DwD Studios
Cut Scene from my BareBones Wuxia! game
Fri, 09/09/2016 - 11:18am | 
jasales
One of the characters in my Barebones Wuxia! game insulted a very powerful minister (eunuch). The character's family was murdered a while back. The minister has sent his man to find out just who the character is. He knows that he works as a constable under the local magistrate, Ji Tong.
....
A dark figure, barely discernible against the black of night lands whisper quiet from a leap that took it over the tribunal wall and into the back courtyard. The loose clothing hides the strong physique of a very accomplished swordsman. A round bamboo hat with veil conceals his features. The sword strapped across his back punctuates his smooth outline.
He dashes across the paved stones, not making a sound. Hearing the footsteps and seeing the approaching glow of a silk lantern, he draws two knives and presses himself against the wall of a building right below the pale glow coming from a papered window. The constables pass not three feet from him. They do not notice him as they continue their patrol. He re-sheaths his knives.
Wetting a finger, he gently rubs the paper in one of the window squares until a small hole forms. Taking a quick peak, he memorizes the contents of the room.
From his sleeve, he draws two small silver needles. He flicks first one wrist, then a second later the other, both towards the paper window. He then flips the window up and leaps in. One of the needles snuffs out the candle, the other ends it’s quick journey behind the ear of the on-duty constable. The very expensive poison instantly robs him of consciousness. He doesn’t have time to notice that the room is already dark. As he falls the figure in black catches him and lowers the constable to the floor then pulls out the needle.
From his waistband, he brings forth a tiny bottle. He pulls the silk plug from the top and dabs the end of the bottle onto a finger. He places the finger drop on each eye and waits a few moments until the dark of night peals back as if the candle were once again lit. Looking around the room, he darts over to a cabinet. Quickly rifling through the various ledgers he finds what he is looking for. He opens the salary schedule and reads down the list of constables until he reaches the list of Ji Tong’s elite. He finds the name he is looking for but, no, it only shows a nickname. He lifts his chin, thinking for a moment. The room dims a little, the power of the drops in his eyes beginning to fade.
He opens one cabinet, then another. Finally he crouches down and opens a third and begins examining the tags on the scrolls he finds there. He quickly figures out the method of their arrangement and then selects the one he needs. He opens the hiring document and by the time he finds what he is looking for the room dims yet again. He can barely make out the name written there, “Yun Hao!” His eyes widen! For the first time in many months his heart pounds, his failure beginning to cloud his thoughts. The room dims yet again. He has only moments before the dark of night returns. He focusses on the task at hand.
He puts the scroll back and closes the cabinet. He quickly steps over to the guard and strikes him three times with his fingers at specific accupoint locations. He removes a second small bottle from his waist band, carefully unstoppers it and waves it beneath the nose of the unconscious guard. The guard inhales the strange fumes and his eyes snap open. He is wide-awake but unable to move.
The dark dressed man moves his hands in an intricate pattern and a pale glow appears briefly around his fingers before disappearing. The room becomes dark again. Starlight from outside illuminates the white squares of the paper window.
“You have had a tiring day”, the man in black says in the darkness. “You will close your eyes for just a little while. There are many guards patrolling. It is quite safe. You will sleep until near dawn then wake up, feeling refreshed. You will feel ashamed at having slept while on duty and will speak to no one of it. You will remember nothing else of this night.”
He then pricks the guard with the same poisoned needle and strikes him once more with his fingers to disable the accupoint strikes. As he stands up in the dark room, without bothering to look, he reaches across to a shelf and plucks out the needle that had flown through the paper of the window, snuffed out the candle and then lodged in the shelf. He crosses the room, again lifts the window and glances outside. With no sign of patrols he exits the room and quietly lowers the window again.
As he quickly makes his way across the courtyard and leaps up over the wall, he wonders about his next path. Should he simply report the name he found and thus expose his failure to destroy an entire clan? Or should he clean up his mess and then report his failure? As he quietly lands on the street flagstones, he decides it is best to hide nothing. He will send a carrier pigeon to his master in the morning with the name he found. In the meantime he will figure out how best to kill Yun Hao!
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BareBones Fantasy RPG is not associated with Skaldcrow Games' Bare Bones Multiverse, despite similar names. Check out Glenn's products by clicking here.
Starting his day early, Magistrate Ji Tong arrives at his office. A bleary-eyed guard greats him, excuses himself and quickly leaves. This is a normal occurrence. A guard is posted in the office any time the magistrate is not there. What is not normal is the “just woke from sleep” look.
Ji Tong sits down at his desk and reaches in a drawer to replace the night candle. After retrieving the candle to exchange for the stub in the holder he stops. For the first time in two and half years on this morning, the candle is hardly a stub. It is in fact barely used.
Ji Tong’s face flushes with anger. The candle is lit every night so that shadows will play on the paper windows if someone were moving around in the office. That way the guards patrolling outside will notice. How did they not notice the candle was out? So, the bleary-eyed guard blew out the candle and slept the night through? Ji Tong vows he would have the man flogged for such a dereliction of duty and the guards on patrol would need to be punished also.
He recalls the guard’s name and shouts for him to enter. The guard, face flushed red with guilt, quickly enters the room. Seeing his superior’s angry expression, he kneels and bows before Ji Tong. As Ji Tong stands up he notices two things. First, there is a white mark on a dark lacquered shelf behind where the guard was kneeling. He steps over to the shelf and can clearly see it is a sliver of wood, lifted as though something had been pulled out. Yes, in fact, there is a small hole. Ji Tong touches the tiny hole, then smells his finger identifying the poison as sweet sting. Sweet sting is a powerful poison that causes instant unconsciousness.
The second thing he notices is that some of the ledgers on another shelf are not exactly where he had left them yesterday. He steps over to them and selects one that is not where it should be. He notices a small stain on the cover. He sniffs it and is startled by the odd oil smell. He sets the ledger down on his desk. He’ll have an alchemist examine it later. He sees that it is his most recent hiring book. He opens it and finds another stain next to the name of one of his elite constables. He recalls details of this hire and why the man who went by the nickname of “Thinks Three Times” needed to remain anonymous.
With the guard still kneeling silently he crouches down and opens the small cabinet that has the background scrolls and signed admission documents. Sure enough, Yun Hao’s scroll is on the top, not at all where it should be. It too has the tell-tale oil marks on the back of the scroll.
As Ji Tong rises he notices several more oddities. He sees a round hole in the paper window. No, make that one round hole about the size of a finger and two tiny pinprick holes. He steps to the shelf where something had been removed and looks back at the window. On a line from the shelf splinter to one of the pinprick holes in the window is the candle wick! The larger hole would have been used to peer into the room. But that didn’t explain the second tiny hole in the paper window.
Looking down at the guard, Ji Tong is about to address him when he sees a red welt behind the guard’s ear. He asks the guard if he noticed anything unusual last night. The guard replies too quickly, with too much alarm that nothing at all occurred. Ji Tong slams his hand down on his desk making the guard jump. “If you ever lie to me again, I’ll have you caned, fired and your pension revoked. Now, I ask again, did something at all out of the ordinary happen last night?” Curiously, the guard repeats his lie.
Ji Tong commands the guard to stand up. He examines the welt behind his ear and spots the needle mark. He looks at his tired face and asks him how he is feeling to which the guard replies, almost as if it were forced out of him that he feels refreshed. He uses the word refreshed several times in describing how he feels.
Ji Tong calls in two more guards. He asks the night watch guard to hand them his constable’s token and sword, which he shamefully does. Ji Tong grabs a writing brush and writes a quick note to Master Koon of the Immortal Sky Swords Sect. He puts the letter in a red envelope and hands it to one of the two new guards. He tells them to take the night watch guard to Master Koon. He places a hand on the shoulder of the terrified night watch guard and tells the frightened man that everything be ok. That he is to submit to Master Koon to make sure no evil magics have been placed on him and that pending the outcome of Master Koon’s examination he will be allowed to return to duty.
As the guards leave he orders an attendant to summon a respectable alchemist which the Tribunal has on retainer. Once that is done he takes a very small piece of paper and writes a short note on it. He then leaves his office and crosses the courtyard and asks the pigeoneer for a messenger bird. He rolls the small note and places it in the pigeon’s carrier case and releases it into the air.
Magistrate Ji Tong finally goes back to his office. He pours himself a cup of hot tea which one of the servants has prepared. He tells the attendant to find all the guards that were on duty last night and have them assembled in the audience hall. Frowning at his desk he replaces the barely burnt candle with a fresh one and begins looking at the day’s work.
Stats are based on draft document subject to change.
Magistrate Ji Tong Rank 5 NPC Ally
STR 35
DEX 40
LOG 70
WIL 65
Init 2
Mov 8
Chi 2
Detective (P) L6 115%
Leader L2 53%
Scholar (S) L3 75%
Scout L0 35%
Thief L0 20%
Warrior L0 13%M/20%R
Combat
Unarmed 18% 1D/2 Damage (Crits: Disarm, Dazed, Prone or Wallop)
Gear: personal seal and token of authority (Magistrate of Green Hills District), Magistrate robes and hat.
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Steely-Eyed Man Rank 4 PC Adversary
STR 60
DEX 70
LOG 55
WIL 60
Init 2
Mov 9 (Leap 25 spaces)
Chi 2
Detective 28%
Scout 28%
Sorcerer (S) L3 70%
Thief L4 75%
Warrior (P) of the Flying Daggers Style L5 100%M/105%
Warrior (P) of the Shower of Flowers Style L3 80%/85%
Spells: Charm, Dominion, Hinder
Kung Fu
Flying Daggers (Internal)
Techniques Learned: Accupoint Strike, Blind Fighing, Deadly Attack, Stun Attack
Shower of Flowers (Internal)
Techniques Learned: One Against All, Power Defense, Unblockable Attack
Combat
Unarmed 100% 2D+4 Damage (Crits: Disarm, Dazed, Prone or Wallop)
Knives (melee) 100% 2D+3 Damage (Crits: Disarm)
Knives (thrown) 105% 2D+5 Damage (Crits: Disarm), R10
Jian/Longsword 100% 2D+5 Damage (Crits: Break and Disarm)
Needles (thrown) 105% 2D+5 Damage (Crits: Disarm), R10, Sweet Sting Poison (Resist STR-20, Unconscious 1 hour)
Gear: 4 knives, jian/longsword, 5 needles (poisoned with Sweet Sting) Potion of Illumination, dark suit, veiled hat, token of authority (High Minster of the office of Justice).