- Location
- the internet
Not the Ant King...if you finished the whole series you know that the Ant King was totally OP. Higher level cultivators, like Prisms or Whites, could take him on. But not LQ.
Lmao :lol
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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.
- Location
- Canada
No
Ling Qi has never had a problem caring about people she was already close to, she covets her relationships quite closely actually
It's strangers, and outsiders that she tends to dismiss far more easily, even then it isn't a sociopathic lack of empathy for their suffering
Having lived on the streets she just grew inured to the idea of people getting hurt and that you had to put yourself first if you wanted to survive
She also isn't really likely to develop into a bloodthirsty killer either; a rather large part of her character is her lack of interest in the suffering of others, even those who would or have done her harm
She could and would put someone down if it was necessary, but she doesn't care for making people suffer, or even going out of her way to take revenge
She's pragmatic like that
On one hand, yes, she is not one for making people suffer. She rejected that after her discussion with Zeqing. But she still got her list with people that she would End without a moments hesitation even beyond it simply being a necessary action. Her pragmatism in those cases is more about not getting caught doing it. For all we might meme about LQ's habit of forgetting people she does carry grudges.
- Location
- the internet
Well you're both right. In the beginning LQ had to put in an effort to care about others because it didn't come naturally to her due to her time on the street--but she wanted to change that attitude. Now that she has had practice doing it, it comes pretty naturally. That's why even if we neglected our friends and family via votes, our MC wouldn't become a cold, heartless person who can slaughter people easily. She's gotten a taste of what its like to have a community, people who care about her and its become a part of her Way, to have a home. Now that it is a part of her way, Yrsillar isn't just gonna write it out of the story.
Hmm, well unsurprising that spirit beast livestock requires spirit fruits...but they wouldn't need the core-equivalents of the fruits(seeds?), not if they're bred for materials.
I would assume the medical work refers to Suyin's own skills, since I reckon the talisman makers would be equally busy regardless making expendable talismans for a potential battle.
Still, it does point to an army of cultivators as a processor swarm, they move through an area, defeat hostiles and harvest all available resources(including the hostiles) to be processed to a portable format as they go. If so, an in-force army patrol is, contrary to RL patrols, potentially a profit-maker whenever it passes through unforaged wilderness.
Workaholism is infectious. Please see a therapist if it persists.
Oh neato. A FSS-equivalent poison art. Wait, no, ARTS, plural. Suyin must have impressed Grandmother Spider. And I'm pretty sure the venom injectors lets her put custom crafted poison doses into her strikes, though I'm not sure where she stands in the melee.
Also for those who don't remember, this is made from the gravity manipulating antlion.
A quiet bishie! [Ships set sail]
The name though, Du Feng as in Lone Peak or Venomous Hornet?
Wires huh?
My first thought was a xianxia plugsuit for a mecha.
Suyin, you literally have the best love life potential in our entire social group at present. And from description, fairly cute by most standards.
Still, @yrsillar I thought she was going to fix her eye with her family healing arts at Green? Did she change her mind or was she too distracted with the skaven loot haul to finish raising those to Green yet?
For what its worth a conventional army's camp followers can be up to 3-4 times the size of the actual army, and JUST the cooks, smiths, healers and such essential support staff the size of the army on their own.
But then Suyin never had any military experience to know better.
Keeping a secret even from sempai?
Just how embarassing can this even get?
[Suppresses urge to tease her]
Somebody got hurt already?
Spooked the wrong spirit without watching?
...oh that explains the horde of mindless rats we fought. Those were expendable constructs!
Well...everyone already made the Kamen Rider references.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
So it is going to be awhile before she wants to go cave delving again?
Get to bronze you nerd
just want to mention that the "unhappy with this" note wasn't removed
- Location
- United States of America
Man, once Li Suyin gets that art to green, things are going to go crazy for her biological projects. Being able to understand, shape, and heal biological materials will be of amazing benefit to her should she continue to want to go down this path of biological creations.
I can't wait to see the fruits of Li Suyin's labor in regards to this. I'm predicting it will drastically speed up her ability to harvest and explore the corrupted caverns.
If Hanyi continues to be lazy about fixing her legs, I vote Li Suyin just graft on spider limbs.
Turn 5: Arc 2-6
Liao Zhu spun the dagger in his hand and returned it to the sheath, and watched the simulacra rise, smoke like from the corpse of the man and beast at his feet. He hummed to himself as horseman and rider alike wavered shimmered, like a reflection in troubled waters. Focusing his qi across the air between himself and the simulacra, he carefully poured essence stored within his sheathed dagger into the construct, smoothing away warping and granting definition to it's wavering edges.
A moment later, and he allowed himself a nod of satisfaction. Though the constructs eyes were still unfocused and blank, the visage was perfect. Only a cultivator of the fourth realm or higher would be able to tell the difference without close study. With a silent command, he activated the construct, and it suddenly shook its head, looking confused for a moment before tugging the reins of its horse and galloping off, looking for all the world like the man and beast whose lives he had just taken.
It had been a stroke of luck that the youngest of the three had split off again, before going further into the Wall than he was willing to follow/ It had given him the opportunity to insert an infiltrator in their midst. The hasty effort would only last a week or so, but it would hopefully allow him to learn more about that strange woman, before the mental suggestion imprinted in the construct sent it off to get killed by some beast or another. He was grateful to his junior sister for so doggedly searching the barren upper peaks and ferreting out this interesting little gathering.
He shook his head. She really was quite something, but...
"We done here?" A gruff voice interrupted his musing, and he glanced to the side, where his spirit Tengjing lay on the rocks, regarding him with great boredom. The spirit ruffled his great feathered wings impatiently. Between those wings, and his powerful, grey furred feline body and scaled draconic head, the Pixiu was certainly a majestic sight.
Or he would be, if Liao Zhu was not aware of what a dull bore the creature often was. No patience at all for extravagance at all. "One would imagine that even you would be interested by what we have spied, my churlish friend." He glanced down at the corpse, ignoring with long practice the faint regret that stirred in his breast at another life taken. "Might you clean this up?"
"Clown," the chimeric beast grunted. Tengjing opened his jaw and breathed out, and streak of silver flames shot out, catching the corpse and beginning to burn voraciously, eating flesh and equipment alike without a single wisp of smoke. "I am not sure why a mere difference of coloration bothers you so."
"I wonder," Liao Zhu mused, it was true that spirit blood could create all manner of oddities, but… that was not the Cloud Tribes custom. Yet the woman that those men had gone back to meet, that the eldest of the tribesman was courting. With fair hair, verging on white, and skin as pale as snow, she already looked nothing like any tribesman he had seen. Her face had been strange as well, with oddly shaped eyes and a subtly different structure to her features. The thick and heavy furs were odd as well. Her aura was iron, ice, the brutality of deep winter made manifest. It was not a common mix for the Cloud Tribes. Few bothered to learn the intricacies of barbarian fashions and culture, but he knew that you could learn much from the subtle differences in a tribes dress and cultivation aesthetics.
Again, it seemed very foreign to him. His instincts told him that the matter was important, important enough to keep a closer eye on matters. Even if it was only a new tribe, learning of its movements was valuable. Still, there was no immediate danger, just a powerful young warrior on a particularly ambitious marriage hunt with his brothers, if he had picked out the destination of their flight correctly.
He glanced back at the scorch mark where the corpse had been. Brother, now he supposed.
"You have better things to do than mourn enemies," Tengjing grunted. "You're going to die if you stay on that path."
"My good friend and bosom brother, there is a limit to how boorish one should be, you know?" Liao Zhu replied cooly. "If you doubt your brothers competence, then I am open to a challenge at any time."
He met Tengjings fierce gaze, and eventually the pixiu snorted and looked away. "Hmph, it's not your strength I doubt, clown."
Liao Zhu regarded his companion silently. "Are we not all jesters in the end? You worry too much my friend," he said with a casual laugh. "In any case, you are right. We should return. Who knows what trouble my cute Junior Sister has embroiled herself in in my absence."
***
What in the world had she gotten herself into, Ling Qi wondered.
An echoing shriek slammed into her ears, a wave of sound so loud that it struck like a physical blow. Below her, the source of the noise thrashed, engulfed in her mists. Two long and sinuous necks emerged from the earth, covered by overlapping plates of bone and rock, the viscous blue slime that held it all together dripped and seeped through, pooling on the ground and mixing with the mud into a sticky clinging morass. At the end of each neck was a blunt horned head that resembled a mix between a tortoise and a dragon, short and blunt with beaked jaws, and empty eye sockets that wept corrupted slime.
The creatures necks emerged from the side of a hill, and twisted, bony limbs, halfway between flippers and claws emerged from the base, flopping and tearing at the earth at it dragged itself forward. On the hill, weeping vents opened, stinking of stale air and sulphur, and sparks flickered in the air, threatening to flare up at the barest provocation. The first such explosion had wiped away her hastily erected mist after all.
Below and behind Ling Qi, her subordinates and Zhengui worked hard, raising barricades of earth and roots to box the beasts flowing emissions in, for the toxic muck seemed to poison and wither everything that it touched. The encirclement was yet incomplete though, because none of them had been expecting this. The day had passed in tense peace, but as they were reaching the end of their survey, the ground beneath their feet had rocked, and the slowly crawling hill that they had been traversing had burst into malignant life.
Ling Qi was all too aware that they were currently near the blighted vale which they had burned the night previous. She had been quick enough to react thankfully, shrouding the hill in cloying mist as her companions made distance, but then the heads had burst out, and she had been forced to activate Deepwood Vitality to protect them all from the massive blast that had followed as the stinking vents in the hillside had opened.
She wasn't even certain what she was looking at, it looked like something out of Suyin's workshop, but dripping with filth and emanating an aura that made her skin tingle like it had on the mountain peaks.
"Yeah that's the toxin trying to melt your skin," Sixiang said, sounding slightly strained. "I can keep purging it, but that's all I'm going to be doing if we fight this thing."
Ling Qi acknowledged their words with a hum. The only saving grace was that the… thing, whatever it was, seemed aimless in its rampage, as long as they remained out of reach. Indeed, once Mo Lian had raised a wall, and Zhengui had reinforced it with his roots, the spirit had seemed to cease noticing them at all. Ling Qi grimaced as she spun in their air, her cloak flapping as she avoided a jet of brackish blue black qi that had shot from the corrupt spirits right maw.
Not that it had paid much mind to them to begin with. It seemed pretty fixated on her, only lashing out at others through proximity. She suspected that it was because she had the greatest cultivation among those present. She had to wonder if it might even settle down if they just left. However, that would mean that it would continue spilling its toxic blood, or slime, or whatever it was everywhere.
...It was still a hill though, she could feel the similarities in the structure and form of its qi to that of the spirit they had spoken to before, but it was threaded through with deathly qi, and corruption of multiple types. There was the slimy, oozing, filthy feeling that pervaded in the deep caverns, but their was also the nauseous emanations which they had so thoroughly burned out of the blighted vale. Despite that it remained a hill, and Ling Qi sensed from it an unsurpassed vitality, compared to the things she had fought. Even with the mastered Frozen Soul Serenade, she wasn't sure that she could kill a terrain feature before running out of qi.
Ling Qi glanced down at the others, and Cheng He raised a hand, signalling that their current work was complete, and they could move to walling off enough pass. The hill beast wailed and thrashed, turning with ponderous slowness as it tried to follow the arc of her flight. With its eyeless heads.
There was another option though. Even from here, she could sense the spirits anguish, it made no effort to cloak its spirit. The whole of its being was suffused with pain. Frankly, if she could not sense its unwavering well of vitality, she would have thought that it was dying. However, whatever it was, it had been dormant before they had disturbed it with their presence. Perhaps she could try to pacify the creature and lull it back into that state, so that perhaps a more experienced cultivator in the main group could purify the thing.
One way or another, she needed to make her choice so that they could plan accordingly.
[] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.
[] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.
[] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.
A moment later, and he allowed himself a nod of satisfaction. Though the constructs eyes were still unfocused and blank, the visage was perfect. Only a cultivator of the fourth realm or higher would be able to tell the difference without close study. With a silent command, he activated the construct, and it suddenly shook its head, looking confused for a moment before tugging the reins of its horse and galloping off, looking for all the world like the man and beast whose lives he had just taken.
It had been a stroke of luck that the youngest of the three had split off again, before going further into the Wall than he was willing to follow/ It had given him the opportunity to insert an infiltrator in their midst. The hasty effort would only last a week or so, but it would hopefully allow him to learn more about that strange woman, before the mental suggestion imprinted in the construct sent it off to get killed by some beast or another. He was grateful to his junior sister for so doggedly searching the barren upper peaks and ferreting out this interesting little gathering.
He shook his head. She really was quite something, but...
"We done here?" A gruff voice interrupted his musing, and he glanced to the side, where his spirit Tengjing lay on the rocks, regarding him with great boredom. The spirit ruffled his great feathered wings impatiently. Between those wings, and his powerful, grey furred feline body and scaled draconic head, the Pixiu was certainly a majestic sight.
Or he would be, if Liao Zhu was not aware of what a dull bore the creature often was. No patience at all for extravagance at all. "One would imagine that even you would be interested by what we have spied, my churlish friend." He glanced down at the corpse, ignoring with long practice the faint regret that stirred in his breast at another life taken. "Might you clean this up?"
"Clown," the chimeric beast grunted. Tengjing opened his jaw and breathed out, and streak of silver flames shot out, catching the corpse and beginning to burn voraciously, eating flesh and equipment alike without a single wisp of smoke. "I am not sure why a mere difference of coloration bothers you so."
"I wonder," Liao Zhu mused, it was true that spirit blood could create all manner of oddities, but… that was not the Cloud Tribes custom. Yet the woman that those men had gone back to meet, that the eldest of the tribesman was courting. With fair hair, verging on white, and skin as pale as snow, she already looked nothing like any tribesman he had seen. Her face had been strange as well, with oddly shaped eyes and a subtly different structure to her features. The thick and heavy furs were odd as well. Her aura was iron, ice, the brutality of deep winter made manifest. It was not a common mix for the Cloud Tribes. Few bothered to learn the intricacies of barbarian fashions and culture, but he knew that you could learn much from the subtle differences in a tribes dress and cultivation aesthetics.
Again, it seemed very foreign to him. His instincts told him that the matter was important, important enough to keep a closer eye on matters. Even if it was only a new tribe, learning of its movements was valuable. Still, there was no immediate danger, just a powerful young warrior on a particularly ambitious marriage hunt with his brothers, if he had picked out the destination of their flight correctly.
He glanced back at the scorch mark where the corpse had been. Brother, now he supposed.
"You have better things to do than mourn enemies," Tengjing grunted. "You're going to die if you stay on that path."
"My good friend and bosom brother, there is a limit to how boorish one should be, you know?" Liao Zhu replied cooly. "If you doubt your brothers competence, then I am open to a challenge at any time."
He met Tengjings fierce gaze, and eventually the pixiu snorted and looked away. "Hmph, it's not your strength I doubt, clown."
Liao Zhu regarded his companion silently. "Are we not all jesters in the end? You worry too much my friend," he said with a casual laugh. "In any case, you are right. We should return. Who knows what trouble my cute Junior Sister has embroiled herself in in my absence."
***
What in the world had she gotten herself into, Ling Qi wondered.
An echoing shriek slammed into her ears, a wave of sound so loud that it struck like a physical blow. Below her, the source of the noise thrashed, engulfed in her mists. Two long and sinuous necks emerged from the earth, covered by overlapping plates of bone and rock, the viscous blue slime that held it all together dripped and seeped through, pooling on the ground and mixing with the mud into a sticky clinging morass. At the end of each neck was a blunt horned head that resembled a mix between a tortoise and a dragon, short and blunt with beaked jaws, and empty eye sockets that wept corrupted slime.
The creatures necks emerged from the side of a hill, and twisted, bony limbs, halfway between flippers and claws emerged from the base, flopping and tearing at the earth at it dragged itself forward. On the hill, weeping vents opened, stinking of stale air and sulphur, and sparks flickered in the air, threatening to flare up at the barest provocation. The first such explosion had wiped away her hastily erected mist after all.
Below and behind Ling Qi, her subordinates and Zhengui worked hard, raising barricades of earth and roots to box the beasts flowing emissions in, for the toxic muck seemed to poison and wither everything that it touched. The encirclement was yet incomplete though, because none of them had been expecting this. The day had passed in tense peace, but as they were reaching the end of their survey, the ground beneath their feet had rocked, and the slowly crawling hill that they had been traversing had burst into malignant life.
Ling Qi was all too aware that they were currently near the blighted vale which they had burned the night previous. She had been quick enough to react thankfully, shrouding the hill in cloying mist as her companions made distance, but then the heads had burst out, and she had been forced to activate Deepwood Vitality to protect them all from the massive blast that had followed as the stinking vents in the hillside had opened.
She wasn't even certain what she was looking at, it looked like something out of Suyin's workshop, but dripping with filth and emanating an aura that made her skin tingle like it had on the mountain peaks.
"Yeah that's the toxin trying to melt your skin," Sixiang said, sounding slightly strained. "I can keep purging it, but that's all I'm going to be doing if we fight this thing."
Ling Qi acknowledged their words with a hum. The only saving grace was that the… thing, whatever it was, seemed aimless in its rampage, as long as they remained out of reach. Indeed, once Mo Lian had raised a wall, and Zhengui had reinforced it with his roots, the spirit had seemed to cease noticing them at all. Ling Qi grimaced as she spun in their air, her cloak flapping as she avoided a jet of brackish blue black qi that had shot from the corrupt spirits right maw.
Not that it had paid much mind to them to begin with. It seemed pretty fixated on her, only lashing out at others through proximity. She suspected that it was because she had the greatest cultivation among those present. She had to wonder if it might even settle down if they just left. However, that would mean that it would continue spilling its toxic blood, or slime, or whatever it was everywhere.
...It was still a hill though, she could feel the similarities in the structure and form of its qi to that of the spirit they had spoken to before, but it was threaded through with deathly qi, and corruption of multiple types. There was the slimy, oozing, filthy feeling that pervaded in the deep caverns, but their was also the nauseous emanations which they had so thoroughly burned out of the blighted vale. Despite that it remained a hill, and Ling Qi sensed from it an unsurpassed vitality, compared to the things she had fought. Even with the mastered Frozen Soul Serenade, she wasn't sure that she could kill a terrain feature before running out of qi.
Ling Qi glanced down at the others, and Cheng He raised a hand, signalling that their current work was complete, and they could move to walling off enough pass. The hill beast wailed and thrashed, turning with ponderous slowness as it tried to follow the arc of her flight. With its eyeless heads.
There was another option though. Even from here, she could sense the spirits anguish, it made no effort to cloak its spirit. The whole of its being was suffused with pain. Frankly, if she could not sense its unwavering well of vitality, she would have thought that it was dying. However, whatever it was, it had been dormant before they had disturbed it with their presence. Perhaps she could try to pacify the creature and lull it back into that state, so that perhaps a more experienced cultivator in the main group could purify the thing.
One way or another, she needed to make her choice so that they could plan accordingly.
[] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.
[] Go in for the kill, and call Zhengui to help. You have underestimated your own killing power before, and the things cultivation is not superior to your own. Hill or not, you can End it.
[] Close in, relying on Sixiang to keep it's toxic aura from affecting you, between your music and your subordinates ritualism, it should be possible to pacify the creature.
Health: SS30 Init. E
Speed: H
P. Armor. A
S. Armor. A
P. Hit B P. Pen A
Speed: H
P. Armor. A
S. Armor. A
P. Hit B P. Pen A
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- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Nifty snapshot scene.
I'm down to try to pacify.
Walling it off screams "nothing ventured nothing gained" to me, and Hills are kind of supposed to freeze. Not really a good damage type matchup.
I'm down to try to pacify.
Walling it off screams "nothing ventured nothing gained" to me, and Hills are kind of supposed to freeze. Not really a good damage type matchup.
- Location
- Who Knows
I'm leaning more towards pacification too. It feels like a shame to go to killing after our recent discussion about that, and well. It's better to try to do something.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, tough choice to be made here, walling it off is a non-starter, but I think pacifying it entirely might be a fool's bargain, considering it apparently flipped its shit with the smallest provocation apparently.
It was pointed out after all that these things barely even notice things smaller than themselves, and yet it apparently got agitated by motes of dust being near it? I don't think a pacification would stick
It was pointed out after all that these things barely even notice things smaller than themselves, and yet it apparently got agitated by motes of dust being near it? I don't think a pacification would stick
- Location
- North Carolina
It doesn't need to stick, it just needs to hold long enough for someone who can deal with it more permanently to come along.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Yeah, I wouldn't even try this if it wasn't for our boy with the matching element and Social arts. If Earth Social arts aren't chock full of "Shoulder to cry on" arts that ameliorate pain, I'll eat my hat.
Going to vote to kill it. Event been kinda boring so far so anything happening at this point is an improvement.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
I try to be slow to call "Wrongbadfun" on people, but from my perspective you're edging closer to the sort of decision making that made my 14 year old self go on random rampages in GTA.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huh, I don't think we've ever gotten another character's POV in an actual chapter before, and it is even a partial one that switches back to Qi.
Wow, he managed to snipe that first guy and send back a doppelganger, nice job.
Well, we seen to have done good, that scouting ended up being quite valuable. I do wonder if that last line means he thinks we're a bit too ambitious or something.
Lol, what a nice jump cut.
A quite interesting situation here. We got a rampaging hill beast who's in a tremendous amount of pain.
Hrrrrm. This is a tough one.
First option is to distract until it's been walled off from escaping. This is probably the option I immediately liked the most, as it seems to be clearly the safest option. Qi is quite good at evasion and distraction.
Second option is to just go full tilt and try to kill it. This is goddamn risky, Qi can see how tough this thing is, even with the even Cultivation, and she has a much better grasp on her killing power after the fight against BINO. Too high consequence for failure, and I sorta worry about the consequences for victory.
Third option is to try to pacify. This feels even more risky, even if it is really cool in terms of characterization.
[] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.
My default answer.
Wow, he managed to snipe that first guy and send back a doppelganger, nice job.
Well, we seen to have done good, that scouting ended up being quite valuable. I do wonder if that last line means he thinks we're a bit too ambitious or something.
Lol, what a nice jump cut.
A quite interesting situation here. We got a rampaging hill beast who's in a tremendous amount of pain.
Hrrrrm. This is a tough one.
First option is to distract until it's been walled off from escaping. This is probably the option I immediately liked the most, as it seems to be clearly the safest option. Qi is quite good at evasion and distraction.
Second option is to just go full tilt and try to kill it. This is goddamn risky, Qi can see how tough this thing is, even with the even Cultivation, and she has a much better grasp on her killing power after the fight against BINO. Too high consequence for failure, and I sorta worry about the consequences for victory.
Third option is to try to pacify. This feels even more risky, even if it is really cool in terms of characterization.
[] Continue distracting the hill beast while your subordinates and Zhengui wall off the remaining exits from its valley, then vanish, and only engage again if it looks to be breaking out.
My default answer.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Can't we just keep draining more Qi from it?
- Location
- Brazil
Tempted to try and kill it just from the capital E in "you can End it".
Killing the unkillable is Insight bait.
Killing the unkillable is Insight bait.
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