Ling Qi remembered the nightmare of being one of the swarm, primal and pitiless, her teeth finding human throats. They chittered out in the dark, her kith and kin, fellow scavengers and vermin. Fires flickered in the far dark, and the phantom of the crimson and bloody hunter passed her by, his empty monstrous smile a warped sliver of light in shadow.
She could taste the blood on her tongu...
2022-09-22 23:16:19 +0000 UTC View Post“It spiraled up from unfathomable deeps, up and up, a great vortex without bottom or top, all the dreams of Xiangmen caught in the currents of its wind,” Ling Qi orated. Her words echoed in the dark gaol strangely. As she gestured in time with her words, black bubbles rose in the tarry liquid that surrounded Huisheng’s prison isle, rising into the air to lazily spin around her, shaped by ...
2022-09-20 00:09:14 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi looked up and up to the source of the new voice. Sixiang’s grandmother, the avatar of the Dreaming Moon, simultaneously towered high above and danced innocuously through the crowd in a way almost impossible to understand. Her trailing skirts were the spirits of the dance, her voice was the sound of festival, and her face the reflection of a thousand revelers. She was a child, a young ...
2022-09-15 17:58:49 +0000 UTC View PostAN: Meant to post this yesterday but here you are, a little interlude to mark the transition point in the sidestory.
At the top of the tallest tower in Phoenix Home, Ai Xiaoli watched the army marching from the outer gates of the city. From her perch upon the fragile balcony of shaped glass, they appeared as nothing more than a dark river cutting through the ye...
2022-09-15 17:47:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe revel was noisy and chaotic, but it seemed so different from the clouded gossamer memories of before. There was little elegance here. Even those who bore inhuman frames were somehow both more and less human as they stomped about, singing and carousing with the human shades.
“It’s the other part of me, too. You don’t let me indulge in it much.”
“What’s that supposed t...
2022-09-12 21:44:26 +0000 UTC View PostUnlike when Ling Qi went out on her own, they did have to make a brief stop to get Xia Lin changed into something less ostentatious since her clothes were not self-adjusting, but thankfully, the other girl was just as good at controlling her qi as Ling Qi. That made their stroll through the twigward streets much less awkward than it could have been, though to Ling Qi’s amusement, the intensit...
2022-09-09 00:01:29 +0000 UTC View Post“Our Doom?” Gu Xiulan asked. She tried not to let her voice quaver as she wiped at her eyes. “Now you’re being dramatic Father.”
“I am, is that not our way?” he said, briefly cracking a smile. “But, it is a truth all the same. We are the blood of the phoenix, but only its embers. Our ambition is often greater than our means.”
Gu Xiulan ducked her head. She knew it ...
2022-09-07 21:27:10 +0000 UTC View PostHer target spoke first as they approached. “Oh, Lady Ling! I wondered if I would encounter you here."
Mei Lanfen was an old woman with a kindly appearance. Her steel gray hair was drawn back in a bun, and her features bore more creases and wrinkles than usual for a cultivator, making her seem like a mortal in her late fifties or so. She was quite short, no taller than Suyin, and wore a ...
2022-09-06 00:37:17 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi sucked in a breath. “It’s a wonder that it's still here.”
“The ones who ascend can’t disappear so quickly, especially not right where they ascended.” Sixiang circled her like smoke as if at any moment that hidden light could lance out and destroy her.
When a cultivator reached the peak of the eighth and final realm and then ascended yet again, they ceased to exis...
2022-09-02 00:37:12 +0000 UTC View Post<Ah, you’re too hard on yourself,> chided Sixiang.
Maybe, thought Ling Qi, leaving the misty grounds behind. She rejoined the main street that wound along the immense branch of Xiangmen with the leafy green canopy still so unimaginably far above.
It was strange that there wasn’t a single person walking around below the second realm. There was much less of the reflexive obe...
2022-08-29 23:22:51 +0000 UTC View Post"A statement has been prepared." Yinhui slid a folded sheet of paper to her from across the table.
Ling Qi picked it up gingerly, unfolding it, and felt her eyebrows rise at the number of spirit stones listed there. It was enough to make her personal cultivation expenses irrelevant for years, if they were spent on just that. But she had peeked into Cai Renxiang's planning, and she knew th...
2022-08-25 18:49:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe approach to Xiangmen was strange and wondrous. For Ling Qi’s entire life, both on the streets of Tonghou and in the Sect, the dark vertical line on the northern horizon was as much a fact of life as the movement of the sun and moon. There was always some faint awareness that it was the distant capital of the province, Xiangmen, the Heavenly Pillar.
The road took them north, and the ...
2022-08-22 22:42:37 +0000 UTC View PostThen, very slowly, the woman cracked a smile. “I see. That is generous.”
“It is my hope that our relations can be friendly in the future, and if I may do an ally a favor while forestalling further tragedy, that can only be good,” Ling Qi replied. It was easier than ever to allow her own thoughts and Sixiang to operate in parallel, shaping her words for maximum effect. Diao Hualing...
2022-08-18 21:07:21 +0000 UTC View PostWhat it says on the tin, sorry everyone! No excuses from me, I just got super caught up in other work and I forgot to make my posts. Won't happen again!
2022-08-16 05:51:01 +0000 UTC View Post“It is my honor to receive such a polite guest,” the older woman said, her own bow less deep and ostentatious. Her gown was much more staid and businesslike than what she had worn at the tournament, a deep green with only plain geometric embroidery along the fitted hems. She raised her head after only a brief few seconds.“I must apologize that you were left waiting so long.”
“Th...
2022-08-16 05:46:16 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a long beat of silence in the carriage, oppressive and cloying.
“Your mother never does assign easy tasks,” Gan Guangli said, breaking it. His smile seemed dimmer, but it was firm.
Ling Qi wondered if he, too, was trying to contain a monster of incredulous fear in his chest. She managed a wan smile, resting her cheek on her hand. “I applaud your delivery, Lady Renxia...
2022-08-11 19:44:03 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi frowned at the little golden statue hovering over the labyrinth gate of her hub in the dream. It bothered her. Despite the fact that it was something the old Weilu had followed, that the Hui had claimed as their own, and that the Meng still claimed to follow a form of, books did not directly reference it, referring to it only in oblique metaphor.
“I feel like I need to say it ag...
2022-08-08 20:22:20 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi did not feel her best when next she stepped through the veil of dream. Her chest still ached with healing bone, and her arm was still restrained under heavy plaster and held tight to her chest in a sling. It would be a week or so before she could move it freely again.
But she was not going to ignore a debt she owed.
“Honestly, if the ol’ bonebag was gonna do immediate ha...
2022-08-05 02:03:40 +0000 UTC View Post“You cannot waste my time here,” her father said, his even voice rising over the creak of opening doors. The entrance to the spires training hall. Father’s training hall, were forged of the dull blue and black metal. Dusk Steel, mined from beneath Pheonixhome itself, a metal which required the flames of a fourth realm, infused with Shen to even forge. One of the great treasures and resour...
2022-08-03 18:30:41 +0000 UTC View PostShe didn’t feel so lucky though, sitting her friend up against the side of the cave.
Su Ling hacked up another mass of bloody water, and her eyes fluttered open. She mumbled, “Pretty sure we’re not dead?”
“Somehow.” Ling Qi swiped soaked hair out of her eyes.
Her friend’s eyes widened then, and she looked down. “Xisheng, are you okay?”
The child held un...
2022-08-02 00:05:49 +0000 UTC View Post“Deny as you want, but tell me, what were you gonna do with these scraps?” asked the fox.
Xisheng cowered behind Su Ling’s legs, their eyes shut. Their form was still in flux, features changing between eye blinks.
“Not a bad meal for a girl at your realm. You thought to get one over me?” The monster pursed wrinkled lips. “But… No, you cut it off. Can’t even use it to...
2022-07-28 22:10:16 +0000 UTC View PostSu Ling’s eyes flew open, and her ears and tail were standing on end. “We need to go.” The only hesitation was a faint grimace as she glanced toward the beatifically smiling child.
Ling Qi met Su Ling’s eyes. For that single moment, it was as if she could see the thoughts turning in her friend's mind.
“Like—” Ling Qi began.
“—Hells,” Su Ling growled.
...
2022-07-25 23:23:56 +0000 UTC View PostBeyond was the shrine center, filled with the fallen icons of little gods. Peeling paint that should have been too faded for detail nonetheless spoke the old tales of creation and the coming of Tsu in the currents of the liminal energy woven tight still through the walls. There, in the place of honor, stood the withered flowers of the Bountiful Earth, born of Tsu, patriarch spirit of the Emeral...
2022-07-21 17:45:40 +0000 UTC View PostColors, shapes, lights, and sounds rushed by. Ling QI held tight to her friend's hand against the ethereal wind which pushed back, rejecting the other girl’s stolid, firmly material qi. Ling Qi gritted her teeth in the face of it, tasting red on her tongue and hearing stone and earth in her ears as she focused, grasped the skein of the thin barrier between realms, and pushed.
The first ...
2022-07-11 21:02:45 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi reached up and flicked the cat-xiang’s nose, making them recoil. “I’ve just been thinking about what family really means. Everyone treats the connection as important. Even our doubters grudgingly acknowledge that some ancient marriage gives us a veil of legitimacy. That tapestry we found is going to sell for enough to fund the start up of a whole town. But you know from talking to...
2022-07-07 23:33:51 +0000 UTC View PostJust announcing in advance, the current section of the Quest is finishing and I will be taking my customary one week break from all posting. Will look forward to resuming with you all after the break!
2022-07-04 21:32:47 +0000 UTC View Post“Snow Blossom, huh?” Sixiang peered over Ling Qi’s head. Their weightless image appeared to lean on her back, trailing off into nothingness below the shoulders. “That’s kind of fanciful for you lot.”
“Well, Lady Cai nixed anything too humorous from the start.”
“The cabbage pun you proposed right off the bat had nothing to do with that, I’m sure,” Sixiang deadpa...
2022-07-04 21:29:34 +0000 UTC View PostWind kicked up as Ling Qi lifted into the air, the hems of her dress fluttering and snapping in the conjured breeze.
Gan Guangli reacted immediately and without a word, stepping in front of her with a wide guarded stance, his fists up. It went without saying that they would need to be careful. Damaging such a valuable and beautiful site would be terrible, even if it were not the home of s...
2022-06-30 23:21:48 +0000 UTC View Post“It is not the commotion which troubles me, this is a training hall,” her father said mildly.
Gu Xiulan remained as she was, head bowed, hands clasped. She could tell he was not done. Zheng Nan turned to face her father as well, his expression guileless.
“It is not, however, a proper place for a spar with guests,” her father continued, turning his eyes to Zheng Nan.
...
2022-06-29 21:31:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Your thoughts, Ling Qi?” Cai Renxiang asked. She stood beside an ornate table set in the middle of the snowy field. A map of high quality lay weighted upon it, and fresh ink was drying in the icy air. Ling Qi glanced across it, taking in the marked out course of the river and a few other locations already spied.
They were not doing this alone. Cartographic teams were already building...
2022-06-27 22:04:59 +0000 UTC View Post