SECTBREAKER - AN ORIGINAL XIANXIA QUEST
- Thread starter Guillotine
- Start date
- Original
ACT 1 - CHAPTER 1 - A NEW HOME I RESULTS
- Pronouns
- He
Hello! Now that I have been released from school for a time, I can start the real writing again! Expect a new chapter by tonight or early morning tomorrow. See you then.
Last edited:
ACT 1 - CHAPTER 1 - A NEW HOME II
New
- Pronouns
- He
Good evening and enjoy! Was feeling a little under the weather and swamped with work but it's (slightly?) better now.
+ Old Jezail gained
+ A New Home updated
FOUR DAYS LATER
"Can we trust this person?" Daredan asked, pacing beneath the shadow of Black Wind City's walls. "It's been nearly four days. If they haven't reached out yet, what makes you so sure they're still willing to help us? We should've gone with my idea. We... you saved those survivors from death. The least they could do is indenture themselves to the Carefree Manor to pay you back for your troubles."
"You don't have to trust the Cynic or whatever these smugglers have named themselves," Vigilance Jin growled. "But we aren't selling those people to slavers. If you think otherwise..."
Daredan cocked a brow. "What will you do, dwarf?" he sneered, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword. "You're no fighter. You're barely even half a man."
The beard hairs of Vigilance Jin were practically bristling. It reminded Serenity Shan of a grumpy old grandfather of a mouse catcher cat who'd lived together with her and Sirzu back on her home world of Blessed Harvest.
Serenity ignored the duo, turning her thoughts toward more productive matters. Leave it to the men to compare egos. She needed plans in case the Cynic fell through.
Mejian had assured them that the Cynic would meet Serenity there when the time was right to discuss the job. So far, it had been four days since their arrangement. Daredan had seamlessly inserted himself into Serenity's group, though she knew she would have to keep a close eye on him.
Vigilance Jin, ever righteous, had already tried to drive the guardsman away with a few swings of his axe. If Serenity hadn't intervened, the dwarf might've even resorted to launching offensive talisman spells at Daredan. She wouldn't put it past Vigilance Jin. Not after Daredan had deserted his post in such a cowardly manner. To a dwarf, such a desertion would be tantamount to the equivalent of infant murder. They were a strange, honorable sort.
Serenity sighed, feeling a headache come on. When she first introduced the dwarf and guardsman to each other, it wasn't as if she'd expected them to get along, but their current relationship was strained to say the least. She cleared her throat. Both the dwarf and guardsman ceased bickering. Good. At least she still commanded their respect. That might stop them from tearing each apart if barely.
"Are you Serenity Shan?" a voice was carried across the wind. "I thank you for your patience. I am the Cynic."
Serenity turned in the direction of the voice. A hooded figure approached their party. From underneath the folds of their cloak, Serenity could tell the individual was wrapped in linen bandages. Even the face beneath the wide brim of the hood was wrapped tight with bandages, only a pair of dark violet eyes peering out at them. The individual appeared to be a woman, judging from their voice. They also appeared barely any taller than Mejian, who herself stood only up to Serenity's shoulder.
Serenity knew the Cynic took on many forms, but she'd expected someone more... imposing.
"Serenity," Vigilance Jin said in a low voice. His hand drew near the shaft of his battle axe strapped across his back. "Be careful."
Daredan cursed, spinning on his heels to face the Cynic with a scowl. He partially drew his sword from its sheath, revealing a sliver of bright steel. "She's a damned wrathling. You've been in contact was a wrathling this whole time and you didn't think it wise to mention it? By the Nine, elf, this is insane."
Serenity studied the Cynic carefully. Beneath gaps in the bandages, the flesh was a lavender hue. The hood of the Cynic also budged oddly toward the back. Horns. She also noticed a quick movement of something behind the Cynic. A flicking forked tail. Mejian had set Serenity up with a wrathling.
From her studies with Sirzu, wrathlings weren't just the rulers of the old empires, but also mix-blooded descendants of the old shen gods themselves. Once, wrathling colonies populated dozens of worlds across the galactic spiral of Stryfe. The sects had razed most of them to little more than ashes and rubble. It hadn't helped that their blood and organs made for great alchemical reagents. The few wrathlings that had escaped the Thearchic Wars mostly lived in hiding out on outer spiral worlds in isolated hamlets.
The Cynics must've been an organization of some means if they could employ a wrathling within their ranks.
"You can help us get through the walls?" Serenity asked the Cynic. "It won't just be us. There are people we need to take care of. Will that be a problem?"
"No," the Cynic replied blandly. She didn't even grace Daredan's and Vigilance Jin's hostility with so much as even a glance. "As long as you can uphold your end of the bargain, I will do as promised. Transporting civilians into the city is a simple matter. Our burden... not so much."
Serenity nodded. "Good," she said. "In that case, let's proceed."
The directive was rather simple. The Cynic was accustomed to traversing the sewers beneath Black Wind City, but often, spirit beasts or ghouls would move deep underground in search of an environment more friendly for their needs. And with the walls closed, criminals and other unsavory elements of society had also seen fit to begin moving their shipments underground.
Thus, the Cynic needed manpower. In this regard, Serenity was more than willing to help if it meant getting her and the survivors into the safety of the city. What exactly the Cynic was transporting, nobody bothered asking. They weren't amateurs. Even Daredan, in a display of shocking professional normalcy, didn't make any snide comments on the Cynic's race or what exactly they were supposed to be transporting.
As they marched through the mud and muck of the sewer tunnels, Serenity reconsidered every choice that had led her up the moment. Bugs of all sorts scurried over the ancient walls. The worst thing was the smell. The shantytown had been bad, but the sewers were something else entirely.
Daredan complained the whole way.
"Why do you call yourselves the Cynic?" Daredan finally asked after getting fed up of complaining. "There's supposed to be more of your lot, isn't there? Are you all just very pessimistic or something? I'm something of a cynic myself."
The Cynic glanced at Daredan and blinked. Her wide violet eyes practically shone through the darkness. The only light came from gaps in the tall, arched ceiling above. "We did not hire you to discuss our philosophies," she replied. "You would do well to follow in your dwarvish friend's attitude."
Vigilance Jin grunted, clearly pleased.
Serenity felt something squishy splat beneath her boot below the surface of the mud. She didn't even want to imagine what it was.
Up ahead in the tunnel, an occultic tear flickered in the hazy darkness. Serenity whistled in appreciation. She glanced at the corpse beneath the tear and found a...
[ ] [ACTION] VENGEFUL GHOST
A ghost similar to Serenity's former ghost. Takes on a gaseous form and manipulates the minds of her foes.
[ ] [ACTION] DROUGHT GHOST
Fire elementals born from those who passed from drought and thirst. Rains down flames on her foes.
[ ] [ACTION] PLAGUE GHOST
Ghosts born from those fallen to disease and pestilence. Physical attribute ghosts that corrode and rot her foes.
The Cynic and rest of Serenity's party watched as she began pulling the ghost into her gourd. It wasn't a complicated ritual; most weak ghosts didn't require theatrics or special talismans. Their minds were so degraded and fallen so that any home, even Serenity's gourd, appeared preferable to simply fading out of existence over the course of the years.
"You're a shaman?" the Cynic asked, blinking. "Mejian never told..."
A distant rumbling interrupted the Cynic. They froze, each person drawing their own respective armaments. Serenity turned toward the direction from whence they came. The noise appeared to be drawing closer.
Serenity squinted through the darkness and found a crocodile of all things crawling toward them. Its arched spine, covered with razor-sharp spikes, nearly touched the top of the tunnel. Its jaws snapped open and shut. For a creature with remarkably short and stubby legs, the crocodile moved fast.
"Run!" Serenity shouted, taking off. She had to grab Daredan by the arm and shove him forward, breaking him out of his shock. Everyone else had already run ahead of them. Serenity waded through the muck as fast as she could move their legs through the knee-deep sludge. But the crocodile, despite its size, was actually gaining on them.
"Brace!" the Cynic demanded, stopping. The bandages around the wrathling began to slowly unravel from a mystical and unseen force, hovering around her freed body. She held up her fist as the bandages formed the rough, drill-shaped shield around it. With a shout, she slammed her fist against the ground.
The ground rumbled once before giving way. Serenity felt a rush of wind as the ground collapsed beneath her. Her arms flailed helplessly through the darkness, grasping for anything that might stop her fall.
Serenity hit the ground, half-expecting to go splat against a hard surface. Instead, she broke through the surface of dark, roiling water. Pain blossomed across her body, but it wasn't the fatal kind. She managed to pull her head over the water, struggling to wade in place. They'd been dropped in a subterranean lake surrounded on all sides by rocky shelves of varying heights.
"Are you alright?" the Cynic's voice called to Serenity. The wrathling, the bandages once again tightly wrapped around her body, stood atop one of the stone ledges. She didn't appear the slightest bit wet or affected by the fall. "I didn't think that the damned spirit beast would sniff us out so soon."
The Cynic reached out her hand, letting the bandages unfurl from around her arm and drifted toward Serenity. The linens gently picked her up, wrapping itself around Serenity's own body, before setting her down beside the Cynic. The air stank of sulfur and moss. An unnatural draftiness wafted through the space, bleeding into Serenity's very bones.
"Why hit the ground?" Serenity grumbled. "And what's more, I've felt that type of power before. You're a thearchic artist? Why in the Pale Springs did not you not tell us beforehand? Why do you need mortal escorts at all?"
The Cynic blinked once with her wide, luminous eyes. "Perhaps I was just doing a favor for a friend of mine," she said. "Perhaps it was a mistake to involve your kind in my matters. None of it matters now. Your friends will have to find their own way out. We can't stay underground too long, not without running into more spirit beasts."
Serenity nodded, and then turned sharply toward the wrathling. "You couldn't have hit the damn beast instead?"
Somehow, Serenity just knew the Cynic was scowling beneath her bandages. "The Razorspine was too powerful to confront directly," she muttered, taking off toward a shadowy cave entrance a few dozen meters opposite of the lake. "This was the best outcome from the decisions available to me. Would you rather I have used your friends as a decoy and fled while they were eaten by a second strata spirit beast? Even we thearchic artists have limits."
Serenity replied...
[ ] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] DOMINION
The weak deserve what's coming to them. We should've stood our ground and fought. Not tuck our pointy tails between our legs and flee like rats. Where's the way out, wrathling?
[ ] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
You're right. Thank you for saving us. I'm not sure what good our mortal weaponry or my unrefined ghost could've done against a spirit beast. What's next? Do you know the way out of here?
[ ] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] CHARMING
i suppose I should be used to falling by now. After plummeting from the atmosphere in a burning wreck, I don't think anything can surprise me at this point. What's our plan out of this hole, your thearchic lordship?
+ Old Jezail gained
+ A New Home updated
FOUR DAYS LATER
"Can we trust this person?" Daredan asked, pacing beneath the shadow of Black Wind City's walls. "It's been nearly four days. If they haven't reached out yet, what makes you so sure they're still willing to help us? We should've gone with my idea. We... you saved those survivors from death. The least they could do is indenture themselves to the Carefree Manor to pay you back for your troubles."
"You don't have to trust the Cynic or whatever these smugglers have named themselves," Vigilance Jin growled. "But we aren't selling those people to slavers. If you think otherwise..."
Daredan cocked a brow. "What will you do, dwarf?" he sneered, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword. "You're no fighter. You're barely even half a man."
The beard hairs of Vigilance Jin were practically bristling. It reminded Serenity Shan of a grumpy old grandfather of a mouse catcher cat who'd lived together with her and Sirzu back on her home world of Blessed Harvest.
Serenity ignored the duo, turning her thoughts toward more productive matters. Leave it to the men to compare egos. She needed plans in case the Cynic fell through.
Mejian had assured them that the Cynic would meet Serenity there when the time was right to discuss the job. So far, it had been four days since their arrangement. Daredan had seamlessly inserted himself into Serenity's group, though she knew she would have to keep a close eye on him.
Vigilance Jin, ever righteous, had already tried to drive the guardsman away with a few swings of his axe. If Serenity hadn't intervened, the dwarf might've even resorted to launching offensive talisman spells at Daredan. She wouldn't put it past Vigilance Jin. Not after Daredan had deserted his post in such a cowardly manner. To a dwarf, such a desertion would be tantamount to the equivalent of infant murder. They were a strange, honorable sort.
Serenity sighed, feeling a headache come on. When she first introduced the dwarf and guardsman to each other, it wasn't as if she'd expected them to get along, but their current relationship was strained to say the least. She cleared her throat. Both the dwarf and guardsman ceased bickering. Good. At least she still commanded their respect. That might stop them from tearing each apart if barely.
"Are you Serenity Shan?" a voice was carried across the wind. "I thank you for your patience. I am the Cynic."
Serenity turned in the direction of the voice. A hooded figure approached their party. From underneath the folds of their cloak, Serenity could tell the individual was wrapped in linen bandages. Even the face beneath the wide brim of the hood was wrapped tight with bandages, only a pair of dark violet eyes peering out at them. The individual appeared to be a woman, judging from their voice. They also appeared barely any taller than Mejian, who herself stood only up to Serenity's shoulder.
Serenity knew the Cynic took on many forms, but she'd expected someone more... imposing.
"Serenity," Vigilance Jin said in a low voice. His hand drew near the shaft of his battle axe strapped across his back. "Be careful."
Daredan cursed, spinning on his heels to face the Cynic with a scowl. He partially drew his sword from its sheath, revealing a sliver of bright steel. "She's a damned wrathling. You've been in contact was a wrathling this whole time and you didn't think it wise to mention it? By the Nine, elf, this is insane."
Serenity studied the Cynic carefully. Beneath gaps in the bandages, the flesh was a lavender hue. The hood of the Cynic also budged oddly toward the back. Horns. She also noticed a quick movement of something behind the Cynic. A flicking forked tail. Mejian had set Serenity up with a wrathling.
From her studies with Sirzu, wrathlings weren't just the rulers of the old empires, but also mix-blooded descendants of the old shen gods themselves. Once, wrathling colonies populated dozens of worlds across the galactic spiral of Stryfe. The sects had razed most of them to little more than ashes and rubble. It hadn't helped that their blood and organs made for great alchemical reagents. The few wrathlings that had escaped the Thearchic Wars mostly lived in hiding out on outer spiral worlds in isolated hamlets.
The Cynics must've been an organization of some means if they could employ a wrathling within their ranks.
"You can help us get through the walls?" Serenity asked the Cynic. "It won't just be us. There are people we need to take care of. Will that be a problem?"
"No," the Cynic replied blandly. She didn't even grace Daredan's and Vigilance Jin's hostility with so much as even a glance. "As long as you can uphold your end of the bargain, I will do as promised. Transporting civilians into the city is a simple matter. Our burden... not so much."
Serenity nodded. "Good," she said. "In that case, let's proceed."
The directive was rather simple. The Cynic was accustomed to traversing the sewers beneath Black Wind City, but often, spirit beasts or ghouls would move deep underground in search of an environment more friendly for their needs. And with the walls closed, criminals and other unsavory elements of society had also seen fit to begin moving their shipments underground.
Thus, the Cynic needed manpower. In this regard, Serenity was more than willing to help if it meant getting her and the survivors into the safety of the city. What exactly the Cynic was transporting, nobody bothered asking. They weren't amateurs. Even Daredan, in a display of shocking professional normalcy, didn't make any snide comments on the Cynic's race or what exactly they were supposed to be transporting.
As they marched through the mud and muck of the sewer tunnels, Serenity reconsidered every choice that had led her up the moment. Bugs of all sorts scurried over the ancient walls. The worst thing was the smell. The shantytown had been bad, but the sewers were something else entirely.
Daredan complained the whole way.
"Why do you call yourselves the Cynic?" Daredan finally asked after getting fed up of complaining. "There's supposed to be more of your lot, isn't there? Are you all just very pessimistic or something? I'm something of a cynic myself."
The Cynic glanced at Daredan and blinked. Her wide violet eyes practically shone through the darkness. The only light came from gaps in the tall, arched ceiling above. "We did not hire you to discuss our philosophies," she replied. "You would do well to follow in your dwarvish friend's attitude."
Vigilance Jin grunted, clearly pleased.
Serenity felt something squishy splat beneath her boot below the surface of the mud. She didn't even want to imagine what it was.
Up ahead in the tunnel, an occultic tear flickered in the hazy darkness. Serenity whistled in appreciation. She glanced at the corpse beneath the tear and found a...
[ ] [ACTION] VENGEFUL GHOST
A ghost similar to Serenity's former ghost. Takes on a gaseous form and manipulates the minds of her foes.
[ ] [ACTION] DROUGHT GHOST
Fire elementals born from those who passed from drought and thirst. Rains down flames on her foes.
[ ] [ACTION] PLAGUE GHOST
Ghosts born from those fallen to disease and pestilence. Physical attribute ghosts that corrode and rot her foes.
The Cynic and rest of Serenity's party watched as she began pulling the ghost into her gourd. It wasn't a complicated ritual; most weak ghosts didn't require theatrics or special talismans. Their minds were so degraded and fallen so that any home, even Serenity's gourd, appeared preferable to simply fading out of existence over the course of the years.
"You're a shaman?" the Cynic asked, blinking. "Mejian never told..."
A distant rumbling interrupted the Cynic. They froze, each person drawing their own respective armaments. Serenity turned toward the direction from whence they came. The noise appeared to be drawing closer.
Serenity squinted through the darkness and found a crocodile of all things crawling toward them. Its arched spine, covered with razor-sharp spikes, nearly touched the top of the tunnel. Its jaws snapped open and shut. For a creature with remarkably short and stubby legs, the crocodile moved fast.
"Run!" Serenity shouted, taking off. She had to grab Daredan by the arm and shove him forward, breaking him out of his shock. Everyone else had already run ahead of them. Serenity waded through the muck as fast as she could move their legs through the knee-deep sludge. But the crocodile, despite its size, was actually gaining on them.
"Brace!" the Cynic demanded, stopping. The bandages around the wrathling began to slowly unravel from a mystical and unseen force, hovering around her freed body. She held up her fist as the bandages formed the rough, drill-shaped shield around it. With a shout, she slammed her fist against the ground.
The ground rumbled once before giving way. Serenity felt a rush of wind as the ground collapsed beneath her. Her arms flailed helplessly through the darkness, grasping for anything that might stop her fall.
Serenity hit the ground, half-expecting to go splat against a hard surface. Instead, she broke through the surface of dark, roiling water. Pain blossomed across her body, but it wasn't the fatal kind. She managed to pull her head over the water, struggling to wade in place. They'd been dropped in a subterranean lake surrounded on all sides by rocky shelves of varying heights.
"Are you alright?" the Cynic's voice called to Serenity. The wrathling, the bandages once again tightly wrapped around her body, stood atop one of the stone ledges. She didn't appear the slightest bit wet or affected by the fall. "I didn't think that the damned spirit beast would sniff us out so soon."
The Cynic reached out her hand, letting the bandages unfurl from around her arm and drifted toward Serenity. The linens gently picked her up, wrapping itself around Serenity's own body, before setting her down beside the Cynic. The air stank of sulfur and moss. An unnatural draftiness wafted through the space, bleeding into Serenity's very bones.
"Why hit the ground?" Serenity grumbled. "And what's more, I've felt that type of power before. You're a thearchic artist? Why in the Pale Springs did not you not tell us beforehand? Why do you need mortal escorts at all?"
The Cynic blinked once with her wide, luminous eyes. "Perhaps I was just doing a favor for a friend of mine," she said. "Perhaps it was a mistake to involve your kind in my matters. None of it matters now. Your friends will have to find their own way out. We can't stay underground too long, not without running into more spirit beasts."
Serenity nodded, and then turned sharply toward the wrathling. "You couldn't have hit the damn beast instead?"
Somehow, Serenity just knew the Cynic was scowling beneath her bandages. "The Razorspine was too powerful to confront directly," she muttered, taking off toward a shadowy cave entrance a few dozen meters opposite of the lake. "This was the best outcome from the decisions available to me. Would you rather I have used your friends as a decoy and fled while they were eaten by a second strata spirit beast? Even we thearchic artists have limits."
Serenity replied...
[ ] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] DOMINION
The weak deserve what's coming to them. We should've stood our ground and fought. Not tuck our pointy tails between our legs and flee like rats. Where's the way out, wrathling?
[ ] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
You're right. Thank you for saving us. I'm not sure what good our mortal weaponry or my unrefined ghost could've done against a spirit beast. What's next? Do you know the way out of here?
[ ] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] CHARMING
i suppose I should be used to falling by now. After plummeting from the atmosphere in a burning wreck, I don't think anything can surprise me at this point. What's our plan out of this hole, your thearchic lordship?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [ACTION] PLAGUE GHOST
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] CHARMING
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] CHARMING
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] [ACTION] PLAGUE GHOST
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
Last edited:
[X] [ACTION] DROUGHT GHOST
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] DOMINION
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] DOMINION
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [ACTION] VENGEFUL GHOST
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] CHARMING
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] CHARMING
[X] [ACTION] DROUGHT GHOST
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
WhoTheHeckity
But no one ever asks HowTheHeckity
- Location
- Murica 🦅
[X] [ACTION] PLAGUE GHOST
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
[X] [ACTION/PERSONALITY] VIRTUOUS
