Dramatis Personae
- An Rang (Played by Chris D): Genius doctor, decent artist, escaped fugitive. Tagline: “They’re still alive if they aren’t dead yet.”
- Gushou Miren (played by Rory F.): Chains of lightning, drums like thunder, refreshing as a gentle rain, swift like the wind, bring on the Storm! Tagline: “It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hands.”
- Shen Feng (played by Christian G.): This white haired warrior’s calm hides the fury of a thousand winds. Tagline: “The ground is your pillow and the sky your blanket.”
- Xhai Kiyun (Played by Calvin J): Stands head and shoulders over others. Solider, horseman, Swordmaster, merchant, leader, and he very tall. Tagline: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt..”
Previously . . .
There’s some discussion about how well the fight should go between Gushou and the master with Xhai giving them a pep talk and advice for the fight.
The Home of the Gentle Master
An Rang, Gushou Miren, Shen Feng, Xhai Kiyun
The Water Temple
Seventh Month 2nd day, 975 Zao Dynasty, 13th hour
Tengzou Province
The two fighters keep an eye on each other for several seconds, just evaluating their options before Gushou moves back away from the master to another rock in the river only to have the master follow him to the new position and attack, striking Gushou’s leg, the first of three taps against Gushou. Desperate to follow, Gushou strikes back, and misses when the master sidesteps and attacks again only to be parried.
Gushou turns to face the master and lashes out twice, one hit connecting while the other goes wide. The master throws another fist which Gushou feverishly dodges with an acrobatic flair. Gushou throws another two where the master parries them with ease and spins back with a roundhouse kick which Gushou ducks below and throws another two blows which are deflected by the master. Another exchange between the two leads to Gushou retreating from three strikes from the master before closing the distance again and throwing another two, managing to land the final strike before Gushou falls back on his backside from all the fatigue accumulated in the few furious seconds and then passing out for nearly two hours.
In the meantime, the master serves the rest of the group some meal before commenting on Gushou’s unusual and rough fighting style. Gushou eventually wakes up to the mealtime and they’re informed that they he will take them to the compass in the morning. The only advice that he gives them is that they need to train more and offers them some training before they leave as well as a discussion on what might kill an Immortal. Special weapons, special circumstances, powerful magics could all kill one.
The group accepts the training where they get pressure pointed into bodily destruction and have to clean the floors. Gaining a large amount of experience in the process of the week as well as the opportunity to learn his styles, Chin Na, Hsing I Chaun, Pa Kua Chuan, and T’ai Chi Chuan. When the week is up, everyone is battered, bruised, and beaten with at least one none the wiser.
The next morning, the master brings a 12 year old boy and an old looking box. He points at the child and introduces it as the compass. Apparently the boy is called Zen and can find anything. Though Zen has to accompany the group to find their destination. The master tells them that if they take the compass, the group has to make sure that they don’t get hurt. A duty is pushed onto everyone, some unwillingly. Zen doesn’t really know much in the way of self-defense or how to ride a horse.
Aftermath
They ask where to find the next shrine and the boy asks if they want to find the next shrine or to find the person that’s contaminating the shrines. There’s some discussion on if the villager that the dark man had with him was also a compass. When asking for opinions, at least one wants to go on the offense while Gushou isn’t sure if they can beat the guy. The dark man didn’t seem too concerned with the group following them. They finally decide to deal with it by tracking down the dark man, heading on their way.
After Action Report (GM)
This session was short and was mostly Gushou’s final trial against the Gentle Master. He was probably the second worst one to do that trial as we found out. But Rory held it together and used IP to succeed (which I allowed even though I normally don’t for “boss” encounters). They simply needed to win to get to the next step of their journey so I wasn’t against that.
Other Notes
I realized a little too late I was being railroady – which the players didn’t mind, but I did. We talked it over and I decided we’re going to do something different. Same setting. Different characters. This current group is kind of like a made for TV miniseries introducing the world. The next group will be more like a TV show using that world. We’ll see how it goes.
Soundtrack
None.