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.
Well, I like it mostly because of the concerns I raised before about the best way to raise Echoes etc.
It's not inarguable. The bits in BN's plan about HC I consider to be pointless fluff and an unnecessary distraction to state for instance. If you think LW on the Greens is super important, you might not like his deprioritisation of it etc.
- Location
- the internet
What exactly are you saying here? He should be reacting differently to CRX?
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
She's basically the daughter of Xianxia Sauron, it takes a certain mix of arrogance and stupidity to attack one of those with lethal force.
Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
To mee it seems like he thinks that if he kills everyone present he can get away with this stunt. That might be true if it wasn't CRX here. As it is he can't really kill her and get away with it, so starting the fight seems like a wrong move when he could have just bolted to the border on his own. I mean, it doesn't matter at this point wether he wins or looses - he's fucked either way, but if he recognised her, he could have prevented it.
Last edited:
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
I think it's because he recognized her that he came out and made his speech about how this needs a Bai hand.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Yeah, I am having huge issues with that plan:
- Not using LW means that we'll have 2 more Green in play, and they might have spirit beasts in green too.
- Not trying to include archer in the detonation is a receipe for increasing the chance of getting ganked quickly.
- Including HC in the calculus from the get go means we are not cleaning up the bandits and protecting with Cai army while they advance as much, but instead have to get to Close Range with archer when CRX get there.
Likewise, it means probably not being able to have a significant advantage of multi attacker by using our yellows, as not cleaning up the bandits quickly means they will still be there.
Urgh.
- Location
- Finland
Which very strongly suggests that either he is not a Bai, but is willing to die to cause trouble for Bai Cai alliance, or, that he is a Bai, and incredibly stupid.
I totally agree with these objections. If we can get the powerful hit that is the TE finale to include the main enemy, we should absolutely be doing that - the way the new plan is NOT doing that is bizarre.
Furthermore, locking down two Greens (and refilling some Qi for good measure) should not be relegated to a side note. They may be weaker than us, but not to the point where we can ignore them!
I'm not really sure what other changes the new plan makes, but it is not clear to me what sort of improvements it can make which would be worth these costs.
Mmm, so your problem is that BN is really focusing on the scenario where Renxiang goes straight for Baidude, while mine doesn't really make assumptions there?
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
My issue is that in the scenario where Renxiang goes straight for the Baidude, the plan assumes we help her, while your plan assumes we support the army and clean up the bandits first.
I trust CRX to be completely safe when dueling the BINO, given that she has liming and is foundation. I don't trust the army to be safe against the bandits if we don't help cleaning up, and then it goes back to Ling Qi and CRX having to deal with being outnumbered if the army loses.
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
By approximate points:
- As said in the plan post itself, we cannot count on TE doing anything useful since a Green 5 archer is likely to have either some perfect defense tech or a defensive domain weapon.
- I'll clarify in the plan itself, but LW is to be used if we safe enough to do so while setting up defenses (or if we didn't get a chance to immediately, then later on when they try to rejoin the fight). This is because we can't spend the turn it would take to cast LW without potentially getting hit for massive damage. I'd rather overestimate the Archer's offensive capability than eat an arrow that can bypass DWV before we've got more defenses set up just so we could snare some paralyzed (and likely barely alive) survivors a bit faster.
- Motion should be towards CRX, if she's going for the Baidude then it's towards him, otherwise it's towards the forces. That's what "linking up" means.
Last edited:
My plan should just be assuming we regroup with her and buff. Past that we should be following her lead, and and I was avoiding saying anything about that.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Yeah that's fine too, 'Ling Qi can do her own decision and follow CRX's lead depending on what happens' is best there. Your plan did have Zhengui/Hanyi helping with the clean up though iirc.
Last edited:
At the very least, it will make him defend against the attack. It is not going to win the fight or anything close - that would be unreasonably optimistic - but at least it will force him to expend time/energy on defending.
The current plan mentions multiple layers of defenses, "including empowered Industrious Labors of Fall and Echoes". I can see a case for getting SOME defenses up before casting LW, but if we try putting up all of our defences then the other Greens will be long-recovered by the time we get to casting LW. And then they can do us pretty meaningful harm, e.g. by enhacing the main threat.
The Milk Run
- Location
- Norway
The Milk Run
This job had redefined the term milk run in Mo Wuhan's mind. Initially I had been apprehensive, hitting a town wasn't really in our wheelhouse. Not that walls mattered much, and the mortals were practically walking sacks of silver, but wherever there were people there were cultivators, and this town had an old guy living in it who was one of the scarier ones.
We had our own monsters though. Zi Xinya and Dai De made most jobs milk runs. Just sit in the trees while the merchants pass under like lambs to the slaughter, then fire off arrows when Zi Xinya charged in. I didn't believe what I was seeing the first time she did that. The lady was clearly of a higher physical cultivation then the rest of the group, though I didn't really know how it all worked. All I had ever learned about cultivation just mentioned things up to the yellow realm, and when I had asked about anything beyond I had been laughed at by the guys I served with. No wonder that he had deserted. I recognized strength when I saw it though, and watching this tiny woman cleave through a horse all casual like with her axe sure was strength.
She was only half of what made this gig so good though. It wasn't like we could expect to keep raiding merchants without having the wrath of the nobles fall on us. Most of the guys in the "unit", as Dai De would call us, were from other smaller groups who got broken up. They were the lucky ones, the ones who got away when the nobles decided they had had enough. That wouldn't happen to us though, cause we had Dai De.
While Zi Xinya was busy making mincemeat of the merchants Dai De would flit around, waving his hand at trees and touching the ground. Somebody not in the know would think him insane or dumb, what with the nervous ways his eyes darted around while he walked around a slaughter. But somebody in the know would never see him. What Dai De did was to put a veil over the battleground, then a veil over their passage into the trees. Nobody had followed us, nobody could. The first sign something was wrong would be the merchant never arriving wherever they were going, the second would be somebody stumbling into the pile of corpses we left on the road.
We hadn't had a proper fight in ages, and we hoped there would be an age before the next one. Way back when some paranoid merchant had filled his carts with guards instead of goods. Probably thinking of cashing in a bounty. That hadn't worked out for him, not at all. The few that might have run away from that particularly ambush had felt their spines turn to steel at Zi Xinyas war cry and our aim made perfect by Dai De. They didn't usually break out those techniques, there just wasn't any point. But if push came to shove then we were more then just a gang of guys with bows.
Today it wasn't just us on the job though. In addition there was some Bai riding along. The guy treated us and the ground with equal contempt from the top of his giant snake, sniffing at us when we walked past like we smelled or something. Wuhan had never seen Zi Xinya bow, or heard Dai De stammer before, but whenever they talked with the Bai they would. Not that they talked often, the guy shadowed us, keeping at the edges as if we tainted his precious nobility by our very presence. Some of the guys grumbled at that, but got a swift smack from Zi Xinya for the comments. Zi Xinya wouldn't have any of us talking our way to an early grave. They couldn't, wouldn't, protect us if this Bai took offense. Nobody beside the leaders knew why this Bai was with us. The whole thing stunk. Playing games with the nobility was a good way to get into that early grave. But Zi Xinya and Dai De hadn't messed up yet. Nobody was going to gainsay them on this job.
It was too late for it now anyway, and anyone who said anything would have sounded stupid at this point. After getting to the town we practically just marched up to the wall and had Zi Xinya knock it down. Put a few arrows in the mortals who were too stupid to get out of the way and the rest was all looting. The guards were nowhere to be seen; it was like a buffet. Only thing that kept us from picking the town clean was the constant nagging by the Bai that we had to be quick about it. Maybe he knew something we didn't, cause as we marched out of the town the houses around our exit were catching fire. Some idiot had probably knocked over a candle while looting, but how did the Bai know that?
Sclurph sklup was the refrain of the march. Boots into mud, boots out of mud. The terrain couldn't decide if it wanted to be a march or a wood and it wasn't quite a rainforest either. It was like it had picked the worst properties of all and decided to run with it. The trail was about as obvious as any trail left by over fifty guys marching. Nobody vocied any worries though, Dai De had our trail well in hand. All of us carrying some treasure from the town. Apparently the point of the raid had been some package that the leaders had been fussing over. It wasn't something the rest of us was privy to, and honestly, we didn't care. The point for us was what we could grab, in my case some heavy pouches of silver taken from some fat townies. For all marching through the swamp was a pain this was a good day.
Beside our leaders the band was split in two between us yellows and the ones in red. Made a natural chain of command really. I was marching towards the front of the column, just behind Dai De. As usual, when we had marched for a while, the reds would fall behind. I turned shouting for them to keep up, and in the silence that followed my shout I heard a soft melody ring out. It sounded like childish curiosity, it honestly would have been quite nice if I wasn't hearing it while marching through the middle of a swamp. Turning my eyes forward again I saw Dai De go rigid. There was a cultivator out there.
"Get in formation!" Zi Xinya shouted. Most of the column was in the process of stopping, more confused by the music then alarmed. To the bumpkins in the band the thinly veiled terror in Zi Xinya's voice might have sounded odd, but the ones of us who had served knew a musical cultivator when we heard one. We were turning towards the sound, people bunching together in groups and getting their weapons out when the song changed.
I heard a grunt from Dai De, then laughter sounded out from the woods. Not like something a man could make but like something you could hear in a dream, and ghostly forms of lords and ladies carrying cups streamed out. It was like they couldn't decide what they wanted to look like, a moment a green lady in a gigantic dress was laughing as she swiped by one of the reds, the next moment the same lady would be a red man in some fancy riding leathers, spinning and twisting away from a swipe from one of the yellows. The phantoms that did get hit just burst into coloured mist, then reformed into another form. They hadn't harmed us though, merely dazzled us.
Us yellows were clumping up around Dai De and Zi Xinya, and shortly after the reds also understood the futility of swinging at the phantoms. Between Zi Xinya shouting for them to get into formation and the desire not be alone among the mad phantoms they swarmed around us, forming a sort of square. In the army I had been an archer. Not the most glorious of roles but it came with certain demands. Primarily among them were perception techniques. A tiny trickle of qi shot into my eyes and it was like I woke up to a whole new world, seeing the bugs flying through the air and the details of the bark on the trees around us. But for all that I couldn't see wherever the cultivator was who had sicked the phantoms on us was. I knew, thought I knew at least, that there always was a cost to techniques like this. Bursting enough of the phantoms would put a hurt on the qi reserves of whoever was doing this. I lifted my bow, sighted down some fop in a long black coat and loosed on him. Yeah he reformed as a annoyed looking purple woman in a short dress afterwards, but at least I was doing something.
Someone had gotten a bead on the cultivator though, as a shadowy form flowed around a bolt in the periphery of my vision. What drew most attention wasn't that feat, but the bang afterwards as one of the thunder bolts went off. A tanned face of a young girl with blue eyes looked back at us from where the blast had just been, looking unruffled by the sound; black hair flowing long with what looked like stars in it, the rest of her shrouded in shadows with the top of some dark cloak at her shoulders. I couldn't for the life of me understand how I had missed someone so tall. Dai De had stepped forward, or I had stepped back, but as the shadow touched ground again I saw Dai De look eyes with this girl. I felt myself smirking, this wasn't the first time I had seen this trick. Some hotshot cultivator thinking that taking down a band of bandits would be easy, then losing all coordination as soon as Dai De looks at them and waves his fan.
This time it didn't go like that though. It looked like she faltered for a second, then a flute appeared out of the shadows rising towards her mouth. The focus on what fresh horror that flute would bring almost made me miss the shrieking blade bursting into existence and homing in on Dai De, who crouched just in time, my eyes followed it as it turned behind us. The thought "oh no oh shit that's a domain weapon" had just shot through my head as the phantoms stopped, stood up straight and lifted their cups in their air. The laughter turned to a roar of approval, the ones standing close pointing at us and cackling, all of them stamping at the ground. They almost drowned out the slow sad song the cultivator was playing, and as I turned towards her I saw a wall of black fog rushing towards me.
It hit and it was like my sense of the world turned mute. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, much less my feet and sounds travelled oddly, like people was shouting from under water. Screams from men who had laughed as a town burned just hours ago sent chills down my spine as they were distorted in the mist, and I could have sworn that Zi Xinya hadn't been where I was hearing her voice shouting from. A thud rang through the mist, like a giant taking a step. I looked up, but all I saw was black fog.
I was about to run. I didn't care that being alone in this mist was probably death. I couldn't see anyone; I was practically already alone. Then I felt steel enter my spine, Zi Xinya hadn't shouted, but maybe that wasn't a necessary part of the technique. Whoever had made me feel fear like that had to die. I started to search the mist and as I did I felt a flood of qi enter my eyes. Dai De was guiding my arrows. Me and the other yellows in the centre of our groups lifted our bows as one and loosed where we saw the girl, standing in front of some large rock. The phantoms threw themselves on the arrows in front of her, some of us shot off into the mist and she flowed side to side. Still some hit home. Five arrows should have been enough to turn this living nightmare into a pincushion, but they merely bounced off her dress. Sure, it looked like it would have hurt, but the point of an arrow wasn't to beat someone to death.
A buzzing sound filled the air. Dai De had released his triumph card, Wénzi. The bug spirit was usually just used to scout out caravans, but he could deliver a sonic attack that should end whatever fight we found ourselves in. It soared up into the air and the beat of its wings made a buzzing sound that hit us all. As loud as it was for me it should have been hell for the girl. The very earth smoothed out where she stood and the shadows flowed away, revealing her wearing a conservative black dress with silver threads in it. She just had time to wince before the rock behind her bellowed and a part of it shot forward, clamping down on Wénzi and dragging it out of the air. As the "rock" lumbered towards us I saw that it was a gigantic turtle with a snake for a tail, the snake swallowing down what had been Wénzi while fire and smoke leaked from its maw around the corpse of the spirit beast. A Xuan Wu? What the hell was a legendary creature like that doing so far from the savage seas?
But that all faded away as I heard the song. The light voice of the little girl floated softly through the mist. She didn't know where her mother was, she needed help and she was so very very lonely. I took a step forward. I had to find her, to help her. Hands grabbed at my shoulders, but they couldn't stop me from this. Another few steps and I was beyond the reds, Zi Xinya shouting to let me go, that if I couldn't hold the line then I shouldn't take anyone else down with me, but what did I care? My mission had changed.
I heard screams around me, a burst of sound from the woods sent a group of archers I didn't recognize tumbling into the clearing and after the monstrous snake half of the Xuan Wu swallowed Wénzi it belched, and a glob of liquid fire flew over my head. But what did I care about any of this? The sad song still beckoned me and I could see her now. This sad little pale girl in a light blue dress standing in the mist. I had to go to her. But then the song changed. The mist thickened and suddenly I couldn't see the girl anymore. I was enraged, my mission a failure, but then I finally came to my senses. "oh shit" was my first thought as I realized how far out of formation I had gotten. I could still see the tall girl, but that was hardly a concern, as beside me the Xuan Wu towered.
I had a short reprieve as arrows burst from the woods. Apparently there were more archers I didn't know about around. I didn't know who they were, but they could be the empress guards for all I cared as long as they killed whoever this monster was. Their arrows carried a sick looking purple qi as they homed in on their targets. The Xuan Wu didn't dodge, it hardly could, but most of the arrows merely bounced off it, and those that hit had their purple qi extinguished by it almost immediately. The girl fared similarly. She dodged around most of the arrows, but three hit. Two just bounced off her dress like ours had, but one penetrated and grazed her. I saw the purple qi slither into her wound and for a moment I hoped, hoped that whoever these allies were they had the means to put down this monster. Then that hope died. The purple qi extinguished.
The Xuan Wu roared, and I had but a moment to try to run before darkness descended on me. The snake had swallowed me, but that was just the beginning of my problems. Its fangs went straight through what armour I had and I felt pure fire flow into me. I felt my mouth open to scream, but I couldn't produce a sound, the agony was just too much. I hardly felt it as the monster lifted me into the air, shake me and then threw my still living corpse away. I landed at the edge of the clearing; my head turned towards the formation.
The mist parted before my comrades and I saw them run. Only will to see the one who was going to end my life fail let me live on for moments more. Then the mist thickened again, but not uniformly this time. Shadows formed beast, nothing with a name, but creatures of fang and claws loosely formed by the mist nipped and clawed at my friends, and before they could escape this pocket of hell the mist closed back in around them. Through a titanic effort I managed to turn my head, where the instigator of all this stood.
A light passed over. I couldn't see where it hit, but I didn't think it meant anything good for my comrades. That hardly mattered though. As the world darkened for the last time I saw an arrow bore into the green lights the girl had put around her. She flowed again and managed to get around it, the tree it hit melting. A haughty voice rang through the mist and I found myself doing something I hadn't done in all my life. Cheering for a nobleman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@yrsillar Made an omake. Wanted to make something to show off how terrifying LQ is to an outside observer, though it might mostly have shown how terrifying Zhengui can be. I haven't really written anything before so I think it was for the best that I posted it when most of the thread was asleep. Thanks a lot to the ones who pointed out flaws. Anyway would love to be added to the omake threadmarks.
This job had redefined the term milk run in Mo Wuhan's mind. Initially I had been apprehensive, hitting a town wasn't really in our wheelhouse. Not that walls mattered much, and the mortals were practically walking sacks of silver, but wherever there were people there were cultivators, and this town had an old guy living in it who was one of the scarier ones.
We had our own monsters though. Zi Xinya and Dai De made most jobs milk runs. Just sit in the trees while the merchants pass under like lambs to the slaughter, then fire off arrows when Zi Xinya charged in. I didn't believe what I was seeing the first time she did that. The lady was clearly of a higher physical cultivation then the rest of the group, though I didn't really know how it all worked. All I had ever learned about cultivation just mentioned things up to the yellow realm, and when I had asked about anything beyond I had been laughed at by the guys I served with. No wonder that he had deserted. I recognized strength when I saw it though, and watching this tiny woman cleave through a horse all casual like with her axe sure was strength.
She was only half of what made this gig so good though. It wasn't like we could expect to keep raiding merchants without having the wrath of the nobles fall on us. Most of the guys in the "unit", as Dai De would call us, were from other smaller groups who got broken up. They were the lucky ones, the ones who got away when the nobles decided they had had enough. That wouldn't happen to us though, cause we had Dai De.
While Zi Xinya was busy making mincemeat of the merchants Dai De would flit around, waving his hand at trees and touching the ground. Somebody not in the know would think him insane or dumb, what with the nervous ways his eyes darted around while he walked around a slaughter. But somebody in the know would never see him. What Dai De did was to put a veil over the battleground, then a veil over their passage into the trees. Nobody had followed us, nobody could. The first sign something was wrong would be the merchant never arriving wherever they were going, the second would be somebody stumbling into the pile of corpses we left on the road.
We hadn't had a proper fight in ages, and we hoped there would be an age before the next one. Way back when some paranoid merchant had filled his carts with guards instead of goods. Probably thinking of cashing in a bounty. That hadn't worked out for him, not at all. The few that might have run away from that particularly ambush had felt their spines turn to steel at Zi Xinyas war cry and our aim made perfect by Dai De. They didn't usually break out those techniques, there just wasn't any point. But if push came to shove then we were more then just a gang of guys with bows.
Today it wasn't just us on the job though. In addition there was some Bai riding along. The guy treated us and the ground with equal contempt from the top of his giant snake, sniffing at us when we walked past like we smelled or something. Wuhan had never seen Zi Xinya bow, or heard Dai De stammer before, but whenever they talked with the Bai they would. Not that they talked often, the guy shadowed us, keeping at the edges as if we tainted his precious nobility by our very presence. Some of the guys grumbled at that, but got a swift smack from Zi Xinya for the comments. Zi Xinya wouldn't have any of us talking our way to an early grave. They couldn't, wouldn't, protect us if this Bai took offense. Nobody beside the leaders knew why this Bai was with us. The whole thing stunk. Playing games with the nobility was a good way to get into that early grave. But Zi Xinya and Dai De hadn't messed up yet. Nobody was going to gainsay them on this job.
It was too late for it now anyway, and anyone who said anything would have sounded stupid at this point. After getting to the town we practically just marched up to the wall and had Zi Xinya knock it down. Put a few arrows in the mortals who were too stupid to get out of the way and the rest was all looting. The guards were nowhere to be seen; it was like a buffet. Only thing that kept us from picking the town clean was the constant nagging by the Bai that we had to be quick about it. Maybe he knew something we didn't, cause as we marched out of the town the houses around our exit were catching fire. Some idiot had probably knocked over a candle while looting, but how did the Bai know that?
Sclurph sklup was the refrain of the march. Boots into mud, boots out of mud. The terrain couldn't decide if it wanted to be a march or a wood and it wasn't quite a rainforest either. It was like it had picked the worst properties of all and decided to run with it. The trail was about as obvious as any trail left by over fifty guys marching. Nobody vocied any worries though, Dai De had our trail well in hand. All of us carrying some treasure from the town. Apparently the point of the raid had been some package that the leaders had been fussing over. It wasn't something the rest of us was privy to, and honestly, we didn't care. The point for us was what we could grab, in my case some heavy pouches of silver taken from some fat townies. For all marching through the swamp was a pain this was a good day.
Beside our leaders the band was split in two between us yellows and the ones in red. Made a natural chain of command really. I was marching towards the front of the column, just behind Dai De. As usual, when we had marched for a while, the reds would fall behind. I turned shouting for them to keep up, and in the silence that followed my shout I heard a soft melody ring out. It sounded like childish curiosity, it honestly would have been quite nice if I wasn't hearing it while marching through the middle of a swamp. Turning my eyes forward again I saw Dai De go rigid. There was a cultivator out there.
"Get in formation!" Zi Xinya shouted. Most of the column was in the process of stopping, more confused by the music then alarmed. To the bumpkins in the band the thinly veiled terror in Zi Xinya's voice might have sounded odd, but the ones of us who had served knew a musical cultivator when we heard one. We were turning towards the sound, people bunching together in groups and getting their weapons out when the song changed.
I heard a grunt from Dai De, then laughter sounded out from the woods. Not like something a man could make but like something you could hear in a dream, and ghostly forms of lords and ladies carrying cups streamed out. It was like they couldn't decide what they wanted to look like, a moment a green lady in a gigantic dress was laughing as she swiped by one of the reds, the next moment the same lady would be a red man in some fancy riding leathers, spinning and twisting away from a swipe from one of the yellows. The phantoms that did get hit just burst into coloured mist, then reformed into another form. They hadn't harmed us though, merely dazzled us.
Us yellows were clumping up around Dai De and Zi Xinya, and shortly after the reds also understood the futility of swinging at the phantoms. Between Zi Xinya shouting for them to get into formation and the desire not be alone among the mad phantoms they swarmed around us, forming a sort of square. In the army I had been an archer. Not the most glorious of roles but it came with certain demands. Primarily among them were perception techniques. A tiny trickle of qi shot into my eyes and it was like I woke up to a whole new world, seeing the bugs flying through the air and the details of the bark on the trees around us. But for all that I couldn't see wherever the cultivator was who had sicked the phantoms on us was. I knew, thought I knew at least, that there always was a cost to techniques like this. Bursting enough of the phantoms would put a hurt on the qi reserves of whoever was doing this. I lifted my bow, sighted down some fop in a long black coat and loosed on him. Yeah he reformed as a annoyed looking purple woman in a short dress afterwards, but at least I was doing something.
Someone had gotten a bead on the cultivator though, as a shadowy form flowed around a bolt in the periphery of my vision. What drew most attention wasn't that feat, but the bang afterwards as one of the thunder bolts went off. A tanned face of a young girl with blue eyes looked back at us from where the blast had just been, looking unruffled by the sound; black hair flowing long with what looked like stars in it, the rest of her shrouded in shadows with the top of some dark cloak at her shoulders. I couldn't for the life of me understand how I had missed someone so tall. Dai De had stepped forward, or I had stepped back, but as the shadow touched ground again I saw Dai De look eyes with this girl. I felt myself smirking, this wasn't the first time I had seen this trick. Some hotshot cultivator thinking that taking down a band of bandits would be easy, then losing all coordination as soon as Dai De looks at them and waves his fan.
This time it didn't go like that though. It looked like she faltered for a second, then a flute appeared out of the shadows rising towards her mouth. The focus on what fresh horror that flute would bring almost made me miss the shrieking blade bursting into existence and homing in on Dai De, who crouched just in time, my eyes followed it as it turned behind us. The thought "oh no oh shit that's a domain weapon" had just shot through my head as the phantoms stopped, stood up straight and lifted their cups in their air. The laughter turned to a roar of approval, the ones standing close pointing at us and cackling, all of them stamping at the ground. They almost drowned out the slow sad song the cultivator was playing, and as I turned towards her I saw a wall of black fog rushing towards me.
It hit and it was like my sense of the world turned mute. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, much less my feet and sounds travelled oddly, like people was shouting from under water. Screams from men who had laughed as a town burned just hours ago sent chills down my spine as they were distorted in the mist, and I could have sworn that Zi Xinya hadn't been where I was hearing her voice shouting from. A thud rang through the mist, like a giant taking a step. I looked up, but all I saw was black fog.
I was about to run. I didn't care that being alone in this mist was probably death. I couldn't see anyone; I was practically already alone. Then I felt steel enter my spine, Zi Xinya hadn't shouted, but maybe that wasn't a necessary part of the technique. Whoever had made me feel fear like that had to die. I started to search the mist and as I did I felt a flood of qi enter my eyes. Dai De was guiding my arrows. Me and the other yellows in the centre of our groups lifted our bows as one and loosed where we saw the girl, standing in front of some large rock. The phantoms threw themselves on the arrows in front of her, some of us shot off into the mist and she flowed side to side. Still some hit home. Five arrows should have been enough to turn this living nightmare into a pincushion, but they merely bounced off her dress. Sure, it looked like it would have hurt, but the point of an arrow wasn't to beat someone to death.
A buzzing sound filled the air. Dai De had released his triumph card, Wénzi. The bug spirit was usually just used to scout out caravans, but he could deliver a sonic attack that should end whatever fight we found ourselves in. It soared up into the air and the beat of its wings made a buzzing sound that hit us all. As loud as it was for me it should have been hell for the girl. The very earth smoothed out where she stood and the shadows flowed away, revealing her wearing a conservative black dress with silver threads in it. She just had time to wince before the rock behind her bellowed and a part of it shot forward, clamping down on Wénzi and dragging it out of the air. As the "rock" lumbered towards us I saw that it was a gigantic turtle with a snake for a tail, the snake swallowing down what had been Wénzi while fire and smoke leaked from its maw around the corpse of the spirit beast. A Xuan Wu? What the hell was a legendary creature like that doing so far from the savage seas?
But that all faded away as I heard the song. The light voice of the little girl floated softly through the mist. She didn't know where her mother was, she needed help and she was so very very lonely. I took a step forward. I had to find her, to help her. Hands grabbed at my shoulders, but they couldn't stop me from this. Another few steps and I was beyond the reds, Zi Xinya shouting to let me go, that if I couldn't hold the line then I shouldn't take anyone else down with me, but what did I care? My mission had changed.
I heard screams around me, a burst of sound from the woods sent a group of archers I didn't recognize tumbling into the clearing and after the monstrous snake half of the Xuan Wu swallowed Wénzi it belched, and a glob of liquid fire flew over my head. But what did I care about any of this? The sad song still beckoned me and I could see her now. This sad little pale girl in a light blue dress standing in the mist. I had to go to her. But then the song changed. The mist thickened and suddenly I couldn't see the girl anymore. I was enraged, my mission a failure, but then I finally came to my senses. "oh shit" was my first thought as I realized how far out of formation I had gotten. I could still see the tall girl, but that was hardly a concern, as beside me the Xuan Wu towered.
I had a short reprieve as arrows burst from the woods. Apparently there were more archers I didn't know about around. I didn't know who they were, but they could be the empress guards for all I cared as long as they killed whoever this monster was. Their arrows carried a sick looking purple qi as they homed in on their targets. The Xuan Wu didn't dodge, it hardly could, but most of the arrows merely bounced off it, and those that hit had their purple qi extinguished by it almost immediately. The girl fared similarly. She dodged around most of the arrows, but three hit. Two just bounced off her dress like ours had, but one penetrated and grazed her. I saw the purple qi slither into her wound and for a moment I hoped, hoped that whoever these allies were they had the means to put down this monster. Then that hope died. The purple qi extinguished.
The Xuan Wu roared, and I had but a moment to try to run before darkness descended on me. The snake had swallowed me, but that was just the beginning of my problems. Its fangs went straight through what armour I had and I felt pure fire flow into me. I felt my mouth open to scream, but I couldn't produce a sound, the agony was just too much. I hardly felt it as the monster lifted me into the air, shake me and then threw my still living corpse away. I landed at the edge of the clearing; my head turned towards the formation.
The mist parted before my comrades and I saw them run. Only will to see the one who was going to end my life fail let me live on for moments more. Then the mist thickened again, but not uniformly this time. Shadows formed beast, nothing with a name, but creatures of fang and claws loosely formed by the mist nipped and clawed at my friends, and before they could escape this pocket of hell the mist closed back in around them. Through a titanic effort I managed to turn my head, where the instigator of all this stood.
A light passed over. I couldn't see where it hit, but I didn't think it meant anything good for my comrades. That hardly mattered though. As the world darkened for the last time I saw an arrow bore into the green lights the girl had put around her. She flowed again and managed to get around it, the tree it hit melting. A haughty voice rang through the mist and I found myself doing something I hadn't done in all my life. Cheering for a nobleman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@yrsillar Made an omake. Wanted to make something to show off how terrifying LQ is to an outside observer, though it might mostly have shown how terrifying Zhengui can be. I haven't really written anything before so I think it was for the best that I posted it when most of the thread was asleep. Thanks a lot to the ones who pointed out flaws. Anyway would love to be added to the omake threadmarks.
Last edited:
DeusExBritannia
Red-White-Black-White
- Location
- Texas
[X] Plan: The Might of the Cai
[X] Simple five-point plan
[X] Simple five-point plan
Last edited:
All the plans are bad this way. Lunatic whirl only outright stops techs using arm meridians, i.e. attacks. The support techniques the greens already showed and pretty much any others they might have are fair game.
To be fair, there aren't a lot of ways to instantly wipe out green combatants. Though I expect Hoarfrost Refrain mixed with Traveler's End release would do pretty well. But while Lunatic Whirl is excellent, it doesn't actually remove enemies from consideration. Enhancing the main threat? Yeah, they can still do that.