It will be fun to be doing crazy cultivator adventures with Li Suyin, we haven't seen her fight or even high stress problem solve since she joined in the fight against Chu song at the vent.
I'm eager to see how her grandfathers acupuncture arts work with the Poison(probably) she learned from Bao.
We haven't 'partnered' in adventures before, but we have seen quite a lot of him while on those. Him time-locking Ji Rong, him fighting against Ji Rong/Sun Liling in thunderdom redux, him helping us with the ambush preparations against Ji Rong in week 35...
Actually, Ji Rong's real rival is Xuan Shi :thinking:
Considering how the Relationship levels are written, here are what i think are the cap for our SL:
Bai Meizhen: Rank 4 => max rank 5 because the "love ship" has passed
Cai Renxiang: Rank 2 => max rank 4. I doubt she'll ever look past "we work for her"... not sure she can...
Ling Qingge: Rank 3 => max rank 6. Mother 'nuff said.
Zhengui: Rank 4 => rank 6. ...
Sixiang: Rank 1 => max rank 3?4? i bit hard to pin it down on him/her. Maybe 6 ? a DIY husbando might be possible...
Gu Xiulan: Rank 4 => max rank 5. Sadly no fiery yuri lover but it's still possible to get it to BFF. Might have significant political consequences...
Xuan Shi: Rank 1 => rank rank 4? idk if he's actually husbando material, but if so, as Xiulan: significant political consequences.
Li Suyin: Rank 3 => max rank 5. Retainer status would be great and i know a lot of people what that.
Shen Hu: Rank 1 => max rank 4. i doubt it'd go higher than that considering the gala event.
Zeqing: Rank 3 => rank 4, we don't want it to go higher with yandere snow maiden. Also: she will remain here.
As i see it, we have (16x2) 32 SL ups, so morethan enough room for the one to three Social actions with each character we currently know and even a couple more.
There are only 4 people (in italics) we currently know with 100% certainty that we will continue to interact with after the Inner Sect Arc.
So we might want to focus on the other ones in the time we have left in the Sect, so that the social links allows us to "take them with us" when we go away...
For three mornings every week, Ling Qi would be devoting her time to learning scoutcraft and tactics, under the tutelage of her Senior Brother, and later, the core disciple in charge. She was somewhat chagrined to learn, upon actually asking, that Guan Zhi was actually one of Elder Zhou's nieces, she really did need to stop assuming things.
That aside though, she was already learning much. Seeing that she had some basic skill in tracking from time spent with Su Ling last year, he focused on the more esoteric aspects, that were beyond mere mortal skill. The qi of a Cloud Tribesman had a different texture from an imperial cultivator's, and one could detect traces of a bound spirits partner in the traces they left behind. She was learning the ways to detect the disturbances in the background energies of the world left by the passage of higher realm beasts and cultivators as well.
It was hard to describe precisely, but potent auras left behind ripples and eddies that could be detected long after their passing. She had begun to dampen the signs of her own passage instinctively over the last year, the lessons of Sable Crescent Step showing dividends despite never precisely teaching her what she was doing.
It was very educational, and Ling Qi was sure that she was on the edge of an advancement in her ability to conceal herself, but it simply had not come yet.
Letting her idle thoughts drift away, Ling Qi turned her attention back to the present. "This is the place huh," she said. It certainly didn't look impressive.
They had climbed down into the depths of the new valley, now full of nascent greenery once again. The river, once haunted and corrupted, now bubbled and flowed freely once again, clear and pure. Here though at the valleys deepest point, the resurgence seemed tepid at best. The grass was yellow and withered, and the other plants stunted. There was a yawning crack in the earth, some three meters long and perhaps half that across, stretching deep into the earth. The darkness within was no barrier to Ling Qi's sight, but she saw only barren rock below. Around the crack stood three squat square pillars of stone, carved with formations beyond Ling Qi's comprehension.
Li Suyin seemed to detect her unasked question as she fiddled with one of the many pouches on the harness she wore across her chest. "The reason we can approach and find it so easily is that we have the tokens that bypass the formation, anyone else would be compelled to avoid this place. It also seals the hole against further contamination from outside, and vice versa."
"There's something poisonous in there then?" Ling Qi asked with a frown, peering down at the chalky floor of the cavern visible through the crack.
"It's more...ah mutual toxicity," Li Suyin replied, gesturing for her attention. When Ling Qi turned to her, Li Suyin handed her a small blue pill. "This should shield you from the effects of the air below for six hours. I have more if we look to be running longer."
Ling Qi took the pill, and after rolling it between her fingers for a moment, popped it in her mouth. It tasted like the fresh unsullied air of an unspoiled vale. There was also a hint of mint. Next to her, Li Suyin was doing the same, but with two pills, the difference in their realms she supposed. "Well, let's not waste any time then," Ling Qi replied brightly. She'd keep her friend safe, and they'd leave this place laden with loot. She wouldn't let it end any other way.
A minute later, she landed on the cavern floor in a puff of dust. The small chamber around her was still and silent. Here and there the withered remains of fungal growths clung to the walls and floor, and the scattered bones of vermin lay half buried in the chalky dust that coated the floor. The faint, sickly sweet scent of rot made her wrinkle her nose.
Li Suyin descended more slowly, crawling down the wall with no regard for hand holds or grip. Ling Qi saw eight glittering eyes and fuzzy pink legs peering at her out of the other girls backpack. Zhenli, Li Suyin's spirit, wasn't much of a combatant, but she was another lookout.
"I guess I should start paying attention now too," Sixiang murmured. "I'll keep you free and clear."
Ling Qi thought a silent thanks to her incorporeal friend. "Why do you have that pack and all of those pouches anyway, did something happen to your storage ring?" She asked as Li Suyin dropped the last few meters, landing with a thud that seemed thunderous to Ling Qi, even if she knew it wasn't really loud.
Li Suyin peered at her, and it occurred to her that her friend couldn't see perfectly in the dark. Ling Qi felt a small shift in the other girls qi, and the stitched patterns on her eyepatch lit up, casting a dim cone of light from its surface. "I want to save the space for reagents," she explained. "And… storage rings have trouble holding large numbers of complex or volatile formations."
Right, something about interference with the rings own formations. That was why talismans took up so much more 'space' than mundane objects or even beast cores and such. "Fair enough, what's our plan then? This is your expedition," she replied.
"Just a moment," Li Suyin replied. She pressed her hand to the wall, and Ling Qi cocked her head to the side curiously as a half dozen skeletal mice scurried out of her sleeve, skittering away into the cave. She could still see them, forming a shifting perimeter around the two of them. What happened next made her raise her eyebrows, Li Suyin threw a pair of pellets to the floor, producing columns of smoke, and from them emerged two hulking skeletons.
The first looked to be an evolution of her first guard prototype. The skeleton of a bear, sculpted into humanoid shape, save for its grinning skull, slung slow over its broad shoulders. It was bound together with silk, and armored in overlapping bands of iron. It clutched a heavy mace in one hand, and a shield that must have weighed something like forty or fifty kilograms in the other. The second looked to have been crafted from a wild boar, it's tusked skull sitting so low that seemed to almost jut from it's chest. This creature was armed with a heavy guandao.
They were only late second realm, but they seemed like pretty solid constructions, given that. Ling Qi wouldn't have much trouble with them, but they would probably even or tip the odds for Suyin against any enemy of her own realm. "Ready?" Ling Qi asked.
"Ready," Li Suyin replied, stepping toward the tunnel that lead further down.
What lies below is far more fascinating than the empty, dusty cave below. Ling Qi found as they descending the twisting tunnel leading deeper into the earth, that the further they grew from the surface and the sun, the more the caverns came alive. It began small, stalks of wriggling pale white fungus growing from the floors and ceiling, grasping weakly at the hems of their skirts as they passed, then towering columns of fungal flesh that stretched from the floor to the ceiling of the next chamber, bloated and putrescent, their size crushing them against the ceiling and leading to spiderwebbing growths of pulsing blue white flesh across the ceiling.
In the fungal grove they found below, pale lizards with blind, bulging eyes and mouths that trailed fetid spores darted in and out of the waving tendrils, chasing insectoid puffballs that moved about with jets of sporechoked air. Li Suyin still seemed at ease here, moving among the not-trees with a purpose. Ling Qi kept a wary eye open regardless, but it seemed this was not their destination. Li Suyin had already collected plenty of samples from here, their destination lay deeper still.
Ling Qi glanced back as they descended from the first living cavern. "So, what should I be worrying about anyway? Everything has seemed pretty docile so far."
"The third level is a bit more dangerous, and where I'll begin harvesting," Li Suyin replied confidently. "Um, the danger is mostly in carnivorous lizards and certain kinds of fungus. There shouldn't be much real danger yet. Once I've harvested what I need, we can descend to the fourth, I turned back last time, since I sensed a third realm presence below."
Ling Qi nodded in understanding as they reached the bottom of the tunnel, the growth was thicker here, and the wildlife more aggressive. For the first time in a long time, Ling Qi got a chance to exercise her skill with throwing knives. Her songs would be a bit too destructive for now. Despite her recent experiences, it was difficult not to sink into boredom as she made a game of pinning the various lizards and fungus bug things with her knives when they got too close, and summoned a few worms to hunt down smaller critters for Li Suyin to carve up.
Li Suyin's guards did their share of pest swatting as well, and once, Ling Qi held back and let them handle a larger foe, letting them handle a relatively strong second realm fungus beast that shambled out of the 'woods' having taken taken offense to Li Suyin's cutting and sampling. They performed well enough, the shielded one putting up a barrier of wind that blocked the miasma of spores the creature released from reaching the two of them while the other efficiently removed its limbs and chopped it to pieces.
"I am sorry if this is a little boring," Li Suyin said, shooting Ling Qi a nervous smile as the thing stopped spasming. "I have been through these areas several times, things should get more exciting soon."
"It's fine," Ling Qi dismissed, it wasn't much of an adventure so far, but after her expedition with Shen Hu last month…
"Do you feel that?" Sixiang asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Ling Qi frowned as Li Suyin moved to harvest the dead fungus beast, looking down at the floor, drawn by Sixiang's silent direction. There was a disturbance in the earth qi below her feet, a twisting, whorl of growing disturbance with a ravenous, all consuming hunger at its core. Ling Qi's eyes darted to the side as she saw vibration traveling up the fungus stalks, and a pebble just beginning to rattle.
In an instant, she was at Li Suyin's side, pulling her backward as the floor beneath their feet shattered and fell.
Her friend let out a surprised yelp, but recovered well, landing on the now shattered sandy slope of the sinkhole that had consumed the cavern for twenty meters around. Her constructs landed with heavy thuds, digging their weapons into the earth to avoid sliding further down. Even as they did, dozens of the beasts they had been casually slaying fell, squealing and fighting, sliding through the newly formed sand toward what lay at the bottom.
What Ling QI saw down there, unhindered by the darkness was hideous, she might have called it nightmarish once.
Eleven beady eyes arranged haphazardly across a misshapen face gazed balefully up at them from either side of a vertical maw filled with gnashing teeth. Protruding a full meter from both sides of that maw were a pair of snapping spiked pincers that gleamed with traces of metal in their chitin. The beast's body lay half buried yet at the bottom of the sinkhole, and was shelled like a beetle's, however, it's two foremost limbs resembled more the arms of an ape, with three fingered stubby clawed hands large enough to grasp a human around the waist.
The thing inhaled, and Ling QI braced herself along with her friend as a pair scrambling dog sized lizards fell shrieking into its gnashing teeth, ground up into gore and meat in seconds. The thing let out a ululating shriek then, and turned hungry eyes toward the pair of them.
Ling Qi grimaced as she felt a feeling of weight pressing down on her shoulders, like the pull of the earth redoubled and more. The feeling washed away in shimmering sparks of moonlight a bare second later, but she saw Li Suyin grimacing, her shoulders drooping as if under a great weight. Above them, Ling Qi heard a faint crack, and a single narrow fracture appeared in the ceiling.
It looked like they were going to get a bit of adventure after all.
Cultivation Level 7
Health: B QI: C
Speed: D Init: D
Perc. C15
Hit: C20 P. Pen A
Hit: B10 S. Pen C
Primary Elements: Earth, Dark, ???
Current Positioning:
Near the lip of a twenty meter wide sinkhole, with the enemy thirty meters down at the bottom. Ling Qi is adjacent to Li Suyin, Li Suyin's guardians are ten meters further down the hole.
Ling Qi and Li Suyin are both in Good condition, and have not expended significant resources. Build changes have not gone through yet
[]Get in close, keep the creatures attention focused wholly on you,
-[] Specific tactics
[] Ue your more usual strategy, wearing the thing down at minimal cost and risk,
-[] Specific tactics
[] KIll it as quickly as you can, the straining ceiling worries you
-[] Specific tactics
I'm thinking that we re-enact the Ji Rong strategy of summoning a shitload of dudes and then pressure cracking it to death. It's already expended its initial ambush, so we punish it while it's exposed with one of our highest ramp-up alpha strike methods.
Not sure we should use summons actually, it's spiritual attack looks to be an AoE, and Suyin isn't faring as well under it so making it more tempting to spam could get annoying.
As i see it it's a green1 slow spirit beast with barely decent health, who's only attack of notice is a powerful but inaccurate attack.
Burn it down with FSS ?
[ ] KIll it as quickly as you can, the straining ceiling worries you
-[ ] It's exposed its head and blown its ambush, make use of Pressure Crack and a quickly summoned army of constructs to prepare a Pressure Crack boosted kill stroke using your strongest attacks. They don't need to last long, just long enough to give you a firm advantage. Be ready to protect Suyin and her own constructs with your support arts if needed.
[X]Get in close, keep the creatures attention focused wholly on you,
-[X] It's threat comes from the ability to summon forth the pull of the Earth through it's shrill cry, but you know that it is mere sound. Quickly secure Li Suyin and descend into the pit above the beast's gaping maw while flying and raising your own defenses, then use the Spring's End Aria to freeze and mutilate the organ and as much of the earth around you as you can reach. Whether it can scream through frozen and shattered tongue and vocal chords or not, its a stationary target and thus an all-too-perfect victim. Ensure that it stays that way, using Hoarfrost Caress and Winter's End Cadenza to further stop it from being able to fight back or escape.
Summon + Pressure Crack into FSS basically leads to a massive multiple attacker penalty (Worms can travel through earth, so they can almost certainly surround the damn thing), they all get buffs on top of their multiple attacker bonus, and it all leads up to Ling Qi getting a stupid attack buff of nearly a full rank on the next turn where she attacks directly.
This is, quite literally, the ideal circumstance for this strategy. Against a single, high armor opponent that apparently doesn't move very fast. Remember too that based on the new system, Ling Qi gets the multiple attacker bonuses too.
Summon + Pressure Crack into FSS basically leads to a massive multiple attacker penalty (Worms can travel through earth, so they can almost certainly surround the damn thing), they all get buffs on top of their multiple attacker bonus, and it all leads up to Ling Qi getting a stupid attack buff of nearly a full rank on the next turn where she attacks directly.
Yeah except the Antlion has the ability to summon draw weaker adds into its maw to eat them for sustenance.
And given the effectiveness of it's Non-Gravija on Li Suyin and her own minions, the Antlion is very clearly spec'd as an ambush predator specialized for consuming masses of weaker enemies in one fell swoop. Like it did with those two random monsters.
Eleven beady eyes arranged haphazardly across a misshapen face gazed balefully up at them from either side of a vertical maw filled with gnashing teeth. Protruding a full meter from both sides of that maw were a pair of snapping spiked pincers that gleamed with traces of metal in their chitin. The beasts body lay half buried yet at the bottom of the sinkhole, and was shelled like a beetles, however, it's two foremost limbs resembled more the arms of an ape, with three fingered stubby clawed hands large enough to grasp a human around the waist.
The thing inhaled, and Ling QI braced herself along with her friend as a pair scrambling dog sized lizards fell shrieking into its gnashing teeth, ground up into gore and meat in seconds. The thing let out a ululating shriek then, and turned hungry eyes toward the pair of them.
Between its ability to breath, two extended limbs and metal-looking mandibles it's going to have a large number of tools to herd AE summons and minions into its maw and chew them up before they even manage to do anything, given that the gravity effects seem to be an AoE paralyzing effect.
Meanwhile, just hovering above the thing and spamming FSS Techs freeze up the earth, freeze up the Antlions ability to use its techs, and generally just fuck it over since it'll have no choice but to stay in place and eat all the negative repercussions of FSS' various death field effects. While Ling Qi hovers above it with her defenses up and Sixiang dispelling its attempts to lay down debuffs on Ling Qi in order to retake control of the fight.
"Just a moment," Li Suyin replied. She pressed her hand to the wall, and Ling Qi cocked her head to the side curiously as a half dozen skeletal mice scurried out of her sleeve, skittering away into the cave. She could still see them, forming a shifting perimeter around the two of them. What happened next made her raise her eyebrows, Li Suyin threw a pair of pellets to the floor, producing columns of smoke, and from them emerged two hulking skeletons.
So that's the end of any guilt I felt of having Suyin do most the work in translating our formations book. She's definitely made good use of it. Good on her.
A guandao and wind arts? It's like she decided to make her own personal Ling Qis when her friend grew distant.
Adhoc vote count started by Grigori on Feb 8, 2019 at 8:32 AM, finished with 143 posts and 27 votes.
[X]Get in close, keep the creatures attention focused wholly on you,
-[x] Use TRF to free Suyin to move (DWV or TRU?). Attempt to burst down as fast as possible using FSS. Stay on the ground and close to it to try to make it focus on hitting us rather than bringing the cave down with its gravitational field.
[X]Get in close, keep the creatures attention focused wholly on you, -[X] It's threat comes from the ability to summon forth the pull of the Earth through it's shrill cry, but you know that it is mere sound. Quickly secure Li Suyin and descend into the pit above the beast's gaping maw while flying and raising your own defenses, then use the Spring's End Aria to freeze and mutilate the organ and as much of the earth around you as you can reach. Whether it can scream through frozen and shattered tongue and vocal chords or not, its a stationary target and thus an all-too-perfect victim. Ensure that it stays that way, using Hoarfrost Caress and Winter's End Cadenza to further stop it from being able to fight back or escape.
[X]Get in close, keep the creatures attention focused wholly on you,
-[x] Reinforce Suyin and yourself with Vital Qi and attempt to free her movements as you close in and make yourself the main target. Try to stay close and incite it to focus on physical attacks instead of its gravitational fields in order to reduce the risk of cave-in, dancing around it as an annoying shadow. Avoid the use of flight. Offensively, simply attempt to destroy it quickly with our Frozen Seranade, though be prepared to unleash Winter's End if necessary to manage smaller beasts.
[X] KIll it as quickly as you can, the straining ceiling worries you, -[X] Use TRF to shore up Li Suyin, then proceed to kill the Antlion dead with FSS. Fly as needed, but only get close if it tries to get at Suyin somehow, stay at a distance otherwise.
[X]Get in close, keep the creatures attention focused wholly on you,
-[X] Reinforce Suyin and yourself with Vital Qi and attempt to dispel what ails her as you close in and make yourself the main target. The end of the spring will herald the end of its spiritual defences and allow yourself to blast all the monsters at once if need be, though a more targeted caress against the main threat is preferred. Do not be afraid of flying, though our mobility should be more than up to the task without.
Yeah between the vacuum breath and the spiritual attack it hit us with spamming weaker minions just seems to be asking for it. It's clearly an ambush predator evolved to feed on masses of weaker creatures after all.
I decided to specify TRU since given its performance against Appraisal Dharitri for Peak Yellow Zhengui it should be more than sufficient to protect Suyin from random grappling attempts. So long as she stays still and the various FSS techs screw the Antlion over (which they should given how debuffs to mobility and tech usage fuck it over and how SMB inflicts stacking Fade debuffs) then she should be fine while Ling Qi spams HRC and WEC at it until the damn thing dies in a frozen pit of dirt.