Welcome to Wizard School

Arzet's old life is gone; their village is in chaos, their old mentor and family has been left behind. They have gone to the Darzan University, the premier wizarding academy in the world, which the False Chimera expects them to infiltrate (a risky proposition at best). How will Arzet get out of this one?

A New Life

While Arzet floated in stasis for a week or two, they were contacted by a few beings in their dreams. First was the Treasure Sphinx, which awarded them a Return Token: essentially, something that will allow Arzet (and any nearby sleeping people telepathically connected) to teleport into the Dream Labyrinth while sleeping. More Return Tokens can apparently be earned in the Labyrinth. The second was Sarwin, the next vestige Arzet unlocked. 
After waking up, Arzet was greeted by Undersecretary Jeb and Darza. From conversation, Arzet learned that this Darza was not "Darza Prime", but was instead some kind of copy that was considering retiring and being destroyed at "Hedonism Island 8" - an actual tropical island staffed by people, cheaper to establish than some kind of elaborate illusory demiplane. 
With introductions out of the way, Jeb led Arzet to their new home: Wizarding Student Pod 9, an enclosed dormitory for seven people with shared sleeping areas, a common room, and a kitchen. Pod 9 was managed by a prefect, who was a Junior Member of the University named Somasha (recently graduated from student, but not yet at Full Member status). The other dorm-mates trickled in as they woke from stasis, all of whom seemed nice if eccentric and quick to squabble. 

Getting into the Space

Orientation ensued, which was both a lot of uncritical ego-boosting and a lot of paranoia-inducing fearmongering about the possibility of failure. Apparently, the students would be ranked by their grades at the end of the 4-month semester and the bottom 10 percent would be put on academic probation - essentially, placed under heightened policing and surveillance with possible future consequences. This leaderboard would be public to the student body and would be regularly updated with each semester. The student body began quietly panicking, except for those who began quietly scheming. 
At the lunch right after, many kids began scrambling to try and sit at cliques that might help them climb the ranks - but Arzet had no such ambitions. They focused on trying to bring together Pod 9 instead, and with the help of Dorm jokester Umashi, they managed to forge a nice little dorm lunch group. After lunch, it was off to work. About half of the student's total time would be used by the University to help clean, organize, and do general odd-jobs around the school. Pod 9 worked together as one unit, and Arzet got to see the campus at length for the full time. It seemed to be a large concrete complex that rose high into the sky on a misty boreal island. A massive squat tower on campus was of note to Arzet for its magical fog that obscured students from seeing what research was going on (it seemed to have an open roof, but little else could be seen). 
The students weren't the only ones doing work around the University (or even doing most of the work) - a legion of people who seemed to be mostly from the same ethnic group (mostly human, some pangolin), wearing muted uniforms and speaking their own obscure language (Arzet detected Northern-Stildanian-with-Arctic-elements) did most of the work along with magical unseen servants. These workers didn't live on campus, but rather took automated modified-Empty-construct trams from the University to their own hive-like concrete settlement across the island. Possibly these were the original inhabitants of the island. Along with these hirelings, the University had a large number of modified constructs that roamed campus and dealt with major repairs or heavy lifting. 

The First Month

After that first day, it was off to class. They were mostly pretty direct - the Methodology teacher seemed to dislike Arzet as a student of Rekala, and the Conjuring teacher promised a fun adventure at the end of the semester, but otherwise everything was as expected. Arzet spent the first month focusing less on their classes and more on trying to build bonds with Pod 9 and study Rekala's extra wizarding spellbook. Pod 9 grew to like Arzet, but still is struggling with personality clashes and brewing disagreements - more work would need to be done to get them to be a united force. The Rekala spellcrafting quest went well, though, and Arzet's spell roster grew considerably. Unfortunately, all this side business meant that Arzet wasn't focusing on their classes. While they did passably in Conjuring, they absolutely struggled with the other classes and their grades began to sink.
In the middle of all this, the Amulet of the False Chimera began to visit them at night, crawling into the dorm on spider legs. It provided Contact Incense and encouraged Arzet to call the False Chimera; it also seemed to expect regular updates. Arzet began trying to network for it, and scouted out a group of Kivish kobold students who had reacted to the hostile student culture by doubling down on their religion and waging war on the other high-performing cliques. Apparently someone had leaked the existing leaderboard stats, and the leading cliques were getting ready to sabotage each other. Possible cult-building material? Arzet thought maybe.

The Contact

So, at the end of the month, Arzet snuck into the bathroom in the middle of the night and contacted the False Chimera. The call went well; Verkohn encouraged Arzet to distribute the False Contact to the Kivish group, possibly as a tool in their sabotage war. Verkohn also encouraged Arzet to find out what was blocking direct outside divination by him and the Lunar Pantheon into the University. 
While Arzet had done their best to evade detection, the dorm prefect had been able to tell that something was wrong the night before (when Arzet was setting up their alibi as feeling sick). When Arzet was done with the call, they noticed a hot cup of tea in the common room; then discovered prefect Somasha sitting on the couch, invisible. Somasha couldn't hear the conversation but did smell the contact incense, and assumed Arzet was talking to a Lunar God. Somasha apparently had been originally sent by Lily of Red to infiltrate the University, but had abandoned her mission, so she was sympathetic to Arzet and decided to have a chill talk about it over smores. Arzet decided to come forward to Somasha about everything: them as Architect, the whole False Chimera business, the entire story about Adov.
Somasha was a bit overwhelmed and initially wanted to bring this all to Darza, but Arzet convinced them not to. Arzet revealed to Somasha that they were chipped with tracking devices, and Somasha was disturbed and agreed to help Arzet try to escape both Verkohn and the University. Also, Somasha revealed that the anti-divine cloaking around the University came from both a number of curious machines under campus and from a strange solar that was always with Darza Prime. 
So, Arzet now has an ally, and the tools to hatch a plan. But now they need to slip the grasp of two powerful entities. Will they succeed? Will they try to bring Pod 9 with them? Find out next time on, Arzet's World.

Components

Goals

QUEST GOALS:

• Learn more about the False Chimera
• Escape the clutches of the False Chimera
• Regroup with fellow Gods
• Explore the Darzan University
• Escape the Darzan University

Relations

Protagonists

Arzet: The Chimera incarnate as a Kobold Wizard (Conjurer Wizard, Sage Background). Born in the village of Adov, Arzet has spent most of their mortal life with small scale. Arzet also has the ability to summon vestiges, ancient spirits of the dead, to aid them - a random spirit has added to the roster every level. Knows Find Familiar, Magic Missile, Grease, Sleep, Thunderwave, Identify, Catapult, and Tenser's Floating Disc

• Darana of Nefka: Darana is an ancient Vesper Priest of Deraksa, the Bat-Seer-Goddess of the religion of Zirun . She lived in ancient Nefka , a distant city of horrors, where she opposed the violence of the ruling regime. For her outspokenness, she was chained and thrown into The Vault of Nightmares as a terrible execution. This left her with a very deep distrust of authority, as well as a kind of cynical hopefulness. Grants the ability to speak with the dead and resist fear.
• Kiji the Wanderer: A Kobold explorer born in the Kingdom of Karama in Inahng and loyal to the Empire of Calazen . A builder of bridges and maker of maps, curious and optimistic to a fault. Was a pitiful fighter, who died fighting in the Karaman civil war. Quite liked Mavara , who they briefly met. Grants the ability to jump a distance equal to the amount of movement spent in a turn (so 30 feet unless dashing, when it becomes 60 ft), also the ability to resummon thrown weapons.
• Sarwin the Studious: A Dryad academic from Eastern Garadel, who devoted their mortal life to the study of the natural world and spent their afterlife being absorbed into Orchid of Blue's spiritual apparatus. Sarwin is vaguely Zihari and rather anxious. She grants advantage on checks to research or search libraries, as well as the ability to see disease auras. She comes at the cost of having Arzet write everything down/journal. 

And soon, more...

Allies

Rekala: Rekala is an old Pearl Pangolin wizard and Arzet's mentor. Rekala is an old, cynical misanthrope that once studied in The Darzan University and has little care for the problems of local people. She cares for Arzet, but sees this little venture as a potential learning experience more than a dangerous situation.

Neutrals/Bystanders

Darza : Greatest wizard of all time, abrasive and deeply vain regarding their own superior intellect. Arzet has only worked with a Darza copy, however that works, not Darza 'prime'.
Faculty: So far, the Faculty are mostly distant figures

• Undersecretary Jeb: an administrator who has their eye on Arzet, and was in charge of bringing them over to the University
• Dr. Yoren: Grouchy but effective Arcana teacher
• Dr. Nuxari Nemakali: enthusiastic Conjuration teacher, will take the class on an adventure if everyone does well
• Dr. Efedra: mean Scientific Methodology teacher, seems out to get Arzet after finding out they were Rekala's teacher
• Dr. Humetzin: boring but well-meaning Arithmetic teacher

Pod 9: Arzet has gotten to know all of them fairly well. The prefect is in her mid-late 20s; the peers are all older than Arzet but not by too much (around 18-20). 

• Prefect Somasha: a Samvaran dryad in charge of the dorm area of Pod 9. Very rules-centered and strict, but understanding when Arzet was caught breaking those rules. An idealist who believes that she can use the University to improve living standards around the world. Abjurer. 
• Ruzalu: a Sunekan human who struggles to talk about things that aren't some kind of work, duty, or career-related thing. Well-meaning but bad at boundaries and often talks over people. Diviner.
• Hopisu: A shy Maradian prism that mostly just wants to do their research in peace. Horribly anxious about the competitive structure and has terrible social anxiety. Ruzalu is their self-appointed guardian. Diviner.
• Belarik: An adversarial starspawn-human boy from Eketen, a bit angsty, who makes a point of breaking rules and pushing limits. Decent to their peers as long as said peers don't try to enforce rules on them. Evoker.
• Purmaya: A goth prism with a spooky familiar who lies about where she is from to try and make herself sound like a powerful mage. Fairly quiet, sees herself as intimidating and is quick to lash out against those who push against her boundaries too much. Not as much of a rule-breaker as Belarik or Umashti, mostly a loner. Necromancer. 
• Umashti: A chipper and slightly-clownish dryad girl from Zerua, charismatic but bad at math. Wants to unionize Pod 9, and is actively trying to mediate the tensions between the dormmates. Illusionist. 

Adversaries

Verkohn, the False Chimera: The Adversary who shall end the world. Seeks a world of endless chaos, where the fantasies of the powerful contest each other in defining reality and where life and death are meaningless. Resides in a nightmare labyrinth pocket dimension that will eventually enter the real world as a third crimson moon if Verkohn makes enough progress

Plot type

QUEST

Parent Plot

Mages and Intrigue

Subplots

• Dark Academia

Related Characters

• Darza

Related Organizations

• The Darzan University