Big Po - Hungry Hungry Sumotori
Michelangelo - Friendly Capoeirista
Roberto King - Murderous Dagger Fighter
Dan da Ying - Helpful Eagle-Stylist
Preparations
The party walked out of the Happy Rancher Saloon, though Po made sure to gulp down his lunch first, and waited in the street, watching as the dust cloud grew bigger. Three covered wagons came into view, driven by all large, shirtless, Japanese men. As the first wagon pulled into town, he yelled for the party to get out of the way, and they did so, not wanting to be trampled by three teams of four horses. Except for Michelangelo, who jumped up beside the driver.
The driver shouted for him to get off, and tried to shove him, but Mike nimbly dodged out of the way, and the driver accidentally pulled on the reins, turning the horses and causing them to speed up. Mike tried to ask if the driver knew Tetsu, and apologized for so rudely jumping up before dodging another shove attempt, and jumping up onto the top of the covered wagon, out of reach. The driver realized his mistake, and stopped the horses before they ran into a house.
The other two wagons came to a stop outside the jailhouse and sumos started to pile out of all three, most focused on Michelangelo and yelling for him to get off of their wagon, not listening to a word he said ("I just want to know if any of you know Tetsu, the-" "Get off our wagon!" "Why are you on the wagon?" "Stop being on the wagon!"). After another couple seconds, a heavy footstep interrupted the clamour as a mountain of a man, clearly Trained by a Master going by his sumo girdle and topknot, with chains wrapped around his arms stepped from the third wagon and shouted "TETSU! Where are you?"
Battle
When noone responded, the man's gaze drifted to Big Po, and he asked what another sumotori not of the Mountain Apes Gang was doing here. Dan whispered in Po's ear to ask him about the lemonade, so Po asked if he knew where "Mr. Wilson's lemonade" was, and the sumotori, Jishin, softly replied "No" before narrowing his eyes, successfully challenging Po to single combat. Dan tried to lock eyes with the closest mook, but crit failed and ended up locked in single combat with him.
Mike jumped back down to the driver's seat and kicked the driver out and onto the ground, unconscious. Roberto stabbed a thug with his back turned twice in the vitals, but he seemed largely unaffected, and turned slowly towards him before trying a Sweep, which Roberto easily parried. Po took a step towards Jishin with an All-Out Defence (Parry), while Jishin likewise took a step and Evaluated.
Another thug went for a heavily-deceptive All-Out Attack to grab Roberto, but was parried and then stabbed and knocked out. The rest of the mooks charged towards the party, while more reinforcements kept jumping out of the backs of the wagons. Dan dropped into a defensive stance, while Mike jumped down on top of the unconscious mook and took out two mooks with a flurry of kicks, though a third managed to parry.
Po moved into close combat with Jishin and attempted a triple rapid strike Sweep, but two were parried and the other didn't connect. Jishin responded with a rapid strike of his own, but Po retreated, Judo parried the first and dodged the second. One of the thugs Roberto had stabbed lurched forwards to grab him, but kept going and fell to the ground, unconscious. Mike Acrobatic Dodged an attack from a mook, while Roberto and Dan each sidestepped a Slamming sumo.
Dan, surrounded by mooks who were not the guy he'd challenged to single combat flipped backwards through the saloon window, ran out the front door, and punched his target, knocking him to the floor. Mike kicked a pair of mooks with a rapid strike, careful to step around the growing pile of bodies, and sent one down, slumping against a wagon's wheel.
Po tried to All-Out Judo throw Jishin, but the giant held his footing ("Wellp, I'm dead, nice knowing you guys"), and Jishin responded by grabbing Po and started crushing him with a Bear Hug. Four mooks chased after Dan, but he took one out with a Defensive kick, and backed into the saloon, away from the rest. Mike kicked a pair of thugs trying to grab Roberto, knocking one out and leaving the other wide open to a stab from Roberto.
Jishin continued crushing the air out of Po, who tried and failed to grapple back. One thug, in an effort to avoid the giant pile of bodies, ripped the fence in front of the saloon off so that he could flank Mike and Roberto. Dan got Slammed by a mook, while two more surrounded him and penned him in; due to Shock penalties, he took an All-Out Defence.
Mike ran into the saloon to help Dan, kicked into the close combat between him and two mooks, but missed all three; Roberto soon followed, but held off attacking for now. Po managed to finally get a hold on Jishin, but continued to get squeezed. Dan fended off one mook's grab, while another critically failed attacking Mike, and the one that had slammed kept on going and did a lap of a table to line himself up again.
Dan spent an FP to avoid a failed consciousness check, then took out the mook that had tried to grab him with a Defensive Attack. Mike likewise took out one that was attacking him, while Roberto crit failed an attack into close combat and stabbed Dan in the back. Po tried a Takedown against Jishin, but his foe seemed too strong to defeat. The thug who'd torn off the fence earlier ran into the saloon and tried to Slam Roberto, but missed.
One of the mooks grappled Dan from behind, while another saw Tetsu, who was still chained up to a beam, and ran over to free him. Mike parried a grapple, then dodged a Slam (though he had to use Luck), and the mook went right through the wall behind him, getting knocked out in the process. Tetsu woke up, saw what was going on, and started charging Power Blow to break his chains and free himself. Dan tried to punch the guy holding him, but missed.
Mike stepped over to the guy trying to free Tetsu and took him out with a kick, then whiffed a second kick at Tetsu's neck. Roberto killed the guy holding Dan, then turned and took out another mook with a stab to the vitals. Po, sensing he was outmatched, broke out his special move and shouted "Ooichou Nage!" before successfully taking Jishin to the ground and body slamming him. Meanwhile, Tetsu finished charging his Power Blow, burst his chains, and called for assistance.
The rest of the mooks in the saloon ran over to help Tetsu fight Mike, but Dan and Roberto gave chase and took out one each. Mike crit-failed a kick, and Tetsu started to regain his feet. Outside, Po and Jishin continued their struggle on the ground, and it ended with Jishin Pinned! Dan kicked the last thug except Tetsu, and Mike finished him off, while Roberto stabbed Tetsu twice in the vitals, then followed up with a fatal eye stab.
Po started to headbutt Jishin but kept missing, while Mike and Dan took out the last thug in the saloon. Jishin managed to break free, fended off another grapple from Po, made it to his feet, and punched Po in the chest. When the rest of the party emerged from the saloon, though, Po pointed out that his men were defeated, and Jishin surrendered. Initially, they wanted to put him in the jail, but the Sheriff pointed out that he would just break out the second they left.
He swore on his honour that if they let him go he would never return, and after much deliberation, they decided to let him live. Jishin climbed into the back of one of the covered wagons, and the horses, somehow sensing his presence, started heading west. The town came out to congratulate the party, and held a party at the saloon. Somebody brought a cake, and Po cut off a piece but then ate the rest of it.
Sweetwater
The next morning, the party mounted up and headed south to the "big city" of Sweetwater, population 500, in pursuit of Roberto's missing daughter. They arrived in town in the afternoon, and found it to be bustling with people and horse-drawn carriages crowding the streets, and the whistle of the steam train in the distance.
Due to Roberto's refusal to put his knives away, the locals were all too scared to answer any questions, so they wandered around looking for the local lawman's place. Eventually, they found remnants of a jail that had been burned to the ground, and, not having any other ideas, followed Po's suggestion of finding something to eat.
As they walked up to the Gilded Pony Saloon, a fancier establishment than the Happy Rancher back in Gila Gulch, an old drunken prospector with frayed grey hair was tossed out into the street and rambled incoherently while picking himself up and stumbling off. The party walked in, and Po waded through the crowd straight to the bar to get the local special: bowls of slop, two for one! The others took a look around, and saw that the Gilded Pony had a roulette wheel and several tables for cards, all in use.
Roberto noticed that a woman, wearing lots of gold, was a Weapon Master of the Filipino Escrima style, and was dealing cards to three men of similar complexion. Michelangelo went to the bartender and asked about the burned-down jail. The bartender replied that the Ginto Boys had burned it down several weeks ago; they didn't bother him too much, and always paid in gold, which was fine by him. When asked if they'd seen a young Irish girl, he replied that he'd not, but there were rumours of kidnappings. Some people thought it was the ghosts of the miners who'd died at the Twinhorn Gold Mine west of town.
Notes:
To save time looking up and rolling on tables, we're now using the following rules for crit successes and failures in combat:
Critical Success on Attack: Hit
Critical Failure on Attack: Miss, turn ends immediately, -2 to all defences until next turn
Critical Success on Defence: Enemy suffers a Critical Failure on their attack as above.
Critical Failure on Defence: Get hit.
Roberto was doing by far the most damage in both combats. Going forward, we're going to try some more rules modifications to bring weapons in line with unarmed. In particular, the vitals hit location will no longer exist, and weapons will not get their free Aggressive Parry against unarmed attackers.
We ran into a problem with my Challenge rules: on a roll where the aggressor loses the contest by 5+, only he enters into single combat. Which means that he'll tell other people not to attack his target, but his target is free to do what he wants. This resulted in Dan's target going for Roberto, who would then be unable to retaliate. Clearly, this is not the ideal situation. I'm thinking I'll just give the aggressor a penalty to everything (-2 probably) until their target is down.
The odds were severely against Po, but he managed to Takedown and Pin Jishin despite being severely outclassed. On the initial Pin roll he rolled pretty poorly, and knew that he'd need a 6 or less (~10%) to win, but he got it on his first Luck reroll.
Po got +2 XP (to be spent on anything) for beating Jishin against all odds.
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