[LP CYOA] 傳

[Tigranes]

A for now, yes. Sneaking isn't likely to work very well, C2 covert operation is also OK but we are still injured and I'm wary about situations we can't untangle ourselves from. treave mentioned no pressing time issue for now, either, so A seems just sensible recon.

 

[XenomorphII]

A

 

[Azira]

Is this the first we hear of the Wunan sect? I don't see them in the character sheet rep section.

Never mind. Brain working properly again..

Retracted my vote, need to give this some more thought.

 

[Nevill]

Three days (or possibly more) is a long time, though. The captives may be sold into slavery or otherwise relocated - and the ones that may know something can be sold out to the secret police. I'd rather we did what we came for here and now.

 

[Anabanana]

D is the coolest option, but I'm wary of the "favours" part. This might come back to bite us in the ass later. On the other hand, the mercenaries seem to be a pretty strong bunch - even in his weakened state, that guy still had a pretty strong grip - so I don't want to do anything that might lead to a full on confrontation with them, so B is out.

Another thing with D is that it'll work well if we're just there for information, but what if we need to kill her or take her away from the place?

A seems like the safest option by far, but it'll take three days in which something might happen to Changfeng.

Mrgh. I'll have to think about this.

 

[Baltika9]

I can definitely see the position for both A and D, and am just slightly leaning towards the latter. Time, as Nevill said, is indeed an issue since there's absolutely no telling as to what may happen to Changfeng in those three days. If the Impreial Agents take her, well, then we're in luck and A is the best option by far, since we will have the Investigator's Insignia we nicked from the poor guy in the Manor and we will have the backstory to this whole mess, which will allow us to bullshit the Imperial Escort. Who knows, this may have been a plot of Shun's or one of his allies', but it has an equal chance of being a plot of his enemies'.

If it's not the Empire and Changfeng gets sold off into slavery, or something worse, then we lose our trail and have to gallop around the country looking for her.

Another thing I like about D is that we absolutely have the street cred to pull that off, after winning the Tournament, telling BJ to go bone himself and taking down one hundred pugilists by our lonesome. It also bears mentioning that this:

D - Not only does it run into the same problems as C (along with the fact that Yu is even more likely to get caught when telling his story), but they just locked Changfeng up and we're basically announcing we're on her side. We have nothing to bargain with except favors and there is a high chance they are being paid well or otherwise ordered by the palace to imprison her. This is bargaining from an extremely weak position along with giving them very good reason to keep a close eye on us.

Isn't quite true, we're not coming in as on "her side," the choice specifically states that Yu's reasons to see his lover are good for what they are and we don't need to express our own motives. Yunzi isn't even a target of theirs with no bounty on her head (since we oh-so-tactfully didn't unmask or reveal her in the tournament). Yeah, D will definitely work and I want to get this quest done and over with ASAP. But then again, the involvement of the Empire and the agent in the BDS' ranks justify the risks of taking A. 'Sides, that's another three days of Jing-Yunzi bonding time for us.

 

[Absinthe]

Safe option is better. The odds of something terrible happening in 3 days are much lower than the odds of something terrible happening if we try shit right now. Wunan Sect was only wiped yesterday, which means BDS is still going to take some time to finish up, recover, prepare, and so on before they move on to anything.

Baltika9, we're not necessarily on Wunan Sect's side, no, but if Yu is coming for his beloved then we are most DEFINITELY saying we're on Chanfeng's side (just her) and announcing we have a motive to free her.

 

[Baltika9]

I don;t think being on Wunan's side is an option considering they're all either dead or about to be enslaved. The BDS isn't really "recovering and preparing" by the sounds of it, "looking for customers" is more like it and even then, maybe the Imperial Court faction that is involved in this is the buyer. And by taking those three days to investigate Wunan, we are definitely risking Changefng being relocated and then how will we start tracking her down? By beating the information from the BDS? Unlikely and that's the risk here, losing her trail.

but if Yu is coming for his beloved then we are most DEFINITELY saying we're on Chanfeng's side and announcing we have a motive to free her.

Depends on what he is coming for, I doubt any of our three party members are retarded enough to say "sup guise, I want to free/interrogate/beat the shit out of your captive!" They're way too street-smart for that. We are just helping out our friend that wishes to speak with his captive lover, and are willing to take a side-job for that. Having Xu Jing, The Molesting Mad Tiger for a favor is a pretty big deal with our rep, they'll definitely go for it.

Instead of arguing over a fine point for three pages, treave, how is Yu planning to approach the situation in D?

 

[Absinthe]

Dude, I don't think they succeeded without a scratch. And if they're looking for buyers, they still wont rush to any deals in 3 days, least of all concerning Chanfeng.

 

[Baltika9]

Us being as injured as we are makes that point moot, we still can't bust down their door and take her from them even if we wanted to. Which I definitely don't, they are the wrong people to piss off right now.

 

[Absinthe]

A is for obtaining better options, dude.

 

[Baltika9]

Not arguing against that, A may lead us to getting more relevant information on this debacle but we're risking losing Changfeng's trail in the time it takes us to do that. And besides which, D seems like a good enough option to me, but I'll wait for treave to answer my question so we don't clog up the DISCUSS! with inane ramblings.

 

[treave]

Yunzi's stealth skill probably isn't as good as yours, but should be passable given her natural agility.

As for D, approach is 'try to satisfy all parties'. Initially, at least. You'll be trying to bank on the Society being pragmatic since all you need is a meeting with her, not freeing her.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

A

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

3 days? The girl could be dead, have been shipped out to another location or have escaped by the time we return.

Then again, we have 5 agility/strength, so caution is warranted. edit: And our perception boost power might finally be of use there in telling us what happened.

EDIT: D, might cost us, but it's better than sneaking in or possibly losing our lead by waiting.

C2>D. B sounds like the highest risk. We have 5 agility, so I doubt our sneaking would fool the guys who are bad ass enough to take down the WiB. Combine that with our 5 strength and if we get caught, we're toast. D sounds a little too reliant on the Black Dragons not caring if her former love sees her and I'm not sure what they might ask in trade for that.

C2 somewhat justifies the murder Jing committed earlier and I think it gives us the best chance of infiltrating quickly without a clusterfark...

 

[treave]

Is this the first we hear of the Wunan sect? I don't see them in the character sheet rep section.

Ah, yeah, they're not there because they are effectively wiped out as a faction. If you had come here earlier perhaps things could have been different.

 

[ScubaV]

A
It may give us some helpful clues. As for the three days, that could potentially work in our favor. If they do move Liu, yes we'd have to find her again, but then she wouldn't be hidden within a fortress either.

 

[Baltika9]

Well, a fortress is easier to infiltrate than Beijing's dungeons, that's for damn sure.

I see your point, though, and if it is the Empire that pulled these strings, well, we still have that investigator's silver medallion. If we catch up to her escort, we'll definitely be able to improvise something with Jing's and Yu's skillz.
Yunzi is there to BDSM everyone into compliance in case diplomacy fails.

 

[TOME]

A.

 

[Esquilax]

I'm surprised that nobody had mentioned this:

There were also those that whispered of an Imperial decree involved in this assault, that the Wunan Sect had somehow offended the palace.
...
She was currently imprisoned in their headquarters, a small fortress about an hour’s travel from the city that had been granted to them by the prefect of Xiangyang in return for their assistance with keeping order in the countryside.

The Wunan sect pissed off somebody off who was powerful (one of the Grand Eunuchs is a safe bet) so the Black Dragon Society was sent to take them out. Judging by the fact that the Fire Cult is trying to bring foreign values into China and was a potential threat to stability, the BDS was sent after them for the same reasons. This little tidbit is making me more convinced that this group has its fair share of Imperial agents within it. treave, the BDS seems to operate a bit like an organized crime group in that the authorities will turn a blind eye to a few dead bodies so long as the assassins do their part to maintain law and order; is that true?

First off, fuck A. We can't risk losing her trail and we can't take the chance of her going elsewhere; if she does, how would we find out where? What, are we just going to knock on the doors of the Black Dragon Society HQ and ask them politely where she is now? She is here now, that might not be the case if we wait too long, so we must act now. We're never going to be perfectly, 100% prepared for every situation, so we have to make do with what we have. ScubaV makes an interesting point that if she does relocate, it might be easier to approach her if she's not in a fortress, but that's assuming (a) we can pick up her trail again, (b) she doesn't end up in another place that's equally fortified and (c) that the BDS suddenly start to think that having a "frigid scarred nutso bitch" around is way more trouble than it's worth and kill her instead. Leaving things up to chance is unacceptable here.

D sounds a little too reliant on the Black Dragons not caring if her former love sees her and I'm not sure what they might ask in trade for that.

Nah, they don't give a shit. Yu is just some wandering scholar, they don't know that he and Chanfeng has a history, I doubt that they give a shit. With D, I think that we can arrange a meeting with her, though of course Yu would accept no less than Chanfeng's freedom. Given that he knows something of our past, I don't think that he is above trying to rat us out to the BDS if we decide to leave Chanfeng to rot without either busting her out or arranging for her freedom in some way (which is pretty understandable in his position). I also am not particularly keen to owe this group a favour, which makes me somewhat hesitant to pick it. That being said, treave, would we be approaching D with our true identity, as Zhang's apprentice?

That leaves C, which I see as the most attractive choice at the moment. I very much doubt that anyone here will come after Yunzi, mainly because all the assailants that came after her are now dead and because she seems to always wear a mask in public. Nah, I don't think that anybody will know that it's really her.

The real question here is whether to stay secretive or to try and become a member using our true identity. Here are what I see as the pros and cons:

Seeking Recruitment as Zhang Jue's Apprentice

This instantly gives us the respect and fear of those around us who also want to join up with the BDS. The downside is that there might be some punk who might try to fuck with us to make a name for themselves. The other downside is that while we are as proficient as any assassin at killing thanks to our awesome teacher, Master Zhang isn't exactly known for his subtlety, which is pretty important if you're an assassin. Taking on a small army of pugilists, while awesome, might not be what these guys are looking for. However, the biggest issue with C1 is that it seems to me that the BDS is clearly closely linked with certain elements of the Imperial Court, which might be trouble for us down the road.

Seeking Recruitment Anonymously

This makes us no different than any other dickhead who walks in asking to join up. With our injured condition, standing out compared to the other candidates will be extremely difficult. The upside here is that draws less attention on us; keeping a low-profile is crucial since Yunzi is with us.

I'm not sure what to vote for yet, but I'll go wit D for now.

Edit: removed conditional vote. Conditional voting is cowardice.

 

[Nevill]

It might also be prudent to let Changfeng know that help is forthcoming, lest she hangs herself as the women of Yang's mansion did. Death can't be much worse than the fate that awaits her at the hands of imperial police. If she is being relocated, that would give her some incentive to leave a clue behind, if not outright tell us in case she knows already.

Also, we have a ghost with us. treave, can something interesting be done with Xiaoqing considering the fact that she is able to communicate and pass through walls?

 

[Grimgravy]

D sounds the most interesting.

 

[Anabanana]

The Wunan sect pissed off somebody off who was powerful (one of the Grand Eunuchs is a safe bet)

The godfather of the guy who punched Changfeng's fetus to death is the most likely candidate, yeah. I imagine if the Wunan Sect was talking shit about his godson... they might've been planning some kind of revenge strike on him, who knows.

 

[treave]

treave, the BDS seems to operate a bit like an organized crime group in that the authorities will turn a blind eye to a few dead bodies so long as the assassins do their part to maintain law and order; is that true?

Pretty much, but they are primarily swords-for-hire, above all. They don't have an ideology or philosophy of their own, acting more like a ruthless mercenary group.

That being said, treave, would we be approaching D with our true identity, as Zhang's apprentice?

You would have to leverage your reputation to gain entry, yes. Some nobody coming up asking to see a prisoner is likely to be turned away. Coming as a recruit is a different matter.

treave, can something interesting be done with Xiaoqing considering the fact that she is able to communicate and pass through walls?

Yes, she'll serve as a good spy, but as most dwellings in these times have a shrine or talisman or two put up, she will have to be 'invited' into a building. Carrying her umbrella past the door counts as such. However, she ultimately listens to the scholar, not you, so he'll be the one deciding when and how to use her powers as necessary.

 

[Nevill]

Carrying her umbrella past the door counts as such.

That's it. We must get Yu inside the building. Once he is in there, it would be much easier to coordinate our efforts with Changfeng. Even if she is moved somewhere, we would know immediately. And there is no need to search for the survivors to ask sensitive questions when we have one right here.

So the question is, C or D?