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.
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.
-Hunt first - This minimizes the risk of damage by avoiding a critical clash, but gives it time to adapt to our tactics - as we've already seen the creature learns alarmingly fast, no trick we've used worked twice on it. There is a risk that after all this the creature escapes with everything it's learned about us, and the next time they come from this avenue they know our stuff.
-Seal first - This immediately forces the creature to siege us instead while Suyin does the sealing. In doing so it won't be saving strength for later - if we complete the seal there won't BE a later for it, so it'd be going all out, and failing that doing as much damage as it can before it dies. As we're working under Yin qi overload theres a chance we might get fucked up again since our best defense arts can't be used without backlash.
So the question is whether we want to prioritize information security by denying the creature any chance of escape or we want to prioritize minimizing damage(to both ourself and the Piper) by incrementally harrying it from site to site.
IMO the biggest strength of the thing is how fast it's adapted to our tactics so far, I absolutely don't want it bringing the intel home.
The choice is more or less:
-Hunt first - This minimizes the risk of damage by avoiding a critical clash, but gives it time to adapt to our tactics - as we've already seen the creature learns alarmingly fast, no trick we've used worked twice on it. There is a risk that after all this the creature escapes with everything it's learned about us, and the next time they come from this avenue they know our stuff.
-Seal first - This immediately forces the creature to siege us instead while Suyin does the sealing. In doing so it won't be saving strength for later - if we complete the seal there won't BE a later for it, so it'd be going all out, and failing that doing as much damage as it can before it dies. As we're working under Yin qi overload theres a chance we might get fucked up again since our best defense arts can't be used without backlash.
So the question is whether we want to prioritize information security by denying the creature any chance of escape or we want to prioritize minimizing damage(to both ourself and the Piper) by incrementally harrying it from site to site.
IMO the biggest strength of the thing is how fast it's adapted to our tactics so far, I absolutely don't want it bringing the intel home.
- Location
- Space between realms
- Pronouns
- He
[x] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
- Location
- Shakopee, MN
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
- Location
- THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.
[x] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
We did the "safe" move last time and it itched. Let's Ling Qi on this adventure, at least a little.
We did the "safe" move last time and it itched. Let's Ling Qi on this adventure, at least a little.
I think we should trust Suyin on this one. Both because Ling Qi has been trying to be better about relying on others for a while now and because this is very much Suyin's area of expertise.
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.
It may be more dangerous to go for the kill now, but if it gets away it'll be a more capable opponent the next time we have to face it (and it already seems very good at infiltration). Let's roll the dice and go for the kill.
It may be more dangerous to go for the kill now, but if it gets away it'll be a more capable opponent the next time we have to face it (and it already seems very good at infiltration). Let's roll the dice and go for the kill.
BagFullOfLizards
Some bag, mostly lizards
- Location
- A bag
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.
ElizatronicWarfa
Himejoshi Supreme
- Pronouns
- She/They
Rule 62: The riskier the road, the greater the profit.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.
Bleh, this vote is kind of a pain, and it goes back to a line from the previous update.
It feels kinda like we screwed up and yrs is giving us a second bite at the apple, only the changes necessary for it to make sense mean that both of our current options are worse than they would be otherwise. Or... something. There's a sense that the progress made by our previous choice has been undermined, since we're not reaaaally better off than we were before. For example, both of the current options are described in the narrative as giving the enemy more opportunity to fuck with the sealing process. It's like all we managed to do was tread water.
We need to play this smarter, imo. We need to recognize what the real threats are and aren't. We haven't been having that much trouble contesting the physical forces of the enemy so far, but winning those contests hasn't done us a whole lot of good either. The true threats that have been dogging us, when you look at the overall scenario, are the enemy's intelligence and corruptive potential. What we really need to do is punch this thing in the goddamn brain so we can mop up the area in peace.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
This is especially true because of the stunt Ling Qi just pulled off. Think about it. Ling Qi said the enemy entity couldn't properly transport material across the liminal barrier by itself, highlighting a key limitation which has defined its nature/efforts in subverting the Piper up until this time. And Ling Qi just completely upturned that paradigm by delivering a boatload of physical impurity-aligned material into the liminal where the parasite couldn't previously directly access it. Material that it had already been controlling/that is its in a way that matters a heck of a lot in a realm of ideas and concepts like the liminal.
We don't know what that does. The low-end of the bad outcomes is we've handed the parasite a battery it can use to subsist on even with the seal in place, allowing it to continue its corruptive efforts and reestablish a self-sustaining foothold on this side, while we're distracted at the capital. The high-end is that it radically alters the creature's nature in unpredictable ways to present threats we can't anticipate and do not understand.
This is especially a concern since the Piper has not really been showing strong capabilities in acting within the liminal. There is an intelligent, adaptive, and extremely slippery enemy that's specialized against the Piper, operates on a front the Piper has shown the least ability to act on, and that we just hand delivered a massive feast to.
I'm extremely uncomfortable sealing this infection inside of the wound. The consequences won't be born by us directly. It's gambling with the health of another, when we won't be around for followup observation and care. We can grit our teeth and fight back an increased presence at the breach if that turns out to be the consequence of being thorough; we can't turn back time if rushing to the finish line leaves behind a threat to grow anew, alongside vectors we poorly understand, causing yet more damage.
Let's be methodical. Let's be thorough. We can purge the most dangerous element of the infection, the only one with the potential to be a threat in the future, now that we've made sure the Piper's nodes are safe for the moment. Let's capitalize on the successes that we have secured and leverage those unique advantages we paid for to hunt this thing down and eliminate it, and the danger to the Piper, decisively.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
This line, the idea that there would be other chances, didn't make a whole lot of sense from Ling Qi's perspective as a thing to think. If she didn't think risk was worth it on prepared ground, on the defensive, it wouldn't make sense for Ling Qi to think that she'd think differently later, without those advantages. It's internally inconsistent. But, crucially, Ling Qi did in fact think that anyway, and is continuing to think about it, with increasingly specific worries like how the controlling entity is clearly more intelligent than initially assumed.
It feels kinda like we screwed up and yrs is giving us a second bite at the apple, only the changes necessary for it to make sense mean that both of our current options are worse than they would be otherwise. Or... something. There's a sense that the progress made by our previous choice has been undermined, since we're not reaaaally better off than we were before. For example, both of the current options are described in the narrative as giving the enemy more opportunity to fuck with the sealing process. It's like all we managed to do was tread water.
We need to play this smarter, imo. We need to recognize what the real threats are and aren't. We haven't been having that much trouble contesting the physical forces of the enemy so far, but winning those contests hasn't done us a whole lot of good either. The true threats that have been dogging us, when you look at the overall scenario, are the enemy's intelligence and corruptive potential. What we really need to do is punch this thing in the goddamn brain so we can mop up the area in peace.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
This is especially true because of the stunt Ling Qi just pulled off. Think about it. Ling Qi said the enemy entity couldn't properly transport material across the liminal barrier by itself, highlighting a key limitation which has defined its nature/efforts in subverting the Piper up until this time. And Ling Qi just completely upturned that paradigm by delivering a boatload of physical impurity-aligned material into the liminal where the parasite couldn't previously directly access it. Material that it had already been controlling/that is its in a way that matters a heck of a lot in a realm of ideas and concepts like the liminal.
We don't know what that does. The low-end of the bad outcomes is we've handed the parasite a battery it can use to subsist on even with the seal in place, allowing it to continue its corruptive efforts and reestablish a self-sustaining foothold on this side, while we're distracted at the capital. The high-end is that it radically alters the creature's nature in unpredictable ways to present threats we can't anticipate and do not understand.
This is especially a concern since the Piper has not really been showing strong capabilities in acting within the liminal. There is an intelligent, adaptive, and extremely slippery enemy that's specialized against the Piper, operates on a front the Piper has shown the least ability to act on, and that we just hand delivered a massive feast to.
I'm extremely uncomfortable sealing this infection inside of the wound. The consequences won't be born by us directly. It's gambling with the health of another, when we won't be around for followup observation and care. We can grit our teeth and fight back an increased presence at the breach if that turns out to be the consequence of being thorough; we can't turn back time if rushing to the finish line leaves behind a threat to grow anew, alongside vectors we poorly understand, causing yet more damage.
Let's be methodical. Let's be thorough. We can purge the most dangerous element of the infection, the only one with the potential to be a threat in the future, now that we've made sure the Piper's nodes are safe for the moment. Let's capitalize on the successes that we have secured and leverage those unique advantages we paid for to hunt this thing down and eliminate it, and the danger to the Piper, decisively.
[X] Hunt the parasite down, you have wounded it awfully, best to finish it and then go for the seal.
Last edited:
- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
[X] Perform the sealing first, without the connection to the underworld ecosystem, the parasite will not be a threat.