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The Centipede's Dilemma [Exalted Kung Fu Quest]

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[X] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.

Screw it. Lets kick off the Abyssal Arc.
 
Oooooof. That's a good few kicks in the ribs. Caught myself not breathing a few times while I was reading haha.

[X] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.

Don't sass us youth!
 
Negation said:
[X] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.

Screw it. Lets kick off the Abyssal Arc.
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No, no, let's kick off teacup ninja arc. We clearly need young over-zealous Chosen of Maiden of Journeys to train for Gold Faction.

[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
I was really worried when the villiagers didn't know his name, but a God-Blooded seems managable.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
Omicron said:
You blink once, Essence flooding your head, and the world seems to freeze as your senses readjust. Up is down, down is up, forward is backward, and it all makes sense to you. You bring your knees against your chest to make yourself into a ball, pirouette once in the air, and then hit the facade of the shrine with hands and peg-legs, absorbing the impact and steadying yourself. You're fifteen feet high squatting like a bug on wall, looking down at your foe, and you see the flare of anger in her eyes.

Gravity is for the weak.
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The Centipede chitters on the wall. :D

Omicron said:
You thrust one arm, open your hand, and let the chain flow. It needs no Essence to stretch its shape; its motion is burned in its fabric, a weapon of reach and denial, favored by the Art-Defiling Venom school for ages - and favored by roaming judges alike, used to capture criminals from horseback. You used one position as a way of concealing the other - in which order, you are not sure anymore.
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Kind of interesting character note as well, if you take her reference to not being sure in which order to apply to the positions of Judge and Art Defiling Venom stylist this has some interesting implications in her history.

Which is almost certainly intended.

Omicron said:
She tugs to the side, wrenching your arm out wide, and strikes with two extended fingers of her free hand at your shoulder. The blow feels blunted, weaker than it should be, a vague impact spreading between your chest and your arm… and then your weapon-hand goes entirely numb. Your right arm falls limp to your side, the chain slipping from your grasp and splashing down in the water below.
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The Snake bites the Centipede.

Omicron said:
I gave you a name, didn't I?

The black rose on your temple scatters its wilted petals to the wind.

I named you Strides-Towards-Heaven, yet you now crawl down to hell.

The blade falls like a guillotine.

"My name," you scream to the world, "is Golden Road!"
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Hi memories of Ruvia!

Omicron said:
Your hold is not secure enough to keep her pinned; her own fang bites her lip hard enough to draw blood and with a jolt she slithers out of your grasp, turning to face you, panting.

Second Leg - she knows this one. You grin, and lift your knee to snap into a high kick.

A hundredfold strike at point blank against an opponent deprived of her swords - it is the end of the fight, the finishing blow from which there is no recovering.

Lightning erupts out of the water, two dogs howling, and you strike too late. A dozen kicks like shooting stars strike out five feet out in an arc, digging furrows into the soil, and Nashai is gone.

Flash step.

Time slows to a crawl as your eyes swivel in their sockets, tracking the impossible motion and finding your opponent on your right, on the side of your limp arm and outstretched leg. Her right hand extends two fingers for another nerve strike, and you try as hard as you can to bring your leg back to the ground and pivot into a parry, but it is like moving through a world of molasses, each heartbeat excruciating slow as you slowly understand. Then reality snaps back to its full speed with a terrible clash.

She does not hit the nerves. She hits the straps of your prosthetic leg, snapping them clean apart and shattering the wood beneath for good measure. Your leg goes flying away into splinters, and you lose your balance, toppling backwards.
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Ah, a reversal of what happened to Shay and Marrow. It just ended differently.

Omicron said:
[ ] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
[ ] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
[ ] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.
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So Ruvia, because of the gold I think. Ta-Sepa, the middle aged man because of the peace of funerals and Kegare the handsomely dressed youth because of the smell of rot. E: And ninjaaaaaaaaa'ed.

That or they're another Exalt and the youth is an Abyssal. That'd be fun.
 
Christ okay wow
Nashai just feels fascinating to me for some reason and I'm going to ramble out my jumbled thoughts now

Omicron said:
And then the dream shifts, a gallery of shadows in which you a hundred reflections of you practice kata after kata, running and lifting weights and a thousand other exercises, growing inch by inch into the teenaged girl who, one day, comes to the estate of the riverborn merchants who took your whole life from you, yet unknowingly gave you this, your new life, your new purpose, greater than whatever merchant girl you would have grown into in that old life.

And this is the reason this dream comes back to you again and again, it is the moment of your affirmation, the day on which you reforged yourself into the woman you have become. You remember perfectly every blow you delivered, every drop of blood spilled by your hook swords as you took down the guards one by one and moved into the mansion. Until you reach the chambers of the head of the family, and take down the Falcon student that served as the head of his guards. Until you step over the body, dropping your swords and walking slowly towards the terrified, cowering old man, because this you want to do with your bare hands
...
He was begging for his life.
...
I killed him. I avenged my parents. I did it.
...
He was smiling. He was proud of me. He asked me if I wanted to go back to my old life now, to seize the merchant's wealth and take back my family's work, and I smiled and told him 'no.' That this life held no meaning for me anymore. Only the art did.
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So this is the defining moment for Nashai and how she relates to martial arts
Every day spent training, refining, building herself up for the moment where she would tear through the men who crossed her
Even her memory of the pain from the life she lost is overshadowed by how she fervently believes it pushed her to become more
Victory, triumph, achievement

This is how she defines her ability to fight, to harm, the fact that she can casually break bones is something that she believes makes her better
Better than nameless peasants in the village around her, deserving of recognition and praise for her abilities
Entitled to the tribute she demands from them, because she's strong, she struggled and persevered for her strength, she's strong and they're weak

And it's what Road took from her


Omicron said:
They beat you. But in the end, they don't kill you. In the end, they leave you broken and bloodied, and toss you into the street.

In the end, you aren't worth killing. Your aspirations were for naught. Your training achieved nothing.

And as you breathe raspily through your broken teeth and bloodied lips, you find your master standing above you, his mouth curled in distaste.
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Omicron said:
The pyre burns in the distance. Did you really wound a goddess? You must have been strong… You claimed the boots…
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She's physically as capable as ever and all of her training is still intact, all her practiced skill
But she can no longer associate her ability for violence with strength, even if she knows that her memory isn't right, she can't see it as anything but failure
There's nothing admirable there anymore, nothing to envy
And because she defines herself with her talent for violence she can't see any worth in herself either

On someone like Marrow, who sees what little ability to fight he has more as just a mediocre skill, this might not have even done anything at all
But for Nashai fighting was her everything, and without it she has no self worth


Omicron said:
"Why would you do this to me?"

"Because you found your worth, your pride, your meaning in the skillful exercise of violence. And that led you down a path of evil. So I took away that worth, that pride. Now your art can never bring you happiness again."

"You took my life from me!" you scream, anger and despair mingling into a venom of their own, burning your skull from the inside. "You took… everything I was…"

And she is in front of you, kneeling, the light parting to reveal an all-too human face.

"And now," she says, "you must become something else. Something better."
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Omicron said:
"Kill me," you whisper. "I cannot live like this."

"Death," she answers, "is an escape. Live. Atone. As I must. As your students must."

"I can't."

"Then you truly are as weak as your memories say," she says, tearing another hole in your heart.

And she stands, pushing on her staff, lifting her feeble, crippled body, sighing with discomfort.

And she walks away.
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Omicron said:
Where did it all go wrong? When did you lose your way?
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And the thing is, it's horribly unfair to do this to someone
To take away everything they once used to define themselves, everything they used to find pride and worth in, to tear them down like that, and then tell them to build themselves back up again

But there's an undeniable poetic justice to it
Nashai built her world around the idea that because she was the better martial artist that she was better period, that the only virtue was strength
And now she's forced to see the crippled woman stand tall over her and reconsider
 
Omicron said:
Golden lightning erupts from the ground where she stands, the Hounds roaring, and where she stood is nothing but a small crater in the dirt and a spray of dirt. She is behind you. You whip around on your feet in time to see a glowing eye, a fanged grin, and one gleaming purple arc swinging for your head.
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What? But- he can't do-...Wait duh, it works BECAUSE you know, because it became so famous-
Omicron said:
The flash-step. You're in danger.
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...YOOUUUU!!!!!
 
[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.

Either Ruvia or a Chosen of Mercury, and either way, it's something I'd like to see.
 
[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
Omicron said:
More water for the field. It does not care.
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Omicron said:
"It did not," the sun says, "until today. And now - it always did happen this way. It always will have."
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In the old days solars learned martial arts from sidereal sifus.

Omicron said:
For all of Nashai's crimes, for all her wickedness, her art was a bright jewel a whole life in the making. And you shattered it.
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*angry pattern spider noises*
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
It's just... Too soon for us to be dealing with Old Man Ruvia, I think.

Like, I wanna interact with him at some point for sure, but I feel that a reunion with the most important person in Golden Road's life should come somewhere more dramatic than the end of the tutorial. Let's let him stay off-screen for longer as a mysterious distant authority, as the big-name person we let down somehow.

For now, let's meet the god closest to us, the god whose path we longed for even as we were denied it.

[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
 
[x] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
 
[X] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.

Did that technique basically hammer in a form of Golden Years Tarnished Black?!
 
[X] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
 
That was a great chapter and oh was it fascinating to see the soul scarring embrace in effect. All these options look fun.

[X] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.
 
By the way, really not feeling good about that technique (which is probably Functioning As Intended by the QM). Let's try not to get in situations where we have to quite literally ruin someone's life too often, if we can avoid it.
 
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