More fronts to tackle the Home issue from. Mostly meant as inspiration, perhaps the other side of the coin that is FriedIce Write-in, but they could easily coexist, potentially.
-Qi is wonder (we have the trait to prove it!) and it's been established that Qi is everywhere, even in the mortal world, where our problem with it is just that it's less lively/vibrant. It follows, then, that there's wonder there too, and it's up to us to find it. How does Qi behave in the mortal world? Why is it so different from Hogwarts? Can we affect it? How? Etc. Trying to find answers and unraveling this mystery can be a source of wonder in and on itself!
-It's strongly implied that the dullness of the Qi in the mortal world is at least partially caused by an imbalance among the elemental aspects, and the opposite (i.e. harmony among them) is showed multiple times as intrinsically tied to what makes a place of power such. What makes it magical. Couldn't we work to rectify this imbalance, even if on a small scale and low intensity? Couldn't we make home more magical, aiming to create an immortal oasis of sorts in the mortal world by bringing/enhancing/balancing its Qi? It's happened naturally to our room, already, as per the last update, so why not extend it to our apartment, the garden in front of our building, the playground nearby, etc.? We have the understanding to guide us (Third Eye) and the tools to do it (Skills)!
-The previous point doesn't need to be as hard and daunting as it might seem at first. If our issue is that the mortal world feels dead or grey, after all, then simply bringing our own magic into it should be of some comfort, reassuring us that we can still brighten it (Lumos pun intended) somewhat. Setting our Familiar loose on the patch of the garden in front of home goes a long way towards turning it from mundane to special. Having a magically decked-out house, too. If nothing else, it can be used as justification for Rei being more at ease, at least.
-And if we can bring more wonder into the world, why not start with those who are so full of it? Kids are creatures of wonder. It's only when they grow into adults that they become generally dull and jaded. We (as in Rei) are creative and flashy (and once again, we have the trait to prove it!), so it would be easy and in character if we started to frequent the aforementioned playground (or whatever place the local children go to) and put on little shows meant to inspire awe and delight: light shows with Lumos, shadow puppets with Nox, animated paintings with our Art, feats of supernatural strength sneakily with Diffindo, and not sneakily with our Qi-powered bodies. Before you know it, the flames of wonder we kindle and fan would spread like wildfire, beyond the little kids, to their families, other adults and throughout the community. We'd make home a better place, and a more magical one, too.
So I finally looked into the numbers for the transfiguration techniques.
The Overwhelming Tickler technique: Has a 2% chance per success to generate a success. 2 extra progress per success right now, scales with transfiguration
Water Sprout Technique: gives about 12.5/(successes+1) progress per success (assuming at least 2)
The Total Petrification Technique: Increases the average of earth dice by 12, for 2.4 extra progress per success.
The First Poke Technique: has an 8.4% chance of giving an average of 30. 2.52 extra progress per success
The Chroma-caller Technique: Has an 8% chance to activate on a given success, giving a +30, for an average of 2.4 extra progress per success.
The Horizon Slicing Technique: Every success has about a 13% chance to be rolled with advantage, which increases the average of a d100 by about 17, for a total of 2.2 extra progress per success
The Wing Floating Technique: on average gives .8(successes-1) per success
Of them, my favorite is Wing floating for its long term scaling, followed by tickler for similar.
If Chroma-caller wins here I'd probably be pushing for Wing Floating next month anyway, for much the same reasons I've listed before. It's Wood, so it synergises with our familiar (and doubly synergises if Naturally Springy wins), and it's just my personal preference of the remaining available techniques to look into.
Keen eyes may notice that as of posting this, the mechanics post claims that Ancient Runes affects Divination and Arithmancy. However, as this story continues to be written 'live', things change. It makes for a much more cohesive narrative to have runes tied to charms, so I'm invoking my right to have been wrong in the past, and making changes now. Hopefully it's not too disruptive. Runes now reduces the DC for Charms and Arithmancy. Arithmancy affects Transfiguration and Divination.
How does this actually change our plans for the second month of summer? Arithmancy isn't affected, but Divination now won't have any threshold reduction.
We have 4 tokens to spend, so I'd be tempted to spend two actions on each of the remaining electives even if we get all three socials this turn, but it might be better to spend a 5th tokenless action on Divination just in case.
If Chroma-caller wins here I'd probably be pushing for Wing Floating next month anyway, for much the same reasons I've listed before. It's Wood, so it synergises with our familiar (and doubly synergises if Naturally Springy wins), and it's just my personal preference of the remaining available techniques to look into.
I don't see the appeal of going for more techniques with our Jade Chits: we will doubtlessly have more of them than any other skill equivalent (charms, runes, etc.) because of how much better Transfiguration is, their mechanical benefits are not as good as other things, and we don't have enough Meridian slots to use them all. Instead of getting a technique we'll have soon anyway, and one that would just end up competing against others in order to be used, it makes more sense go for something we can fully take advantage of immediately, and that we'd have to do without for many more turns if we don't use a Jade Chit, in my opinion.
How does this actually change our plans for the second month of summer? Arithmancy isn't affected, but Divination now won't have any threshold reduction.
We have 4 tokens to spend, so I'd be tempted to spend two actions on each of the remaining electives even if we get all three socials this turn, but it might be better to spend a 5th tokenless action on Divination just in case.
That sounds sensible, although as usual, based on calculated odds, things could change, especially that 5th tokenless action. It might be better to aim for Beginner 1, rather than 2, for Divination? It depends on the numbers, I guess.
Having thought about it I'm increasingly convinced by @Epic Bygones that we should pick something that isn't meridian based for the Chit so we get instant payoff.
However, I'm mostly interested in the Care trait evos - so if we got access to a II trait for our familiar for the next Chit I'd be in favour of taking it, but otherwise I'm more persuaded by Runes personally.
A few facts about Runes:
1. They aren't Meridian based, instead there's a hard cap based on cultivation level which we're solidly below. This means we can use them now
2. They're powerful; an extra action every six turns is a lot of free progress.
3. They scale really well; the structure of runes means that they don't fall off anywhere near as hard as a lot of our stuff
4. Thematically they're super cool - creating internal mini-tribulations as a training tool is both 110% Xianxia and super metal
So my vote for Chit goes to:
[X][Chit] Rune of Alacrity
[X][Chit] Rune of Rest
Done so that whichever one doesn't win the Rune vote gets approval voted in. And because I recognise that getting a Rune to win this vote against Humble Light Bringer will be very very hard, and I really dislike the idea of mastering our first Law with someone else's insight here's an approval vote for the second and third runner ups for Transfig:
[X][Chit]The Overwhelming Tickler technique
[X][Chit] The Horizon Slicing Technique
And finally, the rest of my vote so the bot doesn't get confused:
[X][Name] Rex
[X][COMC] Natural springy ball I
[X][COMC] Woodwind tricks I
[X][Runes] Rune of Rest
[X][Home] FriedIce Write-in
-[X] The life of an artist is to suffer. This is axiomatically true. However, an artist's life is not suffering. You will emulate the greatest artists in history and channel your suffering into your canvas. Your frustration with the Muggle world will shape your brushstrokes, your isolation from your dad will imbue your pallet choice and your qi-deprivation will decide your subject matter. And if you feel better at the end of it, well that comes second to having made good art, right?
[X][Vow] Agree
Having thought about it I'm increasingly convinced by @Epic Bygones that we should pick something that isn't meridian based for the Chit so we get instant payoff.
I'm fairly sure that the technique is available for use even if we don't get the mechanical benefits when rolling for pools/results. We only have open meridians due to two nat 100s after all.
The fact remains there's also a hard limit for Transfigurations, that being what we can get from the skill. Even at the peak of Apprentice we have 8 'levels' worth of techniques, and I'd rather get as many as we can, especially since we can use them a lot more actively than runes. Runes are just magical training weights at our current level (and we have no idea how or if that'll change in the future) whereas techniques are in fact immediately usable now, even if we need meridians for the full mechanical boost.
And it's not like meridians are hard to get, we could easily open at least half a dozen more in the first few months in second year without compromising other areas.
[X][Name] Rex
[X][COMC] Natural springy ball I
[X][Runes] Rune of Alacrity
[X][Vow] Agree
[X][Chit] The Chroma-caller Technique
[X][Chit] The Wing Floating Technique
[X][Chit] The Horizon Slicing Technique
If/when we get a third technique, I'd rather it be Wing Floating than Tickler. We could theoretically get both, but that's be building too wide for my liking.
Yeah, FriedIce probably meant instant mechanical payoff, which was my point. Narratively, anything we pick with a Jade Chit becomes a tool at our disposal, techniques included, but since that's only one side of the quest/system, I can't help but feel like it's a poor investment.
The fact there's a hard limit to how many we can get is true for everything. And for techniques, we know each Law has a max number of them and we don't know whether anything special happens when we get them all. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be such a cap for charms and runes, for example, and the naming of the CoMC options seems to imply that a familiar's upgrades are pretty extensive/expansive. Those are more points in favor of not using Jade Chits on techniques (and if we do, at least do so to get Chroma-caller and see what happens when we complete a Law, rather than going for something else).
I still think that a CoMC evolution would be the best use of our Jade Chit. Given the current tally for the familiar vote, Natural springy ball II.
Yeah, FriedIce probably meant instant mechanical payoff, which was my point. Narratively, anything we pick with a Jade Chit becomes a tool at our disposal, techniques included, but since that's only one side of the quest/system, I can't help but feel like it's a poor investment.
I think my main issue with picking a tune with the chit here is that right now it has no use beyond mechanics (magical training boost), whereas techniques I find more interesting as they give us another way of interacting with the world around us.
Runes: the skill does something similar, in that it gives us insight into Arithmancy and Charms (thus lowering their thresholds) but that's not part of the vote. It's possible individual runes can eventually do more than act as a training boost, but I'd expect that to be gated behind Foundation Establishment.
I'm fairly sure that the technique is available for use even if we don't get the mechanical benefits when rolling for pools/results. We only have open meridians due to two nat 100s after all.
Yes, but how are you supposed to personalise and internalise a mastered technique when you're using someone else's insight into it?
Mastery in Xianxia is deeply personal and it's why I'm basically voting everything but Chroma Caller (despite my runic preference) - not because I don't want to master Humble Light Bringer, but because I think we'll lose out by doing it using using borrowed insights.
I edited it in my vote to put Chroma-caller ahead of the other technique candidates, just for that reason, but I'm not at all convinced. it's still something we'd get, anyway, somewhere between 1 and 4 turns (rather than 12+ of electives' stuff) and it's still limited by meridian slots and competing for them with the other techniques, charms and I'm fairly certain Astronomy's sites/rituals, as well, whenever we get to those.
Yes, but how are you supposed to personalise and internalise a mastered technique when you're using someone else's insight into it?
Mastery in Xianxia is deeply personal and it's why I'm basically voting everything but Chroma Caller (despite my runic preference) - not because I don't want to master Humble Light Bringer, but because I think we'll lose out by doing it using using borrowed insights.
It's fair to say that if there was a downside to using Jade Chits, our QM would tell us. But @Karf ?
That said, personalizing/internalizing something is almost always a matter of taking outside knowledge/insight and making it yours. There's nothing saying that Jade Chits prevent you from doing that from a narrative standpoint, I don't think.
[X][Home] FriedIce Write-in
-[X] The life of an artist is to suffer. This is axiomatically true. However, an artist's life is not suffering. You will emulate the greatest artists in history and channel your suffering into your canvas. Your frustration with the Muggle world will shape your brushstrokes, your isolation from your dad will imbue your pallet choice and your qi-deprivation will decide your subject matter. And if you feel better at the end of it, well that comes second to having made good art, right?
[X][Home] FriedIce Write-in
-[X] The life of an artist is to suffer. This is axiomatically true. However, an artist's life is not suffering. You will emulate the greatest artists in history and channel your suffering into your canvas. Your frustration with the Muggle world will shape your brushstrokes, your isolation from your dad will imbue your pallet choice and your qi-deprivation will decide your subject matter. And if you feel better at the end of it, well that comes second to having made good art, right?
[X][Tactics] Midrange dazzler (disorient, range can float but you're probing, fading, and trying to use light tricks to disguise and distract).
[X][Chit] The Chroma-caller Technique
changed my name vote to Fuzzy Wuzzy and added a chit vote.
With the help of Qi, your familiar can reach Olympic jump heights for its size. In an inversion of earth Qi, it turns its body into a ball that can bounce in complete defiance of physics. You'd like to improve on that some more, and not only because it makes the moss even softer to cuddle.
For every earth aspect result roll 25 or less, add an earth aspect pool die to the next action this turn.
[X][Runes] Rune of Alacrity
A rune to limit your physical speed, placing your perception of yourself at odds with the world. When you release the blockage on your Qi, the actual hard part of becoming faster with the use of your personal store of mystic energy is already done, meaning you'll just have to get used to your new-found abilities, rather than train them from the ground up.
Gain a stack for each fire aspect pool success.
Upon release, exactly duplicate one chosen action per 15 stacks. The action is chosen as part of the plan, i.e. before rolling.
5 turns to release from striking, 1 turn of cooldown upon release.
[X][Chit] The Chroma-caller Technique
You'll tread the middle path - between white and black is a myriad of beauty, and it'd be a shame to leave the twin halves separate. If you can emit every color, or none, then it stands to reason that you can also pick and choose which wavelengths get absorbed and which can reach your eyes. A transfiguration of color is the natural endpoint of the humble law of light.
If the aspect from the previous result roll to the next one changes from fire to water or vice versa, add +30 to the result as bonus.
"Rex! Get down from the lamp or I swear I'll turn it on!"
While it seemed like a good idea to teach your familiar to be a reverse trampoline, you're really straining to not regret the decision. Well, not really, but it does lead to some annoyance.
"Scared!" is the reply you receive from above.
"For Qi's sake, you've jumped out of the window before," you don't live on the first floor. "Just aim for me, I'll catch you."
It all started with your work on the rune of alacrity. With spare eyes to see the process of crafting the lattice of energy in more senses than with your charms, you couldn't help but notice that a lot of fire natured Qi was going into the construct. You might be over your worry about fire, but healthy caution is still warranted, doubly so with the Elder's warnings fresh on your mind. A lot of the description deals with the siphoning of otherwise wasted energy, and you temporarily thought that the explosive bursts of motion Rex could put on display had a similar mechanism behind them. So you put your notebooks filled with half-aborted snippets aside to observe a practical example.
"What if no bounce?" said example still refuses to simply drop a couple of feet.
Instead, you found that the best analogy you have for what Rex does to jump is a water droplet splashing into a still pond, except in reverse. A wave of earth Qi ripples through the ground towards the mossball and as the rings converge, the peaks become higher and sharper, eventually smashing into your familiar from below to propel him upwards. Some of the energy gets pulled along for the ride, making him extra soft and bouncy in flight, serving as a sort of ablative armor that he instinctually releases against whatever touches his body.
"We've done this before, Rex. Remember what I taught you about falling. You'll be fine!"
Thusly distracted from your original project, you spent a few days drilling the little guy on the speed of his technique, if you could call it that. Once he had it down to nearly instantaneous levels on the floor, you moved to ever more contrived scenarios. Taking off from the kitchen counter proved no more of a challenge than the ground. The next thing you thought of was a tub of water - relevant should your familiar ever get stuck in a well, which, given his propensity to seek baths, is not at all unlikely. The dry practice clearly helped him, as it didn't take long until he was equally capable of drawing in the ambient Qi to fuel his jump, despite the barrier of water between him and the ground.
"Really catch?"
"Of course, Rex," you spread your arms, finally figuring out his ploy.
The final piece of training you decided should be done was to practice falling. Just in case he misjudged a leap or needed to not bounce on his way down. Experiments showed that patches of dried out moss practically float, and although your familiar definitely has a hefty water weight to him, he's not sopping wet either. If he spreads himself as wide as he can then he falls... not quite like a sheet of paper, but perhaps a cardboard box. This training was done by throwing the little guy progressively higher and higher into the air, until you had to do so after dark to avoid unwanted attention. You doubt that many mortal twelve-year-olds can throw a tennis ball seventy feet into the air, let alone a clump of moss the size of their head.
Rex himself absolutely loved it. The flying aspect left him indifferent, but smashing into your hugs had him waking you up at the crack of dawn for extra 'training'. Your familiar is quite the cuddle-bug, and you wouldn't have it any other way, as a fresh, earthy scent fills your nose, Rex slamming into you as you catch him. Distractions with familiars aside, your time at Hogwarts continues with your nose stuck in thick and dusty tomes. "Ye briefe works of Harald Black" that Elder Babbling recommended for you appears at first to be more of a story-book than academic text, but by your third read-through you're starting to understand things. In many ways, it serves as a guide to pick out what's important for the rune of your choice. Black's daring escape from the Viking warship isn't given a whole chapter because it's thrilling; it's there because he had to truly push himself, all the while working against a time pressure, lest the ship get too far from shore.
Luckily, you have no shortage of personal experience to draw on for the subject matter. With slight alterations, as most of your tribulations are more about lasting long enough - fighting with the clock, rather than against it. Your feelings on quidditch matches get translated into Qi diagrams. The fight against a troll, retrospectively equal parts daring and stupid, also slides into place, giving the added nuance of keeping going in the face of long odds and injury. Of a time-crunch, you pen a tale of your flight through a painted battle: the lack of surety and unknown pressing you to succeed.
Much of the tractate you're composing seems inviting for fire Qi. You're already well aware of the way the elements encompass far more than just their physical representations, but true understanding eludes you. Will probably elude you for a long time, if not forever, a part of you suspects. The association chains that form the thread of your knitwork leap all over the place: from fire to the color red, made all the more poignant by your experience with the jade chit. Red, which you associate with passion and impulsiveness, the color of action. Impulsiveness gets connected to the idea of impulse, not because the two concepts really have any ties, but because the words sound similar, and thus linked for you, specifically. Meanwhile, the other end of the chain goes from fire to warmth to energy, letting you tie up another loop that you envision clasped around your thigh.
Not only do you need to tie together the experiences that shaped you, and the conceptuality that is in turn formed by your understanding granted to you by those events, the whole rune itself is, as best as you can describe it, a kind of tattoo. A metaphysical image traced over your body, winding and decorating the shape of your Qi kept in some facsimile of human silhouette. In several places you flounder for a while, simply not experienced enough to draw the parallels you desire. In others, you need to construct bridges where your dantians don't quite meet up. You'd like to say that the bridges are imposing things of stone and mortar, but realistically they're closer to vines strung over a ravenous chasm. As your stacks of notes grow, it starts to feel less like a work of art or writing, and more like an architecture project. You find yourself forced to calculate Qi throughput through the word "move", and having to replace it with the runic equivalent of "movement", which in turn throws off the alignment of "shift" and "swing" down the line.
Still, as July draws to a close, the image starts to come together. The references to unwritten work become fewer and fewer, and with your last chit of the month (you're sticking to your rationing) you once more make for the office of Elder Babbling.
"Speak," the call comes in the exact same tone as your first visit.
"Honored Elder, this one returns to you as per your instruction. I have put together my first runic inscription, and would be most grateful if you could educate me to its shortcomings."
"Hrmp, mountains will crumble to dust before I'd be done with that."
A silence descends, with you still half-bowed over and entirely unsure how to approach the prickly elder.
"Well, lets see it then. That just means we need to get started soonest."
Suppressing a victorious smile, you hastily retrieve your diagrams, pages floating away from your hands as the elder channels a minute amount of her power. Soon enough, the whole of your work takes shape in front of you, each chain rendered in three dimensions for the first time. The elder narrows her eyes, the orbs suddenly expanding to fill the whole of the oversized glasses on her nose. With birdlike motions - she looks quite owlish, even if you do your best to scrub such thoughts from your head - she inspects the lines in silence. Occasionally, she pokes a word or image and the paper crumples and folds into a different, if still recognizable configuration. For the better part of an hour, your work is subtly altered in ways you never thought of, yet the end result is much more cohesive, as though the elder knew you better than you yourself did.
"The foolishness and folly of youth on full display. Barely worth the parchment it's written on," she comments at last, "But... I suppose it's the best one could hope for these days. Make sure you study these minor corrections for at least a hundred hours. Beyond that, you shouldn't get spaghettified when you apply this. Provided you follow rules one and two!"
"Strike carefully and with surety. Thank you for the help, honored elder," the papers slam into a messy pile in front of you and you clutch your project to your chest as you dip into another bow, ignoring the wax that has somehow been splattered over the pages. The only answer you get is another harrumph, the woman returning to her desk. The jade statuette of a plain looking woman sitting in a seiza with her eyes closed came with a mercifully brief set of instructions. As the experience can be disorienting, it's recommended that you lie down. Next you're supposed to channel Qi into the stone, fill it to the brim and then re-gather your energy. If done correctly, the experience trapped in the crystal will flow back to you, letting you assimilate it as your own while the statue becomes inert, requiring a lengthy recuperative period before it could be used again. From what you surmise, lengthy in this case probably means decades, so you better get this right on your first try. No pressure.
Thus, you're sprawled on your bed, Rex cuddled on your chest with instructions to catch the statuette should you drop it. With one last breath, you pull on the energy you've been pooling in the thing for the better part of the morning.
Everything is bright one moment, and the next you're flying through completely empty space. Around you, your brethren waves spread out, and slowly but surely you expand and extend. You travel eons in the blink of an eye, time-distances completely irrelevant for your purposes.
Every once in a while you bounce. For a wavelength, you cease to be motion and instead greet your fellows. Then you emit off again, to spread the news to your next destination. Despite no time passing, you can order the events by causality alone, and the further you go, the more frequently you get absorbed. In so many ways, you are your brethren - from the lowest of waves to the fastest of buzzers, you are all of them for a cycle, although the latter grows more rare as the all-that-is grows colder. Eventually, you settle down. Once more you're surrounded by your fellows and brethren, bouncing between states now so common that you actually have a sensation of time passing. You find a comfortable niche for yourself, somewhere in the neighborhood of green, and make friends with similar brethren. Together you bounce, forming a group of bright and a dash of warmth, slowly making your way out of the tiny curvature you've grown used to.
Until, in a pale echo of your initial moments, you're thrust into emptiness for a few minutes once more. During the time you spent gallivanting around, you seem to have missed quite a bit, but you also have a more mature mindset. You know the difference between time and space, you've grown different from your cousins, although you can by now tell that this must have happened a long, long time ago. In less than two handfuls of minutes, you arrive at your next bounce. Some of your brethren wave you a blue goodbye, but you don't feel like it's your moment yet. In another blink, you find the fellow you're supposed to meet, and dutifully gather his info before darting off again.
Except - something makes you pause. You've never, never ever ever taken stock of such a short breath with such clarity. Your very essence vibrates with curiosity as you behold an inviting construct of the overlord, shaped by a collection of all your families, as you learn from passing brethren. The houses of your fellows wobble like you do, writ slow as molasses, but it's a pleasant wobble all the same.
"Prismus!"
For the first time ever, you have a touch of agency. The inviting construct of the overlord endows you with the option to choose. The way it asks is polite, and you see no reason to say no. The news you're carrying isn't vital, and the fellow surely wont mind if you just nudge your wave to be a bit more energetic. In a completely novel experience, barring the natural process of aging all-that-is goes through, you change yourself from green to purple without any collisions. It tickles a bit.
The shaper-collection's eye is the next stop, and the overlord announces that it is pleased by your arrival. You'll have quite the story to tell, but of course, you can't dally. You bounce again, this time joined by a varied cadre of your brethren and blast off into space unknown.
Rei opens her... you open your eyes. For a brief moment you just lay there, staring at your ceiling, trying to wrap your head around the stream of brethren arriving... no, you're still Rei, and you have a concrete goal. The construct of the Over - of Qi needs to be seared into your memory. You dip into meditation, only roused when Dad shakes your shoulder, the pre-noon having turned into late evening within a blink. With a quick promise to arrive at the dinner table, you gather your will and with a snap of power, turn theory to practice.
"Prismus."
A technicolor display shimmers over your hand, gamuts of rainbow orbs cycling around your palm, some lighting up your room whilst others treat you to the unique sensation of colors getting sucked up from the environment, a reverse flashlight casting the world in shadows.
[X][Home] The life of an artist is to suffer. This is axiomatically true. However, an artist's life is not suffering. You will emulate the greatest artists in history and channel your suffering into your canvas. Your frustration with the Muggle world will shape your brushstrokes, your isolation from your dad will imbue your pallet choice and your qi-deprivation will decide your subject matter. And if you feel better at the end of it, well that comes second to having made good art, right?
As the days pass, you find yourself more and more withdrawn, sinking into a routine you're not sure you particularly like. Being alone isn't really anything new, nor is it your enemy, but at the same time, neither is it something you like to wrap around yourself like armor. Whether or not you have that choice... you'll be finding out, you suppose. Your initial reaction to the issue - to prevail over yourself - shall need to ring true for that. To bury your head in the sand of the metaphorical cave of your room is not the actual answer. It's not who you are, nor what you want your cultivation to be; you refute the idea that you won't find that special spark, if you only look hard enough.
Behind your house is a tiny playground, nestled between an overpass, train tracks and the next building's parking lot. From your room, you have an overview of the concrete lot, and you've noticed that a pair of kids no older than five meet there every evening. At least one of the mothers accompanying them lives a few floors up, and probably knows your face, so she likely won't call the police on you if you climb to the roof of the utility shed and set up shop. You'll need to find wonder in the mundane, after all, so there's no better place than the familiar grounds of your childhood.
Well, that and you're a bit sick of spending the whole summer doing nothing but reading, studying and sitting still in your room, time spent with Rex notwithstanding.
Rei versus Nega-Rei
Starting initiative: Rei
Rei HP: 180
Nega-Rei HP: 180
Rei active effects: not applicable in this scenario
Rei stats:
health: 180
pool size: 5
threshold: 15-5=10 - an outlet encompassing who she is and what she likes, tied together with her burgeoning cultivation base
die type: 21
bonus: 30
Nega-Rei stats:
health: 180
pool size: 5
threshold: 15
die type: 21
bonus: 30
You dig out a board of plywood and clamps, cut a square from your ream of sketching paper and fill your case with pencils. You briefly consider bringing your enchanted brush, but discard the thought as fast - this is about the process after all. You start in the afternoon, basking on the warm tiles despite being saved from the glare of the sun by a light cloud cover. Under your exacting hand, the lines of the playground start to take shape: the jungle gym dome, the swings in the back, the slides and the seesaw.
One of the swing seats is missing, but you fill it back in. It's the one closest to the overpass, and legend has it that if you swing hard enough, you can actually jump and reach the ledge. Barring the fact that you actually could achieve that now, you instead sketch in a grinning boy flying off with the seat, and his two friends cheering him on from the ground. The tips of the broken chains become metal elementals, congratulating each other on a job well done.
The seesaw gets the next uplift. You'd never really gotten into them, on account of usually playing alone, but with Rex bouncing about, enjoying himself before the muggles show up, you decide its time to change that. With a flex of your will, the dusty paintjob of blue becomes as vibrant as the warmest of seas, the handlebars pure white like sailcloth and the seats an inviting rusty brown, mimicking the hulls of old ships. With the visuals improved, you return to your drawing, sketching yourself as a captain on the high seas, bouncing in tandem with a round ball of green fluff that has somehow acquired a buccaneer's hat.
The four o'clock train briefly breaks your concentration, only to spur new flights of fancy. You start up a new sketch of a returning ride, filled with people commuting home. Each window gets its own character and you gleefully dig into what little knowledge about divination Lavender has managed to impart on you to craft a narrative. A businessman is going to sit in the middle. He'll be coming from downtown and going all the way to the edge of the city, so he knows he won't be getting up for a while. To his right is a trio of elderly ladies, one of whom you know lives nearby. They always do their shopping right before the banks close, so the next window over is going to be empty to account for their bags. On the other side is a pair of teens, naturally gravitating towards the back of the cabin and ready to get off at the next stop. One of them looks a bit impatient, because he has made plans for the evening.
You barely finish in time for the returning train. The businessman was a safe bet, but you are quite close with the other two guesses as well. The ladies don't really look that old, and they're sitting in the back, whereas the teens were both boys in your head, but the impatient one is actually a girl. You drink deeply from the Qi flowing in their wake to see if you can determine any patterns or hints as to whether you were just lucky or flat out wrong. Your analysis is, of course, doomed to failure because you don't really know what you're looking for, and unfortunately it's not quite so simple that you could say you'll know it when you see it, but it's no skin off your back to try anyways.
That you spend significant effort to study 'mortal' Qi with no adverse effects barely even registers.
Round 1 Initiative: Rei
Rei pool: [3, 8, 3, 2, 18] = 1 success
Nega-Rei pool: [4, 9, 11, 19, 2] = 1 success
Rei deals [61+30] = 91 damage
Rei HP: 180 Nega-Rei HP: 89
Embarrassingly, you let time get away from you, and the pair of models you are supposed to be waiting for arrive before you notice them. The whole playground is lit up with your newest spell, and you make an executive decision to leave the transformation in place as the kids excitedly rush towards the nearest attraction. You're not so vain as to take umbrage at the city council receiving undue praise for your efforts from the parents - the excited laughter as the boys jump onto the seesaw is payment enough.
Rex has more sense than you do, but it seems like he was also caught out. Rather than make his way to the grassy parts where his camouflage is most natural, he's taken a hiding spot under the slide, and you help him out with an extra tendril of Qi that turns his deep green into a concrete grey. Still, you have a plan to carry out, and once more focus on your drawing.
Some subconscious impulse makes you switch your style from a whimsical abstraction to a comic-book layout realism. The strip you sketch out is focused on the slide, if only so you have time to fill in the background before the children start their games. The first panel is obviously dedicated to the victorious climb, messy hair just peeking over the edge on the top. You finish perfectly on time for your vision to become reality, blond locks appearing on the ladder, eight feet over Rex's hiding place.
The game of the day seems to be king of the hill, as a fierce fight ensues over who gets to sit on top, the loser sliding down with a shriek before running around for another round. You open your senses to their fullest, drinking deep of the energy of the epic battle and letting the Qi guide your hand.
Or you would.
The Qi surrounding the pair is far more tense than you would have thought, anticipatory and not in a good way. A simple slice of life comic you thought you were drawing takes on a tragic undertone, the blond kid teetering on the edge of the railing as the pair gets far too into their game, spurned on by what they perceive as a fresh coat of paint on their favorite hangout.
Just as you finish the panel, the kid climbs onto the final bit of height, shouting down something indistinct to his friend, who takes it as a challenge. With a thoughtless shove the blond boy loses his balance. It doesn't take a mind honed by quidditch to know that neither you nor the mother are anywhere near close enough to catch him.
"Rex!" you command, punching through the Qi of tragedy with a lance of your intent. Nothing more needs to be said, your familiar entirely in tune with you. A patch of moss that was underneath the slide is suddenly extended a foot out. Instead of landing back first on concrete, the kid falls into a soft cushion, bouncing once before he settles down, eyes wide as saucers.
A swirl of relief and bewilderment blows through the ambient energy like a twister, but you pay it little mind, just barely enough to note the disruption even as you arrive on the scene.
"Bobby!" the kid's mother is only just leaping to her feet from the bench by the side of the playground. Plenty of time for you to take control of the situation.
"Are you okay?" you ask, receiving a shaky nod even as Rex's passage tickles your back beneath your shirt. With a smile, you step back, your own quarry secured, and let the kid breathe. Not that he has the space for long, his friend rushing over to him babbling apologies, clearly far more upset and shocked than the prospective victim. Seconds after, he's pulled into a tight hug as the adults arrive on the scene. With everything in hand and a scolding of a lifetime right about to land, you catch the eyes of Bobby one last time, Rex waving to him from underneath your collar. He blinks at you bewildedly, right before the mother switches from a hug to a two-handed grip on both shoulders that every kid knows means trouble. By the time anyone thinks to say anything to you, you've made yourself scarce.
It's after dinner that you return to your unfinished drawing, a snapshot in carbon of tragedy that would have struck had you not been on hand. That you helped prevent, even if no one will ever know. It's with a quiet pride and steady heart that you finish the sketch. The final panel shows Bobby on the ground, immobile. You prevented that. By working with the Qi of the world, your actions create ripples that matter. You've just been paradoxically equal parts too humble and arrogant to see them.
The veritable jungle of Qi at Hogwarts is no more or less wonderful than a single flower blooming in a pavement crack. Every seed you plant is still a worthy step, even if one grows into a massive vine while the other barely peeks into the sun; a butterfly might flap its wings because of either.
'To remind myself,' you think as you cut out the comic - an ironic word in this circumstance - and glue it into your official artbook. If your art is to be of suffering, then only of that which you reduce. If ever there was a worthy goal, this would be one, and let it never be said that you shy away from pursuing the goals you set for yourself. Qi deprivation or not.
Round 2 Initiative: Rei
Rei pool: [17, 20, 9, 11, 14] = 4 successes
Nega-Rei pool: [11, 1, 14, 2, 10] = 0 successes
Rei deals [29+30, 94+30, 34+30, 27+30] = 304 damage
Rei HP: 180 Nega-Rei HP: -215
Rei wins!
[X][Tactics] Midrange dazzler (disorient, range can float but you're probing, fading, and trying to use light tricks to disguise and distract).
[X][Vow] Agree
There's perhaps fifteen feet of distance between the two of you - neither close nor long range. Probably the best range for you. Despite the distraction that Daphne's offer presents, you find yourself ready for a fight. With a perfunctory bow, the two of you square off. Your potions are thrumming in your veins of Qi, but a lingering exhaustion is still upon you, the scant minutes you've spent in the immortal world not quite enough to properly warm up your energy. You watch as something in your opponent's pocket unravels and her hands take on a distinctly metallic sheen. Judging by the speed of the transformation, it would appear that your peer is not similarly affected.
Rei versus Daphne Greengrass
Starting initiative: Rei
Rei HP: 180
Daphne Greengrass HP: 200
Rei active effects: ['Careful Sommelier', 'Pebble Elemental', 'Rapid Steward']
Rei stats:
health: 180
pool size: 5
threshold: 15-2=13 - tried and true epilepsy inducer
die type: 21
bonus: 30
Daphne Greengrass stats:
health: 200
pool size: 7
threshold: 14 - she knows what to expect at least
die type: 20
bonus: 30
You're not going to fix things that aren't broken. A ball of light shoots out from your face and you split from yourself an approximately you-colored blob of light, making it seem as if you're juking to the left. So far, everything is going according to plan - the blonde has her eyes squinted to just shy of being completely blind, and the block she puts up clearly shows that she's off balance. You could aim for a crushing victory, but you're also curious and slightly cautious about the technique she's got going. Indeed, considering that she likely knew what you were going to start off with, perhaps she has some contingency.
All this goes through your head as you rush closer in the shadow of your light orb. Really, you'd already made your decision when you pushed off towards her again. Rather than aim to end the first match right now, you'll test her block. It'll give you good info, and her dazed state will prevent her from retaliating.
At least, that's the plan. With a half-spin, your leg smacks into her forearm and that's when everything goes wrong. Your shin goes halfway inside her arm, flesh parting like modelling clay, only to snap back around your limb, entrapping it in a vice. The fact that she's still half-blind means little. With a mighty heave you're pulled off balance and your world spins. That you tried for only a probing strike continues to work against you, leaving you with little in the way of leverage, most of your weight kept from following through. Instead, you're forced into an awkward flip to avoid the other hand coming down on your exposed leg - you don't fancy finding out if the transformation also grants her metallic density.
The end result is you almost suplexing yourself, most of your momentum going to breaking your foot free. The cost is only the actual supporting power of said leg, a slam of your face into the training mats and a brief cessation of your lungs' ability to draw in air. All in all, an abhorrent start, but at least you found out what her technique does.
You desperately call on your Qi, filling the air around you with a veritable flood of light, creating alternating bubbles of light and dark as you roll to the side. The first exchange might have shaken you, but somehow you're not out yet. With a push you corkscrew upright as Daphne's fist makes contact with where she thought you would have been, fooled by your trickery. You left a few orbs the color of your robes strategically visible in the center of your disco ball, and she went for those, rather than your actual location.
With an awkward one-legged hop, you launch yourself at the ceiling beams, mostly using your hands to create distance from the metallic girl.
"What was that?!" you'd certainly never known her to have an interest in transfiguration.
Daphne turns around, blinking as she tries to clear the spots from her vision. "Although not our primary area of expertise, the Greengrass clan is quite well versed in self-transfiguration."
You keep going higher just to see what she'll do, and thankfully, your suspicions are confirmed - the technique is not ranged. She knows she's got you on the ropes, and jumps after you, but tight beams are very much your domain. By the time she's climbed the first one, you've gone across another three. As she takes her second leap you twist on the air around the platform she's aiming for, coating it and a bit around it in an impenetrable wall of darkness. The pain just above your ankle is slowly becoming manageable, and you're not one to cede initiative.
The bubble of darkness is even more devious than she thought it'd be - you didn't center it on the actual beam, but rather the edge, leaving the void lopsided and causing her to overshoot. Right on the brief moment she's off balance completely, you blast her with another dose of lumos and follow it up with a relatively dull cutter. The latter slams into her flailing arm, and she lets out a soft hiss. Not only do you cut her skin, but also the metal Qi of her technique. It's not enough to disrupt it entirely, but it does cause it to falter for long enough that the rest of the spell goes through, scoring you your first actual point of the match.
For the next few minutes, the fight becomes a game of tag. Unfortunately, while your experience compensates for some of your hampered mobility, it's not enough to let you run circles around your opponent. Likewise, you're not sure how much punishment her quicksilver arms can take, so the stinging whips are just that - stinging. Sure, it's still costing her Qi to keep re-establishing her control of the actual technique, and the welts must smart a bit, but it's not enough to put her down or even really push her back.
What the cat-and-mouse action does allow you to do, is mull on your options.
"So," you roll on a particularly thin beam, barely avoiding Daphne's grasping strike aiming for your weaker leg from below, "if Cereus is the daughter of your uncle, but only every seventh member of the clan is a boy, where are the rest of your aunts?"
"The count is for the whole family," she grunts out, swinging up to your level while you cast your eyes about for the next path of retreat, "and it's just an engraved pattern, not a ritualistic rule. Uncle Gareth told me great-great-granduncle Xueron was the last to fit into the mold. Uncle Gareth himself is only five daughters of Greengrass removed from him."
You aim another diffindo at her thigh, but she's grown wise to your tricks, her own third eye wide open. With the added perception, she literally punches your spell out of the air, earning a prick across her leaded knuckles, but little more.
Round 3 Initiative: Rei
Rei pool: [21, 10, 8, 8, 13] = 2 successes
Daphne Greengrass pool: [6, 12, 20, 7, 20, 5, 5] = 2 successes
Rei deals [6+30] = 36 damage
Rei HP: 20.9 Daphne Greengrass HP: 131
Between slinging around techniques, balancing on precarious supports and dodging increasingly close swipes of fists, your reserves are flagging. Not that your opponent isn't also starting to feel the burn, but she had a full tank to start with, whereas you came in with at most three quarters. That, and you're starting to run out of space to retreat to. On the plus side, you're sufficiently high enough that one well timed shove could let you snatch victory. Except, for that to happen, you'll need to close in again, risking exposure and counter-attacks.
It's a risk you're willing to take, at least while you still can.
With a combination of prismus and lumos you emit a bright green blast, shade-form yourself and leap at Daphne. Ducking under her blind swing you elbow her side, but unfortunately it's not enough to make her fall. With dismay you notice that one of her feet looks suspiciously molten to the beam, providing her with extra grip, and then you're back to dodging.
As much as you might want to press the attack, you lack experience in actual martial matters. The katas you picked up over the course of your physical cultivation oh-so-long ago are rather hodge-podge and probably never meant for actual combat. There's a vast gulf between throwing a punch or delivering a kick, and putting it all together into a seamless whole. Doubly so when you're working with the assumption that any single counter-hit could wipe you out.
An assumption that proves correct. There's only so many places you can place your feet in, and although your potion cocktail has dulled most of the pain by now, your injured foot is still a bit too slow on the uptake. A cold hand flows around your knee and lifts. Suddenly a forest of cured timber is rushing towards you, with the ground shortly behind it. The one time you try to grab onto a beam, you're forced to immediately abort as Daphne's feet slam into the place your fingers were at just a moment ago. Thus, you focus on getting to the ground, but there's still only so much you can do to dodge whilst airborne, and although you evade the majority, a couple of painful smacks still occur on your way down.
You land in an awkward tumble, trying and failing to mimic your familiar's technique, only managing to expel the rest of your Qi reserves, and perhaps saving yourself from a bloody nose, but little else. Rather than get up to continue the fight, you remain in a sprawl on the floor, breathing heavily as another thump signifies the arrival of your opponent.
"Good," Daphne replies, followed by another thump as she unceremoniously falls on her butt herself.
A minute passes in silence until you feel like getting to something resembling a lotus position yourself. Another ten are spent just cycling Qi together, your host expelling metal from her limbs to balance out what she must have taken while you suck that same energy in, to recoup what you spent on your cutters. The windows provide you with the light of high noon, which you also appropriate for your own recovery.
Still, there's only so long you're willing to put things off.
"So, about that vow..." you start, trying to gather your feelings into coherent thoughts. Ultimately, you already know your answer, but there's also a small part of you that probably doesn't really want to know. "Do I need to meet your mother, or how does- would this work?"
"There is a statue you swear it with. I'd act as the mediator and witness."
"And they trust you like that? No offence, but we're twelve."
"Part of being the clan heir is the option to screw up. It wouldn't be much of a training period if nothing could possibly go wrong."
"And what could go wrong?"
Daphne sighs, "Nothing, so long as you keep to your oath."
"How about we cover every possibility."
"For me, a loss of face, and the repercussions of whoever you break it with are unpredictable. For you, anything from a mild inconvenience and the ire of my clan, to death, if you break it in your current state," she cuts you off before you can intersect, "which won't happen by accident. You'll absolutely know if you're about to compromise the binding. It has to be a willful act, you very much can't do it unintentionally - hence the name. Either you dedicate a lot of effort to breaking it yourself, or it remains unbroken."
"Alright. Next, the secret itself. Would you regret knowing it, if you had the choice?"
An annoyed look crosses the blonde's face. "I can acknowledge the existence of a secret on clan grounds. Beyond that, I am bound. No hypotheticals, no what-ifs, no 'it's not not not that'. It doesn't matter how roundabout you try to be. Qi knows."
You suppose the embodiment of cosmic intent would know.
"Very well. Where is this statue of yours?"
Daphne blinks, "Just like that?"
"Are you suggesting that I should change my mind? If it gets me information about my mother, I can keep mum about things."
"Follow me, then."
The two of you head back to the lobby, climb up the grand staircase and come face to face with an exquisite stone likeness of a woman. Her flesh is chiseled from marble, her imperial robes from jade. A single hand is extended in a demure greeting in front of her, as if to welcome people to the court of an emperor. Other than the differing stone for cloth and flesh, and of course the life-likeness, it appears to be nothing more than a decoration. To your higher senses however, a measure of power thrums through the woman, far more human than any rock has business being. The Qi is subtle and gentle, like a fresh spring breeze circulating in motionless lungs, where the middle dantian should be, were she real. The offered limb looks suspiciously similar to what your research into runes promises to produce.
"Take the hand, channel your Qi and repeat after me," Daphne instructs you.
You grab hold of the statue and follow the other girl's Qi as she pushes her own energy forwards.
"When I ask 'Do you so swear?', just nod," she adds, before the statue's Qi comes alive. You almost flinch, barely avoiding pulling your hand away. The two of you share a look.
"Only amidst trusted emerald fields," you parrot back to her, "shall my lips utter the secrets entrusted to me."
"Do you so swear?"
With your nod, a surge of something cool passes through the mansion, into the statue and out the hand connected to you. It circles around you, wrapping every bit of you for a moment, inspecting you almost. Then it dissipates, as if nothing had changed.
"That's it?"
"The Greengrass family curse causes blood to freeze in your veins," Daphne blurts out, words stumbling over her lips before she falls silent again for a moment. "Yes. I'd say it worked. Come on, my room is this way."
You're guided down another hallway, slipping into an expectedly opulent bedroom. The moment Daphne closes the door behind her, you speak.
"Alright, enough delays. What curse? How does that relate to my mother?"
"The blood malediction of my clan. Only a single woman in each generation of the main branch can survive. It's supposed to have been broken almost a century ago, by ancestors Xiereia and her daughter Nereia, my great-grandmother. My grandmother had a sister who didn't die of the curse. Grandaunt Iliana, but she was killed in the opening months of the second world war, when she was only twenty-three, which isn't the oldest recorded age before the curse shows. Are you sure your mother was a Greengrass?"
"I know her name. I know she was immortal, there's a vault in Gringotts that proves it. Are you saying my mother died of a curse?"
"Like Astoria will, if the curse really isn't broken. I need to know."
You cast your mind back to the family tree you were shown. Especially further back, there were plenty of short-lived branchings from the main line.
"You mean like I will?"
"Maybe."
There's not a lot you can say to that. Still, after a moment, you break the silence again. "What did you mean by 'blood freezing'?"
"I've only read some of the clan journals. Your Qi turns fire to water. Your blood becomes cold, your body no longer warming it up. It tries to compensate by running a massive fever, but it won't be enough. Depending on which of your dantians gets hit the hardest, you die of hypothermia as your brain freezes, drowning as your breath condenses in your lungs or starvation as your bowels stop absorbing nutrients."
Another silence descends. This time it's Daphne who picks up the conversation with a wan smile. "That last one has only been recorded once. Usually you die long before that. A nineteenth century physician claimed that we'd stopped being warm-blooded mammals and turned into cold-blooded reptiles. Luckily for him, we cared more for the truth than flattery by then."
"That was when your great-great-granny broke the curse, right? What did they do then?"
A frustrated exhale is your answer. You're starting to get the feeling that aggressive sighs are to Daphne what raised eyebrows are to you. "I don't know. There's very specifically no mention made of what they did." She gestures to a bookcase laden with tomes that would not be out of place in the Ravenclaw common room, "I've been studying rituals in the hope of figuring something out, some lead to tell me at least what track they might have been on. So far, the only constant in curse breaking seems to be either knowing the original working, or a sacrifice."
"I presume no one knows the original working?"
"Between a massive shift for the clan during the Opium Wars and the destruction of the eastern compound in the Warlord Era, no definitive records remain."
A third silence falls, Daphne having run out of steam and you trying to put things into new contexts. While both of you are lost in your own worlds, there is one last olive branch you brought with you from home. A squeal of laughter from outside breaks your reverie as both of your heads turn to the window. Astoria is running down a gravel path lined with flowerbeds, a cloud of red butterflies fleeing her wild swings of a net nearly as big as her.
"I was thinking last night, about our last conversation. I have a photograph of Mum with me. Would you like to see her?"
The other girl takes a moment to tear her eyes away from the scene, but she nods all the same. "There's a painting of mother and father's wedding day in the gallery. She'd be closest in age to her then."
Another brief walk through the manor has you arriving in front of a picture that's taller than you are, the figures in it larger than life-sized. A plaque beneath it reads "Olivia Greengrass, Edmund Greengrass née Burke, 1978". You can definitely see where Daphne got her looks from. The hair, blue eyes and pale skin are definitely from her dad, but the rest is from her mother. Olivia Greengrass looks at first glance like a porcelain doll, all fine bones and sharp angles, with powdered skin and elaborate dark hair, but a closer inspection reveals that said doll is cast from pure steel. If you were to judge a book by its cover, you'd say she looks like someone who's not going to shy away from making hard choices. You can also clearly see who Daphne seeks to emulate when she's surrounded by her fellow disciples in Slytherin.
At least, for anyone else, that might be the first impression. For you, there's so much more. You pull out the dinky, slightly worn polaroid and wordlessly place the smiling woman in it next to the painting. There's clearly differences between the two, from their expressions to their body language, but there's also a heart-aching amount of similarities. Most of what you know of your mother is the feelings you have, but a memory of her staring down at you with a stern visage when you got caught playing with her lipstick may as well be lifted from the art in front of you, the Lady Greengrass shifting to peer at the children come to gawk at her.
In the interest of producing some actual content, and because I can't promise anything about the length of the social actions still to come, I've decided to chop the chapter in three, instead of the usual two. This means there's no vote to be had, but at least there's something to passively consume.
Still to-do: a day out with dad and swinging by Harry's place.
