Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="StalkingBlue" data-source="post: 1337983" data-attributes="member: 645">Tallarn and I figured we shouldn't leave our mutual sub-plot dangling as Cho leaves, so here is our common ... Flashback - In The Orchard (It's early summer, a few days after the party's return from the desert and Cho's return from the dead.  Cho has asked Xiang to meet her alone outside the city.)  Cho is sitting on her heels between the rows of cherry trees.  She has got a set of peasant clothes from somewhere to replace the temple robes, and looks almost her former self.  As she notices Xiang approaching, she bows formally, her eyes as always flicking briefly to the Spear before they acknowledge him.  "Xiang Chang-san. You honour my request."Xiang is dressed, as always, in the Black Fullplate. The Spear is held casually in one hand. "I am glad to meet with you. Are you recovered from your...ordeal?"He's a little unsure about how to approach the subject. He's never really had to speak with someone who was dead only a few days before. Apart from Aos, and Aos doesn't really count in this case...Cho smiles. “I have no particular wish to die again soon. I believe I understand now why in some instances a quick death is considered mercy. “Will you sit with me?” She gestures with a hand strangely soft and unfamiliar, with the Talons gone. Water steams from a pot sitting in a tiny fire at her side. She pours into two bowls and sets them out. An acrid, perfumed scent rises: Mountains tea. A wooden training spear, roughly cut, leans against a tree behind her.Xiang sits down, quietly, sensing that this is going to be a somewhat unnusual meeting. He can't help but glance at the wooden spear behind Cho. "You seem...troubled. What is the matter?"The meeting is already unusual in that the two of them are alone - which they haven't been in a long while;  not in fact since they first arrived in Gaxmoor.  "It is almost a year since we first came here together,"  Cho says.  "If you had not slowed your horse on the plain outside the city gates, I would have died that day.  I have never forgotten that. "You know what that thing really is, don't you? What it stands for?"  She's staring at the Black Spear more openly than she ever has before."It is a weapon forged of evil, that uses evil to fight evil. I have companion to it for, as you say, a year now. It has become a solid friend to me. But I do not understand what it means to you, what it stands for. To me, it is a tool that has helped me make a break from the evil of Mount Fire to this place where I have done good." "I have never forgotten that day outside the city gates. The way you kept up with me on foot though I was on horseback, your courage in the face of death, your bravery against overwhelming odds. I gained a friend that day, though I have not had the courage to say it." "Please, speak to me of what troubles you. Tell me what it is that has brought me to this place on this day."Light flits across Cho’s face at the mention of friendship, but her eyes don’t leave the Spear.  “It is an ancient artifact from a faraway part of this world;  and of deep religious importance.  This weapon you have wielded for a year now rightly belongs to the Lady of Hawk’s Palace.  “Understand that any Guardian who saw you carry it would likely do everything in her power to take it from you.  You have seen me fight, Xiang.  You must know what I am – or could have been.  If Kung had delayed his assault on Hawk’s Palace for but one day longer, I would have been Guardian.  In fact, I would have claimed that in everything but form, I was. “When we first met in the foothills of the Heavenly Mountains, it was only the Black Spear I saw.  All I waited for was a day of peace from our pursuers, and then an opportunity to kill you in your sleep.”  She smiles strangely.  “I had killed others of your sort, so why not you?  “Then came Gaxmoor, and our first expedition to the graveyard.  Still I was waiting, thinking I’d let an enemy do my work and simply pick up the Spear ... until that demon appeared in the doorway to the crypt and threatened to tear both you and Aos to shreds.  It was at that instant that to my dismay I realized you had become a friend.  “I fought it.  I hated myself for, I thought, being indecisive.  I hated myself for what I was, for what you were, for what I might have to do to you when the time came.  “I had to die first to understand.  Hate is no way to achieve balance.  Hate is no way to follow any path.  I see now that I cannot betray a friend.  I cannot, will not betray you, Xiang.  Not even for the sake of the Black Spear.”  Xiang's hand tightens slightly on the Spear as he listens. "The Lady of the Hawks Palace lays claim to this Spear? You told me she is sleeping, locked in a magical stasis. Do you then propose to awaken her? What would she use the Spear for?" "I have always said that I only weild the Spear because I trust no other to hold it. I understand it, what it is capable of, what it might be in the hands of one such as Warmaster Kung." "I am glad that we have become friends through our deeds, not through words. This is as it should be, to judge each other purely on their actions, their decisions and the way they follow through those ideas that they hold. Any number of politicians and merchants can promise the world, but it is those that act that hold my respect." "You hold my respect. You have since I met you."A great weight lifts off Cho and floats away on the late summer breeze. “And you hold mine, Xiang Chang-san. You are not only by far the most skilled warrior I have ever seen wield this weapon. You also stand among the most honourable of them. And that is saying much, from someone raised among Guardians.” Is that irony in her little smile? She is changed after all. “The Lady of Hawk’s Palace is dead. Kung’s minions hunted her down and took the Spear from her. But there may be – there must be a successor. Earlier this year I was given a message speaking of a ‘Queen held prisoner in Mount Fire’, and of a future time when the Spear must be returned to its rightful wielder. I must find a way to free this prisoner if I can. I cannot be sure when I will be able to return here … My path changes and I cannot see where it leads me. “If – when I find a way to free Kung’s prisoner, I may call upon you as a friend. There is no one I would prefer to you to stand beside me in such a battle; you, and our other friends. If, one other hand, you chose not to follow that call ... I will understand.”Xiang sits down next to Cho, lost in thought for a moment. Finally, he turns to her and speaks again. "If that call comes from you, then I will follow it and lend my Spear against the forces of Mount Fire. At such a time, it is all any man of any worth can do - to answer the call of those he calls friends." "But I cannot say how I will feel afterwards. To give the Spear to another, it is a difficult thing to think of. It would require much thought and the new weilder would have to be worthy of it in my eyes. And of course, I would have to find a replacement weapon." He smiles faintly, and then takes your hand lightly in his own. "This I say to you now. Cho the Guardian, Cho the warrior woman, Cho the friend - there will come a time when we two shall meet again, and it shall be at a time when enemies are all around, when friendships are tested and when the way is unclear. We two shall meet, and we shall overcome these enemies, pass the test and see the way forward. And Warmaster Kung shall feel the point of the Spear his men stole." Xiang graps Cho's hand in the warriors grip - wrist to wrist - and rises. "Fare you well and good journey to you, Cho." “And to you, my friend.  Stay safe!  –  Shield him, Lady,”  she murmurs under her breath as Xiang moves away.</blockquote>

Verification