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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] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.
 
veekie said:
Can this be improved by doing it later?
Not particularly, but I expect this would timeout in 2-3 months since the meta-superposition of "arriving household" wouldn't vary more than that.
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First impressions count if we're wanting to show confidence and build loyalty.

I would absolutely expect this option to, not "time-out", but change.

The context will be different. They should be arriving this month based on communication and travel times (it was a month from us asking our mother if she wanted to come to the Sect to her actually arriving). Ling Qi feeling awkward and preferring to not deal with that and focus on her friends and music is totally IC, and a reasonable decision - but it is a decision.
 
[X] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.
 
[x] Li Suyin: The proper paperwork is done. You can do the expedition any time. Who knows what you might find, deep below the earth.
 
[X] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.
 
Orkus Majorkus said:
Suyin needs to get off her ass and breakthrough to green.
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In her defense, it looks like skill and research actions are just as important to crafters. As long as she has stuff to work on and a cultivation art that gives her progress by working on it, it might be better for her to just keep doing formations/medicine/crafting research and keep trying to break through slowly instead of powering through it with the Talent 6 she doesn't have and ducal backing she doesn't have.
 
[X] Li Suyin: The proper paperwork is done. You can do the expedition any time. Who knows what you might find, deep below the earth.

Time for friendship and music to help settle us after that dream.
 
[X] Li Suyin: The proper paperwork is done. You can do the expedition any time. Who knows what you might find, deep below the earth.
 
[X] Li Suyin: The proper paperwork is done. You can do the expedition any time. Who knows what you might find, deep below the earth.
 
[X] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.
 
[X] Ling Qingge: Your new household is arriving from Tonghou, perhaps you should put in an appearance and see how your Mother is handling things?
 
[X] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.
 
[X] Li Suyin: The proper paperwork is done. You can do the expedition any time. Who knows what you might find, deep below the earth.
 
OneArmedYeti said:
In her defense, it looks like skill and research actions are just as important to crafters. As long as she has stuff to work on and a cultivation art that gives her progress by working on it, it might be better for her to just keep doing formations/medicine/crafting research and keep trying to break through slowly instead of powering through it with the Talent 6 she doesn't have and ducal backing she doesn't have.
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This would only be valid if she made regular breakthrough attempts and used that trickle to recover from the backlash of failed attempts. Otherwise she's just sitting on a full tank while she farts around with her sideboard until she gets something to help her make a grand effort at getting to green.

Also; tally
Adhoc vote count started by me.me.here on Feb 5, 2019 at 1:00 AM, finished with 241 posts and 140 votes.
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Erebeal said:
First impressions count if we're wanting to show confidence and build loyalty.

I would absolutely expect this option to, not "time-out", but change.

The context will be different. They should be arriving this month based on communication and travel times (it was a month from us asking our mother if she wanted to come to the Sect to her actually arriving). Ling Qi feeling awkward and preferring to not deal with that and focus on her friends and music is totally IC, and a reasonable decision - but it is a decision.
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These are meta votes. They'd change, but we'd have a month or two of open time. If they suddenly arrive, then there should be room for a mid-turn social for them as well.
 
veekie said:
These are meta votes. They'd change, but we'd have a month or two of open time. If they suddenly arrive, then there should be room for a mid-turn social for them as well.
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They aren't suddenly arriving.

We know they're coming.

The degree to which something can be meta is constrained by what has been established in the story.
 
me.me.here said:
This would only be valid if she made regular breakthrough attempts and used that trickle to recover from the backlash of failed attempts.
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Exactly what I was suggesting would be a plausible strategy, something like 1 AP Spi. Brk/ 1 AP Phys Brk then the rest on research and stuff, or maybe even just the Spiritual for now, depending on how good the cultivation art is and whether or not it works on Physical.

If she used cultivation mechanics of course.​
 
Ugh, tactical voting.

[X] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.

I think it's the more pressing one, if we want to raise his SL. Having zhengui around would make any repeat a lot harder because 1) he has hang ups about xuanwus and 2) zhengui don't like him. If we want for him to open up, we need to do it before zhengui awake.
 
[X] Xuan Shi: For once, the odd boy has called in your offered favor. He wishes for your aid in penetrating the interior of an odd little temple full of traps and puzzles.
 
yrsillar said:
Ling Qi stood at attention in line with a half dozen other disciples, none of which she particularly recognized. Two were only a few years older than her, but the other four were older men and women, all caught in that awkward halfway state between second and third realm, or in one case, fully second, but on the edge of breaking through. She felt awkward, being the youngest, yet also the of the highest cultivation.

...She was a little surprised at her fellow disciples attitudes as well. The two fully third realm disciples, with ranks in the lower eight hundreds, had eyed her with envy and not a bit of resentment. The rest, who Ling Qi estimated to be in their early thirties, and who held ranks in the nine hundreds, had seemed ambivalent to her. Perhaps that was simply military discipline, seeing as she was sure that they had all been promoted from within the Sect's army. They were probably used to being overshadowed by much younger people.
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So you have the Greens, part Greens and nearly-Greens as officers. Just three greens in this year's officer batch
The Tournament Winners are the 'normal' students, steadily climbing and then getting pushed back in place by each other until one of them gets a lucky break and bursts out of the rut. They who spent a year struggling to attain Green after clearing the tournament at Peak Yellow look at someone who got there in her first year with jealousy.

The Career Army types have already been stepped on often enough by the tournament winners and are resigned to it.

Then you have the young genius.
yrsillar said:
The young woman standing across from them with her arms folded behind her back had managed to remind Ling Qi of her first physical cultivation instructor before Ling Qi heard her name. Guan Zhi resembled her father in other ways as well, like that man, she was scandalously dressed, wearing only a tight, dark green cloth wrap that covered her chest and little else, and form fitting pants of a lighter shade tucked neatly into sturdy black boots that rose almost to her knees. Cloth bandages wrapped her forearms and handages. Her long hair was tied back in a single tightly braided tail.

"Not going to ogle this one?" Sixiang commented idly. "Usually you can't get enough of muscles, even if this one isn't as bulgy."

Ling Qi kept her eyes ahead and her expression studiously straight. 'Still not interested in women Sixiang,' she thought dryly.

"Right, I keep forgetting how that division works, is it really only the reproductive bits that…"
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Ling Qi: "I'm not THAT thirsty!"
yrsillar said:
"Good, you can all at least stay at attention. The seven of you have been screened for introduction into the officer level of the scouting and skirmishing forces," she spoke in a quick, clipped tone, not moving one inch from her starting position. "It is a dangerous duty, we act with less support than our main branch comrades, and often undertake missions of greater personal danger. As an officer, your responsibilities will only increase. For the remainder of the year, you will all receive training in small unit tactics, reconnaissance and various other minor but still crucial skills."

Ling Qi had known that the Sect would be offering military tutoring, even if she was going to be departing in a short time. So long as she was in the Sect, she was a member of their forces after all. That was part of the Inner Sect's purpose after all, giving young nobles a taste of responsibility and discipline.

"I will oversee the instruction of those of you promoted from the actual Skirmish Division," Guan Zhi continued without pause. "You do not require lessons on the basics, only the additional responsibilities that arise from being an officer," Ling Qi sensed a tiny flicker of pride and a minute straightening of stances from the older and lower ranked disciples. "For the three of you remaining… you will be acting as understudies to current officers. Follow their instructions exactly."
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...so only the three Greens are the officer materials from the Inner Sect with no prior experience. If they didn't dislike us at first glance and if Ling Qi was more gregarious, it'd be a nice contact to make...but it seems we aren't really going to see much in the way of Stealth type challenges in the 800s
yrsillar said:
"Still so inattentive, Junior Sister Ling?" Ling Qi nearly jumped out of her skin, at the smooth male voice that spoke as if directly in her ear.

She spun around on instinct, bringing herself face to face with her one time tutor, Liao Zhu. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other disciples who remained receiving similar frights from what she assumed to be their own instructors. Liao Zhu looked much the same as he had when she had seen him a few months ago. The tall, muscular boy still wore an open vest of leather, hung with a dozen or more black knives, and a silver fanged demon mask over his lower face. The only new feature she noticed was a star of scarred flesh on his left shoulder.
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That looks like an arrow scar. Star means puncture, it went straight through him.
yrsillar said:
"As the lovely and redoubtable Guan Zhi said, you must first learn the basics of a skirmisher's duty, before taking up the duties of an officer," he replied seriously. "Today and for much of the rest of the week, this skilled brother will be familiarizing you with terrain, and the signs of nomad movements in it, as well as the marks for supply caches, and signal language. Come along then, Junior Sister, we have no time to slack off."

She stared at his back for a moment, before following him as he leapt up to a higher trail a few meters above the cliffside they had stopped on. They swiftly left it behind, splitting from the other recruits as they and their tutors took different paths into the mountain vales. "Could you explain what exactly a skirmisher does, Senior Brother," she asked, voice carrying on threads of music despite the wind whipping by as the ground blurred away below them.

Where Ling Qi supplemented her movement with minor boosts of flight, Liao Zhu simply seemed to blur from one outcropping or scraggly tree to the next. Ling Qi could have done the same she supposed, but doing so would have required that she use an actual art, where she sensed no such thing from him.

"It is in the name," he replied airly, turning back to face her despite continuing his path. He seemed to suffer no loss of grace or coordination for leaping and jogging backward. "The Scout and Skirmish division ranges outward in smaller groups than our more regimented brethren in the proper combat core. We are often even tasked to travel in pairs or even alone. Our duties involve tracking and monitoring the movements of our enemies, the Cloud Nomads, as well as less human threats. We are also tasked with checking those movements often enough, if the matter is too small to require a full regimental movement. As an officer, you will be responsible for a delegating tasks to lower ranked members in an assigned region, and organizing larger operations."
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So track both the nomads and the gribblies. And if its a small case, solo them.
Thats good for combat experience, but a problem for survivability, since engaging solo has a good risk of misjudging your opponent.

...we probably would want to work on our Perception arts a bit.
yrsillar said:
Ling Qi stiffened, eyes darting from his face and then back to her surroundings. Of course someone several stages above her would notice. "I had an unpleasant run in with your patron," she replied, more than a little stiffly. "Shouldn't we focus on training Senior Brother?"

"Perhaps, perhaps," the young man replied, seating himself on a boulder and cupping his masked chin in his hand as he observed her. "But a lesson to a distracted student is a wasted one. Tell me, which side did you fall on, in that terrible dream?"

"...Maybe not, this guy is pushy," Sixiang grumbled. "Though I guess its no wonder."

Ling Qi looked away, she supposed that it was pretty likely that someone who had earned the Bloody Moon's favor had gone through a site dedicated to her. "...The Hunting King," she replied shortly. "You?"

"Both and none, at one time or another," he said with a chuckle. "I tried so many times for a satisfying outcome, and always failed."

Ling Qi stared at him for several seconds. "Why would you do that to yourself?"

"It is my nature, I could no more stop than you could cease collecting your treasures, Songbird," Laio Zhu shot back, making her flush.
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From his choice of the Reflecting Moons and the Bloody Moon, I gather he was driven to find a perfect solution to the scene. A Kobayashi Maru demands to be solved.
yrsillar said:
Had he been there, or had he just heard about it? "Do you know what would have happened, had you sided with the rebels?"

"...They would have lost anyway, it would have been futile, against a White cultivator." Ling Qi replied.

"Not so!" He replied brightly, leaning forward. "For given enough time, the rebel King would complete the ritual he had been preparing, and strike a terrible blow to the Hunter that allowed him to be fought!"

"Oh," Ling Qi replied, feeling even worse than before, she really had…

"Of course, with their King slain, the rebels would then swarm out, burning and killing with abandon, to clap their former brethren in chains for use as labor to rebuild that which the King had destroyed, and greater projects still," Liao Zhu explained, meeting her eyes without blinking. "Or indeed, they could both die in the clash, and the chaos would spread, until at last the rebels were extinguished at great cost, solidifying the iron grip of the isolationists of the Weilu for all time, as it did in the waking world."
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So:
-King wins - Setback to modernization, wholesale slaughter of innocents, but a reset back to status quo, the rebels are seen as a one-off aberration and the future might yet change.
-Rebels win - WWI Revolutionary Europe where the revolutionaries committed atrocities, upset the balance of nature and generally become new monsters without all the old restraints.
-Both die - Revolution meets counterrevolution, resulting in everyone seeing the whole opening up thing with utter revulsion.
-Both live - Did not happen.

The 'best' we could have achieved would probably have been Ling Qi successfully convincing the King to spare the mortals(probably would have been forced to take point to make that happen though), which would avenge the kinslaying without spawning too much atrocity.
yrsillar said:
"Hah, well spoken," he laughed. "I do not disagree, to a point, but that is the purpose, despite there being no inherent lesson, you know? Would you even ask yourself these questions, without the bloody reality forced into your face? Justice is decided by those with power, if you wish to make it align with your vision, then do so with your own hands, your own words. Convince those around you that your justice is correct. A great spirit cannot change, it can only BE changed."

"...You really are arrogant, Senior Brother," Ling Qi replied, perhaps it was the vein of music twisting through her spirit, or perhaps it was the clear sight given her by Argent Mirror, but she could feel his sincerity. Liao Zhu sincerely intended to change the nature of a great spirit.

...Then again, maybe you needed that kind of arrogance, to reach the peak of cultivation.
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Worthy goals.
Now, if only he can get there. The road he has chosen is a rocky one.
yrsillar said:
"Wait, what about this place?" Ling Qi asked, glancing around in confusion.

"This?" He asked with furrowed brows. "Just a disciple's campsite. Worry not, by the end of this week, you shall not make such mistakes."
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Well, nothing that experience won't fix.
Pretty hard to tell campsites apart if they made any effort to clean up the traces though.
 
I really loved this update! The remix of previous events and narrative beats is one of my favorite things in fiction and yrsillar delivered.

yrsillar said:
Guan Zhi resembled her father in other ways as well
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So Guan Zhi is (one of?) Guan Zhou's daughter(s), and she has a similar role as he did: as he introduced Ling Qi to physical cultivation and combat, Guan Zhi introduces Ling Qi to acting as part of the Imperial military. I especially liked where it was noted that father and daughter had similar teaching styles. The training group even was singled out as a special group, as in the Zhou trial early last year!

However, since this is a remix, there are important differences. Where Zhou was teaching the best of the best of the first years, Zhi is merely teaching those who demonstrated aptitude for a role within the Sect military, with a commensurate decline in quality. More importantly, where Ling Qi was undeniably among the weakest (if not the absolute bottom) of Zhou's reduced but still large class, she is now undeniably the strongest of Zhi's tiny class.

As one of those reminders that Ling Qi has progressed ridiculously far from her origins, it's pretty great!

yrsillar said:
"Still so inattentive, Junior Sister Ling?" Ling Qi nearly jumped out of her skin, at the smooth male voice that spoke as if directly in her ear.

She spun around on instinct, bringing herself face to face with her one time tutor, Liao Zhu. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other disciples who remained receiving similar frights from what she assumed to be their own instructors
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To reiterate, I love this scene! Liao Zhu was pretty cool last thread and he got even better with the development of events of these past two months.

First, I like how Zhu's jumpscare was twinned by the other tutors; that marks it was a favored tactic by the Argent Peak's Scouts, and is a sign of possible future antics by Ling Qi when she gets to teach, for example perhaps, Xiao Fen.

yrsillar said:
Where Ling Qi supplemented her movement with minor boosts of flight, Liao Zhu simply seemed to blur from one outcropping or scraggly tree to the next.
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Absolutely slotted his SCS equivalent — Soaring Sanguine Crescent, I think — into his Domain, stacked upon his natural superior cultivation and focused speed/stealth.

yrsillar said:
"Not so!" He replied brightly, leaning forward. "For given enough time, the rebel King would complete the ritual he had been preparing, and strike a terrible blow to the Hunter that allowed him to be fought!"

"Oh," Ling Qi replied, feeling even worse than before, she really had…

"Of course, with their King slain, the rebels would then swarm out, burning and killing with abandon, to clap their former brethren in chains for use as labor to rebuild that which the King had destroyed, and greater projects still," Liao Zhu explained, meeting her eyes without blinking. "Or indeed, they could both die in the clash, and the chaos would spread, until at last the rebels were extinguished at great cost, solidifying the iron grip of the isolationists of the Weilu for all time, as it did in the waking world."
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So all the panic and paranoia back during the dream votes were completely pointless since we didn't know the point of the dream: there is nothing natural about justice; it's just a big lie humans tell themselves; but we have to figure out and pretend how justice should be so it can exist. No lie, that's awesome.

Zhu admitting he tried to new game+ the dream lots of times and failing poke me in the id. Especially paired with his version of justice — achieving a concordance with people (Reflecting Moons) so the cycle of vengeance is halted before it happens, and killing those who refuse to make peace (Bloody Moon) so the cycle is cut before it spirals further. I wonder if he chose to follow the Reflecting Moons before or after he confronted the failure state of vengeance cycles..?

Actually, given the nature of what he seeks to become, I'm wondering where he thinks he'll end up? With the Imperial disdain for the Cloud Nomads, he seems focused on policing Imperials, but he's ascending the Sect ranks, who are outward focused—

He's one of the future plot threads we could pick up, isn't he? With the blessings of the Reflective Moons, he can be one of the characters Ling Qi can proffer to Cai Renxiang, when she seeks to make a sort of peace with the Cloud Nomads. Especially since we have the Thunder Crow shaman last year as one of the failure states of cycles of vengeance, which can be pick back up later on. (I wonder if Zhu was involved in that genocide? That could be an interesting revelation in his character arc.)
 
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Erebeal said:
Wasn't that Zhou, not Liao Zhu?
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Yeah, Liao Zhu seems like he would be a bad choice for that mission.

Someone who's probably working on a Domain with a principles including things like "Justice shouldn't be cruel" probably can't put that aside to go all "A baby snake is still a snake, kill them all, let none escape".

It seems like Imperial Military doctrine would have to include making sure you aren't crippling your own subordinates by ordering them to do things that will halt their cultivation.

Just officers though, the Yellows have no excuse, kill more innocents nao weaklings.
 
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