Mission 3: Way of the Intercepting Fist
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Exalted: |
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Chapter 2 |
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The Circle With No Name |
The Job
Client: The owners of a famous Haltan martial arts dojo
Target: Ledaal Subo, a Water-Aspected Terrestrial Exalt
Type: Assassination
Target background: Ledaal Subo was once the poster child for the Immaculate Order. A monk who traveled the Realm, defending the weak and combating injustice wherever he saw it, he was a hero of the people and the order. As the years ground away, however, he found himself increasingly disenchanted by the bureaucracy he was finding, more and more, actually ran the Order. Eventually, he departed, embarking eastward. On his way, he created his own private satire of the Immaculate Philosophy, claiming to be a reincarnation of one of the Immaculate Dragons, performing "miracles", and continuing to route out evil wherever he thought it festered. Though generally praised by the people he helped, Subo knew it was all a joke - He could do the same thing in the name of the Unconquered Sun, and people would hate him for it. Disgusted by the readiness with which people assumed he was a divine miracle worker, he abandoned the good fight entirely, becoming a prize fighter on the Eastern/Scavenger Lands circuit. He dominated every opponent, eventually making his way to a tournament hosted by one of the famed martial arts academies in Chanta. He has defeated all but one of the school's strongest fighters. In the tournament's Championship round, he will take on Barrick Loltz, the school's champion. Barrick has trained vigorously for the fight, and looks forward to meeting the strongest opponent of his career. His sponsors, the owners of his dojo, have other ideas, however.
Not believing Barrick can win the fight and desperate to preserve the good reputation of their own dojo, they have arranged for Subo never to make it to the championship round. He is to die in a tragic "accident" before the fight takes place. This, of course, is where the Grass-Spiders come in.
Critical Notes:
- So far, your targets have consisted of a senile mortal man and a morbidly obese salt spirit. The challenge in those jobs was getting to the target, while the actual hit/kidnapping was easier by comparison. Ledaal Subo is a Dragon-Blooded fourth-coil Immaculate Monk with an angry disposition. Bringing him down may not be as easy.
- Anonymity is key - the Grass Spiders were hired to preserve the dojo's good name, and if it becomes clear that Subo was intentionally killed, the dojo gains nothing from his death.
- Subo is staying at a Forest-god temple, where he meditates every morning. It is not known where his actual living quarters are at within the temple. The temple is well-guarded by Haltan warrior priests, and the Forest-god itself is likely to react very poorly to any violence which goes down in its temple.
- Some information has been collected by Grass-Spiders' informants. Subo typically trains for two hours at sunrise, then an hour more before Zenith. He spends the time in between meditating, though he does so in a secular vein. After Zenith, he visits dojos in Chanta and speaks with their headmasters, before returning two hours before sunset, where he trains until dark, eats a light dinner, and sleeps. When Subo trains alone, he typically does so on an isolated treetop training platform he had built upon his arrival in the city. Visibility is quite good, and it would be very difficult to ambush him on this platform, but he is certainly often alone there.
- Barrick does not know that the death of his upcoming opponent has been arranged, let alone that it has been arranged by his own masters. There are no explicit restrictions on concealing this fact from Barrick, but it's something to be aware of.
- ((An out-of-character note: After reading the East sourcebook, Chanta is much larger than it has been portrayed in the past. It is the capital of the Kingdom of Halta and has nearly twice as many people as Nexus, making it one of the most populated cities in the Threshold. I do believe it's still smaller in terms of geographic footprint, so it's probably quite vertical - this isn't too hard to imagine, considering its entirely built in the trees - and quite densely populated.))
Expected Threats:
- Ledaal Subo (Threat Level: Very high, probability of encounter: certain)
- Haltan warrior priests (Threat level: Medium, probability of encounter: medium)
- T'kkal'chi (Forest God) (Threat level: High, probability of encounter: low)
- Haltan town guards (Threat level: Low, probability of encounter: medium)
- Other martial artists in town for the tournament (Threat level: varies, probability of encouter: depends on how adventurous you're all feeling)
Team: Lord of the Ashen Cloud, Zealot of Iconoclastic Virtue, Opal, Mesa, Fay Morgana