Training in Vetuza

Following the Kreniko Coup and the destruction of the Plague Dragon, the God Squad has won their first major victory against the Nemeses. They have their new clerics, they received their rewards. But as the Gods master new spells and abilities, they need a second to train, try out new styles, and experiment with new possibilities. They know they'll need a few weeks for this, the only question is where.   The group agreed that they needed to train and rest somewhere practical, with functions beyond simply having fun. They discussed Asalay as a possibility, but agreed it would be too distracting and would suck them into a longer adventure. They tentatively decided on Korathem, a Selkie city near their next destination of the Khilaian Isles.   On the topic of The Khilaia, the group decided to reach out to their allies who ventured there (Dailio, Yago, Kebri, Fastfin, and Lionpup). Kipilu of Tezitkal used a Sending spell to contact Dailio about quarantine and their status. Dailio reported that Yago and Kebri had been refused entry and sent to an island awaiting the appeal of their request, but Dailio had successfully entered the city of Halamahi. The group sent a second Sending to Captain Yamoa, their piratical contact, about whether she could smuggle the God Squad past quarantine. Yamoa indicated that she could but that the cost would be significantly higher for any non-Selkies.   Clearly, the Gods would need to consider their approach into the Khilaian Isles carefully when the time eventually came to enter. The God Squad agreed that Lunar Pantheon support would likely be vital, especially from a God like Emesh with good selkie relationships. But the lunar cycle meant that The Divine Contact wouldn't be ready for weeks still and using paladins as go-betweens wouldn't be reliable for the kind of political finesse the Squad needed. Thankfully Agamine the Lost had promised Kipilu of Tezitkal a special blueprint for a Lunar contact device that was free of the usual time restraints. This blueprint was in the Maradian city of Vetuza - a city connected to the Teleportation Network. One brief stop and then off to a nice vacation destination for training!   Teleporting into Vetuza, the squad noticed that the arcane circle they teleported onto was surrounded by mechanized death traps and guards. Through the singular remaining exit, a massive ornate propaganda tapestry welcomed them to Vetuza and showed some very unusual religious symbology. Specifically, that of Agamine the Lost but as a muscular semi-Half Prism softly crying while also clearly being The Masked One, flanked by shining Ishkibal and a valkyrie-like Lily of Red. The guards demanded the ability to search the party for contraband and Makar Mesaba had to carefully use subtle-spell cantrips to disguise the party's mirrors and shiny objects after it became clear that the guards were becoming upset and breaking any mirrors they found. It was clear that the party was regarded with overt suspicion and dislike, but the guard captain seemed interested in the allowing the party in. This guard, a Captain Awavi, was excessively chipper and welcoming and seemed to want to play the role of missionary and tour guide. Captain Awavi offered the group two places to stay - the lower-rich Solicitarium and the upper-rich Grand Angle Hotel - and the friendly captain even offered to help the party secure banquet invitations with the city elites. The party played the part of wealthy foreign tourist mages and were escorted to the Solicitarium. The party was warned to keep in the upper city and to keep away from military installations and then left at the very nice Solicitarium.   Rather than book rooms, the party immediately set out for the Temple of Agamine that had Kipilu's contact and blueprints. The city of Vetuza was nightmarish but wondrous: much of the city was made of enormous Strider constructs, which were connected by numerous mechanical bridges in a convoluted web between two large mountains, which acted as the anchor points. The mountains were honey-combed with mines and development and covered with military structures, while these enormous walking towers (carved like people with religious imagery) seemed to hold much of the commercial and elite population. Beneath the mountains and construct-towers were tiered layers of lower city, set up like enormous urban terraces or perhaps a wide layered cake. This city was far more magical and otherworldly than prior cities the Gods had visited, though it also was notably absent of major technologies: no windmills, no printed papers, few to no watermills. The Maradian Enforcers did drive by with a mechanical motorcycle, but that was a far cry from what everyone else had.   As the party approached Agamine's temple, they noticed how militarized the current state was, how much ancient art had been defaced and destroyed across the city, and how intense the differences of wealth and status were between people. They agreed that they couldn't stay in this city for long because they would feel the intense need to overthrow the government. Finally, they reached Agamine's temple: a small spider-like Strider, older than the rest and latched onto a mountain so tightly (and seemingly for so long) that it likely could never detach. The Temple tower was lightly populated and the residents seemed to flee at the first sign of newcomers. It was covered in defaced art, with waifish statues of Agamine as Scholar beheaded and given new pyramid heads. Finally, the group found a large shrine to Agamine with many lit candles and a worshipper who hadn't yet fled and was slow to notice their arrival. The young worshipper ran despite their pleas, and Potha used Hunter's Mark to track the young Prism's path. Using this spell, the party methodologically followed the trail through many doors and secret passageways, until they were in a hidden sanctuary with many old sagely acolytes. The sage who seemed to command the most authority seemed impressed and welcomed Kipilu to the Temple of Agamine.   The old sage, who was wearing sleek and subtle Construct Armor, introduced herself as Salana the Old - a rare paladin of Agamine. She had the blueprints, supplies, and skillset necessary for Kipilu to construct this device and she was willing to leave Vetuza behind to do so. However, her Construct Armor, which she depended on to move quickly and work effectively given her health and injuries, would be an issue when trying to leave the city. Construct Armor was, technically, the joint property of the state in all instances, and valuable military property at that. And if Salana was identified as an Agamine Paladin, she would surely be taken captive by the government and forced to work in some official capacity for them to justify or strengthen their regime.   The party set to work creating an elaborate plan for smuggling Salana out. They would use a Lesser Invisibility spell to hide her, then put her on a Floating Disk to hide her movements, and then have her hover directly over Coco surrounded by a bunch of magic and stuff to try and mask her from Prism echolocation. To further hide her from echolocation, Kipilu would play patriotically sad but also very weird, fast, and distracting music to create as much sonic confusion as possible. Throwing around spells and music to throw off Detect Magic spells and prism blindsense, the group would quickly shuffle to the Teleport circle and then bounce as quickly as possible. But there was one problem: they would almost certainly be read as suspicious leaving so quickly while doing this and even the smallest failure could lead to them having to make a sudden getaway. They were confident in their abilities to make that getaway, but they knew that they would never be able to get back in through this part of the Teleportation Network if they did so. And this was the only fully public point in the Teleportation Network! That could be inconvenient.   Makar objected to the operation to get Salana out and proposed an alternative: what if they stayed here in Vetuza and did their training and practice here, for the next two weeks? And Kipilu could build his device even faster, given that they would have prime access to construct materials and a workshop here? And they could think about (but not execute) a theoretical plan to overthrow this government? Potha felt that her travel abilities could probably allow them to ignore the Teleportation Network and that they shouldn't stay here, but the party slowly began to reconsider. Maybe Vetuza could be a vacation destination?   It turns out that Vetuza was only going to get worse. The ruling government, the Mezowar Dynasty, had agreed to a war with the Latashu Sovereignty over the right to control the holy city of Vetuza, so the militarization was only increasing over the next three weeks. Thankfully the fighting was pre-scheduled to occur in a month, so not long after everyone had to leave, but the mobilization came with its own local violence.   While Majesty Dashalaji helped the group's NPC squad back in Argena relocate to train elsewhere, the God Squad set to work finding their own training areas in Vetuza.   Salana the Old recommended that Potha Sarana enter an abandoned passage in the nearby mountain to find a training partner named Boss 21. This passage turned out to be quite small and Potha had to crawl to enter. The cats began to chant the sad song she sand to herself, louder and louder as she entered their Jellicle territory. In its heart she found a squidlike Construct War machine waiting for her. It spoke with a mechanical Octoperson voice box and seemed to want to intimidate her with its flailing weapons. The two sparred and eventually the war machine revealed that it was piloted by a fancy non-humanoid Cat named Boss 21. Boss 21 was a member of a group called the Syndicats, mercenary cats who policed the line between cat and humanoid and secretly piloted battlemechs for Maradia's governments. This local coven was Sector 21G of the Syndicats and they were famous for their unusual war machine that was an ancient gift by Agamine himself. Boss 21 had earned a fiercesome reputation of his own by embracing unorthodox battle tactics and constantly adapting new ways of fighting with his unusual machine. For someone seeking to master their own unusual fighting styles of the sword and bird, Potha and Boss 21 had a lot to learn from training together.   Potha also used her Meako magic to bind Prison Rat and Cobi to herself as beast companions during her three weeks of training.   Any city on the Teleportation Network is going to have some mages present. But Makar Mesaba and Arzet Devadov didn't want to train with the local Darzan mages or Zeruan merchant-sorcerers in town. So instead they decided to follow up on rumors of Forbidden Magic practiced down in the lower city below. Hopefully these dark arts would provide an excellent training ground for their arcane talents.   The two mages disguised themselves using Changeling powers and the Alter Self spell to slip down into the lower city as grain merchants, obtaining copper passes to get back up. They noticed that the common mysticism of the Temple of Ishket was particularly brutal here: people were encouraged to fight in species-based organized brawls, and even common disputes were often resolved through bouts of honor-driven violence. There was a sense of joy and victory that drew people in, but a much greater atmosphere of paranoia and hatred. Mass recruitment drives were drawing in poor Vetuzans while state-sponsored evangelists preached hate to the common farmers. The pair descended lower and lower down the terraces until they were in the outer rings. In the outer rings, the government basically acted as an occupying force that oversaw labor drives from fortified outposts, with no control at all over the majority of the slums.   Graffiti depicting Hiku the Muse was commonplace around the outer ring, and the pair soon realized that this 'forbidden magic' was likely tied to Hiku. They searched for things other than the Muse and soon stumbled into a neighborhood with a different decor. They were quickly confronted by a gangster wearing an elaborate butterfly robe who called herself Dyshi (a very Nafenan name, but a bit like a person adopting French culture and calling themselves 'Paris'). Dyshi knew they were from higher up in the city and was somewhere between welcoming and threatening. Makar was careful not to get robbed by her but managed to learn that there were three groups down here that were against the government: The Vetevic choir group (which Dyshi was a part of), Hiku cultists tied to the Singing Church of Orisha, and a secret third group of shady but unfunded punks who everyone hated. This third group likely had the least magic and resources, but Arzet and Makar decided to visit them anyways.   This third group was holed up in a tavern-turned-kitchen, which was providing charitable services for local people and castaway pariahs alike. A very devoted local community organizer was preaching the joys of The Network and of the future arrival of Dina, the Martyr. No trace of the actual physical hive mind was present, but people were invoking and praying to it to enact social change and take people's pain away.   The Martyr-Cult's speaker explained that, when Dina the Martyr jumped around the Teleportation Network a year ago, this city was one of her destinations. She found a local lieutenant, who visited the tavern owner and converted them. When Dina's Pact occurred and The Network stopped recruiting, the hive-minded people left this tavern to serve as a community service while they "sought perfection" somewhere else.   Arzet and Makar joined this band of misfit apocalypse cultists, helping out with their good deeds and practicing magic with them. The cultists seemed to have an eerily good grasp of divine magic that helped Makar train. Arzet, meanwhile, channeled their past lives to help them both care for the community and learn magical secrets - most prominently, a solar cleric named Leucholy. Both Arzet and Makar trained with a wild magic sorcerer named Argal who was a part of this cult. Argal was a Starspawn descended from refugees from far away Stildane whose magical heritage manifested very suddenly when they were born making them both more sorcerous and more unusual-looking. Argal's "ugly" and mismatched appearance made them a pariah despite their unique magical talents and this Dina Cult was the first group to truly embrace them. Argal began these three weeks as a zealous Dina cultist, but Makar and Arzet encourged her to reject the cult to join them instead. The pair was less successful at de-Dina-fying the rest of the cult. When faced with the reality that she would face state violence, the cult speaker seemed entirely willing to be martyred and was actually preparing herself for brutal state torture with constant tests of her own pain tolerance. Magical attempts to heal her only made the speaker more fanatical; she was dead set on martyrdom and the coming of the Network.   At the end of the three weeks, the pair finally figured out where this band was getting their divine magic: a Cat Pool that had been touched by Dina's magic. It wasn't as infused as the highly-corrupted Sun Pool that Kipilu encountered outside of Tapatlan, but it was purifying the water and whispering useful knowledge to the cult. The group decided not to mess with this. But they were going to bust Argal out of here, and they worked to get Argal up to the upper city to potential take her with them.   While Potha trained with Boss 21 and the twin mages trained with Argal and the Martyr Cult, Kipilu worked on the miraculous device and learned artficery. This training was grueling and difficult, but Kipilu went beyond Salana the Old's understandings of construct magic: he mixed engineering with magic in totally new ways, becoming the world's first True Artificer. His project became more than just a work project but a chance to create an entirely new art.   While on break, Kipilu worked to spy on the construct factories in cat form to see mass engineering in its applied form. While making these visits, Kipilu was spotted by Officer Norim Ementa, a member of the Maradian Enforcers who was watching those factories. Norim gently interrogated Kipilu, who explained he wanted to master artificery. Norim, sympathetic to a naive foreigner with good intentions, took Kipilu on a helicopter ride to an Enforcer base for an educational talk. Norim and the other Enforcers explained the dangers of loose artificery and the horrors that unregulated constructs can do. They also showed off the Enforcer's strength, making it clear that Kipilu could be hunted down and killed no matter where he ran to if he broke construct law. The Officers seemed very confident that this would turn Kipilu on the straight and narrow. They also made it clear that depressants are bad drugs and stimulants are good drugs. Don't be some drunken secret-stealing bozo! Be a cool guy with a motorcycle!   Kipilu kept spying on factories anyways and eventually mastered enough of the basics to unlock artificer powers. By the end of week three, Kipilu's device was finally finshed: the Mooncaller was online.   With everyone's training wrapping up, it was time to say goodbye to this wretched city. Clouds of war gathered at the city's horizon, not promising to leave any time soon. The conscripts were all marching off, to be run down in drove by terrible machines. The Apocalypse was elsewhere, demanding to be faced. Some problems must wait.   Potha, before saying goodbye, noticed a strange door in the sanctuary that was almost barricaded away from the rest. It was ignored by everyone but called to her. She opened this dusty old stone door and found an ancient workshop that was once a key part of this sanctuary and temple. The work table was calling to her and she knew in her heart that this was the original stone work bench of Agamine himself, transplanted again and again before ending up here. She saw visions of Agamine at the bench and of a presence beyond him - a presence similar to what Halcyon once was and how people saw her.   Potha saw many brief visions chained together: Agamine dedicating his most brilliant constructs to Halcyon, his paladins ending the Cult of the Living Stone and calling for an egalitarian new age, a painted paladin of many moons ending a terrible war in Halcyon's name. The Keveket symbol for Halcyon, the same symbol for Halcyon used in many Maradian religions, became clear: it is a plain blue circle, representing the promise and possibility of an open blue sky. Potha felt the prayers, hopes, and ideals people had attached to Halcyon and that open sky. And then Potha saw the last time this place was used. This workshop was once where paladins of Agamine were initiated and swore their oaths; it was intended to be humble and unassuming, as they were to be. But Agamine wished for their order of preserving knights to end. Bit by bit he abandoned them and the order became smaller and smaller. The two last paladins initiated here, Salana and Borimia, dismantled the small constructs and gadgets they had made here, stowed their pieces here, and ritually sealed the workshop with candle wax. They then used the outer hallway as a storage area and did their best to hide the doorway itself so no one could ever disturb Agamine's silence.   Potha took out the pieces of a gadget Salana had made - a magical toy intended to delight the children who lived here - and brought it back to the old paladin with a promise that anything can be fixed. Salana mused on the challenge of fixing this place, which to her seemed simply unrepairable even if the current regime was replaced by a more "reasonable" one.   The group built a miraculous device, found a cult, and communed with the spirit of this city. Time to hit the road!