Lady_Story
Humble Teller of Stories, Villainess of Legend
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
Does that being showered with riches mean that we get to hold her wing tip and make cute blush faces at each other as we toss compliments back and forth?
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.
Year 45, Month 12 Arc 1-2
"Is Big Sister's technique doing what she wants?"
She considered her little brother's question as she drifted like a leaf tossed by the heat below bobbing gently on the currents of air. "I think so, it's hard to test at such low intensity, but… Any injuries reported Xia Lin?"
"Not since your arrival. It appears fully effective, though there have been two psychologically induced retreats."
Ah, she had felt one of those, a man had stepped into a smoldering underbrush and been engulfed entirely in flame. Even if she had not let him be hurt, an experience like that could definitely exhaust the mind. His comrades had handled the fire fairies that caused the blast well enough though.
There was a strong urge to just do everything herself. To take care of the problem in an instant of high clear song and howling icy wind, but that wasn't the point. They would not always be on site, and the soldiers of Snowblossom needed to be able to handle minor situations like this on their own.
Her presence and shrouding qi was a training aid for that, allowing them to experience the danger while no one suffered lasting harm. Not exactly what she had in mind for the technique, but she had to admit it was a useful benefit.
"And your own thoughts Zhengui?" Ling Qi asked over the air, lips moving a little out of habit, despite there being no need.
"Roots come much quicker when called by Gui… and it is easier to see and hear things now."
"I, Zhen, feel our heads are clearer now, it is why we felt this before it happened… annoying then that we could not stop it."
"But Gui will get even better!"
"I know you will," Ling Qi said fondly.
The flames were shrinking, the push of the soldiers through the burning underbrush shrinking the zone of lurid red and orange down step by step, leaving grey ash and scorched trunks in their wake, but they had done as ordered. There was no crownfire among their woods, those cultivators with enough qi to project or control water were concentrated on that task, extinguishing any licks of flame or rising fairies before they could catch on the leaves.
Their comrades trudging below had the more drought task, smothering the flames and only leaving drifting smoke on guard against the always sudden assault of freshly born wildfire fairies erupting from still smoldering ash and burning bushes.
But as the perimeter shrunk, Shenglu's soldiers grew more effective less space between the groups of fire fighting men and women meant more support, meant easier cooperation and communication.
They needed polish, it was true, but only that, the foundation Gan Guangli and Xia Lin had carved was good.
"Sister…. Gui has a bad feeling, there is not enough flame on the surface."
"Dastardly stink-gas, hiding and waiting. Ready to make a blast much bigger…"
"Xia Lin. Zhengui detects a remaining pocket of gas, I am going to investigate."
"Understood. Which location?"
Communication flickered back and forth, with her as the relay between her little brother and Xia Lin. While she did, Qiyi rustled around her ankles, taking her out in a lazy arc around the location Zhengui was worried about.
It did look unnatural now that she focused on it. Tree trunks tilted at odd angles, as if the earth had suddenly slumped beneath them, rising streamers of shimmering air invisible among the heat distortion of flame here near the core of the burning zone.
And through the grumble and grind of pained tree song and disturbed earth, over the crack and pop and laughter of flames and twirling fairies, she heard something else. The quiet and whispering voice of ruin. A spirit of destruction catalyzed by the meeting of open wind and flame imbued air, never meant to meet.
It wasn't quite a spirit, not yet. But its song was rising, completing the first verse of many if not silenced. She did not think she would allow it to reach wholeness.
The voice beneath tumbled root and burning bush and crumbling earth rose, and the wind whorled inward tugging at the tongues of ruddy flame in the depression. Ling Qi descended, and let green and vital qi pulse out, an emerald star born amidst and blasting away the ashy smoke.
The proto-spirit of destruction gestating in the flame- imbued pocket detonated with the force to rip trees from the earth and snap bones like matchsticks, and Ling Qi's boots struck the collapsing earth directly in the center of the blast with a thump.
Green glittered everywhere. Half collapsed trees, burnt out bushes, boulders alike. It spread beyond the depression, a thin woven blanket of vine and root ephemerally cocooning everything in her reach, all the way out to their soldiers, closing in on the epicenter.
The blast died before it could echo beyond the sinking bowl in the earth. It rustled not a single hair or dislodged a single leaf. Ling Qi felt it as impact, countless impacts like standing under a rain of hailstones.
Compared to the General's flame, it was nothing.
She looked down at her own hand curiously. She too was sheathed in green now. This second technique…. She couldn't truly put it to the test against such a lowly attack, but the weave of qi she had created from Kohatu's memory of persistence held steady. She reached up, studying a smolder strand of her head, one of the few signs of damage. As she watched the charred portion flaked away under a glimmer of green, restored to same glittering silkiness it had when she brushed it this morning.
And her dantian surged, refilling the small loss of qi she had suffered from enduring the force meant for everyone and everything around her.
Under her feet the sparks that could have become a deadly spirit died, denied the kindling of pain and destruction that would have formed its foundation.
"Center neutralized. The rest of the suppression should go smoothly," Ling Qi spoke, this time she let her voice reach everyone. "But do not let your guard down until the work is done."
She lifted off the earth with a puff of ashen dust as the rippling shell of green retracted, leaving only her connection to the soldiers themselves.
When she descended next, it was down to where Zhengui stood, now carefully dismantling his wall of roots, bringing the earth and trees displaced by them back to where they had been before the eruption of his roots from the earth.
"Welcome Big Sister. Do not worry. Gui does not feel any more brewing big booms at all." he greeted her cheerfully
"I'm glad," Ling Qi chuckled, settling in on the relatively smooth bit o shell behind Gui's head. She seated herself cross legged there, threading a pulsed cycle of qi through his own diffused aura affectionately.
"The memories and practice of my old art eased things but… I think this is as far as I can take this art, until I face something a little more serious to test its limits," Ling Qi mused.
"It is hard to know how hard your shell is without something cracking it first," Zhen agreed, looping his coils once, loosely around her. "I, Zhen will support Big Sister if hers ever does."
"And I will do the same for you," Ling Qi replied quietly. She remembered the times when her little brother had been wounded, truly wounded. Every single one was deeply distressing.
But she supposed he would say the same of each and every time she took a serious wound.
"I can't promise I will never get hurt," Ling Qi said. "Or that I can shield everyone."
"Gui cannot promise that either."
She nodded quietly, rested a hand on top of his head. "But I think we can both promise to make anything which tries to separate us suffer miserably and long for it, Little Brother."
"I, Zhen, like the sound of this promise," he replied, his ashen tongue flicking over her cheek.
"Then let us persist together, Zhengui.
[ ] Please Select a name for your new art
AN: It's a little short but this completes your preview of your new art. Will see you guys after a weeks break for me to recharge and plan the next leg of the story.
She considered her little brother's question as she drifted like a leaf tossed by the heat below bobbing gently on the currents of air. "I think so, it's hard to test at such low intensity, but… Any injuries reported Xia Lin?"
"Not since your arrival. It appears fully effective, though there have been two psychologically induced retreats."
Ah, she had felt one of those, a man had stepped into a smoldering underbrush and been engulfed entirely in flame. Even if she had not let him be hurt, an experience like that could definitely exhaust the mind. His comrades had handled the fire fairies that caused the blast well enough though.
There was a strong urge to just do everything herself. To take care of the problem in an instant of high clear song and howling icy wind, but that wasn't the point. They would not always be on site, and the soldiers of Snowblossom needed to be able to handle minor situations like this on their own.
Her presence and shrouding qi was a training aid for that, allowing them to experience the danger while no one suffered lasting harm. Not exactly what she had in mind for the technique, but she had to admit it was a useful benefit.
"And your own thoughts Zhengui?" Ling Qi asked over the air, lips moving a little out of habit, despite there being no need.
"Roots come much quicker when called by Gui… and it is easier to see and hear things now."
"I, Zhen, feel our heads are clearer now, it is why we felt this before it happened… annoying then that we could not stop it."
"But Gui will get even better!"
"I know you will," Ling Qi said fondly.
The flames were shrinking, the push of the soldiers through the burning underbrush shrinking the zone of lurid red and orange down step by step, leaving grey ash and scorched trunks in their wake, but they had done as ordered. There was no crownfire among their woods, those cultivators with enough qi to project or control water were concentrated on that task, extinguishing any licks of flame or rising fairies before they could catch on the leaves.
Their comrades trudging below had the more drought task, smothering the flames and only leaving drifting smoke on guard against the always sudden assault of freshly born wildfire fairies erupting from still smoldering ash and burning bushes.
But as the perimeter shrunk, Shenglu's soldiers grew more effective less space between the groups of fire fighting men and women meant more support, meant easier cooperation and communication.
They needed polish, it was true, but only that, the foundation Gan Guangli and Xia Lin had carved was good.
"Sister…. Gui has a bad feeling, there is not enough flame on the surface."
"Dastardly stink-gas, hiding and waiting. Ready to make a blast much bigger…"
"Xia Lin. Zhengui detects a remaining pocket of gas, I am going to investigate."
"Understood. Which location?"
Communication flickered back and forth, with her as the relay between her little brother and Xia Lin. While she did, Qiyi rustled around her ankles, taking her out in a lazy arc around the location Zhengui was worried about.
It did look unnatural now that she focused on it. Tree trunks tilted at odd angles, as if the earth had suddenly slumped beneath them, rising streamers of shimmering air invisible among the heat distortion of flame here near the core of the burning zone.
And through the grumble and grind of pained tree song and disturbed earth, over the crack and pop and laughter of flames and twirling fairies, she heard something else. The quiet and whispering voice of ruin. A spirit of destruction catalyzed by the meeting of open wind and flame imbued air, never meant to meet.
It wasn't quite a spirit, not yet. But its song was rising, completing the first verse of many if not silenced. She did not think she would allow it to reach wholeness.
The voice beneath tumbled root and burning bush and crumbling earth rose, and the wind whorled inward tugging at the tongues of ruddy flame in the depression. Ling Qi descended, and let green and vital qi pulse out, an emerald star born amidst and blasting away the ashy smoke.
The proto-spirit of destruction gestating in the flame- imbued pocket detonated with the force to rip trees from the earth and snap bones like matchsticks, and Ling Qi's boots struck the collapsing earth directly in the center of the blast with a thump.
Green glittered everywhere. Half collapsed trees, burnt out bushes, boulders alike. It spread beyond the depression, a thin woven blanket of vine and root ephemerally cocooning everything in her reach, all the way out to their soldiers, closing in on the epicenter.
The blast died before it could echo beyond the sinking bowl in the earth. It rustled not a single hair or dislodged a single leaf. Ling Qi felt it as impact, countless impacts like standing under a rain of hailstones.
Compared to the General's flame, it was nothing.
She looked down at her own hand curiously. She too was sheathed in green now. This second technique…. She couldn't truly put it to the test against such a lowly attack, but the weave of qi she had created from Kohatu's memory of persistence held steady. She reached up, studying a smolder strand of her head, one of the few signs of damage. As she watched the charred portion flaked away under a glimmer of green, restored to same glittering silkiness it had when she brushed it this morning.
And her dantian surged, refilling the small loss of qi she had suffered from enduring the force meant for everyone and everything around her.
G6
Type: Anti-Finisher
Duration: Stunt
From the least of seeds and scraps, the whole grove might regrow in time, so long as a single mote of life remains, you will allow no wound of body nor spirit to stop or slow you. For the duration of the stunt, you cannot be killed or reduced to zero qi by any non-shen effect.
After the stunt you will immediately regenerate all wounds and qi loss suffered during the course of the stunt.
Usable once per scene.
Type: Anti-Finisher
Duration: Stunt
From the least of seeds and scraps, the whole grove might regrow in time, so long as a single mote of life remains, you will allow no wound of body nor spirit to stop or slow you. For the duration of the stunt, you cannot be killed or reduced to zero qi by any non-shen effect.
After the stunt you will immediately regenerate all wounds and qi loss suffered during the course of the stunt.
Usable once per scene.
Under her feet the sparks that could have become a deadly spirit died, denied the kindling of pain and destruction that would have formed its foundation.
"Center neutralized. The rest of the suppression should go smoothly," Ling Qi spoke, this time she let her voice reach everyone. "But do not let your guard down until the work is done."
She lifted off the earth with a puff of ashen dust as the rippling shell of green retracted, leaving only her connection to the soldiers themselves.
When she descended next, it was down to where Zhengui stood, now carefully dismantling his wall of roots, bringing the earth and trees displaced by them back to where they had been before the eruption of his roots from the earth.
"Welcome Big Sister. Do not worry. Gui does not feel any more brewing big booms at all." he greeted her cheerfully
"I'm glad," Ling Qi chuckled, settling in on the relatively smooth bit o shell behind Gui's head. She seated herself cross legged there, threading a pulsed cycle of qi through his own diffused aura affectionately.
"The memories and practice of my old art eased things but… I think this is as far as I can take this art, until I face something a little more serious to test its limits," Ling Qi mused.
"It is hard to know how hard your shell is without something cracking it first," Zhen agreed, looping his coils once, loosely around her. "I, Zhen will support Big Sister if hers ever does."
"And I will do the same for you," Ling Qi replied quietly. She remembered the times when her little brother had been wounded, truly wounded. Every single one was deeply distressing.
But she supposed he would say the same of each and every time she took a serious wound.
"I can't promise I will never get hurt," Ling Qi said. "Or that I can shield everyone."
"Gui cannot promise that either."
She nodded quietly, rested a hand on top of his head. "But I think we can both promise to make anything which tries to separate us suffer miserably and long for it, Little Brother."
"I, Zhen, like the sound of this promise," he replied, his ashen tongue flicking over her cheek.
"Then let us persist together, Zhengui.
[ ] Please Select a name for your new art
AN: It's a little short but this completes your preview of your new art. Will see you guys after a weeks break for me to recharge and plan the next leg of the story.
Yin, Wood, Dream
Keywords:
Persistence, Growth, Community
Antithesis: Stagnation, Solitude, Impermanence
Art Type: Armor
Passive Effects:
+2 to Primary Armor Trait
1 auto progress to qi growth Project
Distant Paradise Resilience: G5
Type: Armor, Support
Duration: Scene
You tap into the resolve which joins you to your allies and the memories of roots everlasting, of life that persists through all wrath and ruin. Shrouding your allies in light and weaving roots. While active you take all damage which would harm shrouded allies through their own defenses up to G5 as qi loss. This does not prevent on damage effects from coming into effect on targets. They do not come into effect on you.
Your own defense techniques do not reduce this. You may not lose qi greater than an individual target's total cultivation plus one from any individual instance. (Protecting an individual R1 cultivator you take a maximum of R2 potency damage as qi loss.) You may choose to include or exclude individuals in this effect.
Ruin Scattered Rebirth: G6
Type: Anti-Finisher
Duration: Stunt
From the least of seeds and scraps, the whole grove might regrow in time, so long as a single mote of life remains, you will allow no wound of body nor spirit to stop or slow you. For the duration of the stunt, you cannot be killed or reduced to zero qi by any non-shen effect.
After the stunt you will immediately regenerate all wounds and qi loss suffered during the course of the stunt.
Usable once per scene.
Keywords:
Persistence, Growth, Community
Antithesis: Stagnation, Solitude, Impermanence
Art Type: Armor
Passive Effects:
+2 to Primary Armor Trait
1 auto progress to qi growth Project
Distant Paradise Resilience: G5
Type: Armor, Support
Duration: Scene
You tap into the resolve which joins you to your allies and the memories of roots everlasting, of life that persists through all wrath and ruin. Shrouding your allies in light and weaving roots. While active you take all damage which would harm shrouded allies through their own defenses up to G5 as qi loss. This does not prevent on damage effects from coming into effect on targets. They do not come into effect on you.
Your own defense techniques do not reduce this. You may not lose qi greater than an individual target's total cultivation plus one from any individual instance. (Protecting an individual R1 cultivator you take a maximum of R2 potency damage as qi loss.) You may choose to include or exclude individuals in this effect.
Ruin Scattered Rebirth: G6
Type: Anti-Finisher
Duration: Stunt
From the least of seeds and scraps, the whole grove might regrow in time, so long as a single mote of life remains, you will allow no wound of body nor spirit to stop or slow you. For the duration of the stunt, you cannot be killed or reduced to zero qi by any non-shen effect.
After the stunt you will immediately regenerate all wounds and qi loss suffered during the course of the stunt.
Usable once per scene.
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
compared to our old defensive art:
So changes:
Switch Elements from Lake and Darkness to Wood and Dream
Switch Keywords completely: (Reflections, Stillness, Void) to (Persistence, Growth, Community)
Switch antithesis keywords completely: (Motion, Energy, Clarity) to (Stagnation, Solitude, Impermanence)
+1 primary armor trait -> +2
gain +1 qi autoprogress (i think we have 3 from other sources at the moment, so a sizable boost)
Removed opportunity for "Impertubable Soul" trait
-G3 'boost ally defenses' ability changed for G5 'undo damage (but not other effects) from allies, cost scaling to damage over the top of their defenses but capped at their power level'
-G5 'nullify all effects of one attack for self and all allies' changed to G6 'Perfect (Pre-Shen) Endure effect, heal any damage and qi drain during it'
So the main 'loss' there is that on-hit effects go through the anti-finisher. The "can't be broken by non-shen effects" has the 'loophole' weakness of "only" applying to the raw damage. a G8 potency attack can't take us to zero, but a G8 dispel, timed perfectly, *could* theoretically cancel it out.
Also, just got confirmation from yrsillar in the discord, while Shen attacks can overcome the endure effect, if an enemy hits us with a Shen attack that doesn't put ling qi to zero, and isn't an 'aggravated damage' style attack, then we *can* still heal the damage from the shen attack...though he adds `this may have the downside of being very upsetting to the Shen user though
` XD
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"Reads Ruin Scattered Rebirth."
Ling Qi's enemies:
That is some hilariously broken bullshit.
Art name idea: Inheritance of the Broken Pillar
Ling Qi's enemies:
That is some hilariously broken bullshit.
Art name idea: Inheritance of the Broken Pillar
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[] Million Ring Bastion
because it feels like the upgraded version of our Old Friend, the Thousand Ring Fortress
because it feels like the upgraded version of our Old Friend, the Thousand Ring Fortress
I'm Imagining some looney toon scene where a bunch of enemies unload on Ling QI and when all their arts are done she's sitting in the middle of a crater drinking tea and casually wiping some dust off her dress.
- Location
- some computer lab
man, this art really does nust mean that the opponent simply loses unless they have a 4th realm
Or if they have 2 or more nukes, instead of 1. Or persistent DPS. Or some kind of Damage over Time effect.
Or direct health manipulation. Or Displels. Or Buff stealing tech...
"Reads Ruin Scattered Rebirth."
Ling Qi's enemies:
That is some hilariously broken bullshit.
Art name idea: Inheritance of the Broken Pillar
I like this but I'd propose a variation that makes the dream connection more central. Something like
Remembrance of the Broken Pillar
Or dreams, or visions, or celebration
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I feel like a wood defense art that has you not die when killed as the first ability needs a Xiangmen reference in it. Not sure why people are referencing its tragically less fortunate peer instead.
Twin Towers Pillars Everlasting
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
Which is great, imo. They have to be doing something clever and interesting, which is an ideal weakness for the protagonist to have, from doyalist point of view.
Given that Kohatu was born from the enduring legacy of the Dragon-sundered pillar, I really feel as though it should make reference to that.
'Birthed from the destruction wrought by the Dragon-God's hubris, unmatched before or since' - it's a very neat in to the cycles of destruction and creation we've been playing with, moreso than Xiangmen the eternal.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
I think the number becomes silly at that scale; if you want to reference roots I'd go with something like "Deep Roots Resilient" or "Taproot's Persistence". Describe the vibes of the effect, and let the power of it do the boasting instead of your name for it.
- Location
- United States
[] Roots of the Eternal Forest
This is the reason, why I called the idea - Arrogant =D. That's something white could use in tech name, not baby green like us =D.
Also, This is mostly joke about retaining the TRF abbriviation, which is, a bit silly.
So, with fresh paint coat, without so much arrognace:
[] Thriving Roots Foundation
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Sold.
[ ] Remembrance of the Broken Pillar
Oliver_Twister
Idea-Man, He Who Shits Ideas
- Location
- West Africa
- Pronouns
- He/Him
One more tool in Ling Qi's tribulation master kit
- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
Persistence Ever Greening
Rampart of the Ameranthine Grove