After-Action Report: Road to Monsterberg, session 5

Here's a link to the previous session.

Also, if you find anything triggering, you might be well-advised to stop reading now.

***

The session began after saving some traders. Turned out, one of them is the vogt of Ratibor, installed by Duke Nicolaus!

He offered to take over our prisoner, a guy that they've got a bounty on. He is likely going to get executed.

We also learned that he's serving a particular robber baron, himself suspected of being in league with heretics (i.e. Protestants). And if that wasn't villainy enough, it is well-known he has kidnapped a fair maiden (who might not be a maiden at this hour, but we didn't mention that) from a good family, and keeping her in his castle!

The vogt therefore offered us Ratibor's hospitality when we get there.

We removed the prisoner's armour, which Jaroslav planned on giving to Vuk to improve his odds of survival, as the foreigner has been nothing but useful, and was quite handy with his axe. Every knight needs a "spear" of battle-hardened men to be relevant, Jaroslaw reasoned. And Vuk might be a heretic, but at least he's fighting alongside Christians (i.e. Catholics) and against infidels.

As the knight pointed out, that's more than one can say about damn Hussites!

Overall, we arrived in the city. They installed us in Sleeping Lynx tavern, all expenses are on the city. We're not overdoing it, sleeping two by two in rooms...and our trader even declared he's going to sleep in one of his colleagues.

(OOC, we know he's doing that because he's a crossdressing female, who can't accept being paired with Vuk - Esthel and Marzena are natural pairs. IC, we just think he's being rude to the city's powers, spurning their hospitality...but it's on him).

So there were a few minor accidents. At some point, the mastiffs guarding the Sleeping Lynx attacked an woman who works in the kitchens. J

aroslav and Kristian ran out to help - all they knew was that there was an woman screaming, might be anything from a bug to a snake to a rapist or infidels' activity - but they didn't find anything suspicious. After ensuring the proprietor would reward her for the injury adequately (she couldn't work with her arm torn, could she?!?), they retired - with compliments for the quick reaction by the city's watch.

Admittedly, part of the hurrying was due to being, well, in their underwear. Which was understandable, but unsightly, and made us feel uncomfortable.

In the night, however, Jaroslaw awoke when a giant spider (as big as a dog, can you believe that in a Christian land?!?) started chewing his leg. He grabbed it and tried to smash it against the wall, and directed Kristian - who had awoken by his master's startled cry - to go find a healer!

The multilegged menace, however, was extremely quick, and surprisingly tough. He didn't manage to injure it well enough, despite smashing it in the walls, while it chewed his arm to ribbons and managed to inject poison elsewhere, too.

His friends also arrived, and finally managed to hurt the spider badly enough it lost consciousness.

And the session ended with one of the two healers who had arrived - part of other noble visitors' retinues, no doubt - trying to save Jaroslaw. They succeeded, but barely.

How barely? They needed to roll a critical. They were as good at it as Jaroslaw was in fighting, the GM ruled, so the odds for each roll were 8% exactly.

He was still going to be in a coma for the night, and then they could leave his side.
Amusingly, there were calls to "summon Elias" who is our healer. But he couldn't possibly get to Jaroslaw in time, even were he (or rather, she...) to run in his/her underwear. Something that Elias would never do, no matter who was dying.

 

Please note for next time:

My next PC got named Vojslav due to a misunderstanding. I had misremembered Vojislav and said it to the GM erroneously (AFAICT, Vojslav is a fully acceptable name, grammatically, and it exists in other languages of the same group - just not in Polish).

Then we decided he's the equivalent of Bulgarian kids that end up being named "Steven" or the like, instead of "Stefan"... IOW, he was probably getting into fights due to other kids mocking his name!

We've all seen such kids, so we mocked his parents mercilessly for a while, and moved on.

Now, why was he summoned? Well, simple enough: he's the brother of the aforementioned maiden!

And why do I need another PC? Because recovery time is going to be measured in weeks. Makes no sense for his travelling companions to wait for Jaroslaw, unless they get tangled in conflicts and/or opportunities in the region, and decide or need to stay

Adventures of Fu: Black Fox Tutors The Righteous Kung-Fu Beggar In The Ways Of The World, Plagiarism Punished, Putting On A Trap For Vicious Killers

Last session (here's a link) ended with Fu leaving Black Fox and going on to train, with a "let me know if there's any news of the 4SW". 

Girls start being boring as a subject, especially when someone is talking nonsense! And he's only got something like 2 years, 11 months and 27 days now to get good enough to defeat Black Fox in a fight! So he had to train!

But for now, he's training mostly conditioning and the "Righteous Beggar Defeats Magorasts" technique. After all, Black Fox is a known sorcerer, too. If he decides to use magic in the fight, it can't be forbidden - thus Fu would need to defend this, somehow, too!

Well, that, and one of the 4SW is a known sorcerer, too. Fu is forbidden to fight those, unless Black Fox is leading the way! So it's possible he might face a sorcerer sooner than that. 

And finally, most of the issues seemed to stem from wizards doing their stuff. Makes one consider additional preparations!

Then Black Fox sent a message to Fu to come to the Golden Lotus. Turns out, he's decided to, ahem, introduce him to a the daughter of a magistrate tonight!

Why? Because her father wants to levy taxes on the whorehouses, including the Golden Lotus! "For infringing the morale", which makes Black Fox outraged.

Well, you know the guy...he sees that as "greed masquerading as righteousness", and that can't be allowed to stand!

So of course he is going to make a nightly visit to the female family members of the magistrate. Why? Because they've never been to the Golden Lotus! Thus, if they are proven to have such carnal desires without any such connections, in Black Fox's book, it would expose the duplicity of the magistrate! Obviously it's not the Golden Lotus that's infringing the morale, it's the people themselves!

So, basically, it's pick-up protest against unfair taxation. Only Black Fox can think of such a scheme...

The impressive part is, he performs it quite well. Send Fu to the bath, provide him with clean, black xia clothes. Put the guards to sleep (how much sleeping powder does this man waste?) and talk to the dogs until they leave.

Yes, he can speak to animals. Oh, anyone can do that in the setting, you only need, like, Scholar 5 (out of 6 possible), so...invest some measly 57 points (54 if Scholar is a starting skill) and you can buy it for another 2! (I had to check the language rules because of Wang learning Jin).

We're basically secure that Black Fox actually has Scholar 6, instead. And he's a half-fox-demon, and foxes are from the same branch as dogs. So this part doesn't surprise me.
 

Well, and there's just a bit of "setting tropes" here. Basically, it's a running joke that females in her settings conform to some tropes, including "big tits". Being shy about their desires counts as averting said tropes, and doesn't happen all that often.
 

Then he brought us to the daughter's room, and basically called her. Then a big dragon materialized and told her the Dragon has decided to get her to meet her One True Love. Fu was in turn lifted to seem like he's setting on top of the dragon, and flying!

Can Black Fox control two magic spells at once? Can a fish breath in water?!? I mean, did you spot the part where he and his sister survived a transcontinental trip in a boat without food or water, entirely on magic and guts? 

Besides, it's possible in the system and doesn't even take that much of an investment.

So I tried to roleplay my character fumbling around. But it's very, very hard to make Black Fox lose those opposed rolls, and Fu didn't want him to lose! And Black Fox was basically doing the rolls instead of Fu.

Basically, the girl pulled Fu in her room, and seemed more than willing. She actually pulled him on top of herself.
 

Fu's last blunder was trying to get up from her from her with a feeble "did I hurt you", but even this didn't work out, as she stopped him. I guess she didn't see much chance to have another hero sneak to her room carried by a dragon?

The GM pointed out that that's way more romantic than any marriage she might get arranged, alright! So I'm not blaming the GM. Though we stopped it here, it was clear what had transpired...

 
Black Fox returned on the morning to wake me up and help me sneak out! I only promised the girl that I'd come again after my fated battle with the Great Ogre - if I were to survive, that is!

Then Black Fox remained behind, in black fox form - his idea of subtlety is somewhat lacking - to "buy me time".

Turns out, he'd made separate visits to the magistrate's wife and his two concubines. I'm mildly wondering whether they'd also encountered their true loves, or he varies his lines according to the target?

Whatever the case might be, Fu later learned that there has been a great fox hunt. Alas, the hunters were chasing a single black fox half the day, then when they tired out, the black fox returned, this time in giant form, and hunted them - back to the city!

Black Fox, our master of subtlety...

Meanwhile, Fu had been doing his conditioning and seriously questioning his life choices. For now, he had switched to his old clothes - but he also kept the new, clean ones.

He also started thinking of meeting the girl again. Though he realizes it won't be easy without the help of a "dragon", i.e. one of the best sorcerers in the realm.

Whatever the case, he pointed out to Black Fox that yes, he managed to do it...but he also pointed out that the help of one like him is akin to a magic item. A beggar finding an enchanted item? There are such tales. At the end, the beggar isn't a beggar any more!

"Well, you don't need to be a beggar, either! You're a xia, whatever the case might be. Why would you beg? Be a xia, if you want to, you can keep protecting beggars", Black Fox shrugged in the evening, while listening to the tales of the fox hunt that the magistrate had suddenly declared.

Fu also shrugged. The girl had been nice, but he also remembered another girl. This one had been dismembered, and they'd found parts of her in the house that 4SW had inhabited briefly! (See: Still Chasing Demons).

Besides, hadn't he promised to the magistrate daughter to get to her if he survives the fated clash? He really needed to do some heroic stuff if he was to be a xia.

So he also inquired what had happened with the dirty song. And, surprise, that one was getting popular!

However, some musician had been killed after claiming it was written by him! An octopus was drawn - with a knife - on his chest, too!

"Moron!", Fu and Black Fox exclaimed in one voice... "Moron and plagiarist!", Fu added.

"I didn't want the credit, just to get them to come out...", Black Fox complained.

"OK, that's where Fu the Falcate Spear appears!", Fu grinned. "What do you say, I put a scroll on the center of the city, claiming the musician was slandering my name, for I am the author of that famous song? And that anyone who has a problem with that, can visit me - at 3 a.m. the next day?" (That ws, in about 29 hours, we were talking in the early evening).

"Weren't you forbidden to hunt for 4SW?"

"I was also allowed to, by Master Hu, if you're leading the way", Fu reminded. "You actually wrote the song, you're going to be there with me, how is that NOT 'leading the way'? I'm sure nobody could object!"

"I'm so going to get scolded for using your help, though...but wait, does anyone know about your moniker? Fu the Falcate Spear?"

"How would anyone know about it? We devised it with you last night! I've only told it to the girl, because you introduced me as a xia, and I needed a moniker! What xia doesn't have a moniker?!?"

"That's fine! So maybe your blind teacher won't scold me as much!"

So that's what he was worried about!

With that, we planted a table - Fu wrote it himself, because he argued someone might recognize Black Fox's calligraphy. He admitted that was possible.

And on the next morning, we went to prepare the place. He actually called one of his sisters, who had a great knowledge of mechanisms, and created traps out of the most innocuous stuff, hiding them expertly.

She was going to leave, but Fu persuaded her that her other tasks - finding missing documents, I think - was going to be best accomplished by getting to interrogate one of the 4SW.

And with that, we went into meditation, and waited for the 4SW to show up...

During the meditation, Fu actually reached an enlightenment. 

I don't know whether his eyes had glowed with purple light (it happens to diviners when spirits are sending a message through them), I should ask the GM.

Mechanically, I had just received enough Cultivation Points to purchase Qi Resistance. I spent them immediately, and the GM decided that getting the technique in a meditation before the battle fits perfectly!

Adventures of Fu: Hunting Killers With Dirty Songs, Musing How The World Works

Not much happened with Fu in the last episode so far (here's a link to the previous episode, BTW).

He is merely trying to piece together the martial arts technique he was trying to learn from the book they got from the wannabe-sorcerer's library.

Turns out, it was a technique about resisting magic and demonic forces. It's actually quite useful*, I'd add!

First, however, he went on to check whether it's a reputable source. Or at least semi-reputable, beggars can't be choosers...

 

Jing Junior's statement "you can only learn parlour tricks" about the magic books had deeply impressed our young hero, however. Books are books, and he didn't want to learn the equivalent of parlour tricks, he wanted to learn the equivalent of "thunderous moves shaking the Earth and Sky", if possible, thank you very much! Or at least** the equivalent of "throws that spike the opponent 9 palms in the ground".

 

Thus, he went to the Beggars' Accountant - a former Bowing Dragon Monk, who had exchanged a life in poverty for a life in poverty - and asked him.

 

"What the book says...works, but ain't the best. Go ask him", Senior Han replied, and pointed to Black Fox.

 

The very man Fu is training to defeat!

 

Fu wasn't sure how fine he is with the idea, but Black Fox overheard, and started explaining.

 

"This book works, but it's at least three times as long as it needs to be! Let me explain it in short. Now, imagine a magorast...I like that word..."

 

"I made it up!"
 

"Seriously? That's a good one, you might need to study more..."
 

"Right, that's why I'm studying how to beat magorasts!"
 

"OK! Imagine a magorast is casting a spell. First, imagine the Universe is like a river..."
 

Fu dutifully imagined a river overflowing from its banks and covering the city - biggest place he's seen - with water.
 

"...and the magorast is trying to deflect the current to make it do what he wants. To this end, he puts stones in the water! And you collect your willpower..."
 

"And bash him in the face?"
 

"No! You remove the stones!"
 

"Doesn't that make me a magorast myself? Sounds like doing magic!"
 

"...no, not enough to even start doing magic! Just imagine it, OK? Now stay here and meditate, we'll practice in the afternoon!"

 

Fu did exactly that...
 

Black Fox found him in the same place, not even having left for lunch. The only thing that spoiled the impression of a dutiful student, somewhat, was some light snoring.

The practice didn't go really well, either. Black Fox was shooting magical attacks, but Fu was trying to deflect them with his mind, and to parry them with his hands and mind!

It only became worse when Black Fox explained demons required a bit of a different approach, and compared them to fishes, which are native to the river, but are spoiling the water! Fu immediately decided that these are actually two techniques, which come together!

 

Black Fox, however, thought it clear that this was the same thing, just applied differently...

At the end, Fu finished reading the book, and found it much clearer than the Taoist-derived explanations of Black Fox (it was based on an external style, and thus explained things with simple to follow instructions, even if they took longer).

So now Fu imagines that Qi Resistance (Righteous Beggar Stops The Magorast) works the following way: When a magorast or demon tries to act upon Fu, Fu's righteousness summons a Celestial Censor, who raps the wizard across the knuckles with a ruler, and slips him a host of documents to fill (in triplicate!) if he wants his spell to come off in time.

 

The next day Black Fox kinda let him practice what he was doing, and instead decided to have a conversation. The young noble explained to Fu that gods are at their best when they don't bother you, and just receive their donations without interfering.

"You know, the Celestial Bureaucracy in Heavens is the exact same as the Bureacracy of All Under Heavens", the young Jing joked. 

 

"Yes, Father is a minister, but he's basically getting a post because he was doing the same stuff before, too. So they gave him a post to make sure he's not seen as a different influential person, but as an official of the state."

Fu was unimpressed with such subtlety. Made total sense for him, and why wouldn't an official be subtle?

Basically, it was about half an hour of Black Fox explaining to Fu what's what and how the world works, while they were doing conditioning exercises. (I strongly suspect that Fu's regimen for strength gain counts as a light workout for Black Fox, though).

After that, the conversation passed on to the Jing family. It turned out, Black Fox is quite critical of his family's extreme obsession with power and competence, and believes that most people find his sister, White Fox, to be quite mad.
He actually disagreed, and stated that he finds her to be quite alright, even if somewhat on the angry side.

Black Fox was basically reminiscing, like all 80-years olds do, because he is one (despite looking 25). So Fu learned that they had travelled by boat, and they had survived by using magic to catch fish and to purify seawater for drinking. They were 12 at the time, Black Fox mentioned casually.

After that, Fu suggested we should draw the Four Southern Winds. Hey, they are nasty pieces of work, Fu reasons the sooner we capture or kill them, the sooner they'd stop killing, sacrificing and eating people!

Yes, we're going to be hunting cannibals. How do we do that? By writing obscene songs that mock them, of course!

Well, Black Fox is writing. Fu just suggested writing a song about octopi and implying that octopi are ugly and suck. Remember, the 4 Southern Winds (4SW from now on!) have octopi tattooed on their faces!

And we don't believe in their restraint, either, so we expect them to react violently...

So Fu and Black Fox went pub-crawling. We quickly established a procedure: we ordered octopus, wine and tea (Fu was sticking to tea, Black Fox is drinking - as Fu pointed out, beggars can't really ask for alcohol, too!) and then Black Fox sang his new song. He's really a talented songwriter, and dirty songs are his specialty!

(I don't remember whether the fishergirl, who is the main character of the song, was doing anything raunchy with the octopi, but I think she was just cooking and eating them. They had raunchy intentions, though, according to the text!)

At the same time, Fu was putting his saucer down to collect donations. It was all small cash, but with such nice songs, it still amounted to a nice sum!
At some point, he even suggested he should start paying the bills. Black Fox wasn't having any of it, though. "When I have money, my friends don't pay. Now I've got money!"

Fu is still not sure they're friends, but he imagined drinking buddies is close enough he doesn't need to correct him. Besides, they need to be on friendly terms while hunting the 4SW together - though he believes he's more like the Younger Brother in their relationship!

So basically, after we sang it a couple times, and then went on to another establishment.

After about the fourth inn, Black Fox was visibly drunk. But given his strength and alcohol conditioning, that's not enough to discount him!
 

Some guys attacked us and tried to rob us. Fu knocked out two, Black Fox knocked out two, the one who was shooting at us with a crossbow ran away. I think Black Fox snatching an arrow from the air and stabbing it in the thigh of one of his friends showed how badly outmatched they were!

We let him run, and just shook down the other four. Black Fox had stated that they wanted our money, so they could give us some, instead!

Then we took a handcart to take them to the police precinct...singing about octopi all the way. Before we arrived, though, Fu pointed out that they'd tried to rob us, but then we did actually rob them, so it was a bad idea to file complaints!

Thus, we just told the cops that these guys have been acting rowdy and need to cool down, so they should give them some manual labour for a week. And we told the four guys that if they do the labour, we're not going to file a complaint - and we're not going to beat them any more, either!

It worked out. I suspect the latter argument was weightier, admittedly...

Fu also tried to raise the matter of the money we got tonight, but Black Fox wanted none of it. Though he told me to pay 7 silver to my own Master Hu, who had given him a loan for betting on cicadas.

We visited 14 pubs I think, before Black Fox finally needed to drop on a pile of straw and sleep off the wine - hugging the innkeeper's daughter (in a completely decent way, he was spent).

Fu left him there shortly, assuming the man has a danger sense to rival any ambushes, but after being scolded by Master Hu (who received his 7 silvers, and admitted that this is like the 10th times Black Fox is paying this particular loan - he remembers about it when he's drunk, it seems!), the beggar warrior returned dutifully to the inn and drank a cup of wine. Then he kept watch over the sleeper, only stealing some sleep on a table, but mostly being an alert watchman.
 

Or, presumably, more alert than Black Fox himself.

Black Fox rose in the morning, no hangover - I think some pills are involved - and we went training again.
 

He also admitted that he believes he's paid off his debt, but he also believes Master Hu has forgotten. So he keeps paying it off in order not to gain a bad name! It's hard enough to avoid that when you have a sister like White Fox, and when you're a halfdemon, it's not worth it for some 7 silver!

Fu, who was instructed not to disabuse him of any notions about having a debt, fumed a bit internally, but the loyalty to a friend is nothing like loyalty to a master!
So he just said that he's paid it, and that Black Fox should pay it one last time, in front of witnesses, if he wants to avoid any issues. Even if Hu forgets, the witnesses won't, Fu pointed out.

But then the Jing family is so rich, none of them gives much thought to money. Jing Xiaomei, as her brother explained, is the source of that: she's training alchemists to heal people under the auspices of Ministry of Magic, and they're doing concoctions to pay off for their training! Those are being sold. So the Ministry is the only one who isn't asking for any money from taxes and the like!

Well, it's also funding the lifestyle of the Jing family, and you've seen how worried Black Fox is about money. But at least they're not asking for money from taxes!

"That's why my dad was best pals with minister Chen!"

"Who?", answered Fu, who doesn't keep track of current ministers' names, much less of former ones.

"The Finance minister, the previous one! Your buddy, Blue Monkey, is his son, actually!"

"...Oh, so I've beaten the son of a noble, twice? Good. He needed a lesson. And he was still stupid, and rude towards your sis, when she was trying to save his useless ass!"

We discussed this a bit, and Black Fox explained that Xiaomei was very close friend with the sister of Blue Monkey, who thought this is "corrupting his sister's energy" (due to Xiaomei being a half-demon, not due to her being a woman...which actually corresponds to the ancient prejudices, where two women having sex was seen as mostly a non-event - demons, however, are serious business!)

That was apparently why she was on top of his shit-list, and he had refused to take his medicine on account of it being prepared by the White Fox!

I mean, he was blaming the whole of Jing family for his father being executed, and him, his mom and his (bigger) sister being sent in exile, right before they were captured by pirates...

Fu knew Blue Monkey had been captured by pirates, but not about his other family members having been captured as well. And worse, those weren't freed, unlike him... there were no traces of them, pure and simple. Someone*** had bought them. They can't find out who.

Fu wishes them all the best, but he knows he can't help there. He doesn't speak the languages spoken in that part of the world, and isn't all that good at finding info.

"Well, Xiaomei has been a bit of a heavy....heavier case ever since Blue Monkey's sister disappeared," Black Fox mused. "So she still feels guilty about it."

"I can't speak to that. But I'm sure she did everything that was possible in order to find her...and that part about corrupting anyone's Qi also seems like bullshit. I mean, you've said she still has her human part of her soul. This means she has killed no humans - and demons don't count! So she's fine, in my book."

"Well, she can make a man pray to be allowed to die. She did that for a sorcerer who was feeding his pet demon with children. He preyed for death for a month..."

Fu nearly threw out - not because of the torture implied, though, but because he find hurting kids abhorrent.

Then he shrugged, and answered.

"I'd probably just kill this man, quickly and brutally, because he deserves no mercy. But although I'd make it hurt, I'm not going to have the patience to make it last a month".

"Well, she couldn't kill him. Some human finally gave him a mercy blow, after this time, and she allowed it. So it's not her - and such cases became less when his fate was known..."

"Then it was a good deed!", Fu exclaimed. "She's a virtuous xia in my book, even if her methods are painful! And Blue Monkey is being stupid. I'll beat him more to teach him common sense! As for your Xiaomei, I'm sure she wouldn't corrupt anyone's qi...well, not like she'd be interested in a beggar in the first place, so one might say it's easy to speak for the likes of me - but putting my money where my mouth was, in the completely unlikely event that she was interested in one like me, I'd see no obstacles!"

Then he waved his hand, realizing how it might have sounded...

"Sorry, I didn't meant to imply any untowards intentions towards your sister! I just hate people who make pronouncements like this, about things that could never impact them - so I got carried off! Please forgive me! It's obviously impossible for a beggar to have such intentions towards the Emperor's aunt!"

"Your bigger problem would be your lack of tits", Black Fox mocked me. "That's what my sister wouldn't like about you, but what if you're a beggar?"

"...you mean, apart for being smelly?", Fu smells his own collar. "Beggars. Nobles. The two shall never meet, it's so unequal she could as well be a goddess!"

"Nope, not in Xiaomei's case. She judges people for themselves, and you are a xia. And she ain't the only one, actually. What if your ancestors did a favour to an emperor and got lands? What if your grandfather passed the exams, if you can't pass them? Seriously, my friend, you'd just need a bath to get a noble girl - one that was interested in men, you know."

"Eh, now you're just mocking me! With all due respect to your age, but I don't think you really understand women, you know? It's easy for you, you're noble, powerful and rich. It's not as easy for the likes of us!"

Remember that Black Fox is a known womanizer?

"You really shouldn't have said that! Now I just need to prove you wrong!"

"I honestly don't think even you stand a chance...", Fu shrugged. He's not really chasing girls, because what would a girl want in a smelly beggar? Other than being left alone?

In return, Black Fox told him about the time when the Two Foxes grew up with their mom in the Demon Lands****, it was quite nice living, lots of running in forests, until their grandmother took over - after someone killed their mom.

And their grandmom is a real bitch who wanted to teach the kids to kill to make them stronger!

Except they're half-demons, if they kill a man, ever, they stand to lose the human parts of their souls. Which threatens them with torments in hell!

So, they're really focused on never doing that. However, someone else doing that for them is obviously fine. As is torture...which explains why White Fox is feared despite having killed zero humans.

She doesn't hesitate with killing demons, though. To the point that she cut off the head of her own granny!

Half-demon, half-human, but demons are fine? Well, Fu ain't about to argue!

"She killed her granny?", Fu asked again.

"Killed? Oh no, she's so old and powerful a head lost isn't going to kill her! But we took the head, because otherwise she'd have recovered too fast, and that would've been...problematic. That's when we left by boat. Remember, I told you about the trip? We were also carrying her head!"

Two kids, one boat, and the head of an ancient fox demon. That's Black Fox's idea of a family trip, I guess! Oh, wait, except they had no food!

More like "family survival camp", then.

"So anyway, we lost the head in the ocean during a huge storm. Since then, the foxes have been doing just fine without a queen! Nobody tells them how to live, they decide it together, and if anyone goes to war against them...you have no idea how many of the strategy manuals have been actually written by a fox!"

"Sounds like something that would work for foxes, not humans!", Fu opined. I mean, nobles suck, but not having anyone in charge? How does that fit the doctrine of the Five Relationships? Someone would need to be in charge in this society, too, what's the difference if those people don't hold a title?"

On the other hand, all the talk about Xiaomei lead to Fu adopting a new name for himself. Fu the Falcate Spear!

How come? Well, Black Fox pointed out in that same conversation that his sister is really like a sword: straightforward, you must take care not to cut yourself, for it's sharpened all over, and one must take care to keep it pointed at the enemy!

Fu said that he himself is like a spear: not likely to cut the owner, but one must keep it pointed at the enemy - and he added, he's a bit...crooked? Hooked? Bent? Bowed? Twisted? (Neither word quite fits, so I picked Falcate, admittedly after checking in a dictionary. Funny, I didn't know it's a word in English! Ah well, at least Black Fox would be familiar with ancient words... And I'm sure there's a more convenient word in Chinese - one that you can call both an implement, and a man. There is in Bulgarian!)

"Why Falcate? You're quite straightforward?"

"Master Wu calls me that. He says I get to a conclusion quickly, and it's hard to dissuade me..."

"Sounds straightforward to me!"

"But he also says if I get the mistaken conclusion at first glance, it's real hard to dissuade me, too!"

"Oh...yeah. There's that", admitted Black Fox, probably remembering trying to teach Fu the basics of the defensive technique!

*It gives you +10% per level in the Warrior skill. Fu is getting +40% even now, as soon as he manages to add it to his style, and might get up to +60 from it before three years have elapsed.
 

**The former is not quite possible in the system, the latter is.

***Amusingly, we all know who, except OOC: it's Hoi, my third character.

 ****That's the equivalent of saying "when I was growing up as a young devil in Mordor..."

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...

Adventures of Fu: Saving Hostages, Executing Kidnappers, Women Are Dangerous (Also, possibly NSFW/triggering)

This adventure actually happened in the same week as the previous session. When there's games, there's lots of them!

 

Long story short/er, because I'm not in (such) a rambling mood today... 

 

Yet keep in mind: Today's account contains mentions of abuse of both sexual and non-sexual varieties, and executing/sacrificing prisoners. If that bothers you, don't read!

 

Fu and Yanzi slept well, and joined forces with the 6 "ne'er-do-wells" that Wolf has hired as a kind of personal...
 

...well, Fu gets the impression they're his eyes, and hands, when he is personally occupied with something else. Hey, the man is planning to marry again!

Either way, the two beggars, and the six kinda-xia, and a girl from the Golden Lotus* went to investigate. The "eyes and hands of the Wolf" had found out that the house where they did encounter the 7 demons belonged to a noble family. 

Consequently, they were going to visit the family's estate, located in the countryside!

So, the 9 of us went off. Fu asked whether a portal can be opened somewhere in the vicinity, so the travel continued for roughly half an hour.
 

We approached it as hostile territory, basically. Except we found nobody, except signs of people having left in a hurry, possibly involuntarily. Who leaves without taking personal belongings, and leaving food to rot and mold?!?
 

I mean, there weren't even animals.
 

 We did make a good search, until one of the girls had an idea while visiting the basement: she started to tap the walls.
 

At the end, she found out a tunnel which someone had recently passed through. It ended into a dry well in the middle of the forest.
 

Then Fu got to shine, not only noticing the traces - which were a couple days old - but also spotting ley lines, which criscrossed the clearing and lead deeper into the forest.
 

We followed the traces. That's how we reached a hill with an opening - probably a cavern - in front of a lake. And there were three guys guarding the entrance.

They had crossbows, too. After some of the girls (who rated their own abilities to sneak too highly for their own good) tried to sneak on them, but one stepped on a twig, and two of them got shot in the following barrage of bolts.

Fuck, repeating crossbows! (Link to a picture, Blogger didn't want to add it as a picture, for some reason).

The girls ran back. Fu tried to challenge the trio to fight up close, but they didn't seem interested. In fact, they didn't seem to listen!

 

We slowly determined they were from Jin, so Fu had to ask the Golden Lotus girl (who spoke it) about cursing in Jin.

 

They seemed not to care about that, either.
 

However, they brought a girl from the cave - we didn't know her - and warned us that "hostages are going to be killed unless we leave immediately".
 

...we left, of course. We're brave, not stupid.

So we went back to the well. Following the strongest leylines, we found something like an altar-crossed-with-a-gazebo. It was right in the forest, and no routes seemed to lead to it.
 

Fu prayed at the altar, and a ghost/spirit appeared. He immediately asked her (it was visibly a her) for help!
 

"Why should I care about them?"
"The owners of this forest might be the hostages!"

"The ones who kill animals and cut trees from this forest. Why do I need to care?"

"If you help us, you could negotiate with them to not kill animals nor cut trees from this forest!"
 

She didn't seem persuaded. And she asked him several times, suggestively, "what's in it for me".
 

He shrugged.
 

"What do you want?"
 

"Tell me what can you give me?"
 

"I'm a martial artist, mystic and beggar clan member. You tell me!"
 

"So you're strong", she intoned, while putting a finger across his jaw.
 

Thing is, Fu immediately opened his jaw.
 

"Yes, I've got all my teeth", he confirmed, while still wondering what she wants! He wasn't going to sell himself, but if she merely wanted to check his shape...eh, maybe forest ghosts also need strong young men to carry heavy loads?
 

"Well, yes, you are strong..."

That's when Golden Lotus girl decided to take charge.

 

"Listen, bitch, you can help us freely - or I can call Jing Xiaomei! You want to explain to her why you're asking to steal his chi?"
 

"Why do you think she was asking for that?!?", Fu asked incredulously.
 

"Shut up, she wanted to have sex and to steal your life force! You'd have died!"
 

A courtesan obviously knows better than a beggar teen what a horny ghost might be up to!

It seemed, however, that the forest spirit/ghost didn't want to have anything to do with Jing*** Xiaomei! In no case!
 

Whoever that was, she did seem to have something of a rep.
 

So in return for us not calling her to help, whoever this was, she first sent a squirrel to investigate, then painted us a map of the cave. Then, at out request, the ghost offered to send forest moles to open us a tunnel to the cave. 

 

We asked for the timing, and actually put it off for a while: the moles were going to be done before midnight. We wanted it to open after midnight, to avoid them shooting or otherwise harming hostages.

While waiting though, the Golden Lotus girl decided to ask for reinforcement. She asked Jing first, but Wolf was busy.
 

So she told the ghost to not sweet it, she is coming just to help in the fight - and called Jing Xiaomei anyway!

Amazingly, the girl who stepped through a portal was one I knew! She visited the Beggars Compound once - and somehow set off all the mystical alarms, designed to protect us against demons! Fu still hasn't worked that one out.

Either way, we quickly had to explain that the ghost (who was nearly having a meltdown!) was helping us. For reals! Please don't harm her!
 

Jing Xiaomei is an angry young woman, but she contented herself with forbidding her to feed.

Then they started hatching plans. The newcomer was in a hurry, so she quickly devised a plan: she dressed herself, Yanzi, the Golden Lotus girl and the ghost herself in clothes that she took from...a chest that she pulled from thin air****, as far as Fu could see.
 

Then they dressed as entertainers Geji (basically Geisha/Kisaeng, despite the many differences) and went along. They approached the Jin guys unarmed, and told them that they were lost in the forest and would like some food and a guide, I think...they were talking in Jin, so Fu understood nothing!
 

Whatever the case, the morons let them approach, and even smiled. Then the four girls promptly killed them.

We quickly (but silently) approached, and then snuck inside the cave. It was really a short fight, Fu only knocked out a couple of mercenaries (and his second was the last man standing, something Bohu teased him about - I think he told me I need to eat more?!?)
 

Afterwards, Xiaomei allowed the ghost to feed on anyone that was still alive, except one. "We need one to interrogate".
 

It was a painful interrogation. But Fu was talking to the kidnapped nobles and servants, so he quickly decided that it was just expedient to let the ghost kill them for us.
 

Besides, she had helped us, she deserved to feed...

As an aside, Fu has very little mercy to begin with, and he usually keeps it for poor people and those too young, weak, or helpless to help themselves. So he has even less to spare on murderers, thieves, rapists and torturers. Which all of the Jin mercenaries were, just from the account!
 

One of the nobles had lost a hand because he had refused signing some documents (they left him the hand he writes with)!

 

And, well, you can guess the rest...

So no, Fu wasn't overly worried about the ghost getting her due payment. 

 

But he almost paled upon seeing that the ghost merely kissed them and drained their life powers to them, basically shrinking them and drinking the water from their bodies (if I've got that one right).
 

"What? She wanted to do that to me? Women are dangerous!"
 

Even worse: he had been contemplating silently asking the ghost whether she's really interested in him as a...well, young man?
 

Now he knows for sure that she only wanted his life force! (Also see footnote** at the end).

We also determined that we had some more good news and some more bad news for the newly-liberated nobles.
 

Good news: Jing Xiaomei is a very good doctor. All of them, especially the crippled man and abused women, got first-grade medical at the spot!
 

Bad news: one of the noble's daughters had been missing. By the description, both me, Yanzi and one of the girls guessed who she was...
 

Remember the previous part? The one where we mentioned there was a body of a young woman who was missing parts?
 

Well, we could tell them where to go to find her body. Most of it, at any rate.
 

More good news: some of the kids we'd saved were kids nobody had asked about. Turns out, two of them had been lead away from here! They only wanted the smallest, it seems...maybe to fit in the giant pot we'd found next to the cage?
 

By our description, they recognized that yes, two of the three were theirs. But they said they were going to take the third kid whose parents hadn't asked about him/her, too!
 

That is, unless said parents appeared, they were going to adopt him or her. 

 

That made Fu real happy, for some reason he couldn't explain.

And then we left, brought them to the city via a portal (used by Jing Xiaomei), while most of the servants went back to clean the country house. We had good news to report, including having fed a ghost without losing any lives***** in the process!



Yeah, no rambling. Right!


*Fu is starting to suspect that all girls from the Golden Lotus are trained in kung-fu, and possibly other stuff as well, and that they're sending them along with us depending on when they've got a day off!

**Unlike both Hoi and Wang, my other PCs in this campaign, he can't believe seriously that a woman would be interested in him. He thinks he is too young, too dirty - being beggar - and too boring, so why would they? Hey, he wouldn't be interested in himself!

 

At the same time, he's been taught to behave modestly and decently, further complicating matters...so he was genuinely perplexed what the girl wanted!)
 

***Also the name of the Wolf, our kinda-employer, owner of the Golden Lotus, very skilled magician and kung-fu master, and a lot of other things. He seems younger than Little Minnow and Scribe Yu, who are in their 70ies/90ies, but they call him "old". It's perplexing, but Fu doesn't interfere in the elders' conversation!
 

****There is such a spell in Art of Wuxia, but Fu doesn't have any idea.
 

*****The Jin guys were going to be executed anyway. I think Jing Xiaomei thinks of this as "utilizing resources properly". Fu thinks along the lines of "killing two rabbits with one stone, punishing the wicked and paying for services received".

The Adventures of Fu: Still Chasing Demons & Good Fights

Here's a link to the previous adventure of Fu! Remember, OOC commentaries are in italic, like this text.

However, keep in mind: this post might contain stuff that's NSFW and/or triggering for certain people (references to violence and sexual violence, demons, and other nasty stuff). We don't shy away from anything in our games, so keep reading at your own responsibility.

The next adventure of Fu also started with us reporting for duty, indeed. Then we visited The Golden Lotus (the aforementioned whorehouse The Wizard* owns, see in the previous post. (The Wizard's name is Jing Wu-yang, he's a sworn brother of Little Minnow, #4 in the Wulin).

There, they handed us the demon summoner and paperwork, and told us to hand him over at the police precinct, and collect the bounty. I guess that was payment for the help?

We did take him there with no incidents, berating him for his mistakes along the way. He offered us a sizeable bribe when we let him talk, but Fu replied with "I'm sure the people who died because of you would want to talk with you in the Afterworld, can't make them wait!"

In short, Fu's attitude was to be summed up by, in his own words, "when you were summoning demons, you didn't cry, you really shouldn't cry now when you're to be executed for it, either!"

There were some other discussions with my rival Blue Monkey, too, who seemed to believe that wizards were good for some things. Fu, on his side, believes wizards are cheaters that avoid straight fights, and they really shouldn't be allowed around.

All the demons come because of them, if you ask Fu!

But, he admits, he really can't say that in front of The Wizard, since it would be rude to a man who is substantially older than him! And that's a no-no!

Then we went back to the Beggars Compound, and split his part of the bounty with the clan. They usually take 25% of what we get, but he gave 50% voluntarily. And he added 50% of the earlier job, where he and friends were paid by rich women to carry gifts to poor families in a poor neighbourhood (on a mass scale, so the payment was also substantial...curiously enough, there had been some robberies across the city and environs, recently! What a coincidence!)

As Fu puts it, "I was behind on my other payments anyway, but this should compensate". The Beggars' accountant (former Bowing Dragon, a.k.a. Chan/Zen monk in the Art of Wuxia setting, agreed).

Then, however, he encountered his teachers. And they outright forbade him from looking for the octopi-tattooed men, The Four Southern Winds.

It's not enough to say Fu was disappointed! He was hoping for a nice fight with one of those ruffians!

...and yet, the teachers Wu "White Snake" and Hu "Fire Jade Tiger" were adamant!
Fu got dangerously close to whining, but mostly restrained himself. He tried multiple avenues of persuasion, which made total sense to him!

To his masters, however, all of them seemed between noble-but-deluded and crazy-and-deluded. Well, I'm not the GM, can't comment.

"But Shifus, those randos the Wolf* has hired are trying to find them, and we're not! What would people think of the Beggars Clan?!?"

"You think we beggars should care about face? No! We should care about our members! These guys are incredibly ruthless and sadistic, you're all forbidden for looking for them! Besides, people respect us because we have information."

"But isn't that an argument that we should be looking for them? They could kill other people in our city! And finding them, we'd prove we know everything!"

"You're not even from this city, how is it yours?"

"How come I'm not? I brought help to the poor, I fought in tournaments, I helped capture demons here! Of course it's my city!"

"It's still too dangerous!"

"Who would suspect us beggars?"

"You think nobody suspects us, despite the fact we're selling information? You're either a moron..."

"No, Shifu!"

"...deluded..."

"Not the case, Shifu!"

"...or you think everyone else is a simpleton!"

"...you mean they ain't, Shifu?!?"

For some reason, they were still adamant. Probably didn't want for Fu to repeat the fate of the last guy the Southern Winds captured spying on them (emasculation and frying pan were mentioned in a detailed description, I'm not going to repeat it here). After all, those are  murderers, cannibals, rapists, demon summoners and the list doesn't end here. I think it ends with tax evasion or petty stealing, though.

In fact, the joke is that the only crime they didn't commit was abusing their own sister, because they ain't got one.

To give you an idea about Fu's despair (it was also relevant after) he even swore he ain't going to fight the Southern Winds, unless attacked.

The teachers were still unbending. "What happened to flexibility, Shifu used to say it's a quality of the mind, too", Fu wondered darkly...and then he asked to help with other cases where people need help.

That was granted, so at least he could be useful.

So the three of us - me, my rival  Blue Monkey (who is really someone in disguise hiding as a beggar, Fu suspects) and the beggar girl Yanzi, we all went back to the police precinct, and we looked for cases without significant traces of Southern Winds involvement. There was a murdered (and eviscerated) girl and a missing kid.

 

Fu decided immediately to look for the missing kid. "She won't become less dead if we find the culprit, but it's not the same with the kids!", as he proclaimed.

 

Soon after, we were searching. And it soon turned out it's not the only missing kid! There has been a slew of disappearances, in a small area, at the same time.

 

Coincidence? None of us believed that.
 

And, just to be on the safe side, we went to the Golden Lotus to get Illusions-Destroying Masks! Well, we really went to the owner...and he saddled me with one of his workers, too, named Zhen! She was supposed to protect us, somehow...

 

I guess he didn't want another scolding from the blind teacher? She can be nasty, maybe he ain't that stupid!

 

Well, she seems to have nice qin gong (Lightness kung-fu, but I am used to using the Chinese term), at least, and she showed us she can disguise herself. This way, we now had masks for everyone! So we went back, and her presence forced a quarrel.

 

Like, my Blue Monkey suggested that we should switch, and have him pairing up with the Golden Lotus worker. Fu was unsure what this preference is all about, and the beggar girl seemed unhappy at the request, for some reason...

 

So of course, Fu asked Zhen if she's fine with it. After she confirmed, he nodded.

 

"It's all the same to me as well! Now can we go?"

 

This, however, only worsened the things! The beggar girl bristled at us and accused us that we have become "distracted as soon as we saw some nice pair of tits"!

 

"What? I've seen no such things! It would be indecent!"

 

Surprisingly, Zhen came to my defense!

 

"Indeed, he wasn't even looking! He didn't look even when Bao and Wen offered to wash his back while you were guests of the Wolf!"

 

"Because it would be indecent! And why are we discussing tits at all? I mean, there's missing kids, can't you people prioritize what's important?!? Let's go!"

 

This, however, only made them question why I'm giving them orders. Fu decided against remind them that he has seniority in this group, actually, by virtue of being a clan member for more years than them - they're supposed to know, if they can forget it, they're worthless people, and what's the point of reminding worthless people? They won't respect what's right and proper, anyway!

 

"Fine. You can stay here and argue about tits. Measure them, for all I care. But I'm going to search for those kids, alone if need be. No, I've got no patience for such talk!"

 

Fu is remarkably focused on saving kids. Besides, he feels uneasy with intimate topics regarding girls (as I'd surmise would be perfectly normal for a Chinese teen from a small village).

 

Beggar Girl relented and came with me. We coordinated with hand and low voice signals and patrolled the roofs, looking for suspicious people: with masks, low-hanging hats, or with illusions hiding facial tattoos. Or, well, simply people approaching kids.

 

Yes, we suspect those are the Southern Winds. But then we're not looking for the Southern Winds! We just want to help those kids!

 

...three hours elapsed (timeskip, OOC). Then, after the GM rolled something (there were lots of high rolls and a 05 or something, but I don't know what she was rolling for), she announced that another Golden Lotus worker encounters us, and tells us that there had been a disturbance on the market, and at some local noble family's house! 

 

One of the Southern Winds has been spotted near the market, they're now looking for him...and he had gone out of said house, which reportedly "reeked of demons" as far as mystical senses were concerned.

 

Well, Fu remembered that he's promised - in a moment of weakness, as he puts it - to not look out for the Southern Winds! So he decided to investigate the house, hoping that they might find the kids inside. That's a search-and-save operation, and there might be no Southern Wind in the whole house, even! 

 

At the same time, looking for the one who hid in the market wouldn't help us find any kids, and would be breaking his promise outright!

 

So the choice was really easy...

Well, my rival and Zhen also came with us - we gathered them along the way - but upon seeing the house, we realized - partially due to Fu's mystic senses - that there is a lot of demonic magic at work inside!

 

So obviously this might be due to the kids being in danger. Thus, we decided to investigate it...but to ask for reinforcements.

 

The workers of the Golden Lotus concurred - in fact, they had suggested it - and they said they've sent a message, though they did nothing. What?

 

Well, I'm not complaining: less than 5 minutes later, three men appeared through a glistening portal: Little Minnow (#4 in the Wulin), and his sworn brothers, Scribe Yu and the Wolf!

 

I'm starting to suspect they might be part of the Wulin, too...

 

A suspicion which was confirmed once we entered, through the roof. Everybody has qin gong in this group!

 

...and we encountered carnage. Some of the parts we identified as belonging to the dead girl I'd mentioned. Don't ask which parts.

 

Which, Fu pointed out, was good news: it meant we have no proof the kids have been harmed!

 

However, the three girls were going visibly pale, and hanging back. Well, the three old men were taking the lead anyway, and Fu was right behind them.

 

Then we actually found those kids! They were all in a cage, set right next to a boiling cauldron...and scared shitless.

 

Admittedly, Fu didn't blame them. Neither did he blame the Wolf when he opened a new portal to the Golden Lotus, ushered the kids through it along with the girls, and told the girls to take care of them. Before they could object, he closed the portal!

 

Thus the party was all-male again (and I'm pretty sure none of the girls objected IC), and consisted of me, my rival, and the three sworn brothers. They have told us they worked a lot together, and it showed: Wolf looked out for magic traps, Scribe looked for normal traps, and Little Minnow stayed back as the kill team.

...but, despite this, when they opened a door, a ball of fire flew through it, and Wolf got singed (we were further back and had more time to duck and roll away).
"Magorast!", Fu exclaimed! Just to confirm his opinion that all wizards are up to no good, now one of them is collaborating with the Southern Winds!

Little Minnow and Scribe Yu pulled weapons, and jumped inside. A huge form, however, jumped over them, and landed next to Wolf, trying to attack him by spitting acid. I immediately attacked the back of its head, but sensed that as most demons, it was most susceptible to strikes from a blessed weapon, which I didn't have at the moment.

 

Then another demon of the same kind appeared as well, and it was all for me!
"A magorast all for me!", Fu exclaimed, dodging attacks like mad. How many attacks? Well, this thing attacked roughly four times in a round. Actually, it wasn't casting spells, so maybe the magorast was someone else...

But it managed to entangle me, on a critical roll! Then it tried to bite my head off, and to basically stick its tail in my spine!

 

(The thing I'm not going to describe in much detail, but the GM described it in short form as "I just crossed the Alien with the monster from Lover in the Ice". Well, I ran LitI for her, so it's totally fair, and we both knew what it's about!

 

If you don't know what it is, it's a great horror adventure for Delta Green. If you have any trigger warnings, stay the eff away from DG adventures. I don't have any such, as is probably obvious...but sensitive readers might want to stop reading this account).

"Don't allow it to stick its tail in your spine!", Wolf's voice said in my head. Timely warning!

 

Mostly, Fu survived on defense a couple rounds. When the thing managed to pull him to the ground, he kept rolling with his back to the ground, protecting the spine. The beast being focused on me served me well, and I even managed to slip out of the tentacle's grasp!

 

Yes, of course it had tentacles, too. And an Alien-like head. And huge balls. And did I mention it was slimy?

Meanwhile, Wolf had disemboweled the other thing with his claws and magic, and joined us. Now that he was exchanging attacks with it, I could use my three-sections staff to deal it some damage. Not much, but it helped, and made me feel useful.

 

Note to self: Wolf is actually better than me in kung-fu! Guess being the sworn brother of Little Minnow doesn't hurt!

 

Well, I guess he ain't such a bad guy, after all. At least, he is kinda a xia. Despite being a wizard! So he's fine!

Then we got in the room where the other three were fighting. My rival had hidden under a table and fending off attacks, the other two had had killed two more demons and fighting off another two.

 

So wait, there were seven of those things?

 

Oh, and there were three men we didn't know. Well, those were dead, smashed skulls - Little Minnow, I'd guess!

Long story short, we did these in, too, starting with the one attacking my rival. Fu actually assaulted the last one from behind, sticking his 3-sections staff like a club, and stabbing it under the tail...

 

"Fuck you!", he shouted in addition.

 

"What irony", Wolf commented. "It wanted to do the same to you!"

 

That's where Fu guessed that these weren't actually tails!

We had to take the sting of the creature out from Blue Monkey's spine. He had been less successful in protecting his backside... and he's now a monkey who's "got the blues"!

 

They performed a manipulation, gave him antidotes, and warned him that he isn't to have close contacts of any kind with anyone for at least a week. "During this time, you're contagious!"

Afterwards, they asked Fu whether he's hurt as well. He kept denying it, and when they asked him whether he's sure, he just disrobed.

 

Hey, my clothes were covered with the slime anyway, so...beggars have standards, too! And we were all men in the room, that means it was fine.

I also asked for a blessed weapon, when they opened a portal to bring my rival (BM) to a place of safety and healing, too.

 

They also discussed that these demons were new ones.

 

"Someone is creating them, somewhere in the 8th level of Hell!", as Wolf informed us. "They've only existed for a couple years".
 

Or, at least, that's when they were first encountered.

 

So this session edned with  all five of us having a long bath with lots of scrubbing. Fu even said that he's willing to let anyone get in the bath with him, as long as she helps him scrub the slime off!
 

I think none of the Golden Lotus workers took him on the offer, though. He was, well, just slimy and dirty!

 

Eh, what do you expect from a beggar?!?

 

 

*The Wizard's nickname is The Wolf.

After-Action Report: Road to Monsterberg, Session 4

I'm catching up...well, almost! Here's Session 3, at any rate.

Estelle lost the race, too. Which allowed Jaroslaw to explain to Elias, he's showing prudentia in not risking a peasant horse throwing him off and allowing another peasant the glory of winning against his betters.

The next day, Elias woke up Vuk with home remedies and we arranged for him to travel on a cart. 

After separating from the trader, we encountered a road that's been cut off by mudslide. Worse, Jaroslaw knew it was produced by an explosion. He's got a combat style including black powder rifles.

So we had to decide, to the ferry or up the trail of mud...

Then Jaro prayed to the Highest Lord for guidance. I'm not sure how well I interpreted it, it was a Bible quote (and I played him as a Int 9, so not too bright), but he decided to go for the ferry.

We dealt with a small storm, and then reached a place, where obviously the defenders of a cart were fighting off a robber knight. We didn't fancy doing the right thing, but it was the right thing...and besides, as Jaro pointed out, if we let them be overcome, the robbers could still go after us. But if we joined now, we'd have numerical advantage at least initially.

Thus, when Marzena declared she is going to help, Jaroslaw really couldn't stay behind!

The robbers sent a demilancer, a crossbow rider and two guys in brigandine to check us. Jaroslaw stated his full name and city, and demanded to know what's going on...holding his crossbow. The demilancer made three mistakes then...

He told him it's a matter that concerns his betters.

He told him to drop his crossbow and go back, not even allowing unobstructed passage.

And then, when Jaroslaw objected that he goes on the public road, he hasn't dropped weapons in front of Ottomans and he shall be damned before he does so on this road... he wasn't ready for Jaroslaw shooting as soon as he saw him dropping his point to charge.

The bodkin bolt got inside his leg not even being slowed by the armour and it was on. 

A few javelins were stopped by Jaroslaw's armour. Vuk stunned the leg of another robber's horse with his sling. The demilancer got entangled in a net, which foiled his charge. It didn't unhorse him, but it was a drag on his ability to attack!

And a thrown hatchet got the crossbow rider bleeding from his arm.

Meanwhile, their charges got interrupted or voided. Shots flew away or hit the foliage. Vuk did indeed manage to void a mounted sabre charge, though, quite an impressive and unlikely feat.

And after Jaroslaw delivered another wound to the same leg, which nearly stunned his enemy and made him cry in pain, and Marzena unhorsed him, they broke and ran.

Jaroslaw looked at the the fallen man.

"My betters, sir, aren't on this road, except maybe protecting that cart. Do you surrender?"

And that's how my PC in Mythras: Road to Monsterberg now has a horse. One he won in combat, too!

Meanwhile the protectors of the cart lost a man, but killed the other demilancer with shot and arrow, and the robbers finally broke and retreated. 

Jaroslaw rode to the richly dressed people around the cart - the richest guy had killed the demilancer himself - and spoke thusly:

"It was a honour and a pleasure to meet you, gentlemen. May I know your honourable names?"