The End, For Now
Session 7 was very short so I combined the reports for both sessions again.
The Final Trial
Gushou faced off against the temple guardian who calls himself the Gentle Master. This was an unarmed fight and Gushou took off his Shenshou so it would not help in the fight, even if it was just sitting on his arm.
His Brawling and Acrobatics skills against the Gentle Masters mastery of 4 styles (Chin Na, Hsing I Chuan, Pa Ka Chuan, and T'ia Chi Chuan) but all he has to do is tag him three times before being tagged to win. Easy right? Oh, and the duel is among scattered rocks above a waterfall and falling in counts as a loss.
Gentle Master gets in the first hit and its not so gentle, though he pulled his punch.
Both have absurdly high Active Defense scores, though Gushou is relying on Acrobatic Dodge to help him out. After a few rounds of back and forth Gushou uses his saved Impulse Points to score a hit and his Wildcard points to assist his Acrobatic Dodges.
The player (me) forgot his style included Judo so he could have used wildcard points to hit with a sweep and maybe even used Rapid Strike at -3 to try a Throw,
Realizing it was just down to luck with who crit first Gushou used his saved points to improve his success to a crit and used Extra Effort for Flurry of Blows (So Brawling made two strikes at -3 skill or 15 or less). Without his Shenshou his fatigue was sharply limited though so this was an iffy strategy. In fact I miscounted and burned HP with rolls to stay conscious, a problem I would not have had if I remembered he had Judo as part of his wildcard style.
Gushou did manage to get in his three hits before the Master got in his second, but he was holding back as Masters sometimes do when just testing students. Also this cost him some points he was saving for the big fight with the head villain.
After the victory, everyone got complimented for their test, except Gushou who was told he needed serious training. But, he passed and thats what counted!
Training Montage!
After this the group was promised the sought after compass and they were offered personal training by the Gentle Master. This used the rules from GURPS Martial Arts, p. 147 The Training Sequence and allowed us to buy up our skills, specifically something he had or was part of our existing training (campaign limit of +1 level per training break or new skills up to base attribute level) and Gushou opted to learn Pa Ka Chuan as a new Wildcard style (trading in points he already had in Brawling, Meditation, and Wrestling) with a wildcard version of the Style Adaptation perk for Hsing I Chuan. That rounded out his unarmed combat abilities nicely, gave access to a couple of new Cinematic Skills and he still had enough points to increase his primary style and Flying Leap by +1 each.
Follow the Compass
At the end of the week our heroes were introduced to a young boy who we were told was the compass we were seeking. Basically this kid had the special ability to just find things and could lead us to whatever we wanted. After much debate we opted to chase the Dark Stranger in hopes of catching him before he reached his next target.
That ended session 7.
The Ambush!
We found the Dark Stranger and set up an ambush along the road for him. Gushou, having the best stealth went ahead in hopes he would pas him before rounding the bend and the rest of the group. The idea was to cut off his escape and the rear group split into two parts, one on each side of the road.
As he passed Gushou and just before rounded the bend in the road Gushou struck him, though did not quite catch him by surprise. Gushou struck 5 times with his mighty magic chain whip (Using Rapid Strike and Flurry of Blows for 5 FP) but was dodged several so got in three hits. They hurt but seemed largely absorbed by his armor.
Shen Feng ran up using Heroic Charge and struck twice with Power Blow for massive damage,enough to require HT checks! Xhiu approached but could not reach him in time and Ann Rang also needed to close the distance to reach the target with his stars.
Had the latter two possessed the Stealth skill we might have had them closer but surprise was key here. For some reason our healer/artist and our burly man mountain never learned the skill.
The Dark Stranger summoned his jumping vampire minions and cast a large area spell that knocked Shen Feng unconscious. Everyone else was out of range.
The jumping vampires quickly raced forward, 3 on the unconscious Shen Feng (who has a LOT of Chi)and 1 for everyone else. Gushou dodged his attacker and opted to attack the Dark Sorcerer again but critically failed and lost his turn (Jerk used his Villainous points), An Rang and Xhui were caught up with their vampires. Xhui decapitated his and moved to do the same to the one on An Rang.
Gushou again went ll out on the Dark Sorcerer and pumped in some lightning this time.
The Sorcerer moved closer to Xhui and brought his glowing circle with him but with the aid of his protective tailsman he resisted and tried to cut off the targets head. Unfortunately the blade turned in his hand and he hit with the flat of the blade instead. Still did a lot of damage though. An Rang sunk a bunch of shuriken in him, though he dodged several. The next round Gushou took out a vampire and tried to hit the sorcerer but had exhausted most of his energy and did little damage.
Xhui got in another solid hit and then An Rang finished him off with a barrage of Shuriken (like a dozen). That dropped the spell and Shen Feng woke up and the remaining 4? vampires fell unconscious and were quickly dispatched.
Xhui beheaded the sorcerer but we noticed the head inching towards the body so he staked it. Then when the body tried to craw to the head we shattered its limbs, finally deciding to cut it up into little pieces and bury them in separate boxes all over the countryside. Including at various temples.
Aftermath
This was our last session, the GM opted to restart us as kids with new characters. I opted to try another spirit based character as its something in the setting but so far I am 0 for 2 in the game lasting long enough for the character to grow in and explore that role. Since a shaman fits well with the Face archetype and that appears to be my role in the group its time to try and break that streak.
I had fun with Gushou and learned what I wanted about the Kusari in GURPS. Two of the other players have decided on their characters, Calvin wants to try to be an archer and Christian is opting for a "guy with big weapon" which worked out rather well for him in this series.
We wont be playing next week, but hopefully have everything ready the week after that.
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