Table of Contents

- Death Blossom

- Trail of Injustice

- Phoenix Hunt

- Home Front

- Boys' Night Out

- A Marvelous Party

Death Blossom

From Dragon

"Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them."

The run begins on the day of the Early Spider in the month of Spider Rising in the first Year of the Spider since the Butterfly King was Poisoned.

The run takes place near the town of Bitterwind, in the Qin Chao Steppes near the Wall.
Previous Run
Contents

1 Appearance
2 Introductions
3 The Eastern Fort
4 The Next Morning
5 Confrontation
6 A Northern Operation
7 Invocations of Destiny
8 Puttering

Appearance

The last thing anyone remembers is dawn on the Day of the Spider, and being "scattered through the world" by Aku, the Great Spirit of the Spider. As everyone tumbles through the void, Master Zhou hears a voice, and a terrible darkness begins closing in on him.
"Ah... now that your friends are scattered, you can suffer my personal ministrations."
Also tumbling through the void, Takanata bumps into Wei Han, who grabs him. They can sort of see Master Zhou, farther away and tumbling faster, but Wei Han reaches forth and manages to barely grab him too. Aku's dark voice says "Wait, what?"

Takanata and Zhou wake up next to a high, cold, stone wall. Since it is shortly after dawn, they can quickly determine that they're on the south side, much to their relief. Master Zhou applies some first aid to Takanata, who is looking around, sure Wei Han was just here.

Wei Han is eventually located, standing guard on top of the wall, and just beginning to remember that there were some people here before. There doesn't seem to be anyone in sight, either to the north or on the wall; there will probably be guard posts in either direction. Wei Han vaguely remembers that there is a town a bit to the south, as well.

There is some argument as to which direction to walk, and whether it's better to be on top of the wall or down below. Takanata certainly prefers not being up at the top where the barbarians might be, and begins to idly fold an origami flower. Once he's done, he realizes that it's prophetic art, and shows it to Wei Han - does he recognize it? Wei Han thinks it's a paper flower, maybe similar to something he's seen before in the north. Takanata also notes that he seems to have drawn dancing skeletons on the inside of the folded paper. That's no good.

Takanata loans his sword to Wei Han, whose sword was destroyed by demons back in the Garden of Harmonious Contemplation, when there are the sounds of combat off in the distance. Everyone heads that way - there's a fight on the road that parallels the Wall, with people fighting near a wagon. (No, it isn't filled entirely with cabbages.)

Master Zhou tactically analyzes the situation - there's four people on the wagon's team, and seven attackers. The wagon guards have swords; the attackers look more like unarmed peasants. However, Wei Han's creepy-sense is going off, and he thinks the "peasants" are undead. As the party joins the fight, some of the peasant "bandits" attack the guards, and one does a corruption point to Takanata before Wei Han takes him down. One of the guards leaps in front of Takanata to fend off some of the other bandits. Wei Han thinks this is usurping his guarding station, and manages to push in as well.
Dancing Skeletons
Eventually, the bandits are all dispatched. The lead guard frowns at Wei Han, who is still a mess from the combat with the demons and she hasn't recognized his uniform yet.
"I had everything under control!" "Yes, sir." -Wei Han
"Oh, er, sorry, Sergeant."

Takanata thinks that the guards are all a little bit corrupted (they all took damage), as is he. Master Zhou dodged all the "bandit" attacks, and Wei Han didn't take any damage. Master Zhou patches up the guards as best he can, but he can't help with the corruption.

Introductions

The lead guard introduces herself as Corporal Fa Mulan. They were escorting the supply wagon from Bitterwind when they were set upon by these "bandits". Wei Han says that he doesn't think they are ordinary bandits, and asks Takanata to examine their bodies. Mulan says there has been a bandit uprising in the area recently.

Takanata notes that the wounds on the bandits haven't bled much, and they are very dirty and unhealthy looking, plus they had sounded pretty incoherent when they were attacking. His KS: Undead suggests that yes, they were undead, and he points out these signs to Wei Han. Mulan looks increasingly more uncomfortable.

"Is there a problem, corporal?" -Wei Han
"My orders are to suppress the bandit problem, and reassure the population that the bandits are being taken care of. Sir." -Mulan
Master Zhou has no patience for this labeling of zombies as "bandits".
"We are not "the population". These are undead." -Master Zhou
"You will note that I have not stated what they are." -Wei Han
"Yes, Sergeant."

Mulan notes that the "bandits" have been becoming more bold in recent months, and that many of the North Wall garrisons, the local ones included, are operating at reduced strength, because forces have been sent east.

Can anyone track the "bandits" back to their lair? Corporal Mulan has some skill in that area, and agrees that "find the bandit camp to eliminate them" is a worthwhile goal. She sends two men to the east garrison post to get another horse for the cart, and leaves one with the wagon, ordering him to not get killed.
Takanata checks the cart driver, who was killed by the "bandits", wondering whether he's going to rise as a zombie. He doesn't think the body is on any sort of a timer to stand back up - there's no movement or anything like that - but he probably did take a lot of corruption as he was killed, so it's likely that someone/something could turn him into a zombie. The horse, too.

Mulan starts following the trail of the "bandits", accompanied by the three party members the tracks go a fair ways back towards Bitterwind before she loses them. The group heads into town, looking around for flowers that resemble Takanata's origami. There are some scraggly vines with flowers starting to wilt and brown in the autumn chill, but they're definitely the same kind. Wei Han picks a flower, and pricks his finger on a thorn. He finds the flowers somewhat creepy. Master Zhou asks Mulan about the flowers - she thinks they're native to this area, and hasn't seen them much further afield along the Wall. He suggests that the "bandits" are connected to the flowers, but she finds this a little implausible.

Wei Han dismisses Corporal Mulan, and says the group will meet her later at the garrison. Then, people set about Shopping - for rooms, warmer clothes, and horses. Takanata arranges for a couple of rooms at the local tavern, and asks if there is an herbalist in town. There is - "Old Lady Shi".
Wei Han and Master Zhou argue about whether or not talking about zombies counts as spreading rumors.
Takanata sketches the zombie that attacked him - the clothing looks like local garb, not the Northern furry vest and leather trousers that the barbarians wear, and shows the picture to the tavern keeper. He says that looks kind of like one of the late Shen brothers. They both died of illness a few months ago. Everyone is immediately suspicious - what sort of illness? Aches, pains - the description sounds like the flu. Is this sort of thing common? Well, yes, it's not so unusual. The sicknesses are worst in the summer and winter. Anyway, the Shen brothers are survived by their father - he works on a farm outside of town.

Where can they buy heavier clothes? The tavern keeper says there is a general goods store, but he would be happy to loan Takanata something if he has to go out in the wind. The general store guy (Heng Bai) says that he's expecting a delivery of furs tomorrow, and he can arrange to have the town's seamstress put together a fur cloak for Takanata, but all he has right now are heavy working clothes. Master Zhou buys some. He also agrees to make inquiries about horses that can be purchased.

Next, they head to Old Lady Shi. She is impressed to see such fancy folk here, needing her teas and potions, and puts some more water on. She says that she can provide some help for Wei Han's injuries, and sells him a bag of four khav roots (+15 temporary hit points until unconsciousness or sleep). They also show her Takanata's origami flower - she recognizes it as sweet-thorn, for the thorn under each leaf. Is it good for anything? She says that it is terrible in tea. She's experimented with it a bit and thinks it might make a useful potion for young girls, but it doesn't seem to be good for much else. She'll keep experimenting.

Master Zhou asks her about the sickness. She says that it's seasonal - maybe this past summer was a little worse than most. The year of the Spider a cycle ago was a particularly bad year for the sickness. When asked where the people are buried around here, she points out the graveyard just northeast of town - some have shrines, but most are just stones.

The group heads immediately to investigate the graveyard. This is where the "bandit" tracks probably originated, and, sure enough, there is some recently disturbed earth. There are sweet-thorn flowers here as well - more vines, fewer bushes. There is some recently disturbed earth on a few graves - the ground is rough enough that the signs probably wouldn't last for long, but it hasn't rained since.
Wei Han wonders whether it would be possible for "bandits" to rise without more interference by someone.
"When did you first start noticing 'bandits', sergeant?" -Takanata "Bah! I have had enough of this! Speak to us of the undead, do not mend your speech as if we are too fragile to understand." -Master Zhou

Anyway, Wei Han only started particularly noticing undead relatively recently. But Northern activity seems to go in cycles, and was previously fairly low. Hmm. Takanata wonders when Wei Han was first tied to the Wall. Maybe on the day he was attacked and his patrol was killed? Maybe it was the cabbage salesman, who he met on Midwinter!

The Eastern Fort

Continuing their investigation, the trio heads out to the eastern Army mini-fortress at the Wall. There is a single private guarding the gate - it looks like the place could house a hundred soldiers, but is currently inhabited by only a dozen or so. Wei Han tells the private that he needs to requisition a replacement weapon, and they are escorted inside. Corporal Mulan and Captain Zhen meet them - Captain Zhen understands that their group was quite helpful in dealing with the local bandits, and he offers his thanks. He also asks for a brief incident report, which Wei Han provides.
Takanata fills out forms, to try to bureaucratically get the sword for Wei Han. It turns out Takanata is quite a bureaucrat, so the garrison will have no problem giving Wei Han a new permanent weapon. Captain Zhen also agrees to deploy his medical corpsman to the town, so that Wei Han and the others will count as under a doctor's care for the night.

Master Zhou pokes at the "bandit" orders a bit more, and learns from Corporal Mulan that the general standing orders in the northern garrison from Commander Lo Ping are to make it clear that there's a bandit problem which will be dealt with. Wei Han notes that it is not his place to dispute the wisdom of the orders which are imparted to him. Mulan dryly notes that he is wise. To more questioning by Master Zhou, she clarifies that she was never ordered not to tell people that she was ordered to tell people about bandits. Since they're talking candidly, Mulan asks Wei Han where he's stationed, and how he arranged to get transferred out of "this Northern hell?" He says he annoyed Lo Ping. She's astonished - all he did was transfer Wei Han? He retells the story of getting "won" by Cai Wen in a poker game.
"Army of One!" -Tom
She commiserates with him about being assigned to the Butterfly Kingdom, because that's not very useful at all, but she does appreciate that he has a more generous commander. She thinks that Captain Zhen pissed off Lo Ping, and that's why she was assigned here. Personally, she'd prefer the south - she hears the Southern wall is warm.
"Blastingly hot." -Wei Han "Mmm. Hot." -Mulan
Wei Han waxes rhapsodic about saparilla trees and the other unpleasantnesses of the Southern wall, but she doesn't seem totally deterred.
Eventually, Wei Han gets his replacement sword, and asks after the possibility of getting some horses requisitioned, and some heavier armor than what he has. They don't have any spare heavy armor, and the horses they have are being used, so that doesn't seem likely. Takanata asks Mulan where she's from - the Taiga, the north Pearl River area. Master Zhou takes an interest - has she travelled on the Path of Green Light? She says she hasn't, but her father spent much time on the Green Path in his youth. Master Zhou asks her if it is her father who is the master swordsman that she has studied under. She is impressed that Master Zhou has heard of him, but is a bit embarrassed.
"In my family, one doesn't train daughters to the sword." "It is sad to see that his skill in sword is not matched in wisdom."
She is torn - clearly, Master Zhou is correct, but she also doesn't want to stand by and see her father insulted. She frowns at him in consternation. Master Zhou offers to train her, if she can spare the time. She would be honored, though she is busy dealing with the aftermath of the bandit attack on the cart today.
"Grrr. I'll have to change my introduction. 'I am Master Zhou of the White Pagoda.'"
On the way back to Bitterwind, Takanata asks the corpsman about "bandits". He says that there are often bandits in the Steppes, but there have been more recently and in this area. They retire to the tavern, and ask about nearby temples - there is no monastery or temple particularly nearby, but there is a monk of the Wandering Path who travels through every so often.

"I think we should wait in the graveyard tonight to see if something happens." -Wei Han
"I think we should sleep." -Takanata
However, having requisitioned the corpsman to let Wei Han recover overnight, he really ought to sleep rather than pull an all-nighter in the graveyard.
The Next Morning

In the morning, Takanata insists on Warm Clothes before Graveyard. They head to the general store, and there is a woman putting the finishing touches on a fur-lined cloak. Takanata pays for it, and thinks he's being massively undercharged, which is odd normally you overcharge high-status people because they can afford it. Everyone immediately assumes the cloak is a trap of some sort. Takanata thinks the shoulder is a little itchy - and there seems to be a burr in the fur there. This is deemed Proof that the store owner and seamstress are bad guys - they're probably trying to infect Takanata with the evil plants! Takanata wraps the burr in a piece of paper and keeps it in his sleeve, and then puts the cloak back on.
No luck finding horses yet - the store owner will spend today trying to find some.
The graveyard seems undisturbed since the previous day.
Takanata asks the innkeeper for some local background. The seamstress (Sin Li) has lived here all her life, and her family has lived here for generations. She's in partnership with Heng Bei, who is similarly a long-term local. They get furs from a trader to the south, apparently. As Takanata speculates to the others about what exactly is going on with the flowers and the furriers, he realizes that Heng Bei and Sin Li probably aren't making particular use of the flowers after all. So - the burr is just coincidence? Where does that leave the plot?

Looking at the furs more, Wei Han and Takanata are not so sure that these are southern furs - they're very thick and dense, which suggests north, possibly even further north than here. They ask the innkeeper about the fur trader, but he doesn't know anything about a fur trader. Nobody stayed at the inn last night, though - they're the only strangers in town. Hmm. So the furs probably aren't coming from a trader - maybe there's a stash in the store basement?
Takanata does a Connections reading to try to figure things out.
1. Northern Furs are being brought over the wall.
2. The furs sometimes come with seeds for Sweet-thorn attached.
3. Sweet-thorn makes the dead more likely to walk.
4. Someone is trying to spread the Sweet-thorn flowers.
5. The furs are provided to the seamstress + the manager of the General Store by one or more Dragon Army soldiers
6. Those soldiers are stationed in the next garrison to the west from here.

Hmm. Well, okay, it's not the as-yet-not-encountered western garrison. Wei Han writes a report on what the group has learned (including the I Ching reading), to give to the innkeeper to pass along to the eastern fort later, in case they don't return from further investigations.

Takanata heads in to talk to the store manager, chatting with him about his various travels, and mentions having passed through Bear Mountain a while back. The shopkeeper doesn't seem to think that's an odd thing to say.
"He just failed the smuggler test."
Confrontation

Takanata asks some more about his fur source - he says some plausible things, and he's pretty smooth, but Takanata suspects it's made up. Wei Han decides to step in, growling "When did you cross the wall?" but the guy isn't sufficiently intimidated to confess to a capital crime in front of the soldier, and denies everything. He protests that he gets the furs from his trader friend, but Master Zhou points out that the trader didn't stay in the inn last night and thus must not exist. The merchant offers them another fur cloak for cheaper, in the hopes of making the problem go away, but no one seems interested in taking the bribe. He shows them his box of furs, and everyone points at the Nefarious Seeds which are in among them. He doesn't seem to understand why the seeds are evidence of anything in particular, let alone why they're bad, and is somewhat derailed by this line of questioning.
Since intimidation isn't working, Takanata unleashes the full force of his charisma.
"Sergeant, he's a smuggler, he's not the one we care about."
The merchant allows as maybe if there was some sort of agreement that he isn't going to be hanged, he might remember more, and Takanata allows as that arrangement is acceptable. With guarantees of no trouble, he'd be willing to show them where he gets the furs, which is in fact, technically, on the other side of the Wall.

He's had this arrangement in place for several years - a merchant calling himself Chun Lee came through a while back, and made the deal with him. He picks up the goods (the furs) and sells them for a nice profit, at a good price, since he's getting them for free. Master Zhou gets a description of Chun Lee, but it's been several years, and the guy didn't have any highly distinguishing scars or a horse with a white fetlock, so it's not clear that that lead will pan out any further.

He makes a pickup every few days during the summer, but it's coming to the end of the season. There will probably be one last delivery. He agrees to show them the tunnel, again with promises of No Hanging, and leads them to an area where there's a section of ground attached to a set of boards, which he pulls away to reveal the tunnel. It goes down through the earth to the stone of the Wall, where there's a hole chipped in it, and another tunnel to the other side.
"It's just harmless trade." "It's not harmless." -Takanata
The group takes a minute to explain why it's not harmless, and that the Sweet-thorn is causing the "bandit" problem. He finds this a little astonishing, but definitely doesn't want to be involved with that sort of thing.
"If you do not wish to be hung, I suggest that you forget the name Bear Mountain."
Even more than the Nefarious Seeds, this confuses him. The group lets him go at this point, and contemplates what to do next.
A Northern Operation
In particular, Takanata does not want to attract the attention of the Hidden City as crossing the Wall again, causing them to summon everyone again for an accident.
Should they involve Corporal Mulan? Takanata thinks no, not unless she's already crossed the wall - it's not in her interest to cross the wall, and it's not in their interest to get her entangled. Master Zhou disagrees - the purpose of the wall has been corrupted, and she needs to see clearly. Wei Han takes issue with the idea of the wall being corrupted. Takanata thinks that leaving her alone with this knowledge will just paint a big target on her.
Hmm.
Master Zhou trains Fa Mulan, as this will give him a better sense for what she's like. She's quite skilled with her sword and has clearly learned by observing a master, but is not formally "trained" by his lights. Mulan thinks it's quite novel to study under someone who actually is trying to make her learn, instead of watching secretly, but is one of those "why would I attack with my fist when I can use a sword" types. He thinks she has the potential to become a Master herself, though it will be the kind of master that uses a x3 weapon. She's both loyal and adventurous - she could become a good leader, but she is unlikely to be promoted as a leader of Wall soldiers. He begins to understand why assigning her here is a punishment for her boss. She's all the makings of a good-hearted troublemaker.

Takanata concedes to Wei Han and Master Zhou's desire to recruit her to the plot. Wei Han thinks the best way to arrange it is to "borrow" her from Captain Zhen for a few days, to get her out of his hair. Takanata does the requisite bureaucratic maneuvers to get her, and then Master Zhou briefs her on the lesser and greater details:

"We have discovered a tunnel under the wall. We expect a smuggler there to be trafficking goods under the wall in the next day or two. If you cross the wall, it could be of grave danger to you. Crossing the Wall will in some way disconnect you from the chi of the Empire - this could make you a target in the future. There are those in the Empire who do not wish those who have been over the wall to remain."

She thinks that "disconnected from the chi of the Empire" doesn't sound good at all. Takanata agrees, but also says that there are dangers which the Empire faces, that some few need to be able to see more clearly. She's down with the idea of the few being sacrificed for the greater good.
"It is important that those few are loyal, and Master Zhou has determined that you are one such."
Won over completely now, Mulan says she is honored to be granted their trust, and promises that she will not let them down. The group proceeds to the tunnel, and Wei Han leads everyone through. Those who have crossed before have no particular reaction, but Mulan is stunned by the vision of the Empire receding from her.

Once to the Northern side, there are several tracks visible, leading off to the northwest. People follow the tracks, and after a while, there start to be the sound of people talking. No one speaks much Torghut, so it's hard to tell what they're talking about - Wei Han recognizes the word for "sunset" but not much else.

At this point, the plan leaps straight to "Get 'em!" - there are two guys wearing furs, and three guys carrying boxes, who drop the boxes to draw swords. Both Takanata and Mulan take another point of corruption before the foes are vanquished, but the victory is otherwise swift.

In the boxes are the expected furs, with scattered sweet-thorn seeds. Looting the bodies doesn't turn up much - several knives, two swords, and six strips of silver with Torghut markings on them - three each on each of the two leaders.
Takanata explains to Mulan that the "bandit" problem is being made worse by the sweetthorn flowers, and that the seeds are sweet-thorn seeds. She is baffled.
"The flowers cause the bandits." -Wei Han "They cause the dead to walk." -Master Zhou
Invocations of Destiny

The group carries the dead bodies and the boxes to the other side of the tunnel, so they can say that there was a fight after finding the tunnel, and imply that it took place on this side of the wall. Takanata mentions something about a northern operation that he was already investigating, leading Mulan to more confusion about who the party is.

"Wait... who is that you are again?" -Mulan
"I am Tokai Takanata."
"The renowned poet!" -Master Zhou
"That makes everything... so much clearer." -Mulan
She's quite taken by the idea of a Warrior Poet stalking through the Empire protecting the people secretly at night and warming their hearts with his words during the day...
Master Zhou checks to see if crossing the wall has changed Mulan's understanding of the country names:
"The name of the country to the far west..." "You mean Iron Mountain?"
"Dah!"

Master Zhou explains that if she hears it referred to as Bear Mountain, that's probably because the person doing so has been across the Wall. Wei Han clarifies - there is a Renaming Conspiracy. Oh, a renaming conspiracy! She totally gets why a Warrior Poet is what you need!

Takanata reads her I Ching: she is likely to become a warrior poet herself, but probably only about as much as Takanata is one himself (he's not such a great warrior; she likely won't be such a great poet). And, they have set her on a path that will lead her to the Hidden City. If she gets there before they do, she will die. If she gets there after they do, she will leave in triumph.
Takanata tells her to delay showing up in the Hidden City as long as she can. She finds that intriguing, but agrees.
"I'm going to go report to my commander now." -Mulan "I am your commander right now." -Wei Han "You guys are wily. I get how this works!"

Master Zhou assigns her homework: To be a great swordsmaster is not enough; one must also have companions who are true of heart. She must spend time with those in the garrison here, and nearby, and find which soldiers are loyal to the ideals of the Empire: protection for all, banding together to defeat threatening evil. She must determine which are true, and which are here simply to follow orders; who are true of heart and who are not. When she has done this, he will try to find her again, or she may send word to him and tell him what she has learned.

Wei Han reports in to Captain Zhen, giving the gist of the barbarians, furs, tunnel, and so on, and glossing over the exact location of the fight. The troops will guard the tunnel mouth and fill it with rubble while they arrange to have the construction regiment show up to make proper repairs. Captain Zhen says he'll arrange to burn the flowers - bandits or no bandits, there's probably a case to be made that they're poisonous, or opium flowers, or something.
Things roughly set in order, the group starts off on their long walk back south, since Heng Bai failed to find them horses before going into hiding...
Puttering

The group heads south to the City of Spires, and then east.
In the City of Spires, Takanata et al show Sasaki the sweet-thorn burr. Master Zhou visits Master Tanuma at the Second Way dojo.
Master Zhou and the others visit Elder Danyu to ask about skinwalking demons.
Retrieved from "http://boojum.scripts.mit.edu/Dragon/index.php?title=Death_Blossom" Category: Minirun Logs
This page was last modified on 16 July 2010, at 14:26.
Trail of Injustice

From Dragon

"A thousand cups of wine do not suffice when true friends meet, but half a sentence is too much when there is no meeting of minds."

The run begins on the day of the Early Spider in the month of Spider Rising in the first Year of the Spider since the Butterfly King was Poisoned.

The run takes place in the town of Tranquil Endurance, in the Jade Taiga.
Previous Run
Contents

1 Appearance
2 Inn of the Red Door
3 Reiko
4 The Blades
5 Midnight Troubles
6 The Meet
7 Puttering

Appearance

The last thing anyone remembers is dawn on the Day of the Spider, and being "scattered through the world" by Aku, the Great Spirit of the Spider. Yoshi and Kasumi try to grab their swords, which they had dropped in the Garden of Harmonious Contemplation Yoshi manages to reach his, but Kasumi does not.
As everyone tumbles through the void, they hear Aku's voice: "Now that your friends are scattered, you can suffer my personal ministrations. Wait... what?" Then, with a thud, Yoshi, Kasumi, and Lijuan tumble onto a dusty road as the sun rises. Yoshi checks to make sure everyone is all right, and Lijuan starts doing some preliminary patching up with first aid, when some shouting is heard from down the hill: "That's mine! Give it back! Give it back!" Yoshi heads down to find out what's going on, leaving Lijuan to finish firstaiding Kasumi.

There are two teenagers, and a littler kid. The little kid is jumping up waving his arms, trying to get at the dog that the two older kids are holding over his head. Yoshi orders the two teenagers to put the dog down, and they do. The little kid says that that's his dog, though Yoshi is pretty clear that it's Ho. Yoshi eyes one of the older kids, wondering why he does what he does - the answer is that annoying Peacocks is his job. Hmm, that's somewhat inexplicable.

Lijuan and Kasumi catch up with Yoshi - the older kids note, as Lijuan arrives, that this is turning into Peacock City, and they leave. The younger kid, who says his name is Little Si, explains that he found the dog, so it's his now! He has always wanted a dog. Yoshi tries to get Lijuan to explain to him what a peacock is, but she doesn't know any more than he does. Lijuan does some veterinary first aid on Ho, who wakes up and woofs somewhat wearily.

Yoshi asks Little Si about the older kids. He says they're Blades, and he hates them. Yoshi asks what the name of the town is - Little Si is baffled - how can Yoshi not know? It's where everyone lives! Anyway, it's called Tranquil Endurance, which causes Lijuan to leap to the (accurate) conclusion that it's in the Jade Taiga, because it sounds kind of like Harmonious Endeavor.

Everyone heads into town (Kasumi following the other two stealthily), and Yoshi asks Little Si about the Blades. He says they're meaner than they used to be, since the little kids formed their gang, the Thorny Peacocks. Little Si invites Lijuan to join the Thorny Peacocks, which she does. Big Si, Little Si's brother, is the head of the Thorny Peacocks, and Johnny Tong is the head of the Blades. Lijuan, with her KS: Street Kids, thinks that's probably not his real name, just his official Gang-Leading Alias.

Inn of the Red Door

Yoshi asks if there's an inn in Tranquil Endurance - he says there is, the Inn of the Red Door. It has good food, and lots of rooms. When they get there, things are pretty quiet there's a guy slumped over his rice wine in a corner of the bar, but no one else around other than the innkeeper (it being early morning), who comes out to welcome them.

Yoshi orders breakfast for four (including Little Si), and two rooms. The innkeeper briefly tries to overcharge Yoshi by multiplying the prices wrong, but Yoshi is not fooled. The old guy in the back starts to laugh - they're going to have to watch out now, with two adventuring parties in the same inn.

The party's ears perk up. Who is the other adventuring party? That would be a couple of armsmen of the Duke, and the mean one. Hmm, who is the mean one? The drunk eyes his empty wine cup meaningfully, and says he doesn't know anything. Yoshi takes the hint, and invites him over for breakfast in addition to another drink. The mean one turns out to be Reiko, who the drunk (called Old Hop) says was running the other two guys pretty fierce. He makes a face to demonstrate her "stern, cold eyes." He doesn't know why they're here, or when they're coming back, though.
The innkeeper doesn't know what the other group is after, either - they keep to themselves, no muss no fuss. They might be looking for someone or something, but he's not sure.
The innkeeper's wife, and his daughter Mei-Li, get the party's rooms ready, and run baths. Lijuan complains - does she have to take a bath? Yoshi says she does. Yoshi leaves word with the innkeeper to wake him up before dinner, and people spend the day sleeping.

Reiko
Lijuan has a dream:
A cartoonish Yoshi wanders along, picks up a spider the size of a melon, and takes a bite out of it. Then, he swells up, and out of his eyes come the waving legs of spiders.

When she wakes up, she runs downstairs to tell Yoshi about it. He says he thinks it's because he was able to tell something about the Spider spirit/demon when it spoke to them at the end - Aku is responsible for people who want power for the sake of power, something Yoshi thinks is bizarre and unnatural and people wouldn't do if they weren't pushed to it by the Spider. Hmm, maybe Kibo was trying to communicate with Lijuan. Yoshi notes that he should try to talk to Kibo, too.

Lijuan and Yoshi remember to wake Kasumi in time for dinner as well. As they start eating, Old Hop arranges to sit at a table which will have a good view of both the three of them and the other "adventuring party", which seems to be expected soon.
"With four sense motive, do I think he thinks they're coming imminently?" -Chris "With four, you think he's staggeringly drunk." -Mike
Yoshi goes out to get some fresh air. Lo, he spots Reiko and two other guys coming up the road, and nods to them.
"What are you doing here?" -Reiko
"That's actually a very long story. Something like Fate brought me here." -Yoshi "Interesting. Something like Fate brought me here as well."
"She probably even knows where 'here' is." -Laura

Yoshi asks if she is here after the Blades, then? She's briefly confused, until one of the men whispers something in her ear. Ah, no, she's not after those pups, she's searching out more significant game. Yoshi inquires what the more significant game has done - she says that it is another link in the chain that will bring her to where she needs to go.

Back in the tavern, Hop tries to keep Yoshi's seat warm, but Lijuan objects to this, and ends up bringing over a different chair for him to sit in. She agrees to buy him a drink, which he nearly manages to upgrade into a bottle before she notices.
Yoshi asks after Reiko's pursuits:
"Has destroying the links in the chain been successful for you?" "I take care to not destroy them until they have led me to the next one. I am confident that success will eventually arrive."

Yoshi notes that there are forces in the world which will reforge a broken link, but if you turn the link to a new purpose, this effect is countered. She is not convinced by this, but he says it has been true in his own experience. She says noncommittally that they shall see. Yoshi tries to persuade her that there are forces that thrive on destruction right now - she should not become one of them. She notes that she has a different goal in mind. He offers to come with her and help, and she thinks about that, and then tells him that if he wishes to make up for errors of the past, she would welcome his skill - but this time they'd do things her way.
He doesn't think the way to atone for death is with more death, but she doesn't think she has anything to atone for.
Back inside, Lijuan points out to Old Hop that if she's buying him drinks, he has to answer her questions. She gets a bit more of a briefing about the Thorny Peacocks and the Dark Blades. The Dark Blades have been around for a while ("always prowling the night in this town"), but the Thorny Peacocks are a more recent addition, giving the younger folks solidarity against the Blades.
"Innkeeper, another round for my friend. No, wait, another drink."
Old Hop says that the Blades don't really have a "headquarters" per se. The Dark Blades hang out down by the crossroads at night - the Thorny Peacocks are probably all in bed by that hour. Kasumi asks how the Dark Blades got their name - Old Hop just thinks they picked it to be spooooky and intimidating.

Back outside, Yoshi turns his Sense Motive on the guys accompanying Reiko - they seem to be loyal to Duke Huang, and have been ordered to assist her. However, they're getting impatient with Yoshi and Reiko's conversation, so they head into the inn for dinner. Kasumi notes that the innkeeper and his wife leap into action to serve them quickly; their daughter ducks back into the kitchen.

Yoshi says he wants to help Reiko - and that he's discovered dark forces at work in the Empire. He doesn't know if they had anything to do with the man they rescued, or the bandits. What kind of dark forces, Reiko asks. Yoshi says he means those touched by the Spider. There is some brief confusion - does he mean the Shadow? No, the Great Spirit of the Spider. She doesn't know anything about that, and he doesn't know anything about the Shadow. Does she mean the Shadow of the Wall? No, it's a person, though she's been tracking his signs in the direction of the North wall, sort of. Maybe in the foothills of the Roof of the World.
It's interesting that Yoshi is hunting Spiders, though. What will he do when he finds one? "Rescue them from the Spider's clutches," he says.
"Maybe that's what Yoshi will do. The rest of us will poke them full of stabbity bits."
-Meg
Why does he favor those touched by the Spider? Yoshi says that its taint is particularly hard to purge.
"You would purge them just for their nature?" "I think we may have a different definition of purge."
Yoshi brings up his mentor Shien - does Reiko remember her exploits? Yes, and those of her son as well. Yoshi wonders which she finds more admirable, and concludes "If I were facing the Shadow, I wouldn't have a hope of defeating it with darkness, only with light." That draws a reaction from Reiko - she suspects him of knowing something he's not sharing, now. Many sense motive rolls are made on both sides, but Yoshi doesn't actually know anything specific - he just believes it as a general principle. Reiko notes that "Even if extinguished in the darkness, the shadow always returns with the dawn," which she thinks is significant.

On that note, they both go back into the inn to eat dinner. Old Hop notes, disappointed, that he missed it all, and Lijuan briefs Yoshi on the intelligence she's gathered about the Blades and the Peacocks.

Reiko notes Kasumi with a start, and raises an eyebrow to Yoshi - there may be hope for him yet, she thinks. She also notes Old Hop hanging out with Lijuan, and asks how the old monk is related to all of this. Lijuan is intrigued - an old monk? Yoshi wonders if the old guy is going to collapse from all the alcohol he's been drinking, and realizes that it's rather surprising that he's as lucid as he is. Continuing her conclusion-leaping, Lijuan decides that Old Hop is a Drunken Master and thus should be recruited to the team.

"What brings you here? Fate, was it?" -Reiko to Kasumi "Nothing good, I'm sure." -Kasumi
"I like this one." -Reiko
"I hear there's a dog shortage." -Kasumi

The Blades

Dinner eaten, Yoshi, Lijuan, and Kasumi go for a walk, and Yoshi fills them in a little on Reiko. She's looking for a master criminal called the Shadow, connected with some murders in the Butterfly Kingdom. Neither Lijuan nor Kasumi knows anything more about the Shadow, other than the whole "don't be touched by the shadow of the Wall on midwinter" thing.

Yoshi gets a bit entangled in trying to explain what he wants to do, which is find the Shadow before Reiko does. Because Reiko wants to help the Shadow? No, because she wants to kill him.
"We want to risk our lives protecting this criminal because it is the path of justice? No moral judgment, just summing up." -Kasumi
That's about right. Kasumi is a little worried about her ability to do any protecting without her katana, so they decide to look for another katana under cover of looking for a dog for Little Si.

"We should see what might attract a criminal to the town." -Kasumi "Yoshi's here!" -Lijuan
"Do they... flock to him?" -Kasumi
"I'm going to ask questions about a dog, and slip in subtle questions about a katana." -Lijuan
The first stop for information-gathering is the Thorny Peacocks, from whom they discover that Peacocks love dogs and hate katanas. The Dark Blades are the people who like katanas, apparently.

Since the Blades hang out near the crossroads, Kasumi sneaks off to spy on them. They're talking about how they need a little more money for the shipment coming in tomorrow night - they should probably roll someone tonight. Not the scary out of towners, but maybe the new ones. They should see if they can get one of them to stay up and drink too much and then roll them before bed. There are only about six Blades there, but it sounds like there are more of them in total. One of the Blades tries to suggests a bake sale instead of rolling a drunk, but that isn't popular. After thinking about it for a while, Kasumi recognize that voice as Mei-Li.
Kasumi meets back with Lijuan and Yoshi and lets them know about the rolling.
"Are we going to capture them and make them into good guys?" -Lijuan "We're going to talk to them. Wait, no, we're not going to capture them." -Yoshi
Reiko and her two men have left the inn at this point, and she isn't wearing interesting enough footwear to easily track her.
"It's the First Day of the Spider. You don't wear boots after the first day of Spider, how gauche..."
It's time now to get friendly with the Blades, who are happy to turn it into a New Year's Day drinking party, since they were hoping to get someone drunk and robbable. Old Hop manages to score a few more drinks in the general camaraderie.

Yoshi chats with one of the Blades. It was a hard year - he's hoping it will be better in the future, once they have better weapons. He seems to have a general idea that if they get better at fighting, someone will hire them as mercenaries or guards.

"Do you sell katanas!!!?" -Lijuan
"What would a Peacock like you want with a katana?" "Wait, wait, is it just all the kids are in the peacock gang."
"Yeah."
"And they're your arch-rivals?"
"That's what they say. We can handle them, though. Don't worry about it."

Everyone boggles at the idea of having two gangs separated by age rather than geography or family or what have you. Do you get promoted from one to the other when you turn fifteen? Yoshi tries to convince the Blade that he's talking to, not to pick on the Peacocks "You looking to set up a Peacock protection scheme?"
Since the Blades are buying rounds for everyone, Lijuan brings her two drinks over to Old Hop, with a proposition.
"Don't look now, but sometimes Yoshi gets in trouble. I'll buy you a whole bottle of this, if he gets in trouble when you're around."
She clarifies that she means if he gets in trouble and Old Hop helps him, rather than leaving him with incentive to see that Yoshi gets in trouble. Then she buys him the bottle, in advance.

Yoshi's Blade friend says they're hoping to come into some more money, buy some goods
- and maybe even sell something to his peacock friend. Come find him later tomorrow night, and they'll hook him up with a nice katana.
"I wonder if he's thought through that this is inconsistent with robbing me tonight."
-Yoshi
But no, it seems like he's decided that Yoshi is a potential customer, so he should figure out someone else to rob.
"Boy, are they going to be disappointed when they find that Lijuan's pockets are full of biscuits and not zhu." -Kasumi
Yoshi tries to get the pedigree of the katanas, so he knows they're good enough to stick around for. The guy explains some of the details of the make, but avoids mention of the source. Yoshi thinks they sound familiar, but can't quite put his finger on why. They'd want 1 li for a decent sword. Yoshi, hoping to head off any muggings at all, asks if he can get a discount if he pays in advance. The answer is yes, so he pays 80 zhu in advance, and then declares that he wants to pick which one he gets, so he should get to come to the meet. He's pretty persuasive, and the Blades want to keep an "investor" happy, so they tell him to meet them by the crossroads at sunset tomorrow.
"I bought you a sword. We have to pick it up. It's at the plot." -Yoshi to Kasumi
Midnight Troubles

Then, it's back to bed for everyone, since they've only had the four-hour nap after staying up all night to rearrange the garden and travel in the spirit world. That night, Lijuan has another dream:
A cartoonish Yoshi, with a long nose like a yumekui, picks up a spider and takes a bite out of it. After that, his mouth seems to have spider mandible/fangs.
Everyone is awoken around midnight by a piercing shriek. Yoshi, Kasumi, and Lijuan are the first to get downstairs - Mei-Li is in the common room, somewhat hysterical, and one of the Duke's armsmen is lying on the floor unconscious. At the corner of the bar, Old Hop appears to be asleep with his head on his arms. Kasumi heads over to Old Hop, and looms over him meaningfully. He looks up at her, bleary-eyed. She looks at the body, and back at him. He notes "You want another one? I'm going to need another bottle."

Mei-Li is explaining that this horrible man tried to force himself on her, but then when she screamed, something happened to him, she's not sure what. Lijuan first aids him ("If he wakes up, then we can capture him and turn him into a good guy.") Once he has awoken, Yoshi turns to him for questioning. Is this the sort of behavior that Duke Huang tolerates in his soldiers? Does Reiko tolerate this sort of behavior?

From the stairs behind Yoshi comes the question "Does Reiko tolerate which sort of behavior?" Yoshi explains. Reiko glares at the armsman, demanding to know if this is true. He makes some lame sorts of protestations, but Yoshi sees the cold anger beginning to rise in Reiko's eyes as she starts towards him. She takes one step forward, and suddenly falls to the ground.

Moments before, Old Hop has told Kasumi that she can owe him one, and slightly tips a chair near him. That chair tips into another, which falls into a third, and so on, until a chair falls with its back just under Reiko's foot, tripping her.
When she stands up again, she is more in control of her anger, and she glares at Yoshi.
"Fine. It appears you have captured him. What will you do - what does he deserve?"
"He deserves a chance to put his life to good purpose."
"You think he hasn't already had that chance?"
"It's never too late to make a new choice. We can't change the past, but we can affect the future."
Yoshi turns to the armsman, asking
"Do you understand what is going on here? Do you understand that your life is in danger?"
He does not, in fact, appear to understand that his life is in danger. As the Duke's man, he says no one in this town is going to do anything to him. Yoshi asks Reiko if the Duke condones this sort of thing - she says the Duke condones behavior that gets him results, and, like many in the Twelve Kingdoms, he understands the importance of an end and may not ask about the means if the end pleases him.
"Are we going to capture him too?" -Lijuan
"I'm going to ignore that, and apologize later." -Yoshi
"This is the world you walk through. These are the people you meet. What will you do?" -Reiko to Yoshi
"We'll capture them and make them into good guys!" -Lijuan
"I'm going to change people for the better. Not everyone takes that choice, and I recognize that." -Yoshi

Reiko tells the guy that his services are no longer required, and tells Yoshi that when her business here is concluded, she will ask Mei-Li if she has received justice. The other armsman looks like he wants to say something, but Reiko quells him, and then the two of them leave.
Ho and Lijuan help cheer up Mei Li. Ho is a pretty good cheerer and reassurer, and she manages to calm down. Over at the bar, Old Hop starts packing up his bottle.
"Your little peacock was right." -Old Hop
"Sometimes she is." -Kasumi
"Well, I might not always be around, but if you need me, you know how to get in touch with me."
He picks up his bottle and leaves.
The armsman is tied up and taken to Yoshi's room, where Yoshi lays down the Great Hammer of Persuasion that life isn't a zero-sum game where you only win by taking from others. The guy does get rather persuaded, though his main issues have been that he doesn't really consider peasants as people whose feelings need to be considered, and that he's been lusting after Reiko for the past few weeks but is scared of her. Yoshi contemplates suggesting prostitutes, but decides that's not his line. The guy is, basically, not very much of a nice guy, but Yoshi does convince him that he's going to have to go and confess to Duke Huang.

Then, he goes downstairs again and offers to teach Mei-Li aikido, so she can better defend herself in the future. After some teaching, he thinks that she actually probably has a learning bonus in katana (due to being part of the Blades who have a group katana shtick), so after her sword comes in, she'll be a bit more confident as well.

Yoshi asks Mei-Li about Johnny Tong. It seems that they've been building a little "criminal underground", and it has mechanical requirements. For example, one thing you need to have is a rivalry, in order to buy gang shticks. So, they got the younger kids to form the Peacocks, and then they beat up Peacocks to prove that their gang is superior. And, sure, they've rolled some people, but it's not like they weren't getting rolled by individuals before. Now everyone gets credit for each one and there's actually less of it happening.
Johnny moved here from the Hon'eth Arcade last year. He was in one of the big city gangs, but then his stupid family moved out here.
"Now he runs the biggest gang in town."
Yoshi takes advantage of their training montage to instill in Mei-Li a belief in not killing people because everyone has potential. If they're The Power in the town, he thinks they should do something good with their power, as opposed to just throw it around abusing people (like the duke's armsman). She does think that he ought to be punished, but is willing to accept that if he confesses to the Duke that will probably happen. Yoshi also makes sure to have the armsman beg her forgiveness before he goes off back to Duke Huang's lands.

Next errand - time to find a dog! After a couple of hours of searching, they do find a mangy street dog. Little Si is prepped with Lijuan's dog treats, and manages to befriend it. The dog is named Littlest Si, and happiness reigns in the Thorny Peacock gang.
Lijuan tells Yoshi about her most recent dream, and vows to watch his food for spiders in it.
Is there anything else to be done before the meet with the katana shipment? Is there an actual plan about what to do with the Blades?
"If we give them to Reiko, they'll do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Which is better than doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. But doing no things for any reasons is even better." -Kasumi

Yoshi talks to Johnny Tong. It does sound like he was in a "real" street gang in the Arcade
- selling drugs, running bets, enforcing loans, that sort of thing. Although he was just a low-level messenger who didn't get into the serious stuff himself yet. Yoshi tries to sway him around to the side of light as well: tough times are coming. Maybe in easy times, they could just run around with their swords being important, but in harder times, they have to have the people on their side. They can't do it with just fear, they have to win loyalty as well. Yoshi just wants to make sure that they're well situated, now that he's an investor.
Yoshi thinks if the drop goes well tonight, he's got them convinced, though investing a little more money might help solidify things.
Lijuan makes a similar attempt with the Peacocks, but with no successes, it's not clear that her version of the philosophy will have much staying power. She buys them lunch, instead.

The Meet

Before sunset, Kasumi sneaks out of town in the way that someone might be coming from, but where she can still see the crossroads, and hides. Lijuan hides vaguely nearby but less well, and Yoshi and the Dark Blades wait at the crossroads. Eventually, a guy on a horse, leading a pack mule, arrives.

The guy and Johnny Tong confer, and then swap a bag of 500 zhu for a bag of katanas. Yoshi wonders why this guy does what he does - profit, mostly. He's a small cog in a larger machine, but he also hopes to be promoted if he opens up this new market here. The guy and his mule start leaving, and Johnny shows Yoshi the katanas, which he recognizes now as being Dragon Army issue.
Yoshi asks if Johnny knew he was buying swords stolen from the Dragon Army. He didn't know know, but he isn't totally surprised that they're hot.
Kasumi starts sneaking after the arms merchant. So does Lijuan, who is better at following a trail, so Kasumi ends up following Lijuan instead. After they get a ways farther, the remaining Duke's armsman steps in front of Lijuan and says "I was told to tell you you don't need to be involved for this part."
Lijuan nods, and says "Okay, I'll tell Yoshi, thank you." She heads back to the crossroads. Unfortunately, Kasumi was never really sure where the merchant was, so she has to follow the armsman at this point. He goes off to a pair of horses, where he waits. After a while, there's a horrible scream off in the distance; then Reiko shows up, mounts her horse, and the two of them leave. Belatedly, Kasumi kicks herself for not trying to pickpocket the 500 zhu, though Yoshi thinks that might have led to serious trouble with Reiko.

Lijuan declares that she should try to find the merchant, to see if maybe first aid will help. Yoshi had been hoping she wouldn't have to see the body, but agrees to accompany her. Sure enough, first aid will not do him any good now, and he looks as if he probably talked before dying quite unhappily.

Since the meet went well from the Dark Blades' point of view, they seem amenable to Yoshi's guidance. He convinces them to change their name to the Secret Swords (so they don't have to have their stolen Dragon Army swords visible). He invests 50 zhu more in the group, and they promise to not just bleed Tranquil Endurance dry.
Then, he gives them some katana training - they appear to have a group shtick in getting double levels of Katana skill for the points they spend.
Kasumi, as she is checking out, finds a bottle of Golden Palace rice wine in her room. She tries a drink, and finds that it gives her +1 Cha / -1 Dex for a while. Intriguing.
Puttering

Yoshi teaches the Secret Swords katana and aikido, and some of them learn Riposte and Protect.
Yoshi visits Master Hwa's dojo on the way back to the Butterfly Kingdom.
Retrieved from "http://boojum.scripts.mit.edu/Dragon/index.php?title=Trail_of_Injustice" Category: Minirun Logs
This page was last modified on 16 July 2010, at 14:26.
Phoenix Hunt

From Dragon
"Deer hunter, waste not your arrow upon the hare."
The run begins on the day of the Early Spider in the month of Spider Rising in the first Year of the Spider since the Butterfly King was Poisoned.
The run takes place to, from, and on the Shrouded Isle. Previous Run
Contents

1 Appearance
2 Recruitment
3 Springs of Needful Blessings
4 Summit of Fire
5 Heading Out
6 Puttering

Appearance

The last thing anyone remembers is dawn on the Day of the Spider, and being "scattered through the world" by Aku, the Great Spirit of the Spider. As everyone tumbles through the void, they hear Aku's great voice threaten: "Now that your friends are scattered, you can suffer my personal ministrations... Wait... what?" As Shuyan, Shen-Ji, and Xian wonder what to make of that, they are distracted by a Splash as they fall into water.
Shen-Ji and Xian manage to initially keep their heads above water; Shuyan is not so lucky. Xian sees a dark shape, backlit against the dawn, as he begins to swim towards Shuyan.
"I'm rethinking my commitment to knife-throwing. It isn't helping me very much here." -Shuyan
Xian manages to pull Shuyan up, though at the cost of going down himself. Shen-Ji is still doing his best to not drown, and doesn't have time for anything else. Shuyan pulls Xian back up, so now everyone is breathing, though being out in what appears to be the middle of the ocean doesn't seem good for long-term prospects, so all three hapless swimmers start shouting to attract the attention of whatever it is Xian has spotted. Happily, it is a ship rather than a sea serpent.

The ship alters course to head towards the swimmers, though then two archers on board take aim at them, only to be shouted at by a woman in black who throws a rope instead. An argument ensues - the archers think the three swimmers are spies, but the woman thinks that drowning in the ocean is a poor strategy for spies.

Shuyan drags Xian to the rope, and Shen-Ji follows. The three get pulled aboard the small ship - Xian notes that it is called the Silent Predator. One archer runs to fetch the captain, while the woman in black asks questions. The answer to the question "how did you get here?" is deemed Complicated, but Xian notes that they have no boat or raft, and did not expect to be in the ocean. Shen-Ji explains that they are from the Butterfly Kingdom, and appeared magically, due to things going awry. Ah, that is at least an understandable explanation.

Captain Togo appears, wondering what to do with them. Shen-Ji suggests letting them off at the ship's next port of call. Captain Togo doesn't seem to think this is as simple as all that, but says for the moment, they can have a cabin to get warm and dry again, and then it can be discussed. The woman in black tells Captain Togo she'll take care of it, and that he shouldn't worry - this seems somewhat inexplicable. Does she think they're someone else, that they need to be worried about? Was she expecting some other set of people to be swimming around in the ocean? Xian thinks that she's worried for them rather than about them.

Recruitment
Hot beverages are brought in, and the party members dry off and try to figure out what tack to take.
"The more ignorant we are, the more reassuring we are. So we ought to be pretty reassuring."
The woman pokes her head in - she has a plan! They haven't seen any phoenixes, have they? No, they haven't, though this question does not decrease the overall confusion level. Shen-Ji tries to find out her name, but Xian is more worried about being killed and names seem to him to be a less pressing issue. She returns with Captain Togo, who says that the woman should make sure that they know the rules and don't blow it - and if they keep up their end, they can have a cut. He leaves again, but again, the confusion has not lessened. The woman asks if any of them have done any hunting before - Shuyan says she's hunted mice for her snake, but that's about it.

The woman explains that there's a bit of time pressure that wasn't part of the original plan, and is also why they can't just drop the three travelers off. They recently left the Butterfly Kingdom, and once they're done, they'll be heading to the City of Light, but it appears that the Dragon Army is about to blockade the Shrouded Isle. Their original plan was to go in and spend as much time as they needed, but now they only have about a day and a half to get things done. To get what done? Oh, was that not clear? (No, it wasn't!). They're phoenix poachers. Since none of these three have seen a phoenix, that's helpful - a phoenix can't be caught by people who have already seen one, so professional phoenix poachers need a rotating crew of novices to attract the phoenixes. She points out that phoenix poaching is frowned upon by the inhabitants - that's not going to be a problem, is it? ShenJi says, not at the moment. Xian, who has been watching her closely, thinks she was actually a little disappointed at that answer.
"Wait, do you mean illegal?" -Xian
Xian didn't even know that people hunted phoenixes. She explains that they're useful to alchemists. Phoenix feathers can be made into a wide variety of items, the most popular of which is the Phoenix Down potion.

There is much hinting trying to get at what happens if the hunt fails to go well. Especially since it's illegal. Xian wonders why it's illegal, and the woman goes on a short diatribe about how there aren't that many of them left and really, hunting them to extinction is not going to help anyone. She catches herself there, as if she blurted a bit more than she intended. Xian carefully stipulates that he doesn't want to wipe them out. She says the captain assures them that there's no danger of that. She starts laying out the overall plan. Since there's basically only one shot at this, there will probably be a couple of teams sent on the island to get what they can, then everyone meets back at the ship and they sail out before the Imperial blockade comes down.

She describes the actual process of phoenix hunting. A novice who's never seen a phoenix is sent near a likely place alone to wait. Eventually, if no one else is obviously around, a phoenix may come up and attempt to impress the novice with its majesty. Apparently, they only do that once for each person, and while they are busy preening and fluffing themselves out, a hidden archer gets a chance to take a shot. Usually, only one shot is possible, as after the first the phoenix snaps out of it and flies off, or breaths fire, or whatever. So the first shot has to count. The novice is usually too stunned by the phoenix itself to be helpful beyond being bait.

It's at this point that Shuyan suddenly realizes that this process involves killing the phoenix. Yes, the woman thought she has made that clear. Apparently, she's not very good at making things clear. Shen-Ji asks how many of these highly skilled archers the captain has at his disposal - there are three on board. The captain himself is an expert tracker, and knows just about everything there is to know about the local terrain and the usual behavior of phoenixes. Given his tracking skill, the group thinks they are unlikely to be able to slip away during the hunt.

On a clarification kick, the woman in black explains, "Just to be clear", that either way the hunt goes, the party will get a ride out, unless the hunt goes so disastrously that nobody leaves the island at all...

Everyone nods sagely at her emphasis about how the hunt could go either way, but leaves it to Xian to probe further. He tries to get her to explain why she signed on to this mission in the first place, as she's clearly not quite so enthusiastic about hunting down phoenixes. Perhaps it was just curiosity. The woman cautiously agrees, though she's clearly hiding some further motives. Xian suggests that what she really needs are some close friends on this mission. People she can confide in. People with the same temperament as her own.

Finally breaking, she admits her plot. She's here to to sabotage the mission, because there aren't that many phoenixes left and she doesn't want to see them hunted to extinction the way the dragons were.
"Dragons? No, wait. We'll get back to that later."
She doesn't have a great plan, though. She was mostly planning to become "overwrought" at seeing a phoenix, freak out and scare it away before it could get shot.
The captain has debts and a reputation to uphold. (He's actually quite famous in phoenix hunting circles.) Thus, she doesn't think there really any way to just talk him out of it. They need to make the hunt fail, but fail in a way that leaves them mostly blameless with a ride off the island. Shen-Ji proposes that the best way to protect the phoenixes while maintaining an aura of innocence is to get shot by the archers after subtly interposing themselves between the arrows and the phoenixes. No one would be crazy enough to take a placed shot to the back just to protect a bird, so it's the perfect cover. Shuyan is particularly impressed with Shen-Ji's dedication to the cause, having experienced this particular get-filled-with-arrows-for-the-cause plan herself. She reminds people that it's really unpleasant.
"Perhaps I have pinned my hopes and dreams to crazy people." "You have, but we're competent crazy people." -Xian
Shen-Ji is willing to be shot, but others are not clear this is a good idea.
The captain reveals the overall plan: the boat will be split into two groups. He will go with the newcomers and take one of the archers. This group will go to the Springs of Needful Blessings, which are sulfurous hot springs.

"It is said that the person who submerges themself in the spring of needful blessings is blessed."
"With second degree burns!" -Xian
The other group - two archers and the woman - will go to the Summit of Fire, and search there. Hopefully, both groups will bag a phoenix, and head back to the boat.
The ship starts sneaking in towards the island. They're warned to stay quiet, as there are locals charged with patrolling the area, but it shouldn't be a problem as they are not a big force and the captain is familiar with their schedule and methods.

En route, the party considers just ditching everyone, and getting themselves stranded on the Shrouded Isle during the blockade. Maybe they could somehow contact that ship with the ghost fog to get them out of here. Presumably the locals will be happy to see them, as they can blow the phoenix hunter's cover. But in the end, it's decided there are just too many unknowns to risk it.

Springs of Needful Blessings

The groups split up and our heroes trek through the almost tropical mists and jungles towards the Springs of Needful Blessings. Captain Togo keeps a close eye on them as they go, with the archer bringing up the rear, so there's not a great chance to escape in any case.

Once arriving at the springs, they get ready. Xian is instructed to go stand between three of the springs and look innocent. Shuyan and Shen-Ji are given leather hoods to wear, so they don't accidentally see Xian's phoenix and ruin their own chances for later. Everyone other than Xian takes up a stealthy position in the brush around the springs, and the captain sneaks a fair bit away. People ask the archer why the captain left, and he explains that the phoenixes really hate the captain. They won't come anywhere near here if he's around.
Sadly, no phoenix shows up for Xian. So he and Shen-Ji are swapped and the plan is enacted again with Shen-Ji acting as phoenix bait.
Ah ha! After a bit of waiting, a phoenix finally shows up and starts showing off to Shen-Ji. Shen-Ji makes a massive will roll and is not rendered stupefied by the phoenix's majesty. This gives him the chance to act stupefied and slowly move his way to between the archer and the bird. The archer complains to Xian, but Xian has a hood so can't tell what's going on in any case. The archer slides around the grove a little to get a better shot on the bird and finally manages to set on up. Shen-Ji can't get in the way anymore, as the archer is firing directly over the hot-spring. With amazing timing, Shen-Ji "falls" into the hot spring, just as the arrow is coming, and screens the bird from the attack, taking it in his own back.

Shen-Ji takes damage from the hot water, and a pile more damage from the arrow, but does seems to be a bit more buff than he was when he woke up this morning. Perhaps the spring blessed him after all.
The phoenix squawks and flies off, the captain returns, and the bitter recriminations phase commences.
Xian thinks that "he fell over into the pool and then I shot him" is much less plausible than "I shot him and then he fell over", and is somewhat persuasive towards that end pushing the blame for this fiasco onto the archer. The captain agrees, when Shen-Ji tosses in several successes of "It's not my fault."

The captain explains that since blood has been spilt here, no more phoenixes will show up here today. So they may as well head to the other location and help the other team. As punishment, the archer is assigned to make a litter for the wounded Shen-Ji, and pull him up the mountain to the Summit of Fire. Shen-Ji thinks this was the best plan ever. Not only did he save a phoenix, now he gets a ride up the hill.

The archer, now quite grumpy, convinces the captain to tell the newbies to get into the pools before they leave - maybe they'll get blessed and be better at attracting a phoenix. Shuyan says she can't swim. Xian gets in and takes some damage from the hot water. He does seem to become more compelling though, so Shuyan jumps in too. She also feels blessed, if somewhat burned.

Summit of Fire

They head to the Summit of Fire. Chochiro (Aha! They finally get her name!) is shouting about not wanting to fall into the volcano, and her archers are shouting at her to be quiet lest she scare a phoenix away. When the other team arrives, the archers ask what happened and Shen-Ji immediately leaps in with "He shot me!", causing another loud argument. Finally the captain restores order, and the hunting plan is started anew. Shuyan is sent up to the rim and all three archers lay in wait. The other novices (less Shen-Ji) are given hoods again.

While hanging around up on the rim of the volcano, Shuyan notices something shiny down inside just below the lip, but she keeps it quiet for now. After a bit of waiting, nothing appears to happen, so Xian is swapped in for another try. He also sees the shiny thing, down towards the lava. He calls to the others about it, and Shen-Ji manages to get himself dragged up to the summit. The archers say this is madness as he's already seen a phoenix, but Xian spins a web of words around them, and temporarily convinces them that perhaps it will work twice for him because he's a vast "mental sorcerer".

While he's left up there alone, Shen-Ji takes the opportunity to "fall" into the volcano. He lands on his summoned disk, of course, but it's quite dramatic looking from outside. Floating down, he finds that the shiny thing is a phoenix egg. He starts scooping it up. All this delay, though, has caused the captain to return. An argument erupts as he tries to figure out what's going on. Just as people are about to come to blows, a phoenix appears to Chochiro. She stands there slack-jawed over its majesty, and the captain quickly orders the archers to fire before it leaves.

Xian throws himself in the way and shouts, "Wait! That's not a real phoenix! That's the Great Phoenix Spirit!" He's amazingly convincing. Two of the archers are stunned to see a great spirit. The captain, suddenly terrified, runs off! "Shit - it found me!" Shen-Ji uses the confusion to get back out of the volcano and dismiss his flying disk, but one archer stays on target. He fires at the phoenix, but Xian shouts, "Fool! You'll get us all killed!" and pushes him just as he releases. The arrow strikes Chochiro in the shoulder, and the phoenix squawks and flies away in a flurry of feathers. The party manages to pocket the four dropped feathers.
It turns out the archer who fired was the same one who fired at the pools.
"What is with you shooting other people?" -Xian "You shoved me!"
"I saved your life!"

Xian throws in his yang for one final attempt at word-dancing and manages to convince both the captain and the archer that this regrettable incident wasn't really anyone's fault. There won't be any more phoenixes today, so everyone heads back to the ship to get out of this place.

Heading Out

Back on the ship, people are briefed on the blockade. It looks like it was pre-planned. As soon as the first of the year arrived, ships started moving. As the Silent Predator leaves, it can see a couple of blockade ships taking up positions behind them. There's not going to be any travel to the Shrouded Isle for quite a while, it seems.

After some first aid, Chochiro finally wakes up. The party gives her one of the phoenix feathers and asks her more about what's really going on with her. Grateful, she explains that she was instructed (by a traveling wise-woman who used to visit her village in the Strand) to go on a quest. Well, geased more than instructed, really. She has to do some kind of favor for each of the great Cycle Spirits. She's finished tasks for the Snake, Tiger, Magpie, Tortoise, and now Phoenix. She'll be heading to the Butterfly Kingdom next to see what she can do in the service the Great Butterfly Spirit there. Xian questions her about this wise-woman some more. Sadly, no one has seen the woman since she geased Chochiro, so there was never any chance to ask her clarifications. She traveled around and visited their village in the Strand every few months for years, but after her encounter with Chochiro, she hasn't returned.

Suddenly remembering, they ask Chochiro about hunting dragons to extinction. She doesn't really know what's up with that, but she knows there aren't any dragons any more. There definitely used to be real dragons, and now there aren't. None. Anywhere. She says that the phoenixes are the last magical animals left, so that's why she thought protecting them from poachers would be a good service to the Great Phoenix Spirit.

Arriving in the City of Light, the party examines the phoenix feather market. Given the blockade, they estimate they could sell the phoenix feathers for around 10 li each, but decide to keep them, hoping for a better opportunity in the future.

Puttering
Shen-Ji arranges for passage back to the Butterfly Kingom for the group, by way of the Port of Auspicious Voyage.
Retrieved from "http://boojum.scripts.mit.edu/Dragon/index.php?title=Phoenix_Hunt" Category: Minirun Logs
This page was last modified on 16 July 2010, at 14:26.
Home Front

From Dragon

"A secret known to many people is a rumor; a secret known to no one at all is a mystery. A secret society known to many people is a club; a secret society known not even to its members is an ideal."

The run begins on the Day of the Late Phoenix in Fox Descending, in the in the third Year of the Fox since the crowning of Ti Lao.
The run takes place in the Butterfly Kingdom.
Previous Run
Contents

1 Too Many Monkeys
2 No Spirit World For You
3 Signal Flag
4 Planning a Disappearance
5 Planning an Impersonation
6 Time for Plan C
7 Cleanup
8 Puttering

Too Many Monkeys

When last we saw Min Feng and Merit, the Silken Wings Circus had returned to the Butterfly Kingdom, the party had presented the Tincture of Pure Respite to the Queen, everyone was helping carry interesting feng shui items from the circus to the Gardens of Harmonious Contemplation as people rearranged it, and Yanyu was hanging around the circus as it went into winter practice mode.
Ringmaster Te comes to visit Yanyu, and expresses his deep appreciation for having someone around who speaks all of the crazy barbarian languages - he isn't used to having barbarians attack, infiltrate, kidnap, and so on, quite so often. So, he would really like her to stay on for the next circuit, and... wait, why is there a monkey in her bassinet? Yanyu looks, and sure enough, instead of her daughter Mei Lin, there is a monkey. Mei Lin is on the other side of the room, being dangled precariously by a different monkey.
Ringmaster Te frowns at Yanyu, but Yanyu is confused.
"How did the monkeys get in here?" -Yanyu
"Oh, thank goodness, I thought they were yours." -Ringmaster Te
Outside Yanyu's wagon, there seems to be monkey pandemonium everywhere. Ringmaster Te apologizes to Yanyu, and goes off to find Min Su, while Yanyu tries to get her child back from the monkey.
"You know, Mei Lin, I never had this sort of problem before, but it beats living with your father's parents." -Yanyu
Min Su doesn't seem to be around, though, so Ringmaster Te finds Min Feng, as the backup person in charge of monkey wrangling. Min Feng lures Li Merit into helping as well, and they head for the monkey tent. Unsurprisingly, Monko isn't in his cage, but he's also not running around in the monkey pandemonium. As it turns out, Monko is the monkey in the bassinet - Tofu, the swapping monkey, swapped him for the baby. Merit starts monkey wrangling the normal monkeys, while Min Feng takes charge of Monko and Tofu, gives Yanyu her daughter back, and heads back to the monkey tent.

Merit, meanwhile, checks for signs of foul play in the monkey tent. Monko's cage doesn't normally have a lock, it's normally just kept tipped over so the door is on the bottom. It looks like someone has tipped it back over, letting Monko out. Hmm. Where is Min Su, anyway? This turns out to be non-nefarious - whenever she returns to the Butterfly Kingdom, she spends a few days visiting a friend, after arranging to have someone take care of the monkeys. Merit, trailed by Min Feng and Yanyu, goes to find the circus youngsters who are supposed to be feeding the monkeys - they are making themselves scarce, but their scarcity is no match for Merit's findiness. They say it was NOT THEIR FAULT! Yanyu and Min Feng both glare at them. Min Feng thinks they are telling the truth - Yanyu agrees, but also thinks one of them knows more. She fixes him with a fierce parental glare: "What aren't you telling me, young man?" He cracks, and admits that just before he went in and found the monkeys all on the loose, he saw that guy hanging around, the top-knotted guy with the chain... the description sounds like Anto. The timing is such that the party would have been heading to the palace for the party about then, so the trio decides that this must have been the work of some nefarious person disguised to look like Anto.

No Spirit World For You

At this point, suddenly and without warning, sunset falls slightly sooner than expected, and the Garden of Harmonious Contemplation is covered by a shield of inky black doom. The Queen and her guards are above the blackness, and sometimes monsters try to get out, but the guards shoot them and beat them back in. Merit, Yanyu, and Min Feng have nothing to do but wait. At dawn, the blackness fades, and a terrible voice booms out: Fools! You think you can keep me out? My time has now come! With the turning of the Cycle, I am now finally free to act directly once more. As my first act, I shall scatter those who have annoyed me.

And then, the garden is empty, save for the King. The party rushes in, with Ti Wren, to the King's side. Yanyu's quick diagnosis is that he is malnourished from his long slumber, and flunkies are immediately sent off to get restorative tea and broth. The Queen thanks all three of the (remaining) party members.

"I see you have added another to your number." -Ti Wren
"You do?" -Merit
"Indeed."
"Yanyu has been very helpful with... discovering things that need to be discovered."

Yanyu clarifies, since Merit seems to have no idea who she actually is, that she serves as the translator for the circus. Ti Wren nods, and says that "if you have joined this gallant company, then we are also in your debt."

They are invited to stay in the palace while she sees to the King. Nobody really knows what to do about the "scatter you through the world" thing, and while the Queen is worried, she also seems to think that people will be all right. Yanyu ponders the big dark voice, and realizes that that was actually a Great Spirit of the Cycle! And, she already knows that this is the first day of the Spider in the month of the Spider in the year of the Spider in the Cycle of the Spider... oh, it is also, she realizes, in the Great Cycle of the Spider too.

Merit wonders (with Interpret Omens) about whether the Great Spider Spirit is just going to be popping in and doing things left and right for now on. That sort of direct action is usually pretty phenomenally rare. It's probably not going to just happen all the time, but other Day/Month/Year of the Spider days could also be relevant. Of course, not everything the Great Spider Spirit does will necessarily be aimed at the PCs - he might have other irons in the fire, or people he wants to help rather than thwart.

Signal Flag

Well, there's nothing to do for it now but to go and have a beer. Min Feng and Yanyu accompany him, and since Takanata isn't around to look disapproving, Min Feng even has a drink or three. As the three are leaving the tavern afterwards, Merit and Yanyu notice a red scarf in the window of an upper room in the Inn across the road. Yanyu looks thoughtful, Merit looks differently thoughtful, and when it's pointed out to Min Feng, she also looks thoughtful.

"I think someone might be in trouble over there." -Yanyu
"I guess you could look at it that way." -Merit
"Where?" -Min Feng
"Over there!" -Yanyu
"Don't point!" -Merit
"Wait, we all have that memory packet?" -Merit
Merit thinks it's incompetent spycraft, whoever it is. The other two think that it's a sign of distress. Merit notes that maybe whoever is in distress is someone they want to be in trouble, but Min Feng and Yanyu don't seem to think that that's the most likely probability. They head across the street into the inn, and Merit improvises...

"How may I be of service?" -innkeeper
"Need a room." -Merit, looking at his two companions
"Will you be... expecting to stay the evening?"
"God willing."

The innkeeper shows Merit and his ladies to a third floor corner room "far away from any distractions". (The scarf room is in the opposite corner.) The three contemplate their next step - should Min Feng sneak in? Or should they just knock on the door? Merit arranges his collar in the sort of half-up half-down style that might signify "I got your message" to someone looking for a countersign, and knocks on the door. Nobody answers, so Min Feng (with Monko watching with interest) picks the lock.

There is a woman with long white hair and a bandaged midsection lying unconscious on the bed - Min Feng recognizes her as Kuan-Xi, Anto's (and Xiao Fa's!) mysterious girlfriend. Yanyu, with Merit's help, diagnoses her - she seems to have had taken a deep cut, and done a good job bandaging herself up before fainting from blood loss. Min Feng goes down to the innkeeper to get the makings for some soup - Merit suggests ingredients that are both healthful and suggestive of needing extra endurance, to play along with the charade of the room rental.
"An Int roll with... seduction and cooking?" -Drew "Sounds good." -Mike
The best thing for her would probably be to wake her up enough to get her to drink some soup, rather than wait for her to come around on her own. Merit notices the key to the room (this is a high-class inn, so the doors lock!) on the bedside table with some bloody fingerprints, so she probably came here after she was stabbed. They decide to move her to the other room, and stake out this one for incoming bad guys.
"If someone who stabbed her comes in, I'm useless in a fight." -Yanyu "I'm not saying we should fight them, just see who it is." -Merit
Min Feng watches for when the coast is clear and there's no other inn patrons in the hall, and then Merit and Yanyu carry their "drunk companion" (wrapped in a blanket) to the other room. No bad guys converge on the other room, and Kuan-Xi is brought round and fed soup. They warn her that there's someone disguised as Anto running around causing trouble. Kuan-Xi notes that then they have to help Anto against the imposter - but, unfortunately, they tell her that he's far away.

About this point, Kuan-Xi becomes a bit more cautious - her initial panic about Anto was likely due to her not having fully woken up yet - and while she's thankful for the help of her new acquaintances, she doesn't want to be a burden to them. She can repay them for their help, she assures them. Merit assures her that Anto would be very disappointed if they didn't help her. Oh, wait, they do know Anto? Yes, they're from the circus too. Oh, ahah! But, if Anto himself isn't here, can they get a message to a friend of his, Min Feng, that she's a friend of Anto's and needs to talk to Min Feng?
Before things turn into too much of a comedy of misidentification, Min Feng takes pity on her and introduces herself.
"Oh, you got my message!" -Kuan-Xi "Yes." -Min Feng
"Yes." -Yanyu
"You got my message too?" -Kuan-Xi "Everyone got your message, dear." -Merit

Merit tries to explain that to be a properly subtle signal, the scarf should have been blue, not red, and should have been trapped in the window. This confuses everyone else admittedly, the scarf wasn't very subtle, but it was supposed to be red...

"You sent a distress signal..." -Merit
"But not to you... I'm very grateful, but..."
"Did you miss the fact that we were all friends of Anto and want to help?"
She tries to find out if Merit works for Min Feng or Yanyu (once she is also introduced). No, he doesn't.
"Oh, you mean, can you talk in front of me! Yes!" -Merit
"...that's what I meant, but I was sort of hoping someone else would answer..." Kuan-Xi
Min Feng assures her that Merit can in fact keep secrets, and both she and Yanyu makes some persuasion rolls to that end.
"You wouldn't believe some of the props people have..."
Kuan-Xi explains that she thinks bounty hunters are after her, since she left the Island. The Empire started a blockade of the Shrouded Isle, but her little carriage is very talented. Unfortunately, it isn't very fast in the long term, and has to "rest", so people catching her may be able to catch up.

Maybe it's possible to make her look less distinctive? Merit and Min Feng discover that her hair doesn't take dye at all. However, she can be disguised as Min Feng with her hair up in a hat.

Questioning Kuan-Xi, she says that she's escaped the bounty hunters several times now, but they keep catching up to her, so they must be good at tracking her. Ah, concludes Merit, they must have a map drawn by the Cartogramancer. What they need to do is steal the map that the bounty hunters have, and replace it with a forged map that has an X for Kuan-Xi very far away. While Min Feng is fussing with her hair in the disguise, she notes that the ends aren't very even in one place - as if a lock of her hair has been cut off. Ah, so that's probably tied into the tracking map too.

Planning a Disappearance

So... they just need to set up some sort of appropriate trap or trick to fool the two hunters. Does Kuan-Xi know how they'll be arriving? By boat, she expects. There's one main port on the Isle of Butterflies, and a small port on private land on the other side. Several ships come and go from the main port every day. The thing to do will be to convince them to follow the "trail" to somewhere that they can be fooled, and where the party can get at their map to switch it. Also, if the map is going to switch to having a far away dot, they will need to have some sort of reason that Kuan-Xi just transported halfway across the Twelve Kingdoms. Maybe some sort of fake magical effect?

Hmm. Does the circus have a magician? Mystic Mondo, The Confounding Xian, and the Enlightened Melina are the three "weird/magic" people in the circus. Xian would be ideal for performing this sort of legerdemain, but he's not here. Can Mondo make people disappear? No, he's a riddlemaster of the deep mysteries, not a sleight-of-hand master or a conjurer.

Some brainstorming ensues. They try to decide if they should copy the map or make a whole new map. Actually, a new map is probably better than a copy, since the Cai Wen map scales as its data changes. A simple copy of the map wouldn't let the fake X be very far away. Can Kuan-Xi vanish on her own? She says if Anto were around, she could probably figure out something, but without that, the best she has is her little carriage, which still needs a few days to rest.

Yanyu starts thinking up a fake magic ritual that will look plausible as a real ritual of transport. The circus is an ideal space for this - they can set up all sorts of trap doors and fireworks and such. So - back to the circus! Min Feng disguises herself as Kasumi (as is traditional), and sneaks away; Kuan-Xi looks like Min Feng, and Merit and his "two girls" leave. Merit tips the innkeeper richly, and is invited to come back any time.

Once back at the circus, Merit talks to the prop hands. The prop hands suggest talking to Xian, but Merit says no, he thinks Xian has been getting kind of complacent, and he wants to light a fire under him by beating him at his own showmanship game. Well, the prop hands can rig up a platform with a trap door, but they can't provide the showmanship.

Since using this much circus infrastructure requires buy-in from Ringmaster Te, Merit makes a case to him about helping a damsel. Admittedly in the past the circus didn't go in for a lot of damsel-rescuing, but the Ringmaster seems more used to it now. He's still not totally persuaded, but Merit has brought Kuan-Xi along, and since her puppy dog eyes work best when she's alone with someone, Merit quickly runs off to get some more bandages, and when he returns, Ringmaster Te thinks it's a reasonable idea.

Merit and Min Feng forge up a map to the Coil that looks a lot like the map to Cai Wen, and Merit finds a friend of his who can do a map swap if Tofu isn't able to. Yanyu stagedesigns a fake magic ritual (with Magic Ritual and Event Planning); there are a lot of second-tier fireworks that can be acquired for cheap, since it's just after the New Year, so they can make up in quantity what it lacks in subtlety.
"This whole thing fails if they don't have a map, so if they don't have a map, we have a carriage waiting. We are crassly assuming they have a map." -Li Merit
Min Feng goes off to watch the docks, while Merit preps the "ritual" and the map swap to be ready to go at a moment's notice. Kuan-Xi pulls Yanyu aside and asks after Anto - is he going to be okay? Yanyu hopes so, but doesn't really know where he is. She's sure he's in good company, though. Yanyu asks carefully, "I understand that you're interested in Anto..." and Kuan-Xi hurries to clarify that she isn't interested interested. He's interesting, of course, but that's her job, and there's nothing inappropriate about it. At all. Yanyu is pretty sure she's infatuated with Anto, but knows that's wrong. Kuan-Xi notes that after this is all done, she and Yanyu and Min Feng need to talk.

Down at the docks, Min Feng watches the incoming ships. Two people who look a lot like bounty hunters get off, and she asks around after them. Apparently they caused some trouble on the voyage over, traveling with a number of animals. They have caged birds, a strange mole creature, a monkey, and several others. She overhears them discussing their mission, as they leash up a small badger and start off:

"Yeah, yeah, I know... We're not going to get any more commissions if we stay on this stupid island. We just need to find the girl, stick her with the pin so the client can make a map, and get out of here."

Planning an Impersonation

Drat! They don't have a magic map after all! The plan is derailed! So, instead, they need to find someone else who can be stuck with a pin, to confuse the map? Merit casts around for someone who resembles Kuan-Xi, and finds someone who if not for the white hair, would be a nearly dead ringer - a young woman named Long Yue-Mei. Merit says he'll figure out how to temporarily turn her hair white.
"By seducing her?"
"That wouldn't make her hair white! What kind of guy do you think I am?"
Yanyu, meanwhile, is watching the two hunters, who have acquired a cart to put their animal cages in. Their badger-mole creature leads them towards the inn.
Min Feng tries to send Monko over to the cart to unlock the monkey cage, in preparation for sending Tofu to switch an innocuous monkey for what they assume is an Enlightened Monkey, but instead of opening the monkey cage, he starts chittering to the other monkey. The two monkeys discuss things briefly, and the man turns around to ask "What are you doing here, little guy?" He chitters at Monko, and tells the woman that he thinks that this is probably another enlightened monkey! The woman is less impressed, and says that there isn't time to train up more monkeys now.
"This is not how this plan was supposed to go." -Merit "Third plan's a charm, right?"
Monko does unlock the other cages, and the birds start to fly away, but the man cheeps at them and they come back. Then he ties Monko to a string and ties it to the cart, but Monko is unimpressed by strings, unties himself, and flees back towards the hidden Min Feng. The guy starts to chase after Monko, but the woman yells at him to come back - they'll come find the other monkey later! They don't have the time right now to train another monkey - it apparently takes him twenty-four hours.
"He's a dog and she's a tiger, so he gets back on the cart."
Yanyu gets back to the circus to brief Merit on the awryage in the plan - the delay isn't really working, since the animals didn't flee. They need the new plan ready now! "There's still a guy who looks like Anto that we've forgotten about..." -Merit
Time for Plan C

Perhaps figuring out how the fake Anto ties into this will give them a better angle of attack on the bounty hunters. Why would someone pretend to look like Anto in order to free the monkeys? To create a distraction? To ruin Anto's reputation? It's still somewhat unclear.

"Maybe Anto has come back from the future to distract us so we don't save KuanXi."
"Can he do that?"
"Not yet."

As a last-ditch plan, they decide to tie up Yue-Mei, so that the bounty hunters won't have to beat her up before sticking her with a pin. They'll probably wonder why she's tied up, so maybe having some sort of pretext for that would be good. She's also a little dubious about this as an idea - she's not supposed to try to beat them up? What sort of pin is this, anyway? Is it poisoned? If it is poisoned, someone should run and get her father, since he can deal with poisons.

"Wait, who is this girl I've scrounged?" -Drew
"Make a recurring NPCs roll." -Mike "She's recurring?" -Drew
After some thought, Li Merit identifies her as the daughter of Master Long Shen.
"Her dad can beat you up." -Min Feng "Everyone's dad can beat me up!"' -Merit
Merit whispers to Yue-Mei that this pin-sticking is all for a good cause: True Love. She supposes that's a reasonably good cause.
On the other hand, Merit doesn't want the Circus to get a reputation for mugging people and tying them up for no apparent reason (even if it is only a reputation among bounty hunters). Yanyu says if they tie her up in Yanyu's tent, she has a reason for it. That seems somewhat inexplicable to Merit, and it's not clear that the bounty hunters will know the reason, but really, there's only so much one can be concerned about what the bounty hunters think, in the end.

Merit picks up some anti-scenting goo to keep from leaving a trail for the badger-mole to follow, for both the real Kuan-Xi and the fake one, so that her trail leads to Yanyu's tent and no further. Then, he tells his pickpocket friend never mind about the map - the plan is to steal the monkey instead. He also remembers to tell Min Feng to make sure Monko only unlocks the animals belonging to the bounty hunters, and not all the animals in the circus, once they turn up.

The hunters arrive, and park outside the circus. The man chirps at the birds, and then they follow the badger-mole following the trail around the circus to Yanyu's tent. Lo, there is the tied-up fake Kuan-Xi, with Min Feng hidden and watching.
(There really should have been some plot twist here involving the fake Anto and the fake Kuan-Xi, but no...)
The hunters are baffled - what happened to her? She is tied and gagged, and struggles somewhat convincingly but is unable to say anything. Well, it's not their problem. The woman takes out a silver pin, sticks her, and then the pair leave again.

Meanwhile, Merit, Yanyu, and Merit's pickpocket friend sneak up to the bounty hunters' cart. Monko unlocks the non-monkey cages, and the pickpocket opens the monkey cage. Merit promptly douses the monkey with scent-be-gone goo. When the hunters return to the cart, animals are everywhere - they complain that someone has let their monkey out, but the circus hands are sympathetic and unsurprised - that seems to happen a lot around here. Huh. As they are unable to track or find the monkey, they go back to the inn. yyyg

Cleanup

The party takes the three Enlightened Monkeys to somewhere not with the other monkeys in the circus, puts them in Monko-proof cages, and thinks about what to do next. The guy will clearly want his monkey back - so it's time for another trick!
Merit has the Home Office do a background check on them, and finds a little bit more about them:
Snow Wolf, the brother. He calls himself a "beastmaster", and is very good at training animals for use as shticks.
Snow Leopard, the sister. She's a ranger and a more conventional (and highly skilled) tracker.
They're loyal when paid, though not known for things like getting themselves killed for their employer.
The plan is devised to convince the hunters that their monkeys have left - passage is booked on the next ship out, Min Feng goes onto the ship, obviously carrying monkeys (and leaving a scent trail), then goes out through the cabin wall to splash into the water and get picked up by a nearby rowboat. With some word-spreading skill applied, this plan (in contrast to many of the previous plans), Just Works. The hunters hear that someone has left with monkeys, and their tracking badger-mole leads them to the docks just after the ship in question has left. They arrange to take the next ship out.
"Now all we have to worry about is the fake Anto."
Merit tells Yue-Mei that he owes her a favor; Yanyu chimes in that if she ever needs matchmaking services, she's happy to oblige. She looks intrigued at that last, and will definitely take her up on that. Merit looks disappointed.

Now for the fake Anto. Has anyone seen "Anto" since the fateful day that he vanished? No. Merit tries to pin down the time more precisely - he was seen heading to the palace with the rest of the party, and heading out of the monkey tent, at approximately the same time. The "searching monkey" (the third monkey) doesn't seem inclined to search for Anto when shown a picture of him - it seems that this monkey is more about finding hidden things.
The timing is such is that it could have been Anto, if he let the monkeys out just before he left. Kuan-Xi thinks Anto wouldn't deliberately cause chaos like that, though, and nobody else can think of a reason for it.
Yanyu contemplates Anto's character, and the following three (presumed) facts:
Someone who looked a lot like Anto was seen near the monkey tent before they escaped.
The escaping monkeys caused great confusion, requiring Li Merit and Min Feng to return to the circus.
The timing was very close to when Kuan-Xi arrived.

Pondering it, she thinks the first fact is very important; the second two are pretty much irrelevant. Well, that's interesting. That means it wasn't a distraction or tied to Kuan-Xi or anything like that - it was just... Anto being framed?

Merit thinks about whether anyone particularly has it in for Anto. Well, Xiao Fa and he are, rumor has it, fighting over some girl. And Anto and Shen-Ji are said to have disagreed over the remains of Amikiri the Unbinder.

Oh, wait. Merit suddenly remembers a scene in the Forest of Chin laying Amikiri to rest, where Anto kind of communed with Amikiri's remains. Maybe this isn't actually a Big Mystery, maybe Anto is just being compelled to unbind things, or something like that. Which is its own mystery, but not one that can be solved now. Well, that would seem to be everything.
"Thank you for your help!" -Kuan-Xi
"You're welcome. I'll let you have your secret meeting now." -Merit
Merit bows out, and Kuan-Xi chats with Min Feng and Yanyu. Well, obviously, she came to find Anto, because that's her job. But also, her elder says that it's time to form a Triad she thinks this is very exciting. All three of them should go back to the Shrouded Isle, before Midwinter if they can, to form the Triad. Neither Yanyu nor Min Feng is really sure what being a triad entails - as it turns out, Kuan-Xi isn't all that sure either, except that it involves one person from each of the three Houses: Silence (Min Feng), Harmony (Yanyu), and Melody (Kuan-Xi), and it involves learning about their Mission. Maybe they can arrange for passage on the fog ship?

Min Feng grumbles - isn't there usually some sort of ritual to join a secret society? Kuan-Xi says the house of Melody has one - a big fire, and fancy robes, and everything. Yanyu notes that the House of Harmony isn't nearly so dramatic. Apparently the House of Silence is so understated as to not tell you that you're in a secret society at all. Min Feng and Yanyu convince Kuan-Xi that she should stick around for a while, until Cai Wen returns and they can find out about the fog ship. Though she should check into a different inn than the one that the hunters knew she was at, and move her carriage.

Puttering
Long Yue-Mei visits Yanyu for a chat.
Retrieved from "http://boojum.scripts.mit.edu/Dragon/index.php?title=Home_Front" Category: Minirun Logs
This page was last modified on 24 September 2010, at 13:29.
Boys' Night Out

From Dragon

"Beauty is the wisdom of women. Wisdom is the beauty of men."

The run begins on the day of the Early Spider in the month of Spider Rising in the first Year of the Spider since the Butterfly King was Poisoned.

The run takes place in the Throne of the Warlord, in the Forest of Chin.
Previous Run
Contents

1 Arrival
2 Harem Troubles
3 A Rescue Mission
4 Night Escapades

Arrival

The last thing anyone remembers is dawn on the Day of the Spider, and being "scattered through the world" by Aku, the Great Spirit of the Spider. As everyone tumbles through the void, they hear Aku's great voice threaten: "Now that your friends are scattered, you can suffer my personal ministrations... Wait... what?" As they puzzle at what to make of that, Xiao Fa, Anto, and Hiro fall out of darkness into... rather pleasant surroundings.

Anto, badly wounded, falls into a very comfortable bed, and promptly snuggles into the comforters to sleep. Xiao Fa falls thud onto something hard, but is surrounded by brightly colored silks, with slats of light shining in at him from the dawn. He peers through the open slats, and sees an impeccably dressed woman talking to a shape in a bed: "No, no, dear, don't get up. I'll tell everyone to not come in. You stay there, I'll go tell the guards that you're not feeling well." Hiro lands on a comfy bed, amongst cushions, and sees a panel in the wall slide aside and a blue-masked ninja coming through the opening.
"Wait, I don't know our ninja policy. Are they good or bad?" -Hiro
Hiro excuses himself. Two swords appear in the ninja's hands, and she pauses.
"Yes, pausing is good. Do you have any tea? I can make us tea." -Hiro "Why are you here?" -Ninja
"That's a long conversation."
"Are you here to kill me?"
"No. Should I be?"
"No. You should leave."
"One of us certainly should."

There is a quiet knock on the door, and a voice in the hall: "Lady An Ming, is everything prepared?" The ninja says "Yes, yes, I'll be out in a minute," and makes frantic gestures to Hiro to get under the bed. He does so, and she rapidly changes into more ladylike clothes. The voice in the hall says the morning bed check will be soon.

Back in the room Xiao Fa is in, someone is about to come in to check on Lady Lin Lin, but another voice says that she's ill, and not to disturb her. Xiao Fa sneaks out of his closet, and finds himself in a very pleasant room. There are lumps under the covers in the bed, but they don't seem to be moving or talking.
Hiro comes back out from under the bed, and the woman in his room is appalled - he's not a eunuch, or even dressed as one! This could be really bad!
"Indeed. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?" -Hiro
"You don't even know? What were you expecting when you snuck into the harem of High Warlord Ze?"

The commotion has to do with getting ready for the morning visit of the High Warlord. Lady An Ming asks if Hiro can disguise himself as a eunuch, and quickly. He says if she has a spare dress, he can probably do better with that. She slips down the hall to Lady TsiSen's room to get a set of female servant's robes, where she finds Anto asleep - he is promptly thumped onto the floor and shoved under the bed as well, as Lady An-Ming explains to a voice in the hallway that she needs better robes for her servants - hers are looking so drab these days!
Lady An Ming goes back to her room, and complains to Hiro - there are more of them! His friend is under the bed in Lady Tsi-Shen's room, and she's going to be back there momentarily! But since she has the dress, Hiro quickly dresses as Hana. Hiro opines that Anto might disguise up better as a eunuch. Hiro and An Ming rush back to the room with Anto in it, and An Ming gives him some first aid - on the way there, Xiao Fa peeks out the door, and Hiro waves at him to get back in.

Then, from the entrance to the harem, comes a loud thudding sound on the heavy door. One of the eunuchs asks, in a formal tone, "Who knocks?" The answer, in a deep voice, is that the residents should prepare themselves for the coming of the High Warlord Ze, their lord and master. The eunuch calls out to the various ladies, "Two minutes!".

An Ming dashes to Xiao Fa's room, and tells him that there is no time - get in the bed and pretend to be sick! He gets under the covers, surprised to discover a bunch of pillows there instead of a person.

Then, An Ming drags Hiro (dressed as a servant) and Anto (dressed as a eunuch) out into the hallway for the Ritual of Entry. Everyone bows very very low; the well-dressed ladies are up to four, plus servants and eunuchs. The Warlord enters, and notes that there are only four there - where is Lin Lin? A particularly beautiful and sweet voiced woman, Lady Xiulan, says that she is ill. The Warlord decides to visit his sick wife, despite several protests - Xiao Fa makes a quick attempt with herbalism to create the "delicate miasma of ill health". He isn't very persuasive as an actor, but the Warlord backs away again and insists he will send for a physician.

Lady Tai, the last of the ladies not yet introduced, seems to be worried about something; the Warlord says that it is a good thing that they are getting married tomorrow. As he leaves, Lady Tai says, unhappily, that she's doomed, and runs into her room. Why is she doomed, An Ming wonders aloud?

Harem Troubles

An Ming gets Xiao Fa dressed as a eunuch as well, so nobody is in any immediate danger of being executed. Hiro thanks her for her help, and then asks how they can get out again. An Ming says that if they can wait until nightfall, they can sneak out again, but it isn't clear that everyone is good at sneaking. Hmm. She suggests, then, that when everyone goes out for the wedding, they can go along, and then slip away during the ceremony. Will that work?
From behind the group comes the stern voice of Lady Tsi-Shen: "No, no, that won't work at all."
Lady Tsi-Shen, in the doorway, asks if Lady An Ming has anything she would like to say. No, no, she doesn't. How about Lady Xiulan, who Lady Tsi-Shen is now roping into the conversation as well? She does not have anything to volunteer either.
Apparently, Lady Lin Lin has "escaped".
"Oh, so it is a simple matter to get out!" -Hiro
A chart is made of the five ladies, to alleviate some of the confusion:
1. Tsi-Shen - Current First Wife. She has the largest room, with all the clothes. Generally in charge.
2. Lin Lin - apparently missing
3. An Ming - secretly a ninja
4. Xiulan - the one talking to the empty bed. The sweetest and prettiest.
5. Tai - getting married soon
Xiulan says that she didn't want anyone to get in trouble for Lin Lin being missing, which is why she was covering.
Xiao Fa explains how they arrived here - there was something of a ritual endeavor in the Butterfly Kingdom which went awry, so that they were flung through space and ended up here.

Lady Tsi-Shen suggests a compromise - presumably the three intruders don't want to be executed, and the harem inhabitants don't want to be punished for some recent troubles. Perhaps they can reach an Arrangement. They have two problems. First, the lady Lin Lin slipped out last night - she has never been particularly happy here, but if she had come to Tsi-Shen with her troubles, something could have been arranged. It is easier to get her banished than she might have imagined, but actually fleeing is treason and will just get her and possibly her family killed instead.

Second, Lady Tai is getting married tomorrow. For an engagement present, she was given a stunning ruby necklace, which she lost last night at the dinner party. So, if Anto can get the ruby back, and Xiao Fa can get Lady Lin Lin back... nobody needs to be executed! (She seems to have missed that Hiro is not actually one of An Ming's serving girls).

Perhaps An Ming's servant girl (i.e. Hiro) could pretend to be Lin Lin and be carried to the infirmary by the "eunuchs"? Lady Tsi-Shen and Xiulan will go along with them, to prevent anyone from looking too closely, and Lady Tsi-Shen says she will handle making sure that the physician doesn't tell anyone that it isn't Lin Lin.

A Rescue Mission

The "eunuchs" carry "Lin Lin" to the infirmary, and Lady Tsi-Shen goes out to deal with the physicians. Lady Xiulan takes the opportunity to make a more compassionate plea for help - she says she knows Tsi-Shen is stern, but that she does mean well, and that Xiulan herself would very much appreciate any help that they can provide. She lowers her eyes in appeal, and both Xiao Fa and Anto are somewhat smitten. Hiro, who is not such a direct target, can appreciate her skill - she can see in Xiulan's grace and manner that which Hana aspires to.

Anto asks about Lin Lin - why might she be so unhappy? Rumor has it that one of the warriors in her father's household (her father is Warlord Yi) was her favorite, but then the High Warlord breezed through on an inspection tour, saw her, and married her. Xiulan thinks that Lin Lin probably ran off to find him (his name is Yuan), but really, everyone knows who she is, so she'll just get killed. But where might she have actually gone to start with? Xiulan thinks she probably won't have gotten out of the city yet - perhaps checking the stables, where she might be trying to arrange passage?

Xiulan will cover for the next two hours, while the party scouts around. Tsi-Shen returns with some clothes - guard uniforms swiped from the laundry. As far as the pendant goes, where was it last seen? Tai wore it to the party last night - Tsi-Shen and Xiulan think she wore it back to the harem, but they aren't sure. Unfortunately, while they do have costumes, Anto's and Hiro's weapons are still hidden under the bed in the harem.
"Master Zhou said I should learn martial arts in case I lose my weapons..." -Anto "You should learn aikido!" -Hiro
Being disguised as guards gives them reasonable leeway to walk through the non-secret sections of the palace on their way out. Apparently being High Warlord is a pretty nice lifestyle. As the group discusses who to be suspicious of as far as stealing the brooch goes, Hiro (still disguised as Hana) points out that An Ming is actually secretly a ninja. But, she's done right by them so far - so she might not be a suspect, but she is still somewhat suspicious.
"And by the way, it's Hiro." -Hiro
"Oh, really?" -Anto, astounded
They escape the palace into the city outside, with a brief digression as one of the guards at the gate chews Anto out for being in a somewhat sloppy uniform. Has he no pride? Once out, it's time to change again - Anto thinks there are several questions that people won't answer for the Warlord's guards, including "Have you seen the Warlord's wife who is trying to hide from him?" Though keeping Hiro as a serving girl might be okay - she could be delivering some sort of message.

Of their two hours, the first fifteen minutes is spent getting into the city. The next fifteen is spent clothes shopping (and Xiao Fa buys a satchel for good measure). In the third fifteen minutes, the group heads to the stables, but Anto short-cuts the complicated trail of clues by using his shtick in finding someone who needs help, and the group heads off into one of the narrower alleys.

The fourth fifteen minutes are spent fighting with several thugs with knives, who are attempting to mug a ladylike young woman for "the rock" that she has. Hiro mostly keeps the leader grabbed while Anto and Xiao Fa pummel him; once he falls, the other two flee.
In the fifth fifteen minutes, Lady Lin Lin thanks everyone for their assistance and tries to leave, but Hiro says that they're not done saving her yet.
"Really, Lin Lin, you need help. We should go somewhere safer." -Anto "Gasp! How do you know who I am?"
Anto tries to convince Lin Lin that he's really here to help, and he's fairly persuasive. They pocket the daggers from the thug ("x3 weapons again, hooray!") and the 10 zhu he had on hand.
While Lin Lin is eventually convinced that her rescuers mean well, she doesn't have the gem on her.
"This one is afraid more helping is in store." -Xiao Fa "It is actually helpful help, though." -Hiro
They explain that Lady Tai would be less doomed if she had her necklace back, and that they're here to extend an offer from Lady Tsi-Shen - if she comes back, she can arrange to have her banished. And then the party can wait for her at the edge of town, and escort her to where she needs to go. This is way better, they claim, than having her and her boyfriend executed.

She explains what happened to the jewel - she went to a carter, and tried to trade the jewel for passage, but then he tried to take it from her, but he got stabbed by his partner, and she ran, and ended up on a complicated escapade around the city including hiding the brooch, but then Anto skipped to the end, so there's no need to go into further detail there.

In the sixth fifteen minutes, the party recovers the brooch, and in the seventh, they change their clothes again and return to the infirmary as guards with their girlfriends. Bad luck for Anto - one of the guards is the one that chewed him out before, and gives him even more of a hard time for not having cleaned his uniform, but Xiao Fa manages to convince the guard that Anto's spare uniform is inside the palace, and he's going to go change now. "No one will see it unless you make a big fuss now."

Once back in the infirmary, Xiulan takes over reassuring Lin Lin that everything will be fine, and thanks the party for solving both plots in one plot's time! But maybe they should just tell Lady Tsi-Shen that they recovered the jewel and not the details about how or where.

Then, it's time to go back to the harem. Hiro wonders, at the risk of derailing the plot even more, why they need to go back, but the answer is that they need to be the eunuch guards to escort Lady Lin Lin (now recovered from her illness) back inside.

Night Escapades

That night, Lady Tsi-Shen takes charge of the sleeping arrangements, declaring that Lin Lin will stay with her tonight (with no more vanishing!) and the two "eunuchs" will stay in Lin Lin's room. An Ming's servant will of course stay with her, since Tsi-Shen hasn't figured out that Hiro is an imposter yet. Anto glares at Hiro, and An Ming is not pleased, but nobody blows Hiro's cover.

An Ming notes that she could sneak the three out tonight, but Anto notes that that would blow her cover as a sneaky ninja type, and they don't want to do that. Oh, good point. Well, leaving from the wedding tomorrow is probably the way to go, then.

An argument ensues about where Hiro is sleeping, but Hiro diverts it by saying he wants to come along sneaking with An Ming. What is she doing, anyway? Important things, she says.

"We mostly have the win in the bag, but we have this opportunity for shenanigans!"
-Hiro
"Well, she's your babe, I don't screw with other people's games." -Anto "..." -Xiao Fa

An Ming and Hiro sneak out through An Ming's secret passage, to ninja around over the roofs. (Hiro thinks it's a good secret passage in the dark, but trying to go through it during the day, you'd be spotted by guards.) An Ming says that Warlord Ze's men are concerned with assassins from the Savannah, so they're going to slip about and discreetly protect him. Hiro watches until he gets bored, and then tries to strike up a conversation.
"So... how long have you been a ninja?"
She admits that she was originally sent to kill Warlord Ze, but fell in love with him instead. He told her to give up ninja-ing, so she doesn't tell him now, and wears the mask. She sighs - he's insufferable sometimes.

Because of the conversation, they don't see the other ninja until he's nearly through the window of another building. An Ming throws a grapple to the roof of the other building, then loops a scarf over the rope and slides down it, telling Hiro to follow her. He does follow, without killing himself or screaming too much, though she thinks he's still too noisy.
"Shhh!"
"That was more... exciting... than I was expecting."
Unfortunately, this has alerted the guards in the courtyard, who shout "Ninja!" and charge into the building. An Ming runs after the original intruder, followed by Hiro, and they find the ninja in the middle of poisoning a barrel full of ale. The two ninja fight, going into a sort of super-fast ninja fight that Hiro can barely follow let alone help with. Hiro finds them both astonishingly good. Ninja seem to have multiple actions per round in this sort of fight cutscene, and Hiro doesn't dare get involved - instead, he knocks the poisoned ale all over the floor, so there will be no drinking it tomorrow.
The rest of the palace has gone on alert, waking Xiao Fa and Anto.
"Should we put on our guard uniforms and wander out disheveled?" -Xiao Fa "From the harem? That's no good." -Anto
Looking for a way to make himself look as little like a ninja as possible, Hiro dashes across the hall, where there are kitchens. He puts on an apron, then runs out when the guards start to approach and point down the hall to claim that "they went that way". The guards head off in that direction, but by the time Hiro returns to the store room, both ninja are gone.

Escaping the palace again will be difficult - he doesn't have the guard uniform to pass the main gate. With nothing else to do, he starts peeling garlic and chopping vegetables, wishing that he had thought to buy a level of Danger Chef when Yoshi demonstrated it. He isn't a very convincing chef, but when confronted, switches to fast talk: "I know, I'm terrible, I've been here all night working on this roux, and my master will beat me if I can't get it right."
Back at the harem, a blue-masked ninja tries to sneak into An Ming's room. Anto tries to Get her, wrapping her up in his chain.
"It is possible to catch a ninja off guard. But apparently, there's a difference between a ninja and a master ninja, and then suddenly you are tied up in your own chain." -Mike
Unmasking herself as An Ming, she tells Anto to get out of her room. But wait, where is Hiro?
"Did you just leave him out there?" -Xiao Fa
"There was another ninja! And guards!" -An Ming "..."
"I work alone! I'm not used to worrying about a partner!" "..."
"All right, fine, I'll go rescue him."
"I learned the look from Master Zhou." -Eon "It's one of the basic katas of kung fu." -Marleigh
Back in the kitchen, the guard keeps trying to get Hiro to tell him more about the ninja, but Hiro mostly just says confusing things. Eventually, the guard leaves, and the bluemasked ninja on the ceiling says "psst!". She gets Hiro back up the rope and back through the secret passage into the harem, ending the shenanigans for the night.

"I think we have been underestimating our colleague here. Her form is most exquisite." -Hiro
"I stopped underestimating her half an hour ago." -Anto

(Anto notices that Lin Lin's bed, in which he and Xiao Fa have been waiting, does not have the same shticks in being comfortable as Tsi-Shen's bed did. It's good to be the First Wife.)

Hiro thanks An Ming for bringing her along - it was an honor to watch her fight. An Ming is not so impolite as to say it out loud, but she does seem to be a little surprised at how non-spiffy Hiro was, given that Hiro snuck into the harem past all the guards and such without even using her secret passage. Hiro tells her about the magical battle between worlds, and being scattered about. Oh, that would explain it. She does sympathize with those whose path has been made harder through service to their King - if there's anything she can covertly do, secretly send word to her. Hiro also tells her about the Evil Plot to the South.
"If you ever need a master ninja who can't get more than half a night's journey from this palace, let me know."
"Hmm... I wonder how... ah, the obvious way to get a message to her is to wait around on the palace roof somewhere until there's a sword at your throat."
Lady Tsi-Shen similarly tells the men that she is in their debt, and if there is something that she can do, to send word to her. Lady An Ming will also arrange to sneak their weapons out, the next night.

The next morning, the same morning routine happens, but then all the wives leave the harem (in order of precedence), escorted by servants and eunuchs. Lady Tai is married, and a great toast is made - and nobody falls over from poison. Yay! Anto looks around for people who look surprised that nobody is poisoned - he thinks that the people who didn't drink the toast are all members of the household of Lady Lin Lin's secret boyfriend; this may or may not be Evidence.

Sneaking out during the wedding is in fact not hard; the three wait around in the city for a few days until Lady Tsi-Shen arranges for Lady Lin Lin to be banished, and then they head out, to escort her back to her family on the way home to the Butterfly Kingdom.

Retrieved from "http://boojum.scripts.mit.edu/Dragon/index.php? title=Boys%27_Night_Out"
Category: Minirun Logs
This page was last modified on 16 July 2010, at 14:25.
A Marvelous Party

From Dragon

"A drop of water shall be returned with a burst of spring."

The run begins on the day of the Early Spider in the month of Spider Rising in the first Year of the Spider since the Butterfly King was Poisoned.
The run takes place in the Jade Taiga.
Previous Run
Contents

1 Arrival
2 Initial Introductions
3 A Slightly Nefarious Plot
4 Puttering

Arrival

The last thing anyone remembers is dawn on the Day of the Spider, and being "scattered through the world" by Aku, the Great Spirit of the Spider. As everyone tumbles through the void, they hear Aku's great voice threaten: "Now that your friends are scattered, you can suffer my personal ministrations... Wait... what?" As they puzzle at what to make of that, Zhi-Hao, Cai Wen, and Hana fall out into more interesting circumstances: Zhi-Hao lands in a dark and stuffy room, full of various hanging cloths and silks. Cai Wen lands in a very quiet, dark, smelly room. Hana lands in a brightly lit noisy room full of people shouting about pork buns.

Hana manages to exit the kitchen gracefully, because she has skill in that. Zhi-Hao manages to escape through a door, but the servants outside are quite surprised to find him emerging from the coat closet, and shout for security. Cai Wen escapes the garderobe.

Zhi-Hao's guards start taking him to the exit; to his annoyance, they prove unwilling to give him much of a briefing on where he is and who is in charge. However, the old man at the entrance who is comparing names to a list says that Zhi-Hao is on the list, and gives him an invitation, signed "Mu". Interesting. Zhi-Hao peeks out the window - it looks like the City of Spires, with a view possibly from the Royal Spire. He asks the butler about "Mu" and is told that Sagacious Mu will definitely be at the party. However, does the esteemed sir really want to go to the party dressed like that? Hmm, perhaps not. He is escorted to a small room that has clothing in his size, and he picks out some, before joining the party.

Cai Wen, emboldened by Zhi-Hao's experience, heads to the butler at the door and asks if there's an invitation for him - why, yes, there is. How about Teng Hanako? Yes, but he doesn't get to take it. Again, the butler asks if he really wants to be dressed like that for the party, and another servant (named Fen-Si) escorts him to a room with some clothes in his size. She seems interested in continuing to be helpful, so Cai Wen happily escorts her to the party to listen to her advice.

Meanwhile, Hana circulates in the main ballroom. Since the party has not officially started yet, there is no spending of Urbanity. The buzz is that most of the Great Houses will be represented, but the King himself may or may not come. Zhi-Hao enters and spots Hana he heads over to her to let her know that she also probably has an invitation.

Cai Wen asks Fen-Si about Sagacious Mu, who has done him the honor of inviting him to the party. Apparently, Sagacious Mu is one of the court's seers; she keeps the social schedule. Fen-Si asks if there was anything Cai Wen was specifically hoping for from the party, and he says he is looking for some of his friends. She summons a page to go and check on the other two - the page says Master Deng is over there, but that Teng Hanako has not yet arrived at the party (since she hasn't picked up her invitation). This is close enough, and the party is reunited! Cai Wen suggests Hana pick up her invitation. She does so, and also gets escorted to a changing room to make herself fabulous.

What news? Things are quite calm in the city right now - some of the Dragon Army has pulled out to head down to the Jasmine River, but there has not been a lot of trouble in the wake of their leaving. People are happy and ready to celebrate the opening of the New Year. And, the buffet has the yummy pork buns that Hana saw earlier in the kitchen.
Once the party begins, the Urbanity rules become more clear.
"This is perhaps an odd thing to ask, or else it goes without saying, I'm not sure which..." -Hana
Hana is worried about getting into a social situation that might reflect badly on her family, and asks the others to watch her back. They assure her that this is in the "goes without saying" category.

Initial Introductions

In the initial buffing phase, people ask each other to get drinks, all around the party, to get a few more urbanity. As a "favor" to Zhi-Hao and Cai Wen, Hana starts looking around for Sagacious Mu and Zhao Feiyan. Both are at the party. Hana talks to Sagacious Mu, introducing herself and thanking the sage for inviting them. Sagacious Mu notes that if they were going to be here (and she had Seen that they would be, and would be behaving themselves), it seemed appropriate to have them be here invited, rather than uninvited. Hana asks her what she sees for the upcoming year? She thinks that it will be a prosperous year for the Taiga, since most of the troubles are farther to the east. Does she have specific portents about the Forest of Chin? Oh, these are just her opinions - her sight doesn't work that way. She can say who will be somewhere she is, with some hint of what they will do, but is not a general purpose teller of the future.

A gentleman who introduces himself as Ro Wu-Lun approaches Zhi-Hao, and asks for the story about the "escapade with the elephant". Zhi-Hao haggles - he would be happy to tell him the tale, once he knows of the gentleman's interest in it. Two tales later, Ro Wu-Lun knows about the Night of Gates and has Pir Pir's name as someone particularly responsible, and Zhi-Hao knows that Wu-Lun is in the service of Duke Huang and is always looking for things to embarrass his master's enemies. There turns out to be less malice in the story than he was hoping for, but it's still interesting and possibly useful for him.
Hana reminds everyone of the four most powerful Dukes in the Taiga:
Fire Dukes (the party doesn't like them so much)
Duke Huang, the "Yellow Duke", who put scaffolding on the Golden Spire Duke Hong, the "Red Duke", who took advantage when the Serpent ring was put on Duke Lan
Water Dukes (the party likes them better)
Duke Lan, the "Blue Duke", who was thought dead because of the Serpent ring Duke Lu, the "Green Duke", who has not yet been met.
Zhao Feiyan, also known as the Pearl of the Taiga, (who Hana notes is wearing a lovely silver circlet) seems to be playing the game of granting the favor of letting her admirers bring her drinks and tidbits to eat. Nice trick. Next, Hana looks around for forlorn-looking people, and spots So Ren, a functionary in the court of Duke Lan, who seems to look particularly unhappy. She asks after the Duke; he says that things have been reasonably calm in Harmonious Endeavor, so the Duke is doing well. He hints for Hana to spend some urbanity to ask him for more information, and ends up telling her the log of the Book of Five Rings run, and the story of Duke Lan's daughter running off with a nowretired bandit king. There is apparently now a new Bandit Queen, who is less volatile than the previous Bandit King, so the banditry is a bit more controlled now. So Ren also notes that among the other Dukes, Duke Huang has a virtual hold on the politics in the capital, while Duke Lu is engaged with border issues - "he has his own Harmonious Contemplation". There are bandit troubles coming across the borders from Iron Mountain and the Roof of the World, and chaos in the Roof of the World in particular. He spends an urbanity back to ask her to listen for anything that might be of use to him against Ro WuLun, Duke Huang's overseer who apparently has some sort of hold over him. He fiddles nervously with his sapphire chain of office.
"I sense a jewelry plot coming on." -Andrea
Zhi-Hao looks around the party for someone who has nice weapons. He finds someone with a finely crafted sword, who introduces himself as Tren-So. As Zhi-Hao admires the sword, Tren-So says that the sword was made by the great Master Hanso himself (a master swordsmith fifty years ago, Zhi-Hao recognizes). Tren-So allows Zhi-Hao to see the sword
- it is a x4 blade. Ooooh. The sword was granted to him by Duke Lu, for gallantry in battle; Tren-So is the head of Duke Lu's personal guard, and he both leads and trains the guard. He used to specialize in mounted combat, and now is more about guarding others. Zhi-Hao chats about serving in the court of the Butterfly King, and the two commiserate about no longer being in the field. Then, he hooks his sword back to his emerald belt clip. With an offer of a few urbanity, he agrees to look for someone who can teach Zhi-Hao a shtick in multi-strike.

Cai Wen asks Fen-Si how to leverage news of the Butterfly King being healed into urbanity - she suggests that he drift around saying "I have news of the Butterfly King, but it is surely tedious and I wouldn't want to bore you" so that they will spend urbanity to ask. In fact, this gambit works fairly well, and Ambassador Mato Shorini, the ambassador from the Butterfly Court, pays several urbanity for the news, and then another urbanity for Cai Wen to not mention it to anyone else for a while. He waves good-bye, his citrine butterfly ring glinting in the candlelight.
Hana looks for someone to ask her to dance.
"It's inappropriate for me to ask you to dance. I am she who gets asked to dance. You have to have some standards.": -Andrea
Lord Hong Cheng, a younger cousin of Duke Hong, flirts with her and gets into a party competition in the Music arena, which he wins with not a lot of opposition. In another round of buffing, Zhi-Hao and Cai Wen ask each other for drinks and food; Cai Wen asks Hana to look for an afterparty that might have gambling; Hana asks Zhi-Hao to look for other people in the ducal factions.

A Slightly Nefarious Plot

The afterparty is not hard to find; Zhao Wu, the Master of Horse, is throwing such a party. For those looking for gambling, the Bone Dicer is the person to contact. Zhi-Hao looks for people with jewelry of colored stones, and finds someone wearing a yellow beryl, one of Duke Huang's men named Ro Wu-Shang. He is looking for his son, Ro Wu-Lun, and asks Zhi-Hao to keep an eye out for him and "let him know that it is time. He'll know what it means." Pressed with two urbanity, he admits that his son overheard So-Ren get a bit in his cups, and say a few unwise/insulting things about his Duke. If they spread it around at the right moment, they can throw disgrace upon both him and his house. And, they should try to do this before he can accrue the ten urbanity to stop them.

Zhi-Hao mentions this to Hana and Cai Wen, and gives Hana an urbanity to go help SoRen out. Cai Wen throws in another, asking Hana to ask So-Ren to give his (Cai Wen's) regards to Duke Lan. With the doubling, that's four more for Hana to toss at So-Ren, which would double to eight for him. However, when she finds him, she notes that he doesn't look well, and though his urbanity is over 10, he seems to be under some sort of effect that reduces it again. Can she help him? He tries to spend urbanity on that, but some of it vanishes.

Hana notes with suspicion that he is now wearing a jade pendant of office which looks much like his previous sapphire pendant of office. She points this out to him, and he panics and runs off to... it's not clear what. Hana regroups with the others.

Hmm. If his jewelry is stolen, is there anyone who can find it? Maybe another seer? Ah, perhaps they can spend some urbanity to instantiate a Magpie Detective. In the meantime, Hana finds Ro Wu-Lun and gets him to ask her to dance, to distract him from his father's plan. He is quite pleased by this turn of events, and makes some Dancing/Seduction rolls, but she does not succumb to his wiles. And, in fact, in the dancing competition, Zhi-Hao takes the lead with a masterful sword dance, outbidding the hapless So-Ren, who was probably overly optimistic in thinking he could get six successes on his six dice.

Since Zhi-Hao is the new star of the party, Zhao Feiyan wanders nearby him, until he asks her to dance. Cai Wen talks to So Ren; using his ability to cheat in minigames, Cai-wen might be able to do the thing So Ren needs done instead. However, when So Ren tries to spend his urbanity for this favor, a lot of it vanishes, so that is less help.

Cai Wen does locate a Magpie detective: Master Chan, and asks for his assistance determining what is going on with the jewelry swapping. Unfortunately (as Fen-Si notes later), when you don't pay the urbanity points to find a skilled detective, you just get a random one, and sometimes randomness rolls a 1. Master Chan's version of investigating appears to be to go around and ask various people if they swapped the jewelry - this is not working so well.

On the more effective side of things, Hana convinces Ro Wu-Lun to explain his Nefarious Plan to her - when he or his father get five urbanity, they ask Renata the Thief to swap someone's jewelry for cursed jade, so they've been doing this to their enemies.

Zhi-Hao spends an urbanity to introduce Zhao Feiyan to Cai Wen. He is most honored and pleased to make her acquaintance, and spends two urbanity for a private conversation in an alcove. Zhi-Hao also looks for Tren-So - his belt clip has also been replaced with jade, and Zhi-Hao explains this to him.

Cai Wen tells Feiyan about the cursed-jewelry plot, and warns her not to lose her circlet. It still appears to be silver rather than jade. She says she will bring this to her husband's attention. Also, Cai Wen says that he has an item of hers, which has been mislaid, and the only honorable thing to do is to return it (this is a favor for her favor, which he has gained in a Weird Gambling Party in the Strand some runs ago). She notes that she has never before had someone give her the gift of rejecting her; she is most flattered by the... lack of attention, as it were. She invites him to tea in the Autumn Gardens in a few days to speak at greater length.

Hana goes off to find So Ren again - is he still wearing his cursed jewelry? Unfortunately, as is often true of cursed items, it seems to confuse him enough that he can't quite wrap his brain about the idea of taking it off. He has to wear his sapphire chain of office! Sigh. She tells him to trust her, and close his eyes and think about the wisdom of the Tortoise spirit (his aspect) in trying to find the answer. He does so, and she tries to use sleight-of-hand to remove it, but he notices and panics again (apparently the curse also comes with some proof against being taken off by others).
Zhi-Hao finally finds Ro Wu-Lun, as he can't really put it off any longer after taking the urbanity for the favor. But he manages to get him to agree to go on an errand to the kitchen to ask the chefs for something special, before telling him to talk to his dad.

Fen-Si returns with Inspector Chan of the Royal Inspection Service, guaranteed to be a better detective than Master Chan the Unwise. They tell him about the cursed jewelry plot, mentioning both So Ren and Tren-So. Inspector Chan deduces that the person with tons of urbanity not doing anything in particular is Renata the Thief, so now they know who he is. But, what does the party wish to be done? Do they wish him arrested? Or simply thwarted? If he is swapping these items in exchange for urbanity, presumably if they offer him slightly more urbanity, he'd swap them back.

And, in fact, when Cai Wen goes to talk to Renata, this proves to be true. It will cost 5 urbanity to have him swap cursed jade for someone's jewelry, and 6 urbanity to swap back. Cai Wen burns 10 urbanity to get Renata to drop some cursed jade on both Ro Wu-Shang and Ro Wu-Lu; this will prevent them from hiring him to uncurse them, so it's a good first step. He says he will take care of this the very next moment that a distraction is provided. Ah, this must mean the party competitions. Cai Wen triggers a Public Speaking competition, and tells the elephant story for once and for all. His oratory is quite impressive, so Zhao Feiyan wanders by again to encounter him.
Ro Wu-Lun blows all his urbanity trying to seduce Hana, but his new jade ring is glaring in her eyes and she can reject him without a cost.
Having accrued quite a pile of urbanity now, Renata gets a really big favor from the King's Architect. Zhi-Hao confirms that both Wu-Lun and Wu-Shang have jade jewelry now. Cai Wen haggles Renata down to 15 urbanity total to switch back three pieces. So Ren's two pieces of jade and Tren-So's belt clip are replaced with the originals once more. Also, for another urbanity, he gets a way to contact Renata in the future. For a distraction for this swap, Cai Wen triggers a Conversation competition; he is outbid by Feiyan, who is then outbid by her husband. She teases him that that's cheating (as he is getting some sort of bonus from her).

So Ren finally manages to talk to Ro Wu-Shang and spend his ten urbanity; Ro WuShang agrees to not tell any incriminating stories today. Renata chats with Zhao Feiyan. Zhi-Hao spends some urbanity so that Tren-So will put in a good word in for him on the multi-strike teacher that he will find during puttering.

Cai Wen arranges to get Hana invited to the afterparty as well, so now all three are going. Zhi-Hao finds a specialist in "gossip about Ro Wu-Lun", which turns out to be an exmistress of his; he introduces her to Hana, who gets some mildly incriminating dirt on Ro Wu-Lun, which she passes to So Ren (thus fulfilling the favor she promised him). Zhi-Hao also uses the excuse of the Elephant to talk to the King's Architect. The interesting news there is that neither the King nor his Dukes came to the party after all, because they were in a secret council all day.

Puttering

The three PCs attend the afterparty.
Cai Wen has tea with the Pearl of the Taiga at the Autumn Garden, as per his invitation.
Cai Wen visits the gambling den of the Bone Dicer.

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title=A_Marvelous_Party"
Category: Minirun Logs
This page was last modified on 6 September 2010, at 11:24.