[LP CYOA] 傳

[Nevill]

if I'm feeling particularly dickish, I might bring the woefully naive, but skilled Bai Jiutian with us.

Oh, just imagining his face when he finds out the truth gives me tingles. And he wouldn't be able to tell it to anybody - ever! Such a perfect blackmailing material is almost too good to pass up.

Sadly, I don't think he deserves it yet.

 

[Baltika9]

[PERCEPTION]Lady Ji and her inner circle seem to be mildly anti-government.

 

[treave]

You don't know if he has any family. Shall I conjure up an aged mother who raised him all alone, hoping only that he'd be a successful person someday?

 

[Nevill]

[PERCEPTION]Lady Ji and her inner circle seem to be mildly anti-government.

You don't say.

The Fellowship of the Inner Circle includes such stars as:
Zhang Zhue and his disciple, Xu Jing, the Maniac and his traitorous demon spawn. No need for introduction.
Tulu Huodu and his heir, Chi Qilin. The family of poisoners and black market dealers, who are involved with the Fire Cult that is currently trying to gain control over the economy of China.
Du Yao, the mayor of the bandit city, who opposes the secret police.
Xiahou Yu, the collaborator to the enemy of the state, Liu Changfeng. I have no doubt that Changfeng would be admitted instantly as well, should she apply.

I am surprised how the Manor is still listed among the orthodox organisations.

 

[Elfberserker]

You don't know if he has any family. Shall I conjure up an aged mother who raised him all alone, hoping only that he'd be a successful person someday?

Does the mother come with his younger sister? You know that he would instantly gain sympathy or trolling points from codex.

 

[Nevill]

Sympathy, not so much. But the trolling potential would increase thousandfold.

Well, after we are done with this, if we live, we should make haste to the Emei to meet Cao'er and tell her NOT TO LEAVE THE DAMN MOUNTAIN, EVER.

Either that, or take her straight to Zhang and ask him to train her.

 

[Zero Credibility]

So, he's asking us to commit treason, possibly even against our Prince. After all, we have no idea for what faction the target is really working for. Fuck, this asshole is exactly the type we have been send out against - a martial artist with political inspirations working on destabilizing the Empire. He isn't a bro, he is a snake. And now we have committed ourself blindly to this shit when we had an easy way out. Well that's just great.

Anyway, I caution against believing anything this guy tells us, including the true identity of our target, that we are going to be rewarded rather then disposed as a catspaw or that Lady Ji told him anything about us (he doesn't want to share what he knows, but will say everything later... yeah right, if he knew our true identity he would be much less confident in sharing this little plan with us).

I'm voting for telling this guy to go fuck himself. I suppose that means C, but without bothering to flee the city. Instead, start thrashing this place to see what info we can get the hard way. If he sends his goons or comes for us directly our party should be more than up to the challenge.

edit: Ok, I'm putting my vote as E > C as presented.

 

[Nevill]

I think he speaks the truth at least about his source of information. He has no reason to believe that Lady Ji knows anything about us if she didn't tell him herself.

The thought about the identity of our target being false occured to me, but it just does not make sense for it not to be real. Usually you try to disguise the target to make the job appear easier than it really is. No one in their sane mind would introduce another mark as a chief of the secret police, because there is no mark more dangerous. If anything, it would make a less brave man flee at the first opportunity. Why does he need to scare us?

The only scenario when it could have been false is if he is a provocator working with the secret police, but then we can't be in this shit deeper than we already are.

Anyway, I caution against believing [...] that we are going to be rewarded rather then disposed as a catspaw

Yeah, that part. That is a question indeed - why on earth anybody would let us live after that?

 

[treave]

I'm not sure the orthodox disciples with you are willing to act like thugs and beat up people until they get information.

Not to mention you'd likely be scaring any informants away permanently.

But if you think it should work despite that, we can have it as E.

 

[Tigranes]

Well... I'll just say that Tigranes had the closest idea to what is about to happen..

Call me the Prophet, Ladies

Well, assassinating the head of the secret police is one notch more extreme than I had anticipated, however. It's funny that he knows of our conflict with the secret service, but not our injury...

Let me note some details which I think the ensuing DISCUSS! should not forego:

1. Du Yao is not lying. He has no reason to lie when we are taking someone else out, and he has no reason to lie in this way to lure us into a trap - in that case the lie wouldn't be that we're expected to kill the head of the secret service.
2. We can't betray him. Not only would it add 'traitor' to our list for other unorthodox types, it would also mark us as such for other fellows of the manor, and our word will not count as much in a public mud-slinging battle - and finally it really would screw our chances of searching for the manual. At best, the Secret Service will enlist us into an even more dangerous mission against Du Yao. That is, if they don't say "thanks but btw we hate you and you must die".
3. If we do it, we will be Super-Unorthodox Forever. Forget the previous ideas about making Wudang our bros and all that shit. We'll finally be Worse Than Zhang Jue, on the run from everybody associated with the government and the sects. Unless we do it completely silently. treave, any indication yet of how we might try and knock off the dude? Oh, and by the way, it will implicate all of our companions dangerously, whether they are involved or not.

C seems like a cowardly flip-floppy way out but I don't think we should rule it out yet. The question is, treave would this involve not telling Du Yao we will quit, which screws him over time-wise, or going back and saying 'hey I'm injured I can't but promise I won't tell on ya'?

 

[RealDDc]

Would/ could.. should? We provide our companions with information about Du Yaos mission in case of E?


Edit: Nvm, there ain't no return here.

B it is. Not only is it risky for them if we get companions involved, but it also increase the risk for us. If all goes well we run the job and don't leave a trace. Maybe they sell pig masks at Youxia.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I'm not sure the orthodox disciples with you are willing to act like thugs and beat up people until they get information.

Not to mention you'd likely be scaring any informants away permanently.

But if you think it should work despite that, we can have it as E.

We are not going to be beating random people up for info. We are going to be beating up random bandits that help run this cesspool until they give up the thief that stole the things to us. This city thrives on the lack of law. Time to bring some law back to it. Time to turn it upside down, give it a good shake and see what falls out. That would certainly be a much easier sell to our orthodox friends than "Hey guys, I'm off to commit treason, wanna tag along?" I don't even care about informants - we already know at least one person that could get the stuff back to us - the head honcho running this place. Make our presence such a pain to him that he will give us the info just to get us out of the city.

 

[treave]

If things go according to plan they won't know it's you. After all you'll be masked and stuff. If things go according to plan.

As for C, I'm fine with you guys attempting to customize a response to this situation. But bear in mind that your buddies aren't mindless NPCs that are around just for combat purposes. Just because Bai Jiutian seems obedient now doesn't mean he'll continue being so.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Eh, that's just my take on the situation, nothing more. I think I saw something like that done in some movie. Instead of bothering to look for what was stolen just find the bad guys running the show, beat them up and take their stuff then tell them "we are staying here and taking over your operation until you give us what we want". Granted, the people doing that weren't exactly the good guys, but I think it worked.

 

[treave]

We are not going to be beating random people up for info. We are going to be beating up random bandits that help run this cesspool until they give up the thief that stole the things to us. This city thrives on the lack of law. Time to bring some law back to it. Time to turn it upside down, give it a good shake and see what falls out. That would certainly be a much easier sell to our orthodox friends than "Hey guys, I'm off to commit treason, wanna tag along?" I don't even care about informants - we already know at least one person that could get the stuff back to us - the head honcho running this place. Make our presence such a pain to him that he will give us the info just to get us out of the city.

I'm not sure how you imagine this is going to go, but going around beating up bandits while saying you're looking for Mr. Thief is a rather good way to have many thieves vanishing out of your reach thanks to you giving them due notice you're both looking for one AND acting violently about it. Could actually drive them out of even Du Yao's reach too.

As for merely being a pain in the ass, sure, you could go for that approach, but without alerting your target. As I said, E. Six men cleaning up a city by themselves is a great story.

Eh, that's just my take on the situation, nothing more. I think I saw something like that done in some movie. Instead of bothering to look for what was stolen just find the bad guys running the show, beat them up and take their stuff then tell them "we are staying here and taking over your operation until you give us what we want". Granted, the people doing that weren't exactly the good guys, but I think it worked.

This works well if the ones running the show are also the ones that ordered the theft. If not, it's probably going to be a bit harder to bear fruit.

 

[Nevill]

As for merely being a pain in the ass, sure, you could go for that approach, but without alerting your target. As I said, E. Six men cleaning up a city by themselves is a great story.

Dayumn. This is almost flop-worthy.

If we do it, we will be Super-Unorthodox Forever. Forget the previous ideas about making Wudang our bros and all that shit. We'll finally be Worse Than Zhang Jue, on the run from everybody associated with the government and the sects.

Why? The existence of the secret service is not known to many. Nobody is going to reveal that the murdered person is the head of the secret police. The sects would not know it, though I guess the inside agents could weave their own story.

Though, of course, if the murder happens right before we get the items back, it is not going to increase Wudang's opinion about us.

 

[Zero Credibility]

This works well if the ones running the show are also the ones that ordered the theft. If not, it's probably going to be a bit harder to bear fruit.

I don't think they were in that movie, they simply had a much better info on the locals the newcomers could ever hope to get. Like here - the lord of this place, his informant network and the bandits running the city - they are still our best shot for the info. It is not very reasonable to expect that we are going to find someone else to talk to us about a master thief with our total budget of fuck-all, and even less to expect it to happen in one day. As for the thief going even deeper into hiding - well there is no reason we need to advertise our true intentions to just anyone. The person in charge already knows why we are here - that's enough. But as I said, that's just my idea.

 

[Baltika9]

Going for B, but contemlating a flop to A-Bai Jiutian. Why should we bother taking out the douche and his sect ourselves when the secret police can do it for us? I think Du Yao is the type to appreciate a good plot.

 

[Nevill]

If things go according to plan.

Well, who is it going to be this time, Shun or Gao Ying?

Or you could just kidnap his daughter.

I was wondering why that wasn't an option. It is exactly "not something we haven't done before".

 

[treave]

Beating up bandit guards doesn't hurt Du Yao. Economically the city thrives off whore houses, gambling dens and the black market, so you'd have to be assaulting those places. That'll happen with E.

Or you could just kidnap his daughter?

 

[treave]

Well, who is it going to be this time, Shun or Gao Ying?

The latter makes more sense.

 

[Nevill]

The latter makes more sense.

If something lured the chief of the secret police out, it must be of utmost importance. It might concern the fate of the state itself. In that case, it wouldn't be impossible to encounter the prince, as well.

I wonder what it was that made him leave the palace. Was it our business in BDS, or was it something else entirely? How much time have passed since the event?

 

[Esquilax]

Going for B, but contemlating a flop to A-Bai Jiutian. Why should we bother taking out the douche and his sect ourselves when the secret police can do it for us? I think Du Yao is the type to appreciate a good plot.

Because it doesn't prove that we're truly the best of our generation. Let's say BJ dies in the attack (not likely, but bear with me) then it's plausible that a year from now people will think that although Xu Jing may be the best living pugilist of his generation, Bai Jiutian is the true champion who ended up dying tragically. And then Zhang would not be amused.



What I'm far more concerned about are the long-term implications of killing a man who is so important to the government:

What can one person accomplish in this cauldron of chaos?

Overthrow and replace the Son of Heaven, who has lost his mandate to rule?
...
“What? Why does he get to join?” protests Qilin indignantly. Lady Ji only looks at her and smiles gently. “Because it was decreed by fate. Do not worry, Lady Chi. You will get your chance in four years’ time. Now, I will have to request that you leave us for a while – what follows next is by tradition private.”
...
As for the misfortune of your birth, the only thing they could determine was that the Taisha star shone upon you. You would bring about the downfall of the order of Heaven, sharing your misfortune with the entire country, but the scholars did not know enough to go into specifics. They said that they could be easily wrong about their readings; they were scholars after all, and not astrologers.

Lady Ji had appeared to you shortly before you left and recommended in her mysterious manner that you seek out the All-Seeing Astrologer, Hua Jin, if you desired to know your destiny. She does not know where he is now; according to her, it would be fate if you found him, and fate if you didn’t.
...
“I hope you will not tell on me. Come, let us return to the mission at hand. As it turns out, I have received a very important piece of information regarding our immortal Emperor’s secret service. Their chief is on the move. He rarely leaves the capital, or so I’ve heard, but apparently something has lured him out. By a stroke of good fortune, my source has also provided me with the description and location of the man. This is an extremely hard chance to come by. I cannot pass up the possibility of eliminating him... he is vital to the intelligence operations of the government, and a threat I should dispose of as soon as possible. That is where you come in.”

Okay, so to recap: Lady Ji accepted us into Luoying Manor because "it was decreed by fate". The little that we've learned about the star of disaster that we were born under seems to imply that Lady Ji might see us as a tool to bring down the current order, which has lost its mandate to rule - no doubt related to the underhanded actions that the Emperor took during the Civil War.

The chief of the secret police came out here for some very important but unknown reason. If we kill him, that could cause serious harm to the government, and by extension, possibly Shun if the Grand Eunuch that the chief is loyal to is allied with the Crown Prince. I'm uneasy about the whole affair, because even if the mission is a complete success, the aftermath might bring ruin to the country...

But then again, if we're fated to bring the downfall to the order of things, then perhaps it's unavoidable no matter what we do. That being said, Xu Jing doesn't strike me as a guy who is willing to lie down and simply accept that something is bad.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It's obvious. We'll bring the downfall of the empire by replacing it with a Khanate. We'll let Princebro stay on as a vassal, of course.

 

[Nevill]

I am telling you, we are to finish what Yang Xue have started.

What can one person accomplish in this cauldron of chaos?

Overthrow and replace the Son of Heaven, who has lost his mandate to rule?

Well, it sure as hell ain't these two:

Unite the bickering pugilistic sects under one banner, to usher in a new world?

Or to live out life quietly on the sidelines, away from the troubles of the era?