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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orichalcum" data-source="post: 4884389" data-attributes="member: 3722">A Brief Account of the Life of my Master’s Master, Laoshi Tai-tai, by Soong Ling.(A new PC joins the campaign.)On the Leaders of the Second Dragon Path:A Brief Account of the Life of my Master’s Master, Laoshi Tai-tai, by Soong Ling.It is traditional to learn from the lives of one’s predecessors, and when your teacher and your teacher’s teacher followed paths as eventful as mine did, they are especially worthy of study. I am particularly blessed in researching the early life of Laoshi Tai-tai because, unlike most of the Radiant Path, she did not hide her true name or home until much later in her life. Still, I only ever addressed her as Laoshi Tai-tai, Venerable Lady Teacher, the name she chose to use later on in her life. But while she never spoke of her personal life, fearing it could be used against her by her enemies, I have spoken to those of her comrades who survived to the present day, and here are the fruits of my researches, that they may enlighten future students of the Radiant Path.Laoshi Tai-Tai, also known as Zhiu-nu, was born Rian of Tilung, a small village in the northeastern hills of Sziao, the second daughter and fifth child of a peasant family. Her family had formerly been prosperous, and still lived in the elegant bamboo three-story house that her great-grandfather had built when he moved to the village from Orokin, the capitol city of Sziao. Yet even before Rian’s birth, they had fallen on hard times, oppressed by the harsh taxes of the regional overlord and the increasingly dry rice paddies. If the rain had fallen more heavily the summer that Rian of Tilung turned fourteen, Tsiwan might be a far different place today. If the rice crops had been plentiful that year, Rian’s parents might have been able to marry her off to one of the village boys. Though her dowry was small, the girl had much to offer a husband: she was strong enough to work a full day in the paddies, nimble enough to climb to the top of the tallest trees for fruit, rarely sick despite her slender build, quite pretty for a village girl, with long straight black hair and deep brown eyes with flecks of gold in them, and she never needed to have a task explained twice. Her mother beat her frequently for her rash tongue, lack of respect, and tendency to disappear during odd times of the day, but a husband would have needed to impose his authority anyway on a wife. Yet the rains that year barely stirred the dust, and no one was fool enough to take a bride during such a lean harvest.If the traveling priestess of Ii had been willing to take Rian as an acolyte when her parents brought her to the monthly service, telling the priestess of Rian’s ready memorization of the sacred texts, our empire might have never faced the horrors of twenty years ago. But the priestess tested Rian and told her parents that, while a bright child, she was completely unsuited to adopt the discipline and serenity needed to be a priestess, even as a lowly servant.If the follower of the Radiant Path who came five years before and took Rian’s cousin Mei-shan away from Tilung had noticed the girl, my own master might have lived out his days as a cheerful pickpocket. But when Rian saw that after meeting the dark-clad mage, Meishan’s eyes glazed over, and he no longer knew his own parents, she ran and hid in the attic, among the scrolls of her great-grandfather. And when she had taught herself to read, she found the letters of her great-grandfather, warning his descendants never to attract the attention of the Radiant Path, for it was for this reason that he had fled the capitol of Sziao for a remote village. She also found a sealed scrollcase containing words and rituals of power, and studied them closely when not working in the rice paddies.As it happened, the slave dealers came the summer that Rian was fourteen. They looked at her and saw an object of high potential value, one who could be sold as a skilled house slave, not just as a farmhand. And her parents looked at their four sons, and at their own empty rice bowls. Her mother locked the chains around Rian’s wrists and handed her to the dealer in return for four shiny silver coins, a sack full of rice, and a chicken in a cage. Rian cried out to her mother, I was told, begging, “How can you do this? Am I not your daughter? Do you not love me?”And her mother answered harshly, guarding her own expression tightly, “Indeed you are our daughter. And that means you have duties and obligations to us, and to your brothers. Would you rather that your little brother Asiran starve this winter? We have fed and kept you for all these years; now you must repay your debt by supporting us.”And Rian fell silent, only begging the dealer for a chance to fetch her clothes, hoping to have an opportunity to take her great-grandfather’s scrolls. But the dealer laughed, telling her she would have more suitable garments for a slave soon, and pulled her away on the chain. Rian looked back at her parents and at the protruding ribs of her young brother Asiran and firmed her chin, biting back the tears. “I will pay my debts, honored parents. Feed Asiran with the rice my life has bought.” She turned away, stumbling down the road, and followed the slave dealer towards Xaiman.</blockquote>

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