When we escape we leave all of Kongyou's suckiness behind with the rest of the icky nightmare. Newly chibified from losing her edgy teenager phase, Kongyou declares herself Ling Qi and Xuan Shi's newest little sister.
Xuan Shi despairs knowing nobody is ever gonna believe this shit.
The obvious power sacrifice from rushing base cultivation is arts that lag behind in potency. Having to be carried by Realm is what most cultivators without sufficient resources or backing resort to, and us being strong for the step we're at and being able to punch up in relative strenght is in large part due to the quality and synergy of our arts suite. Making sure it keeps pace will let LQ keep that advantage.
Arguably the more important issue however, is LQ's domain. The fastest method to rush through green is getting a lot of concepts to 3 and picking up insights as fast as possible by completing simple arts. This would however lead to a frail and possibly conflicting domain that, while not all that rigid, will still struggle to advance beyond Cyan. Alternatively, taking a few concepts and really pushing them as high as possible leads to the aforementioned issue of a Way thats more like a narrow tunnel demanding more and more sacrifices the further we get. So ideally, we would like to do both. Get some concepts high for more coherence and power, while investing enough in a bunch of lower leveled concepts that we remain relatively flexible. (And avoiding further clashes or merge/eat problematic concepts.) This does mean we're likely not getting to Cyan at the absolute fastest speed possible, but will make advancement beyond that a lot easier.
I see we have one advanced insight already. And if I understand it correctly we're going to have another one soon from a nightmare tribulation. Do we already have an option for the third?
Is ten the limit for ordinary insights, or can we have more? If we're to have a solid foundation so Ling Qi's Way and Domain isn't too narrow the more the better sounds like a good idea, so long as they still synergise so coherency isn't lost.
Which arts should we master next? Based on the amount of techniques already procured and how many art development options there still are I'd say we're closest to finishing Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief and Unstoppable Glacier's March. I would also love insights from Melodies of the Spirit Seekers and Beast King's Savage Dirge, since they're the most Weilu arts we have.
I see we have one advanced insight already. And if I understand it correctly we're going to have another one soon from a nightmare tribulation. Do we already have an option for the third?
I see we have one advanced insight already. And if I understand it correctly we're going to have another one soon from a nightmare tribulation. Do we already have an option for the third?
It's been speculated that a tribulation of some sort and an advanced insight is the Endgame of our little chats with out skeletal weilu uncle in the dream.
I see that we've got two at IV. Is there an upper limit for how high a concept can go?
I see we have one advanced insight already. And if I understand it correctly we're going to have another one soon from a nightmare tribulation. Do we already have an option for the third?
Is ten the limit for ordinary insights, or can we have more? If we're to have a solid foundation so Ling Qi's Way and Domain isn't too narrow the more the better sounds like a good idea, so long as they still synergise so coherency isn't lost.
Which arts should we master next? Based on the amount of techniques already procured and how many art development options there still are I'd say we're closest to finishing Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief and Unstoppable Glacier's March. I would also love insights from Melodies of the Spirit Seekers and Beast King's Savage Dirge, since they're the most Weilu arts we have.
There may be one, yeah. We don't know it though. I'm hoping it's around VI. Too much concept XP needed otherwise (T_TT).
Like Elsecaller said, Skelunckle may be our third Tribulation and Advanced Insight. Personally, I hope we get a tribulation from both him and Shu Yue. Ling Qi's an overachiever!
I'm not sure about an insight limit. At first, it was 11 at first, then it extended to 13. So I'm guessing we can have more than 10, yeah. They're how we get concepts, after all. Apart from exceptions like Void.
Sincerity is the measure by which the worthiness of the self and ones guests should be measured. (Truth Community, Home)
There are endings and Endings, only the very last one is final. Just as winter ends in spring, small endings are new beginnings. (Cycles, Ending Creation.)
Though a path might be hard and lonely, it has worth if you can present something of beauty to those you care for at the end. (Expression, Isolation, Want)
There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end. (Power, Motion, Freedom)
Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more. (Persistence, Courage, Growth)
Even walking alone, footfalls echo beyond your hearing. (Community, Causality, Expression)
The future changes with every step, never be certain you know what is coming (Causality, Mystery, Chaos)
It is the artist's duty to question. The trickster's role to make fools of the mighty. Hold the mirror to history and tradition, and reveal their absurdities.(Creation, Expression, Truth)
I'm not sure about which arts we would master next. That's up to the thread. The closest are MoSS (presumably only two projects left iirc) and UGM (again, two projects left). LFWT was apparently cultivation locked? So we've barely started it. Notice how, compared to Raising the Bastion and Path Unyielding, Laughing Wind unlocks two projects instead of one.
The Laughing Wind: Flight is freedom, defiance of one of the First Laws. Feel the wind on your face,witness all the earth below, and laugh in the midst of the clear blue sky. Advance Sable Grace by 1. Advance Motion and Freedom projects by one. Unlocks Two Projects. (0/3)
Raising the Bastion: In the harsh south, under the gaze of Bleak Skies yearning, you received a taste of the casual cruelty which spirits unbound and uncaring of man may display. In the lessons of the Bastion's Melody, you find the lessons needed to mitigate their harm, and even bring understanding of their doings to spirits most inhuman. Alters the Bastion's Melody Art, giving a chance to negate damaging environmental traits of higher spirits. Advances the Community and Protection projects by one step. Unlocks one project. (0/5)
It's been speculated that a tribulation of some sort and an advanced insight is the Endgame of our little chats with out skeletal weilu uncle in the dream.
Like Elsecaller said, Skelunckle may be our third Tribulation and Advanced Insight. Personally, I hope we get a tribulation from both him and Shu Yue. Ling Qi's an overachiever!
I see that we've got two at IV. Is there an upper limit for how high a concept can go?
I see we have one advanced insight already. And if I understand it correctly we're going to have another one soon from a nightmare tribulation. Do we already have an option for the third?
Is ten the limit for ordinary insights, or can we have more? If we're to have a solid foundation so Ling Qi's Way and Domain isn't too narrow the more the better sounds like a good idea, so long as they still synergise so coherency isn't lost.
Which arts should we master next? Based on the amount of techniques already procured and how many art development options there still are I'd say we're closest to finishing Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief and Unstoppable Glacier's March. I would also love insights from Melodies of the Spirit Seekers and Beast King's Savage Dirge, since they're the most Weilu arts we have.
Even if we're close to finishing UGM, there's a lot of opposition facing that one. Most people seem to believe it doesn't match up with LQ's themes very well and therefore is kinda a waste of time since there really are a lot of things we have to do. Obligations and many goals, Arts and Projects different voters want to pursue. You'll certainly find fans of LFWT and BKSD here. I believe that for in-story reasons, MoSS may receive a slot on next turn's plan. So you may get at least some of what you want.
Even if we're close to finishing UGM, there's a lot of opposition facing that one. Most people seem to believe it doesn't match up with LQ's themes very well and therefore is kinda a waste of time since there really are a lot of things we have to do. Obligations and many goals, Arts and Projects different voters want to pursue. You'll certainly find fans of LFWT and BKSD here. I believe that for in-story reasons, MoSS may receive a slot on next turn's plan. So you may get at least some of what you want.
"Scratches head." If most people think it doesn't match up, how come it's almost finished? Me no understand, me dumb (or possibly just desiccated. This heatwave is no fun at all).
Maybe I'm just a philistine, but after reading the descriptions of the art and its techniques I don't see why it doesn't match up with Ling Qi's themes. She can be damn implacable in pursuit of what she wants, that's for sure.
And the completionist in me is getting all itchy at the mere thought of not wrapping up something so close to the finish line.
"Scratches head." If most people think it doesn't match up, how come it's almost finished? Me no understand, me dumb (or possibly just desiccated. This heatwave is no fun at all).
Maybe I'm just a philistine, but after reading the descriptions of the art and its techniques I don't see why it doesn't match up with Ling Qi's themes. She can be damn implacable in pursuit of what she wants, that's for sure.
And the completionist in me is getting all itchy at the mere thought of not wrapping up something so close to the finish line.
It's because of the system change iirc. Arts like UGM (and SNR) were nearly done before the thread moved to a different art cultivation system (art projects). That's why we're nearly done with it.
And, as a completionist too, I totally agree. UGM's themes definitely fit Ling Qi, and I wish Soul of Ice was still connected to the art instead of being a special project. Alas, we have limited cultivation actions so we'll have to be picky about the arts we cultivate.
It's been speculated that a tribulation of some sort and an advanced insight is the Endgame of our little chats with out skeletal weilu uncle in the dream.
She wasn't going to be caught again. Not like she had been with the fox.
"Xuan Shi, we're going to move much faster now," she said. The pressure of the voices scratching at her thoughts, was growing now, and the mineshaft rumbled and contorted, bending all around them. Ling Qi flickered, appearing atop Zhengui's shell, and offered a hand down. "Come on."
He looked at her silently for a moment and then clasped her forearm. His bulky ceramic gauntlets were cold from the chill of her presence. That helped, a bit, she supposed. She hauled him up with her.
"Aw, c'mon, chickening out already, but my cousins want to play!" Kongyou laughed.
"It isn't your cousins I'm worried about!" Sixiang shouted back over the noise in the tunnel. It sounded like a wailing wind, but it was so much heavier than that.
Ling Qi let the bickering wash over without comment as Zhengui began to amble forward, not needing a word from her. She gathered power around herself, wind and dream and ice, a a cold and sparkling mist that flowed from her sleeves and the hem of her gown.
It was one of the earliest promises she made in her cultivation, back before she had ever heart of domains or names or laws. When she had abandoned the dream of the infinite blue sky, unmoored wholly from the base earth. Sometimes she forgot, sometimes it troubled her, sometimes she failed. She wasn't going to today.
Her wings were strong. She would carry as many as she needed too.
Rolled 93 10 degrees of success
+3 Motion XP. Motion increases from III to IV
+20 to Reward chance for next action.
Motion is life and joy, unobstructed by the chains of destiny. Wings beating in tandem may soar through the most terrible storm.
Wind erupted as the thought crossed her mind, Zhengui's twin cries of alarm covered by the sudden scream of wind as they shot down the tunnel. Around them, shapes and images of suffering formed in the dark, the death of peoples, the cruelty of tribes and kingdoms and empires alike. Inevitability crushed down upon them like the pressure of the ocean, this, inescapable fate that humans built for themselves.
And beside Her Xuan Shi hunkered down, one hand on his hat, shrunken in on himself to hold against the wind and the pressure. But, under the wide brim of his hat, she caught a glimpse of his dark, inhuman eyes. There was a resolve there, too match her own.
The rings on his staff chimed over the wind, and the slots on his gauntlets glowed with heat and power as ceramic plates began to fly out, two, then four, quickly passing beyond counting. The plates assembled, mathematically perfect edges meating. A sharp prow that parted the air before them, a hull to protect from lashing wind and the grasping claws of inchoate nightmares alike.
Beneath them, Zhengui's shell vibrated as her little brother ceased flailing in the wind. There too was determination, to protect, to never fall behind, to never be a burden. Trunklike legs and blunt head withdrew into a stony shell, and even the body of the serpent pulled in, retracting until there was only a dull volcanic glow. And then came heat, a blazing heat that turned crystalizing mist into a churning vortex of wind as flames erupted behind them, fiery orange and verdant green.
Ling Qi steered the vortex, the ceramic ship encased them crackling and flashing as dark spirits burned away on contact, leaving only three hexagonal holes from which the cones of life-flame could erupt.
The past demanded repetition, to walk ever in the grooves carved by feet that were long since dust. In the howling darkness, Ling Qi came to know the true name of the Nightmare on whom they tread. For every cry and broken spirit bore its brand.
The name of the Nightmare was the Forever King, who whispered sweet despair and acceptance into the ears of weak and mighty alike, brother of the beast called Other, who bound and blinded men with self forged chains.
But the vice of such a beast was sloth, always sloth. It's grasp relies upon acceptance and isolation.
+2 Freedom XP Freedom Advances from II to III
And Freedom grows only when shared, one alone is only ever as free as the strength in their arm allows
They erupted from the side of the mountain in a plume of dust and mist and fire, the mountain quaking behind them. It rumbled, it shook, it cried. A million voices and more rising in accusation, that in defiance, they only gave it strength, that in seeking change, they could only worsen suffering. To deny the inevitability of conquest was only an act of extending its reach
"And yet, there is no path which does not lie in defiance."
She glanced to Xuan Shi, who floated now beside her, carried up on the soaring wind that came from the tug of earth's law. The ship came apart, a scattering cloud of whirling plates, and all of them flew suspended in the crisp, cold air.
All the world stretched out around them, a cloud filled sky, mountains without end, stretching like a rumpled blanket of ice and dirt and stone a thousand kilometers below. There on the far horizon, lay the sun and the rays of the dawn.
"The only thing worse than trying is acceptance," she mused, fixing Kongyou with a glare.
The nightmare spirit, tumbling and upside down in midair, merely sniffed. "If it was that easy, I wouldn't exist."
"If it was impossible, I wouldn't exist," Sixiang shot back, clinging to Ling Qi's back like a cloak.
Behind them, far below, the mountain and the mineshaft shook violently, swelled tumorously, and burst apart. A cloud of numberless glittering wings taking flight in every direction, and something massive, bearing a terrible resemblance to a great mouth snapped shut with a sound like a breaking mountain and vanished into the rising cloud of dust that concealed the earth behind.
"The horizon, it is beyond this one's poor words," Xuan Shi said. He, alone of all of them had righted itself, standing upon an assembled platform of plates, his boots locked to the ceramic surface by crackling qi.
Ling Qi considered the view herself, the great rolling line where mountains touched the great blue sky, forming the line between heaven and earth. The infinite, painted colors of dawn washing over the stone. There was a crisp chill in the air and the wind that flew past her falling frame. She reached out, brushed her hand against Zhengui, and the world twisted, their frame's fading into shadow and dissolving until she stood atop his back, her little brother now falling belly down, his heads just poking out of his shell.
"You're right, it's a sight worth a song," Ling Qi said, her voice easily penetrating the roaring wind. Her eyes picked out things in the distance, shapes that were not of the fabric of the mountain. Towers of iron, towers of ice. Great bonfires, shards of sunlight, embedded in the ice and stone.
"Come! This way!" she shouted, pointing down toward the tiny, distant silhouette.
Xuan Shi nodded, squinting into the distance to follow her point. He extended his arm, and the tumbling Kongyou, beat their glittering deaths head wings, shrinking to the size of a child as they alit on his arm like a hawk.
And they fell and fell guided onward by the wind.
***
"That all wasn't just a the nightmare of the past was it?" Ling Qi asked quietly as she stepped down from Zhengui's shell, her feet lightly brushing the snow on the mountaintop without making any impression.
"Of course it wasn't," Kongyou chuckled. "You don't seriously think your buddies, those Wang guys, your Sect, are nice to the ones they conquer."
The trip down had been peaceful, beautiful, but it was impossible to truly put the nightmare of Conquest from her mind. A large part of her wanted to refute Kongyou's words, to say that the Cloud Tribesmen had always, always inflicted horrors on the people of the Emerald Seas. It was even true.
She just wasn't sure how much that truth weighed.
"Conflict, conquest, these things are horrors, always horrors, to those who lose. That is why one resolves to see other resolutions. This one thinks that can must come before should," Xuan Shi said. "The road of peace is long."
It was right, Ling Qi thought, but it was also a dangerous line to tread, the difference between can't and won't. That tightrope line above the jaws of a monster. She did not yet have enough hands.
Kongyou gave a throaty, satisfied chuckle. "It doesn't take long to come back down eh?"
"It is fine to keep ones eyes on the road, so long as the horizon remains in the mind," Xuan Shi said thoughtfully. "Whence do we go now, Lady Ling?"
"Ling Qi," she corrected absently, peered down the mountain slope. A number of structures were visible, cradled in the valley between the mountains. Closest of all to their landing sight was a narrow and spindly tower of grey iron, leaning precariously over the edge of a crumbling cliff. Crows gathered on its balconies and ledges and circled above uncaring for the cold. Their croaking voices made for a distant background.
Beyond the crooked tower which stood at the entrance of the valley the sky filled with rumbling clouds, bloated and heavy with thunder, from which freezing rain poured, the little river that flowed through the far distant bottom of the valley was already swelling and overflowing its banks, but the storm was not uncontested. Blizzard winds blew, cutting scything paths through storm blackened clouds, and the unnatural mixing of the whether birthed whirling columns of air that tore and shredded away great chunks of stone and vegetation.
But, before the valley, beside the swelling waters and sitting beneath the sight of the crooked tower was a humble little hut with walls of piled stone and a rounded straw roof. A flimsy aging fence lay across the mouth of the valley, and no wind or hurled stone passed its perimeter.
Ling Qi squinted, eyeing the crows circling below. They did not pass the line of the fence either, indeed their flocking seemed to make a barrier all its own.
Ling Qi's mind could not help but go to the gods of the southern lands. Crone and Crowfather, Thundering Perkunas, the Warrior Fryja.
"I think we should be cautious," Ling Qi said slowly. "But not go beyond, we haven't made peace yet after all. Let's-
[ ] Approach the towers base and offer respect as travelers, then walk the ridgeline and witness what can be seen( Xuan Shi's gains in his Travel Concept, 60% Chance of additional Reward)
[ ] Approach the hut and seek the right of guests, listen to what can be heard. (Xuan Shi Gains in his Narrative Concept, 60% chance of additional reward)
That is...a lot of concept exp. I have no idea on the vote, though. Witnessing is likely to interest me, but I think listening might be more apt with LQ's recent direction? I have no opinion regarding Xuan Shi's takeaway, though.
Edit: yes, I know where the exp came from. It's just a lot.
[] Approach the hut and seek the right of guests, listen to what can be heard. (Xuan Shi Gains in his Narrative Concept, 60% chance of additional reward)
This is my choice, entirely because I want to see xuan shi learning cool stuff via storytime. Also narrative is based.
[X] Approach the hut and seek the right of guests, listen to what can be heard. (Xuan Shi Gains in his Narrative Concept, 60% chance of additional reward)
This is my choice, entirely because I want to see xuan shi learning cool stuff via storytime. Also narrative is based.
[X] Approach the hut and seek the right of guests, listen to what can be heard. (Xuan Shi Gains in his Narrative Concept, 60% chance of additional reward)
Shi should get up his narrative concept and be intresting too see what stories these wisemen/spirits will narrate.
I like the latter option. Narrative works with Shi and his books. Plus, it intersects with Ling Qi too, so they can discuss it a bunch.
I do admit that travel works too because of his dreams to explore, but Narrative sounds more appealing imo. Plus we have to make Skelunckle proud by helping a friend with Narrative!!
[ ] Approach the hut and seek the right of guests, listen to what can be heard. (Xuan Shi Gains in his Narrative Concept, 60% chance of additional reward)
[X] Approach the hut and seek the right of guests, listen to what can be heard. (Xuan Shi Gains in his Narrative Concept, 60% chance of additional reward)
I think hearing a story from whoever is in there (someone related to the Crowfather i bet) is better, with us telling stories to skeleuncle and Xuan Shi's relation with stories. If what we're going to hear is a story anyway
