Esquilax
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2010
- Messages
- 4,833
True. But I think you underestimate the pressure Zhang can put on us, too. He is more strong-willed than us, and he gives zero fucks as to what is considered moral. If anything, he might consider it our weakness, and decide to purge it. I fully expect him trying to mold us into the form that resembles himself, and we are only 15 years old.
This is a fair point, but keep in mind that Xu Jing was raised since childhood to be a perfect killer in his duties to the Prince:
As he grows wilder, you grow calmer.
After all, that is the state of mind they taught you to hold when you need to kill.
You remember being instructed to memorize the points of least resistance where you can stab a man. You remember being forced to practice on bound prisoners. Again, and again, and again, until the flow of blood over your hands becomes natural and you could do it without hesitation. Well, you do not dwell on that much nowadays - it is an unneeded memory. The fear of killing has already been removed from your spirit.
However, you're absolutely right that the hellish training that the Southern Maniac has prepared for us is probably going to be soul-scarring in some way. The consequences of a lot of unorthodox techniques is insanity (treave mentioned something like this earlier) - Master Zhang and our mysterious masked woman are great indicators of that.
As for the choice itself, A1 would obviously lead to the Emei nuns and Master Yao dying. treave, should we pick A1, how would Jing escape? Jumping out of the window? Zhang will probably start looking to carve us into little pieces if we manage to slip from his grasp like that. I think that it's doable: the nuns are old and might be familiar with techniques that use the Yuchang Sword, which would buy us some time, but there's no question that Zhang would tear everybody in that room a new asshole eventually.
Then he'd start looking for us right after, and he won't be happy. He'd scour the ends of the Earth to kill us. That being said, should we evade him successfully, we might have an in with the Wudang if we can find them before Zhang finds us - yes, I believe our circumstances and situation with the Southern Maniac and our qi are so extreme that they would at least be interested in talking to us, reputation aside. We're still a kid, these guys could see it as an opportunity to turn us from our wayward path.
B1 might work, but escaping from Zhang would be far tougher without the nuns having the Yuchang Sword in their possession to tip the odds in their favour a bit. The upside here is that since we didn't give them the blade, if Zhang does find us again, he'll take us in as his apprentice instead of giving us a swift death on the spot. Yao is toast in this scenario though, so with no one around to cure the poison, we lose our arm. Oh, and since Cao'er is with us in this scenario, he might also take her in as an apprentice if he doesn't kill her, so good luck protecting her.
Oh, and I'm not even entertaining the idea of joining the fray here. A2 is obviously a DEAD END.
Then there's C. We've got the Speech skills and CHA to negotiate the matter and act as an arbiter in this situation. While I feel bad that we would have to abandon Cao'er, we don't exactly have much choice here either. The upside is that we get to go on our terms: this means, Yao cures our poison, we keep the blade, and we undergo a brutal apprenticeship under the most insane badass in all of China, where we will attempt to beat the record for longest-living apprentice. It also keeps those who are close to us alive.
A1
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