City of IF

[D-Lotus]

What happened before:When Kihachi overhears robbers planning to destroy his village, he decides to go and search for samurai in the nearest town, were he finds two possible friends, so his companions and him split forces to meet both men at the same time. After a brisk meeting with the samurai they convince him. However, Kihachi goes to a gambler that proves to be evil, and when the Samurai tries to help, Motoko is taken hostage. People voted to do nothing.



:!: Bushido :!:


There is silence. Tension seems to be edging over everyone in the room, except for the head shaven Samurai in a hakama standing in the doorway. You watch as he looks directly at a short man with a dagger pointing at your friends throat. Then his eyes flitter, like he’s telling you to do something. You stare dumbly. What are you supposed to do? You feel very hot, and it’s certainly not warm inside. Sweat runs down your forehead. The short man is about to speak, you can tell by how he licks his lips. He looks like he’s used to leading a dirty life. By now there are people from other parts of the room that suspend playing their gambling games and start looking torwards the front. The glow of the lamp dances on the faces of some fifteen thugs that are facing in a different angle right behind you. They seem to be protecting two men sitting by their money. The two men seem to think that this is very entertaining. One of them is young and full of power, and his top knot foretells him as one trained in the arts of the warrior class. The other one is old and wizened, but he doesn’t seem to have gained any wisdom in his old age, in fact, the younger man seems to be full of vitality and power, while the older to be shriveled up. You notice the Samurai analyzing his chances if a fight breaks out, but there seems to be too many thugs around for him to win without any help, since you are too dumbfounded to help, and neither are Obakamonoyo and Rikara, standing behind him.You feel for your knife in your plain shigata kimono, but the small movement startles the short man, who draws his knife nearer to your friends throat. He keeps licking his lips. Then he finally decides to speak.
“ Heh, well…Allright, all I want is to be left alone, and then you can take this fool with you, eh, dear brother?”
Motoko makes a gurgled sound as the man presses the knife harder drawing a thin line of blood.
“You know I will never leave you alone.” says the samurai calmly.
Motoko shakes in fear. The face of the short man whitens. Then before you can tell what’s happened, there is another Samurai standing with his sword unsheathed in his hand behind the short man. There’s blood on the sword, but you don’t know how it got there. With the other hand he’s sort of holding the short man who seems to have fainted, though his eyes are open, and the hand in which he had the knife seems to be resting on Motoko’s neck. This unexpected samurai seemed to have come from behind the short man, who was standing in front of a thick wooden column holding the large gambling house up. You suddenly recognize him as the Samurai who had been in the creek, and who had been there before you started playing dice, but he seemed to have had dissapeared until now. He was wearing a black hakama and the top of a white gi.
“ Don’t worry Chikara, I’ll protect you.” He says this as he looks directly at the samurai.
Then he winks.
The short man’s tongue rolls out.
In a quick move, he let’s go of the short man and slices horizontally through the air.
The short man drops on Motoko as soon as he is let go.
He’s dead.
The sword sings through the air and a thug’s head rolls off his shoulders, sending a spray of blood up.
There’s now only fourteen thugs.
The old gambler shouts out in suprise.
Now the thugs start reacting, aware of their Masters shouts.Quickly three or four take to attack the samurai, as the startled gamblers yell to kill the traitor, and yet other thugs run around telling people to leave the gambling house. They seem to have some training. But not enough training. You scramble into a corner where you see Rikara and Obakamonoyo, since you decide it's too hard to get to Motoko right now. Then the headshaven Samurai on the doorway springs in. Three men run at him at the same time, while the others scatter to protect the two gamblers or attack the other Samurai. As the three men come screaming, their swords raised, he shifts his position, sending one sprawling just by shoving him with his shoulder. At the same time he strikes quickly and diagonally, getting one man in his open chest and the other in his stomach, spilling his guts out before either of them could bring down their long Katanas. He then finishes his gruesome job by slicing into the defenseless man who was getting up, and turns on four men who had decided to stop running away and organize themeselves into an attack. After what they see, they approach him carefully, swords reaching out way infront of them, almost comicly. The Samurai steps forward in a fast movement, and then steps back, but not before the men fall back at least two feet, two of them almost dropping their swords. The Samurai grins, but then he frowns and runs in with his sword at his side, ready to strike. As you turn to see how the other samurai and your companions were faring, you are hit with the end of some sword right in the middle of the stomach like a sledge hammer. You bend over. Then you feel the dirty soles of some straw sandals slam into your face, forcing you to the ground. As you get up, you see a trail of blood dripping from your busted lip. Rikara sees your trouble and tries to hammer with his fists at the man, but to no avail. He just laughs. He seems to be a burly man who probably escaped from prison, for he was bearded and missing many teeth, with a rugged appearance. You look at him through your swollen eye, but he catches you looking, snarls and lifts his sword above his head, ready to bring it down on you. You’re about to let him kill you, and hope it’s fast and painless, but then your anger flares. You can’t sacrifice your village and lose your quest, you can’t let him kill you or your friends or everything is lost.
“ YOU CAN’T” You shout in his face. He's startled. He gives you one second. It’s all you need. As he swings down, you evade the thrust, skipping to the side. He grunts and closes in against the corner for a sure kill. The you run at him, headbutting him in the testicles.
“ouuuuugghh.” he cries. But you have no mercy. You feel cold inside as your hand grabs the knife in your shirt and you slice through his ribs easily. When the blood starts pouring out, and he sputters thrice before dying, falling into a heap, the realization kicks in at what you’ve done. Your two friends stare at you. But their stare is broken as Motoko runs next two you, crying at his misfortune. But there is no time to even console him, as a great cry breaks out. You look back to the fight and you notice it’s not much a fight anymore. There’s four surviving men,two surrounding the older gambler, and two had forced your hairless Samurai down. Monako, the young gambler, however was forcing the other samurai closer to the ground with his sword, inch by inch pushing him down until he was completely defenseless. The older gambler, Uchikura had been wounded and it was he who had given the cry. He kept yelling to Monako.
“ Kill that traitor, don’t let him live!”
Monako seemed to dislike to obey him, and he was undecided for a moment. Sizing your chance, and stepping over the body of the man you had killed, you cry out,
“ Let him live and I’ll accept your offer!’
He looks at you sardonicly
“ Hah, do you really think I can’t take you now if I ever wished to? You have attacked me, so I could attack you and make you serve me.”
“ Then I’ll take my own life.” You reply.
He thinks about this for a moment, and then answers,
“ To kill yourself would be a waste, and I can see you can be trustworthy, but what about all my dead gaurds?”
“Half of them were mine” grunts Monako, his glance not swerving over his prey.
“ I gave you everything you have, so don’t complain.”he replied
“ I will serve you better in my life that those men ever served you.”You say.
Some people that were gambling before start peaking in, realizing that the fight was already over, eager to get the money that they had forgotten in their rush to safety. There was blood and bodies over the floor, but nobody seemed to mind. Uchikura sees that people are coming in again and hastily says,
“Very well, I trust your word. You can spare him, Monako.”
But Monako has no intention of obeying. his swords point still at the samurais throat.
“ Didn’t you hear me, let him go!” he continues
“ Do you think I’m your dog, who you can order around as you may?” Monako grows angry as he speaks
“What, you defy me? Me, who gave you life, and who could give you death any time I want? I, who have only wanted the best for you always? I, who am your father? I?”
The old man seems to be revived by this dispute.
“ You are not my father, old man, and if you want to give me death, try it!” And he unsheathed his sword
The old man gasps.
“Then you are no son of mine. Fuyogo and Kosawa, come here!”
Monako’s face pales a little bit, but he regains color, like he had know that would happen. Two huge men of about seven feet walk down the stairs, holding big heavy maces. They must only come in special cases, because they hadn’t been there in the fight. The thugs and the two giants started moving torward Monako, but suddenly he snapped his fingers and three men with short bows pointing directly at Uchikura in the second floor balcony.
“ If I die you die.”
By now the samurais had managed to roll away, as the two gamblers were to busy with each other. They met with you and the rest at the corner.
Suddenly Uchikara shouts,
“Leave, and don’t come back, you fool!”
“Fool yourself, and I will come back, but by then you will be dead, or maybe I’ll let you last a little more so I can torture you.”
And he left, his archers jumping out the window, following him.
“So it is war”sighed Uchikara. He looked at the floor for a while and then noticed you and the others.
“Very well, how many men do you need?”
Then the bald Samurai stepped up.
“ We will trust no men of yours, instead, we will take money to hire our own men.”
The gambler smiled.
“ Not very trusting, are you?”he said”Well, I trust you all, you seem to be fools, and fools are normally honest, I have seen many in this gambling house, heh? Not that it matters if I give you a little of my riches… Very well, so be it, but let me warn you, yes what’s your name?” He points at you
You lose all the confidence you had prevously and stutter.
“Ki..kihachi”
“Hmmmm, I like how it sounds, Kihachi. But listen, if you don’t come back, have no doubt my friends here,”and he pointed at the men”will bring you back and torture you until you wish you hadn’t been born,eh? Now leave!”
And he grabbed some money that had been lying there in the now unused mat, since most everybody had left or died, and threw it at your feet.

************************************************

You had all walked in silence so far. Then Motoko suddenly asked,
“Who was that man you were so angry at?” directly at the samurai. You hit him in the back of the head for his innapropriate question.
The Samurai looked at him.
“I tink we all have a lot of questions to answer,”And he looked at the other samurai who had been walking with you significantly”But for now we need to figure out some things. With the money that we have, we could certainly attract many samurai to hire, but this is no easy job, and we need to know that the people we hire are up for the job, therefore we will need to put them to a test, any ideas?”

OK, hope to hear your replies soon, although I'm afraid this chapter isn't as good becaus eI didn't even double check the story and I took way less time than last time to do it, so I might have errors, and it might be bad. Oh yeah, do you guys want bigger sized text, or is this fine? Ok, question this chapter is what kinda test should he put them to.

[Mordok]

The story is great D. Your last chapter was a little more polished, true but, this one was just as good storyline wise.

I think that any test would have to check both skill and trustworthiness. You could have the other two Samurai watching from hidding as you offer some gold to the applicants. You leave a small amount of gold on the table as you check on a "distraction". If the new applicant tries to steal your gold the other samurai could stop them. If they don't try to steal the gold, they are probably trustworthy and won't mind showing you their fighting abilities? Its a little drastic maybe but its all I have at the moment.

[thornton]

Trust might not be problematic with the amount of gold available since regulAr payments can always keep someone loyal.

I think a test of nerves is more important. Each applicant should have to stand still with eyes open while someone throws a knife at them. If they pass that test the applicant throws the knife at a person of his/her choice in the same way.

If both tests are completed without any flinching in the first case, and bloodloss in te second, then the applicant is worthy of supporting their struggle.

[D-Lotus]

Well, both options are good, although thornton's seems more drastic. It's important that someone is trustworthy, because they might open the gate to the enemy for more money that you give them, so money doesn't neccessarily give you trust in them. Well, does anybody have more idea's?

[Smee]

Struggling for ideas at the moment (far too early in the morning here for good ideas) but still a good chapter D. The names got a little confusing, but that's just becuase you're juggling so many people, and I have a useless short term memory. No error on your part.

The text size is fine. :)

If inspiration for a test hits me later then I'll post.

[Ravenwing]

Since as of know I am barely wide-awake I will say only a few things. Alhough this chapter was not as polished like the last one, I think it did fine, concluding all the action you had before. Just a few mistakes, not that many, so don't worry. As for a test, thats a good idea. If any come up, I will post again, I guess.

[Ravenwing]

This is not to accuse you of anything or other, but I started watching ann anime called Samurai 7, downloaded from the net (don't start on the unethical way of downloading stuff from the net, I have heard enough of that from most of my friends) and saw many similarities between your story and this show.

In the anime, three peasants, Kohachi, Rikichi, and Kirara are off to find seven samurai to save their village from Bandits, basically samurai who after the great war made themselves better by turning themselves into machines. Anyways this whole anime is based off of Akira Kuwasawa's Seven Samurai. Did you base your story off either of the two? And to think in your story, the four have to look for NINE samurai. The similarities just jump out at you.

Anyways I love your story. Its been great so far.

[s1lents0ul]

have any of you read Shakespears novel, "MacBeth"? In that story, nearer the end, Macduff is talking to one of his men. He is telling this man the only lie he has ever told in his life. the lie was about His(MacDuff) personality and true nature. Macduff said he would be more of a tyrant then Macbeth.. trying to pursuaid him to go along with what he(macduff) was saying. When this man did not falter in his loyalty to scotland or Macduff, then Macduff praised him and knew he was loyal..the 2 samurai should use this kind of test for loyalty of the other samurai. As for the physical part, the 2 samurai should have duels with the applicants with those wooden training sticks they use in Dojo's.

And to agree with smee, i also had a hard time following all the character lines..right around the part the samurai was pinned down to the ground by that one man, and the father started talking.. i kinda got lost

[Random]

Not as polished but it works well D. I enjoyed the latest installation as it moved the story forward in a nice fashion.

Ok on with the testing part. Not sure how true to historic accuracy you are trying to stay but here are a couple of ideas.

Samurai were considered the epitome of honor in their day. To test their honor would be a grave offense. However, samurai used to fight duals with out ever drawing a weapon. They simply stared at each other and the first to flinch was the victor. This was a test of skill, confidence, and trustworthiness. A samurai who lost such a duel, and pulled his sword in reaction was considered highly dishonorable. Whether he won the fight or not his honor was irrepairable. You could do this type of test with the samurai if you want to keep things more historically accurate.

If you are not so much worried about that aspect of your story then you can always pull the old My friend is being mugged routine or something along those lines.

[Guest]

Ravenwing wrote: This is not to accuse you of anything or other, but I started watching ann anime called Samurai 7, downloaded from the net (don't start on the unethical way of downloading stuff from the net, I have heard enough of that from most of my friends) and saw many similarities between your story and this show.

In the anime, three peasants, Kohachi, Rikichi, and Kirara are off to find seven samurai to save their village from Bandits, basically samurai who after the great war made themselves better by turning themselves into machines. Anyways this whole anime is based off of Akira Kuwasawa's Seven Samurai. Did you base your story off either of the two? And to think in your story, the four have to look for NINE samurai. The similarities just jump out at you.

Anyways I love your story. Its been great so far.


Yes, I did, except the 40 bandits I was basing on Ali Baba and the fourty bandits... :D . No, really, at first I thought maybe I was plagerizing Akira Kurosawa, but the whole point of imitating his story was because I was thinking of a story idea, and then a few days later I saw 7 Samurai (the truth id that everybody has ripped off that movie: Magnificent seven, Your Anime show, and my story) and I decided that I would try and start with that story, writing it from my point of view, and see where you guys would lead me( and you have given me the basic plot which is VERY different from the movie) and then, after I was done, I would re write the beggining and change the whole thing so that it would be a completely different thing. I was wondering when someone would notice, I mean, why do you think my signature is

"Even the buddah has lost hope for me..."

And then: HAS ANYONE SEEN ANY AKIRA KUROSAWA MOVIES?

Well, now that someone found out, I guess I have to change my signature, so here's my new signature:

- D-Lotus :D

[Ravenwing]

D-Lotus, thanks for the explanation. I was just wondering thats all. :D

[Guest]

OK, anymore ideas? Or are you guys ready for a poll( although I really wish there were more ideas, at least one more...)??



- D-Lotus :shock:

[Mordok]

I have a couple, D.

This story has a lot of violence and needs some slap-stick. Have the samurai fight with pies.

My other suggestion is.....LOG IN!

M-Lotus :D

[Ravenwing]

Thats a good suggestion, Mordok.

[Guest]

Hey, you guessed the meaning of the Lotus thing? Yep everybody, your signature can be a Lotus too! Just add the first letter of your first name, then add Lotus, and you're set!
(please also send a check to D-Lotus when you do this at apple str.Apt 555555, SF, CA)


- D-Lotus :cry:
Oh no, I forgot again....sorry M-Lotus...sigh, I guess I'll have to accept the pie thing, but I'll get back at you...

[Guyron]

Samurai X or Ninja Scroll type of battle ... Hmm ... Interesting ...

[Ravenwing]

Anonymous wrote:
(please also send a check to D-Lotus when you do this at apple str.Apt 555555, SF, CA)


- D-Lotus :cry:


Very funny, D-Lotus.

[Guest]

Was that sarcastic Ravenwing? You know you have to pay too if you adopt the Lotus ending in your signature...R-Wing, R-Lotus, hmmmm...Guyron, I didn't really understand what you meant...


- D-Lotus :shock:

[Aljaber]

Great story D......But i was wondering, those sumorai are running around town like it was nothing, but as far as i know only ronin or masterless samurai did that. And since there is two ways to become ronin(your master died or was killed and you are looking for a way for revenge, or they left their master and so threw away any honor they had following the way of the sword)....What i want to say can you really trust a samurai, they must have ulterior motives to help other that money , like if tha bandit leader you desribe lookike like the guy who killed a samurai's master or lover then you will have somebody eagor to help for nothig at all.
Also what is the story on that traiter samurai, why did he help after what he did to the characher earlier...can we really trust him.... :roll:

[Ravenwing]

Aljaber wrote: Great story D......But i was wondering, those sumorai are running around town like it was nothing, but as far as i know only ronin or masterless samurai did that. And since there is two ways to become ronin(your master died or was killed and you are looking for a way for revenge, or they left their master and so threw away any honor they had following the way of the sword)....What i want to say can you really trust a samurai, they must have ulterior motives to help other that money , like if tha bandit leader you desribe lookike like the guy who killed a samurai's master or lover then you will have somebody eagor to help for nothig at all.
Also what is the story on that traiter samurai, why did he help after what he did to the characher earlier...can we really trust him.... :roll:

That maybe true, but a lot of samurai are not that honorable. They do it for glory and gold. But also we can't follow the true path of the samurai, or there won't any story.

[Guest]

wow how do i get his blood through my veins

[D-Lotus]

OK, certain things to adress:

What do you mean running around like it's nothing? By the way, there were more ways to become a ronin, for example: By refusing to commit seppuku...and anyway, in the 16th century, Samurai were substituted by guns, etc, and many had no master, so they became ronins...

RW: I thought that the name Kihachi was my own invention, and not Kurosawas, especially because Kurosawas main peasant was Rikichi, and the three other names were not similar to mine....

For those of you who are confused:

Kihachi-You, a peasant
Rikara- A peasant from your village with a daughter, is a little undecided if he really wants Samurai
Obakamonoyo-Sort of chubby man, bigger than all three of the other peasants, lives in one of the three houses at the end of the village next to the mill, and is very protective of it
Motoko- Older , but not wiser friend of Kihachi
Chikara-Shady man.-R.I.P
Monako-Younger and rebellious gambler
Grandad- the grandad and wise man in the village
Ushikara-Older gambler, with a weak grasp on Monako(his son)
Samurai(bald)-Baby savior, Agreed to help
Samurai2-Helped in the fight against gamblers, motives unknown, reliability unknown
And then the two thugs who's names I temporarily forgot, sorry...

Ok, replies will continue in the new topic, the poll....