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.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thanks everyone.
Now, I've been reviewing the rules and Ling Qi's stats, and something's jumped out at me. Probably a silly question, but do the current PLR art potency ratings include the potency increases? If so, we're definitely going to need to replace this to-be mastered art with a new, improved version soon.
Now, I've been reviewing the rules and Ling Qi's stats, and something's jumped out at me. Probably a silly question, but do the current PLR art potency ratings include the potency increases? If so, we're definitely going to need to replace this to-be mastered art with a new, improved version soon.
It should get a potency increase when we master it at the End of the turn, but yeah it's definitely beginning to fall off. Maybe our next successor after FSS+ we don't know. Other ideas include just taking pieces from it for different successors later down the line because we have too many arts already. Like take the movement parts and put it into wind thief and the construct parts into BKSD.
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I still think this is a bad way of thinking about things. It would be better to have a Dream, Wind, and Cold Arts rather than Construct, Movement, and Attack Arts.
Let's look at Meizhen's Abyssal Mantle Art: its clearly an Armor Art but it also can be used to attack and to move. In truth its an "I am a snake made of water" Art and it can help Meizhen do whatever it would make sense for a watery snake to do.
LFWT could be something analogous: A "mischievous breeze" Art. PLR+ would then represent our understanding of Dream: a myriad of memories of different events that one can participate in. Finally FSS+ could embrace small Endings and all the various petty ways that the world gets in the way of what you wanted.
We need Arts that are both thematic and mechanical imo. LFWT is our Wind and Movement/Personal defense Art and it contains various themes of Freedom as LQ equates Freedom to the power to live her life as she pleases. BKSD is our shadow Construct Art and thus have themes of the Power of Community as LQ has always tied her phantoms to people/society and how they are a threat/advantage to her. And PLR perfectly splits into these two themes. We take the Power through Community of the revel and the chaotic Freedom of the dance and neatly divides them both mechanically and thematically where they belong. And then we can take that Dream element you suggested, of learning from the past, and add it into our Moon Perception Art as that's where that belongs.
I feel like Dream has to carry a lot of different meanings from Dreamstep movement, to phantom constructs, to learning from the past, to Liminal Carving, to to just plain Want; that creating a Dream Art is never going to be as interesting as just saying Dream and the Liminal are a part of all of LQ's Arts and the disparate themes are given their own places to be explored with the other themes they're closer to.
Oliver_Twister
Idea-Man, He Who Shits Ideas
- Location
- West Africa
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I look forward to the day when Ling Qi evolves from "dissolving into darkness and wind" to "dissolving into, darkness, wind, and dreams"
- Location
- CA
I don't think it'd be bad to join PLR and LFWT under one conceptual umbrella: that turns it into an art whose concept is "mischief, joy and freedom" and more clearly defines it as being about movement and change. If anything, unifying them seems like it'd make the concept stronger.
Also, LFWT is currently her stealth art, and who doesn't want to add some loud stealth to that? If they're in the middle of a dream rave, they can't see you!
Personally, I think LFWT+PLR, BKSD, and FSS+ is fine as a conceptual trio now that BKSD is going into buffs, since BKSD can provide the cooperative concepts that are otherwise missing from the other two. She's not really missing any reflection of her current concepts at that point.
I think we should be a little careful about how much LQ becomes invested in Dream. The Hui are a cautionary tale—it's very important to stay grounded in the real. She's pretty grounded now, but if too much of her Way is based on Dream, it'd be easy to lose sight of that in the higher realms.
Oliver_Twister
Idea-Man, He Who Shits Ideas
- Location
- West Africa
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think that'll happen to LQ. Future Ling scion, I can see it happening like with the Hui, but not for the Ling Qi herself. Like her music, though she might see a flower (forgot the specific type mentioned) and talk about its beauty, she'll always mention the mud it come from. She's grounded.
Plus with her sincerity insight, I don't think she can devolve into the Hui since she's always sincere and the Hui didn't have that in their vocabulary
If LQ is grounded, what's the grounding for Dream Thief? Can someone explain to me in completely mundane terms what the Dream Thief is doing?
Turn 15: Arc 4-3
"Very good, the messages?"
"S-sent," Yan Shenyi wheezed. "Evidence planted, false leads sent, discord will be sown. Please, I've done as instructed."
"You have."
Something about the indulgent self importance of those tickled Ling Qi's memory, even as she studied the formation circle. It was a transport array, tuned for sending small amounts of mid qi density goods, or single individuals of no more than third realm. A smugglers array, and a high end one. Something to transport reagents of medicines of dubious provenance. It pointed to a location east and down, the sewer outlet which emptied into the river?
Her senses fell back on the shaking man and the crystal. The crystal was out of place, the formations at its base newer. She did not think the speaker and the builder of this room were acquainted. No. It felt very much commandeered.
"You have done well, but with the target in place, your role has come to an end. Your gift will flower and activate the party favors. That girl will be removed from the board, ending the farce in the south, and the wretches of the Emerald Sea destabilized. Hail to the Twilight King, live in death, disciple."
Her thoughts spun. Removed from the board, her, the Twilight King? Cults of such dark things existed, usually small and petty committing minor terrors, but the sheer sarcasm in that catechism left her with little doubt that it was anything but a cover.
Things slotted into place, the cardinal locations he had visited over the last few days, a map assembled in her mind, lines drawn, this little cubby the center. She hadn't sensed any formations at the locations, but if there were, something of this size, hidden in the lines between the cities wardings…
Yan Shenyi's eyes bugged out and he stumbled forward grasping the crystal. "You-no, you promised, you unfilial little shit!"
"Come now Cousin, it's… nothing personal."
It struck Ling Qi then, the tone the self assurance, the smug, self satisfied sleaze. She felt a pulse of something corrupt and impure, like the energies of the ith'ia, gathering in the now ranting Yan Shenyi's chest.
"No."
Her voice was a cold wind, sending the little candles lighting the room guttering out. It interrupted the frantic man's ranting, made his red face grow white as the temperature in the room plunged. Made frost spread across the slowly pulsing gray crystal.
"…What." said the voice in the crystal.
"I said, no." Ling Qi said coolly, and her hand plunged into Yan Shenyi's back. She had felt it there, as it pulsed, the little knot of corruption throwing off its veil, so like she had experienced down in those tunnels. A ribcage wasn't exactly a vault, but what good was she if she couldn't improvise.
She reached into the spaces between solid matter, around the gnarl of twisted space, and grasped something segmented and slimy, with far too many wriggling legs, it was grasped tight around Yan Shenyi's lungs, it's legs dug in like a clamp, any attempt to physically remove it would no doubt kill him, and, she suspected, set off these 'party favors' if in reduced form.
So she didn't remove it physically. With a tight grasp on its writhing body, Ling Qi stepped sideways through the veil, and walked, for a moment in dream. She saw for a moment a grey expanse, a misty city in twilight, quiet streets where nothing ever happened, where the grand troubles and intrigues of the world were far away. A place where inspectors and criminals alike had an understanding that nothing was truly worth getting worked up about.
And she saw the black rot beginning to set in at the foundations. Apathy, stagnation.
A pale and sinuous worm lashed in her hand, legs wriggling circular tooth lined mouth gasping and flailing a whiplike tail tipped by bone hook lashed at her wrist and skittered off her skin as if it had struck steel.
She regarded it with some disgust, it was a tube filled with rot and decay, a living battery. Ling Qi glanced up at the sky overhead, full of clouds, and just peaking through was a crescent moon, hanging grinning in the starry sky.
"My offering," Ling Qi said, cocking her arm back, fixing her eyes on the lunar crescent as she hurled the worm skyward. There was no law of earth here, and so it vanished with only a fading squeal, and a puff of cloud.
And then she was back in the room, standing behind a slumped over man and looking into the crystal.
"What?!" the voice from the crystal, Yan Renshu's voice snarled.
"Dead men lose their hearing, good to know," Ling Qi said coldly.
"You... you can't be here! This room is impenetrable without the power of a fourth realm! And what did you just do to my masterpiece!"
She cocked her head to the side, her eyes narrowing into viscous slits. "Have you ever considered that you're just not very good at security."
Her response was a wordless scream of range warbling through the crystals distorting filter.
'Sixiang', Ling Qi thought.
"Sending a message out, telling them to shut down the locations, full search, major cult attack in potentia."
That was for the best, she could explain the details later, that would kick the whole Ministry of Law over like a hive of irritated bees.
"I don't know what you did, but its far beyond a child's grudge," Ling Qi said. The qi in that worm pointed to nothing good. His words, that she would be taken off the board… he had to be confident in the killing power of his work, to kill one as resilient as her before the patriarch and elders of the town could react.
How many mortals and low cultivators would have died to that.
"A child's grudge, you dare…"
"Found you."
He spluttered, Ling Qi smiled softly. She hadn't of course. He was speaking through a communication array that she couldn't even parse. She had no technique which could track someone like that, and while she could maybe conceive of tracking someone down via impression in the dream, her current skills didn't go so far
She felt the connection cut off, the crystal growing dark. Would he dare open another connection to the city, not knowing what she could do? Ling Qi glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. Was he really trying to inch toward the transport array?
"Stop," she spoke and he froze. "What do you know about these 'party favors'?"
"Seeds. Seeds in the sewers, rat men, corpse eaters, needed guidance. Not any formations I've seen Had… friend in the Ministry of Works, got maps. In the cisterns, had to be.... watered regularly." he wheezed. "Lady Ling, I-"
"Not now, you can speak to the Ministry," she said harshly. "Are they still down there?"
"Yes."
Ling Qi scowled. This was at once larger and smaller than she had feared, not an internal intrigue, but an actual enemy operation. There was much at risk here. She had stopped the immediate problem, but who knew what failsafes that worm had added, or if the whatever ith'ia agents were below had secondary orders.
"Sixiang, relay," she said.
"What are we gonna do big sis?"
What indeed.
[ ] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
[ ] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.
"S-sent," Yan Shenyi wheezed. "Evidence planted, false leads sent, discord will be sown. Please, I've done as instructed."
"You have."
Something about the indulgent self importance of those tickled Ling Qi's memory, even as she studied the formation circle. It was a transport array, tuned for sending small amounts of mid qi density goods, or single individuals of no more than third realm. A smugglers array, and a high end one. Something to transport reagents of medicines of dubious provenance. It pointed to a location east and down, the sewer outlet which emptied into the river?
Her senses fell back on the shaking man and the crystal. The crystal was out of place, the formations at its base newer. She did not think the speaker and the builder of this room were acquainted. No. It felt very much commandeered.
"You have done well, but with the target in place, your role has come to an end. Your gift will flower and activate the party favors. That girl will be removed from the board, ending the farce in the south, and the wretches of the Emerald Sea destabilized. Hail to the Twilight King, live in death, disciple."
Her thoughts spun. Removed from the board, her, the Twilight King? Cults of such dark things existed, usually small and petty committing minor terrors, but the sheer sarcasm in that catechism left her with little doubt that it was anything but a cover.
Things slotted into place, the cardinal locations he had visited over the last few days, a map assembled in her mind, lines drawn, this little cubby the center. She hadn't sensed any formations at the locations, but if there were, something of this size, hidden in the lines between the cities wardings…
Yan Shenyi's eyes bugged out and he stumbled forward grasping the crystal. "You-no, you promised, you unfilial little shit!"
"Come now Cousin, it's… nothing personal."
It struck Ling Qi then, the tone the self assurance, the smug, self satisfied sleaze. She felt a pulse of something corrupt and impure, like the energies of the ith'ia, gathering in the now ranting Yan Shenyi's chest.
"No."
Her voice was a cold wind, sending the little candles lighting the room guttering out. It interrupted the frantic man's ranting, made his red face grow white as the temperature in the room plunged. Made frost spread across the slowly pulsing gray crystal.
"…What." said the voice in the crystal.
"I said, no." Ling Qi said coolly, and her hand plunged into Yan Shenyi's back. She had felt it there, as it pulsed, the little knot of corruption throwing off its veil, so like she had experienced down in those tunnels. A ribcage wasn't exactly a vault, but what good was she if she couldn't improvise.
She reached into the spaces between solid matter, around the gnarl of twisted space, and grasped something segmented and slimy, with far too many wriggling legs, it was grasped tight around Yan Shenyi's lungs, it's legs dug in like a clamp, any attempt to physically remove it would no doubt kill him, and, she suspected, set off these 'party favors' if in reduced form.
So she didn't remove it physically. With a tight grasp on its writhing body, Ling Qi stepped sideways through the veil, and walked, for a moment in dream. She saw for a moment a grey expanse, a misty city in twilight, quiet streets where nothing ever happened, where the grand troubles and intrigues of the world were far away. A place where inspectors and criminals alike had an understanding that nothing was truly worth getting worked up about.
And she saw the black rot beginning to set in at the foundations. Apathy, stagnation.
A pale and sinuous worm lashed in her hand, legs wriggling circular tooth lined mouth gasping and flailing a whiplike tail tipped by bone hook lashed at her wrist and skittered off her skin as if it had struck steel.
She regarded it with some disgust, it was a tube filled with rot and decay, a living battery. Ling Qi glanced up at the sky overhead, full of clouds, and just peaking through was a crescent moon, hanging grinning in the starry sky.
"My offering," Ling Qi said, cocking her arm back, fixing her eyes on the lunar crescent as she hurled the worm skyward. There was no law of earth here, and so it vanished with only a fading squeal, and a puff of cloud.
And then she was back in the room, standing behind a slumped over man and looking into the crystal.
"What?!" the voice from the crystal, Yan Renshu's voice snarled.
"Dead men lose their hearing, good to know," Ling Qi said coldly.
"You... you can't be here! This room is impenetrable without the power of a fourth realm! And what did you just do to my masterpiece!"
She cocked her head to the side, her eyes narrowing into viscous slits. "Have you ever considered that you're just not very good at security."
Her response was a wordless scream of range warbling through the crystals distorting filter.
'Sixiang', Ling Qi thought.
"Sending a message out, telling them to shut down the locations, full search, major cult attack in potentia."
That was for the best, she could explain the details later, that would kick the whole Ministry of Law over like a hive of irritated bees.
"I don't know what you did, but its far beyond a child's grudge," Ling Qi said. The qi in that worm pointed to nothing good. His words, that she would be taken off the board… he had to be confident in the killing power of his work, to kill one as resilient as her before the patriarch and elders of the town could react.
How many mortals and low cultivators would have died to that.
"A child's grudge, you dare…"
"Found you."
He spluttered, Ling Qi smiled softly. She hadn't of course. He was speaking through a communication array that she couldn't even parse. She had no technique which could track someone like that, and while she could maybe conceive of tracking someone down via impression in the dream, her current skills didn't go so far
She felt the connection cut off, the crystal growing dark. Would he dare open another connection to the city, not knowing what she could do? Ling Qi glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. Was he really trying to inch toward the transport array?
"Stop," she spoke and he froze. "What do you know about these 'party favors'?"
"Seeds. Seeds in the sewers, rat men, corpse eaters, needed guidance. Not any formations I've seen Had… friend in the Ministry of Works, got maps. In the cisterns, had to be.... watered regularly." he wheezed. "Lady Ling, I-"
"Not now, you can speak to the Ministry," she said harshly. "Are they still down there?"
"Yes."
Ling Qi scowled. This was at once larger and smaller than she had feared, not an internal intrigue, but an actual enemy operation. There was much at risk here. She had stopped the immediate problem, but who knew what failsafes that worm had added, or if the whatever ith'ia agents were below had secondary orders.
"Sixiang, relay," she said.
"What are we gonna do big sis?"
What indeed.
[ ] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
[ ] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.
Holy shit the brutality. One day she is gonna kill someone with words.
When did Ling Qi start cultivating fire? Did i miss an update?
Renshu is getting dunked on so hard its almost pitiful. Almost, but not really.
Lets fucking goooooooo
NoxOfUmbra
Shadow of the night
- Location
- Colombia, South América
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
Strike while the iron is hot. Plus, how can we not with that sick burn?
Strike while the iron is hot. Plus, how can we not with that sick burn?
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- Location
- France
Wow. LQ has better banter than Sixiang could ever dream of having, and more chad energy than GG hyped up on Sun juice. The flexxing in this chapter was just amazing
Regarding the vote: the second option is definitely optimal, but this interaction has reminded me of how fun the "LQ dives in and brings mayhem solo before dragging a trophy back to Meizhen like an outdoor cat" moments in Forge were.
Regarding the vote: the second option is definitely optimal, but this interaction has reminded me of how fun the "LQ dives in and brings mayhem solo before dragging a trophy back to Meizhen like an outdoor cat" moments in Forge were.
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ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
...I'm not sure I've ever seen someone get more thoroughly verbally owned in my life. That was amazing.
- Location
- USA
Sharing face might be politically good. Also making sure that Yan Shenyi cannot escape by bringing him to the Ministry people might be better in the long term. Shenyi also knows where things are, so logistically the Ministry might be able to handle some things that Ling Qi wouldn't get to in time, but end up saving time because of JOLLY COOPERATION.
On the other hand, I'd be surprised if Yan Renshu activated all that her could to sow chaos and escape.
Going to start to fight what's in the sewers while using Sixiang to co-ordinate is possible.
Honestly, given the trying to improve standing with the Diao, probably the Ministry too, and attempting to put out money where our mouth is, withdrawing might be the better option.
Not that we can't escape if shit really goes down in the sewers.
I'm pretty torn. Going would likely end up being pretty badass, but withdrawing feels like the correct political move, the correct principle move of cooperation, as well as securing Yan Shenyi who definitely has important information.
On the other hand, I'd be surprised if Yan Renshu activated all that her could to sow chaos and escape.
Going to start to fight what's in the sewers while using Sixiang to co-ordinate is possible.
Honestly, given the trying to improve standing with the Diao, probably the Ministry too, and attempting to put out money where our mouth is, withdrawing might be the better option.
Not that we can't escape if shit really goes down in the sewers.
I'm pretty torn. Going would likely end up being pretty badass, but withdrawing feels like the correct political move, the correct principle move of cooperation, as well as securing Yan Shenyi who definitely has important information.
Literally what we are working towards, i think. We already can kill people through singing.
Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
I mean... its a protective structure that keeps what's inside safe and secure. Its close enough.
Ling Qi is already killing with melodies, she just gotta add lyrics and she's killing with words
- Location
- Earth
She has a rather skewed view of sufficient security ever since her larceny lessons.
I think getting the full posse would be best here, Qi is without her primary offensive talisman, satisfying as it would be to nail Renshu I don't think we can assume he's learned nothing after the last...three times we did exactly this to him?
If she shows up alone or with just a friend he'd be ready for a fight.
That is after all how she's always worked so far.
If she shows up alone or with just a friend he'd be ready for a fight.
That is after all how she's always worked so far.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I really think that we need to seek cooperation. This isn't our city and we don't know it well. I just don't think we have enough information to be the solo hero in this story. This is a war action and so we should treat it like such. Also bringing the viscount clan in on this means they can claim credit for saving the city which in turn makes them grateful to us.