The Chimera's Law
[Retcon! Rather than magic fast travel, Dina and Kipilu are traveling by foot to Arzet]
So Dina's gone full apocalypse and Kipilu agreed to guide her to Arzet. Time to run away from what they've done towards a whole new mess!
The group quickly acquired a pair of warhorses from the Guardians of Hokzin before racing off to exit the Suneka as quickly as possible. No goodbyes or stopping to get their stuff - it was too late for that, now that the investigation had followed the group to Tezitkal. With Dina's powers, the group was able to drain the surrounding countryside for power to keep the horses from ever having to stop, and enhancing their strength and speed. Now that Dina was in total control, the animals were no longer default hostile to Kipilu - a good sign!
The crew crossed Ikatlan in record time and reached Cualeca Crossing, where the Sunekan Republic of Kapental and the Kingdom of Sikrek meet. Kipilu decided to talk to nearby merchants to get a better sense of what the border crossing might entail, and stumbled into quite the character: a Calazan merchant by the name of Alniret who was offering easy paperwork and vouchers to expedite poor Sunekans entering the kingdom. Alniret described Sikrek as a land of endless abundance where Kipilu could get rich quick, and said that if he went through Alniret he would already have an easy job and house to get started. When Kipilu checked back on Alniret an hour later, he was offering the same thing to a different group of poor Sunekan travelers - he seemed to be targeting the most vulnerable crossers, a bad sign. Kipilu and Dina agreed to take up Alniret on his offer to see the paperwork (naturally, in Calazan, so most Sunekans couldn't read it), and spotted that this was an Indenture Agreement to become legally bound to a Lord Dumahl at Tintev town in Sikrek. Kipilu distracted Alniret with dancing while Dina used Illusory Script to fake their signatures - Alniret and their companions would see the signatures as normal, while others would see a few specks of ink.
Rather than use Alniret to cross, the group decided to try crossing as normal. Dina used illusion magic to hide their priestly garb and masks, and Kipilu was able to carefully disguise and hide the firearms they had. The process was a slog without Alniret's shortcut, and trouble started to come from the Sunekan side of the border check. There was a manual check to see if any crossers were outlaws or criminals, and Dina and Kipilu were both highly recognizable - and it seemed that they were on the list. Dina was spotted and called over for questioning with Topin, while Kipilu fled into the woods. Kipilu used a Disguise Self spell and returned as a fancy Haltia of totally different appearance, and was able to serve as a character witness for Dina and talk her out of the lockdown. With that, they were able to scamper over to the other side of the crossing, into the Kingdom of Sikrek.
The group headed through Sikrek towards Tintev, to see what happened to those who signed away their freedom to people like Alniret. What they found wasn't great: a massive series of work projects involving dams, smelting, mining, and quarrying, worked by huge numbers of people in rickety boarding houses. A massive statue of the imperial Chimera stood over the workhouses, reminding them that the Architects and Emperors were always watching and demanding obedience. The group identified themselves as adventurers and were accepted as such thanks to their weapons, warhorses, and flawless Calazan language - and were taken to meet the Sherriff of Tintev. The Sherriff was a burly half-prism by the name of Sartheb, who recognized that these weren't the expected muscle that the Lord was sending over but complimented Kipilu on his initiative and hired him on the spot. Kipilu was given a security badge and told to tour the town before he would get his orders to put the workers back in line. Sartheb also told them about a strange attack that disrupted one of the labor lines coming into Sikrek - the mysterious destruction of a recruitment town that has a lot of people spooked.
Kipilu stored Imora and Topin (Topin being a clear giveaway of the group's foreign status) in the local tavern before the investigation began. Imora was happy to have a place to sulk, as she was internally angsting about her dad being a Calazan merchant (and her possible life growing up here). Dina went off to research the worker's side of things; Kipilu went off to find out about Lord Dumahl. Kipilu's investigation was swift: Dumahl was over the way, in a nearby castle. Dina, meanwhile, was welcoming workers into The Network. One worker in particular, a Sunekan dryad named Zochek, seemed enthused about the Network and wanted to help. Zochek let them know that a lot of people here are also from various mountain tribes, and that people are being grouped up in work teams that don't speak similar languages to try and prevent organization. Conditions are bad, and work has continued through the winter in the mountains despite a lack of warm clothes. Dina and Kipilu agreed to pile as much "delegation power" into Zochek as possible to help him organize the indentured workers without Dina's direct oversight and assistance. Dina also killed a lot of the local plantlife in order to funnel energy to Zochek, to make him exceptionally strong, fast, and resilient. As a cleric of Dina, Zochek gets spellcasting abilities, omni-lingualism, the ability to direct the local Network, and the ability to destroy local life (not at Dina's level, slower) to heal and even resurrect members of the local Network. With a strong cleric like this, Dina was confident that the Network would take off here.
With the doom of Sikrek planted in fertile ground, Kipilu and Dina gathered their friends and went off to pay this Lord Dumahl a visit. They were able to bluff their way to a garrison captain, but the Captain warned them against disturbing the Lord while he was hosting guests. Dina and Kipilu turned into cats to search out Dumahl anyways, while Imora and Topin stayed behind to talk down the garrison and get them to not sound the alarm. Dina and Kipilu arrived at Dumahl's hosting dinner and demanded to speak with him about an emergency in Tintev. He seemed deeply annoyed and went into the nearby lounge to quickly hear what this emergency was. Kipilu and Dina asked him if he was aware of conditions in Tintev; he seemed vaguely aware of them in theory. They asked him if he was sorry, and he seemed ready to fly into a rage. Kipilu gave Dina a thumbs up to destroy the guy. Dina vaporized him. While the guards rushed them, Kipilu asked Dina who would succeed him - Dina answered by using her legendary action to fling a fireball into the dining hall, towards the assembled family and guests. Kipilu was pissed at this, but they had bigger immediate problems. Ther alarm was sounded, and the two fled in cat form through the castle. Their cats were going down quickly, and Dina even had to reform to vaporize a guard pinning Kipilu. Kipilu was able to miraculously grapple out the garrison captain that pinned Imora in the lobby, and the group jumped on their horses and ran. The castle let out a flurry of arrows as they careened down the mountain slope, and only Dina's healing prevented Imora from dying then and there from a bolt to the neck. Dina and Kipilu were now wanted for murder - again.
The group fled at maximum speed through Sikrek and into the Empire of Calazen in a week-long slog of near-sleepless maximum speed travel. Slowing down slightly, they worked their way through the icy mountain passes of Western Calazen, avoiding major towns and relying on the unseasonable warmth that follows Dina to thaw the snow as they went. Finally, the exhausted group made it to Odija, the City of Lights and decided that this was a good spot to stop in.
The group holed up in a ritsy tavern and piano-house before exploring the city. They noted the Temple of Imatya the Lightning Thrower (essentially a power power plant), the Temple of Imatya the Solar Mother (devoted largely to Rama, a solar of some note, and a solar cult), and the Academy of Natural Sciences. They decided to largely focus on having a nice time out of the cold, and played poker with candy. Imora won, though Dina did quite well; they also invited in a random old wizard to join them from across the tavern, though he didn't do too well.
After the game, Kipilu stole a bunch of Imora's candies and gave some of them to Dina. Imora got up in Dina's face about it; Dina was annoyed and apathetic but figured out who was doing it. The more Imora was ignored, the more she acted out, until Dina left. The old wizard invited the group to drop by his office sometime to chat sometime, since he was incredibly bored with how most of the researchers were out of town for the winter. Kipilu began poking the nearby wiring to annoy the tavern owner, who threatened to remove them; Imora wanted to escalate, Dina was angry that they would toy with something so dangerous. The group retired upstairs before anything more could happen. Topin tried connecting with Imora and failed. Dina and Kipilu had a talk, where Dina said she was uncomfortable having fun in Odija and wanted to search out social inequality/political corruption instead. Kipilu promised he'd help her and she went out to go wander the town in the cold to punish herself for goofing off indoors.
Imora and Kipilu had a chat after she left - it was clear that Imora wanted attention. She talked a bit about how she could have grown up here instead of the Suneka, and how she wished she had Kipilu's clear cut destiny and role to play; Imora felt isolated and purposeless without the Fox Priests, even as she resented them for making her a perpetual outsider. Imora wasn't just jealous of Kipilu's destiny, but also Kipilu's ability to be Dina's rival - Imora felt cut out and irrelevant compared to them, and wanted Dina to dislike her in a reverent and equal way. Kipilu promised Imora that they would go dancing tomorrow, and that Imora and Dina would be paired off while Kipilu danced with Topin. Imora bragged that Dina had a crush on her, and asked if she would be stepping on Kipilu's toes when Dina fell madly in love with her at the dance. Kipilu didn't want to answer and was emotionally confused, and Imora poked at this discomfort a bit before leaving with a smug expression. When Dina finally retured in the early morning, Kipilu crashed. It was time for a bit of distraction in Odija, for better or for worse.
Fleeing the Suneka
Looking for Trouble
Pretty Lights and Hot Drinks
Components
Goals
QUEST GOALS
- Find Arzet and meet up with your squad
- Get Dina to not murder Arzet
- Get Dina to not apocalypse
- Save the world
Relations
Protagonists
Kipilu: A little meow-meow. Bard, cat, friend. The Hidden One
Arzet: A distant kobold and the Chimera reborn. Chilling in Adov
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 clashed 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. Dina is wracked by guilt and overwhelming pressure - she wants to fix everything with her power and cheat the system to save as much of the world as she can, but she also doesn't want to kill Kipilu.
Imora: Imora is a Kobold-born Chorical born of a Calazan merchant, 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 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
Zochek: A dryad worker in Tintev who was Sunekan born before being illegally indentured in Sikrek. Zochek is an okay guy, willing to risk potential backlash reaching out to Dina when he didn't have to. He has sympathy for the other workers and harbors a great resentment for the Kingdom of Sikrek more generally. Currently given a chunk of doomsday power.
Zetep: A half-prism wizard and scientist in Odija who enjoys a little fun, piano music, and people watching.
Adversaries
Alniret: A scammer from Sikrek who works for Lord Dumahl's operation at Tintev. Basically haunts border crossing areas looking for desperate Sunekans who are scared to cross the border (indicating that they have some problem with the Suneka/need that is unfulfilled and that they are vulnerable and scared), then tricks them into becoming indentured at Tintev. A gregarious and aggressively friendly man, but an awkward one, showy with wealth and trying a bit too hard to be friendly too quickly.
Lord Dumahl: A lesser godblooded noble of the Kingdom of Sikrek who is building up political power and wealth by undertaking massive construction and mining projects. He is relying on indentured labor from local mountain tribes, illegal slave purchases, scammers, and refugees to do this on the cheap, and he cares very little about their lives since he is "providing employment" and "it is a blessing to be here".
The Martyr: Dina is the apocalypse - she is a friend right now, but her doomsday isn't. It is a Network of interconnected people, spread to anyone who consents to joining, basically a voluntary hivemind. All suffering within the hivemind is felt by Dina and her officers rather than the low-level people, allowing them to exist blissfully and fearlessly. Network members can even avoid death, as Dina and Officers can resurrect any Network member without a requisite spell slot. Officers are rare, a handful of Dina-chosen individuals who can wield a fraction of her power. The Network moves as one, though Dina has immense influence over what they think.
The Martyr Network relies on siphoned life energy for their miracles. Life energy can be taken from any living thing, and so far the Network prefers draining basic units of life such as plants or bugs which have a less obvious moral cost than animals or people. Life energy's easiest use is for healing: the Network heals all of its members ambiently, and can use its power to heal non-members as well. Healing can be for sickness, wounds, starvation, and even basic tiredness or thirst. The most advanced form of this kind of healing is generating entirely new bodies for fallen Network members (this cannot be done for those outside the Network). Healing does come with a suffering cost as well: the suffering of the wound is borne by the Network and directed towards those leading it.
Dina has demonstrated that there are other uses for Life Energy in her hands, though it has yet to be seen if her Officers can do the same. She has created flesh monsters, cast spells of a higher spell level than she should know, and used life energy as a direct flame cannon.
Plot type
QUEST
Parent Plot
Subplots
Related Organizations
Related Locations
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