Adventures of Fu: Fu Loses A Sparring Match, Does Boring Investigative Shit

 The latest AoW session wasn't really an eventful one. I mean, investigation and a sparring, what's to talk about?

After I retired from the previous session, Fu went to train his conditioning. He is unhappy with his power and believes he needs to strike harder! Needing that many strikes against demons, he reasons he'd be hard pressed against more enemies.

 

Enemies need to really feel one's attack, otherwise what's the point?

 

(He was impressed by Wolf dismembering the demons with steel claws and magic power from his hands).

 

Meanwhile Yanzi visited his rival, Blue Monkey. Fu decided not to go because he kinda cares about the man: didn't want to make it seem like he's gloating, "look I didn't got hurt by the demon" style!

 

Then she reported Blue Monkey was doing worse, due to refusing to drink his medicine. Why? Because Jing Xiaomei - Silver Fox - had prepared it! He obviously hated her!
 

"He's a moron!", Fu judged. "I need to beat him more to make him smarter! I didn't beat him(1) nearly enough!"

That's when he met a guy he'd met earlier (I don't think I mentioned him): the one Yanzi had tried to pickpocket(2), and he spotted her! The man was walking around in the clan compound, which Fu found weird, but since the unknown man knew the shifu, Fu reasoned he's an ally or a student of an allied master, likely the latter...

 

So he merely asked him for his name. Turned out, it was Jing!

 

"Oh? You have...", he looked at the guy.
 

Nah, similar face to both Wolf and Jing Xiaomei (White Fox)!
 

"Very powerful relatives, I guess? I think I just met your sister!"
 

"Oh? Has my dear sister switched to men? That would be...interesting!"
 

"Huh? What do you mean? I mean I just left her in the Golden Lotus! If you're implying anything untoward, I assure you no such thing has ever crossed my mind!"
 

"Calm down...So she's here, too? Listen, I want you to tell neither her nor father that I'm here!"
 

OK, obviously that was Jing Xiaomei's brother. Fu, however, didn't like his demand.
"Who is the elder between you two?"
 

"Oh...I think it's her, by some 10 minutes or so!"

 

Then Fu bowed.
 

"I won't go out of my way to inform any of them, but I won't lie to their faces if they ask, either!"
 

How dares a younger brother hide from Big Sister? Or from his father? The best a beggar could do was look the other way!
 

"Are you planning to go out?"
 

"Nope, I was planning to do some conditioning..."
 

"Good enough. I'll look for someone to train with when I return!"
And he left. Fu practiced and went to sleep, but was woken up by the man returning in the small hours.
 

Some people are so inconsiderate, and not taking into account that other people are sleeping! Fu was of half a mind to go and teach him a lesson, but then reasoned that he wasn't the only one who got woken, and the elders are tolerating this youngster, there's probably a financial reason - so he went back to sleep.

On the morning, Fu was practicing again - yes, even before breakfast - when the young Jin, who introduces himself as Black Fox now (his sister is White Fox, and yes, it sounds macabre), appeared.
 

"Tell me, young Fu, which of the Beggar clan members are here for practice?"
 

"Do you mean the students?"
 

"No. The masters. I'm looking for a good sparring to move myself a little".
 

Fu swallowed the man's insolence again, but was seriously starting to fume...
 

"Well, you know the blind teacher is here, I believe she's the best!"
 

She's also the one most likely to give him a good thrashing, as Fu knew. So he told him nothing new, nothing useful, and set him up for a beating!
 

When it's about fighting or prestige, Fu gets inventive. This was about both!

"I know her, she's good...but no, she is likely to get too serious! I won't be hurt much, but I don't want to lose her good graces...come to think of it, she likes me best from my family, now! Wouldn't want to waste that!"

Fu nodded, but wondered why. Maybe White Fox had a hidden bad streak? (Please note, he didn't think it's because of the man's good qualities, but because she likes his dad and sister less! Goes to show what Fu thinks of the man...)

"Then I'm not in a measure to help", he bowed.
 

Telling him about Shifu Wu and Shifu Hu? Of course not. They might be sleeping still, who does this guy think he is?
 

"Unless you're willing to accept my help?"
 

"Eh...I don't want to hurt you."
 

"I'm sorry if my lack of skill isn't worthy of Young Master, but all I have to offer is myself!"
 

"Listen, can't you go and take someone you're used to working with? It would make it more interesting!"
 

Fu fumed internally. This man had just told him that he needs at least two beggar fighters for a good workout!
 

"I'm afraid none of them is available, either! Blue Monkey (3) is healing from the last fight, he needs to learn to protect his ass better (4), and my other friends aren't really much of fighters, I'm all I can offer to the Young Master!"

The man seemed genuinely worried. Which only made Fu more resolute to offer his help as a sparring partner, of course! After all, one can't allow that man to tell that he needed two or three Beggar Fighters for a decent workout, right?

"Fine, let's do it!", the man allowed. Then he even allowed Fu to attack.

The first round went uneventful. The man kept trying to grab Fu and lock or throw him. The Beggar warrior isn't a wrestler, so he kept his hands away - though admittedly he even needed every gram of his strength, including spending some (5) of his chi.

 

In the next round, he also struck a total of one successful strike - a knee to the midsection - against Jing. Then the man simply swamped his defenses, and first kicked him...far away.

 

Fu stopped near the wall and looked at Jing who was worried.
 

"Hey are you alright?"
 

"Of course! Who practices kung-fu and expects he wouldn't get struck?!?"

"Glad to hear that!"
 

Then the man threw Fu, but the beggar rolled around, dissipating the force of the throw and not allowing it (6) to damage him.

 

Jing looked surprised again. He asked again if Fu was right and was met by another shrug.

Then, at the 4th or 5th round, Jing struck a point at the base of Fu's neck, and the Beggar lost control of his hands and feet (6)! Jing, however, grabbed him before he could fall, and struck another point at the base of his neck, somewhere else, and Fu had control of his hands and feet again!

Of course, he wasn't going to continue. He lost fair and square!
 

So Fu bowed.

"Please don't think less of the Beggar Fraternity kung-fu due to my lack of skills and abilities!", Fu implored. "I'm sorry I couldn't give Young Master a better workout, but please allow me another chance in 3 years, and I'll promise to do my utmost to get in better shape to meet Young Master's skills!"

 

That was, of course, an official challenge to a second match! There's a saying in Chinese martial arts, "go to the mountain to train for 3 years", Fu was behaving according to custom.

 

Jing, however, reacted in a heterodox way again, much like his father and sister one must note.
 

"Three years? Eh, don't take it that seriously, it's just a spar...though it's good for a young man to have goals!"
 

If you ask Fu, that meant "yes".
 

"Than you, Young Master, I'll do my best to not disappoint Young Master!"
 

"Oh, I'm not disappointed! You have talent, obviously, for lasting that long!"
 

"I lasted longer against demons! Young Master is obviously (7) very good!"
 

"Oh? Full demons? Tell me!"

So Fu told him about the fight against demons. The slimy, repulsive ones. He gave a honest account of his role, including "I didn't do much, but tried my best to hold them for the elders".

Then Jing invited him to a restaurant along with any friends, and promised they'd have steak!

Fu took his Teacher Hu and Yanzi - who was looking at the young master kinda provocatively, but for all Fu cares, it's makes total sense she'd want a rich husband if she could. There he told Jing about the smoky ones. He didn't mention the previous one, though, not wanting to make it seem like he's showing off!

Small detail: Fu told all of this while doing conditioning exercises, waiting for the steak to get ready! The Jing commented on him being very diligent.

"Your teacher is very strict!"

"He has not told me to do it", Fu shrugged, pointing at Hu. "You can ask him!"

"I did not. He should enjoy the better things in life", Hu confirmed.

"...then why are you doing this?"

"I only have three years, I have no time to waste or I'd disappoint Young Master a second time!"

Yes, Fu is taking this very seriously.

Small detail: The part he hated most was that Jing's strikes were stronger than his.

Anyway...the young Jing got angry when he heard about Four Southern Winds being in the city. He also commended Fu on surviving against the last type of demons.

 

And he mentioned almost casually that him and his sister are "half-demons". Due to it, as he explained, they must never kill any man, or they'd risk losing the human part of their souls!
 

He cursed the 4SW profusely, and said he would need lots of restraint if he faced them.

"I'm forbidden to from my teachers", Fu sighed. "So I can't continue to chase them. But I can do some other stuff that would help other people to be useful!"

Jing, however, talked Hu into agreeing, promising he'd return Fu alive. Fu didn't like that, but he recognized the man had proven his ability.

"You can go with Young Master, if he walks in the front", is what Hu said.
 

"Thank you, Master", was Fu's reply.

Jing also mentioned some other things that almost made Fu's jaw drop. He wouldn't have offered such info freely, or at all! The information included that young Jing was actually older than Hu. He claims to be 80 and have a method to rejuvenate himself, like his father and sister!

What? Fu finds it incomprehensible... and speaking freely? How come the nobles don't want their secret? They could stop bothering with inheritance and stuff, and just rule forever!
 

These people are weird!

Be it as it may, he is going to keep his mouth shut. He only has three years to defeat one of them, who knows whether the Young Master would agree to another round if he blows this sparring, too?!?
 

The rich and powerful might have their own ways of doing stuff. The poor, Fu reasons, only have their honour, a piece of bread, and their strength and discipline!

After eating, we went to check the house of the wizard that we've arrested, the one who had summoned the smoky-forms demons. He has already been executed - nobody bothers with demon summoners - but Jing mentioned that since his house is close to the market, and we knew that one of the Four Southern Winds was hiding in the market (that's where the Wolf's people lost him, while we were looking for the kids, see Session Two), we should check.
 

Turned out, Jing is an official in the Ministry of Magic Affairs that Fu'd never heard about - he took a mental note that "these are probably the people that deal with magorasts" - and we just marched in.

We basically raided the house, looking for anything suspicious. Yanzi thought some small, but valuable items are very suspicious! Fu had suspicions regarding some richly illustrated text that didn't have many words (nor clothes on the illustrations...), and some book on martial arts!

When Fu took that one, it being the only martial arts text in the library, a door that had remained unseen, opened in the shelves!

"Good call! How did you find it?"

"I just wanted to see the book", Fu admitted. Lying is for men lesser than beggars, unless lying for a good cause!

And then we found another library. Only one of the books there was of any interest to Jing. (Fu took three of the magic texts, once Jing declared them worthless, "only good for parlour tricks").

This one book, though, Jing basically destroyed with magic fire. He only left the covers, because they had a seal that was, according to him, hard to duplicate, showing the book was passing on knowledge from the Sorcerer-Kings of Ming Dinasty. (That's akin to saying "Mythos" in other settings and Ming isn't the dynasty that ended in 1644 AD, it's an in-setting "time when sorcerers ruled and sacrificed people to demons").

"Not even a good translation!", he despaired (he studied it briefly before destroying it). "No wonder he caused so much damage!"

With this info, we went to check on some info. We consulted the former teacher of the executed sorcerer (Fu believes he told us nothing useful, though he appreciated that the man confirmed that the late wannabe sorcerer was a giftless moron), and then went to meet Wolf and Silver Fox in the Golden Lotus.

Black Fox showed the results of his work, and joined the search for the Four Southern Winds officially. Even though he was just complaining half an hour ago the Big Sis and Father drag him to deal with "yet another Other People's Problems" all the time, with no time to enjoy the Finer Things In Life.

Fu didn't tell him it might be for the good of everyone else, but he was thinking about it. If he wins, he is going to tell him a lot of things in three years!

Also, Fu went trying to suss out people interested in Ming sorcery. How? By the simple expedient of selling the books that Jing Junior had declared worthless! He just offered them, tried to reach the best price, then said "oh wait, we took them from the home of the sorcerer who got executed, they should be worth more!" (Absolutely true, as you can notice).

And he left, trying to see if anyone would call him back...

No such people were forthcoming.
 

Well, one guy called him. But what he said was "you just admitted you stole them from a place that's under surveillance, come with me, I'm a cop!"
 

Fu went with him dutifully. Once outside, he told him he's working for Ministry of Magic Affairs and explained the whole scheme. The man didn't believe him, of course, so he went with him to the Watch's Precinct.
 

Once there, the story got confirmed - they had passed by the precinct, asking for info on the executed sorcerer's teacher. So people had seen Fu walking in tow after Jing Junior, and his story got confirmed.
 

He even got his books back (and returned the money to the watchman, who is BTW some kind of by-the-book type...even if he can't read very complicated words, in all likelihood).

That's more or less where it ended.

End notes:

1. That happened in-game, but before the session I took for a starting point. For comparison, Fu has about 30-35 XP already...so if I mention he has killed demons, but no men...yet... don't be surprised. He's had ample opportunity for both, though.
Any deeds I mention in this AAR or any future ones have happened in-game, though, unless I specify that it has never happened actually. 

He beat Blue Monkey twice. He has killed demons. He has helped poor people, he has won a tournament (the Juniors league...) and reached the semi-finals of another.

 

2. Then he brought her to to the Beggar Clan compound like he owned the place. Fu followed them to make sure the man wouldn't hurt her in retaliation for having tried to steal from him. It turned out the unknown man knew the blind shifu/teacher, so when Fu saw them talking peacefully, he left, not even bothering to learn his name.

 

There are such minor events in the session that I don't always mention, simply because they slip my mind!

3. That's Chen's nickname in the clan. He's actually not using his actual name, me knowing it was an OOC slip by the GM. She mixes those things up sometimes, but then who doesn't?
 

4. Literally. See the episode before.
 

5. A finite resource in the system that allows stuff like rerolls. Fu has 4 Chi, due to being trained as a mystic, most kung-fu fighters would have 3 points, normal people have 0.
 

Admittedly Fu's style isn't geared towards 1-on-1 fights. He's good when opponents try to ambush you, or when there's no light, but those are events that crop up in the course of a beggar's life and in adventures, not on a ring!
 

6. Both the "fly away to not be hurt" moves were applications of Fu's recently-acquired Roll With The Impact technique, and the last move was an Acupressure Strike.
 

For comparison, Fu lasted 9 or 10 rounds against a demon and was going to win that one. His combat rating is currently 91%, which is huge in any d100 game.
AFAICT, the man has a rating well over 100, though. It's not a problem in any d100 game I play. It just means the only way to hit him on the first attack is by rolling a critical.
 

7. Yes, he is. Everyone from the Wolf's descendants has at least Kung-fu 4 in at least one style, most have more AFAIK, totally OOC. That's before the sorcery training.

 

Not that it would have impacted Fu's decision-making if he knew...