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Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,519
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Welp. Time to see if unarmed fighting was a wise choice in a series of updates called "The Ten Swords Conference"...

:avatard:
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Surely you understand, Azira, that going into a fight with just 3 swords in a series of updates titled "The Ten Swords Conference" would be just as bad.
 

Smashing Axe

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,835
Divinity: Original Sin
Well. Hopefully there won't be any more pushing for a rollback or anything of the sort. As far as I'm concerned the God of War ending is still the canon one anyway.

I want to play Call of Cthulhu - Eugenicist Edition.
 

Rex Feral

Prophet
Joined
Jan 29, 2013
Messages
1,300
Whoever is bored with the story can just leave, no need to push to end it. As for myself, I want to see this story to the very end, I will forever push for rollbacks as long as treave is mentally sane enough to write for us.
 

Elfberserker

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
1,540
Now,Now.

We know perfectly well that unarmed fighting is way to go in all combat situation.
Just ask Zhang Jue, he is proffesional in these things.
 

treave

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
11,370
Codex 2012
Immortal Banishment

You hop from one foot to another, grinning at the woman.

“What are you doing?” she demands, stretching out her palm.

“Just warming up. I’m coming straight at you, so be ready,” you declare. Then, you kick off, going straight as her just as you said. You see the veiled lady leap backwards – your sudden burst of speed seems to have taken her by surprise this time around – before she waves her palms at you. Relying solely on your instincts, you leap into the air, spinning away from a mass of darkness that seem to have erupted from the ground itself. You do not manage a clean dodge; where the shadows brush against your body with their icy touch, a numbing pain spreads.

Gritting your teeth, you land on your feet. Instantly, she conjures up more streams of dark yin energy that shoot towards you. A couple of stray shots head towards Shun, but to your relief the Xuanyuan Sword seems able to repel them – there is a faint golden glow around the blade as Shun weakly holds it in front of him. Turning your thoughts back to battle, you charge forward, dodging between the streams as you zig-zag your way towards her. When you reach her, you lash out with your claws, intercepting her hands in mid-swing before she can complete her subsequent moves. The veiled lady draws back with an shout of annoyance, her arms slipping away from your grasp as she appears to float effortlessly across the ground.

The shadows ripple.

Even as she attempts to gesture again, you are upon her, slashing away with your claws. “Xuantiedun!” shouts out the woman, throwing both hands outwards. Your fingers are stopped short by an invisible wall of qi. The feeling is jarring; as if you have suddenly struck an iron shield. Concentrating your qi in your fingertips, you crush the invisible wall.

The veiled lady tries to take this chance to distance herself from you again, but you pounce upon her like a beast seeking its prey. Soaring above her head, you execute the Earth Splitting Lightning Descent, bringing your heel down upon her head. Again, your attack is stopped by the qi barrier. The stone floor beneath her feet cracks as the force of your blow is transferred into the ground, but the woman remains unharmed.

Taking advantage of the recoil, you leap towards one of the pillars surrounding the broken altar. You spring off of the pillar, using it as a platform to launch yourself towards her yet again. The veiled lady’s hands blur, raised in a defensive position. No problem. You will just crush it again.

However, the barrier you are expecting does not materialize. Instead, she drives her open palm directly at you. Just in the nick of time, you twist your body in mid-air. Somehow, you instinctively know what to do. You use The Abyssal Dragon Plummets, pushing aside her wrist with your own even as you fall. You can feel the rush of wind against your cheek and – shortly after – the sound of stone crumbling behind you. If that had hit…

As soon as you land, the veiled lady takes the offensive; she swoops down with her own claws – attacks powerful enough to melt stone. If you get hit even once, it is going to hurt you plenty. Pulling off a series of nimble evasions with ease, you attempt to retaliate, but she has gained enough breathing room to make use of her shadows again.

A gigantic black wave of powerful yin qi rises over you; you realize that if you let it engulf you, you are finished. Gathering your own qi in your fingertips, you sharpen your claws and let fly. The concentrated chaos disperses the darkness in front of you, drilling through the wave as you break through and charge straight for the veiled woman.

This does not seem to faze her. She lets out a mocking laugh, drawing her hands towards her. Behind you, the shadows reform and shoot straight for your back. You manage to turn at the last second, slashing apart the gathered shadows. Knowing that the woman will not miss this opportunity to strike, you complete your spin, whirling around to face her.

The only thing you can do in time is to harden your guard.

Her palm touches the middle of your crossed forearms gently. At the moment of contact, you feel an extremely destructive force tearing and smashing its way through your body. The bones of your arms creak – perhaps even crack – as you take one staggering step backwards. Blood wells up in your mouth and you almost gag; that blow has definitely caused you some internal injuries.

“I’ll take care of you first,” she murmurs gleefully, preparing to introduce her bone-melting claws to your skull.

“You have little experience fighting, don’t you?” you smile, your lips stained red as you spit out the blood in your mouth. Her techniques are the only thing that are powerful – as for the immortal herself, she has no sense of personal danger. She is the sort to be utterly blinded by the sight of victory.

From your crossed guard position, you throw your arms outwards, using the Elusive Claws of the Hidden Tiger to deceive her. She has thrown everything she has into her attack, and you throw everything you have into your counter-attack at the last possible second. You unleash the Raging Claws of the Mad Lion at point-blank with all your strength; the force of your attack rushes outward, tearing up the ground all around her and making deep claw marks in the remaining pillars. Those promptly topple a second later.

The veiled lady screams, falling back in a panic. “It hurts! It hurts!”

It takes a split second before you realize that something is wrong.

She is still entirely unharmed. Even her clothes are unscathed. You are mistaken – she does not need a sense of personal danger. Not when facing you. All of her lack of skill and over-reliance on her powerful techniques – disadvantages you thought you could capitalize on – are meaningless weak points compared to the advantage of being invincible. The veiled lady begins laughing. “How was my acting? Did you really think a mortal like you could ever threaten me? Oh, don’t be so stunned that you forget your place, you useless insect.” She points a finger at you.

Appearing faster than you can react, black spikes shoot up from the ground, piercing your right arm. The shadows begin to spread quickly, swallowing your arm greedily.

You howl in agony as you feel your flesh dying, taken by the darkness.

“I will take you apart, piece by piece,” promises the immortal happily. “Your very existence is an insult to Heaven. But first, perhaps I will use the Xiansha Finger to make you kill your own master.”

Stepping towards you in a light-hearted manner, she jabs her finger into your pressure points.

Perhaps it is a good thing that you don’t have any to work with.

A soft murmur of surprise comes from behind the veil.

She takes a step backwards.

Screaming, you tear yourself free from the shadows’ vise-like grip to wet, ripping sounds that echo in your ear.

She attempts to strike at you with her claws, but finally you have the advantage of surprise. Her movements are slow. Hesitant. She is too confused to fight effectively. Even with one arm, you knock away her attacks; you draw in close, too close for her to use her accursed shadows.

You raise your arm to strike. Even if it is useless, the more time you spend fighting, the more time Shun has to recover and retreat.

“Get down!”

You hear Shun’s order, and obey. Dropping down, you feel his feet step onto your back. Shun vaults over you, shouting. Using you as a platform to get above the veiled lady, he lands behind her. She turns. Still shaken by your relentless one-armed assault, she does so just a bit too slow.

When you raise your head, the blade of the Xuanyuan Sword is protruding from her chest. The veiled lady gasps, clutching at the sword. "How is it possible for you to use... that sword... to..."

Her confusion does not last. “C-cursed Tang Emperor!” she spits, regaining her composure. “Don’t think you have won! I am taking you with me!” shrieks the woman, her voice full of rage and fire. Shouting, she raises her arm and gestures, summoning a shadowy torrent of yin energy to strike Shun down with her last breath.

Shun's expression remains steady. He furrows his brow, concentrating, and mimics her gestures swiftly.

Shadows meet, clash, and dissipate harmlessly.

The veiled lady screams a furious curse to the heavens as she begins to glow.

There is a flash of golden light, and then all that is left are her clothes.

The storm clouds in the sky are blown away by the flow of the wind. The sun begins shining down upon you again. At the moment, you find the heat almost intolerable.

You crawl towards Shun, who is slumped on the ground, still clutching the Xuanyuan Sword tightly. It is stained heavily with blood – all of it his. The ancient inscriptions now stand out in darkening red. “Sorry for being late,” he grins weakly, “it took me too long to gather enough strength to stand.”

“No harm done,” you shake your head.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” He gestures at your right arm.

You have not looked at it since you tore yourself free of the shadows. You turn your head, dreading what you might see - and you regret looking at it almost instantly. Your entire arm is missing below the shoulder. The wound itself is a mess of frost-bitten, mangled flesh; at least there is little bleeding.

“You don’t seem to be very affected by the pain,” says Shun.

“Oh, I’m going to feel it afterwards,” you groan. Once the adrenaline wears off, you are sure that it is going to hurt a lot. Not only that – it is definitely going to affect your martial arts. Still, if Qi Liuwu can survive with no arms, you can probably manage with one. Positive thinking. “How about you? Your… wound.”

“I think I will make it,” he sighs, clutching his stomach. “If you can survive that, this little stab shouldn’t be a problem.”

After giving Shun's wound whatever treatment you can with only one arm, you look around you. The cliff-top shrine has been reduced to rubble, and the grounds look like an entire army has trampled through them. There is a growing, throbbing pain where your right arm used to be, and you resist the urge to let out a groan of pain in front of Shun. The gods know he would mock you for it. “So, what do we do now?”

“It is probably time to leave the island, but first…” Shun glances at the Xuanyuan Sword, and holds it out to you.

You stare at him wordlessly.

The Emperor laughs. “Go on, take it in your hand. The one you have left. Give it a try.”

Just a little tentatively, you close your fingers around the sword’s leather-wrapped hilt.

“What do you think?” he asks.

Waving it around a little, you say, “It… feels just like a normal, old sword. A bit heavier than usual… like it’s a bit reluctant in my hands, but nothing special.” Certainly, it’s not showing any special properties like it does with Shun. You wouldn’t try to block any crazy shadow energy blasts with it.

Shun closes his eyes and nods thoughtfully. “I see. Well, do you want to borrow it for a while?”

You stare at him again. “What are you up to?”

“I just thought it could help you, since you are short an arm and all,” he grins. “No, actually, I intended this from the start. If you don’t want this honour, I’ll just keep it and think about another reward for you.”

***

A. You take the Xuanyuan Sword. It might be helpful to you in the future, even if it doesn't seem to do anything right now. It feels unwieldy enough in your hand that you will not be able to fight with it anytime soon, however.

B. You don’t take the Xuanyuan Sword. It seems to have protective abilities, and as such you think it would be better to leave it with Shun. It is his sword anyway and he will probably need it more than you do.
 
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asxetos

Augur
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
820
Location
Greece
God damn, we lost an arm...
There goes our chance to take over the sect summit.

Voting B. The sword will only bring more troubles. I suggest Shun publicly acknowledges us as the Fire Lord and pardons the Cult.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Ack, so B was the better choice.

Well, I motion we preserve our arm in ice and hope Cao'er can reattach it when she gets back.

B.
 

Rex Feral

Prophet
Joined
Jan 29, 2013
Messages
1,300
Oh for fucks sake, now we get to be fullmetal alchemist.

treave I beg of you, what would have happened with the other options?
 

Elfberserker

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
1,540
Well at laest both Xu Jing and Shu are alive, so it was not all that bad.
I think we need to start investing to leg techniques or our yuchang techniques.

A
That was pretty epic fight.



Edit: Flopped
 
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Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
B would still have had the better outcome, though.

Somehow C became the competing vote though, which really sucked.

Tbh I was expecting A to result in -1 arm, but C was looking total fail.
 

Smashing Axe

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,835
Divinity: Original Sin
If Shun intends that we have it, he probably has some devious scheme. And Benevolent Shulgi gets what Benevolent Shulgi wants.

A


Also :lol: at the arm loss. I wonder if being possessed may change that later. Where is muh crazy regen powarz?

In retrospect D wouldn't have worked well, keeping range gives the immortal the advantage it seems. Although if we were closer to Shun maybe the darkness powers wouldn't have worked as well. Who knows?
 

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