[X] Plan Laying Foundations
Shards of Awakening
- Thread starter dmclain2
- Start date
4 per week from Quan Jia's father, one per month from the sect. Slightly less than 5 per week.
- Location
- USA
Oh, is this a change? originally it was:
lol that's what I get for going off of memory. It is 5 per week, thought it was 4.
FriedIce
The Authentic Fake
- Location
- Hyperreality
This is a really cool quest. I love the choice of playing as a talentless, but rich young mistress - money really is the best superpower.
Looking at the combat log from the lesson it occurs to me that what we really need to round out our build is a Counter Attack combat art so we can take advantage of our bullshit level defence. Maybe we should ask Dad for one in our next letter.
As plans go I'm caught between Laying Foundations and Embracing Gacha. I like the non-cultivation actions of Laying Foundations but I think it's underestimating our Dreamer's Endless Journey art. We know exploration roles are done based on reward tier, and if reward tiers are every 10 (not an unreasonable assumption) then in 20% of cases it will bump us up a reward tier. At Level One. If they're every 25 it's still bumping us up in 8% of cases. Again, at Level One. And that's without including the 1 in 50 possibility of a surpassing probability find (above 100 on a D100). It's actually a really good Art and we should be levelling it ASAP.
Looking at the combat log from the lesson it occurs to me that what we really need to round out our build is a Counter Attack combat art so we can take advantage of our bullshit level defence. Maybe we should ask Dad for one in our next letter.
As plans go I'm caught between Laying Foundations and Embracing Gacha. I like the non-cultivation actions of Laying Foundations but I think it's underestimating our Dreamer's Endless Journey art. We know exploration roles are done based on reward tier, and if reward tiers are every 10 (not an unreasonable assumption) then in 20% of cases it will bump us up a reward tier. At Level One. If they're every 25 it's still bumping us up in 8% of cases. Again, at Level One. And that's without including the 1 in 50 possibility of a surpassing probability find (above 100 on a D100). It's actually a really good Art and we should be levelling it ASAP.
Vote closed
- Location
- Israel
This is a somewhat disingenuous way of presenting the art's impact. For one, it assumes that any increase in tier makes both the art's investment and the action investment worthwhile, this is despite the fact that of our (admittedly too small) sample size of 2 medium rolls, one gave us a cultivation site with an at least 0.5 probability of being unusable, and the other gave us reagents to what sounds like a low level elixir (preferably we would've known their value after a market visit but I guess that would have to wait.) A more accurate examination of the worth of investing actions into the art actions would have to compare the expected worth (in terms of the action-value of the reward) that we would get with and without the art. For the sake of brevity, I'll just summarize that the return difference between the two states would be (assuming there's no tier of size 2 or less) equal to 0.02*[Number of Rollable Tiers]*[Average difference in value between adjacent (reachable) tiers] per exploration action.
If we take your assumption of 10 rollable tiers of equal size, and add two more assumption that the EV of an unaltered exploration action is 1 action and that the value of the lowest tier is 0. We'd get an EV equal to 4.5 times the average difference between adjacent tiers, leading to an average difference of 0.222, and an extra worth per exploration action of 0.0444. so in order to get our investment of ~5 cultivation actions to get the art to the first level of the art, we'd need to perform 112.5 exploration actions.
Huh, the art now looks much more underpowered than I initially thought it was... weird.
- Location
- USA
TBPH, I think the art starts to come into its own
1.) once we can start crushing stages, plural, in a single cultivation action
2.) once we get to higher tiers of the bonus and can start breaking 100 on the chart
Opening Meridians and pushing cultivation stage higher (to use more resources at once) lets us cultivate faster. Really, there's no good reason (yet) not to rush to silver/amber asap to so that we can absolutely hoover up the spirit gems as fast as daddy provides for maximum dice pools. I did the math before - at amber/silver cultivation we're getting something like 60 bonus dice to cultivation, which means we'll easily be putting 40+ successes into whatever we're cultivating.
1.) once we can start crushing stages, plural, in a single cultivation action
2.) once we get to higher tiers of the bonus and can start breaking 100 on the chart
Opening Meridians and pushing cultivation stage higher (to use more resources at once) lets us cultivate faster. Really, there's no good reason (yet) not to rush to silver/amber asap to so that we can absolutely hoover up the spirit gems as fast as daddy provides for maximum dice pools. I did the math before - at amber/silver cultivation we're getting something like 60 bonus dice to cultivation, which means we'll easily be putting 40+ successes into whatever we're cultivating.
FriedIce
The Authentic Fake
- Location
- Hyperreality
I hadn't realised that the dice difference was quite that extreme from increasing our cultivation, in which case agreed that that takes priority.
There's a few big assumptions here. Firstly you're assuming that reward tiers increase in value in a linear manner, which there is no evidence of (and honestly would surprise me given, well, xianxia). Secondly, you're not factoring in any benefit from superlative successes which, given they're literally impossible normally, I would expect to be significant. Finally, you're assuming that critical fails aren't a thing, and so there's no value in being able to negate them.
On the bright side we're going to see pretty soon if you can crit fail exploration!
A Mixed Bag - Turn 1 Part 1
What is a name? A simple question perhaps, but one for which, like everything in this world, there are multiple answers. Take the first: Sun Wei, given by my mother on the date of my birth, and the first engraving of Self upon the unmolded stuff of eternity. But what of the second: The Azure Exarch, a name I gave myself and a name the world gave me, and so Self and world become linked in ways both subtle and inextricable.
There are others: Supreme Patriarch, Lord of the Crimson Wold, Potentate of The Empty Rime, and dozens more awarded as an acknowledgement of talent and accomplishments, but such titles predate my birth and will postdate my death, so how can such things resonate with my Self?
One last name, an epithet from some, adulation from yet others, and the one to which I have devoted time and skill and Self to for this last century: Sun Wei the Revolutionary, Sun Wei the Reformer. So come Shadow, the fires of revolution will yet consume you.
Azure Exarch Sun Wei to Banded Shadow Gao Qiu before his death in the Imperial Arena, 3rd Age, 99th year of the 2nd Interregnum.
-[X] Explore the sect.
"Weren't we supposed to go exploring today?" A voice drags Quan Jia from an impressively deep level of unconsciousness.
"Go 'way, sleepin'," Quan Jia manages what could only charitably be called a comprehensible response before burying her head back into her pillow.
"Come on, it's a beautiful day outside," her friend wheedles, "and we'll probably find something interesting…"
"Snore."
"You can't just say snore like that and expect me to believe it."
"Snore."
"Saying it again doesn't make it any more believable."
"SNORE."
"Nope, louder doesn't help either."
"Snore?"
"Still not working." A pause, "Come on Quan Jia, let's go."
"Uh-uh, don' wanna' can't make me."
"Can't I?" Xiao Lien ponders in a way clearly meant to be heard. ""Now, what did Liu Mei say about sleepy ladies and buckets…"
"Don'"
"How did she say it," the sound of something that was almost certainly ice cubes clattering against each other is followed by the sound of pouring water, "oh right. Don't be swayed by attempts at cuteness… and the other one was, hmm… ice water works best, I think."
"Dreamin' Sleep'r Protec…" she trails off as a glob of shimmering golden sand surrounds her Comfy Bed and bathes her in a perfectly welcoming darkness.
So nice…
Water, probably cold and wet and mean splashes harmlessly against her barrier, and with a sleepy smirk, Quan Jia begins to drift back off to sleep. Rays of sunlight scrape ineffectively against her technique and send shards of tinkling glass down to the carpeted floor.
Sore loser...
"Small Gods, is that sand or adamantine?" Xiao Lien's muffled voice is punctuated by an equally muffled thud, "fuck, I think it is adamantine... argh, my foot… bullshit noble mrmph."
With her nap space undisturbed by mean Xiao Liens, sleep claims Quan Jia and she drifts off on the wings of absolute comfort and smug satisfaction.
[X] Plan Laying Foundations
-[X] Cultivate
--[X] 2 Spirit Diamonds
--[X] Meridians
--[X] Base Cultivation
Quan Jia looks down at the two spirit diamonds sitting in front of her. According to her tutors, calling them gems was a bit misleading, they were rather closer to condensed crystals of qi that the weight of earth had over time squeezed free of any residual aspect. How exactly that was supposed to work, she wasn't sure, and didn't quite care either, at least not when compared to how they could be used.
I wonder what it would feel like to use more powerful gems.
Sinking into cultivation, she begins the process of willing her sluggish qi to cycle within her. Time passes in an indeterminate state punctuated by slow steady breaths and equally slow heartbeats, before at last a drop of qi finishes the twisted path through her meridians. Now ready to begin she focuses thought into qi and sends a tendril of Slumber out. An instant is all it takes to taint the gems lying at her feet irrevocably with an aspect. A second thought manifests as a mallet of sleep and a feather soft collision sets the stones ringing like a struck gong. A third thought creates the impossibly soft edge of a chisel and with a second collision of mallet, this time accompanied by chisel, the gems shatter into the shimmering iridescence of sleep.
Inhale
A vortex, centered around her head, swirls violently in her lungs and greedily pulls those motes of qi toward her. The first taste, as ever, is bliss as languid warmth passes over her lips and tongue, filling her head with pillows softer than the finest of feathers as the first of those motes are absorbed. From crown, down, down into her Core, Slumber flows. And as that liquid sleep seeps into her, her thoughts begin to float off, cradled within lethargic clouds of exhaustion.
Hold it.
Floating, flying, drifting, her thoughts touch the outermost Dream. Spectral feet ghost along a pathway of paved sable and spectral eyes are blinded in a kaleidoscope of color. Blurred rainbows sieve spark from the sieve formed by the countless cracks in her Diamond Core. Stray thoughts and half-felt emotions captured in the flickering iridescence of those sparks alight into life, dance merrily as they float along unfelt breezes, and die as they touch dreaming sand.
Exhale. Brace for it...
Slumber flows down her left arm with the violence of an avalanche, with the sluggishness of settling mud, and collides with a gnarled meridian. The collision of qi with that tangled inversion of rightness brings with it a lancing pain, distant and burningly sharp along her wrist. Qi, shaped shaped by experience and Awakening, by art and technique, molds into whirlpools of sand that grate, grind, erode away at that blockage.
Intensity gathers as the blockage swells in resistance. Loose sand sharpens into teeth and those roughened edges gouge out the pathway that should exist, paying little heed to the blood and bone and tissue scoured away in the process. Into Dream, she screams, and sable paving stones distort to nightshade in sympathy for that echoed pain.
Inhale. Once more...
The weariness of old age coats her mouth and lungs and thoughts, and brings with it a blessed, twisted, relief from pain. That pale reflection, that harbinger of Death, settles into Dream, and where it touches, impossible vibrancy fades into infinite shades of gray. Wisps of pale indigo, given birth by her agonized screams, desiccate, unable to withstand the monochromatic eternity around them.
Exhale. It's almost over...
Impossibly smooth grains of dust and sand polish the rough hewn path of her new meridian to an almost glasslike smoothness. As the last minute imperfection disappears beneath that whetting stone, the meridian snaps into focus, and the the qi of heaven and earth flows just that much more easily into her.
That was a bad one.
Eyes blink open and Quan Jia looks at the vaporous qi that hangs about her frame like a pale aura.
Might as well… at least this one won't hurt.
Unlike clearing a meridian, cultivation is not an alteration of the physical self. It's not overcoming a concept carved into reality by effort and pain and stubbornness. After all, a spirit is a thing of the Self, and the rules of the Self are whatever a cultivator is able to make them be. No, cultivation is not an action of pain and rejection of reality, it's much more like drifting of to sleep…
Goodnight.
-[X] Though Shao Cuifen never said anything, Quan Jia has the sense that she was a bit disappointed that no one took her up on her sparring offer. She could use this chance to get to know her fellow noble. If only it didn't have to be so painful.
"You want to do what?" Xiao Lien looks over from where she'd been idly flipping pages in a book on botanical resources. "Do you know what that sword of hers does?"
"What's so wrong with that," Quan Jia asks to the air above where she's laid out on a nice comfy couch, unfortunately, her Comfy Couch didn't make the trip… lazy Mei Mei's, "and it's a sword, it probably just cuts things real well, or something."
"Just cuts things…" is the murmured, near incredulous response, " she cut sunlight with it… how do you even…"
"Are you sure that was the sword and not a technique of hers?" Quan Jia tries to remember a time when the other noble hadn't been staring at, or sharpening, or fussing over that sword of hers, but comes up blank. "I'll deny it if you ever tell anyone, but I think she likes swords even more than I like napping."
"So why would you want to spar with her? Especially when you could be sleeping… and don't think I don't remember that stunt you pulled when we were supposed to go exploring." Xiao Lien sounds kind of angry.
"That was then, this is not then," she tries to explain, but the scoff from where her friend is sitting is pretty indicative that her explanation isn't working.
So not fair…
"Ok, fine," reluctantly, Quan Jia sits up and looks at the annoyed friend staring at her, "it's like this… I think Shao Cuifen is a bit like one of those canopy beds."
"I'm sure this won't be at all absurd," her friend mutters, but being in a magnanimous mood, Quan Jia decides to ignore the skepticism entirely.
"Like a canopy bed," she continues, "all boring curtains and ribbons on the outside, and delightful pillows and blankets inside."
"I suppose that actually makes sense when filtered through your particular brand of you-ness." the other girl eventually concedes, and Quan Jia smiles happily.
It was always nice when people got her metaphors.
"So how do you noble types go about asking for a spar or whatever?" Xiao Lien asks after a moment of silence, apparently deciding to let her complaints about their not-exploration go, "tell me it's convoluted and ridiculous… it is isn't it?"
"For Shao Cuifen, nope." She replies, "in fact, all I have to do is write this quick letter, Mei Mei will deliver it, and then everything will be done."
Liu Mei knocks once on the door to the multistory estate that Lady Shao Cuifen had claimed as hers. After several breaths, the door opens revealing the Lady of the house.
"I have been instructed to provide Lady Shao Cuifen with this letter from my Lady Quan Jia." With those words, she proffers an envelope, sealed in red and yellow wax with a thorned rose embossed on it.
Lady Shao receives the letter without comment and opens it. A small, but by all appearance, genuine smile crosses the lady's face as she reads it. "Wait there."
Without a further word, Lady Shao disappears into her estate, only to reappear seconds later with an eagle feather quill in her hand. Bracing the letter Liu Mei had just delivered on the doorjamb, she scribbles a quick word on it.
"Here," Lady Shao hands the letter back to Liu Mei and vanishes back inside her home, door closing shut firmly behind her.
"She's just as bad as... I wonder…" She unfolds the unevenly creased letter and as she reads it sighs, "idiots…"
Written in two equally, but completely differently, terrible sets of handwriting are two words:
Spar?
Spar.
Quan Jia looks up from her customary lounging pose, accented by both Comfy Pillow and Comfy Blanket when she feels someone approach. Shao Cuifen, wearing a completely unaltered disciples robe, seems to step between space in a kind of eye twisting sort of way, reaching the edge of her Comfy Blanket far sooner than should have been right.
"Spar?" Shao Cuifen perhaps intentionally, or perhaps not, echoes the letter she'd sent yesterday.
"Spar," Quan Jia definitely intentionally echoes the response she'd received and with the momentary pang of regret that always came from dematerializing Comfy things, she stands.
"I'm kind of good at not letting people hit me," she starts, mostly because Shao Cuifen won't, "so we can start there, just…
[] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
[] "You know what, let's do this… no holds barred." (More likely to result in injury. Also more likely to impress Shao Cuifen, will probably not give opening to become friends.)
[AN]
No catastrophic failure from your exploration roll this time. I do reserve the right to make use of that kind of crit. fail in the future (though I probably won't).
In the past I've tried to provide more information for these kind of social votes so I'll do that here, and folks can decide whether they want any meta-info on the vote.
There are others: Supreme Patriarch, Lord of the Crimson Wold, Potentate of The Empty Rime, and dozens more awarded as an acknowledgement of talent and accomplishments, but such titles predate my birth and will postdate my death, so how can such things resonate with my Self?
One last name, an epithet from some, adulation from yet others, and the one to which I have devoted time and skill and Self to for this last century: Sun Wei the Revolutionary, Sun Wei the Reformer. So come Shadow, the fires of revolution will yet consume you.
Azure Exarch Sun Wei to Banded Shadow Gao Qiu before his death in the Imperial Arena, 3rd Age, 99th year of the 2nd Interregnum.
-[X] Explore the sect.
"Weren't we supposed to go exploring today?" A voice drags Quan Jia from an impressively deep level of unconsciousness.
"Go 'way, sleepin'," Quan Jia manages what could only charitably be called a comprehensible response before burying her head back into her pillow.
"Come on, it's a beautiful day outside," her friend wheedles, "and we'll probably find something interesting…"
"Snore."
"You can't just say snore like that and expect me to believe it."
"Snore."
"Saying it again doesn't make it any more believable."
"SNORE."
"Nope, louder doesn't help either."
"Snore?"
"Still not working." A pause, "Come on Quan Jia, let's go."
"Uh-uh, don' wanna' can't make me."
"Can't I?" Xiao Lien ponders in a way clearly meant to be heard. ""Now, what did Liu Mei say about sleepy ladies and buckets…"
"Don'"
"How did she say it," the sound of something that was almost certainly ice cubes clattering against each other is followed by the sound of pouring water, "oh right. Don't be swayed by attempts at cuteness… and the other one was, hmm… ice water works best, I think."
"Dreamin' Sleep'r Protec…" she trails off as a glob of shimmering golden sand surrounds her Comfy Bed and bathes her in a perfectly welcoming darkness.
So nice…
Water, probably cold and wet and mean splashes harmlessly against her barrier, and with a sleepy smirk, Quan Jia begins to drift back off to sleep. Rays of sunlight scrape ineffectively against her technique and send shards of tinkling glass down to the carpeted floor.
Sore loser...
"Small Gods, is that sand or adamantine?" Xiao Lien's muffled voice is punctuated by an equally muffled thud, "fuck, I think it is adamantine... argh, my foot… bullshit noble mrmph."
With her nap space undisturbed by mean Xiao Liens, sleep claims Quan Jia and she drifts off on the wings of absolute comfort and smug satisfaction.
[X] Plan Laying Foundations
-[X] Cultivate
--[X] 2 Spirit Diamonds
--[X] Meridians
--[X] Base Cultivation
Meridians = 6d10 (base) + 3d10 (estate) + 6d10 (gems) = 15d10 =
03 03 06 04 01 07 04 08 04 10 08 01 09 09 04 = 8 successes
Meridians
Number: 6 -> 7
XP 0/7 -> 8/7 -> 1/8
Base = 7d10 (base) + 3d10 (estate) + 6d10 (gems) = 16d10 * 1.2 (Gyre) = 19d10 =
09 05 06 01 06 06 03 06 07 02 02 06 02 08 07 01 07 10 09 = 6 successes
Cultivation
Level: Diamond Soul
Stage: Mid
XP: 3/40 -> 9/40
03 03 06 04 01 07 04 08 04 10 08 01 09 09 04 = 8 successes
Meridians
Number: 6 -> 7
XP 0/7 -> 8/7 -> 1/8
Base = 7d10 (base) + 3d10 (estate) + 6d10 (gems) = 16d10 * 1.2 (Gyre) = 19d10 =
09 05 06 01 06 06 03 06 07 02 02 06 02 08 07 01 07 10 09 = 6 successes
Cultivation
Level: Diamond Soul
Stage: Mid
XP: 3/40 -> 9/40
Quan Jia looks down at the two spirit diamonds sitting in front of her. According to her tutors, calling them gems was a bit misleading, they were rather closer to condensed crystals of qi that the weight of earth had over time squeezed free of any residual aspect. How exactly that was supposed to work, she wasn't sure, and didn't quite care either, at least not when compared to how they could be used.
I wonder what it would feel like to use more powerful gems.
Sinking into cultivation, she begins the process of willing her sluggish qi to cycle within her. Time passes in an indeterminate state punctuated by slow steady breaths and equally slow heartbeats, before at last a drop of qi finishes the twisted path through her meridians. Now ready to begin she focuses thought into qi and sends a tendril of Slumber out. An instant is all it takes to taint the gems lying at her feet irrevocably with an aspect. A second thought manifests as a mallet of sleep and a feather soft collision sets the stones ringing like a struck gong. A third thought creates the impossibly soft edge of a chisel and with a second collision of mallet, this time accompanied by chisel, the gems shatter into the shimmering iridescence of sleep.
Inhale
A vortex, centered around her head, swirls violently in her lungs and greedily pulls those motes of qi toward her. The first taste, as ever, is bliss as languid warmth passes over her lips and tongue, filling her head with pillows softer than the finest of feathers as the first of those motes are absorbed. From crown, down, down into her Core, Slumber flows. And as that liquid sleep seeps into her, her thoughts begin to float off, cradled within lethargic clouds of exhaustion.
Hold it.
Floating, flying, drifting, her thoughts touch the outermost Dream. Spectral feet ghost along a pathway of paved sable and spectral eyes are blinded in a kaleidoscope of color. Blurred rainbows sieve spark from the sieve formed by the countless cracks in her Diamond Core. Stray thoughts and half-felt emotions captured in the flickering iridescence of those sparks alight into life, dance merrily as they float along unfelt breezes, and die as they touch dreaming sand.
Exhale. Brace for it...
Slumber flows down her left arm with the violence of an avalanche, with the sluggishness of settling mud, and collides with a gnarled meridian. The collision of qi with that tangled inversion of rightness brings with it a lancing pain, distant and burningly sharp along her wrist. Qi, shaped shaped by experience and Awakening, by art and technique, molds into whirlpools of sand that grate, grind, erode away at that blockage.
Intensity gathers as the blockage swells in resistance. Loose sand sharpens into teeth and those roughened edges gouge out the pathway that should exist, paying little heed to the blood and bone and tissue scoured away in the process. Into Dream, she screams, and sable paving stones distort to nightshade in sympathy for that echoed pain.
Inhale. Once more...
The weariness of old age coats her mouth and lungs and thoughts, and brings with it a blessed, twisted, relief from pain. That pale reflection, that harbinger of Death, settles into Dream, and where it touches, impossible vibrancy fades into infinite shades of gray. Wisps of pale indigo, given birth by her agonized screams, desiccate, unable to withstand the monochromatic eternity around them.
Exhale. It's almost over...
Impossibly smooth grains of dust and sand polish the rough hewn path of her new meridian to an almost glasslike smoothness. As the last minute imperfection disappears beneath that whetting stone, the meridian snaps into focus, and the the qi of heaven and earth flows just that much more easily into her.
That was a bad one.
Eyes blink open and Quan Jia looks at the vaporous qi that hangs about her frame like a pale aura.
Might as well… at least this one won't hurt.
Unlike clearing a meridian, cultivation is not an alteration of the physical self. It's not overcoming a concept carved into reality by effort and pain and stubbornness. After all, a spirit is a thing of the Self, and the rules of the Self are whatever a cultivator is able to make them be. No, cultivation is not an action of pain and rejection of reality, it's much more like drifting of to sleep…
Goodnight.
-[X] Though Shao Cuifen never said anything, Quan Jia has the sense that she was a bit disappointed that no one took her up on her sparring offer. She could use this chance to get to know her fellow noble. If only it didn't have to be so painful.
"You want to do what?" Xiao Lien looks over from where she'd been idly flipping pages in a book on botanical resources. "Do you know what that sword of hers does?"
"What's so wrong with that," Quan Jia asks to the air above where she's laid out on a nice comfy couch, unfortunately, her Comfy Couch didn't make the trip… lazy Mei Mei's, "and it's a sword, it probably just cuts things real well, or something."
"Just cuts things…" is the murmured, near incredulous response, " she cut sunlight with it… how do you even…"
"Are you sure that was the sword and not a technique of hers?" Quan Jia tries to remember a time when the other noble hadn't been staring at, or sharpening, or fussing over that sword of hers, but comes up blank. "I'll deny it if you ever tell anyone, but I think she likes swords even more than I like napping."
"So why would you want to spar with her? Especially when you could be sleeping… and don't think I don't remember that stunt you pulled when we were supposed to go exploring." Xiao Lien sounds kind of angry.
"That was then, this is not then," she tries to explain, but the scoff from where her friend is sitting is pretty indicative that her explanation isn't working.
So not fair…
"Ok, fine," reluctantly, Quan Jia sits up and looks at the annoyed friend staring at her, "it's like this… I think Shao Cuifen is a bit like one of those canopy beds."
"I'm sure this won't be at all absurd," her friend mutters, but being in a magnanimous mood, Quan Jia decides to ignore the skepticism entirely.
"Like a canopy bed," she continues, "all boring curtains and ribbons on the outside, and delightful pillows and blankets inside."
"I suppose that actually makes sense when filtered through your particular brand of you-ness." the other girl eventually concedes, and Quan Jia smiles happily.
It was always nice when people got her metaphors.
"So how do you noble types go about asking for a spar or whatever?" Xiao Lien asks after a moment of silence, apparently deciding to let her complaints about their not-exploration go, "tell me it's convoluted and ridiculous… it is isn't it?"
"For Shao Cuifen, nope." She replies, "in fact, all I have to do is write this quick letter, Mei Mei will deliver it, and then everything will be done."
Liu Mei knocks once on the door to the multistory estate that Lady Shao Cuifen had claimed as hers. After several breaths, the door opens revealing the Lady of the house.
"I have been instructed to provide Lady Shao Cuifen with this letter from my Lady Quan Jia." With those words, she proffers an envelope, sealed in red and yellow wax with a thorned rose embossed on it.
Lady Shao receives the letter without comment and opens it. A small, but by all appearance, genuine smile crosses the lady's face as she reads it. "Wait there."
Without a further word, Lady Shao disappears into her estate, only to reappear seconds later with an eagle feather quill in her hand. Bracing the letter Liu Mei had just delivered on the doorjamb, she scribbles a quick word on it.
"Here," Lady Shao hands the letter back to Liu Mei and vanishes back inside her home, door closing shut firmly behind her.
"She's just as bad as... I wonder…" She unfolds the unevenly creased letter and as she reads it sighs, "idiots…"
Written in two equally, but completely differently, terrible sets of handwriting are two words:
Spar?
Spar.
Quan Jia looks up from her customary lounging pose, accented by both Comfy Pillow and Comfy Blanket when she feels someone approach. Shao Cuifen, wearing a completely unaltered disciples robe, seems to step between space in a kind of eye twisting sort of way, reaching the edge of her Comfy Blanket far sooner than should have been right.
"Spar?" Shao Cuifen perhaps intentionally, or perhaps not, echoes the letter she'd sent yesterday.
"Spar," Quan Jia definitely intentionally echoes the response she'd received and with the momentary pang of regret that always came from dematerializing Comfy things, she stands.
"I'm kind of good at not letting people hit me," she starts, mostly because Shao Cuifen won't, "so we can start there, just…
[] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
[] "You know what, let's do this… no holds barred." (More likely to result in injury. Also more likely to impress Shao Cuifen, will probably not give opening to become friends.)
[AN]
No catastrophic failure from your exploration roll this time. I do reserve the right to make use of that kind of crit. fail in the future (though I probably won't).
In the past I've tried to provide more information for these kind of social votes so I'll do that here, and folks can decide whether they want any meta-info on the vote.
This is a vote for how you want your, kind of, first impression with Shao Cuifen to play out. You're setting some of the context on the kind of relationship you want to develop with her. This can, of course, be changed later on, but this is where it will start.
The only other bit I want to add, at this point, is that the second option is more dependent on the results of dice rolls while the first option is less so.
The only other bit I want to add, at this point, is that the second option is more dependent on the results of dice rolls while the first option is less so.
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
[X] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
Just opened a new meridian and we don't really know a lot about what Shao Cuifen can do.
It would be wise to test each other's capabilities to avoid causing any unneeded injuries, as that would slow down the other's cultivation.
Slowing down of cultivation means that another Noble can get ahead.
Just opened a new meridian and we don't really know a lot about what Shao Cuifen can do.
It would be wise to test each other's capabilities to avoid causing any unneeded injuries, as that would slow down the other's cultivation.
Slowing down of cultivation means that another Noble can get ahead.
- Location
- United States of America
Well, I have to admit that it failing an exploration role because we are too sleepy is... fitting I suppose.
As for sparing itself, I think not going all out is the best option. I'm not particularly curious to find out how healing injuries work. And, friends are the best!
Although I am kind of interested in how going all out and impressing Shao leaves less room for making friends with them. I thought it would be good for friend-making if we do impress them more.
As for sparing itself, I think not going all out is the best option. I'm not particularly curious to find out how healing injuries work. And, friends are the best!
Although I am kind of interested in how going all out and impressing Shao leaves less room for making friends with them. I thought it would be good for friend-making if we do impress them more.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
[X] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
We did just open a meridian, so we have an excuse to go slower.
We did just open a meridian, so we have an excuse to go slower.
- Location
- Earth
[X] "You know what, let's do this… no holds barred." (More likely to result in injury. Also more likely to impress Shao Cuifen, will probably not give opening to become friends.)
- Location
- United States of America
[X] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
[X] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)
friendshiiiiiip
friendshiiiiiip
- Location
- United States
I want to go all out. Strictly to lean into the story I'm building in my mind of her from the combat class. I'm thinking our dad had to get a bit unconventional to get training to stick.
Rather then training all day until we are exhausted, he set a goal and the second we meet that goal we are free to go back to sleep. What that's done is turn us into a max intensity fighter. We dont wear out opponents, or pick apart their fighting style. Instead we are full throttle from the start and just bulldoze our opponent. Then when we win we happily pull out our pillow and go to sleep.
I know I'm not explaining what's in my head well and I know there is a term for what I'm thinking of that I cant remember.
[x] "You know what, let's do this… no holds barred." (More likely to result in injury. Also more likely to impress Shao Cuifen, will probably not give opening to become friends.)
Rather then training all day until we are exhausted, he set a goal and the second we meet that goal we are free to go back to sleep. What that's done is turn us into a max intensity fighter. We dont wear out opponents, or pick apart their fighting style. Instead we are full throttle from the start and just bulldoze our opponent. Then when we win we happily pull out our pillow and go to sleep.
I know I'm not explaining what's in my head well and I know there is a term for what I'm thinking of that I cant remember.
[x] "You know what, let's do this… no holds barred." (More likely to result in injury. Also more likely to impress Shao Cuifen, will probably not give opening to become friends.)
[X] "Maybe let's not go all out?" (Less likely to result in injury. Also less likely to impress Shao Cuifen, may give opening to become friends.)