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Karrusatva Shijin-Po
Concept: Calligrapher Priest
Nature: Architect
Camp & Calling: Atrium of the Airy Sands, Diplomat

Anima: A complex, spiraling mandala of decorative calligraphy in multiple scripts; some modern, some ancient, some extinct.
(If anyone takes the time to read them, they're koans devolted to the pursuit of unity and peace through shared language.)

STR 1
DEX 4
STM 2

CHR 5
MAN 3
APP 3

PER 2
INT 5
WTS 2

Awareness 1
Martial Arts 1
Ride 1
Linguistics 5 (N:Fire, High Realm, Low Realm, Old Realm-High Holy, River, Forest)
c-Bureaucracy 5
c-Socialize 5
c-Lore 4 (+2 Scripts, +1 Lunars)
c-Occult 3 (+2 Gods & Spirits)
c-Dodge 5 (+2 Passive Evasion)
Craft: Calligraphy 5 (+2 Lettering, +1 Sumi-e)
Presence 3

Illumination 3 (A teacher, but not a leader)
Artifacts 3 (Prayer Beads, Calligrapher’s Brush)
Allies 3 (Li Meng Lun, and Nyala the Lunar)
Tiger Warriors 1 (His guards)

Merits: Prescient Dreamer (3), Priest (1)
Flaws: Unbidden Oracle (-1), Pacifist (-3)

Dreamer Details:
In the early days of the First Age, an Eclipse linguist and calligrapher labored in the Heavenly city of Yu Shan, assisting the gods of communication as they established the systems that would allow the far-flung peoples of Creation to come together under the unified leadership of the Exalts and the Celestial Hierarchy. Her name was Jhunodavi, and she was called "The Quill of Heaven"... a title still used by certain divinities well into the second age to describe the most literate members of her caste. Jhunodavi often scribed masterful prayers in the course of her work, and over many centuries her eloquent petitions became well-known to the denizens of the Loom. One being in particular began to note them... and then slowly to cherish them.

The amber-eyed August Weaver X313A… whom Mercury had named Tears of the Sun... favored Jhunodavi's petitions above all others, seeking them out and devouring them with perfect, tiny bites of uniform size. Lingering over every fiber of perfectly woven silk and every drop of perfectly laid-down ink. As much as such a being could be said to know affection, August Weaver X313A felt a great appreciation for the creator of such delectible words. And as much as such a being could be said to know sorrow, August Weaver X313A mourned the calligrapher's passing.

Countless skeins of time have passed under X313A's watchful eyes since Jhunodavi's death, and countless petitions have found their way to the Weaver's palate... but none tasted as sweet as the words of the long-dead Eclipse. Until one came into its possession via the hand of a young goddess of scribes. A simple prayer, copied by one of her priests to her specifications... And in it, August Weaver X313A tasted a shadow... just the faintest hint... of the Quill of Heaven. As much as such a being can be said to know joy, August Weaver X313A sought out the thread of the scribe and followed it backwards and forwards across the weave of the Loom. It has begun, in careful ways, to bring certain threads together... Seeking to steer this young calligrapher away from harm and towards the glorious possibility of seeing Jhundavi's skill reborn. August Weaver X313A is waiting patiently for a taste of the delicious words that it remembers.

Essence 3
Willpower 8
Break: Compassion
Flaw: Compassionate Martyrdom

Compassion 3
Conviction 2
Temperance 3
Valor 2

Charms:
Spirit-Detecting Glance
Deft Official’s Way
Whirling Brush Method
Flawless Brush Discipline
Mastery of Small Manners
Graceful Courtier Attitude
Excellent Emissary’s Tongue
Letter-Within-a-Letter Technique
Flawless Handiwork Method
Speed the Wheels
Indolent Official Charm
Reed in the Wind

His Artifacts:
The Blessing of the Serif Maiden

When the Kingdom of the Three Princes, with its three cities and its three temples, was young, the Serif Maiden first walked among the people of the Third City and chose for her Karrusatva the sage, Jhinshiva.

“Will you serve me faithfully?” she asked him. And the scholar nodded and promised that he would. “Will you listen carefully to my words, and heed them always?” she asked, and again the scholar nodded and promised that he would. And Serif Maiden was pleased.

She took the long strand of ironwood beads from around her neck, fine beads carved from the branches of the great Tree of Heaven where the Birds of Paradise gather, speaking all of the languages of the world, and she broke the strand in two. “Then you have my blessing, Karrusatva Jhinshiva, and with it know that your prayers will be heard.” Twenty-five beads the goddess kept, and those reside with her still in the Palace of Incomparable Words. Twenty-five she gave to Jhinshiva as her Blessing, and it is these holy beads which every Karrusatva carries.

Artifact 2 Prayer Beads. Commitment 2. 5 motes per use… With the proper channeling of essence, the finely carved kana on each of the 25 beads can be altered. The changes will be reflected not only on the surface of the Karrusatva’s beads, but also on the beads’ mates in his goddess’ possession. This is typically used to send prayers and words of devotion. The goddess may also chose to send messages of her own in the same way, altering the text of her beads to convey instructions back to her priest. Regrettably, there are only 25 beads in each strand, limiting the length of the messages that can be sent or received in a single pass. Longer messages require multiple uses of the beads’ enchantment.

When not in active use, or after the most recent message has been dismissed by its recipient, the kana return to their original configuration… Each set being one half of a koan written by the Maiden of Serenity on the subject of faithfulness. Being two halves of the same artifact, each set of beads is considered arcanely connected to the other.


The Maiden’s Lesson of Silence

Only once in the history of the Kingdom of the Three Princes have the citizens of the three cities and the priests of the three temples been in conflict with one another. Seeking to bring accord to the three factions before it came to war, the thirty-ninth Karrusatva of the Serif Maiden, grey-bearded Ling Su, sent a graciously scribed letter to each of the three princes, and to the ministers, and to his two fellow Karrusatvas, asking all to reconsider their positions and reconcile their differences with the others.

In reply, wise Ling Su received eight passionate arguments why war was inevitable and one of the other cities was to blame. Sitting alone in his chambers, reading each, Ling Su despaired. But, he thought, perhaps if he brought them together they could yet be made to see reason and the pettiness of their conflict. And so he sent each another letter, asking them to attend him in the Third City at the temple of his goddess. Ling Su was renowned for his great wisdom, and as each hoped that he would see the justice in their own argument, each prince and minister and karrusatva accepted.

The assembly was a disaster, turning instantly into chaos as the prince of the First city shouted at the minister of the Second, and the karrusatva of Sang Rho said very unkind things about the sisters of the karrusatva of Shan Sul. Ling Su could find no moment of silence in which to speak, and could barely find an instant to call the meeting to an end.

Again he sat alone in his chambers and despaired.

“Don’t worry, Ling Su,” the Serif Maiden said to him, for she had been watching the assembly in the form of a dragonfly, and was less than pleased with the conduct of her temple’s guests. “When you gather them again tomorrow… Use this.” And she gave Ling Su a fine brush made from the wood of the monkey puzzle tree, with bristles from each tail of the nine-tailed fox.

And the next day Ling Su did as his goddess had commanded, drawing the kanji of Divine Silence in the air and calling for stillness and for quiet, when, once more, the assembly fell into bedlam.

And the room fell still…

And Ling Su said his peace…

And the three cities did not go to war.

Artifact 2. A beautifully carved wooden calligrapher’s brush. Attunement: NA, Use 15 motes.

Basically this thing emulates the general effect of the spell Paralyzing Contradiction (and has the same essence cost, range, limitations, and etc.for simplicity’s sake-), but rather than giving the audience a complex koan to chew on it gives them the concept and realization of Divine Silence. ‘Perfect for dealing with an arguing bunch of hot-headed students who won’t listen to their teacher. ^_^

His Story:
The young priest sits with closed eyes, pulling a set of prayer beads slowly through his fingers. “You ask my name. You ask what land I come from…” One bead falls against the next with the clack of heavy ironwood, and he pauses. “You think that these things will tell you what manner of person I am... Perhaps you’re right. But the true sum of a soul can not always be found in the past.”

“In the west, there is a kingdom which has three Princes. Each Prince rules a valley, and in the center of each valley there stands a city, and in the center of each city there stands a temple. The first is the temple of Sang Rho. The second is the temple of Shan Sul. And the last is the temple of Li Meng Lun. It is the third which was my home.”

“I don’t know what caste or clan my family came from. My father drove an ox cart. My mother had rough and calloused hands. I think... that they were farmers. I remember a field of lentils and the smell of grain, but nothing more. They brought me to the third city and they gave me to Li Meng Lun when I was still too young to have a name. Perhaps their crops had been ruined. Or they had made a pledge to the gods. Or they were burdened already with too many children…What ever their reason, they did not look back when they did so.”

“I became a serving boy first. Drawing water from the wells in the deepest parts of the temple. Grinding coal and gall for ink. Scraping parchment scraps to be reused… Menial tasks fit for one with neither the knowledge nor the skill for any other. I was never strong and the work was sometimes very hard. It made my arms ache and the ink room floor was very cold. But even so, what the Novices and the Brother Scribes accomplished in the scriptorium was a miracle to me. Magic more wondrous than the moon and stars, and I wanted nothing more than to be one of them.”

“It was my second summer at the temple before the Brother Scribe in charge of the Pages gave me a name, and I became a person. He called me Shijin-Po. It means “the one who remains still”. He chose it because I was the most peaceable of his charges. I was taught to read, and to do sums, and to trim quills, and to smooth parchment. And finally, I was taught to write. Not with a brush, or even a quill at first… but with a simple length of bone and a tablet made of wax. I felt as if I had become a king the day I was praised for the steadiness of my hand.” The young priest smiled, and let another prayer bead fall.

“I was an ardent student, and became a Novice in another year. I was given my first quill, and then my first brush. I learned seventeen syllabaries and all nine Holy scripts. I learned the secret of making the finest papers from the cocoons of silk worms and the inner bark of the fai nuin tree. And I was content. I thought that I knew then what my fate would be… I would become a Brother Scribe and spend the rest of my days among words that would last until the end of all things. Words that were important to the well-being of the Kingdom of the Three Princes, for many matters of business and of state passed through our scriptorium doors in those days, and our Brother Scribes traveled widely to the courts and the merchant houses of other lands.”

Another bead falls, and the young priest opens his eyes. “It was a pleasant dream. I treasured it, and the thoughts of what might have been.”

“When I was eight years old, the old Karrusatva fell ill and died. I had seen him only once… He was a tall man, and he had served for many years, but he had never spoken to me. I was only a Novice and much too humble for such an honor. The temple and the city mourned for him for a whole turning of the moon, and then we prayed to our mistress, our Maiden of Words, to bless us with her wisdom by choosing another Karrusatva to replace him.”

“She came to us on the tenth day of prayer. A shining light spread with the most perfect calligraphy surrounded her, and her hair was wreathed in jasmine flowers. She was the most beautiful being that I had ever seen, and as she looked at each of us in turn, with eyes darker than the finest ink, I wanted nothing more than to serve her, heart and soul. I would have done anything that she asked of me in that moment. I would have given her anything… I’ve often wondered if that was why, of all the people gathered there, she chose me.”

“After that,” the young priest shrugs, a gesture of resignation, “My life and my fate were not my own. I became the eighty-first Karrusatva of the temple of Li Meng Lun, and my dreams of becoming a Brother Scribe were lost. From the day that Meng Lun stopped and met my gaze, until the day that I left the Third City forever, I never once ventured outside the temple walls. To do so was not a Karrusatva’s place, and though I learned a great deal from the Brother Scribes and from the temple elders… I was no longer as content as I had been when I was nothing but a Novice struggling to perfect his script and dreaming of distant places.”

He raises a fine, long-fingered hand. “Do not misunderstand. It was not an empty life despite these things. Remembering that my predecessor had never spoken to the Pages or the Novices, I sought to do things differently. I tutored some and was a councilor to many more. It was my decree that all in the Kingdom of Three Princes who wished to do so should come to the temple of Li Meng Lun and be taught to read the common tongue. Even the most perfect document is mute when one doesn’t know how to decipher it. Also, I studied many things… The cultures and languages of distant lands that I could no longer hope to visit, and the stories of travelers. I learned to oversee the functions of the temple and the scriptorium, and to adjudicate the conflicts of my brothers. I spent many hours in conversation with visitors from other places, with the people of our kingdom, with my fellow Karrusatvas, and to my wonder… with Li Meng Lun. My life was cloistered, that much is true, but it was never solitary.”

“I suspect that my life would have been much like that of the eighty Karrusatvas that were chosen before me, were it not for a Dynast named Tepet Lasri who came to the Kingdom of Three Princes with a company of monks and men-at-arms, and an order from the Realm. Pay more tithes into the coffers of the Empire and the Order, he said, and cease the worship of your heretical gods.”

“He went to the First City and the Karrusatva of Sang Rho refused him entrance and left him standing in the street. He went to the Second City, and the Karrusatva of Shan Sul had two of his messengers beheaded for dishonoring the temple with their profanity… But I was not told these things, and so when he came to the Third City, I greeted him as I would any visitor from abroad. I accepted he and his men as honored guests.”

The young priest passes two more beads through his fingers, and bows his head. ”In hindsight, I should have seen what manner of man he was, and what wickedness he and his company were capable of. To my eternal shame, I did not. They took the temple in a matter of hours… ours has never been a martial order… and I found myself a prisoner, along with many of my brothers. My guardsmen, the loyal hareshi who had protected me from the day of my Choosing, could not stand against the might of the Dragon-Blooded noble.”

“The monks who had come with Tepet Lasri burned the temple and the scriptorium of Li Meng Lun when morning came, to bring the Karrusatvas of Sang Rho and Shan Sul to heel. ‘Obey us, or your brothers will suffer the same fate as the priests of Li Meng Lun and you will find yourself imprisoned like Shijin-Po’. I don’t know if Han Lon and Danmi obeyed, or if they continued to defy the foreign monks… But I hope that they endured. And that their gods are not forgotten.”

The young priest allows a final bead to fall. “The Novices and Pages were to be sold into the chains of the Guild for heresy. For the crime of worshipping our calligrapher goddess, as the people of the Kingdom of Three Princes had done for many centuries. The Brother Scribes and I were to be executed. A warning to the people of the city what it meant to be subjects of the Scarlet Empire.”

“I didn’t care what became of myself… With the temple and scriptorium gone what need was there for a Karrusatva? But without the Brother Scibes, Li Meng Lun would be lost to the world. Her name would be forgotten and her holy script would fall into silence. As my last service to her, then, I asked for an audience with Tepet Lasri. To ask for his mercy. To plead for the lives of my brothers.”

The young priest looks up, and then closes his eyes again, turning the beads and starting over from the beginning of the strand. “I prayed for my patron’s aid that day, but it was not Li Meng Lun who answered my prayers, and for the second time I did not receive the fate that I thought was mine. For the second time… I was Chosen.”

“Tepet Lasri released the Brother Scribes and pardoned them, and the Novices and Pages were freed. I agreed to leave the Kingdom of Three Princes, never to return, and never to seek vengeance against the Dynast or his House. Since that day, I have been free to determine my own fate, though I still choose to serve Li Meng Lun as her priest, so that her name will not be forgotten. It was her guidance that led me here… to the Illuminated.”

“I must admit that certain matters of the Cult are curious to me, but that isn’t so unusual. Since I left the temple I’ve discovered how little I really know about the world, and many things seem strange to my eyes that you would take for granted. I wonder at the treatment of the common members of this order, though, and the role they claim is proper for our brothers and sisters of the Moon. I owe the cult a great deal, and I’m thankful to them for the aid they’ve given me… but I wonder if silent acceptance is the proper price to pay for all that they’ve done for me and the other Chosen of the Sun.”



The Details:
Essentially, a Karrusatva is something like an Abbot or a High Priest (Yes. It's a title. Shijin-Po is his personal name. It's debatable just how many people outside of his own obscure little corner of Creation realize that, though. It means "Enlightened Brother". Since he chooses to go by Karru, basically you're just calling him "Brother" when you address him that way. 'Seemed appropriate for a priest.) It's a symbolic position, filled at the patron god or goddess' whim, and having some administrative, ceremonial, and social duties. They're figureheads, so they're kept on a pretty tight leash of what's "Proper" and what isn't.

Tepet Lasri was pissed by the time he got to the third city, and took advantage of a "soft target" and a very young and *far* too trusting host to make a point about kingdoms that defy the Realm and its appointed tax collectors. In the end, he never should have agreed to that last interview with Shijin-Po, but maybe he was feeling a little guilty about torching the scriptorium. That was a pretty profitable little enterprise, after all. He got hit with Solar-powered Social-fu and then oathbound to let the Karru, theScribes, and the rest go. Karru's part of that is, as he mentioned, the agreement not to go home and not to slap Lasri or the Tepet around for trashing his temple.

The monks that were with Lasri probably figured out eventually that something screwy had happened, but they may or may not know exactly what. (I suspect "And you won't ever tell anyone what happened here" was part of the deal- Karru's unworldly, but he' s not suicidal. ) They've likely got their suspicions about the now-absent leader of Li Meng Lun's temple.

How Karru Got Here and Other Matters (Being a Discussion with Yusef the Guardsman):

The broad-shouldered warrior grins with a gap-toothed smile and proudly shows off his handiwork… one symbol inscribed roughly in the sand with a stick.

“See here? This first stroke… that’s the pillar of the Earth. It’s the Holy Mountain at the center of the world. This here second is the curve of the western waves. And this third, that’s the run of a northern wind… Then you make yourself a descending stroke like the roots of the trees in the east, and finish up straight across, like the horizon on the plains’a fire… And that there’s all of Creation… Right here in this one little picture. That’s what it means, too. Creation... Master Karru showed me that. It’s Old Realm, he said, and that’s the way they write in Heaven… He’s shown me more too… The common ones that mean ‘Blacksmith’ and ‘Food’, and the one that says ‘Stop’. ‘Even taught me how to write my name. Like this-” His picks up the stick again and spells out “Yusef” in the most simple of the Southern scripts. “He’s a wise one, our Master Karru. If you’re a smart pup, you’ll listen to what he’s got to tell you. That way when the new Day comes you’ll go into the Kingdom with him knowin’ a few things.”

“I’ve known Master Karru near on three years now. It was me that found him and brought him here from his place out West… ‘Long ways west… He’s from the mountains just shy’a An-Teng… That’s why he dresses up like that. That’s the way of it in the valley where he’s from… I was out there carryin’ messages for Kether Rock and saw him trying to cross a river, all by his’self. He’s never been no good at that sort’a thing, but he was givin’ it his best. I just thought he was a traveling scribe a’first, so I helped him out. Like the Teachings say, it’s good to help those in need… Good thing I did too. I didn’t know he was one of the Shining Ones until he told me a little farther and a couple of days on down the road. ‘Said someone named Meng Lun told him it was a good idea to let me know… He talks ‘bout her a lot, that Meng Lun. ‘Does a lot of things that he says make her happy, like teachin’ folks to read. I know now that she’s a goddess… ‘Pretty one too… But back then I just thought that she was some little gal from the Cult that he’d had to leave behind.”

“It took us half a year to get here, travelin’ village to village like the nomads. Didn’t attract no attention though, if you know what I mean. Stayed one step ahead of ‘em the whole way, we did. It wasn’t an easy time… Dangerous roads. ‘Lot’a long nights and longer days… He didn’t complain though, Master Karru. Not once. No matter who we called on or how rough n’ humble they were, he treated ‘em all the same. Acted like everything was the most interesting’ thing in the world. Like he’d never seen such a thing as a yeddim or a caravansary or a ploughshare... ‘Damnedest thing. An everywhere we’d go, he’d be teachin’ people to write their names.” Yusef shakes his bald head, and grins again.

“There was that one night though… I thought I’d lost him for sure. My own life too, not that mine’s worth a fig next to his. We were crossin’ the canyons just past the Windless Plains, right where the grasslands meet the desert, in the company of a merchant and his caravan. ‘Little caravan… Not one’a these well-manned Guild strings, mind… The Guild would’a asked us too many questions.”

“We’re movin’ along, nearin’ midnight and the end of the mesa, when the yeddim started kickin’ up all kinds’a fuss. Brayin’ and pulling at the leads. Their drivers were tryin’ to calm the beasts down, and I was tryin’ to make sure Master Karru didn’t get pitched off into the rocks, when somethin’ started up howling and barking and throwing rocks from the top of the ridge down on our heads. Three of the yeddim broke loose ‘bout then, and that sent the rest of the line all scattering… An’ that’s just what the bandits wanted. I know that, because that’s when they attacked us.”

“There weren’t so many of ‘em. Maybe a dozen… But there weren’t so many of us, neither. The merchant and his men didn’t last too long. They was all killed or ran away, so Master Karru and I were in deep. He wasn’t so good at getting’ out of the way then as he is now, and he didn’t know no better than to get separated from me. So there I was, fighting for all I was worth, and still had him knocked off his mount by one’a them bandits… and I knew I couldn’t do a damned thing ‘bout it. I just knew he was gonna get cut up like a sand snake in a glass cactus before I could get to ‘im.”

“Damnedest thing though… That bandit raised this wicked curved sword, and cursed bloody murder, but he wasn’t scared a bit, our Master Karru. Didn’t know to be, I guess. I don’t think he did a lot of fighin’ up in Heaven… Instead’a tryin’ to run or defend his’self, he looked right back at that bandit, square in the eye, and pointed to somethin’ they was wearing. A medallion around their neck made out of that gold stuff that the Shining Ones carry… Orichalcum they call it… and a right-odd sort of quicksilver that was hard to get a look at, and he said “Do you know what that says?””

“Heaven as my witness, that bandit backed off like a scalded cat and lowered that sword and said “No. What does it say?” And Master Karru, he sits up, and he smiles that smile’a his, and he says, “It’s one of the High Holy scripts. A very old one… It says:

‘ My love is on the far shore.
And the river is between us;
The waters are mighty as a flood,
A crocodile waits in the shallows.
I enter the water and I brave the waves,
My heart is strong;
The crocodile seems as a mouse to me,
The flood as land to my feet.
It is her love that gives me strength,
And makes a water-spell for me;
I gaze at my heart's desire,
As she stands facing me.
My love has come to the river’s bank and my heart exults,
My arms embrace her;
My heart bounds as the stag,
Leaping like the red fish in its pond.
O night, be mine forever,
Now that my queen has come.’”

“An’ he looked at that bandit after recitin’ all that and he said, “The person who gave that to you must have loved you very much.” And I swear to you on my mother’s pyre that that’s all he said… And that bandit stood there just lookin’ at him for the longest time… And then turned around and left without takin’ a thing. Called off those others, and went back into the canyon without so much as another word. I don’t even pretend’ta know why that was, but I’n not one’ta look at good fortune too close. I grabbed us a yeddim and we took off outta there right quick. I was afraid they’d change their minds!”

“We didn’t have no more bandit trouble after that, though, thank the Maidens… Just saw a lot of jackals. Big ones. Bold too… ‘Come right up into the camp a few times and snarled somethin’ fierce if you waved a stick at ‘em. Master Karru didn’t seem to mind ‘em, though. ‘Said he liked the sounds they made. So I let ‘em stay just so long as they didn’t steal nothin’ or try to spook our mounts.”

Yusef shakes his head and erases the kana of Creation with his foot. “He’s got a kind heart. Master Karru. I worry ‘bout him though. He’s still too bound to trustin’ everybody. Take that wild-eyed girl, for one… Oh, so you haven’t noticed her yet, have you? Well… I can’t blame’ya for that. Master Karru’s never been one to go on much about things that’r personal-like. ‘Fact is… he’ll go all quiet and turn redder’n an effritt’s backside if you start talkin’ carnal subjects with ‘im. Like he’s not sure how much he ought to admit to knowin’...”

Yuself looks around, and lowers his voice. “He’s never told me nothin’ about her, that girl… but she ain’t one of us. Not in the Illuminated, I mean. I don’t rightly know if she’s from the village or the nomad camps, but she’s an odd one and that’s for sure. I only seen her ‘cause I follow him out some nights when he didn’t know I’m there. Says he doesn’t need me just to go up and look at the stars… Well, he might be lookin’ at the stars, alright, but he ain’t doin’ it by his’self. ‘Calls her “Nyala”, that girl. She’s got skin the color of one of Master Chu’s cigars and brown hair with silver in it… Wears it in a bunch’a long braids, pulled into a tail. Talks funny too, like one’a those plains-runners… That ain’t why I don’t trust her, though. I don’t trust ‘er ‘cause she’s wearin’ the same kind’a medallion that bandit in the canyons wore. ‘Just like it. Round, with sungold n’ quicksilver. ‘Covered with all kind’a little symbols. I never seen another one like it… so I think she’s the one who lead those bandits that attacked us.”

“I’m goin’ to keep an eye on Master Karru when he goes out from now on, pup. Mark my words… That girl’s more’n just some nomad who’s set her eye on him. Our duty is to protect ‘im. Even if it’s from someone he’s taken a right fancy to.”

Li Meng Lun, the Serif Maiden, Discusses the Topic of Her Chosen Priest

Meng Lun faces off with the Sidereal in charge of the camp, looking very stubborn, and says: "Okay, look... I'll be honest here. I still need Shijin-Po.

"I may not have a temple at the moment, but he's still my Karrusatva. I've got a lot of time and attention invested in him, and he was *mine* before he was yours... So here's the deal...

"You take care of him, and I'll help you. I'm a goddess in the Division of Serenity's department of Material Culture. I'm on the Written Communications committee. That's a pretty useful place to have friends when you're trying to keep up with an orginization that's expanding all over Creation and depends pretty heavily on the written word to stay in touch.

"I might even be able to throw in a bit of direct communication aid once in awhile... But in exchange, you have to let him remain my priest. It won't interfere with your Cult... I don't demand conversions. Just his attention... Let him do what he's naturally prone to do and we'll be fine. Don't be surprised if the first thing he does is teach everyone in sight how to to read and write... That's a form of worship for him, you know. It's his favorite form, in fact. That... and writing decorative calligraphic koans. You could probably make a tidy material profit on those if you liked. He's very talented, and it's the act of making the things that I'm interested in, not the finished product.

"Oh, I'm sure you *could* drill the priestly tendencies and native devotion to me out of him given time, but you clearly have no idea just how stubborn Shijin-Po can be. Sure... I know he *seems* really quiet. Complacent. Mallable. Even a little bit inane... Vapid, even. And yes, nine times out of ten he'll go along with you without saying a thing or doing more than raising a mild objection on moral grounds. But try to push him in the wrong direction on some matters and... Oh boy... You've got *NO IDEA*. It's like trying to move the Imperial Mountain.

"I'm pretty sure being my Karrusatva is one of those things he won't compromise on. I mean, come on.... Let's be serious... If getting picked for a Solar exaltation by the UC didn't shake his devotion to me, do you really think that a couple of months of propaganda and drug-abuse is going to do it? Heh. Of course, you could break him if you really wanted to. I know that... So does he. But how useful would he really be to you afterwards? Yeah. Not much...

"I'm sure you'll agree that what I'm suggesting is the better alternative. I get to keep my priest. You get a useful operative *and* the aid of another divinity for your cause. And all you have to do... is let Shijin-Po keep doing what makes him happy."