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The Centipede's Dilemma [Exalted Kung Fu Quest]

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[X]Lantern Festival.
-[X] Law-Giving Lion-Dog Style: You have a keen sense of companionship with animals, and can train them into loyal, skillful battle-mates. Once you have bonded with a familiar, you can fight as a team, using their natural talents to push your opponents off-balance and open them up to your deadly strikes. You also know how to make use of an animal's talents to investigate wickedness, from a dog's sense of smell to a hawk's far-ranging vision.
-[X] Demon-Revealing Glare Style: The world of matter is only tools. You work best with people. Detecting lies is a party trick; what you do is deeper work, getting into the minds of people, drawing a portrait of their backgrounds and foibles, and then you find the right questions to ask for them to reveal the truth even when they do not know it.
-[X] Hero-comes-at-Sunrise Style: As a magistrate you were a wanderer, and could not rely on extensive resources. Thus you have learned to ingratiate yourself to trustworthy locals wherever you went. You are quick to make yourself a fixture of any given place, identifying reliable organizations and people and convincing them to help you, and you can easily familiarize yourself with obscure or unknown customs to leverage them to your advantage.

Not every hero needs to be a lone protagonist.
 
[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law

Consider, for a moment, that the only riding animal seen so far in the quest is an "ox-dragon". An ox dragon noted in the previous update as being generally friendly towards her.

Taking Horseback Judge Style will inevitably lead to our protagonist chasing down ne'er-do-wells and lassoing them from atop her faithful triceratops steed.

Going cowboy is objectively the best option here.
 
[X]Lantern Festival.

I just prefer strenghtening good people in the land, rather than rooting out evil.
There will always be another weed thrown by the wind; I prefer to make them compete with strongly rooted herbs.
 
One thing I do like about this story is the way that GR kind of engages with her disability. Her continuing frustration at how people tend to see her as an object of pity rather than somebody that is worthy of respect due to her own merits is really good and not something that you see in stories enough, in my opinion, and I do like the little things like how she is used to being taken seriously in the context of her occupation only for that to be taken away from her as well. I think it does a good job at really discussing one of the more subtle aspects of disability- the way that it kind of diminishes people's expectations of you that is ostensibly helpful but can actually be kind of toxic and demeaning.

The dynamic between GR and Marrow is also quite good, they have really entertaining banter that is a good mixture of amusing and informative, and I hope to see more from them in the future!

[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law
 
Omicron said:
"At first? Safety. Their school was formed deeper within the Grave, in the valley proper, and for some reason they won't admit to - probably because it doesn't make them look good - they were exiled. Their master led them here, at the edge of the Grave where neither the Steward nor the Fourth could reach them, and rebuilt his school as best he could. Once he was confident they were safe, he left, gods know where, and left his best pupil in charge. She's still running the place, and has only grown more ambitious."
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Ah, embarrassed martial arts schools wanting to save face. Very Wuxia.

Omicron said:
You raise the second prayer strip and burn it as well; when it is done you mix up the ashes with one finger, then raise it to your forehead, drawing two lines from your hair down to your nose. When you are done, the incense has finished burning; you sit with your hands on your knees, waiting for the smoke to disperse, hoping for an answer.

Something very light falls from the ceiling, and you look to the corner of the room where it lands. At first you see nothing, your eyes blinded by the glare of the embers, but as you squint you can make out furious motion on the ground.

A millipede and a centipede, locked in a fight to the death.
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Very ominous. Or, shall I say, "omenous"?

The overtly religious/prophetic angle is something most Exalted quests tend to avoid - that and the wuxia inspirations, so it's very neat to see both of them get some play here.

Omicron said:
"Do not go to the shrine before you have met my master," he whispers. "That would end badly for all of us."
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Ahh, small village politics. Gotta love them.

Omicron said:
[ ] Devil-comes-at-Nightfall Style: You have grown all too familiar with crime gangs and corrupt nobles whose reach and asset dwarf yours. Ever the underdog, you have learned to identify points of weaknesses in organizations too large for their own goods and exploit them - bribing the low rungs of the ladder, exploiting the vices of the higher-ups, and generally playing on the wicked's tendency towards betrayal and self-sabotage to disrupt their activities.
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Just want to highlight this - this is basically the Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars skill. Turn two criminal groups against each other to kill, all that business.


[X]Lantern Festival.
 
Omicron said:
You fall asleep like a stone, drifting on shapeless dreams, too elusive to retain a memory of. When you wake up midway through the night, the bile has left you; you feel calmer and more at peace, at least a little. The bed, too, is more comfortable than sleeping on bags of millet in Marrow's cart, although you've never seen its like before - mudbricks have been arranged in a rectangular raised pattern, forming a 'chest' out of the ground, in which rice-straw and leaves have been piled up, covered with goatskin. Abanya sleeps besides you, snoring softly; it seems he will not wake up. He is an old man, after all.

You climb out of the bed, landing on your knees, and reach for your luggage and walking stick. You don't bother to strap on your legs this time - it is a small house, and there is no one to see you as you push yourself across the floor, past the door to the main room, and stop in front of the fireplace. The large clay pot still sits above it, the fire still down to embers. You are familiar with such traditions: the stew is typically a semi-permanent fixture, the fire rarely rising above a smoulder, and as days go by the house's inhabitants add in water, stock, and vegetable to compensate for what they draw with each meal. As week-roots disintegrate fully, they flavor the broth for those added on the day. It's a decent way to make food while keeping the home warm. But you're not here for a late-night meal.

The night has come, and you have left the road; your destination is reached, at least for now. Ruvia will be no aid to you now.

You rummage through your bags and pull out the incense-holder, the stick, and two prayer strips, laying them before you. The incense-holder is a beautiful thing, a flat wooden side with a slope at one hand, adorned with two centipedes embracing (or fighting to the death; you were never sure which). You bring the stick up to the fireplace, lighting it against the embers, and place it in the holder; fragrant smoke wafts through the room, rising through the hole in the ceiling, and you breathe deeply of it. The familiar scent brings with it memories of home and peace, of the stern kindness of your teacher and the calm that fills you when practicing the katas. Then you take out a piece of charcoal and begin writing on the blank paper.

"Ta-Sepa, God with a Thousand Feet, bring me guidance. Give me clear eyes with which to see the path towards righteousness, the wisdom to know which battles are worth fighting, and the strength to restrain myself when the path of war is wrong."

You raise the first prayer strip to the fire, and let it burn to ashes in your hands, a small mound forming in front of the burning incense. Then you write the second one.

"Kegare, God with a Hundred Hands, bring me guidance. Give me burning eyes with which to see the corruption in this world, the wisdom to discern the wicked among men, and the strength to destroy what has no right to exist."

You raise the second prayer strip and burn it as well; when it is done you mix up the ashes with one finger, then raise it to your forehead, drawing two lines from your hair down to your nose. When you are done, the incense has finished burning; you sit with your hands on your knees, waiting for the smoke to disperse, hoping for an answer.

Something very light falls from the ceiling, and you look to the corner of the room where it lands. At first you see nothing, your eyes blinded by the glare of the embers, but as you squint you can make out furious motion on the ground.

A millipede and a centipede, locked in a fight to the death.
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Omicron said:
You reach into your habit and pull out a piece of cloth, opening it to reveal the tiny body within, which you upturn over the campfire.

The dead millipede falls into the ash, buried instantly.

"There is a corruption in this place," you whisper. "The way of peace is for me to leave now. To get what I want most, I will have to follow the path of violence."
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I just want to say I really like that Golden Road has been in all of two updates but it's already thoroughly established how religious she is, how it works in the day to day of her life, and the importance it has. A lot of Quests, nevermind Exalted Quests don't really delve into it or deal with this and there's a definite tendency to take the most cynical reading of the source material at face value. And it's genuinely really intriguing to see it here, being given a like- a spotlight and some charity.

Also the miniscale avatar of the ritually unclean and war-against-the-corrupt winning out and killing the miniscale avatar of restraint and wisdom and righteousness! Ominous!

Omicron said:
Your lip curls up in distaste, and you say nothing. If he recognizes your offense, he makes no sign of it, instead smiling and walking past you - and then pausing, a hand on your shoulder, not looking directly at you.

"Do not go to the shrine before you have met my master," he whispers. "That would end badly for all of us."
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God I hope Shay is a recurring thing. He's a cold-eyed, aloof, faux-friendly asshole with a vicious streak in the best Lee Van Cleef style. I love the fact that you could swap this scene with, like, the hallway outside Marrow's room in the small, dusty town saloon, give the guy spurs and have him putting on his cowboy hat and it'd pretty much strike the same chords. And I love the fact that Marrow, the huge chatty, flirty softboi-in-the-body-of-a-six-foot-plus-apex-predator who probably cries when he gets angry and then cries harder because now he looks like an emotional fuck is hooking up with a guy who's equal parts "arrogant anime rival" and "barely legitimate outlaw to our somewhat disgraced law(wo)man".

It's got some great energy to it is what I'm trying to say. I hope it keeps going. I wanna see these three, like, solve wuxia crimes, commit wuxia crimes grudgingly, and make problems indescribably worse in the course of trying to solve them. In between philosophical arguments, duels, and cowboy lawyering in every sense of the word.

[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law
-[X] Horseback Judge Style: You have been trained to track down and capture criminals over long distances. You know how to follow a trail and push your mount past its limits to catch up with the swiftest criminals. While the Centipede School is not well-suited to mounted combat, you have adapted its fighting-chain techniques to run down and grapple wrong-doers from range, reeling them in for judgement.
-[X] Mist-Dispersing Sunlight Style: People are elusive and deceitful. You work best with places and items. Footsteps in the mud, old blood on a knife, hidden compartments, displaced bodies; all these things stand out to you, and as you catalogue them you retrace the past of your surroundings in your mind, until the truth stands before you clear as a painting.
-[X] Hero-comes-at-Sunrise Style: As a magistrate you were a wanderer, and could not rely on extensive resources. Thus you have learned to ingratiate yourself to trustworthy locals wherever you went. You are quick to make yourself a fixture of any given place, identifying reliable organizations and people and convincing them to help you, and you can easily familiarize yourself with obscure or unknown customs to leverage them to your advantage.

Animal companions don't really do it for me here tbh, definitely not to the degree of "You can have a magistrate on horseback (or something even cooler) literally lassoing people with a semi-prehensile chain whip/stabbing people with a semi-prehensile kung fu chain spear and doing rad horse-acrobatics and acrobatic fighting with either". So much about this screams cowboy/samurai bullshit and you need a mount to complete that aesthetic. It's downright criminal, almost to turn it down.

And once we get it we just need the hat honestly.

For Mist-Dispersing Sunlight Style I like this mostly for what it says about Golden Road and her kinda cop mentality. People are duplicitous. People are weird and naive and sentimental. People don't know what they don't know. People lie- but cold, hard evidence? That'll never lie to you (except when it totally does because you're reading what you want to see into it because you think people are kind of bastards barring a few scaly exceptions just the one really and it's named Marrow). It's got that jaded aspect that I really like, worn down and worn out "I have seen some profoundly messed up shit over my career" energy. And I like how it just sets up a lot of hooks for Golden Road to be surprised by people, to have some of that tarnish and grime on her glasses wiped away and cleaned up. A magistrate with artifact limbs and a murder chain-blade that she can whip around in a way that's nakedly bullshit out here solving kung fu crimes while channeling Montoya from Birds of Prey is like-

I am so here for that. Disdaining the world and focusing on people's inner mental landscape engrosses me less here. I like that kinda...dismissive note, coupled with that materialism.
 
[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law
-[X] Horseback Judge Style: You have been trained to track down and capture criminals over long distances. You know how to follow a trail and push your mount past its limits to catch up with the swiftest criminals. While the Centipede School is not well-suited to mounted combat, you have adapted its fighting-chain techniques to run down and grapple wrong-doers from range, reeling them in for judgement.
-[X] Mist-Dispersing Sunlight Style: People are elusive and deceitful. You work best with places and items. Footsteps in the mud, old blood on a knife, hidden compartments, displaced bodies; all these things stand out to you, and as you catalogue them you retrace the past of your surroundings in your mind, until the truth stands before you clear as a painting.
-[X] Hero-comes-at-Sunrise Style: As a magistrate you were a wanderer, and could not rely on extensive resources. Thus you have learned to ingratiate yourself to trustworthy locals wherever you went. You are quick to make yourself a fixture of any given place, identifying reliable organizations and people and convincing them to help you, and you can easily familiarize yourself with obscure or unknown customs to leverage them to your advantage.
 
TenfoldShields said:
[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law
-[X] Horseback Judge Style: You have been trained to track down and capture criminals over long distances. You know how to follow a trail and push your mount past its limits to catch up with the swiftest criminals. While the Centipede School is not well-suited to mounted combat, you have adapted its fighting-chain techniques to run down and grapple wrong-doers from range, reeling them in for judgement.
-[X] Mist-Dispersing Sunlight Style: People are elusive and deceitful. You work best with places and items. Footsteps in the mud, old blood on a knife, hidden compartments, displaced bodies; all these things stand out to you, and as you catalogue them you retrace the past of your surroundings in your mind, until the truth stands before you clear as a painting.
-[X] Hero-comes-at-Sunrise Style: As a magistrate you were a wanderer, and could not rely on extensive resources. Thus you have learned to ingratiate yourself to trustworthy locals wherever you went. You are quick to make yourself a fixture of any given place, identifying reliable organizations and people and convincing them to help you, and you can easily familiarize yourself with obscure or unknown customs to leverage them to your advantage.

Animal companions don't really do it for me here tbh, definitely not to the degree of "You can have a magistrate on horseback (or something even cooler) literally lassoing people with a semi-prehensile chain whip/stabbing people with a semi-prehensile kung fu chain spear and doing rad horse-acrobatics and acrobatic fighting with either". So much about this screams cowboy/samurai bullshit and you need a mount to complete that aesthetic. It's downright criminal, almost to turn it down.

And once we get it we just need the hat honestly.

For Mist-Dispersing Sunlight Style I like this mostly for what it says about Golden Road and her kinda cop mentality. People are duplicitous. People are weird and naive and sentimental. People don't know what they don't know. People lie- but cold, hard evidence? That'll never lie to you (except when it totally does because you're reading what you want to see into it because you think people are kind of bastards barring a few scaly exceptions just the one really and it's named Marrow). It's got that jaded aspect that I really like, worn down and worn out "I have seen some profoundly messed up shit over my career" energy. And I like how it just sets up a lot of hooks for Golden Road to be surprised by people, to have some of that tarnish and grime on her glasses wiped away and cleaned up. A magistrate with artifact limbs and a murder chain-blade that she can whip around in a way that's nakedly bullshit out here solving kung fu crimes while channeling Montoya from Birds of Prey is like-

I am so here for that. Disdaining the world and focusing on people's inner mental landscape engrosses me less here. I like that kinda...dismissive note, coupled with that materialism.
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YOU! Bugger.

[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law
 
Omicron said:
Okay, someone has to explain to me what "Lantern Festival" is a reference to, idgi.
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Apologies, I get playful with my use of language sometimes...
The idea was, as the skills I picked being about making the best of good individuals, human or beast, a gathering together of the virtuous, akin to the gathering of lights to ward away the darkness...
That's what I was thinking. Admittedly I'm probably doing ALOT of cultural stripping here to get the meaning I want, I think? And that might be what's throwing you for a loop.
 
[X] Plan Long Arm of The Law
-[X] Horseback Judge Style: You have been trained to track down and capture criminals over long distances. You know how to follow a trail and push your mount past its limits to catch up with the swiftest criminals. While the Centipede School is not well-suited to mounted combat, you have adapted its fighting-chain techniques to run down and grapple wrong-doers from range, reeling them in for judgement.
-[X] Mist-Dispersing Sunlight Style: People are elusive and deceitful. You work best with places and items. Footsteps in the mud, old blood on a knife, hidden compartments, displaced bodies; all these things stand out to you, and as you catalogue them you retrace the past of your surroundings in your mind, until the truth stands before you clear as a painting.
-[X] Hero-comes-at-Sunrise Style: As a magistrate you were a wanderer, and could not rely on extensive resources. Thus you have learned to ingratiate yourself to trustworthy locals wherever you went. You are quick to make yourself a fixture of any given place, identifying reliable organizations and people and convincing them to help you, and you can easily familiarize yourself with obscure or unknown customs to leverage them to your advantage.

 
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