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.
- Location
- A rock hurtling through space...
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
My guess is that he'd be almost even with most of the ducals within a year or two of the current quest date instead of noticably trailing them like Ling Qi is. Part of the reason he wouldn't be miles ahead is that not screwing up would almost certainly require him to take time off of cultivating to learn to at least pretend to be a proper young noble, much like Ling Qi had to. He gets a little lucky there, because the Sun seem to stand less on ceremony and their definition of proper conduct is likely closer to what he was used to than the average of the Empire, but there would be a learning curve still.
Ignoring the crunch of the mechanics entirely and going off of the story beats they're here to enable, I think it would make sense for him to start surpassing the ducal scions at the beginning of the fifth realm, and slowly open that gap to a full realm at most by the time he hit white, assuming he managed it and no one involved died or pulled some Shenhua style bullshit power leveling.
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Well, part of Ji Rong's narrative is him coming to terms with being part of the power structures he hated and what that means for him and his preconceived notions of it and it was bound to bump up against something.
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Her mom did her best, but Ling Qi's education prior to running away at age 10 was spotty at best, what with her being almost completely ignorant about things like history, geography or politics. And then she spent four years as a street rat. Where did she even have time to pick up the cultural chauvinism that foreigners aren't human?
LucidProp
Pocky Eating MafiaDoka
Cultural osmosis I guess. You just pick up the biases of the people around you, and even a street rat will want people to look down on.
That, and probably Sect Education. The Argent Sect is the "We Kill Cloud Tribe Barbarians" Sect after all.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
By the age of 10 you have picked up a lot of cultural stuff.
If every childhood story involves the cloud tribes as savage beasts and the heroes are the elegant imperial cultivators … your view will be screwed once you grow up.
Indoctrination of any kind starts at a very young age.
If every childhood story involves the cloud tribes as savage beasts and the heroes are the elegant imperial cultivators … your view will be screwed once you grow up.
Indoctrination of any kind starts at a very young age.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I get the impression literally everywhere. Like, when they first teach you what a person is in the Empire it is stated as synonymous with Imperial Citizens and barbarians are very specifically noted as, y'know, not the same category of being at all.
Well, where the Thief background's flaw was zero social skills...the Prisoner's was having those skills and making enemies with them.
I think its practically a given he'd have wound up in deep shit with at least one noble faction and either be set back heavily or spend a lot of time overcoming that enemy.
Yeah, the commoners dislike the Cloud Tribes because they want to have someone even lower than them on the social ladder. It most definitely has nothing to do with the fact that the Cloud Tribes have spent the last ten thousand years raiding and pillaging the border regions of the Emerald Seas...
- Location
- USA
In the previous eight years.
You learn so much shit when you're sub five as long as it comes from someone you perceive as having authority and knowledge. Cultural things, behavioral things.
Like it's why religion was all but banned from schools and left to parents and the students themselves. So teachers could groom them into little, zealous, religious cultists.
You tell a six year old whatever you want, and unless a 'higher authority' corrects them, they will continue to believe whatever you told them for years. And they remember the weirdest shit.
And the on the streets she had time to pick the cultural bits that trickled down and connected the uber poor Street with everyone else. Distrust/mislike of foreigners is an easy thing to pick up. It's just an extension of 'this is my tribe.'
LucidProp
Pocky Eating MafiaDoka
No reason that both can't be true at the same time.
That said, the original quote talked about how Ling Qi was ignorant of that history when she first entered the sect, so I tried to give an explanation that satisfied it.
[X] Tale of the Gates
- Location
- the internet
Vote's closed, dude. Sorry, ours lost.
Turn 16: arc 2-6
Ling Qi shared a long look with Xuan Shi. As much as a founding tale could be interesting, how much would it help? Turning the situation around in her head, how much would the tale of the empires founding tell one about the Emerald Seas of today? Because really this was in the end still mostly a contact between border provinces.
"I think we'll take the tale of this Iron King guy," Sixiang said.
"And you speak for the girl, echo?" Asked the crone, peering out from under her heavy brow.
"They can," Ling Qi said, "Sixiang only spoke my thoughts before I could."
"Interesting, is it the same for you, boy?" Grydja asked, turning to Xuan Shi.
He glanced up to where Kongyou still perched on his shoulder. The nightmare looked back, insectile eyes glittering in the dark.
"Nah, even this dumb guys not so much of a fool," Kongyou chuckled.
"It is so," Xuan Shi said quietly. "This one would also like the King's Tale, grandmother."
"Well enough then," the spirit said. She leaned over the steaming cauldron now, her stirring spoon circling evenly. The aroma from the cauldron was that of a rich stew, and Ling Qi could hear the faint sloshing of water and the bump of solids against the inside of the cauldron. Well enough."
"It began on the day the sun last turned black. When the terrible fear swept south with the fiery winds that scoured the eastern sky, that crumbled mountains and turned the eastern steppe into a field of sucking mud and the tundra to trackless marsh. When a daughter of the sun died and all the land cried out in torment from her death."
The Twilight King, Ling Qi thought. The demonic cultivator who had nearly destroyed the Empire in ages past, who had destroyed the Golden Fields Province, when the Purifying Sun, her friend Gu Xiulan's ancestor had destroyed itself to end him. It was hard to imagine, but she supposed even the mountains of the Wall had not been able to shield the south lands from that ruin.
"This terrible omen put the people in disarray, the eastern clans and tribes most of all. The land was changed. But worst of all had been the suns blackening. Though it lasted bare hours, the Southern Gate shook and rumbled with the terrible force of the Enemy, in those moments of his distraction," Gryja's crackling voice took on a sort of rhythmic cadence as she spoke, and the crones milky eyes gazed into the steam without the glinting appetite and playful malice which had characterized it so far. "Busy, awful days, oh yes. Old Gryja did not get to exist in those days, for there was so much to be done."
"Only twice before did the world shudder so, but we were fortunate with this, that dead sun ensured it all remained in our hands. But, but, you children are not here to listen to an old woman's complaints about work. The Iron King rose in the Glittering City, the great fortress and gatehouse turned capital of the mortal children. With the beasts of the Outside pawing at the gates, with their fragments and breath coming through and the world going mad, he rose and led."
Ling Qi heard the roar of voices, the awful sound of screaming demons, the sounds of war, clanking metal and rending flesh, all in the hiss and bubbling of the cauldron. "With so many of those who spoke with the scepters voice occupied with the Land, he led. He bore no negotiation, no speech. His voice was his sword, and it spoke harsh things indeed. He demanded steep tribute to arm himself and his men, crushed town and city and village which would not pay. All to fight the demons, oh yes, all to fight the demons."
"It was even true, in its way, at the beginning," Chuckled the crone.
"But it didn't stay true," Ling Qi said.
"Smart poppet, of course it didn't," the crone laughed, raspy and cruel. "The truth was only a convenience to begin with."
"With so many warriors, warriors of all stripes behind him, wearing the title of hero as a crown, the people of the glittering city were happy to see all the Land turned to their defense. What care had they for eastern tribes, driven to privation and collapse by the tithe as they struggled with their new land. What cared they for the frozen villages and towns in the north, to the flooding ports in the east. They were the Stalwarts who stood astride the Gate, who defended all the world. They took only what they were owed, of course," Grydja's lips peeled apart in a sneer, iron fangs grinding, casting pale blue sparks into the hissing cauldron.
"No victory could be enough, even as the demons abated. More fortifications, more warriors. Never mind that their blades turned on the people and the Land. As even the Glittering City began to grow unsure, for the first duty of a King is to perpetuate himself. The might of the Iron King and his throne turned upon his people, it took and took, reducing the land ever more to waste, all to keep a tottering throne afloat. Hungry, hungry things are kings, they will eat themselves from the feet up, if given half a chance, and not notice until there's naught but snapping jaws and rolling eyes upon the throne."
"Learn this, if nothing else children. The people of ice are wary of power, far more than you dragon spawn, you will find few friends with displays of might."
"You can't face power without power of your own," LIng Qi pointed out. "It might be right to be wary, but you can't reject power outright, without it, you can do nothing."
"...A man who only speaks may be mightier than an army, but this is only because his words and thoughts are weapons and armament," Xuan Shi said slowly. "It is not a matter of rejecting might in its wholeness, this one believes. Rather grandmother, what form of might is seen as the right?"
"Oh aye, aye, children. You catch an old woman out in her story. It is the naked fist that is not respected, it is commands given without deliberation or consultation. It is the might of Kings which will avail you not,"
That made more sense, but Ling Qi was still a bit bothered. "Honored Grandmother… may I ask why you seem to hold such contempt for this? I… can see your nature, you are hunger and cold and ending. You yourself are the night, which ends all things without discrimination. Where does your malice in this come?"
Grydja regarded her over the boiling cauldron, and Ling Qi worried for a moment that she had overstepped. Something sparked, black and terribly, awfully deep in those milky eyes.
"The End needs no assistance."
The words were frigid beyond description, it cut through her clothes and her skin as if she were still a mortal shivering in the street. They lacked any of the crones lackadaisical tone, or personality, they were precise and flat and wholly without inflection.
"Bold child, happy child, don't poke so deep, Looking so deep that you miss the surface," Grydja scolded, wagging a frostbitten finger at her. "Your ending is a thing of men and beasts and cities and rivers and mountains, and so is this old woman's. Who would old Grydja be, in dead and empty lands scoured by stars, even a strict grandmother is fond of her get, oh yes. Even if the cold always takes some."
"My apologies Grandmother," Ling Qi said shakily.
The spirit eyes her, the stirring of the stew slowing. "You trouble yourself because you keep wishing to poke behind the curtain despite your masters warning. If you wish a tidbit of wisdom poppet it is this. Ending is not of the sun or the the moon, the earth or the sky. We are born from…"
"Time," Xuan Shi said. "Forward motion, Causality, disparity, when the Father and Mother made beginnings, so too were endings born."
Ling Qi quietly warmed her hands over Zhengui's glowing shell. Her little brother had shuffled over glaring defiantly at the greater spirit as he placed himself between them.
"That's the one. You call it Brother Time, but it bears no name you could withstand, little one," the crone cackled. "Ending as transition, as transgression if you'd like to play with spice, you have this, and should build upon it, if you want an old woman's opinion."
"This one thanks the Honored Grandmother for her advice."
The crone hummed. "But the story, the story. For all their destruction and consumption though, King's are hard things to topple, for men and women alike are sturdy creatures and will suffer much before their tears become wrath. But, as has been said, Kings are ever hungry, and the Iron King's appetite most of all. Many old guardians, those who had become of the land were slain and destroyed as his hunger began to awaken their instinct to defend, and in this they mirrored the people."
"The Iron King took from the Gate its warriors and turned it upon the land, he slew the Rampart City, A struck a mortal blow at the Five Rivers City, both children-disciples of She who became the Scepter, among the eldest of all cities, and this at last was too much."
'Too much' the words echoed and distorted as if called by the shadows in the hut.
The hag's gimlet eyes glowed in the dark as the spoon plunged down, like a knife into the cauldron, and rose, bearing to the top of the waters something red and round. It was a skull, jaw open in a scream, muscle still clinging to bone, one wide eye rolled in its socket. Ling Qi got only a glimpse before it plunged back into the water.
Ling Qi swallowed hard, but it was Xuan Shi who spoke up first.
"Slew a city?" he said, frowning. "This does not strike as poetry."
"Because it's not. Take that as your lesson. Power, the power they respect is that which holds up and binds together. Waystations, fortresses, centers of wisdom, cities. These are what those who cast aside human flesh aspire," said the crone. "The Iron King didn't, though he would have made a mighty, if harsh one. He took and took alone, Built his body into a throne and the Glittering City, she who was Sudica herself, gave her people the power to tear him down and hang his broken corpse from the Hierophants branches in offering. To the cold and the crows. Know that going to speak. This is the peak of the 'Way' among the ice."
To become a city, it was difficult to wrap her mind around. The final ascension, beyond the realms of cultivation, was to become a great spirit. To write ones Law into reality and forever change the world. It was… something else, something like a Sublime Ancestor to make yourself a part of the land. But she'd already seen it hadn't she? Seen the iron mountain which was a man. Was that an infant city or merely a cultivator who could not reach quite so high?
The crone was silent, letting them contemplate her answer as she raised the iron spoon to her lips, sipping from the crimson broth.
"It is an admirable end, among the cousins, it is well sought. To become an island, to host kin upon their backs, this is known and honored," Xuan Shi mused. "Grave and home alike, swimming forever as the Living Isle does."
"It does sound nice," Gui said. "Oh, but it would make it hard to burn, with people on Gui's back."
"Obviously, I zhen, would bless our people against our flames, so only enemies would burn," Zhen hissed. "This any lord should do."
"Not so easy, people are fragile," Sixiang said. "What are you thinking Qi?"
"I am thankful to Honored Grandmother for this knowledge," Ling Qi said, bowing. "I had the pieces but these words put the puzzle together. This is the highest aspiration?"
"It is, and its opposite is despised, despised as spat on."
Power gathered wholly to the self, Law wrought of aggrandizement. It was… dangerous certainly many in the Empire had ways which could be seen that way, were that way. Where did the Duchess fall there?
"But you children have tired this old woman out, that you have. Be off with you then, to the waking world. Best not to sleep too long dearies," said Grydja said as the fire banked. "And aside, my stew is done and you'd best not watch an old woman eat."
"Then we will not disturb thy meal any further," Xuan Shi said, bowing his head.
"Yes, we will respect your wishes," LIng Qi followed, bowing as well.
"Heh, the details are different, but not so much, thanks for the tale," Kongyou said brightly.
The crone gave the nightmare a look, and they scuttled behind Xuan Shi's head. "Hmph, foolish morsel of a man, too clever girl. Aye, hold up but a moment, old Grydja nearly forgot something," The crone stood, looming over both them and the fire, fishing about in her apron. "Here boy."
Xuan Shi blinked in shock holding out his gauntleted hand seemingly by instinct as the old spirit dropped something into his open palm. SMall and white, oblong. It looked like… a chicken egg?
"That mangy little beast outside still lays now and then, but I've no taste for eggs anymore."
Xuan Shi looked down at the egg with curiosity. "What manner of beast…"
"A chicken, you daft boy," Grydja sniffed, turning her milky eyed gaze on Ling Qi. Her wrapped foot moved, kicking the dust about the hearth, sending up a spray of sparks. Ling Qi threw up a hand, but they guttered long before reaching her, leaving only an impact on her outstretched hand. She grasped it by instinct, and opening her eyes, she found herself looking at a scorched and withered shard of petrified black wood, as long as her forearm, and heavy in her hand.
"Think on sacrifice, understand it well, and you'll find your End. Now, git."
The hag waved her hand and there was a rush, wind and snow and shadow and the feeling of soaring.
Ling Qi gasped, almost stumbling as the world rushed through her…. And she opened her eyes to see the little ruined shrine, the sun was descending, painting the sky. They were back in the waking world.
Xuan Shi stood beside her, leaning heavily against the broken shrine. She met his eyes.
"Lady Ling, this one would much like to contribute to your work."
Arc End.
"I think we'll take the tale of this Iron King guy," Sixiang said.
"And you speak for the girl, echo?" Asked the crone, peering out from under her heavy brow.
"They can," Ling Qi said, "Sixiang only spoke my thoughts before I could."
"Interesting, is it the same for you, boy?" Grydja asked, turning to Xuan Shi.
He glanced up to where Kongyou still perched on his shoulder. The nightmare looked back, insectile eyes glittering in the dark.
"Nah, even this dumb guys not so much of a fool," Kongyou chuckled.
"It is so," Xuan Shi said quietly. "This one would also like the King's Tale, grandmother."
"Well enough then," the spirit said. She leaned over the steaming cauldron now, her stirring spoon circling evenly. The aroma from the cauldron was that of a rich stew, and Ling Qi could hear the faint sloshing of water and the bump of solids against the inside of the cauldron. Well enough."
"It began on the day the sun last turned black. When the terrible fear swept south with the fiery winds that scoured the eastern sky, that crumbled mountains and turned the eastern steppe into a field of sucking mud and the tundra to trackless marsh. When a daughter of the sun died and all the land cried out in torment from her death."
The Twilight King, Ling Qi thought. The demonic cultivator who had nearly destroyed the Empire in ages past, who had destroyed the Golden Fields Province, when the Purifying Sun, her friend Gu Xiulan's ancestor had destroyed itself to end him. It was hard to imagine, but she supposed even the mountains of the Wall had not been able to shield the south lands from that ruin.
"This terrible omen put the people in disarray, the eastern clans and tribes most of all. The land was changed. But worst of all had been the suns blackening. Though it lasted bare hours, the Southern Gate shook and rumbled with the terrible force of the Enemy, in those moments of his distraction," Gryja's crackling voice took on a sort of rhythmic cadence as she spoke, and the crones milky eyes gazed into the steam without the glinting appetite and playful malice which had characterized it so far. "Busy, awful days, oh yes. Old Gryja did not get to exist in those days, for there was so much to be done."
"Only twice before did the world shudder so, but we were fortunate with this, that dead sun ensured it all remained in our hands. But, but, you children are not here to listen to an old woman's complaints about work. The Iron King rose in the Glittering City, the great fortress and gatehouse turned capital of the mortal children. With the beasts of the Outside pawing at the gates, with their fragments and breath coming through and the world going mad, he rose and led."
Ling Qi heard the roar of voices, the awful sound of screaming demons, the sounds of war, clanking metal and rending flesh, all in the hiss and bubbling of the cauldron. "With so many of those who spoke with the scepters voice occupied with the Land, he led. He bore no negotiation, no speech. His voice was his sword, and it spoke harsh things indeed. He demanded steep tribute to arm himself and his men, crushed town and city and village which would not pay. All to fight the demons, oh yes, all to fight the demons."
"It was even true, in its way, at the beginning," Chuckled the crone.
"But it didn't stay true," Ling Qi said.
"Smart poppet, of course it didn't," the crone laughed, raspy and cruel. "The truth was only a convenience to begin with."
"With so many warriors, warriors of all stripes behind him, wearing the title of hero as a crown, the people of the glittering city were happy to see all the Land turned to their defense. What care had they for eastern tribes, driven to privation and collapse by the tithe as they struggled with their new land. What cared they for the frozen villages and towns in the north, to the flooding ports in the east. They were the Stalwarts who stood astride the Gate, who defended all the world. They took only what they were owed, of course," Grydja's lips peeled apart in a sneer, iron fangs grinding, casting pale blue sparks into the hissing cauldron.
"No victory could be enough, even as the demons abated. More fortifications, more warriors. Never mind that their blades turned on the people and the Land. As even the Glittering City began to grow unsure, for the first duty of a King is to perpetuate himself. The might of the Iron King and his throne turned upon his people, it took and took, reducing the land ever more to waste, all to keep a tottering throne afloat. Hungry, hungry things are kings, they will eat themselves from the feet up, if given half a chance, and not notice until there's naught but snapping jaws and rolling eyes upon the throne."
"Learn this, if nothing else children. The people of ice are wary of power, far more than you dragon spawn, you will find few friends with displays of might."
"You can't face power without power of your own," LIng Qi pointed out. "It might be right to be wary, but you can't reject power outright, without it, you can do nothing."
"...A man who only speaks may be mightier than an army, but this is only because his words and thoughts are weapons and armament," Xuan Shi said slowly. "It is not a matter of rejecting might in its wholeness, this one believes. Rather grandmother, what form of might is seen as the right?"
"Oh aye, aye, children. You catch an old woman out in her story. It is the naked fist that is not respected, it is commands given without deliberation or consultation. It is the might of Kings which will avail you not,"
That made more sense, but Ling Qi was still a bit bothered. "Honored Grandmother… may I ask why you seem to hold such contempt for this? I… can see your nature, you are hunger and cold and ending. You yourself are the night, which ends all things without discrimination. Where does your malice in this come?"
Grydja regarded her over the boiling cauldron, and Ling Qi worried for a moment that she had overstepped. Something sparked, black and terribly, awfully deep in those milky eyes.
"The End needs no assistance."
The words were frigid beyond description, it cut through her clothes and her skin as if she were still a mortal shivering in the street. They lacked any of the crones lackadaisical tone, or personality, they were precise and flat and wholly without inflection.
"Bold child, happy child, don't poke so deep, Looking so deep that you miss the surface," Grydja scolded, wagging a frostbitten finger at her. "Your ending is a thing of men and beasts and cities and rivers and mountains, and so is this old woman's. Who would old Grydja be, in dead and empty lands scoured by stars, even a strict grandmother is fond of her get, oh yes. Even if the cold always takes some."
"My apologies Grandmother," Ling Qi said shakily.
The spirit eyes her, the stirring of the stew slowing. "You trouble yourself because you keep wishing to poke behind the curtain despite your masters warning. If you wish a tidbit of wisdom poppet it is this. Ending is not of the sun or the the moon, the earth or the sky. We are born from…"
"Time," Xuan Shi said. "Forward motion, Causality, disparity, when the Father and Mother made beginnings, so too were endings born."
Ling Qi quietly warmed her hands over Zhengui's glowing shell. Her little brother had shuffled over glaring defiantly at the greater spirit as he placed himself between them.
"That's the one. You call it Brother Time, but it bears no name you could withstand, little one," the crone cackled. "Ending as transition, as transgression if you'd like to play with spice, you have this, and should build upon it, if you want an old woman's opinion."
"This one thanks the Honored Grandmother for her advice."
The crone hummed. "But the story, the story. For all their destruction and consumption though, King's are hard things to topple, for men and women alike are sturdy creatures and will suffer much before their tears become wrath. But, as has been said, Kings are ever hungry, and the Iron King's appetite most of all. Many old guardians, those who had become of the land were slain and destroyed as his hunger began to awaken their instinct to defend, and in this they mirrored the people."
"The Iron King took from the Gate its warriors and turned it upon the land, he slew the Rampart City, A struck a mortal blow at the Five Rivers City, both children-disciples of She who became the Scepter, among the eldest of all cities, and this at last was too much."
'Too much' the words echoed and distorted as if called by the shadows in the hut.
The hag's gimlet eyes glowed in the dark as the spoon plunged down, like a knife into the cauldron, and rose, bearing to the top of the waters something red and round. It was a skull, jaw open in a scream, muscle still clinging to bone, one wide eye rolled in its socket. Ling Qi got only a glimpse before it plunged back into the water.
Ling Qi swallowed hard, but it was Xuan Shi who spoke up first.
"Slew a city?" he said, frowning. "This does not strike as poetry."
"Because it's not. Take that as your lesson. Power, the power they respect is that which holds up and binds together. Waystations, fortresses, centers of wisdom, cities. These are what those who cast aside human flesh aspire," said the crone. "The Iron King didn't, though he would have made a mighty, if harsh one. He took and took alone, Built his body into a throne and the Glittering City, she who was Sudica herself, gave her people the power to tear him down and hang his broken corpse from the Hierophants branches in offering. To the cold and the crows. Know that going to speak. This is the peak of the 'Way' among the ice."
To become a city, it was difficult to wrap her mind around. The final ascension, beyond the realms of cultivation, was to become a great spirit. To write ones Law into reality and forever change the world. It was… something else, something like a Sublime Ancestor to make yourself a part of the land. But she'd already seen it hadn't she? Seen the iron mountain which was a man. Was that an infant city or merely a cultivator who could not reach quite so high?
The crone was silent, letting them contemplate her answer as she raised the iron spoon to her lips, sipping from the crimson broth.
"It is an admirable end, among the cousins, it is well sought. To become an island, to host kin upon their backs, this is known and honored," Xuan Shi mused. "Grave and home alike, swimming forever as the Living Isle does."
"It does sound nice," Gui said. "Oh, but it would make it hard to burn, with people on Gui's back."
"Obviously, I zhen, would bless our people against our flames, so only enemies would burn," Zhen hissed. "This any lord should do."
"Not so easy, people are fragile," Sixiang said. "What are you thinking Qi?"
"I am thankful to Honored Grandmother for this knowledge," Ling Qi said, bowing. "I had the pieces but these words put the puzzle together. This is the highest aspiration?"
"It is, and its opposite is despised, despised as spat on."
Power gathered wholly to the self, Law wrought of aggrandizement. It was… dangerous certainly many in the Empire had ways which could be seen that way, were that way. Where did the Duchess fall there?
"But you children have tired this old woman out, that you have. Be off with you then, to the waking world. Best not to sleep too long dearies," said Grydja said as the fire banked. "And aside, my stew is done and you'd best not watch an old woman eat."
"Then we will not disturb thy meal any further," Xuan Shi said, bowing his head.
"Yes, we will respect your wishes," LIng Qi followed, bowing as well.
"Heh, the details are different, but not so much, thanks for the tale," Kongyou said brightly.
The crone gave the nightmare a look, and they scuttled behind Xuan Shi's head. "Hmph, foolish morsel of a man, too clever girl. Aye, hold up but a moment, old Grydja nearly forgot something," The crone stood, looming over both them and the fire, fishing about in her apron. "Here boy."
Xuan Shi blinked in shock holding out his gauntleted hand seemingly by instinct as the old spirit dropped something into his open palm. SMall and white, oblong. It looked like… a chicken egg?
"That mangy little beast outside still lays now and then, but I've no taste for eggs anymore."
Xuan Shi looked down at the egg with curiosity. "What manner of beast…"
"A chicken, you daft boy," Grydja sniffed, turning her milky eyed gaze on Ling Qi. Her wrapped foot moved, kicking the dust about the hearth, sending up a spray of sparks. Ling Qi threw up a hand, but they guttered long before reaching her, leaving only an impact on her outstretched hand. She grasped it by instinct, and opening her eyes, she found herself looking at a scorched and withered shard of petrified black wood, as long as her forearm, and heavy in her hand.
"Think on sacrifice, understand it well, and you'll find your End. Now, git."
The hag waved her hand and there was a rush, wind and snow and shadow and the feeling of soaring.
Ling Qi gasped, almost stumbling as the world rushed through her…. And she opened her eyes to see the little ruined shrine, the sun was descending, painting the sky. They were back in the waking world.
Xuan Shi stood beside her, leaning heavily against the broken shrine. She met his eyes.
"Lady Ling, this one would much like to contribute to your work."
Arc End.
- Location
- United States of America
Another stellar chapter. I felt this was knocked out of the park.
Oliver_Twister
Idea-Man, He Who Shits Ideas
- Location
- West Africa
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That final sentence lol
- Location
- Leeds
Surprise Crossover!!! Beware of Chicken (xianxia)
... Uh huh.
Honestly, thinking about it, a Spirit Beast chicken might well be enough of a horror just being a chicken, so I think Grydja might not even be misleading with that line.
I mean, he basically got a chicken egg from someone who looks suspiciously like Baba Yaga.
I don't see it being a turtle snek, but a small shed with chicken legs is very much at least possible.
... But how does the baby variant look like? A doll house on legs? If it grows up does it go to outhouse or garden shed first?
... if Xuan Shi gets a Phoenix Xiulan will be so fucking jealous. 
Also flute made out of petrified sacrifice, cool shit.
Also flute made out of petrified sacrifice, cool shit.