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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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[X] Xiangmen, City of Wonders. Vast production, treasures beyond counting, the engine of riches which had kept even a corpse alive long after all vitality was gone.
 
o11c said:
Yes, but we really need the Geomancy before we begin building. Retroactive fixing is much worse, so we can't afford to delay very much at all. (There's nothing more permanent than a "temporary" fix building - even if the building itself is replaced, its effect on the surroundings remains)

Even if we don't fill out the 6 for a couple years (which is plenty of time to meet people, especially off-screen), we're still getting them most of the 10 years of training.
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We can, if necessary, build temporary housing at first that we tear down once we come for finalized structures.
And we intend to grow over time so anything we build now will, eventually, become too small for our purposes as we advance in cultivation and gain more influence.

That said, i don't expect us to wait, or want to, but it is an option available to us.
 
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[X] Xiangmen, City of Art. The explosion of art, low and high, in a city long-chained. What dreams bubble in the spaces between?
 
[X] Xiangmen, City of Art. The explosion of art, low and high, in a city long-chained. What dreams bubble in the spaces between?
 
yrsillar said:
Ling Qi sighed as she tugged the first one over, preparing to focus on all the niggling little details.

Even if the Meng were friendly, she was not about to sign anything she hadn't thoroughly read and understood.
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Always crucial.
Even with no malice, different comprehensions are normal even between mere mortals.
yrsillar said:
Digesting and haggling over the rest of the details was a lengthy task, but she found no sneaky little clauses or deceptive wording - for legal contracts they were both refreshingly straightforward. The Meng would provide the geomancer's salary, cultivation supplies, and reagents for his work. There was a small tangle in the form of an arbitration clause, indicating she would have to renegotiate with the Meng if she asked the geomancer to undertake a project which exceeded the supplies he was given and couldn't provide herself, but she suspected she would have to undertake something quite absurd to trigger that.
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Materials included.

...inb4 she does find something quite absurd to do because thats how she rolls.
If we do find it, decent bet on taking it, since its still fully paid up to that point, we'd just have to dig up the extra mats.
yrsillar said:
The notes were less complicated. What she would receive were full copies of the works in question, and while the contract stated that she was only to share direct access with members of the Ling Clan, derived work was naturally hers to do with as she pleased. It was fairly standard for this sort of transfer, from what she understood, though it was highly unusual for a count clan to make such a deal with a mere Baroness. The copies would be available in one month's time, in order for the necessary rites to be performed for the spirits of the original copies.
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Meng Ancestors: "All Ancestors Standing Beside Your Bed"
yrsillar said:
The Geomancer would be made available at her leisure, with his term starting when she made the request.
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Ah excellent, we can figure out which of our household has the talent to cultivate anywhere first.
yrsillar said:
She'd have to talk to Renxiang, but it might be a good idea to put that off until they'd finished surveying things in a few months to avoid wasting anyone's time.
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And make sure we 100% the survey first too.
yrsillar said:
The meal provided by the household staff had been delicious, and of limited enough size that Ling Qi didn't feel too wasteful for it. The tea had been good too, comprising a number of dark and earthy blends.
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Now the huge plates with tiny amounts of food make sense!
yrsillar said:
The upper reaches of Xiangmen were a riot of competing artistry, each building seeming to metaphorically shoulder to the front of the crowd as if to proclaim 'Only I deserve attention!'
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Might be literal.
The house spirits are all massive divas.
yrsillar said:
Tonghou was a hideous little hovel of a city, wasn't it? But did it have to be? If a few stones spilled down from these branches and into those streets, wouldn't they be transformed?

Probably not, ruminated Ling Qi, stopping to look through the window of a shop. It sold glass ornaments and statues, from the look of it. Beautiful work, really, even if it was a little gaudy. If those stones did spill down, they would only vanish into powerful pockets and the streets would never see them.
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Maybe if the middlemen actually were supervised.
But money doesn't mean prosperity. There are many things that need doing, money only makes people more willing to do these things, not necessarily more able.
yrsillar said:
"Feeling a little philosophical, huh?" drawled Sixiang. "I think you know it doesn't have to be that way."

Maybe not. Well, not everywhere at least. She didn't know much of ruling, but she liked to think she could at least do better than Tonghou.

"Nobody should be hungry," proclaimed Zhengui solemnly.
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Its a good place to start. Hunger is a shackle.
yrsillar said:
he left Zhengui in the garden and Hanyi in her room, with a promise that she'd take her out dress shopping tomorrow morning to mollify her complaints.
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More pretty dresses! Hanyi can buy them on her own now, which I bet she'd insist on.
yrsillar said:
She stopped by Cai Renxiang's room and left a note saying that she would be out for cultivation until morning.
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Renxiang: [Mild Concern]
yrsillar said:
Then it was back out into the darkening streets. Xiangmen, unlike many places, didn't seem to fully shut down with the falling of night. There were less people, some venues were closed, but music and voices and shouts still filled the arboreal street.
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Small town girl revealed.
Big cities never sleep. They just take naps.
yrsillar said:
For now, she chose to stick to this one branch for tonight's exploration. She knew it was officially called the seventh Cloudspire District, but from listening as she strolled Ling Qi learned its colloquial name was the Cerulean Garden. She was a little curious as to the provenance of the name, and a few questions brought her twigward (toward the tip of the branch) where it narrowed to only a few dozen meters across and the broad village-sized leaves clustered close. What she found was a bit mad, to her experience. Built onto the largest of leaves and the branch itself were sprawling apiaries and artificial fields, holding tea plants whose leaves ranged from the deepest indigo to the palest sky blue. They buzzed with bees, mostly normal in size, but there were a handful the size of horses with dark blue carapaces. Human workers and soldiers rode these, dangling from complex slings and harnesses of wood and leather.

Once she spotted them she understood the purpose of the oversized apiary that hung below the branch, suspended on cords of woven metal.
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...wait, I remember this place.
yrsillar said:
"The Primeval Root blend is incomplete without a a small spoonful of Cloudblossom honey," Cai Renxiang replied from her seat. Seeing her with her eyes closed, inhaling the scent of the tea, Ling Qi could almost mistake her for being a normal, relaxed girl.

"Throwing out names like that," Ling Qi said slyly. "You should have told me it was cultivation aid."

Cai Renxiang cracked one eye open to give her a disapproving look. "It is not, the medicinal blend has a terrible flavor, and uses a different subspecies of the plant."

Ling Qi huffed in a disappointment, but took a tiny sip anyway. It had a very rich flavor, which she had to admit was really tasty. It still seemed a bit of a waste. "What is with those names then?"

"The tea leaves only grow from the hills formed by the capital city's root network, and the honey arises from the bees kept in the fourth stratum cloud gardens," Cai Renxiang explained, taking a sip of her own.

"I definitely want to see that place one day," Ling Qi mused, struggling to picture it, a tree big enough to be a mountain.
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We had honey from here before!
yrsillar said:
Despite herself she couldn't hold in a snort of laughter as she observed an actor, painted up in the most exaggerated fashion of a courtier, wailing in outrage after a pratfall into his own lavish office's garden pond. It was such a simple little story, about a clever clerk and his overbearing and pompous superior, with the clerk always finding ways to do his job properly while still finding ways to embarrass his superior when he came to take the credit.

It ended with the superior's final humiliation as his efforts to take credit for his underling's work came undone, and the clever clerk was elevated to be the new director.

It felt so strange for so many resources to be poured into something that was mostly physical humor, quips, and a certain amount of vulgar puns. It was... fun, and Ling Qi could even see the message of it - the virtuous man rises and the corrupt fool falls. She still felt like this show would never be put on in the inner ring of Tonghou.
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It must be a pretty popular theme in the wake of the Hui.

And Qi doesn't quite realize that the truly influential have far less care for their dignity than those uncertain in their footing.

People are people
yrsillar said:
Leaving the theater, she found herself wandering further, walking the streets among towering manors and sprawling gardens where wealth was on its' fullest display and no walls were needed to keep the streets clear of the twigward neighborhoods' less-wealthy residents. Here she saw palanquins and horses, gardens and courtiers, yards lit with glittering lights and revels attended by swarms of lavishly dressed and painted courtiers. With her aura firmly held in, her dress simplified and her presence masked, she saw the upturned noses at hers and Sixiang's presence - and even once, for the first time, had to let a little power leak into her eyes when she caught a guard approaching with the air of one who was about to tell someone they didn't belong.

How much had really changed? Was it only the surface that saw a cleaning?
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Gatekeeping is about as much a cosmic law as all the others.
Once people lose the reasons to keep people away, they continue doing so.
And conversely, as you grow powerful and influential, people start looking for ways to get in on it.

Its all about the boundaries and thresholds of everything overlapping...though its easier to just judge by superficials.
 
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Argent Rose
  • Sidestory
    • Diao Li listened raptly to the Elder's gentle and soothing voice, her hands and needles moving almost by rote. Elder Linqin was so elegant, and her voice was so lovely. The Elder sat on a raised dais above the student benches, her own example piece slowly billowing in midair as stitching seemed to simply appear across its surface, forming a tapestry of curling vines and flowers woven through with formation runes beyond Diao Li's humble comprehension.

    By comparison, her own piece was but a rag, but that was why she was the disciple. Diao Li dared steal a glance at the Elder. Only a little over two hundred and already of the Indigo realm, she was truly the jewel of their Diao clan. Her features were soft and kind, her figure slim and elegant, her hair shining like silk, the very epitome of femininity, flawed only with the unfortunate complexion that their Diao clan shared. She had even been allowed to marry the fifth son of the duke! Truly, she was everything Diao Li wished that she could be.

    "And, begin to taper the flow of your qi into the pattern," Elder Linqin, said, the only other sound in the room the faint click of needles. Reduce the flow slowly,so as to allow the weave you have established to settle as you complete your repetitions. I will allow questions at this time."

    "Can you not simply cut the flow and allow the woven pattern to complete itself through the cycle echo effect?"

    The voice cut through the silence immediately. It was not a shout, nor even particularly loud, but demanded attention all the same, other voices beginning to rise, cut themselves off. Diao Li ducked her head, hiding a grimace as she glanced to her side, where her former Outer Sect roommate sat.

    Even seated, Cai Shenhua towered over her by more than a head. The other girl held her head high, with a posture that gave only the minimum of respect required for speaking to a superior. Even here, in the Elder's lesson she wore one of her scandalous gowns, a form fitting thing of white and red, sleeveless and cut terribly high from the hem. It was a talisman Diao Li knew and a potent one, having watched the other girl work through its iterations, but that was really no excuse.

    Cai Shenhua was tall, and her shoulders as broad as a mans. She was large in…. Every aspect. Diao Li still remembered the first time she had seen her standing in the Outer Sect courtyard, knuckles bloody, the grandson of a viscount strung up upside down from a peach tree in his smallclothes demanding that anyone else who had a problem with her present themselves for a challenge.

    Diao Li very carefully did not allow a flush to rise on her cheeks. She was… exciting to be around and her arms were very strong. But this was not the place.

    "That method is prone to destabilization and requires very advanced encoding to have even a small chance of success, though the results will be superior if that is achieved," Elder Linqin said lightly. "But I assume you have already done it, my foolish student."
    "I have Elder, my apologies, but I have already been practicing this method." Cai Shenhua said, not sounding sorry at all.

    Diao Li sighed as she felt the dirty looks shot their way. There were many, many disciples in the Inner Sect who spoke waspishly of the arrogance these 'commoner nobles' showed. It was already considered that they were boorish, rude and disrespectful of traditions. That Cai Shenhua lived up to these did not help.

    But the Elder merely smiled softly, and for just a moment Diao Li felt a dagger of untoward dislike toward her role model seeing the fierce light in her former roommates eyes as she looked challengingly at the Elder cultivator.

    "Very well then, bring your piece here young lady, and allow this Elder to correct your errors," Diao Linqin said, seeming amused rather than insulted.

    There were faint sniggers here and there around the room, certain that the upstart was about to be humiliated for her overreach.

    Quietly, Diao Li was not so sure she would be. Cai Shenhua was bright and fiercely confident, but it was rarely unwarranted.

    Cai Shenhua rose from her seat without complaint, bowing her head. Her waist length black hair shimmered like black, polished metal in the light as it fell behind her. "I look forward to Elder instruction," she said, a smile playing about her lips even now.

    That too was something Diao Li envied, the ability to simply stand unbowed and unwithered by the gazes of others. In both Elder Linqin's unwaveringly gentle poise, and Cai Shenhua's fierce confidence.

    But as the girl walked toward the central dais where the Elder sat, hands folded demurely in her lap, the light in the room flickered. There was a faint sound, the chirping of birds and the scent of fresh grasses, and the air on the dais split open, revealing a glimpse of an immaculate garden as a man stepped through.

    He was incredibly handsome, with pale skin like jade and intense eyes and a noble face. His dark brown hair fell neatly around his shoulders and his robe was embroidered with shifting intricate symbols that merged and split in hypnotizing patterns of great beauty, and the weight of his noble presence silenced every noise in the room and halted every movement. Diao Li's breath caught in her throat. Hui Yuxuan, the Elder's husband stood among them.

    "My wife, it is time for our walk in the garden," he said pleasantly, smiling down at her. "Let us away."

    Elder Linqin's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, is that so. Please forgive my forgetfulness, I mistook the time."

    "No, I changed it," the man chuckled, reaching down to cup her chin. "I'm sure you find these games of yours amusing darling, but let us not forget what is truly important."

    Diao Li shifted uncomfortably in her seat as his gaze brushed over them. The sixth realm cultivator did not even pretend to see the gathered disciples with respect. His disdain for their pitiful existences was clear.

    For just an instant, she imagined she saw something other than demure poise on the Elder's face. "Of course, my lord husband, I will attend you immediately. Disciples. The lesson is over for the day, please attend to finishing your projects and ready them for presentation in the next."

    "So generous and softhearted, showering knowledge upon these… disciples," Hui Yuxuan chuckled. "But I suppose that is what I love of you, my rose. Now, let us be away."

    The room was silent as the Elder stood, ducking her head and followed the man back through the door to the garden. It was uncomfortable and uneasy as the door snapped shut. Elder's did not just vanish from their lessons, but… what was there to do?

    And, standing in the center walkway, Cai Shenhua was frowning at the dais, her embroidery tucked over her arm, and as the whispers rose, she remained silent.
     
  • Sidestory
    • yrsillar said:
    "My wife, it is time for our walk in the garden," he said pleasantly, smiling down at her. "Let us away."

    Elder Linqin's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, is that so. Please forgive my forgetfulness, I mistook the time."

    "No, I changed it," the man chuckled, reaching down to cup her chin. "I'm sure you find these games of yours amusing darling, but let us not forget what is truly important."
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    Wow. Genuinely a bit surprised that Mr. Hui here didn't go for gaslighting over the opportunity to directly display and excise power over his wife. Well, novelty is the spice of life and all. /s

    (this sarcastic 'joke' post is ok to make; but only 'cuz the Hui are dead.)
    (srsly tho, fuck the Hui)
     
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    ...This is sad, really. Babby Shenhua was full of herself, but she seemed fairly nice and likable, mostly concerned with not being looked down on and acting horny towards her hot teacher. Modern Shenhua is an unstoppable engine of destruction that is literally trying to die, at the hands of her own daughter, because she can't stop destroying things. The Hui managed to ruin one last thing, it seems.

    I'm surprised the Hui managed to last as long as they did, it seems like they went out of their way to be the biggest assholes possible for no explicable reason. You'd think it would have backfired on them sooner.
     
    [X] Xiangmen, City of Wonders. Vast production, treasures beyond counting, the engine of riches which had kept even a corpse alive long after all vitality was gone.
     
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