To make the glass full (Afina)

[Anastasia]

I'm going to split you off to Moore's thread, Surraruthru. We'll knock out that gift next.

[Anastasia]

From here, Afina goes to visit Baleruk. She finds he's not in the courtyard, nor is his obsidian room. You find him in his lair, lying on his bed of coins. He doesn't seem to be doing anything right now, simply lying there with an undeniable air of contentment.

[Ebiris]

Fluttering over, Afina lands directly before Baleruk's snout. "It is done," she announces as if he can't see for himself.

[Anastasia]

Baleruk leans in, sniffing Afina twice. Each movement of air nearly sends the tiny pixie flying, but she holds her position. "You smell like rainbows," he declares, "Excellent." He sounds completely calm, "Do you still need to breathe?"

[Ebiris]

"I don't actually know," Afina admits. She can breathe water easily enough but that's not the same thing. Still, she doesn't need to eat and hasn't for a while, maybe it's just as easy to skip on the breathing? Stilling the rhythmic motion of her chest she holds her breath to see how long she can manage it...

[Anastasia]

It's strange. It feels wrong to stop, chest twitching and fighting it. But at the same time, it doesn't hurt. There's no burning from suffocation or lightheadedness at all.

Quick note on outsiders and breathing. Lesser ones need to. Around 12 to 15 hit dice it begins to become optional, and generally epic outsiders don't need to at all, though some do out of habit or out of preference. A fair few do unless they intentionally don't since it's so ingrained into them. This actually came up with Jaela recently since Cor was curious, so I'll repeat it here. Incidentally, you do need to breathe when you talk, simply because it requires an airflow.

It explains why Alicia was able to drown a harvester devil in B1, but suffocating an advanced pit fiend is probably not going to work.

[Ebiris]

She furrows her brow a little but the seconds drag on into minutes without any weakness or discomfort. Opening her mouth she makes a quiet gasp and then coughs as she discovers talking without breathing to be impossible. "It appears not," she says after resuming breathing once more.

[Anastasia]

"Good. Stand still," Baleruk commands, gathering a great heap of gold coins around Afina, burying her in them.

[Ebiris]

Afina stands still and allows herself to be buried. She's reasonably sure she's strong enough to dig her way out if need be, to say nothing of the innate elemental magic she has that could be put to use on any kinds of problems.

[Anastasia]

Wooosh. Suddenly Afina is surrounded by wonderfully hot molten gold, then a moment later sheer cold hits her. Brr! She's suddenly entombed in a skintight mold of gold. A moment passes before it cracks open on the side, splitting apart and allowing Afina to exit.

[Ebiris]

"Cold doesn't bother me now either," Afina reports, stepping out of the pixie-mould she was just encased within.

[Anastasia]

"Good." Baleruk says as you get out. It's a bit rough, but it's essentially a solid cast of you made out of gold. Baleruk closes it with one claw and uses a few sparks of flame to melt the edges, then a bit of cold to solidify it again. He takes it and puts it by the statues of the angel and slaad, "There. Jewels LATER," her roars, "I need proper jewels for this now!"

[Ebiris]

"Want me to touch it up?" Afina offers since Baleruk's skill is more in jewellery while her own talents at sculpting could turn this into a masterpiece even before it gets prettied up with gemwork.

[Anastasia]

Baleruk considers and then says, "Do it."

Go ahead and describe what you're doing then make the relevant craft check.

[Ebiris]

Casting greater heroism first to just make herself that little bit better at everything, Afina then lays a hand on the statue and casts fabricate. Gold runs like water as it shifts and reshapes, continuing to represent an image of Afina but the details just pop that much more now, while the statue is shifted from her somewhat boring standing still pose to something more dynamic as if in flight, one leg hooked back while the other just barely rests on the ground with a bit more gold focused there to give it a stable base despite the action pose of a fairy in flight.

[18:31] <@Ebiris> roll 1d20+41 sculpting
[18:31] <Penuche> Ebiris invokes Penuche's magic: < 45 > [d20=4]