At the Temple of Parvai
High Priest Dhalbeeta was exhausted, it had been the busiest day she had ever seen, or heard of for that matter. She had to call a meeting of all the priests so they could plan out how they were going to handle services tomorrow. People were camping out in the street outside the temple so they could be the first for morning services. She looked around the room, her exhaustion was reflected in the faces of all the fellow priests she saw. Everyone had worked as hard as they could just to keep the crowd moving.
The soft constant rhythmic squeaking of the prayer wheels in the courtyard made an appropriate background to everyone's exhaustion Dhalbeeta thought. She absentmindedly reminded herself to have someone smear some ghee on them so they wouldn't squeak as much. Her throat felt raw from the constant prayers for hours without end. While Dhalbeeta did pray at all hours generally she did so silently because unless it was a High Ceremony or festival the temple was usually empty or only had a few adherents attending.
It had started as a trickle at first, but that quickly turned into a flood that didn't stop. Everyone had been talking about one of the temple's priests but no one had mentioned which one it was. And if they did there were so many people talking at once she couldn't make out who they were talking about. The priests needed a plan to handle the crowds tomorrow. But first High Priest Dhalbeeta had to find out what had caused this insane flood of visitors to her temple. She looked at her worn out priests as she tiredly addressed the group.
"So, what brought all of this on? Does anyone know?" she croaked.
As soon as the acolyte on duty heard her voice they brought her a warm cup of honey tea. Dhalbeeta heartily thanked him with a bow and pressed hands. That acolyte was a blessing from Parvai indeed, anticipating her needs before they were asked for. Dhalbeeta made another note to make sure that the acolyte knew just how appreciated he was. The first sip she took felt so good on her sore throat that she signaled the acolyte to serve everyone else tea as well. Dhalbeeta was sure that their throats hurt as much as hers did. All of them had been speaking and praying just as much as she had after all.
One of the priests who had been trying to control the flood at the doors spoke up, "I heard everyone talking about 'The Hero of Rata'. Who had apparently beat up a street gang and a crime boss single-handedly. The only description I could get was that they were wearing Parvai's tiger armor."
Dhalbeeta's eyes widened in realization. There was only one person that the Hero of Rata could be, little Devshi. Dhalbeeta had received the occasional update from the Mahapratanidhi, but this was so out of character for her it had to be someone else. Dhalbeeta couldn't imagine Devshi, who had more than once cried when she found a stepped on bug in the garden, as the person who had beat up a street gang as well as their boss. Devshi was well known as a cheerful person who would go out of her way to avoid hurting someones feelings, much less hurt them physically. There had to be another explanation. After all, how many parishioners, much less non-followers, knew what the Armor of Parvai actually looked like much.
Another priest added their observations, "Some of the reports said that the Hero of Rata was with a Zwergin from Grundhorn."
By Parvai, it was Devshi. She had been sent with representatives from the major nations to gather support for what is supposed to be an upcoming war. What was Devshi doing back in Alkhadraham? It didn't matter right now, she had more immediate concerns. Dhalbeeta set aside any questions about who the hero of Rata was and focused her mind on the more immediate problems. Speculation was for leisure times, not during a meeting that only tangentially applied. How much all of this activity was going to cost her chronically underfunded temple was more important. It wasn't like hers was a huge temple or had a lot of wealthy celebrants. No, this temples only claim to fame was that it was one of the first ever built in the, at the time, new capital of a brand new country. They were the first to combine the worship of different peoples into a single place of worship.
"Okay, how much money's worth of incense did we use today?" Dhalbeeta asked dreading the answer.
The Paiva Rakhna1 looked in his book and winced, he was famous for treating the smallest expenditure as a personal insult. "Two Raja2, and three more on food."
He continued looking at his record book, his brow furrowing deeply as he did his mental calculations. Dhalbeeta leaned forward and put her head in her hands. As nice and tiring as this day was spending that much was a disaster. Dhalbeeta loved her temple and the people that it served, but the celebrants here were not wealthy. In fact, while not a slum, the people here were what some called the working poor. How were they ever going to get out of this debt? If this kept up they were going to have to close the temple, something that Dhalbeeta considered to be a failure on her part. She was just wondering if an appeal to the Mahapratanidhi would be appropriate and more importantly would work when the Paiva Rakhna made a little 'huh' noise.
"What?" Dhalbeeta asked, fearing that there was even worse financial news.
"According to my math, we still have over four Raja in donations. Yeah, four Raja and 249 Dalara."
Dhalbeeta's head snapped up, exhaustion forgotten. "How much?"
"I'm sorry, correction, Four Raja, 247 Dalara, 3 Aurata, 6 Mora, and 16 Yodha," the Paiva Rakhna stated conclusively.
Everyone in the room had forgotten their tiredness, sat up and stared as the Paiva Rakhna read from their book, one of the younger monks actually fell out their chair in surprise. His math was famously accurate, so much so that occasionally people from businesses nearby would come to have him check their books, just in case. It was said that people used him to calibrate their abacuses, which was a ludicrous statement but he took pride in it anyway.
If Dhalbeeta had been sipping her tea when he spoke it would have sprayed all over the table and those seated around her. That was more than the temple normally made in a year! Almost twice as much in fact. Not only were they were going to be able to easily afford their taxes this year. While a temple not paying their taxes wouldn't cause it to close, the temple couldn't really do any building repairs until the taxes were paid. They would now be able to have the carved front of the temple painted again, and have the dilapidated doors to the dormitory replaced. A couple more days of this and they would have the most money the temple has ever made in it's history. She wasn't greedy, but this money would mean that the temple could do so much more for the community it served. Dhalbeeta closed her eyes for a moment to say a blessing to Parvai for Devshi, sweet little Devshi. May she know happiness for a thousand years.
High Priest Dhalbeeta's mind shifted into high gear as she started issuing orders. Newly reinvigorated by the news, priests and acolytes leapt to follow them. "Bharma, go to the incense vendor and make a triple order. Let him know we might need another one next week. If he's asleep, bang on his door. I don't think he will object to this order." Bharma jumped up and was out the door in a flash.
"Hadyha, go to the market and buy up all the cala3 you can. Janak, since you do most of the cooking go with her and get everything you need for tomorrows meals and offerings." Both of them ran out the door excitedly talking about what to get as they left.
"The rest of us, let's get this place clean and ready for tomorrow. I know we're already beyond tired and tomorrow will be even busier, but I want this place to shine before the flood arrives." The remaining priests and acolytes jumped up to get their various duties taken care of as soon as possible. Tomorrow was going to be a epic day for the temple. Dhalbeeta hoped that everyone slept well, they were going to need it.
The next evening everyone met back up in Dhalbeeta's meeting room to find out what the results of that activities were. They made the first day's monies look like a paltry sum. Dhalbeeta was beyond excited, they were going to be able to expand their food service for the poor. Heck, they were making so much money it didn't matter if they were poor. Anyone who came to services got fed, and fed well. Triple the normal amount of volunteers had made the day much easier to deal with. They even had a large group of teens ask to join the temple, they wanted to be like their hero Devshi.
The following weeks were even busier as news of Devshi's exploits spread. To hear the story now, Devshi had single-handedly eradicated all crime in Kishnagar. The days following Devshi's adventure, which was how Dhalbeeta had come to think of it, showed no sign that the flood of people was going to let up. On one memorable day Elder Kushwa who had been in service to this temple for so long that not even she could remember a time that he hadn't been here had come to High Priest Dhalbeeta holding an ancient scroll. Dhalbeeta recognized it immediately as the temple charter, something she knew only because she had been required to study it when she had become the High Priest of the temple. The venerable Elder Kushwa showed Dhalbeeta that when the temple was originally founded the priesthood here had also served as a form of neighborhood watch, mainly because the current city guard hadn't been setup yet, and this particular temple was so old that it predated a huge number of services that residents would now consider basic services, such as city guards. The temple serving as a supplemental neighborhood watch to the guard made Dhalbeeta think about the implications of what that would mean to the city before she decided that it was a brilliant idea. She would need to discuss this with the city guard as well as inform the Mahapratanidhi's council.
"That is a most excellent idea Elder Kushwa." Dhalbeeta praised. She started a wry grin as an idea came to mind. "We shall call them "Devshi's Tigers."
1Paiva Rakhna - Literally "Keeper of the Money". The title used for the bursar of any temple in Kishnagar. They are responsible for tracking all monies coming in and being spent.
2Raja - The highest form of Kishnagari currency with the Yodha being the lowest. 20 Yodha make 1 Mora, 10 Mora make 1 Aurata, 5 Aurata make 1 Dalara, and 100 Dalara make 1 Raja.
3Cala - The Ardu local equivalent to earth rice.
