Somehow I doubt that, unless you neglected your Cha. Gimme some numbers on your Monkadin.
Hey.
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Hi! I'm Asha! Monk 4/paladin of Shelyn 7 (hit 8 midway through the adventure) built for and played through a PbP version of The Ruby Phoenix Tournament. First of all, I need to admit that I both lectured the PCs once and blackmailed them into doing the right thing once during the course of the adventure. (The Eternal Rose and I are both pretty firmly against cutting the throats of unconscious opponents, especially when there are non-murder options available.) That said, while "I'm a paladin" and "I'm a monk" are both large and visible parts of who I am, that's not really where I stop as a character. I'm a dancer, in point of fact, and that's probably more central to my identity than either of the other two. (Also note: while I may have danced on a pole once or twice in my life, "pole dancer" and "polearm dancer" do mean different things.) I like helping people. I like people in general, in fact - I like finding the parts of them that make them beautiful, and sometimes helping them find those parts too. I like it when they surprise me and challenge my own assumptions. The soul of every being appreciates beauty, although many have been twisted too far up into themselves to really make contact with that part of themselves. But a skilled gardener can, with patience and time, straighten out the branches of a gnarled rosebush so that the blooms can blossom. People are no different. There is nothing in all creation more beautiful than the moment when someone's soul blossoms that way.
Asha's grip on her glaive goes white-knuckled.
Asha, leaning on her new and slightly malicious-looking glaive, smirks down at Poog. "Who doesn't?" she asks agreeably. Turning back to the woman, Asha bows. "My oath to your guest laws, milady, and my condolences on the news we bring, matched though it is with hope."
Asha watches the others collecting their spoils with a small smile, seemingly content to merely wander through the collection and admire the many of works of great beauty contained within it. In one dark corner, though, her eye catches on something - and her breath catches in her chest. It is a glaive, made of black iron and polished to a mirror sheen. Etchings of tiny clusters of flowers mark the blade and circle around the shaft. The etchings are rich and complex, seeming almost to sway in an unfelt breeze; the entire weapon truly as much a work of art as it is a weapon of conflict. On seeing it, Asha gasps. "By the Rose," she whispers. "An amaranth's kiss?" She reaches out, her fingers brushing the handle; the etched flowers ripple and blur at the contact. Asha pulls her hand back, then, biting her lip, grasps the weapon firmly and takes it. Instantly the clusters of tiny flowers shift and twist, becoming roses amid interweaving thorns. The thorns burst out of the shaft and straight into her hands, causing her to cry out in surprise and pain. The blood that flows from her hands begins crawling up the shaft, turning the roses blood red, until it reaches the glaive's blade and drips up along the edge. Asha utters another oath and tries to let go of the shaft, but for a moment the thorns hold on, still driven into her palms - then there is another flicker, the roses are amaranths instead, and the glaive clatters to the floor.
"Simon Greer passed to Pharasma in the night," Asha says quietly. "Grovnaidel does indeed speak for him in our company."
"Grovnaidel!" Asha snaps angrily. "Control yourself! You have had as long as the rest of us have to get used to Poog! Simon's wishes will be honored" - and she turns a sharp glare on Poog as well - "but you will maintain the dignity your master so carefully displayed in his honor, or I swear to the Rose I will see you reforged into shoes for a manure cart's mule! Do you understand me?" Asha is trembling, her dark faced flushed enough to be almost black.
Asha scrubs at her cheeks before shaking her head. "I don't think it will work this time, my friend," she tells Poog.
Tears roll slowly down Asha's cheeks as she touches the still form of Simon and even briefly lays a hand on the spider curled upon his chest. "Oh, Simon," she murmurs, letting the grief fill her, "my oath is still yours." She looks as though she would like to say something more, but the sobs carry her words away, leaving only the aching silence of loss in their place.
Asha is pensive as she sits down, clearly wrapped in her own somber thoughts, but Zarina's question penetrates her self-absorption. "I haven't... We ought to check on him. That cough was troubling." She eyes Poog warily, but seeing that Simon's gruel doesn't seem to be interesting him, she decides her own steamed rice probably won't either and stands. "I'll go upstairs and see how he's doing."
Asha kisses the priest on his cheek, then leans over to whisper in the holy man's ear. Spoiler:
"Do not worry, Rose-brother. He will tell you what to do. I will return for him soon." "Thank you," she says, more loudly, as she straightens. Turning away quickly to hide her expression, she makes her way out quickly, her eyes fixed on the dusty road before her.
Asha bends over Kadi, her eyes closed in prayer for several long moments. Then she reaches into her pouch for a potion that she drinks down in a swift movement before launching herself into the air, her brother's body still cradled in her arms. In a few minutes she has crossed the small town and come to a landing before the temple to the Rose. "My brother has fallen," she tells the priests somberly. "I beg you to care for his body."
Asha looks down at the ground for a long moment, then back up. "As you wish, Kadi," she murmurs. "Shelyn bless you." Taking a deep breath, she looks directly into her brother's eyes and says, "I love you," right before she hits him in the chest.
Asha frowns, obviously upset. "Kadi... are you sure?"
Kaditula is waiting for Asha when she arrives at the Pavilion. He's seated at the bottom step of the ziggurat, and he's looking up at the stars. His hands are still bound, though in front of him, and a monk is off to the side watching him from a respectful distance. "So, Asha," he says at last. "Where do we go from here?" Asha kneels, taking his hands in hers. "That's up to you, Kadi," she replies, "just as it always has been. I came here wanting you to come home with me, but I've realized that's me being selfish. Father and Mother love you, and I think you should see them, but I'm not dragging you anywhere against your will. I want you to know you are loved, and to let love be your guide." Very deliberately, she pulls out her dagger, and places the edge against the bindings. "I believe I can arrange for your release into my custody, now that we've uncovered and dealt with the masterminds of the Golden League's plot. If you want to travel with me..." She trails off, suddenly uncertain.
As soon as Asha sees Simon settled, she goes to seek out her brother. The treasure for winning the tournament is all well and good, but for her, he is the real prize.
Asha steps up beside him to take his other arm. "If you think she's the one who gets to escort you to bed," Asha says, her grin pure wickedness (although her eyes are filled with concern), "you have another think coming, my friend!" She nods gratefully to Tsavati, and the two women begin to guide Simon toward the inn.
Asha easily avoid the Xuns' attacks, keeping her focus on Dizhen.
Asha turns, whispering a brief mantra, and sprints across the field, somehow avoiding the blows of her attackers as though they weren't even there. She uses the momentum of the movement to drive her blade home against the remaining witch.
Asha takes a step back, frowning in concentration, to the optimal range for her glaive. With a murmured prayer to Shelyn, the monk then unleashes a flurry of glittering attacks on the enemy witch.
Asha steps out of the cloud, entirely untroubled by the vapor, and sprints toward Wu Jufeng. "Your next spell will be your last," the monk says to her opponent, readying her glaive.
Asha unleashes the same style of barrage against Gomwai with her glaive.
Asha runs forward, approaching Gomwai from the side with her glaive at the ready; she times her arrival and the swing of her weapon so that the momentum of her charge carries into the weight of the blow, and sparks suddenly coruscate along its edge.
Asha looks around at the rest of her group, smiling. "We are nearly there, my friends," she says, and once again visibly resists the urge to pat Poog on the head. "Your treasure is almost at hand, little one." She stretches, spins her glaive, then moves toward the tournament grounds once more.
Asha looks toward Simon. When he reads his, she frowns. "I think I've heard this one before, but I can't quite remember. I must be getting forgetful in my old..."
Mmm. Might be right about the order. The scansion works better with my arrangement, but I think the meaning flows a bit better with yours. That's probably how the book has it listed.
Don't read this if you want to try to solve the riddle yourself:
The complete riddle is:
You build more of me each day
and the answer is, I believe, "memories." But I don't know how we are supposed to handle the process of rearranging and "solving" it...
Asha waits in the middle, ready to move wherever needed to get the pillars into the right order quickly.
Asha busies herself for a few moments with the wand, but in the midst of the healing, she glances up at Simon with a half-frown. "I can't help agreeing, my friend. And I can't help thinking at least one of us was supposed to die in that fight." She glances toward the stands, where Kiang Zhen sits, theoretically watching Gomwai's match.
Asha is too staggered by the ettin's fury to even react at first. Before she can even move again, Zak's arrows have dispatched the foe, and she finds she cannot even muster up any disappointment over that fact. The first thing she focuses on is actually Zarina's hurts, and she waves away the potions Zak and Simon offer. "Let me... let me do this first," she says, pulling her holy symbol out with within her robes and murmuring a short prayer to Shelyn, a prayer she then repeats twice more. With each repetition of the mantra, a burst of rose- and yellow-colored light washes over the group, soothing the hurts she and Zarina have suffered.
Still injured but looking much better, she then turns back to Zak and Simon. "You are generous of heart, my friends, but I don't know if it's wise to use something so perishable if we have other options. Poog? Are you willing to use your spells, or do you think it's better to save those and use the potions?"
Asha glares at the two-headed giant, and her grip tightens on her glaive. "This one," she mutters, "could use a reminder of the strength of righteousness." She murmurs a prayer to the Rose and moves forward, looping around behind the giant to flank with Zarina. She raises her glaive, and the blade gleams with an unusual, yellow and pink aura.
Despite Kadi's bitterness, Asha smiles with genuine warmth at his words. She makes a small gesture of blessing over the two. "The Bloom of the Rose lighten your hearts," she says, then pokes Kaditula's elbow. "You should be more appreciative of love," she says, smiling. "That's how you and I got here, after all. And why we're still alive now."
Asha is stricken by Seishuku's death, and she joins Simon's call for resurrection on the ninja's behalf. During Gomwai's brief battle, she slips out to find Kaditula and check in on him and his protectors before returning to the arena just in time to hear the Emissary ask for demonstrations from her and her comrades to entertain the crowd; despite her worries and concern for her brother, she can't help smiling a little and readying her glaive in preparation for a martial display.
I'll pitch in a concept later today. Good luck with the game either way!
Asha unleashes her usual barrage on her foe.
Faint tracks - likely made by the ghouls you encountered yesterday - lead both directions along the beach, but there are no other signs of humanoid habitation. The tracks lead toward the strangely "striped" portion of the jungle, but what looks like an even fainter side trail, heading into the jungle and toward the island's western ridges, catches Chum's eye.
Asha, seeing the glittering form of the revealed ninja, tightens her grip on her glaive and rushes toward him, swinging with all the strength she can muster.
Guys, I'm going to have to beg your indulgence for a short while. I've had several very long work days (12+ hours) in a row, and this afternoon just as I was sitting down to update my PbPs my father called to tell me my mother is in the hospital. I'm not likely to worth anything for a day or two. Please bear with me and DMPC as needed.
Asha is distracted, and she is not particularly good at hiding it. She has already spoken to both Chung Po and Ganyavesha, asking them to keep an especially watchful eye on Kaditula during the match so that she can keep her obligation to the Tournament while she knows there are those she has some measure of helping her keep her obligation to her brother.
Asha is careful to remain with Kadi, refusing any attempt to separate her from him. If asked, she says, "It is a matter of oath," and maintains her silent presence.
Asha waits protectively by her brother while the others search for Marthysan. She does move enough to drag Pirin from the water back onto the dock, lest her spell wear off and send her below the waves still unconscious, but otherwise maintains her watchful vigil.
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