[X] 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.
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] 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.
I think that's a false choice.
The subordinates are fully capable of keeping a watch while Ling Qi rests. Theyve done this before, the areas been surveyed and problems have been located and would have been dealt with, and any stealth oriented spirits that might potentially have been a threat were likely long since chased off by both the corruption and those that were affected by it.
"But what if-" sounds like a valid concern, up until you assess the context and realize its just baseless paranoia.
The day's over. That literally doesn't matter.
I mean, you didn't need Yrs to tell you that. As I said, it's pretty clear from the context that no matter what this confrontation will tire out Ling Qi, and no matter what she'll have both means and freedom to rest and recover afterwards. Between a Kaiju fight, nonviolent pacification and investigation, quelling down weaker spirits while mapping out the region, and locating two very obvious points of interest for investigation by higher ups...
By any reasonable measure, Ling Qi will have displayed excellent judgement and capability in her role as a scout. In all its potential roles.
[X] 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.
Anyway, the bit about the Winter Witch explains so very much why Yrs would have preferred the other option - he knew what was waiting for us, and it was exactly within our bailiwick; a spirit of Ice and Winter who may or may not be hostile. Unfortunately, the only clue we had to this possibility is in that Cloud Tribe interlude at the end of Forge of Destiny, and that left no hints about just how fast that faction's outriders were moving.
Oh well, what's done is done, and the mystery has been stripped away, which means rewriting the lead-up to incorporate the necessary tips to guide the player base down the path not taken is pointless at this time.
——
As far as the vote is concerned, Woodwind is 28/40 through rank A. An event that strains our limits could push us to a Woodwind derived skill, though I don't think it's likely. On the other hand, Music is 23/25 through rank C - this could tilt Music into another Advanced Skill, one that leans more towards communication and/or flattery rather than 'woodwind's' more balanced use. The other alternative I see here is Vocals, though that doesn't do too much for us at the moment.
E: man, if only we'd trained Woodwinds this turn! Bah.
Anyway, the bit about the Winter Witch explains so very much why Yrs would have preferred the other option - he knew what was waiting for us, and it was exactly within our bailiwick; a spirit of Ice and Winter who may or may not be hostile. Unfortunately, the only clue we had to this possibility is in that Cloud Tribe interlude at the end of Forge of Destiny, and that left no hints about just how fast that faction's outriders were moving.
Oh well, what's done is done, and the mystery has been stripped away, which means rewriting the lead-up to incorporate the necessary tips to guide the player base down the path not taken is pointless at this time.
——
As far as the vote is concerned, Woodwind is 28/40 through rank A. An event that strains our limits could push us to a Woodwind derived skill, though I don't think it's likely. On the other hand, Music is 23/25 through rank C - this could tilt Music into another Advanced Skill, one that leans more towards communication and/or flattery rather than 'woodwind's' more balanced use. The other alternative I see here is Vocals, though that doesn't do too much for us at the moment.
E: man, if only we'd trained Woodwinds this turn! Bah.
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Wiggin42
Wage Slave
Even if we kill it, it's not going to stay dead. Remember that the river spirit was killed last year and came back to cause problems for this one? Killing spirits, or at least killing spirits with a strong ego or are tied to physical locations, is more like putting them in time out than destroying them forever. It might or might not make it easier to purify it; not sure how that would work out.
[X] 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.
- Location
- Not Telling
[X] 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.
- Location
- Yes
[x] 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.
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
- Location
- Space
[X] 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.
[x] 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.
[x] 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.
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
I'm kinda torn between the options. I think pacifying is more interesting, but flat killing would be cool too.
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
Ling Qi putting down a rabid spirit that she doesn't care about though isn't meaningful in that regard though? She kills spirits all the time.
Now, if she was mercy-killing a person, that would be different, and there could also be something interesting there. That being said, judging by our discussions back when we were thinking about Endings and Ways, I'm not sure that's really the direction most people want to go in.
Two things first we don't know if this is a complete spirit of a hill or chopped up bits fused together that looked like a hill so we don't know if it will reform if we kill it. The river was still there after killling the spirit but we don't know what happens to the hill
Second we don't know what th corruption does to it so it may or may not behave like others of its kind when it is killed
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- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
[x] 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.
I think this isn't exactly something Ling Qi is suited with dealing with so let's try and contain it to let someone who might actually know what they're doing kill or pacify this beast.
Also, I don't really think we can do the other options without our people being hurt whether that is Zengui eating some scary weedkiller to the face while being part grass type or our subordinates getting radiation sickness since they don't have a third realm spirit cleansing them of poison. This may be overly cautious but it's what I feel.
I think this isn't exactly something Ling Qi is suited with dealing with so let's try and contain it to let someone who might actually know what they're doing kill or pacify this beast.
Also, I don't really think we can do the other options without our people being hurt whether that is Zengui eating some scary weedkiller to the face while being part grass type or our subordinates getting radiation sickness since they don't have a third realm spirit cleansing them of poison. This may be overly cautious but it's what I feel.
Mmm, looking at this arc it does several things: world building, foreshadowing, and character growth for Ling Qi in terms of her learning about her responsibilities as a noble and leader.
I think that contain and pacify can both build upon our character development in this arc in a meaningful way, and thus contribute to the arc's overall contribution to the story.
Contain focuses on how Ling Qi approaches her duty as part of the greater machine, and her attitude to risk building on our previous actions here. Pacify builds on her approach to dealing with spirits. Both make use of her men, and so emphasise her development as an officer.
Kill otoh does none of those things, and just doesn't really add anything to the arc. It's just a fight for the sake of having something happen.
I think that contain and pacify can both build upon our character development in this arc in a meaningful way, and thus contribute to the arc's overall contribution to the story.
Contain focuses on how Ling Qi approaches her duty as part of the greater machine, and her attitude to risk building on our previous actions here. Pacify builds on her approach to dealing with spirits. Both make use of her men, and so emphasise her development as an officer.
Kill otoh does none of those things, and just doesn't really add anything to the arc. It's just a fight for the sake of having something happen.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
[X] 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.
This might be a contentious position, but I'm pretty unsatisfied by the Liao Zhu interlude. Out of character, it didn't tell us anything that the previous barbarian/snow spirit interlude hadn't already. In character, Liao Zhu doesn't seem the type to blab what he observed to a subordinate on his own initiative when he's not clear on the implications, and especially not after the fact. It's not clear to me that the interlude accomplished anything for the narrative. About the only thing we learned from it is that Liao Zhu has a cool spirit beast that he bound after probably beating it in a fight, and he can temporarily clone people he murders for infiltration purposes. I don't care about Liao Zhu though; not knowing things about Liao Zhu wasn't the issue I'd hope for the interlude to have addressed. The cleft between player and character knowledge remains, Ling Qi's ignorance of and indifference to pending events remains, and the state of the foreshadowing remained essentially static.
I think a more aggressive rewrite of the preliminary barbarian chase would have been more effective. There's no reason that Ling Qi needed to be almost spotted as soon as the stronger two showed up; if it happened a little while later, there would have been more room to include some scrap of any kind of information at all. Or if she'd spotted them carrying a sack of rime fruits or something, there'd at least be a tiny hint of familiarity to get her thinking, even if she still made the decision to bail when things got too hot. As it stands, and I know that it 100% isn't, the interlude feels like a taunt or rebuke rather than an attempt at resolution, because none of what is featured in it actually has narrative value outside of its potential when married to Ling Qi's personal circumstances. The meta-level info/foreshadowing was already there, so the main effect we have is emphasizing how perfect of an opportunity we didn't get. And that's... lame?
Again, that definitely wasn't the intention and I'm not mad at @yrsillar. The intentions were definitely positive, but I think it was a knee-jerk act of placation, and it's clumsy when you take a step back and look at it. Still, enough time has already been spent on this and it's time to move on.
I think a more aggressive rewrite of the preliminary barbarian chase would have been more effective. There's no reason that Ling Qi needed to be almost spotted as soon as the stronger two showed up; if it happened a little while later, there would have been more room to include some scrap of any kind of information at all. Or if she'd spotted them carrying a sack of rime fruits or something, there'd at least be a tiny hint of familiarity to get her thinking, even if she still made the decision to bail when things got too hot. As it stands, and I know that it 100% isn't, the interlude feels like a taunt or rebuke rather than an attempt at resolution, because none of what is featured in it actually has narrative value outside of its potential when married to Ling Qi's personal circumstances. The meta-level info/foreshadowing was already there, so the main effect we have is emphasizing how perfect of an opportunity we didn't get. And that's... lame?
Again, that definitely wasn't the intention and I'm not mad at @yrsillar. The intentions were definitely positive, but I think it was a knee-jerk act of placation, and it's clumsy when you take a step back and look at it. Still, enough time has already been spent on this and it's time to move on.
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- Location
- Canada
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
[X] 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.
Heck, the fight option doesn't even really let us rope in our subordinates or Hanyi. I guess it's a tag-team battle with Zhengui. That could be interesting/valuable, but the groundwork isn't really there earlier in the arc to make the most of it.
TimEd
Meteor maker
right forgot about that.
Though again, I would still go for pacify. She just had a minor crisis about treating spirits as less valuable than humans. Why is this any different? What purpose is there even in killing this spirit when in the grand scheme of things, this one battle has zero effect on the situation.
So either leave it corraled, or pacify it. Why go for useless and fruitless lethal measures?
- Location
- New York
[X] 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.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
It could be a cool scene.
It's a Toxic Earth Spirit, and Wood Overcomes Earth while Fire Purifies, all the while Zhengui leaving fertile ash.