I don't really understand where you are getting any of this. We don't have to kill anyone. We have been practicing our fighting against people in the tournament, so I doubt that we are going to not know our strength enough to off a guy on accident unless we choose to do so.
Again. There's a difference between a clean fight and this shit.
We also aren't starting this fight. We were just standing in the crowd and the Songfeng people started throwing a hissy fit and nearly charged us in a room full of people. They issued the challenge. We would just be accepting their fight. We re not the bad guy in this.
Again. "He started it." Seriously, that's a shit argument.
And why do you think they have poisons? They had no idea coming into this meeting that we were going to be there. It is ridiculous to think that these random pugilists, who at least pretend to be honorable and just, carry around poisons that they could use to kill people dishonorably in the off chance that they might run into them.
I'm just bringing up the off-chance that Rong Zhiyu's co-conspirators might still have some poisons on them. They did have dealings with the Wudu cult, after all.
Besides, it would be pretty obvious to everyone if they poisoned us anyway. It is one thing to think that they would try to have an "accident" and kill us during the duel, but people dieing of poisons are pretty obvious.
It's a poor poison that gives away the poisoner. Slow poisons can still give us hell and there's more subtle crap like muscle relaxants that make it harder to move well and let your opponent "fairly" defeat you with the sword. If they have dealings with the Wudu cult, getting poisons like this shouldn't be a problem.
They would be blacklisted from the pugilistic world if they were to try to do something like that.
If they were
caught doing something like that, you mean.
There is also nothing preventing us from proving ourselves in the campaign either. I think this is something that a lot of people are overlooking. We can still be a badass and take out the leader by ourselves if we are so inclined if we choose A as well,
If we get injured, odds of success go down. If we piss of Songfeng enough that they really decide to "accidentally" ambush us during the campaign, our odds go down even more. If we piss off Songfeng enough that they
leave, that also hurts our chances now that we have reduced forces to ambush with. Besides, making it a contest sounds interesting.
it just frees us from the chance that the Songfeng are going to try to ambush us or get us when we have our back turned. If we humble them right now they will not be able to make as many obvious moves.
And this is where I disagree. I think, if anything, this is going
cause shit during the pirate assault. There's a point where someone is so pissed off they throw caution to the winds, and they are definitely close. If we start beating them up and proving that we're just a violent punk who needs to be #1, then we've seriously caused havoc.
We need to start acting like our master's apprentice. He wouldn't turn down a fight, and it looks bad upon him that we keep running away from any straightforward challenge that we are given.
Hell no. Zhang Jue is half the reason we have a bad reputation. Now you want to
live down to Zhang Jue's brutally violent rep?
I am all for protecting our hide and avoiding necessary dangers, but I am pretty confident that we are able to win this no sweat.
I'm pretty confident we won't make it out unscathed and that the next day we will not only be participating injured, but also have to put up with the fact that our allied forces are weakened and the Songfeng school has set its sights on us, assuming they are even participating after we beat them.
It might make it that much harder for us to fulfill our mission with the eight sects if we keep turning down honorable duels. They might be all "Why should we fight you on your terms when you constantly refuse to fight others on their terms?"
We can fight the Eight Sects on their terms if it comes to it. If we challenge Bai Jiutian last (which is a good idea), then we can still make him fight us on our terms once we've done enough duels on the Eight Sects' terms.
I've been lurking this thread since it began, and I've really enjoyed just reading it so far. I feel compelled to chime in on this choice, however.
It's hard to say which is the "best choice", but I'm voting for A, and this is why:
1) We already backed down from Bai Jiutian. While that doesn't seem to have hurt our reputation much so far, I fear that if we keep backing down from these seemingly righteous challenges, our reputation will be so poor that it will interfere with everything we do. Considering how much trouble we're already getting just from being Zhang Jue's disciple, further compounded by our antics during the tournament, I don't think we can risk tarnishing our reputation any more than we already have. We're walking a fine line trying to be a non-bloodthirsty Zhang Jue disciple, and I think we should save our remaining leeway in negative reputation hits for more dire circumstances.
Except. The last time we backed down from a challenge, our reputation went
up. Also, I think voting A is
exactly the sort of thing that tarnishes our reputation. Now we're jumping into fights and being exactly the kind of irascible hothead they expect us to be. Not to mention that Rong Muben has
vowed not to take revenge. So lets not actually start shit, shall we?
2) Choosing Option B may force us into a no win situation. Specifically, I suspect there is a chance we will be faced with a choice between claiming the head of the Wo leader first, or saving Zhou Dingqui's daughter, or some other desireable/undesireable option. So far, we've played Jing as a good-hearted rogue (bro-rogue? brogue?), and I'd like to see that continue. If so, we will sometimes have to favor doing the right thing -- as we did with Rong Muben's cretin son earlier -- over glory, convenience, or some other personal benefit. It therefore seems prudent to avoid further penalizing ourselves (by losing the competition), should we decide that doing something else is more important than claiming the head of the Wo leader first.
That's not a no-win situation. Even if we get forced into that kind of choice, both choices have clear benefits to them (but saving the girl would be the better choice).
3) Option A will earn us the displeasure of Zhou Dingqui, which is unfortunate. We may be able to reverse that by saving his daughter later on, however, which is something we will likely want to do regardless of it interfering with claiming the head of the Wo leader or not. Performing well in the operation in general may also earn us his favor, negating some of the displeasure.
No. Voting A will earn us the displeasure of
everyone. Songfeng school gets to have its ass kicked by the guy who killed their heir. At which point Rong Muben really can't say "okay guys lets not lay a hand on him." The host will be gravely insulted because we are starting a fight under his roof. And the alliance will be damaged. We are basically fucking up everything for the sake of... what? Our inability to walk away from a cheap provocation?
4) Settling things with Songfeng also seems desireable, although it could backfire if we kill or maim any of them. It may not mean much, and it may even make matters worse for us, but we shouldn't completely disregard our own honor. Running around picking fights is bad, unless we want to be another Zhang Jue, but so is sitting around meekly taking shit from everyone.
Except this is actually dishonorable conduct (again, insulting the host, damaging the alliance, taking up cheap provocations...), and
we are not settling anything with Songfeng. How does beating them settle shit? Unless we bury them six feet down under, this won't be the end of it. Walking away from pointless violence isn't going to injure our honor, not with Rong Muben being opposed to the violence, especially not with our high speech skill.
Besides, meekly taking shit is only a problem when people can walk over you. We all know that if these tools actually tried shit they would get fucked, so there's no point in proactively starting shit just to say "don't mess with me man, I'm dangerous."
We're strong enough that can we can politely smile in their face until we rip them in half once they go too far.
5) Provided we are able to win the match in Option A without killing or maiming the disciples, It might give us an opportunity to publicly set the record straight regarding what happened at Songfeng. Rong Muben is likely still too boneheaded to listen to reason, and our credibility with the crowd will be strained given our master's reputation, but that way at least the "XU JING MURDERED MY BEATIFUL BABY BOY" spiel won't be the only story on the market. With the crowd gathered around us post-match, we have a chance to proclaim our side of the story, which should at least be somewhat credible given that we had nothing to gain by killing his son, and that Muben has made a full recovery (what a strange coincidence that the illness ceased when his son died...).
That won't go over well.
Jing beats up Songfeng school and tells the public the story of "Believe me gentlemen, I have acted with Songfeng and Rong Muben's best interests at heart. I'm really an upstanding gentleman." They won't buy it like that. If you want the story to work, you have to prove that Jing has good reasons for his actions and "people might think poorly of me" is hardly a good reason to go for a fight.
Regardless of that, we might be able to make Muben participate in the operation by appealing to his honor and righteousness.
There's a limit to how much shit a man can take. Don't be surprised if this crap pushes him over the edge.
We're not at -100 yet, but if we vote A, we will be.
