treave said:
“Of course! I help because I want to do what is right, not because of what people are called. I promised to help you before I knew who you were, and that was because I sensed you are a good guy. Even if you are the Southern Maniac’s disciple, nothing has changed from five minutes ago. I’m pretty sure you’re the sort of guy who’s kind at heart,”
She is just adorable, can we keep her? Hopefully she does not get manipulated into a position where we have to fight her though...
Now tough choices I suppose, I really want to find out what is going on with that Fire Cult at some point and Yunzi would be the perfect in, into the group (The Brazilian Slaughter and Jester won me over and I am trying not to just assume these guys are evil off hand, guess we will see
). Going to the Fire Cult may also encourage Jing to become a more independent minded character as he would be spending more time away from the prince and court politics (well provided the cult does not brainwash him...). Ultimately choice sort of feels like the odd one out but it is very intriguing.
-Positives: We get to find out about the cult, ummm.. Yunzi (if something happens, which it will, we will be there to help her), it ties in nicely with the competition that is coming up, we may be able to learn unusual techniques and the like, maybe the cultists are not evil and could be a strong ally for Shun. And I suppose they may be able to tell us something about our neigong, it might be worth while to have experts from a completely different martial tradition examine our unique neigong and see if they know of anything like it (though I would not necessarily expect anything).
-Negatives: It is the least (overtly) connected choice to our primary mission, both Shun and Mao seem like stronger leads and it allows events in the east to continue to deteriorate without our help (or harm I guess).
Now from a character perspective I think Jing would go with B, if he thinks Shun is in danger then he should head to Wudu and see what he can do. He may be able to act as a go-between, between the Wudu and the government (provided the Wudu did not actually do it). Defusing the situation would definitely help the prince and I imagine the Wudu would be willing to help Shun uncover the conspirators in revenge for being set up.
-Negatives: Wudu's secretive/paranoid worldview (Quilin should be able to vouch for us) may make it difficult to help them, our own bad rep with the government (Shun hopefully still trusts us but the rest of the military won't), our complete lack of knowledge of the situation (I suppose we could make it worse, though this goes for all the options really). If we want a more independent Jing then running back to Shun may undermine that a bit as he falls back into old habits.
-Positives: Well the Wudu may not get wiped out/scattered and may become a potential ally, Shun may be in better shape if we intervene if there is a plot to attack him, Quilin would definitely appreciate the help (if she goes by herself and the government attacks she may die in the fighting), It would give us a chance to make contact with Shun (hopefully discreetly) and get an update on our mission objectives.
The final option strikes me as the safest, we could definitely use practice and rest and investigating Mao could help us gain a better picture of what exactly is going on.
-Positives: We retain access to Emei resources and can train under the watchful eyes of the Abbess, Yu and Cao'er (this is essentially our Rocky montage here I think), we can keep an eye on Chanfeng and Yu (ask them about Mao and the like), obviously we could investigate Mao provided we are careful (don't want to make an enemy of Lingshu or call down a bunch of government attention), we would be continuing the mission Zhang gave us (by preparing for the challenge) while working towards fulfilling Shun's mission as well (by investigating Mao).
-Negatives: Not too many actually; the biggest is that we would not be out in the world actually doing things, Shun, Yunzi and Quilin would just have to look after themselves and they are all capable enough that this would not be a definite death sentence but it almost certainly will not have universally positive outcomes. Odds are something happens to the Fire Cult and Shun and the Wudu come to blows. Though I will admit I don't think Shun is the type to be played a fool, he probably won't just storm in there and start something without trying to figure out what happened, whether of not he has the resources and influence to manage the situation or not will be the question. Hopefully Shun has had time to pick up a few ninjas and can use them as go-betweens and as protection from assassination but I guess we will see if we pick this one or A.
My brain say to go with C since the stronger we are for the main event the better, but out of loyalty to Shun B might be the best course, then of course my curiosity demands A to finally find out what is going on with the Fire Cult...
Ah to hell with it we never pick the cult routes (and it is not like it will win anyway)
A, the Fire Cult is just too interesting to pass up again, barring that we are Shun's field agent we should focus on maximizing our abilities and investigating leads within the pugilist world, Shun has not survived this long by being an idiot (he must know this has trap written all over it) and he has allies at court and people close to him who have the sole responsibility of protecting his ass, hopefully he will manage and can work out something behind the scenes with the Wudu (even if he is required to publicly "destroy them" maybe they can figure something out, if they can't well you can't save everyone...).
Edit: ah enough with conditional votes, Cult or bust