[LP CYOA] 傳

[asxetos]

Why would I refuse healing then? I trust the expertise of both Cao'er and Qilin - safe for Yao, they are the highest authority on these matters there is.

And yes, I am ignoring Nameless. Beating the previous champion is more prestigious anyway.

You dont refuse healing.
You wait to use it after the fight with Nameless.

 

[XenomorphII]

AA

 

[Nevill]

If you do not use it now, the medicine won't have time to work. It is not a Stimpack.

 

[Zero Credibility]

No, we can't do that - it sounds like even with the medicine it would take us two days to recover fully:

…golden fox leaves. They can heal physical wounds extremely quickly. You should be fully recovered by the time you fight with the white one if you use it.

edit: too late

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

BA

We have to win the fight against Bai Jiutian. Now that our master's honor is at stake, we cannot afford to lose. Forget Mrs. Persia. Besides, I want to wipe that smug look of that fuckers face. Our master sent us to beat the best, and he is the best. Now is a good enough time to start than any.

I say take the medicine. Cao'er says that it works. Maybe we could ask Qilin if they are poisoned or something.

 

[Zero Credibility]

We did that as well. She said she didn't find any poison, but didn't want to say they were definitely safe either.

 

[Nevill]

The danger will likely come not from the medicine itself. If we have no visible wound, but get hit by another Yuhua Duqing Palm, we would still lose, and we can't explain it away. We need to be extra careful not to get jumped after the tournament.

Oh, and I believe A2 have failed us spectacularly. They got us where they wanted us - we have to stick around now.

 

[Azira]

Failed? If we win, one of our demands is that he publicly declare Jing as his superior in martial arts, now and forever, in sights of gods (ancestors?) and men alike. That should satisfy ZJ, and the prick totally set himself up to it with his own demands. It would certainly humiliate him.

Acutally, I couldn't have planned this better. This white prick is one of the fighters we'd have to defeat in any case, preferrably in as humiliating a manner as possible. Having him swear the above would be plenty of humiliation I reckon.

 

[asxetos]

A2 was the option to stick around, indeed, but avoid the challenge until the tournament ends. I cannot see how it failed us.

 

[Zero Credibility]

How did A2 fail spectacularly? We traded an imminent (and likely to-the-death) duel with some nobody while we are injured to a non-lethal duel with the guy we would have to face anyway, when we are (hopefully) fully recovered. I say that is a good deal. Much better than the possibility of being forced to kill that patsy in front of the audience to be sure, if we could even take him on in our state.

What I don't understand is just what is Bai Jiutian's part in this whole mess. How would him defeating us and forcing us to apologize help with the plan of creating an outrage strong enough to make people take on the Maniac? If anything it would seem completely counterproductive to that. And in case of our victory, since this isn't a battle to the death we can just go easy on the former champion in front of the audience to defuse the situation. The only thing I can think of is that he isn't actually a part of the conspiracy, and the main reason he is taking us on is just his ego - to the detriment of the real conspirators.

 

[Nevill]

Failed? If we win, one of our demands is that he publicly declare Jing as his superior in martial arts, now and forever, in sights of gods (ancestors?) and men alike. That should satisfy ZJ, and the prick totally set himself up to it with his own demands. It would certainly humiliate him.

And if we just beat him up, that would not saisfy Zhang Jue? It would not humiliate a champion who had not been defeated in several years?

He forced a fight on us, on his conditions, while we are wounded, and tossed us a medicine that we would have never ingested otherwise, but are desperate enough to try out now. He is in control of the situation, not you.

 

[Nevill]

We traded an imminent (and likely to-the-death) duel with some nobody while we are injured to a non-lethal duel with the guy we would have to face anyway, when we are (hopefully) fully recovered.

Yes, we traded a harmless duel that we could have won easily to a duel with the most dangerous of our foes, where loss is completely unacceptable.

And we may either fully recover, or get a case of slight poisoning that would be just enough for us to lose the match.

 

[Baltika9]

treave, does Cao'er know, perchance, how to prepare the leaves in a manner that diffuses any potential poisons? What about Yao's notes we received right after we saved Cao'er?

Also, can either she or Quilin prepare us some drugs/stimulants for our fight with Jiutian?

 

[treave]

I've not got any particular leanings towards this, either option is fine, but could we get Cao'er to examine the herbs and work on finding acceptable substitutes for the future? Is that possible, treave?

If any common herbs could be as effective, someone would have discovered it by now. So you'd have to venture into the deepest forests and highest mountains to search for rare and unknown plants or animals which can be turned into medicine. It's probably not going to happen any time soon.

I'm just worried that Qi got himself into more trouble already. Hey treave he didn't make a bet already, did he?

You don't know. He didn't come over after the match, and you were too preoccupied with your upcoming problems to think about it. You'll definitely see him tomorrow though.

treave, does Cao'er know, perchance, how to prepare the leaves in a manner that diffuses any potential poisons? What about Yao's notes we received right after we saved Cao'er.

Also, can either she or Quilin prepare us some drugs/stimulants for our fight with Jiutian?

Sure, you can diffuse all potential poisons. The same process also makes the leaves useless for healing, practically destroying them.

You can't counteract a poison if you don't know what it is.

The stuff needed to make something powerful enough to give you an instant performance boost is out of reach for you. You don't have access to those rare materials.

 

[Zero Credibility]

We traded an imminent (and likely to-the-death) duel with some nobody while we are injured to a non-lethal duel with the guy we would have to face anyway, when we are (hopefully) fully recovered.

Yes, we traded a harmless duel that we could have won easily to a duel with the most dangerous of our foes, where loss is completely unacceptable.

And we may either fully recover, or get a case of slight poisoning that would be just enough for us to lose the match.

Harmless duel? The guy challenged us to a fight to the death. While we have a broken arm and are exhausted. If loss of honour is completely unacceptable, what do you call loss of life? And even fighting him alone, let alone hurting or killing him could be turned against us by the conspirators - drawing us into something reckless was the whole point of that show.

 

[Nevill]

If loss of honour is completely unacceptable, what do you call loss of life?

I call it bullshit. There wouldn't be a fight in B2, and there would be no reason for a fight to the death in B1, since we wouldn't be Zhang Jue's disciple then.

 

[Ganymede]

Well that was less dramatic then I hoped.

Still we got an extra climactic duel out of it so that's cool. Unfortunate that they're right after one another but you can never have too much of a good thing.

Thing is, Jing absolutely has to win both fights. Whatever insidious plot is served by having Nameless take the tournament cannot be allowed to come to fruition. That is assuming of course that Nameless actually plans to win the tournament, and that she is affiliated with the WiB conspiracy. But more paranoid speculation is useless at this point. The -less trio are dodgy foreign devils and they have to be stopped. I like to think that if it came down to it, Jing would swallow his pride and suffer the depredations of Bai Jiutan, Zhang Jue and all the rest if it meant saving the day, but with the way the votes are going that clearly isn't the case and fair enough. Fuck begging forgiveness from that twerp.

I kind of like C as a wildcard option, because Jing is against long odds here and he needs to pull off something extraordinary and unexpected. But with the injured arm it's just too risky. My policy has always been to prepare as best you can for the fight in front of you, rather than any theoretical fights down the line, for the simple reason that you may not survive the fight in front of you. There's no chance of pulling this off without Jing at his peak, so chug that medicine down and pray Bai Jiutan is as good as his word. AA

 

[Zero Credibility]

Yes, there would be a fight - that's the whole point of choice 1. We would give them one even if they don't want one. And it probably would be the real thing as well, no messing around with blunted swords - he was certainly prepared to kill us (or at least try to) right here and now.

edit: Wait, what did you vote for? The second choice by far was B1, not B2.

 

[Baltika9]

It does seem extremely suspicious that Jiutian would be carrying a pouch of extremely expensive and rare herbs on him just like that. This is almost surely staged, however, this may be his own personal plot to get us in the open and call for a duel, for reasons of ego and school honor. We did kinda completely humiliate Huehueshan.
I dunno, taking the meds seems like our best shot at getting back to 100% ASAP, but they may be poisoned. Then again, I'm sure he wants a clean win and poison would be anything but.

 

[treave]

Bai Jiutian's demands mean it's not just a slight loss of face, it is utter humiliation. No one will take you seriously after you are kneeling and bowing and prostrating yourself in apology. Every sect will have an excuse to reject your challenge, should they want to.

You might even want to skip town and take that minor reputation hit as a sneaky coward than lose and become known as Bai Jiutian's bitch.

After all, you didn't exactly promise to fight him...

 

[Nevill]

There wouldn't be a fight in B2

Yes, there would be a fight - that's the whole point of choice 1.

And it probably would be the real thing as well, no messing around with blunted swords - he was certainly prepared to kill us (or at least try to) right here and now.

He was prepared to kill his enemy, not a random dude. And look at this guy, he is a total pushover:

“Y-yeah.” He grips his sword with both hands. “I won’t let you escape this duel.” It looks like he will attack you even if you refuse to fight, regardless of the damage to his reputation that it will do. There is a slight tremor in his stance, however.

Eh, what's done is done. Let's be a good boy and proceed with the committee's plan.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Except there were only two votes for B2, and yours wasn't one. The second choice after A2 was a fight. But since I'm feeling particularly paranoid today I would have to agree with Baltika9 and say that Bai Jiutian was ready to pull this little stunt of his regardless of what we choose. Our scheming didn't fool that many people after showing our strength openly in the last fight, so B would simply result with him calling us a liar. 1 would result with him stopping the fight with the exact same routine he used here. This was all staged by him.

 

[Esquilax]

What I don't understand is just what is Bai Jiutian's part in this whole mess. How would him defeating us and forcing us to apologize help with the plan of creating an outrage strong enough to make people take on the Maniac? If anything it would seem completely counterproductive to that. And in case of our victory, since this isn't a battle to the death we can just go easy on the former champion in front of the audience to defuse the situation. The only thing I can think of is that he isn't actually a part of the conspiracy, and the main reason he is taking us on is just his ego - to the detriment of the real conspirators.

Because it would force us to accept a set of terms that he knows that we can't possibly obey. If he is in on this, then he knows that if he beats us, we have to take drastic measures that will push the sects further against Zhang.

I think we can use the medicine. He publicly gave it to us and if something happened, he would be the number one suspect. I also think he was prepared for the outcome, that's why he was carrying around such an expensive medicine. His sense of honor wouldn't allow for anything else.

Number one suspect... of what? Suspected of kicking our asses? If it is a poison, then he won't be dumb enough to kill us with it, because his goal is to humiliate us. He would try to make us woozy during the fight to slow our reaction time, but how would he do that in such a way that our two resident poison experts wouldn't notice it? Well, he'd have the poison in such a low concentration that it would only put us off our game a little bit. If he's prepared for this outcome, then that's even less reason to accept his help.

One important thing to keep in mind here, that nobody mentioned:

“As we can all see, Man Tiger Pig is injured from his previous battles. We will have our fight here, at this very place, the day after the finals. As a member of the tournament committee, I have the authority to do so.

Let's take our paranoia to its logical conclusion. We know that this accusation was a setup from the very beginning. We believe that the Kunlun man is involved in the conspiracy and he is a committee member. Bai Jiutian is also a committee member (though, to be fair, this doesn't necessarily mean he's part of the conspiracy). Jiutian was on to us quite quickly, and even before we had fought Nie Mudan, he had already asked the Shaolin monks about us.

But even if he isn't part of the conspiracy, Bai Jiutian has absolutely no reason to make sure that we're at 100% and every reason to utterly humiliate us. Every act that he does is calculated to appear upright and honorable while taking as much attention as possible. This man is superficial and interested in appearances, he would have no reason to ensure that we are at our best. Why would a narcissist who cares about attention and the approval of a crowd want to risk us being at our best? It makes no sense.

Qilin is the street-smart type among us, so if she says not to trust him, I am inclined to believe her. At the end of the day, I trust her intuition when it comes to this sort of thing, and if she says "don't take the medicine", don't fucking do it.

AB

 

[treave]

Except there were only two votes for B2, and yours wasn't one.

Nevill started out as B2 but flopped because it didn't gain enough traction.

 

[Esquilax]

Except there were only two votes for B2, and yours wasn't one. The second choice after A2 was a fight. But since I'm feeling particularly paranoid today I would have to agree with Baltika9 and say that Bai Jiutian was ready to pull this little stunt of his regardless of what we choose. Our scheming didn't fool that many people after showing our strength openly in the last fight, so B would simply result with him calling us a liar. 1 would result with him stopping the fight with the exact same routine he used here. This was all staged by him.

If he calls us a liar, then he has no proof. With B1, if we were willing to come to a fight to go against the "slander" against us, then it would cause confusion and make people think that they've got the wrong guy. Even if they unmask us, they only know us as Guan Shide. Everyone who knows of our true identity is an ally of ours.