The spot of grease was dispelled and wouldn't have a chance to hurt anyone, but who was trying to hurt Arensha? The question weighed upon her mind the rest of the way to the library. It had to be someone who couldn't act openly, to resort to traps like this, which meant either the staff or the fellow members of her harem. None of the staff had any reason to wish her harm, as far as she could tell, but perhaps one of the concubines was jealous of how close she had gotten to al-Samara...<br/><br/>Her mind distracted, today's research into Azlant was less than fruitful.<br/><br/><em>Knowledge: 15, failure...</em>(https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70725)<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The end of the week was the time for Roshul's long-awaited dance lessons, and the books would have to wait for another day. Arensha was in her bellydancing outfit, of course, and eagerly waiting for the lessons to begin when Silent Girl sat beside her.<br/><br/>"Ha-ni-fa?" the catgirl pronounced, reading Hanifa's lips. "I'm Arensha! Nice to meet you, Hanifa. I remember seeinya you a few days ago, at dinner? Too bad we didn't get a chance to speak, um, communicate, back then."<br/><br/>Unfortunately it seemed that they didn't have time to communicate now, either, as Roshul began her lessons. Arensha watched with wide eyes as the girls showed off their moves one by one, feeling more and more inadequate by the moment. When her turn finally came, she was shaky in the legs as she trundled up to the stage.<br/><br/>"I'll come up with my own dance," she told the naga, not sounding too sure of herself. Zelda started up the music, but Arensha stood still for the first few seconds, before she finally, tentatively, raised her foot and let it drop with a stomp.<br/><br/>The sound had not echoed once across the room before Arensha was halfway across the stage in a single leap, and then bending backwards, transitioning into a series of backflips that brought her back to where she started physically. Mentally, she was just getting started - she slipped into a trance, showing off an increasingly impressive series of pirouettes and jumps and twirls in mid-air. As she reached the climax of her dance and the trickiest routine, she found herself transported to a different place and time - a desert town by the river, where the sun's ray shone down strongly and warmed her skin, racing down the street with a blood companion by her side. Obstacles in her way, she was somersaulting over them or galloping on all fours beneath them or spinning to either side besides them, chasing someone whose identity was unimportant. A sudden reversal of direction, turn her body ninety degree and then cartwheel back, followed by a leap, her legs horizontal in a split to clear an imaginary table, grabbing a morsel with outstretched hand out of mid-air and then coming back to earth in a roll, springing back up to her feet the moment she was aligned-<br/><br/>"We have a winner here!" Roshul was saying something beside Arensha, holding her arm up. The naga was speaking more words and then presenting a necklace or something to Arensha, who accepted it in a daze with a polite "thank you", trying to get reaccustomed to the theater she was really in. Was that a dream she had just saw? Her gaze strayed over Hanifa by chance and locked there in shock; she looked much too similar to her companion in her vision to attribute to mere coincidence! Or was it her companion who looked too much like her?<br/><br/><em>Perform (Dance): 28 (natural 20!)</em>(https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70728)<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Arensha had a lot to think about, and as a result she was a bit more contemplative and quieter than usual at the baths. "Nice to meet you too. Your dance was very sensual... very seductive," she said to the tiefling, trying to downplay her own performance. That was perhaps the longest sentence she had said so far, her other lines being mostly non-committal "Mmm"s and "Ahh"s while she was still lost in thought about the meaning of her vision.<br/><br/>It was Hanifa's reappearance with the Mancala box that brought her out of her reverie. "Alright, let's play!"<br/><br/><em>Knowledge (Engineering): 24</em>(https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70730)<br/><br/>Arensha found herself remembering not just how to play the game, but also the little tricks to give herself the advantage and lead to a win... but there was more, as the game progressed she found herself relying less on her mental calculations and more on memory, as though she had already analyzed the board once before. The original game was played somewhere cooler, and there were grass and sky and clouds, things which like the sun which couldn't be found in the Plane of Water, and once again there was a Hanifa-look alike opposite. The features of real-Hanifa and vision-Hanifa blurred together... Arensha almost made a stupid mistake that would have cost her the game, but caught it in the nick of time and cruised to an easy win.<br/><br/>"Goodbye, H- I mean, Silent Girl," she waved her goodbye as they left the baths.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The good thing about her time with al-Samara, Arensha decided, was that she didn't need to use her brain too much when making love to him. It was a good thing because her head was starting to hurt after wracking through her mind trying to make sense of the two visions she had seen, unsuccessfully. Now she just needed to focus on squeezing the right muscles to milk him dry with her pussy, while she enjoyed the way his member was filling her up nicely and scraping all the right spots, and his hips were bumping against her sensitive button with every thrust, coaxing long strings of purring moans from her throat.<br/><br/>Her mouth open in an "O", the Sultan looked into her eyes, perhaps wanting to watch her as she came - but in reality she wasn't quite there yet, and instead she just had an epiphany, the visions she saw must have been bits of her memory returning! Her expression turned to one of surprise when she noticed the shadows on the ceiling that shouldn't be there. She let out a small scream as al-Samara rolled over just in time to avoid being stabbed in the back, while the blades bury deeply into the bedsheets much too close for comfort. Arensha leapt to her feet, the sheets tearing as she clutched them to her chest for modesty, fright about to lead her to flee... and then, to her own surprise more than anyone else's, fright lead instead to adrenaline, which lead to her taking a crouching martial stance with her hands open and claws out, the sheets dropping to the floor as modesty took a back seat to necessity.<br/><br/><em>Initiative: 24</em>(https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70732)<br/><br/>Her instincts lead her to seize the initiative. She grabbed the closest object at hand - a music box, whose gentle serenade had set the mood at the beginning of the evening, though it was long wound down by now and obviously the two of them had found better things to do with each another than rewind it. Now it served as a makeshift projectile as she hurled it at the nearest assassin's head while his back was turn. Not slowing down to see if the music box hit, she closed the distance and unleashed a deadly flurry of swipes at his back, hissing her anger at the assassins who had dared attack her Sultan, not to mention interrupting her when she was so close!<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Rolls</div><div class="spoiler_body">Activating archaeologist's luck for +2!<br/>Throwing furniture: 19 (does that hit their flat-footed AC?) (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70743) Damage if hit: 29 (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70744)<br/>Activating piranha strike!<br/>First claw attack: 20,  (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70745) Damage: 10 (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70746)<br/>Second claw attack: 23,  (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70747) Damage: 9 (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=70748)<br/></div></div>