• Mature • Devin tries to Meditate.

[Devin]

Ashan 60, Arc 720

On the 28th of Ashan, Devin Thorn, thief, conman extraordinaire and priest of Delroth (and magical mutant!) sat behind the desk in his living room, a quill in his hand, a stack of papers and an inkwell in front of him and a murderous look on his face. Normally, he quite loved being a priest, especially a priest of that particular Immortal. He got to wear fancy outfits and surround himself with items of luxury (and his favourite animals, namely birds), and after mass, he often invited a worshipper or two into the backroom in order to do all kinds of inappropriate things with them. Why did priests have to deliver sermons though?

He was suffering from a complete and utter case of writer’s block. He had already been sitting behind his desk for approximately a break and written exactly one line. He had greeted the worshippers and thanked them for coming to his shrine, but he hadn’t started with the actual sermon yet. He needed to come up with something that connected Delroth to the worshippers’ everyday life, possibly in a way that made them donate a lot of money when it was time for the collection. The money they donated was kind of his salary, and he wanted to earn a lot money. What more, Delroth demanded his share of the collection as well, being the Immortal of Greed and a couple of other fun concepts!

Maybe he could just hire a ghostwriter to write his sermons for him?

No, Delroth wouldn’t like that.

What should he talk about though?

Maybe he could just talk about his adventures in Desnind and how he had gotten the new sculptures that were on display in the shrine? It didn’t always have to be some barely understandable mystical/religious nonsense, right? If he added a bit about how he’d told the savage Sev’ryn about Delroth, kind of like some sort of missionary, it should be alright, even if it didn’t have a lot to do with Scalvoris. Everybody loved a good adventure story!

With that thought in mind, he turned to his papers again and filled them with his exceedingly messy handwriting, until his fingers started to hurt and cramp like mad, his back hurt, and he felt like murdering someone again.

[Devin]

He was just about finished and had put his quill away, when the door was being opened, and Aidan, one of his two roommates (Being a zombie who lived in the basement and never did anything productive, Bitey didn’t count), entered the living room. The student looked at him curiously for a moment before he came closer, standing behind him and leaning over his shoulder in order to take a look at what Devin had written.

“Nice”, he decided. “You look a little tense though”, he observed, furrowing his brow a little.

“Fortunately, I know something that will make you feel better”, he proclaimed a moment later.

Devin turned around in order to look at his friend (who was occasionally something more as well) and asked somewhat slyly, “Why, are you offering to give me a massage?”

“No”, Aidan replied curtly.

Devin pouted for a moment before he furrowed his brow and asked, “Are you going to share my bed? I wouldn’t be averse to that either! In fact, I’d prefer it to a massage!”

“Nope”, Aidan before he took Devin’s hand and beckoned him to come with him. “I’m going to teach you something new to-trial, something that you should know anyway, being a priest. Most of the priests I’ve met so far do it, apart from you, for some reason.”

“To-trial, Devin, I’m going to teach you to meditate. It will make you relax and help you clear your mind”, he informed the thief as he led him out of the living room and into the small garden that surrounded the house where they lived. “It certainly helps me!”

“I’m so much calmer since I started to meditate regularly!”

[Devin]

Even though meditating sounded like an unpleasant and annoying activity to him, and he didn’t think it would help him in any way, but probably only increase his frustration, Devin followed Aidan to the small garden behind their house because the student had smiled at him so radiantly and because he just couldn’t say no to him. Aidan was one of his few weaknesses!

Aidan sat down on the grass in front of a large apple tree that was covered with a lot of small white blossoms, cross-legged, and gestured for Devin to do the same. The Mortalborn frowned a little, worrying about getting grass stains on his fancy outfit that he might never be able to get rid of again (he was a follower of the Immortal of Vanity, and as such looking nice was important to him!), before he lowered himself to the ground and looked at his friend expectantly.

“What now?” he wanted to know.

“Now you should try to relax. Inhale and exhale slowly and evenly and try to forget everything that is happening around you. It helps if you close your eyes”, Aidan told him with a calm and serene smile before he placed his hands on his knees, palms facing upwards, closed his eyes and began to … hum? Devin watched him for a while, furrowing his brow for a moment, as he wondered what the point of that was before he shrugged his shoulders and tried to imitate his friend. He was already starting to get bored!

Meditation was kind of lame!

The breathing thing was fairly easy though. Instead of humming somewhat pointlessly, Devin began to sing though because he found singing far more relaxing and enjoyable than humming. He sang a somewhat raunchy song that he had learned from a sailor in Almund. He was rather off-key – while Devin was an excellent lutist, his singing skills left a lot to be desired. That didn’t take away from his enjoyment though. He only stopped when Aidan briefly opened his eyes and looked at him with unmistakable irritation.

The student couldn’t focus when someone near him was singing!

Their eyes met, and a moment later, Devin sighed and closed his eyes, just like Aidan, because his giving that weird meditation stuff a try seemed to make the student incredibly happy. He still didn’t hum though because he thought it sounded stupid, but he did try to empty his mind which was much harder than he had thought at first. His head was filled with all kinds of thoughts, most of them on the weird side and kind of random. When he had finally successfully stopped thinking about Aidan and the zombie in their basement – and university and his shrine and such – an image entered his mind – his favourite Immortals, Delroth and Edasha, standing opposite of him, smiling at him!

He smiled back at them because he just loved them so much.

After a few bits, he tentatively cracked an eye open in order to look at Aidan because he was getting bored again and starting to grow just a little bit restless. The student was still sitting there, motionlessly, like some sort of statue. He looked as if he hadn’t moved at all since he had sat down, his eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling very slowly. He had a weird, relaxed and peaceful smile on his face. Devin considered sneaking away, but if he did that, Aidan would be disappointed, he realized. So, he let out a soft sigh, resigned himself to his terrible fate, closed his eyes again and gave it another try …

[Devin]

“Devin, wake up!” he suddenly heard Aidan say. A moment later, someone (the student?) grabbed his shoulder and shook him vigorously. The Mortalborn opened his eyes and looked at his friend somewhat confusedly and drowsily, blinking slowly as if his brain didn’t work properly quite yet. “You fell asleep!” Aidan remarked, stating the obvious. He looked more amused than annoyed, Devin observed. “I’ve never seen somebody fall asleep during meditation before. That probably means that you managed to achieve a state of relaxation though”, he decided and grinned at Devin.

Devin murmured something unintelligible before he flashed his friend a brilliant smile. He didn’t tell him that he had probably fallen asleep out of sheer boredom and because meditation was the lamest thing ever, of course. Instead, he put an arm around the other man’s shoulders, laughed brightly and proclaimed, “I’m very relaxed! Meditating is absolutely awesome! Let’s go back inside though! I still need to pick an outfit for my mass tomorrow. What about the massage I asked you about, by the way?” he asked slyly, and Aidan muttered something about Devin being absolutely impossible.

He also seemed to be glad that Devin had “enjoyed” meditating so much though. Of course, he didn’t know that the Mortalborn was already trying to come up with ways to avoid more meditation sessions in the future. Aidan had said that most priests meditated, but that didn’t mean that he had to. He would be a different kind of priest, he decided. He would be better than his colleagues! In fact, he would be the best priest in all of Idalos!

[Yrmellyn Cole]

Thread Rewards

Overview

Devin's ideas about what being a priest means (collecting money and seducing members of the congregation) are hilarious, even more so as he resents writing sermons.

His attention span seems very short and Aidan's attempt to make him meditate seems doomed from the start. Devin really does all the wrong things beginners do, being disruptive and bored, then falling asleep. Meditation as comedy ^^ But, he will be a little bit better at it next time.

An entertaining thread!

Devin

Rewards and consequences

Points: 10

Knowledge:

Meditation x5
Singing x1

Skill Review: Appropriate

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