Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
There will be a scene about current events yeah
Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
[X] Remain in your current place and maintain your current goals.
I liked the side quest.
Side. Quest.
It was a break from the regular grind, it allowed us to grow our relationships with CRX & Co., and we've honestly changed the realm a bit by opening this door.
It was a nice diversion and break. We proved we weren't useless, showed off, and came out smelling like roses.
Now to head back home and continue our training, with our new insights foremost in our mind.
If I would have known indulging in this side quest would have potentially wrenched the quest off the rails into a completely different direction, I'd have not supported pursuing it as we did.
We hand our mission results to Shenhua, we accept our reward, and we move on; getting lucky does NOT make us a diplomat. I don't feel like ditching our hard earned social links for this opportunity. Yes we can keep a few . . . but not the whole of them we were planning to.
We are a trickster/spy/support type; our very skillset is as shady as it gets WRT diplomacy.
And I don't think Shenhua is on the up and up. Powerful, yes. But she creeps me out and I don't want to have a single DROP more of her direct attention than necessary for CRX's rise to power. I feel she'll let us do our thing with our snow buddies right until she needs a sudden yet inevitable betrayal pulled. I would rather not be the knife in that scenario.
I liked the side quest.
Side. Quest.
It was a break from the regular grind, it allowed us to grow our relationships with CRX & Co., and we've honestly changed the realm a bit by opening this door.
It was a nice diversion and break. We proved we weren't useless, showed off, and came out smelling like roses.
Now to head back home and continue our training, with our new insights foremost in our mind.
If I would have known indulging in this side quest would have potentially wrenched the quest off the rails into a completely different direction, I'd have not supported pursuing it as we did.
We hand our mission results to Shenhua, we accept our reward, and we move on; getting lucky does NOT make us a diplomat. I don't feel like ditching our hard earned social links for this opportunity. Yes we can keep a few . . . but not the whole of them we were planning to.
We are a trickster/spy/support type; our very skillset is as shady as it gets WRT diplomacy.
And I don't think Shenhua is on the up and up. Powerful, yes. But she creeps me out and I don't want to have a single DROP more of her direct attention than necessary for CRX's rise to power. I feel she'll let us do our thing with our snow buddies right until she needs a sudden yet inevitable betrayal pulled. I would rather not be the knife in that scenario.
- Location
- Finland
I would not call our trip a sidequest, it was part of the branching mainquest as it has a pretty major consequences on the plot no matter what we would have chosen.
Sure not everyone is going to like it, or the new possible direction, but it was not merely a sidegig for some of us.
Sure not everyone is going to like it, or the new possible direction, but it was not merely a sidegig for some of us.
[X] Remain in your current place and maintain your current goals.
Not that it will make a difference, but hey, let's join the vote
Not that it will make a difference, but hey, let's join the vote
It was actually one of the first things in the quest that CRX specifically told us she wanted us to become a diplomat.
[X] Take a central role in diplomacy with the White Sky
The Strife of Twin Emperors
There has been no greater time of woe in our Empire than the Strife of Twin Emperors. At no other time, not even the death of the Sage Emperor himself wrought such chaos and death, for his children had the wisdom not to turn the weapons and might of the Empire against itself. Not even the great sages and ministers are capable of tallying the true number of the dead in that millennium of terror, nor calculate the damage wrought.
Already, much is being made of Shang Tsung and his son Shang Cao's sorcery. That they bound the minds of men, and brought to service their followers through mere coercion. This, I spit upon as a lie. A necessary lie perhaps, to bury the blood that has been shed, but a lie all the same. The armies of the Thousand Lakes and the Ebon Rivers needed no such things to march and battle anew. I, a son of Jing, laugh at the notion that the soulwrights of the Sands needed more than Shang Tsung's acknowledgement and funding to turn their arts to his cause.
In seeking to bury this truth, I fear that the seeds of our ultimate dissolution are being sowed as we speak. My countrymen, now unprotected by their ancestor, groan under the reparations demanded of them, though they were no more guilty than any others in this madness. The Horned Lords vanished, and those of a mind to hear can feel the Father's Hearth convulse with whatever madness took them. Then men of the south tear into each other still, their own strife unending. The brutal Xi rise on conquest and death, and I see no peace coming from the emperor's enthronement of such folk.
Shang Tsung was no beast or demon. He was merely a man. The younger of the brothers by mere minutes, his talent shook the heavens. Whatever he may have done, it must be remembered that he was a genius, whose works could have transformed the empire. The great cisterns and waterworks, which transformed so much of the Celestial Peaks into livable land were his works. The new construction techniques, which saw roads pushed deeper into the wilderness than ever before were his works.
Now they burn and crumble, just as the libraries and archives do. The new imperial decrees which demand security and protection for 'dangerous knowledge' have seen dozens of Sects shuttered. The Bai have stripepd their bondsmen of great swathes of their libraries, and locked away what has not been burned in their vaults. Even proud Zheng has submitted and enforced the new law upon their wild lands.
This is a mistake. Shang Cao wrought atrocities with his Father's knowledge, when at last the war turned against him, but this is not a good reason for what was done. A curse upon those who would rather bind us to ignorance rather than face the true causes of this.
Even should it cost my life, I will put this to paper, and cast it into the realm of mind and dream. Shang Tsung should have been emperor. The Bai and the Lu, whose voices ultimately drowned out those who pointed out Hu Shou's unfitness for the throne, bear the weight for beginning the madness. When the Emperor ascended so suddenly, their insistence upon the right of first birth, even in the face of obvious incapability showed their hand.
When the people of the Celestial Peaks rose against the fool emperor and cast him down in favor of Shang Tsung, it was made obvious. Yet the Bai are ever mighty, and the foolish mercy which spared Hu Shou's life became Shang Tsung's greatest mistake. When the armies of the Lakes marched through the passes to 'restore order' it was mere prelude.
When Shang Tsung's artifice saw the White Serpent and her armies thrown back by the then pitiful and disorganized forces of the Celestial Peaks, the Strife began. The Zheng, previously silent, set themselves at his side, and my own countrymen, drawn by the promise of prominence for their arts, joined as well. Then came the Lu , striking the flank of their hated foes, the Zheng. The Savage Seas surged forth, their beasts falling upon the Sands, and the Horned Lords dithered with agents of both, refusing commitment.
War ravaged the Empire for the first time since the unification. Brutal and glorious both, the armies of the Emperor's marched and burned their own lands. The crafts of Shang Tsung, once spent upon infrastructure, turned to death. The great Throne palaces, defunct since the age of the Sage, thrummed with new life, and hurled back the serpent's warrior and assassin alike. So many wonders came from the workshops of Shang. Who now knows the makings of the Heavenforge Titans, whose footsteps pressed new lakes into the land, and whose mouths birthed a thousand iron soldiers in a day? Who can say that they could build again the Eight Winds Engine, which commanded the sky against the weather sorcery of the Lu?
Yet it would amiss to not speak of the horrors as well. The Soul Crumbler, taking in blood and lives and emitting terrible rays which shattered the cultivation and souls of their targets, unleashing wailing hordes of broken ghosts in the wake of their shots. The Nightmare Walkers, whose skittering steps warped and tore the realm of dream and split open bleeding wounds from which spilled the darkest nightmares.
More horrors than wonders came as the centuries passed, and the lines moved ever against him. The Bai's generals were too canny, and even in loss, inflicted great pain. The Xuan's beasts raided endlessly, and our people starved under the appetite of their beasts. The Zheng fought bravely, but without organization, and each fell alone.
The ending was inevitable, even the people of the Peaks turned from Shang Tsung as his mind rotted, and the revenant that had been a great man became more and more a puppet of his crueler son, nothing more than a tinker of atrocities. The Zheng turned as well, unable to countenance the new strategies issuing from the Dragon Throne.
Then came the end, the burning of the Imperial City, mythologized already a bare century later. They say that the mad Shang, knowing defeat was nigh wished to burn the palace and deny it to their foes. This too is a lie. My masters sought no such things, dreaming of victory even at the end. No, they sought instead the foundations of the Imperial Palace, the great work of the Sage and his son.
For their meddling, she awoke. They say the Celestial Dragon hurled down ten thousand bolts of lightning, slaying every supporter of the vile Shang. I saw no such mercy. When the second sun lit in the sky, and the lightning fell, there was no mercy or distinction. A city of million souls emptied and burned in an instant, with only a random scattering of survivors throughout the palace, which stood unmarked, save for the ashen shadow of Shang Tsung, imprinted upon the wall of the Imperial Throne Hall.
It is a distressing thing, to see reality changed before your eyes by rumor and stories.
--Excerpt from the papers of Sage Jing Sungho, held in the restricted section of the Imperial archive.
Already, much is being made of Shang Tsung and his son Shang Cao's sorcery. That they bound the minds of men, and brought to service their followers through mere coercion. This, I spit upon as a lie. A necessary lie perhaps, to bury the blood that has been shed, but a lie all the same. The armies of the Thousand Lakes and the Ebon Rivers needed no such things to march and battle anew. I, a son of Jing, laugh at the notion that the soulwrights of the Sands needed more than Shang Tsung's acknowledgement and funding to turn their arts to his cause.
In seeking to bury this truth, I fear that the seeds of our ultimate dissolution are being sowed as we speak. My countrymen, now unprotected by their ancestor, groan under the reparations demanded of them, though they were no more guilty than any others in this madness. The Horned Lords vanished, and those of a mind to hear can feel the Father's Hearth convulse with whatever madness took them. Then men of the south tear into each other still, their own strife unending. The brutal Xi rise on conquest and death, and I see no peace coming from the emperor's enthronement of such folk.
Shang Tsung was no beast or demon. He was merely a man. The younger of the brothers by mere minutes, his talent shook the heavens. Whatever he may have done, it must be remembered that he was a genius, whose works could have transformed the empire. The great cisterns and waterworks, which transformed so much of the Celestial Peaks into livable land were his works. The new construction techniques, which saw roads pushed deeper into the wilderness than ever before were his works.
Now they burn and crumble, just as the libraries and archives do. The new imperial decrees which demand security and protection for 'dangerous knowledge' have seen dozens of Sects shuttered. The Bai have stripepd their bondsmen of great swathes of their libraries, and locked away what has not been burned in their vaults. Even proud Zheng has submitted and enforced the new law upon their wild lands.
This is a mistake. Shang Cao wrought atrocities with his Father's knowledge, when at last the war turned against him, but this is not a good reason for what was done. A curse upon those who would rather bind us to ignorance rather than face the true causes of this.
Even should it cost my life, I will put this to paper, and cast it into the realm of mind and dream. Shang Tsung should have been emperor. The Bai and the Lu, whose voices ultimately drowned out those who pointed out Hu Shou's unfitness for the throne, bear the weight for beginning the madness. When the Emperor ascended so suddenly, their insistence upon the right of first birth, even in the face of obvious incapability showed their hand.
When the people of the Celestial Peaks rose against the fool emperor and cast him down in favor of Shang Tsung, it was made obvious. Yet the Bai are ever mighty, and the foolish mercy which spared Hu Shou's life became Shang Tsung's greatest mistake. When the armies of the Lakes marched through the passes to 'restore order' it was mere prelude.
When Shang Tsung's artifice saw the White Serpent and her armies thrown back by the then pitiful and disorganized forces of the Celestial Peaks, the Strife began. The Zheng, previously silent, set themselves at his side, and my own countrymen, drawn by the promise of prominence for their arts, joined as well. Then came the Lu , striking the flank of their hated foes, the Zheng. The Savage Seas surged forth, their beasts falling upon the Sands, and the Horned Lords dithered with agents of both, refusing commitment.
War ravaged the Empire for the first time since the unification. Brutal and glorious both, the armies of the Emperor's marched and burned their own lands. The crafts of Shang Tsung, once spent upon infrastructure, turned to death. The great Throne palaces, defunct since the age of the Sage, thrummed with new life, and hurled back the serpent's warrior and assassin alike. So many wonders came from the workshops of Shang. Who now knows the makings of the Heavenforge Titans, whose footsteps pressed new lakes into the land, and whose mouths birthed a thousand iron soldiers in a day? Who can say that they could build again the Eight Winds Engine, which commanded the sky against the weather sorcery of the Lu?
Yet it would amiss to not speak of the horrors as well. The Soul Crumbler, taking in blood and lives and emitting terrible rays which shattered the cultivation and souls of their targets, unleashing wailing hordes of broken ghosts in the wake of their shots. The Nightmare Walkers, whose skittering steps warped and tore the realm of dream and split open bleeding wounds from which spilled the darkest nightmares.
More horrors than wonders came as the centuries passed, and the lines moved ever against him. The Bai's generals were too canny, and even in loss, inflicted great pain. The Xuan's beasts raided endlessly, and our people starved under the appetite of their beasts. The Zheng fought bravely, but without organization, and each fell alone.
The ending was inevitable, even the people of the Peaks turned from Shang Tsung as his mind rotted, and the revenant that had been a great man became more and more a puppet of his crueler son, nothing more than a tinker of atrocities. The Zheng turned as well, unable to countenance the new strategies issuing from the Dragon Throne.
Then came the end, the burning of the Imperial City, mythologized already a bare century later. They say that the mad Shang, knowing defeat was nigh wished to burn the palace and deny it to their foes. This too is a lie. My masters sought no such things, dreaming of victory even at the end. No, they sought instead the foundations of the Imperial Palace, the great work of the Sage and his son.
For their meddling, she awoke. They say the Celestial Dragon hurled down ten thousand bolts of lightning, slaying every supporter of the vile Shang. I saw no such mercy. When the second sun lit in the sky, and the lightning fell, there was no mercy or distinction. A city of million souls emptied and burned in an instant, with only a random scattering of survivors throughout the palace, which stood unmarked, save for the ashen shadow of Shang Tsung, imprinted upon the wall of the Imperial Throne Hall.
It is a distressing thing, to see reality changed before your eyes by rumor and stories.
--Excerpt from the papers of Sage Jing Sungho, held in the restricted section of the Imperial archive.
"A city of million souls emptied and burned in an instant, with only a random scattering of survivors throughout the palace, which stood unmarked, save for the ashen shadow of Shang Tsung, imprinted upon the wall of the Imperial Throne Hall."
methinks those survivors weren't random.
methinks those survivors weren't random.
Interesting term, here.
As I recall, the Twilight King was famous for his specific manipulations of the soul - but the "text fragment by Empress Yin" we got as a bonus chapter implied that the soul manipulation stuff was learned outside of the Empire.
This... makes me much less inclined to believe that.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Top-level formation craft is some crazy stuff huh? All those fun devices...
...So here's some reasons why the Jing left the Empire, eh? The Jing seem to have been formation masters of the creation of item spirits type, whose craft was apparently disdained in the days of the first and second dynasty. In the Strife, their Sublime Ancestor was lost — I note Jing Sungho makes no note of how or why, and the circumstances could be quite interesting, taking into account how Shang Tsung was apparently a master of horrific artifice — and after, the second dynasty (and possibly the winning provincial dukes?) forced them to pay blood debts.
(Possibly why the Jin are so mercantile, if their efforts held off the rest of the Empire while the Jing prepared to leave.)
Note that there was spared literally zero words to describe the ways in which Hu Shou was unfit to rule. All Jing Sungho mentioned was that the people of the Peaks overthrew "the fool emperor" — and even that's suspect, since there's nothing to say why or who, specifically.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
What I love about this piece is that we see what high end formation stuff looks like. Pretty excited to see the heights Li Suyin reaches in her work. It brings a tear to my eye, remembering the fumblings Li Suyin and Ling Qi got up to in their early experiences with formalcraft and how far our little necromancer has gotten.
- Location
- California
If she isn't one day spoken of in the same hushed, terrified tone as this mad emperor, than we can only conclude she is a failure.
Wait so the Living Sun didn't kill him with their use of Explosion?
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Different emperors. The twilight king lived a long time after the strife of two emperors.
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EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
Yeah, the Strife happened before the Ao dynasty, which is when Twilight King happened
The Ao took over after the Strife, and ~2k years later we saw the Twilight King.
Even with cultivator lifespans, very few individuals are going to be around for both of those. Grudges, though, that I'm not so sure of. I expect the Sands and the Fields still got along terribly, for one. Even with the Jing having just left.
I wonder if the Jin, having still basically just come into power, decided sheltering a potential challenger for the throne might be a good idea?
Even with cultivator lifespans, very few individuals are going to be around for both of those. Grudges, though, that I'm not so sure of. I expect the Sands and the Fields still got along terribly, for one. Even with the Jing having just left.
I wonder if the Jin, having still basically just come into power, decided sheltering a potential challenger for the throne might be a good idea?