NaanContributor
Provider of delicious flatbread, and nothing else.
- Location
- Hawaii
[X]Pull down your naginata. Duel Steel Dove.
Bunraku (Samurai Mecha Quest)
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Generally, I allow write-ins. If a write-in blatantly doesn't work or fit Tomoe's character, I will tell you so and veto it. This one is fine.
[X]Pull down your naginata. Duel Steel Dove.
Undead-Spaceman
Skeleton Supreme
- Location
- Somewhere in Orbit
Changed my vote.
[X]Pull down your naginata. Duel Steel Dove.
[X]Pull down your naginata. Duel Steel Dove.
Aspiring Dragon
Hoarder of stories
- Location
- United States
Look I know it makes sense to fight with our primary weapon but I have to ask, is the bedroom large enough so the main character can fight effectively with a naginata? If it's not the fight can probably end badly if the naginata wins.
cB557
voOOP
[X]Pull down your naginata. Duel Steel Dove.
The idea is we just lame it out long enough for an alarm to be raised. That way we're not being dishonorable by running from a duel, but we're still getting the alarm raised.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X]Pull down your naginata. Duel Steel Dove.
It's all too long since I've voted here.
It's all too long since I've voted here.
XXV. Duel
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Part 2 of the Night of Three Updates.
XXV. Duel
Can an assassin be said to have any honor?
Steel Dove could have killed you in your sleep, but she offered you a fair duel. For all that she used assassin skills to reach you in the heart of the castle, in the deep of night, in the moment of truth she acted like a samurai.
You have to honor that. But you will only honor it so far.
Your eyes lift up above your daisho, to the naginata hanging from the wall. You clasp your hand around its hilt, lift it from the prongs holding it up, and whirl on your feet, coming face to face with your opponent.
"Is that your idea of a dueling weapon?" Steel Dove hisses. You smirk.
"If I die fighting, it will be wielding my weapon of choice."
"So be it," she says, and she is on you.
You raise your spear to thwart the assault, a thrust to her face, but she slides like water, ducking the blade and stepping into your range. Her katana slices through the air and you step back hastily, but she misjudged the distance and it comes a hair's breadth from your nose. You bring the blade back from behind her and the guard hits the back of her straw hat, knocking it off her head. Steel Dove backs down out of your range, her hat floating down to the ground; you can now see her long black hair tied in a simple bun.
"Not bad," she concedes. You chuckle. She circles around the short space of the room, stepping around your futon to avoid entangling her feet in the mattress, and your eyes narrow as you follow her.
You strike when she is too close to the wall to retreat, extending your right hand along the haft, a short-angle slicing cut to her left side, where her sword is shorter. Steel Dove's wakizahi lashes out like a viper, deflecting your spear, and her katana follows right after, extending to strike your extended arm. You withdraw the spear as quickly as you can, but feel the caress of steel draw warm blood from your forearm. She pursues the blade, short sword smacking it down towards the ground, long sword drawing a vertical cut; you turn the haft sharply in your hand and the edge only strikes wood. Your spear bends like a reed for one second and you flow into that motion, leaning close to the ground and sweeping Dove's legs, a classic crouching tiger strike. Her agility surpasses your own, however, and she hops deftly above the whistling blade, stepping to the side, in the wider corner of the room.
You withdraw slightly, panting. Pain pulses warmly in your arm, and a few red drops fall to the ground. A shallow cut, a reminder of your vulnerabilities. The naginata offers incredible defense in close quarters, and you could drag this fight out pretty much forever if you wished. But whenever you commit to a strike, you must extend your leading hand on the haft, leaving it vulnerable to a cut. If you lose your right hand you are as good as dead.
Steel Dove extends her right arm, the tip of her katana touching the flat of your blade. You circle each other slowly in the limited space of the room, your blades humming slightly as they touch. The moment that link breaks, one of you will attack. You blow a stray lock away from your eyes, your disheveled hair an opponent of its own. Your eyes scan Dove's mask, but you cannot see her real eyes, cannot read her face. You understand only now that it is a true advantage in battle.
"Your style is peculiar," you say in a soft voice. "Iron Raven had the same."
"He was my mentor. We learned in the Land of Hundred Rivers the style of the Twin Sisters, which is also called the Raptor's Wings. Few samurai survive more than a few seconds against it."
"I can see it," you smirk. "You lose strength from using your katana in one hand, but with the wakizashi you can parry a blade, keep it out of the way, and cut into an enemy's open guard. Any opponent, no matter how skilled, may die in the first exchange if they do not realize what to expect."
"The style of the Twin Sisters emphasizes the need for swift and lethal victory, and on never letting the opponent learn your moves."
"Then you're out of luck," you say confidently. "For you have come up against Autumn's mistress of the naginata, a weapon which never allows for an opponent's swift victory."
"A peasant's weapon," Dove hisses, "meant to drag out a foretold death while the true warriors do the job."
"Please," you smile. "Come see how much of a peasant I am."
Dove breaks the link first. Her katana lifts high up for a downward cut, and you respond by thrusting straight for her chest. But Dove's agility surprises you again, and she arches her back, leaning out of the way of the spear, which brushes her chest yet only cuts a few strands of fabric from her kimono. In that moment where you are overstretched she twists her wakziashi into a reverse grip, hooks it between her chest and your naginata, and hurls the spear away. You let out a strangled yelp as your blade pierces the ceiling, and the downward cut you saw coming in the first place slashes your shoulder.
You attribute your survival to Dove's lack of experience fighting a samurai spearmistress, as she must be used to seeing it as a peasant's weapon. She has misjudged your reach, and thus her own, and so her cut was, again, shallow. She pursues her assault without missing a beat, however, a second step taking her into your no-strike range, the area in which an enemy is too close for you to be able to use a polearm's blade. You were taught this was a death sentence.
You pull hard on your bloodied right arm, bringing the blade down from the ceiling, sliding your hands that burn with friction on the lacquered wood. No arcing blow or curve will save you from Dove's cut, so you simply grasp the haft in both hands and thrust it horizontally like an iron bar against the blade. Steel bites into wood, and bounces back. Breathing out a sharp cry you put all your strength on your left arm and let the pommel end of your spear come at Steel Dove from her right, an angle she had not expected; a blunt end strikes her temple and she stumbles away, dazed. This is your window for a finishing strike; just as you brought the pommel end whirling to her right you slide the haft across your shoulders to bring the blade from her left with even more momentum -
…and it rips against your cupboard, biting deep into the wood and coming to a stop. You curse under your breath and wrench the blade out of the furniture, but Steel Dove has already recovered. You pull the naginata closer to you to avoid getting stuck in the walls, step back to compensate for the lost range, and slash to her right. She crosses her swords in front of her - you've seen that guard on Iron Raven, but before you can draw on those memories she is catching the guard of your spear between the blades, pushing it down, and kicks down on it, slamming it into the ground. Her katana draws a bloody arc in front of your face.
Two locks of black hair fall to the ground, then blood from your cheek.
Reach. Reach is everything, and this knowledge is what let you survive until today.
You grin, and pull as hard as you can on the blade still resting under Dove's foot. It rips out of the ground, and for all her agility she is a small, light woman, and comes down head over heels when you sweep the rug from underneath her. You bring the blade down on her prone form like an executioner's blow, and…
...she's rolling away, dodging the blade and standing up. With a cry of frustrating you thrust your spear towards her chest and she can barely bring up her cross-guard against it, speartip striking both blade and pushing her back…
...she crashes through the paper door of your room, rolling to the ground into the corridor. You follow after her, head held high, naginata sweeping the ground to push her back, and she backs down.
You hear rumbling in the rooms nearby, warriors coming awake. Steel Dove looks left and right, and though you cannot see fear or concern in her mask you know she realizes her time has come up short.
She decides to gamble with what she has left. You have been cut, and she is only bruised. She dashes towards you, lightly extending her wakizashi to swat your spear-blade aside. You flow with the motion, letting it be knocked away, but as she closes in for a cut of her main sword you step back, pull the spear to you and slash upwards. She must abandon her attack to parry your blade. You pull back and thrust, and this time she is the one retreating, parrying thrust after first in a clash of shining steel. Here, in the corridor, she cannot hope to defeat you. She has no room to flank, the entire reach of your naginata to pass before getting into striking range, and you can thrust as you will.
In desperation she counters one of your thrusts with her cross-blade catch, but by now you have seen this technique twice, once from Iron Raven and once from her. When the blades clasp you twist the haft in your hands, turning it violently and wrenching it out of her grasp, which breaks her guard. With her blades open you thrust for her face. She ducks again, as light as the bird after which she is named, but your spear bites deep into her shoulder. She cries out and you bring it down on her arm - the blade misses, but the guard hits her wrist. Her wakizashi clatters to the ground in the red flurry of your spear's tassel.
You could go for the kill, but overcommitting is what cost you a cut on your main arm, and could cost you the whole hand. Instead you invert the blade, using its curve to grip the wakizashi and pull it towards you. Your foot comes down on it, and you stand up in a guard.
Steel Dove looks at you, breathing heavily, her wrist limp and her shoulder bleeding. Doors start to open across the corridor, confused, half-asleep warriors shouting questions.
The Dove turns, and runs away.
You sigh. Wielding a naginata makes you a poor pursuer, and you have little hope that the drowsy samurai and distant guards will come quickly enough. Still you shout, "Assassin in the castle! After her!" And hear outrage and motion all around you. But somewhere already a flimsy window tears with a sound of paper.
You lean down and take Steel Dove's short blade. Its crimson guard is vivid enough to be seen in the darkness of this night, and her blade shines with a striking white glow under the moonlight. It is a prize, at least.
You return to your room to dress yourself for what will surely come.
***
"The two prison guards had no chance," the chief of the garrison says sorrowfully. "She barged in on them in the middle of the night, and cut them down in instant. At least one of them had time to draw his sword and die with honor, but it was no true fight."
"If samurai begin to act like kunoichi…" Lady Gozen spits, contempt in her face. "These are arts not meant to be wielded together. Honor is loosely held in such a grip."
"The arts of the assassins are not meant to be practiced in the first place," a nobleman whose name you don't know says hotly. "This is only further proof that these ronin are degenerate, honorless curs, needing to be cut down before they threaten the heaven-imposed order of the Empire."
Your Heavenly Lord says nothing. Even as he fans his face, his eyes are a silent storm. You are very glad that you did not personally fail tonight.
"What I want to know,' Gozen, says with anger, "is how she knew where to find Silver Crane's cell in the first place."
"This will be a matter for me to investigate," the chief of the garrison says sternly. "If there has been any inside help, any treachery in our ranks, I will be informed of it in short order, and due punishment will be administered. You can be assured of that."
Then at last, your Lord speaks, his voice as soft as ever.
"Reasons and explanations for the failures of the past interest me none. What matters is this: Silver Crane was broken out of her prison by another ronin, who came after my dear Tomoe. Even she proved unable to slay the foe. Should I revise my appreciation for the skills of my samurai? It seems that upstart brigands are getting too much the better of them of late."
Everyone in the room, including you, shudders and looks down at the ground. The chief of the garrison, whose job it was to keep Silver Crane safely guarded and to thwart intruders into the castle, prostrates himself on the ground. It may be that by the end of the night he has committed ritual suicide. You try not to think about it. Hopefully he will earn his lord's pardon.
"I will have no more of this," the dragon says, his voice cold now. He slashes the air with his fan, then points it to Lady Gozen. "There will be no further wave of scouts. As soon as the last I have sent come back, you will will gather an expeditionary corp, and send it to find the Hidden Village and wipe it off the map. You will come back successful, or not at all."
"Yes, my lord," Gozen says, bowing deeply.
"Leave, all of you. Except you, Tomoe, the only one tonight to have scored a victory tonight, however slight."
You gulp as the gathered samurai give you odd looks, and stay in your place as they leave. When the doors finally slide close, Lord Summer looks down at you, candlelight casting flickering shadows over his features.
"Your enemy survived," he says, "but did you win?"
You consider, trying to give an honest answer, one devoid of false pride. Then you nod.
"It was no mere circumstances, my lord," you say. "The environment benefited and disadvantaged me in equal measure at various moments of the fight. Though I suffered shallow wounds, I dealt the enemy a true blow and took away half of her daisho. Had she stayed to fight, she would have died in short order."
Lord Summer nods slowly, and for a moment there is silence. Then he speaks up again.
"You are my sword without a scabbard, Tomoe, forged to slay evil in my name." The words strike a chord, disturb you, your eyes widen slightly. They are Ondo's words, his advice to find peace with your dishonor. Did Ondo hear them from his lord, or did his Lord hear far too much from him? "You are the only one to have won a victory tonight, and I am displeased with my other servants. I offer you to lead the expedition against the Hidden Village."
You straighten up in your sitting posture, hands tightly clutching your kimono.
This is a great honor. It is not one that will be well-received among the other samurai, as you are still entirely too new a servant of Summer, but if you succeed it will be a shortcut to fame and honor. But if you fail, all the responsibility will be on your head.
[ ] Accept the offer. (Lady Gozen in particular will be offended. Your reputation among the samurai of the city will suffer at first, but if you succeed it will rise in equal measure.)
[ ] Reject the offer. (Although it would be a terrible faux pas to say it yourself, if knowledge of it somehow spreads among the samurai your humility and respect for your superiors will bring you good repute.)
XXV. Duel
Can an assassin be said to have any honor?
Steel Dove could have killed you in your sleep, but she offered you a fair duel. For all that she used assassin skills to reach you in the heart of the castle, in the deep of night, in the moment of truth she acted like a samurai.
You have to honor that. But you will only honor it so far.
Your eyes lift up above your daisho, to the naginata hanging from the wall. You clasp your hand around its hilt, lift it from the prongs holding it up, and whirl on your feet, coming face to face with your opponent.
"Is that your idea of a dueling weapon?" Steel Dove hisses. You smirk.
"If I die fighting, it will be wielding my weapon of choice."
"So be it," she says, and she is on you.
You raise your spear to thwart the assault, a thrust to her face, but she slides like water, ducking the blade and stepping into your range. Her katana slices through the air and you step back hastily, but she misjudged the distance and it comes a hair's breadth from your nose. You bring the blade back from behind her and the guard hits the back of her straw hat, knocking it off her head. Steel Dove backs down out of your range, her hat floating down to the ground; you can now see her long black hair tied in a simple bun.
"Not bad," she concedes. You chuckle. She circles around the short space of the room, stepping around your futon to avoid entangling her feet in the mattress, and your eyes narrow as you follow her.
You strike when she is too close to the wall to retreat, extending your right hand along the haft, a short-angle slicing cut to her left side, where her sword is shorter. Steel Dove's wakizahi lashes out like a viper, deflecting your spear, and her katana follows right after, extending to strike your extended arm. You withdraw the spear as quickly as you can, but feel the caress of steel draw warm blood from your forearm. She pursues the blade, short sword smacking it down towards the ground, long sword drawing a vertical cut; you turn the haft sharply in your hand and the edge only strikes wood. Your spear bends like a reed for one second and you flow into that motion, leaning close to the ground and sweeping Dove's legs, a classic crouching tiger strike. Her agility surpasses your own, however, and she hops deftly above the whistling blade, stepping to the side, in the wider corner of the room.
You withdraw slightly, panting. Pain pulses warmly in your arm, and a few red drops fall to the ground. A shallow cut, a reminder of your vulnerabilities. The naginata offers incredible defense in close quarters, and you could drag this fight out pretty much forever if you wished. But whenever you commit to a strike, you must extend your leading hand on the haft, leaving it vulnerable to a cut. If you lose your right hand you are as good as dead.
Steel Dove extends her right arm, the tip of her katana touching the flat of your blade. You circle each other slowly in the limited space of the room, your blades humming slightly as they touch. The moment that link breaks, one of you will attack. You blow a stray lock away from your eyes, your disheveled hair an opponent of its own. Your eyes scan Dove's mask, but you cannot see her real eyes, cannot read her face. You understand only now that it is a true advantage in battle.
"Your style is peculiar," you say in a soft voice. "Iron Raven had the same."
"He was my mentor. We learned in the Land of Hundred Rivers the style of the Twin Sisters, which is also called the Raptor's Wings. Few samurai survive more than a few seconds against it."
"I can see it," you smirk. "You lose strength from using your katana in one hand, but with the wakizashi you can parry a blade, keep it out of the way, and cut into an enemy's open guard. Any opponent, no matter how skilled, may die in the first exchange if they do not realize what to expect."
"The style of the Twin Sisters emphasizes the need for swift and lethal victory, and on never letting the opponent learn your moves."
"Then you're out of luck," you say confidently. "For you have come up against Autumn's mistress of the naginata, a weapon which never allows for an opponent's swift victory."
"A peasant's weapon," Dove hisses, "meant to drag out a foretold death while the true warriors do the job."
"Please," you smile. "Come see how much of a peasant I am."
Dove breaks the link first. Her katana lifts high up for a downward cut, and you respond by thrusting straight for her chest. But Dove's agility surprises you again, and she arches her back, leaning out of the way of the spear, which brushes her chest yet only cuts a few strands of fabric from her kimono. In that moment where you are overstretched she twists her wakziashi into a reverse grip, hooks it between her chest and your naginata, and hurls the spear away. You let out a strangled yelp as your blade pierces the ceiling, and the downward cut you saw coming in the first place slashes your shoulder.
You attribute your survival to Dove's lack of experience fighting a samurai spearmistress, as she must be used to seeing it as a peasant's weapon. She has misjudged your reach, and thus her own, and so her cut was, again, shallow. She pursues her assault without missing a beat, however, a second step taking her into your no-strike range, the area in which an enemy is too close for you to be able to use a polearm's blade. You were taught this was a death sentence.
You pull hard on your bloodied right arm, bringing the blade down from the ceiling, sliding your hands that burn with friction on the lacquered wood. No arcing blow or curve will save you from Dove's cut, so you simply grasp the haft in both hands and thrust it horizontally like an iron bar against the blade. Steel bites into wood, and bounces back. Breathing out a sharp cry you put all your strength on your left arm and let the pommel end of your spear come at Steel Dove from her right, an angle she had not expected; a blunt end strikes her temple and she stumbles away, dazed. This is your window for a finishing strike; just as you brought the pommel end whirling to her right you slide the haft across your shoulders to bring the blade from her left with even more momentum -
…and it rips against your cupboard, biting deep into the wood and coming to a stop. You curse under your breath and wrench the blade out of the furniture, but Steel Dove has already recovered. You pull the naginata closer to you to avoid getting stuck in the walls, step back to compensate for the lost range, and slash to her right. She crosses her swords in front of her - you've seen that guard on Iron Raven, but before you can draw on those memories she is catching the guard of your spear between the blades, pushing it down, and kicks down on it, slamming it into the ground. Her katana draws a bloody arc in front of your face.
Two locks of black hair fall to the ground, then blood from your cheek.
Reach. Reach is everything, and this knowledge is what let you survive until today.
You grin, and pull as hard as you can on the blade still resting under Dove's foot. It rips out of the ground, and for all her agility she is a small, light woman, and comes down head over heels when you sweep the rug from underneath her. You bring the blade down on her prone form like an executioner's blow, and…
...she's rolling away, dodging the blade and standing up. With a cry of frustrating you thrust your spear towards her chest and she can barely bring up her cross-guard against it, speartip striking both blade and pushing her back…
...she crashes through the paper door of your room, rolling to the ground into the corridor. You follow after her, head held high, naginata sweeping the ground to push her back, and she backs down.
You hear rumbling in the rooms nearby, warriors coming awake. Steel Dove looks left and right, and though you cannot see fear or concern in her mask you know she realizes her time has come up short.
She decides to gamble with what she has left. You have been cut, and she is only bruised. She dashes towards you, lightly extending her wakizashi to swat your spear-blade aside. You flow with the motion, letting it be knocked away, but as she closes in for a cut of her main sword you step back, pull the spear to you and slash upwards. She must abandon her attack to parry your blade. You pull back and thrust, and this time she is the one retreating, parrying thrust after first in a clash of shining steel. Here, in the corridor, she cannot hope to defeat you. She has no room to flank, the entire reach of your naginata to pass before getting into striking range, and you can thrust as you will.
In desperation she counters one of your thrusts with her cross-blade catch, but by now you have seen this technique twice, once from Iron Raven and once from her. When the blades clasp you twist the haft in your hands, turning it violently and wrenching it out of her grasp, which breaks her guard. With her blades open you thrust for her face. She ducks again, as light as the bird after which she is named, but your spear bites deep into her shoulder. She cries out and you bring it down on her arm - the blade misses, but the guard hits her wrist. Her wakizashi clatters to the ground in the red flurry of your spear's tassel.
You could go for the kill, but overcommitting is what cost you a cut on your main arm, and could cost you the whole hand. Instead you invert the blade, using its curve to grip the wakizashi and pull it towards you. Your foot comes down on it, and you stand up in a guard.
Steel Dove looks at you, breathing heavily, her wrist limp and her shoulder bleeding. Doors start to open across the corridor, confused, half-asleep warriors shouting questions.
The Dove turns, and runs away.
You sigh. Wielding a naginata makes you a poor pursuer, and you have little hope that the drowsy samurai and distant guards will come quickly enough. Still you shout, "Assassin in the castle! After her!" And hear outrage and motion all around you. But somewhere already a flimsy window tears with a sound of paper.
You lean down and take Steel Dove's short blade. Its crimson guard is vivid enough to be seen in the darkness of this night, and her blade shines with a striking white glow under the moonlight. It is a prize, at least.
You return to your room to dress yourself for what will surely come.
***
"The two prison guards had no chance," the chief of the garrison says sorrowfully. "She barged in on them in the middle of the night, and cut them down in instant. At least one of them had time to draw his sword and die with honor, but it was no true fight."
"If samurai begin to act like kunoichi…" Lady Gozen spits, contempt in her face. "These are arts not meant to be wielded together. Honor is loosely held in such a grip."
"The arts of the assassins are not meant to be practiced in the first place," a nobleman whose name you don't know says hotly. "This is only further proof that these ronin are degenerate, honorless curs, needing to be cut down before they threaten the heaven-imposed order of the Empire."
Your Heavenly Lord says nothing. Even as he fans his face, his eyes are a silent storm. You are very glad that you did not personally fail tonight.
"What I want to know,' Gozen, says with anger, "is how she knew where to find Silver Crane's cell in the first place."
"This will be a matter for me to investigate," the chief of the garrison says sternly. "If there has been any inside help, any treachery in our ranks, I will be informed of it in short order, and due punishment will be administered. You can be assured of that."
Then at last, your Lord speaks, his voice as soft as ever.
"Reasons and explanations for the failures of the past interest me none. What matters is this: Silver Crane was broken out of her prison by another ronin, who came after my dear Tomoe. Even she proved unable to slay the foe. Should I revise my appreciation for the skills of my samurai? It seems that upstart brigands are getting too much the better of them of late."
Everyone in the room, including you, shudders and looks down at the ground. The chief of the garrison, whose job it was to keep Silver Crane safely guarded and to thwart intruders into the castle, prostrates himself on the ground. It may be that by the end of the night he has committed ritual suicide. You try not to think about it. Hopefully he will earn his lord's pardon.
"I will have no more of this," the dragon says, his voice cold now. He slashes the air with his fan, then points it to Lady Gozen. "There will be no further wave of scouts. As soon as the last I have sent come back, you will will gather an expeditionary corp, and send it to find the Hidden Village and wipe it off the map. You will come back successful, or not at all."
"Yes, my lord," Gozen says, bowing deeply.
"Leave, all of you. Except you, Tomoe, the only one tonight to have scored a victory tonight, however slight."
You gulp as the gathered samurai give you odd looks, and stay in your place as they leave. When the doors finally slide close, Lord Summer looks down at you, candlelight casting flickering shadows over his features.
"Your enemy survived," he says, "but did you win?"
You consider, trying to give an honest answer, one devoid of false pride. Then you nod.
"It was no mere circumstances, my lord," you say. "The environment benefited and disadvantaged me in equal measure at various moments of the fight. Though I suffered shallow wounds, I dealt the enemy a true blow and took away half of her daisho. Had she stayed to fight, she would have died in short order."
Lord Summer nods slowly, and for a moment there is silence. Then he speaks up again.
"You are my sword without a scabbard, Tomoe, forged to slay evil in my name." The words strike a chord, disturb you, your eyes widen slightly. They are Ondo's words, his advice to find peace with your dishonor. Did Ondo hear them from his lord, or did his Lord hear far too much from him? "You are the only one to have won a victory tonight, and I am displeased with my other servants. I offer you to lead the expedition against the Hidden Village."
You straighten up in your sitting posture, hands tightly clutching your kimono.
This is a great honor. It is not one that will be well-received among the other samurai, as you are still entirely too new a servant of Summer, but if you succeed it will be a shortcut to fame and honor. But if you fail, all the responsibility will be on your head.
[ ] Accept the offer. (Lady Gozen in particular will be offended. Your reputation among the samurai of the city will suffer at first, but if you succeed it will rise in equal measure.)
[ ] Reject the offer. (Although it would be a terrible faux pas to say it yourself, if knowledge of it somehow spreads among the samurai your humility and respect for your superiors will bring you good repute.)
Last edited:
[X] Reject the offer.
LinkOnScepter
The One who Strangles Concepts to death
- Location
- Interwebs
First of all, yeah! It's not dead!
Second, I must admit you have a talent for giving us tough choices.
On the one hand, taking the offer will be awesome if we succeed. However, it will also make a lot of the other samurai we've been trying to build friendships with pissed for a bit. Even if we end up winning, there's going to be that underlying animosity between us and them. But, if we succeed, all types of Honor and Praise await us.
On the other hand, refusing the offer will allow us to keep up our friendships with the samurai. Plus, it will reinforce the idea that we have come here because we want a home, not because we simply want to upstage and replace anyone. But, it's going to be extremely difficult to refuse our Lord without sounding like a twat, and some others might see it as a poor move on our part. However, the success or failure of the assault will be completely on Gozen's head. Thus if she succeeds, we won't have to worry about her committing seppuku later.
I'm gonna go with
[X] Reject the Offer
for now. If anyone can make a good argument as to way not, I'm all for it.
Second, I must admit you have a talent for giving us tough choices.
On the one hand, taking the offer will be awesome if we succeed. However, it will also make a lot of the other samurai we've been trying to build friendships with pissed for a bit. Even if we end up winning, there's going to be that underlying animosity between us and them. But, if we succeed, all types of Honor and Praise await us.
On the other hand, refusing the offer will allow us to keep up our friendships with the samurai. Plus, it will reinforce the idea that we have come here because we want a home, not because we simply want to upstage and replace anyone. But, it's going to be extremely difficult to refuse our Lord without sounding like a twat, and some others might see it as a poor move on our part. However, the success or failure of the assault will be completely on Gozen's head. Thus if she succeeds, we won't have to worry about her committing seppuku later.
I'm gonna go with
[X] Reject the Offer
for now. If anyone can make a good argument as to way not, I'm all for it.
- Location
- Nebraska
[X] Accept the offer.
Jump on any opportunity to advance in my opinion.
Jump on any opportunity to advance in my opinion.
