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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.

The way I see it, this chapter showed the damage we took just staying near the General, a Sovereign on our side. Id much rather not see the damage we would take from entering the proximity of a Sovereign very much out to kill us.
 
[x ] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
My understanding is that LQ is at the moment not yet fully in stealth mode and the 2. Option would put LQ in fully in it. While SWD does know LQ is here he already can't spare any real attention for LQ so if LQ would go fully in stealth (and with Shu Yue's help who should also still be here) it might be enough for him to lose sight of LQ.
Or at least require him a bit of effort to find LQ again, and I think in a fight between two Sovereign even a such a small effort could be of big help to the General.

Of course, it could also backfire as stealth is also something SWD is good in, but I think Shu Yue is better at it and would also be more willing to help us then the General might be.

Shu Yue is still here, right? At least I think so and think that option 1 would put LQ more under the General's protection and option 2 more under Shu Yue because LQ needs at least protection from one of the two.

[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that

We still have all of our limbs! Let's push it some more!
 
Xepheria said:
To be clear, Xia Ren has her own traumas and history absent of the Hui themselves - and I'm not trying to justify the actions she directed at her own tribe. We know very little in the way of detail here, but it is absolutely not going to be pretty.

That being said, Xia Ren does as directed by the State, also called Cai Shenhua - a General and a tool of destruction, for tasks that such things. Xia Ren hasn't been inactive, but she also hasn't had outsized influence outside of her domain of the White Plumes and military matters.

Where we really have to worry is when Shenhua goes properly off the deep end, and the Revolution she embodies becomes something actively harmful for the people of the Emerald Seas. Before that, I think a tentative working arrangement is possible with Xia Ren, but after?

We'd better be prepared to extinguish the crucible.
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I agree. Getting a closer look into Xia Ren might teach us what we need to either take her out without a big fight or use her way in not suporting shenhua. If we learn enought of her way we might have the information we could use to turn Xia Ren against shenhua.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
Zeful said:
This is not a good argument, because both options can be interpreted as replaying the Bloody Moon tribulation. The problem is that the cause of that tribulation was that Ling Qi started and ended the scene with different beliefs. She was trying to sue for peace, only to fold when confronted with a power beyond her.

Ling Qi isn't trying to save Still Waters Deeping, and joined the effort to kill him specifically because he's fucking with her goals, so the tension you're talking about doesn't exist.
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The two situations are similar, IMO.

And I also think the argument that soaring high is showing our conviction to be very faulty. The fact that we immediately said yes to this, and are carrying a Sovereign into the Deep Liminal to fight another while we are an itty bitty Green is also proof enough of conviction.

This is something that can kill LQ, if not for her protagonist powers. Just by being in the immediate blast zone of a Sovereign clash, we're probably dead. Then you have to consider the location: the Deep Liminal, where the chances one loses their personality and gets overridden is high. Put both together, and you get a hot mess where we try to survive, hold Xia Ren in the Liminal, and try to prevent a personality override from both the deep Liminal and the 3 different Sovereigns fighting and expressing their Ways.

Tylonius said:
Not really? Just because we're practicing a specific art in this general timeframe doesn't really have any impact right now, any more than our other arts we're not actively working on do. It's not like we're cultivating it this second after all.
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We kind of are? For the past 2 sections, we've always cultivated during the spy interludes between Negotiations...just like this one. Even if that's ignored, Winter's Crown is where these thoughts of Power come from, and LQ is actively thinking about Winter in this update.

yrsillar said:
Power did not have to come from within. Winter was not one voice, one single thing, but the movements of countless forces in unison wrought by the turning of the world, set in motion by voices long, long gone.
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Cultivating Winter and Cold by becoming fire is really counterproductive.
 
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On the one hand, I really like the idea of being the shadow of the Cai, staying in the background but nevertheless changing the world.

On the other hand, Tsu 2.0

I think I'm going to go shadow here, but I love both options honestly. We may be unseen, but we will not be unheard.

[] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.

Edit: swapped later
 
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[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.

We took Way damage from Huisheng who is almost a horned carbon copy of our more Grinning side. I fear what of us would burn from dancing so close to a fire that is not aligned with our beliefs.

If we are to be contaminated, at least SWD is the right combination of our patrons. Physical damage must be expected in either case.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.

Hmm, I think our motive so far has been to use our enemies weapons against them. Like what we told Su Ling about her heritage when she wanted to rip it all out. We find the best parts of the old and use them to our advantage, letting the rotting and dying parts fall away. That's the part of our argument that convinced Xia Ren to be patient with us. Let us show Xia Ren the we CAN resist the call of stagnation because we must.

Dreamwalking is all about remaining Who You Are in the midst of churning Thought, and remembering that Stagnation is Death has saved us once already. We must disrupt their plans now and hold a mirror to traditions and power and show it where it's ridiculous. We must bring endings to enable new beginnings.

We have been building ourselves as a support for the shining beacons, but we are not the same kind of destruction and radiance. Jiao said that there is no satisfaction in merely being a shadow for another, but we are not merely the knife in the dark meant to carve and kill.

Let's play the singer unseen, and make a way to create something new while the old and rotten dies as it should. We are a Thief and an Artist, using our stolen goods to create new wonders. We have been told that we are hard to kill, let us become even more so.
 
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