It was cloudy Sunday, with a chance for light rain, but was otherwise perfect for an outdoor workout. I'd tidied my place up, and had even ran out in the early morning to get a few rugs to make it look a bit more…adult. Before I'd embodied the character, James had been a 21-year-old male, and had decorated accordingly, which is to say, not at all. But for a few movie posters, unframed of course, the walls were bare. At least there had been a theme with the movies, 70's kung fu, and not just 'the posters they sell outside college dorms on moving day'.
Annie would be here soon. I was making a snack tray of deviled eggs, one of the many prepared options. In total there would be around 1600 calories for each of us available in small bites. There was no sign of the rat so far. With the exception of the past two days, normally the demon only visited once every ten days or so. He must have been offended that I'd soured his binge on Friday. I'd taken down the dog-lock on the fridge. A part of me had wanted to chain the thing closed, but, really, what would that do to a rat with Master feats? No, if he came again today, I was wandering around Harbor Hill until I found the meanest goddamn street cat I could and adopting it.
The deviled eggs would be good snacks for between workouts, high in energy, but light enough that we wouldn't have to break to let our stomachs settle. That was the real reason athletes ate so many meals, for the record, not because it was somehow more 'metabolically efficient'. Why would I want a more efficient metabolism? I worked out twelve times a week. I already had to eat 3000 calories a day to keep from wasting away.
Maybe. I couldn't remember what the daily diet rules were. I do remember them being annoyingly thorough, ostensibly to allow for PCs to enjoy roleplaying Martial Arts Cooks and to make monster hunting more rewarding.
I was excited to Train Hard. I'd really liked the mechanic when I'd read it. So often RPGs didn't put into writing how the vast majority of people became stronger, through daily dedication and hard work, but Love Fight (I'd forgotten the game's actual name) had a way to get XP for both Training and Studying. They were slow, and there was the risk of temporary Attribute damage if you Whiffed, but they were a great downtime filler activity for players who didn't want to be bothered with coming up with projects.
Ordinarily, the Success Threshold to gain XP from Training Hard would be your highest Attribute score, 6 in my case, on an Endurance + Willpower check for 1 XP. If you failed with at least 1 Success, nothing bad would happen, and the Threshold for next time would be lowered by 1. If you failed again, it would lower again, until you eventually hit it. Any successes over the Threshold would gain you additional XP, and there were plenty of feats to modify the process. Having at least one Training Partner always lowered the Threshold by 1.
Statistically speaking, it would be remarkable if I earned 2 XP today from Training. However, I was not only making XP from Training this fine Sunday. Oh no, today I'd be raking in that sweet, sweet smut XP.
I had an idea, something a little different, but I was hoping the audience would like it. Annie was clearly crushing, and as a confident, young modern woman she probably had a plan herself to put the moves on me. I really wanted to see what she'd come up with. So today I would not be playing the role of the seducer as I had with Marianne. No, today, James Li was playing the role of: Himbo. I would be hot, fuckable, and oblivious.
If when we were relaxing post-workout and it still didn't look like Annie was going to make the push, I would take a more active approach. But ideally, I could get her so horned up over the course of the day that she would act on it.
Seeing my phone light up, I put the deviled eggs into the refrigerator. Annie had sent, 'Come outside.' She must have been lost.
*Beep* *Beep*
An old, faded green mini-van honked its horn at me as I stepped outside. Annie leaned her head out of the window and shouted, "Check it out! She's a beauty, ain't she?"
"Holy shit. You own a car?"
"As of Friday! One sec." She popped her head back in and manually cranked the window up. I didn't know you could still find manual windows on the road.
She was beaming when she stepped out and held her arms wide, like she was presenting a prize on a gameshow. "Amazing, right? My neighbor sold her for 300 bucks. Couldn't afford to get her to pass inspection. All she needed was a new oxygen sensor, her fuel injector cleaned, and a new valve for the EGR."
I raised my eyebrows. "You know a lot about cars."
"I ought to, I have an automotive engineering degree."
My eyes boggled. "You're an engineer?"
"No, I'm a waitress with an engineering degree. Not a lot of firms are okay with you taking a week off every month to go do stunt work." She sighed and patted the hood of the van. "Basically the same reason I did automotive instead of nuclear. Penn State has a really good nuclear energy program, but you can't take any of the books outside of their secure section in the library, so I wouldn't have been able to pursue the degree and be a cheerleader at the same time. Still, at least automotive gave me the knowhow to fix up this old girl. She should drive for another 15 thousand miles, no problem."
"Nice, and she looks shit enough that no one's going to steal it for parts."
"Exactly!"
"Still," I said, "might as well make sure."
I knocked on the door to Papes' Trap. His doorman and bouncer answered, Yoke, an enormous man that I had lifted with in the past. He poked his head out, making sure to keep as little of the house behind him visible.
"Sup, Jay."
"Hey, Yoke." I held out a ten dollar bill. "Mind keeping an eye out for my friend's car?"
He turned down the money. "Don't sweat it. You know we homies. I'll keep an eye out."
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it. We'll be working out if you want to join us."
He looked at Annie and then back to me, smirking. In a lower voice, he said, "Think she want to work you out, brother. I be seein' you." He winked before ducking back inside.
"That was nice of him," said Annie.
"They're good neighbors. Come on, let me show you my apartment."
Once we were inside, Annie threw down her duffel bag and took off her Penn State hoodie, revealing that she had come today in blue leggings and a matching gymnast's show leotard, complete with a window for cleavage.
"What?" she shrugged at my stunned look. "It's comfortable."
I showed her around. There wasn't much to see, the extra bedroom was currently empty since I didn't own enough furniture to equip it, nor enough things to use it as a storage room.
"Wow. You own a lot of kung fu movies," she said, looking at my DVD collection.
I rubbed the back of my head. "I know, kind of the only genre in there, huh? If it makes it less lame, I really did use those to develop my style."
"It's not lame. I think it's cool." Annie ran a finger across the spines. "Hey, you've got all the May Wong movies!"
"Of course, she's a legend. Also the first pair of tits I remember seeing on screen. That slave auction fight? God damn."
"Oh yeah, Remember the Green Lotus. God, she's a stunner in a that. I met her, you know? She came to speak at a gymnastics competition I was at in middle school and presented the awards. When she put the medal on me, she said something like, 'You've got talent, girl.' It's a big reason I pursued stunt acting." She chuckled. "God, that sounds so dumb when I put it that way."
She leaned closer to the shelf and picked up a German action flick from the mid-90's. "Wait, is this a young Kas?! I thought the name sounded familiar."
"Ha! Yeah, he was the villain's silent bodyguard in it. I think half the reason he picked me to mentor was that I recognized him from it the first time we met."
"We should totally watch it after we work out! Speaking of," she clapped her hands together and bowed, "What's the plan, Shifu?"
"That's up to you. I was planning on turning this into an all day, total body obliteration, but that still gives us plenty of time for skill work while we recover. I haven't had a workout partner since my sister went back to college, but we usually did kung fu drills."
"You have sister? What's her name?"
"Crystal." I held a hand up at her expression. "I know, James and Crystal. Chinese-American names get wacky like that."
She laughed. "Hey, my name's Annie Shine. People ask me if it's real all the time."
"Annie Shine is a great name. Though I did think you picked it for the stage the first time you told me. Up until right this moment, actually. Anyway, I'm cleared to teach Eagle Style again, so I'd be happy to run you through the partner drills."
"Wait." She made a time out sign. "If I'm learning from James Li, I'd better be learning his style."
I quirked my head. "Huh. I didn't think of that. I don't really have any drills. Most people call my style completely insane and a ridiculous waste of time. Never thought I'd take a student…"
"Are you kidding? You're literally making a stunt acting martial art. Fuck Taekwondo and Karate, if I'm learning how to fight, I might as well be training for my passion at the same time!"
"That is basically how I justified creating Black City Style in reverse. I was more of, 'I'm going to be training how to do stunts, I might as well figure out a way to use it in a fight.' But, again, I really can't stress enough that I am a crazy person, doing a crazy thing. It could take you years to where any of my moves would be useful in a fight, and up until that point they will be less than useless, as in, you will get owned if you try this against someone who knows what they're doing."
"Correction," she said confidently, "it would take a normal person years, but I am already a talented stunt performer, about as good as you, if you don't mind me saying. Well, a lot less now that you can do my jump shtick."
"Don't sell yourself short. I've seen your stuff online. We're definitely on the same level."
"Exactly!" she exclaimed. "So all I would need is better fundamentals in martial arts to start really learning Black City. And for what it's worth, I have done weekly taekwondo for a few years now."
I stroked my chin. "Teaching is a great way to learn. It would force me to come up with drills, at the very least, forms eventually."
"How do you normally train it?"
"Uh, I usually pick a fight from a movie and then do the moves over and over until I can figure out how to actually use them to deliver force. Also I do training from different kung fu movies, like the tea cup scene from Drunken Master. And then I'll do things that seem like they'd be in kung fu movies. Like, I tied a bunch of weights to ropes and hung them from the joists upstairs. Then I'll get them swinging and force myself to dodge while balancing on my hands." I frowned, remembering the last few sessions. "Try to dodge. I'll force myself to try to dodge."
Thinking about it now, I could see why Marianne had told her kids not to talk to me.
Annie bounced on her heels, her smile growing wide. "So we could train by choreographing our own fight scenes?"
"Oh yeah, that's a great idea for partner drills."
"Great! I was going to ask you to do that anyway for my JinJin account! James, you have to teach me. It's meant to be. Oh, we could do long form stuff for your MeTV page where you break down how to turn a show move into something that could knock a guy's head off. I can do the editing!"
"Hang on, hang on. We're ignoring the biggest reason to not learn from me. What do you know about the Underworld?"
"Uh…there's a club called that in South Shore?"
"Really? That's a red flag." I made a note to look into that. "The Underworld is one term for what used to be more commonly known as the Martial World, though modern day weaponry has really complicated those lines. Basically, there's a level of power or criminality that puts you into an invisible class of people who are all assumed to be okay with living and dying by the sword. It's why I don't look down on the guys next door. We're not all that different."
Annie frowned. "The guys next door?"
I indicated the directions with my head. "Papes is a pimp and a counterfeiter. He runs a brothel with most of his trap house and has a lounge in the basement you can rent out. Blue," I nodded towards the other house, "I don't know much about. But his trap is like a black market mini mall. I've been told there's a barber, a gambling den, and even an internet café with hyper secure rigs. And of course, a 'pharmacist'."
"Not every martial artist is in the Underworld," I continued. "It really depends on both their ability and their desire to improve. By the numbers, most are not. But what's important here, is that I am. I already was when I decided to focus on pursuing Strength, but I basically announced it to the world when I got into that fight in my mom's school."
Annie was skeptical. "You defended yourself from some maniac gang member and now you're in the same category as pimps and drug dealers? That doesn't sound fair."
"You're right to be upset, but it's the pimps and drug dealers you should feel bad for getting lumped in with people like me and that Tiger. Most pimps and drug dealers are a lot less willingly to use lethal force than us. I could have called the police on Kuze, or pushed him outside and locked the doors, but the moment he and I made eye contact, those options ceased to exist. Me and Kuze are both the types of guys willing to die in a fight for the sole sake of getting stronger. Do you understand?"
"I guess? You're saying I'll be in the Underworld if I become you're student."
"Definitely. If I had twenty or more students or you were already my student before I became an enemy of the Tigers, it would be one thing. But deciding to become my only student after I have a target on my back? It doesn't matter how good you are at fighting, it'll be interpreted like you've chosen to walk the Martial Path."
"Huh. So it comes down to if I'm willing to make that decision?"
I nodded. "I'm not trying to convince you either way. You're an adult and I'll respect your call. I just want to make it clear what you're signing up for. This isn't something you can dip your toes in."
Annie brightened. "Aww, that's so sweet. I stan a man who can respect a woman's choices. Well, I'm ready for anything, you don't have to worry about me. I mean, I moved to Black City as a single, young woman to try and break into the movie industry. There are plenty of men already willing to treat me like I'm animal to hunt for sport. At least this way I'll be able to fight back."
"There are lots of people who can teach you self-defense that aren't enemies of an international crime syndicate."
She sauntered up to me with a little smile. "I don't want to learn from them." She poked me in the chest. "I want to learn from you."
I crossed my arms. "You know you're going to hate me during this, right? Kung fu conditioning is outrageously brutal."
"I was an athlete, I can handle it."
"You're committing to being my senior most student, you know. I'm a pretty informal guy, but that's a major responsibility."
She stepped back and bowed deeply, this time completely earnest. "I'm ready to dedicate myself to your art, master."
I nodded. "Alright, then."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I believed you. Let's do this together." I put my palm over my fist and gave a short, teacher's bow. "I look forward to taking Black City Kung Fu to the next level with you."
"Eeeeee!" Annie launched herself at me, clinging onto my neck. "Yes! You won't regret this!"
[Hidden Quest Complete]
Take your first student.
Reward: 20 XP, Gain Minor feat: Cultivator of Men
[Ally Quest Complete (Annie Shine)]
Take Annie as your student.
Reward: 10 XP, +2 Leadership, +1 Physics
[Minor Feat]
Cultivator of Men – You have learned to tend to your students the way a gardener tends to a tree, shaping them and guiding their growth for years through your training. In addition to the normal benefits they would gain, when an NPC trains with you in a one-on-one setting, they can gain XP which you may spend on their behalf. At the beginning of a session, roll a Wits + Leadership check, each success will gain your student 1 XP should they complete it. You may do this once per day.
The teaching feats, how could I have forgotten about these? I hadn't been able to tell at the time if they were as busted as they seemed to be. Theoretically, they were way stronger for their tiers than any feat that directly benefited the PCs, but they all took time to build up steam. We hadn't been sure who would be GM'ing the game, so I didn't know if I'd be provided the downtime required to take advantage of them.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the Wits to upgrade Cultivator of Men, which would have let me roll the check a number of times per day equal to my Leadership and use the feat in group settings. Wits was worth upgrading on its own, it governed Initiative, Perception, Investigation, and more checks that could mean life or death in a lot of situations. But did I want to spec into the teaching feat trees? Did I have the room in my build?
Annie was light, hanging from my neck, cheek pressed into mine. I could feel the coiled muscles of her arms and her heartbeat through where her soft breasts met my hard pectorals. She was radiating an infectious happiness and excitement. God, I would have killed to meet a girl like this in my old world.
I'd make room for Annie. I bought my Wits up to 3, and resolved to reinvest the XP I harvested from her back into our relationship.
I was proud of my backyard gym for good reason. I'd spent most of my savings and the vast majority of my excess cash for the last four months, and a lot of my favors with friends on getting it to where it was now. There were: two heavy bags, one for punching and one for kicking; dip bars; a wooden dummy that had showed up in a box outside one day, which I suspected was an anonymous gift from my father; and the aforementioned squat rack.
In the center of the yard was my finest work, a stone-and-brick paved square constructed of entirely free building materials sat surrounded by grass on all sides, a perfect training surface. I'd spent a week wandering around construction sites and offering to get rid of any of the excess they had that wasn't worth keeping around, then lugging it back to Harbor Hill. My sister had helped me layout the disparate sizes and colors of tiles into an actual design – the Chinese character for 'Power', Li, set into a wave-like pattern. We spelled our name differently with the character for 'Plum', but it was still a great touch.
Annie was appropriately impressed.
We started with a medicine ball workout to loosen up our tendons and get our blood flowing. It was strictly light. That was very important; we were about to go into big body compound lifts, and ego was the gains demolisher. Going too hard before or during lifting heavy was how you ended up out of the gym for three months, recovering from surgery. While I may have been mostly immune to injuring myself during Training, my biology being governed by Player Character rules, Annie was not. I didn't want to accidently push her into hurting herself by not being mindful of normal human limits.
The game was right to lower the Success Threshold to Train Hard with a partner present. Our first two hours flew by, the day feeling more like a date than a grueling work out. Annie was a blast to have around, my very own, personal cheerleader egging me on to push myself farther. I crushed my personal records for compound lifts while she hyped me up. It was entirely because my physical Attributes had gone up dramatically since I'd tried, but I was happy to let her think it was from her help.
Once we'd snacked and had a coffee break to recuperate from our deadlifts, I got to roll my first check of the day as I set to giving Annie her first lesson in Black City Kung Fu.
The two Successes from my teaching roll were represented by the flood of information I gained as I walked her through where to put her feet and how to transition between the different neutral stances. My original rough plan was to build her footwork fundamentals up and then move slowly into the flashier stuff. I quickly realized, though, that I was failing to give her enough credit. Annie was a skilled gymnast, dancer, and, most importantly, student. After a brief lesson, she was already self-correcting her mistakes before I could step in. Annie already 'spoke the language' of movement, as it were, and was able to comprehend my instructions and commentary on a level that far outstripped her martial arts experience. She lacked the muscle memory but that was a matter of time, and I was confident that she'd dedicate herself to the basics on her own.
So instead, I let her film me from multiple angles as I performed the basics of the footwork, talking through the kinesthetics at each step, for later use on her own time.
"Should I keep these secret?" she asked after she finished recording.
"Nah. Black City is for the people," I decided in that moment.
Since Annie could mostly teach herself the fundamentals – I'd check in and correct them as needed – we moved to teaching her the first real lesson, hurting people. My contemporaries from traditional schools could dress up martial arts with all the dignity they might have liked, but we were at the end of the day, all fighting.
"At the heart of my style is an iron core of shocking brutality," I said seriously, arms behind my back. "No matter how disadvantaged you might seem, no matter the position your enemy forces you into, in order to call yourself a Black City practitioner you must be capable of extraordinary violence."
"The first thing we must hone, is your Fighting Spirit. Even if you're not fighting to the death, every punch has to seek victory. I want to feel that from you today. Really give it to me, as hard as you got!" I proclaimed. Fist clenched in front of me as I engaged Operation Himbo.
Annie started to chuckle but stopped nervously at my sincerity and nodded quickly. "Right!"
The rules were simple. I'd set a five minute timer, we would stand at the center of the paved square, and then she'd spend the time trying to avoid me from grabbing her and pulling her onto the grass. Annie would be allowed to do anything she wanted to escape me, punch, bite, knee my balls, scratch out my eyes – literally anything to avoid being pulled away. Once the timer ended, we'd take a rest and I would walk her through some technique she could have used to better resist.
"Remember, the grass is death. Imagine I'm pulling you into a van with my five knife wielding friends if it helps."
Annie to her credit, didn't freeze as we began. My phone played the sound of a boxing bell as we started. I darted forward, hand outstretched for her face in a feint. She leaned her body out of the way as she stepped back, but my hand didn't follow. Instead I went low, grabbing her by the ankle and tugging her off balance. Before she could even hit the ground, I had stepped towards the boundary, twisted my core, and tossed her out onto the grass, converting my extra Successes on my grapple into distance thrown.
Blades of grass stuck to her red hair as she sat up, dazed but unharmed.
"Still time on the clock, Shine!"
Annie snapped to and ran back into the center of our 'ring', resetting for another go.
Next, I baited out a knee. I went low, telegraphing the move and leading with my head. Annie snapped her knee up as expected, but she held back from driving it through. The short strike did nothing against my Force Armor. I paused, giving her a half second window to seize on the opening, and seeing none, I swept her legs out from under her with a hard low kick.
I stood over her with my arms crossed. "Okay, I thought this might happen. You're being way too nice."
Annie rubbed the shoulder she had broken her fall with. "Sorry," she said guiltily, picking herself off the ground, "but shouldn't you have, like, pads? Or armor?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but stopped myself. She would have to see in order to believe. "Watch." I walked over to the squat rack and pulled a forty five pound plate off of it. I knelt down.
I looked up at her. "Pain is the body's messenger, but the mind need not listen." I placed my left hand on the ground, and held the plate above it with my right.
"Wai—OH my god!"
I slammed the weight down on my hand, making a bloody mess of the small bones in four of my fingers. Fragments were sticking out through the thin skin and flesh that made up the digits.
"Hold my wrist."
Annie was pale white, her palm clasped over her mouth in horror, but she still followed the order. Shuffling closer, she held my left wrist, torn between staring in shock and looking away.
"Watch carefully. You'll be able to do this one day." I took a Breath, sending pure vitality flowing through my body, focusing it on my ruined hand. The bones crackled as they reset themselves to their correct positions, the flesh neatly sealing itself together.
"Ho-ly shit. Wow." She held my hand between hers, gingerly feeling every inch of it, uncaring of the still wet blood atop the now whole skin. Her breath caught in her chest.
"You'll be able to do this, if you want. Do you? Do you want to learn how to do this? To knit your bones together?"
Annie swallowed. "Y-yes."
"You hesitated."
She looked uncharacteristically unsure of herself. "It's just…can I? I've trained pretty damn hard for the past nine years of my life and never felt anything like Qi inside me."
"I doubt any school in America would let you train in conditions suitable to unlocking your Qi. Did anyone ever die from overtraining at your schools? I knew of a few kids in my school, but never in an actual school controlled sport or class."
You could take temporary Endurance damage up to your Willpower score if you rolled extremely poorly Training Hard. It was unlikely, but if you trained enough people, enough times, someone was bound to die. That was just a fact of seriously training for combat, and the primary reason many considered all higher level martial artists as members of the Martial World, whether or not they engaged in fighting regularly or were actually devoted to the Path.
"I mean, there were accidents, but no one ever dropped dead from overtraining. Is that…really a thing? I'd assumed the stories of martial artists dying in training were from bad injuries in sparring or random heart defects."
"Absolutely. Humans have limits for a reason. If you push far enough past them, you will die." I watched Annie's reaction carefully.
She let out a sigh of relief. "So that means that I never really started developing my Qi then?"
I nodded. "That's right, and you still can. You'll be at an advantage compared to most new students too. But that's only if you're able to do awful, unreasonable things."
Annie put her hands on her hips and gave a cocksure grin. "I already told you, I'm willing to dedicate myself to this."
"Awful, unreasonable things like trying your best to cripple me when I tell you to."
She winced. "Oh, right, right. Sorry." She looked down at my hand still in hers and pressed her thumb against where a bone had been sticking out.
[Hidden Quest Completed]
Inspire within someone a life-changing pursuit of the martial arts through your direct actions.
Reward: 25 XP, +1 Martial Arts, +1 Charisma
Bonus, Inspired your student: 10 XP, +1 Leadership
Bonus, Inspired your Ally: 15 XP, 1 Relationship Token
[Hidden Quest Completed]
Have 6 dice in Charisma.
Reward: Gain Special Feat: Words Which Linger
[Special Feat]
Words Which Linger – The impressions you make are deep and resonate with those you affect. People will more often find themselves thinking back on their interactions with you non-critically. If you inspired positive feelings towards you in someone, then these will grow stronger and more robust even without your added reinforcement. In time, respect may become admiration, and admiration in turn can become reverence. Beware, however, should you set out to inspire fear and hatred, then these too will persist and grow.
Annie nodded seriously. Her blue eyes overflowing with determination and respect.
"I'm ready. I can do this."
I couldn't look at Annie like this and not immediately spend the Experience I gained on improving my ability to foster her growth as a martial artist. First, I spent 25 XP to take Leadership to 5, the prerequisite for the Major tier of Cultivator of Men, and another 25 to upgrade the feat.
[Major Feat]
Cultivator of Men – By your hand, seeds may become a forest before your eyes. In addition to the normal benefits they would gain, when a number of NPCs equal to or lesser than your total number of dice in Wits train under you, they can gain XP which you may spend on their behalf. At the beginning of, or during a training session, roll a Wits + Leadership check, each success will gain your students 1 XP. You may do this a number of times per day equal to your total dice in Leadership.