Adventures of Fu: Fu Follows A Sorcerer, Ascends To Heavens On A Bridge Of Spiders, Fights A Demon To Entertain A Demon, And Suddenly Gets Rich!

Trigger warning: if you've got triggers, go elsewhere. If you read, it's at your own risk. 

Previous episode is here.

After that, it was a string of "regular Tuesdays in the life of any xia, who's also agent of a family of xians" (despite the similar orthography, the two words mean roughly "kung-fu knight" and "enlightened immortal wizard"...as I like putting it, there's a power level difference. And yes, Fu has given himself 3 years to learn how to defeat one of those in single kung-fu combat).

 

Meaning, he had Training From Hell, and enjoyed it. 

 

He was drinking at night, but went moderately into the cups. And he received a kite with a letter from his beloved, the daughter of Middle City's Magistrate (no, her father doesn't know yet...)!

 

In her letter, she was declaring undying love again, and had a whole short story written with the two of them, showing that they're destined for each other, even if their love goes tragic!
 

Fu was left teary-eyed. Of course, had he shown it to Black Fox, he might not have - because he would have told him that it's an amalgamation of popular "romantaxia" novels...one of which is even written by Black Fox!

 

But, since Fu doesn't read...much... he was impressed with her writing ability! All is good that ends well!

One important note and an unimportant detail: he was getting a lot more fleet-footed while training in the Ministry of Magic Affairs*. 

 

The unimportant part: he joined another tournament, and lost after another drag-down battle. This opponent didn't come to see him, although Fu did spot him afterwards...in the M(o)MA training camp. The guy was talking to one of the coaches.

 

Also, Fu is trying to compose an unofficial march of the MoMA cadets, by adapting the melody of the song Black Fox wrote to lure out the Southern Winds. It's going...slowly and with much delays, let's say.

However, on a night in the middle of the week, Fu was awaken by a voice in his head. Someone was whispering: "Pssst! Kid! Wake up!"
 

He immediately assumed that was Black Fox, by the way...
 

...which meant e followed the instructions: went, took a horse, hid himself and the horse near a lake, waited for Wolf to come out and cast some magic. The magic resulted in an incredible multitude of spiders (that weren't there a moment before...) weaving a pathway that went to heavens!

 

(I think I started humming "Stairway to Heavens" at this point. If not, I should have).

 
Fu followed Wolf silently, and saw him negotiating with a giant spider (no surprise). He was addresing it as if it was a woman, and Fu soon realized it was demanding payment for some questions.

 

Then Wolf spotted him (after she pointed him out), and she said it clearly that everyone has to pay to get out. The Wizard's attempts to use a Portal spell to usher Fu through failed, due to them being in some place that Wolf calls "pocked dimension" (the term means nothing to Fu, just another weird thing wizards say).

 

It seems that neither Wolf nor Black Fox had instructed Fu. It was all the sword's work!

 

Yes, Wolf was carrying that sword that Fu and Black Fox had found near Su Yan's house... a sword that might be familiar to readers of the Story of Hoi!

 

A sword that Fu was going to use now, Wolf stated clearly. Because it seems the options for payment were "fight a champion of the spider's choice, give the spider a piece of your soul, fuck the spider". The last seemed surprisingly easy, if you ask Fu, given that she could obviously transform into a variety of stunningly beautiful women. 

 

Not only that, but she was even looking in their thoughts, and transforming into women they'd known: Fu's beloved, Wolf's late Bride-never-to-be (which both of them found to be a surprisingly bad taste), and so on!

 

As Fu put it, "if I didn't have a fiancee, this would look like a surprisingly easy way out...which means that there's probably a trap there, so we should really fight!"

 

Why fight? Well, because it would probably be a good fight. And why would you avoid a good fight, good fights are to be enjoyed, right?

 

Amusingly, Wolf was of the same opinion. He just gave his sword and armour to Fu "to keep him alive". 

 

Fu only accepted reluctantly, and because he knew Wolf is superior to him in kung-fu: he should have a better idea what we had to expect! 

 

As it turned out, it was two oversized demons. Like "elephant dimensions" oversized. Fu chose the 15 m tall 6-armed horned gorilla with scorpion tail, Wolf got the centaur-like creature with a lot of horns, claws and snakes in its hair, beard and tail.

 

After Fu got hit, he realized that this armour was great. He still got knocked around (the armour had to be supplemented by his kung-fu***), but he was barely hurt, if at all!

 

This changed when the creature grappled him, as he couldn't shed the force of the blow by letting it throw him around. But still, him and the sword followed the directions Wolf had given us before the fight: attack the ankles, then the base of the neck, this type of demons is weak there. (Is it because of Wolf's medical ability? Fu doesn't know, but it's either that, or he's faced this kind of creature before).

 

Also, the sword was levitating itself and fought on Fu's side.

 

Given all of this and the fact that I had plenty of criticals aiming at those spots, the battle went swimmingly. Fu was over half of his body points when we dropped the 300 Body Points creature! Fu did, however, realize that if it wasn't for all of the help, he'd have been dead, period. Probably on the second strike at most. 

 

Wolf had been hurt as well. Of course, both of them ate Miraculous Restoring Pills, a.k.a. "candy"...yes. Xiaomei again.

 

At the end, Fu cut off the creature's head for a trophy.

However, the Spider Queen tried to bail out and seduce them both in attempt to drain their Qi****. Her argument: "there were three of you!"...meaning the levitating sword. 

 

Luckily, she gave us time to think (maybe to think our arguments - Fu totally left that up to the wizard).

 

At the end, it seemed like Wolf was going to take her on the offer about the fucking...in the middle of the dinner. Wizards have no shame!

 

...and then he managed to slap an artifact on her neck. Whatever the thing was, it was strangling her, and obviously didn't allow her to revert to her bigger form!

 

Yes, she was obviously trying, her flesh melting around the necklace and all - but the artifact held on!

After that, it was a simple matter to persuade her to let us go...

We also got our prizes for winning: Fu got a chest with gold, as he chose "fortune", thinking that his lover is the daughter of a magistrate, she'd expect him to be bringing money!

 

...with 150 golden taels to his name, he's no longer an actual beggar.
 

Wolf, on his side, got some answers - which he didn't ask in front of Fu. Fu was sent to pack their belongings (including the demon's head, which the sword was carrying).
 

On the way home the Wolf (being 200+ years old man that is full of advices for the young lad Fu) tried to explain to the youngster that in the world of martial artists, usually "might makes right" and that corrupted cultivation is a thing and there are a lot of powerful beings that are...well, kind of evil. Spider Queen is very much one of those, and sex with her was going to be poisonous all on its own.

 
However, he decided that Fu wasn't listening (he was, but you really can't blame the guy...it has been known to happen!), so he tried with a less complicated advice: "Just don't put you dick in crazy, OK?"
 

...and then he though long and hard how he should listen to this advice more often, too. Ah, the irony!
 

Thus, Fu almost managed to win an argument with Wolf - all without meaning to do so. Was that some next level Wu Wei (action-without-action), or did Wolf merely got tangled in his own rhetoric and spotted his own inconsistency? You decide, dear readers!

Either way, the two returned to Wolf's castle almost as soon as we had departed. Fu asked for a horse to carry the head, and got a horse and tokens of authority. With those, he entered the capital, went to the yamen, and deposited the head there - there's standing prizes for demon-hunting, so he got 50 silver on top of the 200 gold he had earned.

 

He gave 25% of everything to the Beggar's Brotherhood, as expected of a member. He reasons that he might not be a beggar anymore, but he's still a xia of the Brotherhood, and fully plans to support it and to defend beggars when necessary!
 

He also got a cup of noodles on the way to the MoMA barracks, and rejoined the daily practice full of forces and quite pleased with himself!



*I wonder whether the GM did it deliberately, choosing something that's abbreviated MoMA...or MMA, for short, when you skip the preposition!
**What he was wearing is "super magical armour from demon-spider web and enchanted white jade that is as light as silk, absorbs good part of both magical and physical attacks and fits all sizes". Courtesy of Xiaomei, this branch of the Jing family have one of these each!
As the GM puts it, if that was MCU Xiaomei would give Ironman a run for his money as inventor... and probably to Doctor Strange as well.
***Remember, Fu is near the system's limit for absorbing damage without getting hurt. The armour was still more efficient, of course, but not by much.
****According to the GM: after that she was planning to poison the Wolf and probably eat Fu, like literally using him for food. Well, that would have been preceded by other types of eating, but still: Totally Not Worth It! Even if he didn't have a fiancee! Don't take the easy way out, guys...unless you really, really want to, I guess.