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.
Kek. I asked Yrs how some people Ling Qi knows reacted to the announcement that she threw down with a Sovereign and lived.
Yrsillar said:
Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
Have I mentioned how much I love Wang Chao recently?
It's probably too late, but...
[X] Suyin has grown capable, all on her own. Between her and Piper they can hold this place. The liminal lies open. If you were to conceal yourself there, you might strike the creatures true vulnerabilities when a moment presents itself.
[X] Suyin has grown capable, all on her own. Between her and Piper they can hold this place. The liminal lies open. If you were to conceal yourself there, you might strike the creatures true vulnerabilities when a moment presents itself.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
I'd rather be with a group that can cover us than jump in solo with that restriction.
Qiyi can show off at least. Plus BKSD has defense techniques we've never had to use before. I ended up voting for the option that lost but there are still benefits to this path too.
- Location
- the internet
Our new defense art? Also PLR can be used to dodge and disrupt arts as well as redirect enemies. With our allies her to fight and defend, cover for us, we can play as support.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Have been without power until today (thanks hurricane!) so I don't feel like reading all of the comments to this point and this option sounds like it has more opportunity for !FUN! things to happen. Suyin getting her LQ adventure tribulation time?
Edit: locked up on previous page, bummer lol
The genealogy tapestry after the Meng bought it:
...Whoops?Yrsillar said:
Well, something tells me that if we had chosen the Grandmisstress's musical records instead and then had kept them instead of relinquish them to the Meng (which we would have done for sure); our relationship with the Meng, and Delun in particular, wouldn't have been much better than how it is now.
Clearly all part of Ling Qi's master plan, beyond the other benefits from the tapestry by awakening Delun and leaving him vulnerable we ensured they would act here and, in thwarting their actions, give us just enough favour to not only finish the meeting properly but also gain greater approval for it as backlash from the treason.
Yeah, we need to pass thanks to Meng Delun, for his support. Without that we wouldn't be able to placate MoI properly...
Since it's said to be the biggest wedding ceremony in a millennia, I asked Yrs if Shenhua has sent out RSVPs to everyone who's anyone in the entire Empire.
This is going to be one hell of an event.Yrsillar said:
Year 45: Month 12 Arc 3-8
"We'll prepare to defend here then," Ling Qi said. She considered strongly the idea of hiding in the liminal, allowing Suyin and the Piper to be the defense and only striking out when she saw the chance to catch that speeding thing she had spied escaping the corpse of the giant, but as she was, it was probably for the best to stay in the group. It itched at her to turn down an opportunity, but she pushed the feeling away. They would have to fight their way through the creature to get the seal in place, there would be other chances.
"I've been preparing the space, setting up resonating wards to empower my guardian constructs," Li Suyin said. "So, I think all should be well. From the way you described it, the creature is being hasty here."
"So it seems," Ling agreed, turning her eyes to the crystal. She thought hard for a moment, then raised her voice in low song."
"O keeper of piping ways, of the crystal lattice. Eight colors make the whole by tradition, yet I sense only seven, even amongst the dead. The Lake is missing, I guess it a sanctuary, the hidden place, shrouded from prying eyes?"
She hadn't commented upon it earlier, as lake qi was often used for deception and subterfuge, so she had assumed it hidden. It would very strange for seven to be present and only one missing, but at this point she wished to be sure.
"Correct. Singer, even yours eyes will not reveal the depths of the lake, where my self and kin are hid. Those beaten, battered, freed have gone there, and will not be found."
She thought it was odd that she couldn't feel them anymore.
"Couldn't even tell ya when or where they poofed," Sixiang said. "So it's good stuff."
"I understand and seek not your sanctum. I only wished to know if there were somewhere safe to hide the kin of your body who might remain. Your preservation is our priority."
Suspicion crawled across her skin like tingling electricity, but she merely allowed the sincerity of her words to match it. She did not pretend it was selfless altruism, though she did wish to help. When the enemy crawled beneath your feet, any serious gap found in the earth was alarming. If a potent spirit could sit atop their seal as well, one at least amenable to negotiation, it only increased their security.
The regard passed.
"That which may move has moved. You will have assistance, Attuner."
And that was good enough, though she wondered at the word 'Attuner', it was the second time she had been referred to that way. They had little more time for chit chat, though. The enemy was coming.
Its qi boiled up from the deeps like bubbling tar and crawling vermin. It came first not as flesh and dripping marine horrors, but as something much more subtle, dark particulate in the water, like silt or mud, barely perceptible as different, a creeping poison be taken in without notice. Li Suyin's impurity filters were enough for them, but they were not the targets.
Ling Qi sang, and glittering scales filled the waters around her. Schooling carp shot out once again, but in a twist of fancy, the rushing chord of the River King was sped up, spontaneously rewoven.
Eyes glittered with the bottomless hunger of vermin, who could never be fulfilled. Fishy whiskers shook with indignance and piscine mouths opened as they darted into the drifting clouds of impure particulate.
It vanished down their gullets, swept into their gills, and the flesh of the constructs bloated and broke, turning sickly and black. And in turn their fellows devoured them each one bigger than the last, until only one swollen, rotted and dying carp remained.
"Suyin, a sealing please," she said, without interrupting her song. There was too much her construct had absorbed it all, but now she could not dispel the thing without unleashing the toxin.
Li Suyin's artificial eye spun in its socket, still glimmering from her examination of the devouring, and she flicked her wrist out, the claws of her gauntlet extended, raising her palm. Just as Xinhong had been released a sphere shot out, this time colorless grey etched with visible arrays, swallowing up the toxified construct.
"Strategy noted. Physical attacks incoming," her friend said, crisply and without wasted words.
She merely inclined her head, song rising back up. It wasn;t an easy thing even with the right components to weave fresh bars which were not merely discordant noise, but with her growing insight to the dirge of the beast kings, it eased. It was easier that she was the supporter here.
Water stirred, barking growls erupted, scales and fur merging, a bit blurry at their edges, piscine bodies with wolfish heads, snapping and snarling as they spun into existence, darting toward the cavern mouths where Li Suyin's constructs stood guard.
From the dark tendrils lashed out. On the right, they slammed into the raised stone shields of the Bear and boar soldiers with a thunderous crack and the second and a third, a rapid murderous beat, the force sending the water rippling with the impact and shaking the tunnel rock, as their skeletal feet were driven down into the cavern floor.
Other's skulked and slunk, the twin blades of Lion and Wolf flashed, cutting pale amalgam corpse flesh asunder and spilling inky ichor, and a dozen more clung to their limbs, dragged at their planted feet, sought to yank the weapons from their hands.
On the left, Horse and Ox fared the best, the flash of the mirror shield turning whipping tendrils into drifting formless fleshy ooze, fried black by the electric burst of the outthrust mancatcher.
Distorted by the water her wolf-fish howled as they descended on the grasper tendrils, dragging Suyin's constructs down the middle tunnel, tearing and biting, scales flashing as they circled and gnawed, avoiding counterattack to nip and harass.
"Xinghong, support group one."
A flash of red blurred by her, vaulted over the shield wielding pair of Bear and Boar, catching the whipping rigid club of bone on the end of the hammering tendril in that passage across the chest.
Reflexively, Ling Qi drew on the wood qi she had refined through the channels in her spine, and pale green light mixed with the light blue, casting the whole chamber in eerie color.
She felt a prickle across her own chest, the ghost of impact, and Xinhong's chittering warcry held a confused note, even as he dug talons into rotting meat and began to tear.
"Whoah, that's a new one, you sure you outta be taking damage direct like that?" Sixiang's worried voice whispered.
Better than catching knives with her neck, wasn't it? Ling Qi thought blithely.
More of the parasite flesh was coming, she could perceive it, even far out of sight. Drifting debris and pollution, whipping tendrils, crawling dead things on liminal wire… and in the leftmost passage what could only be described as a bubbling pastelike mass of half liquid flesh, squeezing its way up the tunnel, thrashing and gurgling lipless mouths and blinking eyes rippling in and out of existence across the mass.
Ling Qi's eyes flicked toward the crystal as the light brightened and pulsed, a sharp precise pattern rippling out from the central crystal to the growths all across the chamber and down the tunnels. From the light and pattern, and sensation of calculation, Ling Qi was able to translate it to words.
"Current reserve calibrated. Resources marshaled and ordered. Beginning full purification drive."
The water, sluggish and oily, turned sharp and cold, the biting chill of a fresh, pure mountain stream. The dim opaqueness which lingered in it burned away, and the waster became as clear as glass, throwing the whole cavern into sharp relief.
And the parasite's corpseflesh boiled. Thin tendrils withered, blackened and grayed, pollution burning off, clouding the freshly cleaned water. Where it seemed to struggle toward the flashing crystals…
Until it vanished down the hungry gullets of carp, who in turn vanished in a flash of Suyin's qi when they bloated so fat that they threatened to burst.
Yuck, no wonder this spirit has had such a hard time, this thing's made to sneak little bits of pain through, to infect and subvert it," Sixiang whispered. "It'd win even without you here I think, but it'd be right back where it started in a lil' bit I think."
Ling Qi could only agree, even as she raised her voice drawing her pack of wolffish back together, many had been broken or damaged, and their forms wavered as they dissolved under the changed in her song, drawing into the mist that she had been slowly releasing into the water around her, turning the already chilled liquid colder still crystals of ice forming and swirling and melting as she considered her next move.
The only question was how much of its strength it would pour in before it realized they had a counter to its corruption.
"Suyin, double up on the center and right, I'll take the leftmost tunnel."
Her friend gave her a surprised look. "Horse and Ox are handling that the best though, why…."
She trailed off as her gleamed red, focusing and peering at the horrid mass squeezing its way up the tunnel.
"It's too dense for your dispelling mirror, to much fat and meat to be taken down with small shocks," Ling Qi said calmly.
"Understood," Li Suyin agreed tersely, drawing her constructs away with a flick of the wrist and a silent command.
That she trusted Ling Qi had a plan.
And she did, of a sort.
"Ling Qi, you better not be thinking of trying to siphon the impurity your constructs eat yourself," Sixiang warned.
"Of course not. You and Qiyi are going to help me," she thought back.
A ribbon curled in the edge of her vision questioningly.
"Qi."
"No, listen, if Qiyi acts to seal me from outside contact, the two of us can surely walk tainted water and constructs into the liminal, no?"
"...and it'll walk them right back, c'mon Qi."
"No, I don't think it will. It's shown no ability to transfer anything back and forth, only to reach through."
"Suyin's got the sealy balls!"
"Not an infinite number. Come on Sixiang, where is my dance instructor when I need them?"
"....Right here," Sixiang sighed. "I am absolutely calling in that ice bath after this."
"Done," Ling Qi said softly, stepping into the mouth of the tunnel.
Mouths and eyes peered out of the tunnel back at her, pulsing and melting and reforming, a low almost subsonic groan echoing from dozens of hungry gullets.
Hundreds of gleaming crimson eyes shone in the inky blackness of her shadow, as she stared back.
AN: A few too many splits in this one for my liking but fighty stuff takes up a lot of word count, still should be the last time for this arc.
"I've been preparing the space, setting up resonating wards to empower my guardian constructs," Li Suyin said. "So, I think all should be well. From the way you described it, the creature is being hasty here."
"So it seems," Ling agreed, turning her eyes to the crystal. She thought hard for a moment, then raised her voice in low song."
"O keeper of piping ways, of the crystal lattice. Eight colors make the whole by tradition, yet I sense only seven, even amongst the dead. The Lake is missing, I guess it a sanctuary, the hidden place, shrouded from prying eyes?"
She hadn't commented upon it earlier, as lake qi was often used for deception and subterfuge, so she had assumed it hidden. It would very strange for seven to be present and only one missing, but at this point she wished to be sure.
"Correct. Singer, even yours eyes will not reveal the depths of the lake, where my self and kin are hid. Those beaten, battered, freed have gone there, and will not be found."
She thought it was odd that she couldn't feel them anymore.
"Couldn't even tell ya when or where they poofed," Sixiang said. "So it's good stuff."
"I understand and seek not your sanctum. I only wished to know if there were somewhere safe to hide the kin of your body who might remain. Your preservation is our priority."
Suspicion crawled across her skin like tingling electricity, but she merely allowed the sincerity of her words to match it. She did not pretend it was selfless altruism, though she did wish to help. When the enemy crawled beneath your feet, any serious gap found in the earth was alarming. If a potent spirit could sit atop their seal as well, one at least amenable to negotiation, it only increased their security.
The regard passed.
"That which may move has moved. You will have assistance, Attuner."
And that was good enough, though she wondered at the word 'Attuner', it was the second time she had been referred to that way. They had little more time for chit chat, though. The enemy was coming.
Its qi boiled up from the deeps like bubbling tar and crawling vermin. It came first not as flesh and dripping marine horrors, but as something much more subtle, dark particulate in the water, like silt or mud, barely perceptible as different, a creeping poison be taken in without notice. Li Suyin's impurity filters were enough for them, but they were not the targets.
Ling Qi sang, and glittering scales filled the waters around her. Schooling carp shot out once again, but in a twist of fancy, the rushing chord of the River King was sped up, spontaneously rewoven.
Eyes glittered with the bottomless hunger of vermin, who could never be fulfilled. Fishy whiskers shook with indignance and piscine mouths opened as they darted into the drifting clouds of impure particulate.
It vanished down their gullets, swept into their gills, and the flesh of the constructs bloated and broke, turning sickly and black. And in turn their fellows devoured them each one bigger than the last, until only one swollen, rotted and dying carp remained.
"Suyin, a sealing please," she said, without interrupting her song. There was too much her construct had absorbed it all, but now she could not dispel the thing without unleashing the toxin.
Li Suyin's artificial eye spun in its socket, still glimmering from her examination of the devouring, and she flicked her wrist out, the claws of her gauntlet extended, raising her palm. Just as Xinhong had been released a sphere shot out, this time colorless grey etched with visible arrays, swallowing up the toxified construct.
"Strategy noted. Physical attacks incoming," her friend said, crisply and without wasted words.
She merely inclined her head, song rising back up. It wasn;t an easy thing even with the right components to weave fresh bars which were not merely discordant noise, but with her growing insight to the dirge of the beast kings, it eased. It was easier that she was the supporter here.
Water stirred, barking growls erupted, scales and fur merging, a bit blurry at their edges, piscine bodies with wolfish heads, snapping and snarling as they spun into existence, darting toward the cavern mouths where Li Suyin's constructs stood guard.
From the dark tendrils lashed out. On the right, they slammed into the raised stone shields of the Bear and boar soldiers with a thunderous crack and the second and a third, a rapid murderous beat, the force sending the water rippling with the impact and shaking the tunnel rock, as their skeletal feet were driven down into the cavern floor.
Other's skulked and slunk, the twin blades of Lion and Wolf flashed, cutting pale amalgam corpse flesh asunder and spilling inky ichor, and a dozen more clung to their limbs, dragged at their planted feet, sought to yank the weapons from their hands.
On the left, Horse and Ox fared the best, the flash of the mirror shield turning whipping tendrils into drifting formless fleshy ooze, fried black by the electric burst of the outthrust mancatcher.
Distorted by the water her wolf-fish howled as they descended on the grasper tendrils, dragging Suyin's constructs down the middle tunnel, tearing and biting, scales flashing as they circled and gnawed, avoiding counterattack to nip and harass.
"Xinghong, support group one."
A flash of red blurred by her, vaulted over the shield wielding pair of Bear and Boar, catching the whipping rigid club of bone on the end of the hammering tendril in that passage across the chest.
Reflexively, Ling Qi drew on the wood qi she had refined through the channels in her spine, and pale green light mixed with the light blue, casting the whole chamber in eerie color.
She felt a prickle across her own chest, the ghost of impact, and Xinhong's chittering warcry held a confused note, even as he dug talons into rotting meat and began to tear.
"Whoah, that's a new one, you sure you outta be taking damage direct like that?" Sixiang's worried voice whispered.
Better than catching knives with her neck, wasn't it? Ling Qi thought blithely.
More of the parasite flesh was coming, she could perceive it, even far out of sight. Drifting debris and pollution, whipping tendrils, crawling dead things on liminal wire… and in the leftmost passage what could only be described as a bubbling pastelike mass of half liquid flesh, squeezing its way up the tunnel, thrashing and gurgling lipless mouths and blinking eyes rippling in and out of existence across the mass.
Ling Qi's eyes flicked toward the crystal as the light brightened and pulsed, a sharp precise pattern rippling out from the central crystal to the growths all across the chamber and down the tunnels. From the light and pattern, and sensation of calculation, Ling Qi was able to translate it to words.
"Current reserve calibrated. Resources marshaled and ordered. Beginning full purification drive."
The water, sluggish and oily, turned sharp and cold, the biting chill of a fresh, pure mountain stream. The dim opaqueness which lingered in it burned away, and the waster became as clear as glass, throwing the whole cavern into sharp relief.
And the parasite's corpseflesh boiled. Thin tendrils withered, blackened and grayed, pollution burning off, clouding the freshly cleaned water. Where it seemed to struggle toward the flashing crystals…
Until it vanished down the hungry gullets of carp, who in turn vanished in a flash of Suyin's qi when they bloated so fat that they threatened to burst.
Yuck, no wonder this spirit has had such a hard time, this thing's made to sneak little bits of pain through, to infect and subvert it," Sixiang whispered. "It'd win even without you here I think, but it'd be right back where it started in a lil' bit I think."
Ling Qi could only agree, even as she raised her voice drawing her pack of wolffish back together, many had been broken or damaged, and their forms wavered as they dissolved under the changed in her song, drawing into the mist that she had been slowly releasing into the water around her, turning the already chilled liquid colder still crystals of ice forming and swirling and melting as she considered her next move.
The only question was how much of its strength it would pour in before it realized they had a counter to its corruption.
"Suyin, double up on the center and right, I'll take the leftmost tunnel."
Her friend gave her a surprised look. "Horse and Ox are handling that the best though, why…."
She trailed off as her gleamed red, focusing and peering at the horrid mass squeezing its way up the tunnel.
"It's too dense for your dispelling mirror, to much fat and meat to be taken down with small shocks," Ling Qi said calmly.
"Understood," Li Suyin agreed tersely, drawing her constructs away with a flick of the wrist and a silent command.
That she trusted Ling Qi had a plan.
And she did, of a sort.
"Ling Qi, you better not be thinking of trying to siphon the impurity your constructs eat yourself," Sixiang warned.
"Of course not. You and Qiyi are going to help me," she thought back.
A ribbon curled in the edge of her vision questioningly.
"Qi."
"No, listen, if Qiyi acts to seal me from outside contact, the two of us can surely walk tainted water and constructs into the liminal, no?"
"...and it'll walk them right back, c'mon Qi."
"No, I don't think it will. It's shown no ability to transfer anything back and forth, only to reach through."
"Suyin's got the sealy balls!"
"Not an infinite number. Come on Sixiang, where is my dance instructor when I need them?"
"....Right here," Sixiang sighed. "I am absolutely calling in that ice bath after this."
"Done," Ling Qi said softly, stepping into the mouth of the tunnel.
Mouths and eyes peered out of the tunnel back at her, pulsing and melting and reforming, a low almost subsonic groan echoing from dozens of hungry gullets.
Hundreds of gleaming crimson eyes shone in the inky blackness of her shadow, as she stared back.
AN: A few too many splits in this one for my liking but fighty stuff takes up a lot of word count, still should be the last time for this arc.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Looks like my initial gut feeling was right, without Ling Qi here, it would have undone our work even if they won. Her presence meant that we could straight up lock them out from transferring their pain package to the Singer, which was absurdly supereffective against it to the point where they'd win the battle, but have to start from square one.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huh the spirit is sounding kind of robotic, wonder if it was artificial?
Seems like it was likely built by the dragon gods since it referred to them as "builders" in a previous chapter.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Attuner is such a cool word to be called to me, I hope it makes its way into Ling Qi's eventual Name.
I still like 'Emissary' for part of her eventual name but she'll have multiple names eventually and I love all these people giving her badass titles. I hope attuner means that she'll reap the benefits of whatever the piper does after it is healed and safe.
- Pronouns
- He
Yeah, I was just thinking we could inquire about "attuners" when the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs shows up. It sounds like the Peaks might have some native concepts we can use to progress as a Spirit Seeker if we're lucky.
This fight is cool as fuck
It kinda sounds like what Ling Qi does is similar to what the Dragon Gods used to calibrate or maintain their artificial spirits. At least that would explain why the spirit calls her Attuner instead of something more flowery.
It immediately made me think of the Intoners from Drakenguard. Which fits the music themes, but is rather ominous.