist.
26/44 qi
On the other hand, her qi was low, and she could not restore it any further, and neither could Su Ling. Then again… surely whatever he had done had been noticed by this point, right? Even the earth around her felt sick and wrong at this point. An Elder had to have noticed something so large scale. They might not need to hold out for long.
[] Make your stand here
[] Flee the ruined village as fast as you can
AN: Well, we're reaching the end of things one way or the other.
If you are expecting a rigorously precise adherence to stated mechanics and numbers and consistency thereof and all that, you are in the wrong place, friend-o!
Can I just point out how much our defenses sucked here?
19 dice -> 4 successes,
13 dice -> 3 successes, and
16 dice -> 4 successes.
For references, the averages would have been 7.6, 5.2, and 6.4, respectively.
