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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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yrsillar said:
Over her head, a single boulder, perhaps half the size of the starstone, cracked and compressed inward, halving it's size, becoming a perfect black sphere. The remains of the wall shot toward it, as if dragged in by the earth. Even Ling Qi felt a harsh tug, planting her feet in the chalky dirt as her hair and gown alike whipped around her limbs, dragged toward the sphere.
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Hehehehehe I enjoyed that one.

I truly have no idea on the vote. I have trouble imagining our higher-ups viewing her as anything but an enemy, I don't want to do something dumb like surreptitiously meeting up with her later.

I obviously want to pull on this plot thread, she aborted her strike on Zhen when she noticed our horror.
 
ImperatorV said:
Some variation of "Talk Later" is probably the best choice here. We're kinda in the middle of a battle.
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Yes, but after the battle, what's her assurance we'd come talk to her at all? (And what's our assurance she won't ambush us away from Imperial forces?)

I'm not saying it's an impossible option, but it's pretty fraught, and that should be kept in mind.
 
Candesce said:
Yes, but after the battle, what's her assurance we'd come talk to her at all? (And what's our assurance she won't ambush us away from Imperial forces?)

I'm not saying it's an impossible option, but it's pretty fraught, and that should be kept in mind.
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She really doesn't have one. But this is a trap so it is in her best interest to get fuck out.
 
Proposed:

[] Help Cai against shishigui for talk on lineage

Not direct attack against cloud nomad so she's more inclined to help, visible support for sect to see, Cai Renxiang we know is willing to pursue other options than just smash so with her near crx I bet crx can ensure that we get a talk with ice lady rather than the sect doing murderstuff
 
[] Tell her to help if she's so interested in you, you can talk later.

I want to continue this plotline. Furthermore, we have a team with a Cyan waiting for them if they flee. This is the best option for their safety and ours.
 
ChronOblivion said:
I truly have no idea on the vote. I have trouble imagining our higher-ups viewing her as anything but an enemy, I don't want to do something dumb like surreptitiously meeting up with her later.
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I mean, Renxiang will like this since she's already annoyed about starting unnecessary fights. And I'd imagine Shenhua would support her since there is literally negative value in getting into conflict with the White Sky who are, afterall, all the way down on the other side of the wall. And at a basic strategic level divide and conquer is a classic imperial strategy for a reason.

So I really doubt we'd be sneaking anywhere because that would be silly.
 
Ayashi said:
I believe that if we ask for her Help then we will pay for it by losing the starstone.
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That doesn't make sense though? If we ask her for help she won't get to run, she'll be stuck with us until the place is swarmed by Imperials and no longer be able to get away. If she runs right now she may get away but she also certainly won't get to carry away the stone.
 
I know its only one of many things going on in this update, but can we take a moment to appreciate that Guan Zhi's black hole punch techniques are both terrifying and awesome.

Makes me wonder what sort of geography rearranging powers a Cyan Linq Qi could develop.
 
Maybe we can try to communicate "Winning like this won't make anyone happy."

Indicating the impure cultivators and the mini nuke they just tried to hand over , for what it's worth. It might allow the Barbarians to withdraw and save face while we finish the fight with the remnants. They can't have the stone tho, so... maybe a "to be continued"?

E: or on the flip side: Thank you for being gentle, duel me for the rock?
 
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TehChron said:
[] I will gladly speak later with you, so long as you and yours depart before that which we cannot control chains both of us with bonds of unwanted enmity
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BeepSmile said:
[ ] "No end save the last, sing until then, expression of joy arising from dance-of-leaning and shared peace-compassion-family, joyful melding and dissolving and dissonance and reconstruction is good pattern"
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Katreus said:
[] Help Cai against shishigui for talk on lineage
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CornyBones said:
[] "Student to Songstress of Endings entreats aid for later negotiation."

writing v1.
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So I have issues with all these write ins

1. We can't promise the first. If they flee, we cant promise to talk to them later. We don't have that authority

2. This is too flowery, and not that relevant to the fight.

3. Basically the same as one of the options. Lets not split the vote

4. Same criticism as above, but also, she probably doesnt know who Songstress of Endings is. it unnecessarily complicates things
 
Ayashi said:
I believe that if we ask for her Help then we will pay for it by losing the starstone.
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Probably not.
The woman stared hard at her, and spoke something in a hard consonant heavy language, gesturing between her and the starstone with her scepter. It… there was something familiar about it though, it wasn't quite hill tribe speech, but there was something similar in it.
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This part was a bit confusing so asked yrs in discord. She is gesturing between LQ and the starstone.

She is also talking about:
There was something about lineage. And uh? Something about aid, maybe??
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So seems she is asking what lineage LQ is from and if LQ requires aid? Maybe? She is not asking for the stone atleast.
 
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I think the thing to ask here is: do any of the write-ins actually genuinely represent a novel path distinct from the current votes?

Like, I like @TehChron's write-in - but do we really think that yrs is doing all this setup with the Ice Witches in order to have us not talk with them at some point? Honestly I feel like it's probably exactly what yrs already intends with the current vote.

Getting obsessed over optimising details of what we say is exactly what we shouldn't be doing. Yrs isn't trying to trip us up on things like that, and there's clearly an Ice Witch arc somewhere here. Write-ins should be used if we can think of something genuinely distinct - not to argue about whether or not we should mention Zeqing, which, given the prompt, will presumably happen when we use our music if it seems appropriate. We're not trying to solve a speech optimisation puzzle here.
 
Candesce said:
Yes, but after the battle, what's her assurance we'd come talk to her at all? (And what's our assurance she won't ambush us away from Imperial forces?)

I'm not saying it's an impossible option, but it's pretty fraught, and that should be kept in mind.
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Expression of self - value derived from sincerity

The hope is that she trusts Ling Qi's way when Ling Qi expressed it through her song.... uh. hopefully.
 
[] Tell her to leave, if she's so interested in you, you can talk later.

No need to make it difficult. It's obvious that she is interested in some level. So give her a hand because we don't want to be spirited away/killed/devoured trust in her best intentions. But subtly, no need to make show out of it.
 
065tdsa said:
That doesn't make sense though? If we ask her for help she won't get to run, she'll be stuck with us until the place is swarmed by Imperials and no longer be able to get away. If she runs right now she may get away but she also certainly won't get to carry away the stone.
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yrsillar said:
The woman stared hard at her, and spoke something in a hard consonant heavy language, gesturing between her and the starstone with her scepter.
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I think the spirit basically said "my help for the stone".
From an outside point of view, Ling Qi is almost out of Qi she and her spirits are all wounded, her two allies are cut off and visibly losing ground, and she has a whole army breathing down her neck. At the very least it would seem like a decent trade for her life.

Vanguard_D said:
Probably not.

This part was a bit confusing so asked yrs in discord. She is gesturing between LQ and the starstone.

She is also talking about:

So seems she is asking what lineage LQ is from and if LQ requires aid? Maybe? She is not asking for the stone atleast.
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if she pointed to the stone then the stone is definitively part of what she talked about.
I think the lineage part is the only reason she offered the trade rather than automatically try to kill Ling Qi for it.
 
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Ayashi said:
I think the spirit basically said "my help for the stone".


if she pointed to the stone then the stone is definitively part of what she talked about.
I think the lineage part is the only reason she offered the trade rather than automatically try to kill Ling Qi for it.
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Or she was asking if we're here for the stone like the others. Like, she's not the one with an army here. She's in no position to make a play for the stone.
 
I really like the way this is going, I'm intrigued by the White Sky culture and their connection to th spirits of Ending. I'd tell her to retreat and meet a later date. Something like:

[Meet] at [Visible Landmark] on [Full Moon].

Then we can set something up with Cai perhaps. The rock is non-negotiable of course.
 
GlassMask said:
1. We can't promise the first. If they flee, we cant promise to talk to them later. We don't have that authority
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Then we just fail to keep our promise.
Like, if we get barred from following up on this and don't want to sneak out, we don't follow up on it.

It still gets a G8 and G6 that could have joined up with the rest of our enemies out of here at no cost to ourselves or our allies.
 
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