Part 4: Exposition Dump, Part One
Episode 03: Exposition Dump, Part OneLast time, we stopped a bandit attack on Two Rivers and faced our first spirit opponents, summoned by a mysterious assassin looking for Master Li. Master Li has told us we're ready to hear about the role we are meant to play, so we'll be heading his way soon enough.

First things first. The ruckus at the beach gave us enough EXP to level up, so let's take a look at what we can do here.

I do like it when the game does my work for me.

We put one point to Body and two to Mind, which gives us a bit of that extra focus we want for more fun times with weapons. At this stage, Fortune's Favorite drains focus at an immense rate and we want to fix that as soon as we can.

Here's the style menu. We've got ten points to put into our styles, and right now we'll focus on our martial and weapon styles. Heavenly Wave is a support style that slows down enemies, but I've never found it all that useful compared to some of the other support styles.

We'll prioritize focus cost reduction for now. A bit of extra damage and speed won't hurt so we put one point into each, but we really want to maximize the use of our weapon style as soon as we can. Of course, the higher the rank the more skill points it costs to purchase.

As far as Legendary Strike goes, we'll put a couple of points into damage and one into each of the other categories. We haven't used chi strikes yet, but might as well power those up a bit already.

That'll do it. Master Li mentioned that Dawn Star can explain the nature of the spirits we fought earlier, so let's have a quick chat with her before we go back.


Punch the ghosts hard enough and they'll go away for a while. Simple enough.



I really should have asked Dawn Star about her name here. I assumed I could still pick that option once we're done talking about where she used to live, but it doesn't appear again after this. She mentions that there apparently was a red glow on the horizon the morning she was born, and that's what she was named after. This may or may not be relevant later.



That would explain why she seems to spend so much of her time isolated from the other students. If you talk to them at the school, they may mention that Dawn Star tends to keep to herself.


Honestly, at this point it feels like Dawn Star's abilities are a lot more special than ours. She has a connection to the spirit world whereas we just seem to be really good at kicking people in the head. Of course, we don't yet know what Master Li has to say about our special role.










All right, that's enough of that for now. Hope you enjoyed the info dump on ghosts.

Here's the journal. Nothing fancy about it, just showing it off for posterity.

We see an old man over there tending to a statue of Emperor Sun Hai, but we'll leave him to it for now and have a chat with him later. There are some other people on the beach we can talk to, the guy in white is Ni Joh who was mentioned by the farmer in town and somehow seems to have survived a cannon ball blast without a scratch. I mean, we did too, but we're the protagonist so that doesn't count and everyone next to Ni Joh blew up into a pile of gibs.


"Alive and useless, just like you" is accurate but a bit harsh, so let's not go there.

When we earn Open Palm points, a glowy blue halo appears over our character's head. Obviously, getting Closed Fist points is represented by a red glowy thing. I pick Closed Fist options so rarely that I forget what it is, but I do know that your shadow grows tentacles if you have enough Closed Fist points. That's kind of neat.

As we start heading back towards the town, we bump into this lady who says she's looking for Dawn Star. Doesn't seem to be looking very hard, considering Dawn Star is right behind us, but never mind that.



Having said what she needed to, Mrs. Jong walks off and Dawn Star explains what the deal was.



I don't think the issue was with Mrs. Jong not wanting to hear it, she just didn't understand how Dawn Star's abilities work and then apologized when she realized her mistake. You can't really blame Mrs. Jong for not understanding, either, because the spirit world is weird and creepy, but Dawn Star was trying to do a good thing and it just didn't quite work out.



Before we go anywhere, let's help ourselves to the bandits' loot which amounts to 122 silver. Not exactly a pile or riches, but it's something at least. We can talk to some of the peasants around town, but all they say is basically "I'm glad Master Li is here and his senior student is such a badass".

In the southern part of town, we run into these fine gentlemen.



It wouldn't be a BioWare game if we didn't get harassed by a bunch of drunk idiots at some point (well, actually I don't remember if that happens in any of their games aside from Jade Empire and KotOR).

Unfortunately, these inebriated fellows are actually Gao's goons and can't be talked down unlike the guys you run into on Taris early on in KotOR, so we're fighting.

It's just as well, I didn't show off the Heavenly Wave support style yet so this gives us a good opportunity to do so.

Heavenly Wave, as the popup over this guy's head suggests and I mentioned while leveling up, slows enemies down. Unfortunately, low-level Heavenly Wave is itself so ungodly slow to use that it's far more efficient to just use your martial or weapon style in most cases. There are some boss fights where it can be useful, but I find other support styles to be much more effective. Support styles also don't work on certain enemy types, although I can never quite keep track of which enemy resists what unless I try different styles on everything.
After we dispatch these jerks, I do what I should have done a lot earlier and switch Dawn Star to support mode.

Her longsword just does so little damage that it's not worth using her in battle, especially since she doesn't seem to have all that much health. Active chi recovery is far, far more useful and Dawn Star's one of the better support characters as a result.

Student Si Pat has been assigned to guard the school gate, which seems like the kind of job that should perhaps be left to someone who can actually fight. We can harass him by testing his knowledge on the different styles (Martial, Weapon, Support, Transformation, and Magic) as well as how chi works, but we'll look into that stuff when it's relevant. There's enough talking in this update as it is.


Before we head back to the school's courtyard, let's check this side path to the north. There are monkeys


I like this little area the path leads to, it looks really nice with the waterfall and leaves falling from the trees.

More importantly, there is this tomb we can interact with.

[A small bowl sits beneath the stylized image of a lion, ready to accept offerings of silver to speed the spirit of the departed to his rest.]

[The coin disappears through a thin slot in the bottom of the bowl. There is an audible clicking sound.]


We did see a statue of a lion earlier, so we might want to give that another look in a little bit.

First of all, though, Kia Min is back and we can chat with her, so let's ask her how she's doing after that injury she received in the bandit attack.



My sidequest sense is tingling.




Remember the old guy at the beach who we ignored earlier? That's who we're gonna go talk to now. We can ask Kia Min more questions about the herb and Old Ming, but she doesn't have anything useful so let's just get this show on the road. She does say that she'll reimburse us if we have to buy anything, so that's nice. The important thing for her is to be able to fight again as soon as possble.

Also, remember how Master Li ran to the beach inhumanly fast? We can do that too by activating focus mode outside of combat.

We manage to actually run past this villager, who seems to be in a bit of a pickle. Of course, we'll ask if we can help in any way.









Yeah, I think we may be able to spare twenty silver to help this guy out. We don't need Gao the Greater's thugs breaking this poor bastard's legs, even if he kinda brought this on himself by borrowing money from Gao's associates in the first place.



Ah. I see he needs some convincing. This is our introduction to the three types of persuasion checks in Jade Empire, instead of just a singular Persuade option we can use Charm, Intimidation or Intuition. Your skill in these depends on your attributes, which I went over in the introductory update but just in case you didn't read it: Charm = Body + Mind, Intimidate = Body + Spirit, Intuition = Spirit + Mind. Most persuasion checks in the game aren't particularly hard, and if you're playing a character with fairly balanced stats you should be able to hit them pretty consistently.
JUST TAKE THE MONEY YOU JERK





We heard Dawn Star approve of us helping the guy out. As is the norm with BioWare games, your companions will chime in with approving or disapproving comments based on your actions. Dawn Star is maybe the most compassionate of your followers, so she likes it when you do nice things and help people. But with that sorted out, let's finally do what we came here to do and talk to Old Ming about that herb.




Aside from "bearded tongue grass" sounding really gross, that is.


All right, that's all we need to know. We could ask Old Ming about a number of things such as the Emperor and the Long Drought and spend fifteen minutes listening to him go on and on, but he doesn't really have anything to say that won't come up in a less boring manner. So, we're off to see Merchant Fen Do for that herb.


Thanks, old man. This is one of those quests where the Closed Fist path has absolutely nothing to do with the supposed Closed Fist philosophy. If we were to tell Kia Min that no, you should just let it heal on its own and maybe train harder in the future so you don't get hurt next time, that'd make some sense but if we bought the bearded tongue grass we'd basically be doing it just to be a gigantic asshole to a person who hasn't done anything to us. Closed Fist obviously doesn't appreciate "weakness" like getting injured by bandits, but it also doesn't expect us to actively fuck over those who we deem to be weak (how are they supposed to get stronger if they get crippled due to our actions?) Which is what we'd be doing in this quest if we took that path. I suppose we could tell her she needs to take it easy, and if she aggravates the injury it's her own fault?

I guess you could argue that we'd save some money and Kia Min would be able to fight at least once, which would help us get the special reward from Smiling Mountain, but the amount of silver we'd save there is so pitiful that it's not worth it in the slightest. Speaking of which, here's Fen Do.





Let's just get to business so we can get out of here.



Seriously, if you get the bearded tongue grass you're worse than double Hitler.





50 silver isn't bad at all, we have several hundred, but let's see if we can get a discount anyway.


Once again, we can use our persuasion skills to try and get him to lower the price. I think charm should work nicely here.

We now get the red silk grass for 40 silver, which isn't a massive discount but every little bit helps.


That's all we need for now. We can also ask what Fen Do has for sale, but it turns out he has absolutely nothing. Apparently, people are scared to travel so goods don't get to Two Rivers.
Right, let's head back to Kia Min and tell her we got a poultice that should help her wound.




Obviously, the "best" option (as in the one that earns us the most Open Palm points) is to refuse the reward, but if we're going to do a fetch quest I'd rather not lose money while doing it. We may be Open Palm as hell but we're not stupid. So, let's just tell the truth.

We make a huge profit of ten silver, but more importantly we can now try Smiling Mountain's challenge.

I wonder if Smiling Mountain is his birth name or if he earned it later.




All right, let's go. We could've sparred with students before and actually earned some stat bonuses from doing so, but when you ask about sparring before doing Kia Min's quest Smiling Mountain says "Well yeah I guess I could set it up but I'm sure you want a bigger challenge" and I assumed that meant it was just an option for new players who want to practice combat.



Yes, we took them all down with the sword.


Our reward for beating these guys into submission is Alloyed Body, a special stat-boosting technique (+5 to health and focus) devised by Smiling Mountain. We can also buy some slightly worse ones from him, all of which have some sort of a negative effect to one stat along with the bonus to another one. We buy Heart of Gold (Chi +3, Focus -1), sadly not being able to afford another technique to go along with it.

Before we talk to Master Li, there is the matter of the lion statue we saw earlier.

[The altar and statue serve to show students a real example of lessons otherwise presented abstractly in class. It has not seen use in some time. The altar is less ornate than the statue, and was replaced many times after frustrated or deliberate outbursts from students, but that, too is part of the exercise. There is mention of a greater reward for the more investigative path, but that was probably an additional element of the test performed by the master who placed it. You cannot recall Master Li ever referring to this statue. Different masters prefer different methods of teaching.]


As you may remember, we picked up red, blue and yellow lion figurines. The obvious solution would be to place those on the altar one after the other, corresponding to the sphere's color and doing so gives us 1 silver, but as the text said there is a greater reward for a "more investigative" path. And we did find that lion head token earlier...



Oh my, such a fiendish conundrum.



Apparently, solving a "puzzle" a three-year-old could figure out counts as a momentous occasion.

Our reward is Gaze of the Lion, another technique that boosts our stats permanently (Health +2, Focus +2). You can also smash the altar for 25 silver pieces if you prefer.
All right, now let's go talk to Master Li.


Well, that sounds slightly ominous.





Once again I should've picked the bottom response. It's not wrong, and since we're talking to Gao it doesn't matter if we're dicks to him.


Spoiler: He's very much not worthy of facing the Spirit Cave.






...






VIDEO: Boss: Gao the Lesser
Apologies for the desynced audio in this clip, I didn't notice until I was preparing a video for the next update that the sound is off. Premiere Pro apparently still doesn't like variable frame rate footage from Shadowplay. The video in the previous update was fine because the game and the video were both 30fps, I did the INI tweak after that to run the game at 60fps. Guess I'll either record in 60fps from here on or just play the game at its default 30fps.

Gao has quite a bit more health than any of the foes we've fought before, and also uses Heavenly Wave to try and slow us down. Chi strikes help us do a bit more damage to him, that's what the blue glow around Wu's hands is.

Gao also uses area attacks quite often, and I figured I'd return the favor.


All in all, Gao isn't that tough. I didn't need to heal that often, and the reason my focus is so low at the end of the fight is that I tried using focus mode and the sword at the same time. That drains the focus gauge like nobody's business.

Defeated, Gao hobbles off.


Or at least pretends to do so. What, you thought he wouldn't try to cheat at some point, preferably when we let our guard down? (Also, I just noticed that part of the bottom of this screenshot and a few others is cut off for some reason. I blame Fraps.)




Master Li isn't having any of it, and steps in to block Gao's fire spell.

That is the face of a man who has realized he fucked up.

And this is the face of a man who has finally had enough of dealing with Gao's antics.






We won't spend too much time chatting with the students, as they basically just tell us how cool we are and how Gao is a big jerk. We've established both of those things pretty well by this point, I think. We'll listen to what Dawn Star has to say, though.





Yeah, not spending too much time talking to these guys. We can ask Lin about the Spirit Cave because she's heard a bunch of rumors, but all she really has to say is that the cave is really spooky.

Let's just go see for ourselves.


















This, I think, is a good place to stop for now. This update is long enough already, and we've barely gotten started with all the exposition. There's a reason why this update is named as it is.