[ARPil] Day 10 of 30 – To become a better person

This post is part of The 30 Days or ARPil event created by Pizza Maid of Pizzamaid.moe. You can find more information about it in here and the 30 questions here. If you are interested on seeing who is participating on the event, there is a block to the right with all blogs that are part of it too. Let me know if I forgot someone or put someone in there by mistake. 🙂

All my answers  will be about my character Rakuno, my ratonga monk in Everquest 2. From this point on it will be him doing all the talk!

Question 10: Can you define a turning point in your character’s life? Multiples are acceptable.

After I left Freeport I was lost. I was scared, didn’t have no idea where I could go or who to trust. Fortunately I found a place called Haven. It is a place where people who got exiled from their home cities can go and find a new path in life for themselves. The only request is that their location to not be revealed so I can’t tell you more than that. I stayed in there trying to figure what to do with my life. I was still very scared that the Dreadnaughts would come after me to finish their job so no decision felt right to me and I knew I couldn’t hide in Haven forever. It  was then that I heard about the monks in Qeynos. Tales of how they could break stones with their bare fists, catch arrows with their own hands and even heal themselves. They also helped anyone in need and even accepted disciples if they were worthy. I didn’t believe all of the stories but if there was even a small chance of some of it being true then, I thought, perhaps I could defend myself from the Dreadnaughts. I could be truly safe.

So with the help of the people o Haven, I made my way to Qeynos, earned my citizenship and started a new life. My first stop after finishing all the paperwork and finding a place to sleep was the monk temple. When I got there I looked for someone who looked to be in charge. There was a human who was training some students so he seemed like the one to talk to. I approached him, very respectfully and asked to become a monk. He looked me from head to toe then asked “Why do you want to become a monk?”. I thought it would be best to just tell what he wanted to hear, so I lied: “I want to help people.” The monk looked at me for a moment, probably trying to think on how to respond then he finally said “I am sorry. But I don’t think you will fit in with us. Come back when you are ready to tell the truth then we will see.” I opened my mouth to protest but no words came out. For some reason I just couldn’t tell him about everything that happened. I felt humiliated. I left without saying any other word.

I still wanted to make a new start for myself in Qeynos though so with the rest of the money I earned doing odd jobs in Haven, I opened a small carpentry shop. I wasn’t very good at it at the time so there was very little business. To make matters worse, what little gold I made I spent all on drinking. I had reached rock bottom.

One day when I was returning home from another night of drinking at the tavern I saw a kid being mugged in an alleyway. My first instinct was to just keep walking, pretending like I didn’t see anything just like in Freeport. Something in me refused to do that though. Something that said “No, this is not okay. I should do something about it.” And so I tried to help the kid. Being drunk and in poor health I couldn’t do much besides distracting the muggers long enough for the kid to escape though. The muggers didn’t take kindly to that and decided to take their anger on me, beating me up until I lost consciousness.

When I woke up next I was in the monk temple. Next to me was the monk who refused my entry days ago. He explained that the kid I saved called them for help. Unfortunately when they arrived the muggers had already fled so they took me back there to heal my wounds. They did that but the monk was still worried about my general health, which was indeed in very poor condition, so he said I could stay with the monks, as a guest, while I recovered. He also praised me for my courage but admonished me for being so reckless. It would do anyone no good if I was dead, the monk said, and I should think about my actions so I didn’t something so I didn’t do something so foolish the next time.

Since I was feeling very weak, both physically and mentally, I decided to accept his offer and stay. At that point any place was as good as any. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. During my stay there I was able to see the monks not as fighters but as people. All of them treated me with respect, even though I was a ratonga, a race that at the time had an alliance with their enemies. They shared their meals with me, which were simple but fulfilling. All of them also shared the duties of keeping the temple clean, making the food plus other mundane duties. They even allowed me to see them training or meditating. I also learned about the man who had refused my entry in their ranks. Everybody said he was a strict teacher but also a very kind person and a very good judge of character.

My time was also spent thinking about my life, about the events that led me to that situation, about my actions, my beliefs and mostly important what I wanted to do going forward. When I was finally healthy enough, I approached the monk again and asked to join them. Once more he asked “Why do you want to become a monk?” This time I told the truth. I told him all of my story until that point then finished it by saying “I want to become a better person”. He listened to it quietly, nodded and replied with a smile “We’ll begin your training tomorrow.”