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LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

There Bias Two posted:

Would J apply only to strictly physical weapons or also deflect techniques?

Depends on the technique. Should be fairly common sense. It’d work on Zhuque’s fire bolts or Rubia’s “bullets.” Wouldn’t do much against Tu Fei’s wave though, too persistent.

And the strength of the effect would matter.

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JT Jag
Aug 30, 2009

#1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver
C leaves us with a little cash on hand while getting us armor we probably won't need to worry about going obsolete for a while. And G--- Wotjeo might be able to manipulate metal armor to use as weapons or whatever.

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
D

Ablative armor. Breaks off or shatters outward when hit hard enough, or when Wotjeo uses metal guidance on it (so when people circle around him he can sacrifice the armor to hit them). Can be fed a large amount of our madra to repair at combat speed. Strong against big hits, weak against combinations. Drains madra in combat. Silvery armor with spikes and red highlights

We can buy the VEAs we need with CP for next week, or fight someone for them. This is for our bear brother.

A few things to keep in mind for this vote:

1. Our brain trust doesn't know that we have a Life dantian and are about to be trained by Qianni. That would change the advice they give. Life will likely give us absurd vitality and combat healing.

2. Wotjeo's job in a fight is to be the heavy, overwhelming threat. He needs armor so he can attack more freely instead of trying to somehow parry swords with his claws. The enemy should be on the defensive against his strength.

Great
G. Metal/Stone madra focused

Armor is armor and we want it to armor good against whatever.

Good
I. Wood madra focused - extra vitality.

More vitality would play to our strengths with Life, but also be kind of redundant. I think we'll have this covered with techniques.

J. Air madra focused.

In the theoretical case of a dancing archer enemy, like Liuxue, we'd want Wotjeo to charge while we pressure them with spikes. If they want to snipe a healer, wouldn't they snipe us? We also get some protection from ranged attacks with metal guidance, theoretically it could be used to make attacks miss, or to intercept them. It's a bit of a weakness right now, but one I think we're overcoming.

Bad
H. Water madra focused - can absorb a single technique of the same tier as the dantians used. Weaker against weapons.

Same tier as the dantian makes this a trap choice. These dantians are, at best, at our level. We'll outgrow this armor fast and it will only be able to handle techniques so weak we can probably muscle right through them. A single technique also isn't that great

K. Protection from Poison two techniques higher than the purchased tier, slightly weaker against weapons, adequate against water techniques but weak against most others

We haven't encountered poison techniques before but they seem to be a concern, and I'd bet Nuli or the Viridian know how to use them. Seems very in theme for viridians to use deadly poisons. But I'd expect that Life + our healing skills to beat poison techniques.

LLSix says we should let our imagination run wild though, so I think that's a call for creative write ins, so I'm going with that.

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope
D.
G.
Pick up an extra Quartz VEA for Min's lesson with CP


We have CP to burn to pick up a quartz for Min's lesson, or to make up for other stuff. It also feels in line with Pumie to blow her entire stockpile to protect her bro. Even moreso to get him the same kind of armor she has so they match like adorable twinsies.

Zodiac5000 fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Feb 24, 2021

Chatrapati
Nov 6, 2012
DG Silver

There Bias Two
Jan 13, 2009
I'm not a good person

DG

MaliciousOnion
Sep 23, 2009

Ignorance, the root of all evil

Zodiac5000 posted:

D.

Pick up an extra Quartz VEA for Min's lesson with CP


For the imbuement - light-imbued armour that can reflect energy directed at it in a flash of dazzling light. Colour of the sky, changes with the time of day.

malbogio
Jan 19, 2015

CG

Shinarato
Apr 22, 2013

Toughy posted:

D

G

Get the VEA for Min lesson with CP


This has my vote.

Nothingtoseehere
Nov 11, 2010


DG

Resources are for spending.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

Armor ideas that I wont be voting for but I figured I'd throw out there anyways


Fire + Air combo that reacts not only with a (weaker than pure air) gust of air, but also with a puff of flame to burn close attackers.

(If we could find them) Fear dantian based armor that makes the wearer look more imposing and creates a psychological attack.

Metal dantian armor (maybe mixed with air) that acts as a magnet, and traps enemy metal weapons into the armored part and makes them difficult to pull back, throwing people off balance (only really useful for weapons)

KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Feb 24, 2021

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope
I want the armor to come in a very small harness and spread out like the armor in dead space. This makes the most sense with the pure metal armor

GlassEye-Boy
Jul 12, 2001
Not sure why Pumie is moralizing so much about killing spirit animals. It's something her clan and several others did on a regular basis back in the valley.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

GlassEye-Boy posted:

Not sure why Pumie is moralizing so much about killing spirit animals. It's something her clan and several others did on a regular basis back in the valley.

Because we specifically voted to go vegetarian and become friends with spirits unlike people back home, and have been that way since we were 5 years old.

Also because back home Hunters hunted to provide meat to the clan, which had severe food shortage issues without good hunts. Here people hunt spirits, rip their dantians out, and leave the rest to rot (as far as we have seen).

She can kinda rationalize 'taking a life to feed another', thats a natural part of the cycle of life. she cannot rationalize 'taking a lot of lives for money'

Cannon_Fodder
Jul 17, 2007

"Hey, where did Steve go?"
Design by Kamoc
Those fear dantians would have come in quite handy.


I'm worried we won't get any use out of the Dream bit of our Dreamsilver unless we figure out a new strategy.

I really don't like that we've given up on our Dream Mirror. Sure, trauma, got it. We've been traumatized over and over and over again, down to being literally impaled, but somehow Dream Mirror got sacrificed on the "never again" pyre.

Big-ol' frowny face. If we ever have to pull it out in a pinch, it'll backfire horribly due to zero practice and higher-tier cultivators. Mark my woorrrddssss :ghost:

JT Jag
Aug 30, 2009

#1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver

Cannon_Fodder posted:

Those fear dantians would have come in quite handy.


I'm worried we won't get any use out of the Dream bit of our Dreamsilver unless we figure out a new strategy.

I really don't like that we've given up on our Dream Mirror. Sure, trauma, got it. We've been traumatized over and over and over again, down to being literally impaled, but somehow Dream Mirror got sacrificed on the "never again" pyre.

Big-ol' frowny face. If we ever have to pull it out in a pinch, it'll backfire horribly due to zero practice and higher-tier cultivators. Mark my woorrrddssss :ghost:
Strong agree, I think Pumie needs to get over herself and start practicing Dream Mirror again too. And the idea could come to her naturally after she gets a more steady supply of dream madra.

Cannon_Fodder
Jul 17, 2007

"Hey, where did Steve go?"
Design by Kamoc
Dream is our ace-in-the-hole. Even Life is more conventional.

We should do a ton more ability exploration in that space. I know healing is making our dantian pretty bitchin, now let's experiment. We can't really get a tutor for it, right? What's the closest local madra type that could be analogous?

the irony of us being aghast when considering mind-control of spirit beasts to make companions is not lost on me

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
Since mind control is illegal it might be lucky that we aren't using dream mirror. Maybe even implanted.

Dr Subterfuge
Aug 31, 2005

TIME TO ROC N' ROLL
Dream Mirror is basically an illusion technique. Someone's reaction to what they see is completely organic.

JT Jag
Aug 30, 2009

#1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver
Yeah, Dream Mirror isn't mind control at all, it can't make anyone do anything they wouldn't have done normally

There Bias Two
Jan 13, 2009
I'm not a good person

JT Jag posted:

Yeah, Dream Mirror isn't mind control at all, it can't make anyone do anything they wouldn't have done normally

I disagree with this. There must be an element of mind control to it, because people just seeing what they want is useless if they have the mental fortitude to realize it doesn't make any sense in context.They also have to believe the thing they are seeing is real and happening.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

We had a few chances to open up about our past and our trauma to people. We have consistently voted to keep the secret of our home, our family, and our hosed up scars. We even hid our relationship with Wotjeo from Qianni, which is why she treated him as our pet.

Pumie isn't gonna work through the trauma on her own unless forced to, and we have voted against talking about anything in our past continually. She isn't gonna improve her mindset on the mirror like that.

And at the same time, she is a bad liar who cannot tell half truths to reveal her source of trauma without outing her family and the Valley.


If we want to start using Dream Mirror, we should probably actually vote to answer qianni's questions next time she tries to ask about our past. Then we can actually have a confidant who understands our trauma and can help is through it.

The risk being, of course, that the big bear in the sky said never to tell anyone about the valley or anything about it, or else. (Also that Qianni is loyal to the school, and might inform the Yun)

alpaca diseases
May 19, 2009

D - only the best for our bear-bro

KittyEmpress posted:

(If we could find them) Fear dantian based armor that makes the wearer look more imposing and creates a psychological attack.

Are we able to find the trader who we sold our original fear dantians to and see if he still has them? because

[/b]+1 to Metal/Fear[/b] - The all round defense/ability to be manipulated by Wojeto of Metal + whenever he's struck, attacker gets a flash of whatever they're afraid of- severity depending on how comparable their strength is to the dantian (from outright 'poo poo there's spiders crawling up my jian or suddenly sees his disapproving father watching the duel, to a brief deja vu of that mortal enemy that as defeated long ago)

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
How many of our friend even know we have some pretty gnarly scars, like when we almost got ripped in half.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

Deadmeat5150 posted:

How many of our friend even know we have some pretty gnarly scars, like when we almost got ripped in half.

Even if they knew we had them, they all disappeared at some point (I think post Life Dantian forming). We are scarless currently.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
They did? Well ok then. Id forgotten about that.

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
Yeah, though we did show them to a few people. I think Zhuque and Chew? We may have talked about being impaled to Bailei and the twins. Life removed them and made us a bit more bubbly and high energy. As someone with some chronic pain myself I imagine its miraculous absence would do that for me, though there might be a deeper meaning to that. I'm not sure if that's permanent but people commented on it.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

So I was pondering our madra in the discord channel (because my laptop is broken and I can't update my own story).

A lot of people talk about pure metal techniques or pure dream techniques or predominantly one essence type ones and how we should make some dream focused ones.

But I came up with a really bad metaphor to inflict on you all:

Metal essence is tomatoes. Dream essence is chili peppers. Both of them can be used in endless ways theoretically. But we have both, blended together into a delicious salsa called dream silver madra (or silver bear madra).

Trying to make a spaghetti sauce (metal technique) out of our salsa (dream silver) is never going to work as well as if we just has tomatoes. Making a chille relleno (dream technique) with tomato stuffing (metal) is going to throw off what the dish is meant to be.

Instead we should be making a nice chili with spicy chilis and tomatoes working together to create a delicious balanced dish that uses both of our essences in their unique mix.


Now then, with that absolutely painful metaphor out of the way, my attempt to analyze our techniques:

Metal Guidance: Obviously the way we use it is mostly like any other Metal user. We have been told that by Jironou. We have seen how others with our madra use it, in Rubia and Minaro, and I think a curious aspect in them both is that they defy the 'usual' ways our tutor says it works. Both utilize touchless guidance to create rapid fire ranged attacks without needing to move. Maybe the key to that is introducing our visualization, our picture, our expectation of how it should fly with Dream?

Metal Manipulation: We don't really use this much, but it seems more straight forward and more a result of a proper mix: it is us utilizing our visualization of what we want to see the metal become, inflicting change on it. I think the reason it kicks back into the form it started is in part because we don't insert a solid enough image of what we want to 'keep' it that way.

Dream Mirror: a heavy dream? Technique that also utilizes metal at least as a medium. It shows people what they want to see (their dreams) in a current situation, by broadcasting a mind affecting power over the medium of large madra-created mirrors, that can be physically broken. We managed to brute force a win despite this by overlaying a lot of them at once, but what does that mean? It might need more metal (stability) in it, to make it less easily broken out of. Currently is off the table though.

Healing: Our custom healing technique, from what I remember, works by utilizing a diagnostic technique that detects what a person's body 'should' look like, having Wotjeo hold that image in his mind, while Pumie creates a facsimile of what is wrong or missing using Dream, then makes it solid by filling that image with Metal. This shows us what Dream Silver can do, with Dream creating an idea and Metal putting it into action and making it real.

Spirit's Strength: This is easy to see as just 'a mechanic of the spirit bond', but we never had that confirmed to us. We never got told that water leopards had a spirits agility or what not. So this is just from a perspective that it might just be a dream silver technique: I think it might work by taking our image and knowledge of how strong each other are (dream), then our picture of how strong we are together (dream), and our desire to work together (dream) to create an image of two as one, with their combined power. Then with that image made, Metal creates the physical impact on our body, letting us utilize this idealized strength and making sure our body can handle it? This is my most theoretical idea, it might not be at all accurate.


This is all just to contribute thoughts on what we can do ans what it says about what we could do some day.

KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Feb 25, 2021

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

That was a surprisingly unanimous vote.

Pretty much everyone in Aestia Valley were known to be more agile, on average, than Silver Bears. Corazon Chamois less so than others.

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

alpaca diseases posted:

D - only the best for our bear-bro

JT Jag posted:

G--- Wotjeo might be able to manipulate metal armor to use as weapons or whatever.

Late Fall - (Lianhe, Metal Week(4), Day 7) - continued

They can always earn more VEAs or just buy them with contribution points, but if Wotjeo dies, there’s no way for Pūmič to replace her beloved bear brother. She argues that they should spend all the VEAs they have on his armor. It doesn’t take much for her to convince Wotjeo. He too can see the sense in paying more now to bleed less later.

Dashuijie takes over the negotiations after Pūmič’s initially fumbling attempts nearly result in her giving away the robe they won in one of their duels for free. With the aid of her skilled tongue, the friends leave the trader’s caves having handed over every non-life VEA to their name, the robe, and two of the larger dawn dantians they’d won. In exchange, Big Bailei is now carrying the four medium size shining (tier 2.2-2.3) silver and gray dantians Wotjeo was initially drawn to as well as two smaller copper-hued shining (tier 2.1) dantians.

Big Bailei happily announces, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the same half of the village to hear. “YOUR ARMOR IS GOING TO BE GREAT, WOTJEO! I SHOULD HAVE IT FINISHED JUST BEFORE NEXT MONTH.”

Pūmič claps her hands in delight. Afterwards, she wrinkles her forehead in confusion as she remembers a similar conversation. “The robes I’m wearing took two weeks to make, but Joedouzhe month is only a week away.”

Big Bailei snorts proudly. “GOOD THING I’M NOT A BLOODY USELESS WEAVER THEN.”

Delicately, Dashuijie interjects. “I think what Pūmič meant to ask, is why you can make imbued clothing so much faster than other people. I would be interested to learn the answer as well. Your knowledge of imbuing is far superior to ours.”

Big Bailei nods her head and answers with a smile. “THAT MAKES SENSE. METAL ARMOR IS COMPATIBLE WITH THE METAL DANTIANS I’LL BE WORKING WITH. IT MAKES THE WORK GO FASTER. “COTTON” ROBES LIKE WE’RE WEARING CAN BE IMBUED IN NEARLY ANY WAY, BUT THEY’RE NOT A GOOD MATCH WITH ANY OF THE IMPERIAL FIVE OTHER THAN WOOD. GOOD ENOUGH FOR KIDDIE ROBES, OR SOCIAL WEAR, BUT FOR SERIOUS WORK YOU GET BETTER RESULTS WORKING WITH COMPATIBLE BASE MATERIALS. IF YOU’D WANTED THE AIR IMBUING DASHUIJIE SUGGESTED WE’D HAVE HAD TO BUY SOME CRYSTALS AND PROBABLY SOME SILVER TO ANCHOR IT.”

Big Bailei looks away and mutters in a quieter tone. Coming from anyone else, it would be considered a shout, but for Big Bailei it is a significant reduction in volume. “Besides, I’ll be working late nights most of next week. I can’t let my friend fight in the duels at the start of next month without her fancy new armor.”

***

Buying 4 replacement balanced diamond VEAs to cultivate with and a quartz to test with Xue Min next week nearly wiped out all the contribution points Wotjeo and Pūmič had been hoarding. The VEAs cost 13 contribution points in total. Then they spent 2 more on securing private lessons. That left them with only 1 CP left, and seriously considering making time to fit in a Job Hall task soon. Or spending more time in the Healer’s Hall.

Late Fall - (Lianhe, Water Week(5), Day 1)

The first half of the first day of the last week of Lianhe month saw the duo faced with several important decisions.

Last week, Pūmič had activated two diamond vital-essence amplifiers and when Wotjeo tried to activate a third, the pair had nearly had all their vital-essence ripped out of them. The question then, was, which of them was going to activate the VEAs they needed to cultivate this time, for water week?

1) Who activates the VEAs?
A. Pūmič
B. Wotjeo
Write in

The first problem settled, the duo enjoyed a relaxed breakfast with Liuxue. Afterwards, the four of them walked together to the Lesson Hall at the slow pace Bčiké the giant tortoise naturally ambled along at. They socialized with their friends in Practice Hall One until Elder Yun Hui deigned to appear by flying in on spirit back through the hole in the roof.

Separating from the others to begin cultivating until the Elder could give them a few moments of his time, Wotjeo and Pūmič had to decide if they wanted to cultivate Wotjeo’s Dream Silver dantian together or each work on their own Life dantians.

2) Which madra do you cultivate?
E. Dream Silver
F. Life


Schedule this week, order not set
Servant Auction?
Dreamwalking interludes

( Social 1) Elder Physical Stat Improvements + Repay Liuxue favor by making friends with Qiqiang Haruhia & Wuye - the black shadow panther girl test!
(Training 1) Healing Lessons with Old Wupo
(Training 2) Healing Lessons with Zhe Zhuru CP raise? Or new bone healing technique?
(Training 3) Meeting with Xue Min (half on whatever Xue Min wants to do, half on whatever goons vote for)
(Training 4 & Social 2) Dashuijie spirit hunt
(Training 5) Spirit Strength Tutor
Armor delivery

Schedule next week, order not set
Servant Auction?
Dreamwalking interludes

Elder Dantians
( Social 1) Elder Physical Stat Improvements + Repay Liuxue favor by making friends with Qiqiang Haruhia & Wuye - the black shadow panther girl
(Training 1) Healing Lessons with Old Wupo
(Training 2) Healing Lessons with Zhe Zhuru CP raise? Or new bone healing technique?
(Training 3) Meeting with Xue Min (half on whatever Xue Min wants to do, half on whatever goons vote for)

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

B - if our current theory is that Pumie can support a quartz with her own dantian now properly existing, Wotjeo should activate these diamonds.

E - thought we were still doing xingqi for another week, but either way we have to keep Life a secret. Trying to cultivate it in the middle of a busy room full of other students isnt keeping it a secret.

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
1. B

We're voting on 1, so it must have some kind of significance. If we want to try using a Quartz, I think it's better that Wotjeo uses the diamonds. Wotjeo is the base of the 2 diamonds madra system with a large dreamsilver and a small life dantian. Pumie also has a life dantian that's separate from Wotjeo's system. Maybe she can handle 1 quartz for the life dantian.

2. E

Cultivating Life in public is too risky. Even without diagnostic techniques people might recognize the odd color that's so clearly associated with Qianni. Besides, we don't want to neglect dreamsilver, it's associated with most of our techniques and Wotjeo's growth. We're also still kind of poo poo at cultivating Life.

For now I want to cultivate Life only under private supervision by Min or Qianni.

There Bias Two
Jan 13, 2009
I'm not a good person

BE

Dr Subterfuge
Aug 31, 2005

TIME TO ROC N' ROLL
BE

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope
BE

Toughy
Nov 29, 2004

KAVODEL! KAVODEL!

BE

Chatrapati
Nov 6, 2012
BE

Cannon_Fodder
Jul 17, 2007

"Hey, where did Steve go?"
Design by Kamoc
ButtEs

malbogio
Jan 19, 2015

BE

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Shinarato
Apr 22, 2013

Mr. Prokosch posted:

1. B

We're voting on 1, so it must have some kind of significance. If we want to try using a Quartz, I think it's better that Wotjeo uses the diamonds. Wotjeo is the base of the 2 diamonds madra system with a large dreamsilver and a small life dantian. Pumie also has a life dantian that's separate from Wotjeo's system. Maybe she can handle 1 quartz for the life dantian.

2. E

Cultivating Life in public is too risky. Even without diagnostic techniques people might recognize the odd color that's so clearly associated with Qianni. Besides, we don't want to neglect dreamsilver, it's associated with most of our techniques and Wotjeo's growth. We're also still kind of poo poo at cultivating Life.

For now I want to cultivate Life only under private supervision by Min or Qianni.

I go for this reasoning.

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