Big Po - Hungry Hungry Sumotori
Michelangelo - Friendly Capoeirista
Roberto King - Murderous Dagger Fighter
Dan da Ying - Helpful Eagle-Stylist
The Black Riders' Fort
Dan stepped into the main building to "Exotic Hand Stroke" the swordsman that Mike had Feinted, but missed, wasting it. In an effort to gain some cover from the archer, Mike flipped the heavy table at the center of the room with Mighty Blows, and the archer did indeed hold her fire, though she nocked another arrow. She then asked "What do you people want?" (which prompted laughter from the players as they realized that even they weren't fully sure), and the two swordsmen with her swung at Mike from the side, but, after using Luck to reroll an Acrobatic Dodge, he was unharmed.
Up on the ramparts, Roberto dispatched one of the mooks with a 16-MoV Feint followed by a thrust to the neck, and stepped in to close the gap with the rear spearman. Po tried to grab the other mook in the first rank, but he successfully parried, then backed up and missed. The other spearman also backed up to use his Reach 2 to his advantage, but Roberto critically parried his thrust, knocking him off balance.
The right swordsman parried a kick from Dan, and Mike replied to the archer that they were only here to help the farmers, then turned to kick at a swordsman's foot, not quite breaking it. Po finally got a hold of the shielded mook, and threw him to the ground, while Roberto broke Teamwork to finish off the rear spearman with a Feint and neck stab ("Ugh, that's not a good Feint, only 7 degrees").
The woman claimed that they were also helping the farmers, just not for free, and asked why the party were attacking them, and not the actual thieves (Roberto: "We should just kill them all and sort out the innocent after"). For good measure, she jumped up to have sight over the table, and fired an arrow at Mike, which ended up being narrowly dodged by both him and Dan behind him (initially a crit, Luck rerolled it into another crit, and the third reroll was still under 9).
While Mike pondered whether or not his Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents) would determine his next move, one of the swordsmen snuck an attack past his guard for a single point of injury, but that brought him out of his shock enough to dodge the next attack. Dan had no such doubts, and did a sick flip over the table before crit failing a punch against the archer. Mike followed Dan over the table kicked into the close combat, but she retreated and made the dodge.
Meanwhile, the last mook on the ramparts regained his knees just in time for Po to kick him in the ribs and knock him back over, but he stayed in the fight, even after a pair of blows from Roberto ("He's too strong!"). The archer kept talking, and eventually convinced Mike that the black riders had not been stealing cattle or horses, and that if anyone had, they must have gone rogue. She then fired an arrow at Dan which he was unable to dodge, wounding him fairly badly, and the two swordsmen dropped back behind the table to guard her.
Dan fell back, and Mike stepped up to kick at the swordsman now guarding the archer, but he blocked with his shield. Now that he had a spare moment to think, Dan noticed the archer's helmet and realized that she was using the Armatura Equestris style, aka Ancient Roman Horse Archery (it had been hard to tell, as she was not currently riding a horse). She nocked another arrow and Feinted Mike, but held her fire for now.
Back on the ramparts, the last enemy made an All-Out Attack against Roberto, but was parried, then knocked prone with a Sweep from Po, and Roberto finally finished him off. That done, they started sprinting to join up with the rest of the party, but heard reinforcements on horses approaching from outside the walls. They had made it about halfway to the building where the others were fighting when six black riders on horseback with spears and shields came through the gate, saw the wounded, and charged at the attackers.
Mike was sufficiently convinced that the Black Riders weren't responsible, and stopped fighting. The swordsman in front of him attacked him anyway, but missed, while the other got ready to stab somebody if they got close (Roberto: "Hey, that's my line!"). Dan's Short Attention Span meant he hadn't been paying attention, and Judo grabbed the closest swordsman. The archer loosed an arrow and he dodged and it hit the grappled swordsman in the back (Mike: "She's now done more damage to her own men than we have").
Dan switched his grip to a Choke Hold, but Mike managed to convince him to let go before he could do any actual harm. Now that the fighting looked to be over, the swordsmen lowered their weapons, and they got to discussing what was going on. The archer claimed that they had been helping recover the livestock that the Navajo had stolen, but that the farmers were out of money (which matched the story they'd been told by the farmers). When told about the black riders the party had captured after the midnight raid the night before, she decided that some of her men must have gone rogue.
Outside, Roberto and Po detoured further into the camp, using tents as cover, and turned to brace for the charge at the last second. All of the horses missed their slams, and Roberto parried all three spear attacks. Po failed to dodge two, but didn't take enough damage to care. As the riders were wheeling around for another pass, Po and Roberto sprinted into the wooden building with the archer. Mike convinced them not to fight, and the archer told her men to stand down.
Oops!
The archer explained more that things looked to be getting worse here, and they were probably going to be packing up and heading to greener pastures soon. Everybody bought this (IE, failed to resist Fast-Talk), and she assured them that those who had (allegedly) raided the farmers would be disciplined. Po claimed that she and her men were dishonourable, which she didn't argue. She did ask if they could identify who had been at the "raid" (they didn't actually manage to take anything), but, other than the two they'd captured, it had been too dark to get a good look.
The party inquired as to the black riders' relationship with the Outlaw King, and she denied that they had interacted at all. They then asked after the Navajo, and she pointed them to a valley to the northwest. Po wanted to know if the Navajo were working with the Outlaw King, but she explained that they hadn't been too talkative during battle. Everyone rode off towards the Navajo, except for Dan, who all the horses shied away from.
Who Are We Supposed to Punch?
On their journey, the party passed by a burned settlement with several stone buildings, and a battlefield littered with arrows and spears. Roberto tried to tell whose spears they were, but came up empty, while Po searched for bodies, but found none. Just before twilight, Mike spotted a ramshackle camp in the distance, with several dozen inhabitants (and no herd of stolen cattle).
After some debating over whether to attack them or not, Po just shouted "HEY!", and a group of six rode out to meet them, all young men except for one hunched ancient. Their apparent leader, denoted by a headdress, had an eyepatch where his left eye should be ("Ugh, he doesn't know how to allocate his points properly"), and brusquely asked who they were and what they wanted. Po explained that they were looking to find whoever was stealing the farmer's cattle.
The leader, who introduced himself as Atsa, explained that he didn't care for the farmers' plight, as he was more concerned with what was happening to his people; the farmers had attacked them several times, killing many and destroying their village. When pressed for more details, he explained that they had initially traded with the farmers, when they attacked unprovoked in the middle of the night. The party tried to convince the Navajo that the people who had attacked them were probably the black riders, but Atsa figured that even if that were the case, they were just mercenaries, and the farmers were paying them to attack.
Po came up with a "Great Sumo Plan™", and suggested that if the Navajo could help them track down the missing cattle, they could help the Navajo fight whoever their foes really were. Atsa was swayed, and they were invited into camp to spend the night. There was little food, but they shared what they had, and the party contributed their own meagre rations.
Finally, Someone With Tracking
At dawn, the party set out along with Atsa and one other Navajo tracker. They started off by heading southeast, towards the farmsteads, until the tracker found hoofprints. The path led near the Black Fort, and the party were forced to dismount and proceed on foot so as to not be seen. Only a short distance away from the fort, but over several hills, the tracks led to a pen holding many cows, guarded by two black riders (Mike: "Who could have predicted that they'd end up being the bad guys?").
The party except for Po snuck down to the pen and verified that the cows had been branded (they noted the Harris 'H' and McGinty 'M', as well as several others). Then Dan gave "the signal" ("Caw caw!"), ambushed the guards, and took them both out.
Notes:
This session was massively derailed by a single NPC with Fast-Talk at decent levels, and the players were willing to go along for the ride.
Roberto passed every Bloodlust and Bad Temper roll he made. On the upside, that meant that they were able to negotiate with the Black Riders. On the downside, they're going to end up attacking them anyway.
I have ruled that players cannot switch location because I don't want PCs crowding into the same hex, even though this is probably technically rules legal. This becomes more of a grey area when using Teamwork, where all of their turns happen simultaneously.
Po's search for bodies at the old battlefield prompted a search into Navajo burial practices, which involves hiding the gravesite very well, even going so far as to destroy the tools used to dig. For once, a huge penalty was backed by true facts!
In the last scene, Po decided to "run in stealthily".
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