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Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I actually don't have a good answer to this.

My kneejerk reaction would be B3 - honoring Yao's request while not condoning his madness. Why do people want to go with B1? The girl is sinless here, it was old Jiangke who abused his power. What could posssibly make you want to murder her in cold blood? This is just insane.

However, I can't help but feel that continuing with our stealth mission to lead Cao'er out is pushing our luck. She may not be held in a dungeon, but she is still a prisoner. There should still be guards around, and she is in a very crowded place. Sneaking her out would be complicated, and you do not really expect her to jump over the wall with you, do you? And you only have 2 hours left until dawn.

But I don't feel like I can ignore the old man, either. He is obviously planning something, and he wants Cao'er out of here when the time comes. He probably wants to go through with the assasination attempt when Emei will be paying a visit.

The following line is strange:
treave said:
"If you get Cao’er out of here and keep it a secret from the nuns, they will likely rescue me instead."
Note the use of "likely" and "instead", as wel as that Cao'er's rescue must be kept secret. The initial plan was not for the nuns to rescue Yao. What, then, did they intend to do? Did he plan for them to get Cao'er out, and now that we are here, he changed his plans?

I want this bloody feud to be over, and B3 does not seem like a way to do it, not to mention it can blow in our face with disastrous consequences. I am almost tempted to go A1 or A2. Will need to hear what others think of our chances.
 
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Esquilax

Arcane
Joined
Dec 7, 2010
Messages
4,833
treave, I have an idea that would be a combination of A3 and B2: we use our mask to threaten Song Lingshu tonight and break her psychologically. After that, we beat a hasty retreat out of the school. When morning comes, we return to issue Zhang's challenge against Song Lingshu tomorrow while she's distraught and sleep-deprived.

She would be in no position to accuse us of being the person who threatened her the night before - she would have no proof, and the idea of another assassin coming so close after the previous one would be implausible. Of course, during the fight itself, we'd pull her close and reveal that we stopped in for a visit the night before.

Anyways, I knew that things weren't quite as rosy between Qingcheng and Emei as Yifeng believed:

“We were summoned back urgently by the Abbess. I am not privy to the knowledge; only Sister Miaozhu knows, but apparently it has something to do with Qingcheng. We got separated somewhere back when the bandits attacked. I don’t think they would look for me because we were needed to hurry back to Emei. In such a situation, they would have had to obey the orders and move on without me.”
...
“They cut my tendons to stop me from using my inner strength to escape. It will take at least two more days for me to heal them. By then the Emei nuns will come for me. I will leave with them.”

You blink, surprised at his words. “Are you saying that Emei will come to rescue you?”

“If you get Cao’er out of here and keep it a secret from the nuns, they will likely rescue me instead.” Seeing that you are about to open your mouth and ask for more information on this strange turn of events, Yao grumbles. “I have no time to explain all of my dealings, boy! Now, will you do it, or will you not? If you are not going to rescue your senior, I will shout for help immediately.”

You take a step backwards. Has the old man gone insane? “Look, perhaps you are not thinking clearly, master. If I kill Song Lingshu and rescue Cao’er, it is going to create a big uproar when they discover the deed tomorrow. You’ll be lucky if they don’t kill you outright, master. They might even increase the patrols. How would the nuns help you then?”

“I have a plan, but that is something for the elderly to pull off. Any reckless meddling on your part would only make things worse. It is none of your concern. Your main concern lies with Cao’er. That is what I am tasking you with. I had hoped that you take care of her for life, but if you cannot do that, at least take her away from this place. Now, go. If you do not, I will call for help.”

Expect to see a lot of this inter-sect covert warfare among orthodox types. If we had gone to Emei, it's possible that they would have used Jing as an enforcer to do some dirty work for them in exchange for calling off the Castration Nuns for a little while.

Nevill, I think Yao's plan was this before we happened to show up: he was expecting to die, but because he's had a long relationship with the Emei nuns in the past, I am speculating that they might have had an agreement to take Cao'er in should he die during her apprenticeship. Even though we don't know the details, Yao is a brilliant man, and should we complete his tasks, I think it'll all work out in the end.

Not voting yet.
 

Nevill

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Messages
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Esquilax said:
Nevill, I think Yao's plan was this before we happened to show up: he was expecting to die, but because he's had a long relationship with the Emei nuns in the past, I am speculating that they might have had an agreement to take Cao'er in should he die during her apprenticeship. Even though we don't know the details, Yao is a brilliant man, and should we complete his tasks, I think it'll all work out in the end.
He is not one to back out from requesting his price. He fully believes Lingshu has to die.
The line I quoted implies that if Cao'er is freed, the nuns won't come. The Emei do not seem to care about Yao himself. Perhaps he promised them a new member?
I think he is planning to free himself once he is healed and murder Lingshu while Emei visit and search for Cao'er (will they come in peace, or will they invade the place? They are allies with Qingcheng). I don't see this working out well unless we intervene. But of course, we can make things even worse.
 

Jester

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Messages
1,493
B2
We have possibility of getting two young lady's from this and no one is pursuing it? I think that explaining the whole situation to her could be interesting.

And vanishing of heir could be nice smoke screen.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Cao'er has some connection to the Emei, that much is certain. As if she is an estranged Emei neophyte, or for some other reason, the Emei value Cao'er - and not Yao. As if they learnt we had rescued Cao'er, they wouldn't bother with Yao...?
 

TOME

Cuckmaster General
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
1,820
theory: Cao'er was originally Emei. While healing the Emei abbes of terminal illness, Yao discovered Cao'ers immortal eyes and wanted her as an apprentice instead of the usual price. The Emei could not accept this without imposing one rule for Yao; Cao'er must not kill. And now the emei are coming to rescue her. Not Yao.
 

Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
B3

We are not our master. The only reason we took the price at the Songfeng school was because the guy was a dick. Rescuing Cao'er is paramount.
Pretty much, and I hate the idea of being anyone's pet Lithuania Hitman, so I am against assassinating her for Yao. Also, it's not Zhang's methods and techniques I think will make us a bloodthirsty douche, it's our Inner Khorne that will. In other words, it's up to us to use his teachings for good or ill. The girl is innocent, this is Yao's crazy talking here. If he wants to exact his price, let him. He has a plan with the Emei, they will probably come for him once they find out Cao'er is absent. As to why:
Cao'er has some connection to the Emei, that much is certain. As if she is an estranged Emei neophyte, or for some other reason, the Emei value Cao'er - and not Yao. As if they learnt we had rescued Cao'er, they wouldn't bother with Yao...?
Simple,
“I have a plan, but that is something for the elderly to pull off. Any reckless meddling on your part would only make things worse. It is none of your concern. Your main concern lies with Cao’er. That is what I am tasking you with. I had hoped that you take care of her for life, but if you cannot do that, at least take her away from this place. Now, go. If you do not, I will call for help.”
He wanted to make us her caretaker. When we went with Zhang, he had to change his arrangments and pull favors with the Emei: if he dies, they take her into the convent. Now, I'm sure the nuns would love to have such a promising medic on their side, especially one that can use pressure points.
Thing is, I'm not okay with her joining the convent.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Let us gather our facts.

1) Yao wants Lingshu dead.
2) He is prepared to die for it, for it is a matter of principle to him
3) Nuns are coming to take care of Cao'er. And if Yifeng story is of any indication, they care for young girls by enlisting them in their sect.
4) The old Song is the one at fault here, not Lingshu.
5) Cao'er is kept in better conditions than Yao. This shows that Lingshu is able to differentiate between her father's murderer and the assistant that is innocent of his crimes.

The nuns might be desperate for a new member, especially the one that has a rare trait. Can you imagine what a fighter she would be with Immortal Eyes? This is not just a sword that have waited for them for a hundred years and can wait for another. This is an urgent matter to them. We want to prevent (3) at all costs. Now that I think of it, going to Emei would be a horrible, horrible idea, unless you plan to swindle them out of Cao'er somehow.

Combining (4) and (5), there is a good chance that Lingshu is actually a decent person, unlike her father. He was rotten and unworthy to be a head of a major orthodox sect. There is also a matter of recent change in policies, though for now it is unclear why it happened.

We might want to prevent (1). And (2), for that matter, but it is contrary to (1) for the moment.

I am seriously considering Song diplomacy with A2. The reason why I do so while I was opposed to it at first is that we have learned several important facts:

* Song Jiangke was corrupt. He tried to wiggle his way out of the payment and gone against his word. This behavior is disgraceful for an orthodox, and defending such conduct brings dishonor to the entire school.
* Lingshu might not know that the circumstances that led to the death of her father were that Yao saved her own life.
* Nuns, that she considers her allies, are planning something in Qingcheng that Lingshu does not expect.

If Lingshu is more trustworthy than her father, and we can put a right spin on these facts, we might come to an understanding. But there is a more difficult matter, and that is Yao himself. How do we make him back off? Would saving his life from execution be payment enough for him to spare Lingshu? Life for a life, and all that? Esquilax, Baltika9? Did I miss something?

This is a mess. It would be so much easier if there was a living and tangible villain we could scewer and be proud about it.
 
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Nevill

Arcane
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Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Kipeci said:
We swore a debt to Yao, we should fulfill it in its entirety if possible.
What does it entail? Murdering young girls all over the country because of uncollected debts?

We never agreed to this.

Perhaps this time, the debt is better served by ignoring Yao's orders.

Baltika9i said:
The girl is innocent, this is Yao's crazy talking here. If he wants to exact his price, let him.
Why would you let Yao exact his price on an innocent girl? Why are you willing to let both of them die?

We can at least try to save them both. Hell, we can try and save at least one of them.
 
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Kipeci

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Messages
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Location
Vicksburg
This is a one time thing that lines up with our interests, anyway. Just kill her now so that we won't have to later, or else so that they have to replace her with whoever else is supposed to head up the place after she goes.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Kipeci said:
This is a one time thing that lines up with our interests, anyway. Just kill her now so that we won't have to later, or else so that they have to replace her with whoever else is supposed to head up the place after she goes.
I don't understand. Why is it in our interest to kill her?

Why do we care that she has to be replaced? Why would it be beneficial to us?

Azira, troll as you want, we have sworn a debt of eternal gratitude. If we let Yao kill himself, how grateful does that make us?
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,519
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
We don't actually have to kill her, but it would satisfy Zhang's criteria. She's the new head of this sect, so she's supposedly the best of our age.
We could simply humiliate her though.
 

Nevill

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Messages
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
We don't actually have to kill her, but it would satisfy Zhang's criteria. [...] We could simply humiliate her though.
Then do not propose this if you don't intend to kill her.

This is going into complete monster territory:
treave said:
You just need to paint the words "Xu Jing, Apprentice of the Southern Maniac was here" in her blood all over her room's walls. That would satisfy Zhang's requirement and amuse him tremendously.

We'll deal with her later. For now, I want Yao to make it out of there alive, and not make us into Jack The Ripper while doing so.
 

TOME

Cuckmaster General
Joined
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Messages
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They made a deal with Yao and they should honor it. The girl has to die. I'm not willini to risk Cao'er for it but we should come back and challenge her for a duel to death. And just when we are about to finish her off we whisper that the killing physicians sends his regards. This would also fulfill Zhang's quest.
 

Nevill

Arcane
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Messages
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
TOME said:
They made a deal with Yao and they should honor it. The girl has to die. I'm not willini to risk Cao'er for it but we should come back and challenge her for a duel to death.
This might be possible with A3. Not by murdering her in her sleep.

And if we kill her now, Yao is toast.
 
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Esquilax

Arcane
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Dec 7, 2010
Messages
4,833
theory: Cao'er was originally Emei. While healing the Emei abbes of terminal illness, Yao discovered Cao'ers immortal eyes and wanted her as an apprentice instead of the usual price. The Emei could not accept this without imposing one rule for Yao; Cao'er must not kill. And now the emei are coming to rescue her. Not Yao.

Beautiful. I think you cracked it. Your post was the last one at the previous page, so I'm quoting it here just in case some people didn't see it. The nuns are generally quite old:

“Sister Miaoli is not well enough to make the trip this time. Her health has been poorly recently, and the Abbess deemed it time that she retired from active duty on the team,”

This is some very plausible speculation.

We are not our master. The only reason we took the price at the Songfeng school was because the guy was a dick. Rescuing Cao'er is paramount.

The girl is young and doesn't deserve it; this is all the fault of her father. If he had been willing to lay his life down after Yao saved his daughter and deal with the Killing Physician honorably, this entire series of events would never have transpired. Song Jiangke knew exactly what he was getting into when he called up the Killing Physician. However, I suspect that it's very easy for a lot of us to vote to kill Song Lingshu because we haven't met her - we'd certainly feel a lot differently about it if we had a conversation with her beforehand. It's much easier to kill someone you've never seen or met.

However, let me give the flipside of all this. Jing is a born killer. It is what he is. He honed that killer instinct by practicing on prisoners as a child, and now training with the Southern Maniac has honed that further. Sure, we could argue about who deserves what and say that Master Rong's son deserved to die (and maybe I'd agree with you), but the fact of the matter is that we didn't have any problems with killing a bandit on our way here. I guess that bandit "deserved" it too. Jing didn't seem too choked up about it.

I don't understand. Why is it in our interest to kill her?

Why do we care that she has to be replaced? Why would it be beneficial to us?

It fulfills Zhang's challenge. We must challenge and defeat the finest young prospect from each major orthodox sect; I'd say that greasing the new sect head, who is around our age, would fulfill that criteria, and then some. Furthermore, we'd be doing so in private, without giving away our fighting style or tricks at all. We'd be having our cake and eating it too, in a sense: we'd get a kill in without giving anything regarding our style away.

As for her being replaced, her death would cause a power vacuum. With Song Jiangke and his daughter both dead, it's difficult to say who would take charge of the sect. That being said, no matter who's in charge, we would become a Sworn Enemy of the Qingcheng. No way out of that.
 

Kipeci

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Location
Vicksburg
I don't understand. Why is it in our interest to kill her?

Why do we care that she has to be replaced? Why would it be beneficial to us?

She's the head of the sect and one of the people we should be challenging. I'd have preferred to get off with only a fight in which we demonstrate superiority-- a vote for D last time would have been great-- but with the information we have now, B1 is the only option that will allow for us to satisfy a portion of our debt to Yao as well as advancing in the cause for Zhang.

The replacement part I mentioned is because I'm fairly sure that the Codex still wants to say that this is a sekkrit mishun, so there's probably going to be a vote against leaving a 'Xu Jing was here' type message spelled in livers.
 

Nevill

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Messages
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Esquilax said:
It fulfills Zhang's challenge. We must challenge and defeat the finest young prospect from each major orthodox sect; I'd say that greasing the new sect head, who is around our age, would fulfill that criteria, and then some. Furthermore, we'd be doing so in private, without giving away our fighting style or tricks at all. We'd be having our cake and eating it too, in a sense: we'd get a kill in without giving anything regarding our style away.
Again, how is it in our interest to be known as another maniac, not to mention actually become one?
Esquilax said:
That being said, no matter who's in charge, we would become a Sworn Enemy of the Qingcheng. No way out of that.

Last time I checked the plan, we intended for the challenges to be non-lethal. What happened to that?

That aside, what about appealing to the fact Lingshu owes Yao her life? Can we make A2 fly?
 

Kipeci

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Location
Vicksburg
Again, how is it in our interest to be known as another maniac

Well, there's the not being hunted down and killed by our current master part.

Last time I checked the plan, we intended for the challenges to be non-lethal. What happened to that?

We voted A to figure out more information, and now we know that Yao is specifically wanting her dead.
 

Baltika9

Arcane
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Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
We swore a debt to Yao, we should fulfill it in its entirety if possible.
>Oh god, Zhang will make us a murderer!
>*Act like a murderer even when you have alternatives and nonone is demanding that the girl die.*
Look, Yao isn't demanding we kill anybody here, his only order is rescuong Cao'er. He has a plan for the rest, let him use it.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Kipeci said:
Well, there's the not being hunted down and killed by our current master part.
For that, we need to complete the challenge. Cutting throats while people are asleep is one way to do that, but not the only way.

Funny, nobody but Azira voted for stabbing Rong Jr with a dagger when our life immediately depended on it, and now we are ready to slaughter innocent women left and right because it would coincide with our current goals.

Kipeci said:
We voted A to figure out more information, and now we know that Yao is specifically wanting her dead.
We also learned about other facts. That Yao has gone crazy with thoughts of revenge is one of them. In fact, he himself admits to his shortcomings, but does nothing to help it.
------------------------------------------------------------
Look, Yao himself is unsure of what to do here.
Yao sighs wearily. “I know that you are concerned over Cao’er’s safety, and mine. I have made mistakes and erred in my judgment over the many years I have lived. At my age I am well aware of my faults and my sins. I will admit as much; I killed Song Jiangke over my pride, and nothing else. I should not have done so – I should have thought of Cao’er’s wellbeing.”
We can push him in the direction we think is right. Either we let him kill the heir and die in the process, true to his ideals, or we save them both and Yao continues to watch over Cao'er. He does think that her life should have come before his pride.

Cao'er would never want him dead over this. I think A2 is the way to go.

B3 is just taking Cao'er and Yao be damned. I can settle for this, but I find this a bit too cold for my taste.
 
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