Chill Times with the Apocalypse
Having dealt with their first mission down in Tapatlan, the crew returned to Tezitkal victorious! Granted, Dina was the apocalypse now, so there was a certain damper over the occasion, but Kipilu and Co. hoped to temporarily be able to gloss over that bit.
Now that Dina and Kipilu had the freedom of full-fledged fox priests, they could freely go to the military base outside of town to hang out with Topin and the other Guardians of Hokzin. The Guardians were welcoming and friendly, and the Fox Priests ended up playing soccer with Topin and his friends on the training field. To make it fair to Dina, everyone wore eye patches over one eye for the game, and it ended up being more rugby than soccer in the end. Kipilu got to visit the officer who first discovered his cat powers again, and it was generally a fun day. To celebrate Topin and the Foxes' first mission, the officers allowed the soccer team to throw a party at sunset. First, the boys built a massive bonfire at the edge of camp and taught Kipilu the dances they'd made up (fortnite dances for a small group of soccer playing soldier-orphans who had to invent their own music are something). Then, when the fire was raging, the boys started setting off fireworks. Then the music, the treats, and the rum came out. The older soldiers piled in, encouraging the chaos while the younger ones went wilds. The newbies went wild throwing fireworks and flares into the bonfire, and only thanks to Kipilu reeling Topin in was Topin saved from doing something stupid and getting punished. The newbies also overindulged and got sick remarkably quickly, and Kipilu and Topin harassed them with fortnite dances and pranks.
The Foxes stayed the night at the Guardian's Barracks before heading back to town in the morning. Many stories were shared and jokes had (and apparently the boys had recently tried to domesticate a local fox to terrible failure), and Kipilu agreed that Topin and them would stick together from here on out. Also it was arbitrarily decided that Topin's birthday was the day of the party, as justification for the wildness.
Upon returning to town, it was already late afternoon and Kipulu and Dina decided to just explore town and hang out together. Dina did a bunch of healing and discovered that when she healed a goat its eyes turned gold and it became hostile towards Kipilu, and Dina's healing was public and frequent enough that her name started to go around town as a free super healer, but it wasn't a Tapatlan riot situation. Then the two old friends went out to the local farmland and hung out in the pastures. Kipilu tried to tip a cow and failed, Dina asserted her position that tipping a cow would be mean if he could do it, and Kipilu rolled around simulating a world in which he had been cursed to be a cow that was then tipped onto its side (and decided that, as a cow, he would struggle getting up). Kipulu then tried to teach Dina the soccer team's dance, Dina's dexterity and strength showed visible intense improvement since becoming the apocalypse, and Kipilu taught Dina other dances he'd learned in bard training. The two agreed to go to a swing dancing club that served tourists and artists in town the next day, and went back to the temple to get some sleep. Kipilu found Imora spying on them in the Temple, but ultimately was just happy it wasn't the very hostile goat again. Imora bragged about how exciting her social life had been with them gone, but seemed keen on joining them at swing dancing.
Imora joined the main pair the next day. They decided to first get as many pillows as possible to get Dina better sleep (which was haunted by the nightmares of all mortal suffering and her destiny to destroy the world), and promptly got a bunch of fox pillows, a cow-pattern pillow, and a pillow with a sewed pattern of a cat dressed as a lion from the old temple storage house. Treasures in hand, they agreed that Kipilu was doomed to a bovine curse which would be his end.
Afterwards, Dina started healing people again and the group decided to go try their hands at gambling. Imora bragged that she was worldly and experienced in gambling matters, as she had often snuck out of the temple during training, and guided them to the best gambling bar in town. They gambled a great deal, and Imora was on quite the winning streak until she pushed her luck too far and attracted too much attention showboating. She was caught cheating and the group was kicked out of the bar; pride wounded, Imora had to be dragged away before she could use her Fox Priest authority to demand her winnings back. Imora calmed down eventually and agreed to do a Gambling Night every week instead, where they would low-stakes gamble sweets and their favorite foods between them. Imora seemed excited and satisfied with that plan.
After the gambling incident, Dina went back to healing and ended up healing a smattering of sick animals as well as people. One animal, a chicken, did something unusual when exposed to other chickens: it began touching them, spreading the golden eyes as it did. The whole flock was soon sporting golden eyes and moving as one, and they all were hostile to Kipilu. Kipilu tried running around their enclosure as they followed him, but they were suddenly able to move as one and break the fence keeping them in. Kipilu turned into cats and fled, but the chickens were in hot pursuit. The cats were more nimble, but the chickens seemed to be able to draw life energy out of the weeds and bugs of the street to give them boosts to speed and strength, and Kipilu was unable to escape them. Harassed by this super-avian flock, Kipilu fled into someone's apartment and hid while the local residents were able to corral the chickens for their owner. They group met up and recovered after the Chicken Incident and finally it was time for dancing.
The swing dancing scene was lively. The already-warm winter was further warming up, and spring tourism was unusually early and big this year. Lots of hipsters and artists from other parts of the region were in town to enjoy Tezitkal's cheaper amenities, robust art scene, and plentiful stout beers - and these tourists were frequent patrons at Tezitkal's swing dance hall. Dina and Kipilu decided to drink in the atmosphere for a bit over cocktails while Imora dove into dancing. Kipilu decided to try and make the Soccer Team Dance a thing, and got a couple of good-natured locals and curious tourists doing it. After a bit, the main pair joined her but mostly danced with each other - and had a blast dancing to actual music this time. When they were exhausted and needed a breather, they checked on Imora and found her watching her dance partner get into a nasty fight with their girlfriend (which seemed to be over poorly communicated relationship expectations and boundaries). Imora made things worse by taking said dance partner out to dance before they could reconcile, and Dina and Kipilu decided to just ignore her.
Kipilu and Dina continued dancing and having fun, and eventually the music shifted from high-tempo swing to more chill music. Dina and Kipilu were completely synched, and as they let the world and its demands melt away something happened: the world began to feel malleable and their combined will felt empowered, like they could do anything together. They ended up wishing they could dance on a beach that Kipilu foggily remembered from Divinity, and they somehow teleported there with music still playing. They danced on the rocky beach, teleported to the Moonlands, and then teleported to the original moon. They tried dancing there, but the low gravity made it a struggle and they ended up just holding each other, bouncing, and looking at the planet below. Dina mourned the bond they could have had if things had been different, and the two shared a moment. Eventually, they decided to go back to Tezitkal, and after a while trying to get back into synch, they finally were able to hop back.
Back in Tezitkal, everyone in the hall seemed shocked at the pair who just vanished and reappeared, and the musicians ended up calling it quits for the night. Kipilu asked them for spare copies of their music, and they happily gave what spares they had. As the hall closed up, the extra food the kitchen had prepared was offered freely to the musicians and remaining guests, and Dina, Kipilu, Imora, and Imora's drunk partner who seemed to have lost her girlfriend and friends hung out for a bit.
Everyone headed back to the Temple, and Imora seemed to be sticking around the Kipulu and Dina just a ways off. When they finally reached their home, Imora seemed tried sending her date/dancing-partner home rather rudely in a flurry of mixed messages. Dina and Kipilu decided this was a 'dick move' and demanded that they all walk this girl (whose name was Ilexica) home. Imora kept trying to be in control of the situation and took the lead in escorting the date home, but Kipilu did his best to torpedo any future chances Ilexica might have with Imora. At Ilexica's apartment, she asked Imora to stay and have a serious chat, but Imora and Kipilu had some talking to do first.
Kipilu and Dina were unamused by Imora's antics. Imora explained that she was just trying to have fun and show that she could be popular too, and that Kipilu and Dina had been ignoring and closing her out of their activities since the mission. Imora seemed to think that 4-D flex-chess with strangers was a normal thing friends did to communicate with friends; Kipilu didn't know enough to say that wasn't normal, Dina seemed to find that concerning. Kipilu apologized and proposed that Imora and Dina go dancing, which Imora immediately tried to make into a power play towards Dina (possibly as a flirt? possibly as a friend thing? possibly just because Imora felt vulnerable?), which Dina resented. Kipilu tried to broker peace between them through a dancing competition in front of Ilexica's apartment. He was able to convince a passing drunk guy to act as judge while they did 5 rounds of dancing: Fortnite dancing, swing dancing, waltzing, solo folk dancing, and Desmian River Dancing (with all the fancy footwork). Imora won every round of solo dancing, but thought that bringing Ilexica out as a partner for the partner dancing would be a good tactical move (she was very wrong, as Ilexica did not have any interest in dancing and ended up giving up on Imora entirely). 3 out of 5 is still a winner though, so Imora got her victory of the night and seemed content with that. The Foxes headed home after a night of dancing and choices.
The next day, it was finally the agreed-upon time for Dina to confront her parents that had abandoned her as a child. Her dreams that night were particularly bad as well, full of the crimes of the Architects and the Lunar Pantheon and the immeasurable depths of mortal suffering around the world. She was left feeling guilty for the fun she'd had and terrified of the inevitable tasks ahead.
The two acquired some horses from the Temple and rode down to Zeheno, the agricultural community that Dina's parents ruled and managed as part of the Solintzin Clique (a circle of wealthy landowners who live abroad). The sun was unusually bright and hot for the late winter, and the pair was greeted by an old shepherd man who seemed to know why they were there and was excited to watch. This strange old man seemed to have been aware of this inevitability for a decade now, and had told the other villagers who were also gathering to watch.
The Fox Priests ignored this and strode into Zehen Manor, home of Dina's parents. Her father, Master Tonatin, a military man and basically an aristocrat, didn't recognize Dina and wasn't too perturbed. The estate's books were brought out for review and Tonatin told them how his spies had detected labor organization among the farm workers that had occult (possibly heretical) overtones. Dina only got more and more mad the more her father spoke, and once they were in his office alone with him she began to condemn and threaten him with legal action. Tonatin was caught off guard and tried to leave, but Kipilu barred the door. Tonatin explained that he already had protection from within the Keepers of Olkum and had no corruption that was technically illegal and was therefore completely safe from Dina's threats. That only pissed her off more, and Tonatin was able to kick the door open and flee into the main hall while the Fox Priests pursued him.
Dina charged her father, trying to pin him to interrogate and confront him, and his guards charged her. Villagers were also moving en masse into the main hall, and Kipilu was able to convince Tonatin's personal bodyguard to focus on them while he stopped Dina from doing anything rash. Dina and Tonatin continued screaming at each other, with him threatening and belittling her while she tried to morally condemn him. Eventually things got out of hand, the guards tried to stop Dina, and she drained them of life. From their stolen life, she constructed a flesh monster that pinned Tonatin and dragged in Dina's mother - the groundsmaster of the estate, Ekiza. With her parents pinned, Dina began rifling through their memories for motivations and sins. She shared them with Kipilu.
Re-arranged in chronological order: Tonatin had begun as a young cavalryman, a hunter of elite upbringing who loved the thrill of horse racing and was bored when assigned to the estate as the ruling elite. Ekiza had been raised as her mothers had been, as the community leaders who were supposed to organize the village from within. The two fell in love, kindred spirits who wanted more but were willing to settle to run this place together. They were also united in their detachment from the community, from which they extracted every penny they could. They crushed all forms of independent community organization together and isolated themselves in their estate. In a fantasy of their own reclusive life, they had a child together - Dina - who they loved for a few years before realizing the immense illegality of raising her and possibly political threat her existence. Rather than face the shame of their child being revealed, they decided to blind Dina using boiling vinegar - a method used by the elites to un-person a child, washing away all shame and removing her from being any kind of threat. Ekiza wanted to blind her; Tonatin felt pity and decided to just abandon her in the woods near the estate near the cat wars and report an orphan to the guards. They did, they got away with it, and when their relationship cooled they agreed to just leave the mistake of Dina to the past, a disgusting secret they could ignore forever. Their only regret now was the "mercy" they showed in leaving her alive or unblinded.
Dina was not thrilled by this: these people lacked empathy and were as bad as she feared. Kipilu encouraged her to leave them alive, but to blind them like they wanted to blind her (hopefully removing them from power over the village). As Dina left her blinded parents, more guards tried to apprehend them - she dissolved these as well, and used their energy to create a huge blast of fire directed towards the manor. The two left Zeheno in flames and chaos and rode back to Tezetkal. What they just did was incredibly public, and they left survivors. There was no undoing what just happened: their moment of domesticity was coming to an end.
Topin and Cows
Card Games and Chickens
Dancing in the Stars
Tezitkal's Next Top Dancer
Uh Oh! Is It Patricide Time?!
Components
Goals
QUEST GOALS
- Resolve the Dina parents situation (complete)
- Find Arzet and meet up with your squad
- Figure out what to do with the Apocalypse
- Get out of the consequences from blinding Dina's parents
Relations
Allies
Dina: Dina is Kipilu's oldest childhood friend. They've grown up in the same barracks, hell, Dina is the first person Kipilu ever met. Dina was exiled from her birth-home, the village-estate of Zeheno, as a politically inconvenient bastard child of the local estate manager. Dina's always been an outspoken and moralistic child, driven to befriend and defend and generally play the hero and the martyr. She clashes often with her teacher Suya over perceived hypocrisy in the Sunekan system, which see seeks an ideal version of. Dina is a skilled wizard, but has a far greater power now: that of the Fourth Apocalypse, which inhabits her body and allows her to destroy and create on a whim.
Imora: Imora is a Kobold-born Chorical of foreign birth, taken as an orphan by the state after her parents abandoned her in Suneka at a young age. Imora has always been suspicious and cynical, preferring the safety of herself and those she cares about to the ideals of some broken system. Imora is a very lonely girl, distant from her fellow priests outside of Kipilu and (to a lesser extent) Dina. Imora is skilled in the areas of stealth, precision marksmanship, and general subterfuge. She also is a proud and self-destructive person.
Topin: Topin is a Vesper, born to wanderers and orphaned in infancy. An excited and idealistic soldier, Topin loves the Suneka and everyone in it. A fellow member of Kipilu's original barracks, Topin is excited and cheery- a fan of making others laugh. He chose to be a Guardian of Hokzin - a warrior, rather than a Fox-priest. Topin is an excellent shot and has earned the right to use a specially-modified rifled musket: an unwieldy but unusually accurate sharpshooter's weapon
Neutrals/Bystanders
Ilexa: A half-dryad farmer who lives in Tezitkal. Felt her girlfriend was being too controlling, causing their relationship to collapse while hanging with friends at the Tezitkal swing dance hall. Talked with Imora, almost hooked up with her, but everything sure did happen.
Suya: Suya is an elder fox priest that teaches the initiates at the Tezitkal School. While a kind and generous woman, Suya has very high expectations of skill from her trainees. She finds Kipilu to be a fine student, Dina to be frustrating but filled with potential, and Imora as talented but in need of guidance.
Adversaries
Master Tonazin of Zeheno: A bored and aggressive former office who acts as basically the baron of Zeheno, a feudal lord tucked away in a less-feudal society. Violent, disciplined, cold, and profit-oriented, he does his best to content himself with his village and manor.
Ekiza, Head of Staff of Zehen Manor: Ekiza is a servant, but a servant over others. She was raised to be a community leader and manager, but she sees her community and staff as underlings rather than peers. Tied to the village of Zeheno from birth, Ekiza craves Tonazin's life and status and thrives in their relationship where they get to pretend to be equals over the rest of the village.
Plot type
QUEST
Parent Plot
Subplots
Related Organizations
Related Locations
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments