- Pronouns
- She/Her
Gonna close the vote here. Will be working on the update tomorrow.
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Xin Wu, yet another Cultivation Quest
- Thread starter KittyEmpress
- Start date
6241, Ascending Void (?), The Underworld
- Pronouns
- She/Her
6241, Ascending Void
You push the screams out of your mind. You push the spiritual pain out of your mind. And you reach out - your desperate gasping breaths turn to cold and calculated as you breath in the essence of what was around you. Rama had helped guide you for so long now - he had helped you fight your first Elder what felt like so long ago, he walked you down the path of the hammer and pushed you to excel. And you weren't just going to let him go - you drew the scattering essence back to you, even as Garm warned you not to, even as he tried to get you to focus on the moment.
Drawing in Essence wasn't hard. You did it even time you breathed - everyone did. It was keeping the essence from dispersing that was hard. Pulling it into your spirit and holding it there. And you weren't just breathing in essence at random either, you were trying to specifically trap the person who was rapidly becoming nothing more than essence that had already drifted into a metaphorical wind. You blocked out every bit of Fear at what Mala might be doing to you, trusting Garm to protect you, trusting the Anklet to heal you, and trusting the pain suppression to let you pretend none of it was happening whilst you focused.
Something felt wrong about it, but you pushed through. The bits of death circulating around your inner Will, the small sun slowly becoming eclipsed in an oppressive darkness. You could feel something forming inside of your Spirit, though you couldn't be sure it was what you wanted. But hope filled you as sought to move forward - you wouldn't relent, you wouldn't back down. This time you'd save someone who was important to you, not let them die and be unable to do anything.
Something snapped and your inner world twisted and turned. The collection of celestial bodies ripped apart as your internal form shifted in a sudden jutting manner. With your spirit pathways tired from near complete overload, it was a painful process that made you scream out, your concentration nearly slipping. But something told you that if you let go, if you didn't see this through, you'd be crippled as badly as if Darpan had gotten his way - dead or worse on the floor here. So you clung onto sanity as you tried to catch your breath.
It felt like an eternity later when you saw what had replaced it. A shining sun still existed within, but you looked at it high in the sky as if you were bound to ground. And that ground was cold and dead - a wasteland stretching before you, as you stood beneath a flimsy wooden gate. You tried to take a step, but you couldn't move - you could only watch over what your soul had become - a graveyard. And two graves lay within it.
A sickening feeling formed in your stomach as you looked at the disembodied Darpan, a shade of his past self sitting upon the first grave. Flickering between existence and non existence. But full dread filled you as you took in the second form - hope crushed to nothingness as you saw not Rama the Ghost, but Rama the Revenant, a sickly puppet with weak, flickering strings attached. It did not move, it did not react, or look at you - neither of them did. There was no acknowledgement of what once were people within your soulscape. No comforting voice of an older Brother you never actually had.
Instead a panicked chime said, "You're going to die!"
You reached out your hand on instinct, catching a dagger through your palm as Garm managed to guide you out of the way. You didn't feel pain, so you didn't hesitate to close your hand around the dagger that had just been aimed for your face - and around the hand gripping it. Your eyes opened and you felt like the world was blurry, like you weren't seeing it right - you could see Mala having aimed her treasured Dagger at your face. But something was wrong.
Multiple things were wrong, you felt a twinge from your soul as your hand closed down around Mala's, disregarding the weapon embedded in you. Death energy shot through you on instinct - but instead of splashing against her skin, you saw the image of another hand overlain on yours - a hand that created a funnel for the energy, as it hit against skin - focusing all of it into the enemy's porous body, rather than letting it splash against. Your body seems to mimic the instinctual creation, and without even intending you feel your energy flooding into Mala's spiritual pathways.
Using your Pathways was always unpleasant. But as you grew more acclimated to your Armament, as you used it more often, with more accuracy, more understanding, it became less unpleasant. But having a foreign madra in your Pathways was much, much worse than even the first time you used it - unless you were smart enough to cut off all techniques in an instant.
Mala was not that smart - or at least, not that quick to react, as her Mind essence and your Underworld essence clashed inside of her pathways, tearing her apart from the inside out. This was Darpan's special technique that you'd watched him utilize to send Farbeasts into death spirals as they burned themselves from the inside out, their essence burning against his until they died. Mala was smarter than a Farbeast, so she instead threw herself back from you, slipping out of your hand with a wrenching effort - leaving the dagger behind. You could see the pain on her face as she collapsed towards the ground, spiritual pathway exertion mixing with the explosive madra conflict you'd just caused.
"She crushed your left eye socket. That's why things look weird." Garm explained it, and you reached up to feel it yourself - your body had already healed the bone as best it could, but your eyeball was crushed inside of it. And the human eye does not regenerate from such a wound naturally. "Kill them both so I can yell at you about how foolish all of this was."
Saachi finally seemed to have recovered from her panic at the slaughter, a shadow spear forming in her hand much faster than it had earlier. Had she not actually viewed you as a threat then, or was her Armament responding to her fear of impending death?
The graveyard in your soul called out to be filled, and Mala was still on the back foot as she dealt with her Madra-conflict. Saachi would be harder, but as you raised your hand you could see the marionette strings forming on your finger tips, as you touched on the creature that once was Rama. Its desire to make ally kill ally bleeding through in the moments that you touch it - but not in words or personality, more in instinct.
The desire to kill, to absorb is powerful. And you know you can do it - your mind suddenly finds new ways you can do it. You can see yourself grabbing Mala by her throat, and injecting her with the Underworld essence you now housed, forcing her body to war with itself until it exploded. A slow, visceral kill that would leave her in pain long before she died. She had taken your eye from you, she had intended to take your life. You had the power to make her suffer.
You feel like you are at war with yourself as Death settles in your soul, and tells you to kill. You cannot trust yourself to fight without killing, you cannot trust yourself to raise a fist without breaking through a skull. Your control was slipping just standing there with two targets in front of you. Your fear of the Sun warred with your fear of yourself, as bloodlust tore through you stronger than under the Signet's adrenaline.
[x] A. Resist the urge and flee before it overcomes you - leaving them alive, and the sun on.
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
[x] C. Make her end painful - fill her with Underworld essence.
[x] D. Use Rama's Strings to manipulate Saachi - force her to kill her teacher, but let her live.
[x] E. Kill them both as swiftly as possible, ensuring they don't suffer.
[x] F. Make them both suffer for your indignities.
[x] G. Force the two to fight it out with your strings.
Congrats, you have opened an Underworld Gate, and become a horrific and terrifying ghost-cultivator. You currently are host to two ghost remnants - Rama the Puppet, and Darpan the Sage. These two can grow in strength by being fed other sources of death essence, and you can absorb other remnants through absorption of the newly dead, provided they are powerful enough.
For now you've gained two technique's -
Marionette's March - You shoot out blood-like strings that attach to an enemy, allowing you to seize their movements and manipulate their physical actions with your thoughts.
Essence Injection - You push your essence into an opponent's spiritual pathways with a touch, inflicting essence deviation by force if they're too slow to respond.
You've also gained a few other things, but that can wait.
You've also semi permanently lost your left eye as the cost of turning your back on an opponent.
You push the screams out of your mind. You push the spiritual pain out of your mind. And you reach out - your desperate gasping breaths turn to cold and calculated as you breath in the essence of what was around you. Rama had helped guide you for so long now - he had helped you fight your first Elder what felt like so long ago, he walked you down the path of the hammer and pushed you to excel. And you weren't just going to let him go - you drew the scattering essence back to you, even as Garm warned you not to, even as he tried to get you to focus on the moment.
Drawing in Essence wasn't hard. You did it even time you breathed - everyone did. It was keeping the essence from dispersing that was hard. Pulling it into your spirit and holding it there. And you weren't just breathing in essence at random either, you were trying to specifically trap the person who was rapidly becoming nothing more than essence that had already drifted into a metaphorical wind. You blocked out every bit of Fear at what Mala might be doing to you, trusting Garm to protect you, trusting the Anklet to heal you, and trusting the pain suppression to let you pretend none of it was happening whilst you focused.
Something felt wrong about it, but you pushed through. The bits of death circulating around your inner Will, the small sun slowly becoming eclipsed in an oppressive darkness. You could feel something forming inside of your Spirit, though you couldn't be sure it was what you wanted. But hope filled you as sought to move forward - you wouldn't relent, you wouldn't back down. This time you'd save someone who was important to you, not let them die and be unable to do anything.
Something snapped and your inner world twisted and turned. The collection of celestial bodies ripped apart as your internal form shifted in a sudden jutting manner. With your spirit pathways tired from near complete overload, it was a painful process that made you scream out, your concentration nearly slipping. But something told you that if you let go, if you didn't see this through, you'd be crippled as badly as if Darpan had gotten his way - dead or worse on the floor here. So you clung onto sanity as you tried to catch your breath.
It felt like an eternity later when you saw what had replaced it. A shining sun still existed within, but you looked at it high in the sky as if you were bound to ground. And that ground was cold and dead - a wasteland stretching before you, as you stood beneath a flimsy wooden gate. You tried to take a step, but you couldn't move - you could only watch over what your soul had become - a graveyard. And two graves lay within it.
A sickening feeling formed in your stomach as you looked at the disembodied Darpan, a shade of his past self sitting upon the first grave. Flickering between existence and non existence. But full dread filled you as you took in the second form - hope crushed to nothingness as you saw not Rama the Ghost, but Rama the Revenant, a sickly puppet with weak, flickering strings attached. It did not move, it did not react, or look at you - neither of them did. There was no acknowledgement of what once were people within your soulscape. No comforting voice of an older Brother you never actually had.
Instead a panicked chime said, "You're going to die!"
You reached out your hand on instinct, catching a dagger through your palm as Garm managed to guide you out of the way. You didn't feel pain, so you didn't hesitate to close your hand around the dagger that had just been aimed for your face - and around the hand gripping it. Your eyes opened and you felt like the world was blurry, like you weren't seeing it right - you could see Mala having aimed her treasured Dagger at your face. But something was wrong.
Multiple things were wrong, you felt a twinge from your soul as your hand closed down around Mala's, disregarding the weapon embedded in you. Death energy shot through you on instinct - but instead of splashing against her skin, you saw the image of another hand overlain on yours - a hand that created a funnel for the energy, as it hit against skin - focusing all of it into the enemy's porous body, rather than letting it splash against. Your body seems to mimic the instinctual creation, and without even intending you feel your energy flooding into Mala's spiritual pathways.
Using your Pathways was always unpleasant. But as you grew more acclimated to your Armament, as you used it more often, with more accuracy, more understanding, it became less unpleasant. But having a foreign madra in your Pathways was much, much worse than even the first time you used it - unless you were smart enough to cut off all techniques in an instant.
Mala was not that smart - or at least, not that quick to react, as her Mind essence and your Underworld essence clashed inside of her pathways, tearing her apart from the inside out. This was Darpan's special technique that you'd watched him utilize to send Farbeasts into death spirals as they burned themselves from the inside out, their essence burning against his until they died. Mala was smarter than a Farbeast, so she instead threw herself back from you, slipping out of your hand with a wrenching effort - leaving the dagger behind. You could see the pain on her face as she collapsed towards the ground, spiritual pathway exertion mixing with the explosive madra conflict you'd just caused.
"She crushed your left eye socket. That's why things look weird." Garm explained it, and you reached up to feel it yourself - your body had already healed the bone as best it could, but your eyeball was crushed inside of it. And the human eye does not regenerate from such a wound naturally. "Kill them both so I can yell at you about how foolish all of this was."
Saachi finally seemed to have recovered from her panic at the slaughter, a shadow spear forming in her hand much faster than it had earlier. Had she not actually viewed you as a threat then, or was her Armament responding to her fear of impending death?
The graveyard in your soul called out to be filled, and Mala was still on the back foot as she dealt with her Madra-conflict. Saachi would be harder, but as you raised your hand you could see the marionette strings forming on your finger tips, as you touched on the creature that once was Rama. Its desire to make ally kill ally bleeding through in the moments that you touch it - but not in words or personality, more in instinct.
The desire to kill, to absorb is powerful. And you know you can do it - your mind suddenly finds new ways you can do it. You can see yourself grabbing Mala by her throat, and injecting her with the Underworld essence you now housed, forcing her body to war with itself until it exploded. A slow, visceral kill that would leave her in pain long before she died. She had taken your eye from you, she had intended to take your life. You had the power to make her suffer.
You feel like you are at war with yourself as Death settles in your soul, and tells you to kill. You cannot trust yourself to fight without killing, you cannot trust yourself to raise a fist without breaking through a skull. Your control was slipping just standing there with two targets in front of you. Your fear of the Sun warred with your fear of yourself, as bloodlust tore through you stronger than under the Signet's adrenaline.
[x] A. Resist the urge and flee before it overcomes you - leaving them alive, and the sun on.
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
[x] C. Make her end painful - fill her with Underworld essence.
[x] D. Use Rama's Strings to manipulate Saachi - force her to kill her teacher, but let her live.
[x] E. Kill them both as swiftly as possible, ensuring they don't suffer.
[x] F. Make them both suffer for your indignities.
[x] G. Force the two to fight it out with your strings.
Congrats, you have opened an Underworld Gate, and become a horrific and terrifying ghost-cultivator. You currently are host to two ghost remnants - Rama the Puppet, and Darpan the Sage. These two can grow in strength by being fed other sources of death essence, and you can absorb other remnants through absorption of the newly dead, provided they are powerful enough.
For now you've gained two technique's -
Marionette's March - You shoot out blood-like strings that attach to an enemy, allowing you to seize their movements and manipulate their physical actions with your thoughts.
Essence Injection - You push your essence into an opponent's spiritual pathways with a touch, inflicting essence deviation by force if they're too slow to respond.
You've also gained a few other things, but that can wait.
You've also semi permanently lost your left eye as the cost of turning your back on an opponent.
DangerKitty
shoddy writter
- Location
- lala land
[x] C. Make her end painful - fill her with Underworld essence.
Curious what this will do. Kinda hoping she joins darpan in our soulscape. As for the pain she's done more than enough to deserve it imo after what she and darpan have done to isha.
Dont think saachi deserves death. Though she'll def be terrified of us now.
Curious what this will do. Kinda hoping she joins darpan in our soulscape. As for the pain she's done more than enough to deserve it imo after what she and darpan have done to isha.
Dont think saachi deserves death. Though she'll def be terrified of us now.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Isha needs so much therapy.
This worked about as well as I expected it to. I hope that a small remnant of Rama the person can be coaxed from what remains. I don't find it likely though.
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
The tension for Isha to just completely lose it and choose the worst of the options is definitely there. Blaming Mala and Sachi is much easier.
So how badly did this wreck our signet compatibility? Death is pretty far removed from life, usually. It let's us make dark mirrors of those we kill, can we better use Ying?
This worked about as well as I expected it to. I hope that a small remnant of Rama the person can be coaxed from what remains. I don't find it likely though.
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
The tension for Isha to just completely lose it and choose the worst of the options is definitely there. Blaming Mala and Sachi is much easier.
So how badly did this wreck our signet compatibility? Death is pretty far removed from life, usually. It let's us make dark mirrors of those we kill, can we better use Ying?
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Lost eyes are an opportunity to gain more on the inside
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
Get it over with. I'm not interested in experimenting right now and frankly, she isn't worth the contempt.
@KittyEmpress I take it there's no knock out option because Isha just is fundamentally in the wrong state of mind to even try given the whole "control over body is failing."
Very much depends on the metaphysics at play. Death can either be the furthest removed from life or the absolute closet thing to it.
I personally say with enough will we can regain compatibility, and frankly I want to. She's unpleasant a lot of the time, but at the end of the day we've spent so much time getting her I want to take em just to go "I have em now stop bothering me!"
+...
I mean with her we'd have the trifecta.
The armaments intended to manipulate mind, soul and body with Garm to act as the master key.
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[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
No need to be cruel about it.
No need to be cruel about it.
It would be very cool if we could get a death/life duality going. Also if the dead eye can see into the underworld, while the living sees this one.
Sad to see Rama burned out his personhood, and right now we only have the revenant form. I think he borrowed his ability to be a person again from us, so maybe if we can restore our life connection?
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
I think killing her quickly lets us take her Ghost. Killing with death injection might make her more like a zombie. But Isha is too exhausted to take the slow option here.
Sad to see Rama burned out his personhood, and right now we only have the revenant form. I think he borrowed his ability to be a person again from us, so maybe if we can restore our life connection?
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
I think killing her quickly lets us take her Ghost. Killing with death injection might make her more like a zombie. But Isha is too exhausted to take the slow option here.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Yeah, currently that's what I'm aiming for. "To speak for the dead; to comfort the living; to celebrate both."
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
I don't remember Sachi do we not like her or just because of her association with Mala?
SleepyCaterpilar
Just a Rapariga
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
- Location
- A beautiful new land, at once alien and familiar.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Thanks for the awesome and terrifying update KE. Things are getting spicy and weird and I'm here for it.
What is the sun? And is the implication that every other option will put the sun out?
Edit: do I recall there is a discord in use for this quest/your quests?
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] G. Force the two to fight it out with your strings.
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
The Engines that are slowly killing the Realm.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There is also the sun inside Isha's internal soulscape, which I think is Garm.
I hope Isha can eventually make the graveyard into more of a shrine to those lost than the absolutely barren thing it is now.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A means you give up on the mission that drove you to come here - at least for now. Which was to turn off the Sun season that Darpan and Mala had turned on, which shrunk your 'timeline' from 7-10 years from collapse into 1-2 years. Garm told you that he could figure out how to get them to default mode at least, if you killed Darpan and Mala and took their Armaments for him to communicate with.
Committing violence without killing is going to be very difficult for Isha for awhile.
- Location
- A beautiful new land, at once alien and familiar.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ohhh ok thanks. I thought it was referring to the sun in the sky of Isha's inner realm.
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
[x] B. End Mala's life as swiftly as possible - resisting the urge to drag it out.
Oh boy, this one will be difficult to explain to Jute once we get back home.
Oh boy, this one will be difficult to explain to Jute once we get back home.
- Location
- A beautiful new land, at once alien and familiar.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I really like this idea. I'm not sure how much the ghosts of our dead enemies will care for the prettiness of the graves we keep them in, but if only for Isha's sake so she doesn't see the ghosts with contempt or callous disregard as nothing more than tools, imbuing this space with some care, respect and sacredness would be a good idea I think. And not to mention, as long as Isha has an antagonistic relationship of dominance with the remnants they will be Chekhovs Ghosts, just waiting for the opportunity to weaken her from within or assist an enemy that manages to invade her inner realm. I'm sure it won't be easy, but cultivating a positive relationship with the remnants she keeps would be a good defensive measure too. Not to mention for the remnants of Armament wielders we collect, with better relationships they might even be able to direct or assist Isha in using their Armaments. Their assistance along with Garms might allow Isha a much better affinity with Armaments she might not otherwise be able to use much.
I wonder what's going to happen after we're done with Mala. How will Sachi and the others react? I wonder if it will be possible to keep them on side despite the terrifying way she killed the others, convince them that Isha came in peace and only defended herself when betrayed. I hope so.
"Look sorry babes, your mentor made my eye pop like a grape and tried to put a knife in my neck, so made her pop like a grape and sucked her essence into my soul-space to keep her as a pet. I didn't want it to turn out this way. Honest."
SleepyCaterpilar
Just a Rapariga
Honestly, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed we didn't go the more traditional cultivator path or even the mermaid one we learned about.
But thematically it makes a lot of sense. Isha was always attracted to death. Just look at her past. She inherited the healer's armament and yet became a warrior, tried her hardest to save her community and here she just killed a couple dozen. It's very appropriate she would become a death cultivator.
Sure, signet compatibility will probably decrease quite a bit, but even if it falls by 50% I doubt Isha will be unable to use it. We simply invested too much into it.
Also, I wonder what will become of Mastery of Two Souls? Or any other Rama related skill now that he is in this new state of existence. It is a pity we probably are close to the end of the quest, I would love to explore what this new path of cultivation means, talk with the ghosts about it and maybe even see how the people of the embrace fit her powers within their Nakul centric worldview.
But thematically it makes a lot of sense. Isha was always attracted to death. Just look at her past. She inherited the healer's armament and yet became a warrior, tried her hardest to save her community and here she just killed a couple dozen. It's very appropriate she would become a death cultivator.
Sure, signet compatibility will probably decrease quite a bit, but even if it falls by 50% I doubt Isha will be unable to use it. We simply invested too much into it.
Also, I wonder what will become of Mastery of Two Souls? Or any other Rama related skill now that he is in this new state of existence. It is a pity we probably are close to the end of the quest, I would love to explore what this new path of cultivation means, talk with the ghosts about it and maybe even see how the people of the embrace fit her powers within their Nakul centric worldview.