Whaddaya say, kid, want to get the fuck out of here?

She thought her dream boyfriend would never ask. 

Boop. 

And suddenly Tetula has a new affordance. She can reach out and-- she wants this one, and this one, and this one-- and she wants to get out of here, she wants to leave--

Then she wakes up for real.

She still has the new affordance. It is sort of, but not entirely, quite unlike casting a spell

She casts one of the small ones, the ones she can recast as much as she wants.

And now she will have to explain the presence of two gallons of water on her floor. 

She's a cleric!!!!! She's her dream boyfriend's cleric!!!!!

She somehow suspects that her dream boyfriend is not an approved non-heretical god. 

If anyone finds out, she's going to get Maledicted, which is not ideal. 

She needs to get out of Cheliax before she runs into a cleric or, worse, an inquisitor who can detect her shiny new cleric aura. 

She doesn't think she can escape from Cheliax by herself. Not with nothing but the ability to cast cantrips, Create Water, and a single Cure Light Wounds per day. 

But she's at wizard school in Cheliax. Anyone who wants to escape from Cheliax would already have been beaten out of their heresy. She needs someone else who can notice obvious truths about the world (your best interests aren't served by being in Cheliax as opposed to literally anywhere else) and who is Cunning enough not only to be a wizard but to beat Detect Thoughts.  

(It isn't that hard to beat Detect Thoughts. Tetula's strategy is being widely considered a moron, so people skimp on the Detect Thoughts because who is going to be planning heresy, Tetula? She is going to be too busy contemplating the ephemeral beauty in every moment or something wimpy and pathetic like that. But somehow most people aren't as good at things as Tetula is.) 

She considers all her classmates, prays to her dream boyfriend for guidance, remembers she has divine guidance or rather Guidance, casts it in case it helps, considers all her classmates again, and then--

-a familiar head peaks up over her windowsill. "Hi Tetula! You always got along with Luka and Melosa, right? The ones on the privation detail?"

Renzio - Renzy, when the other students are feeling cruel but not at all creative - is a solid student. Great grades on the theoretical side, though for all that it took a long time to hang his first cantrip. Kind of annoying, tends to poke his nose into people's business more than he should, and he doesn't fight back so he's a popular target if you just need to take it all out on someone. He does run a study group that's kinda nice, both because he's a decent math tutor and because there's enough people that even if he can't teach you, he'll know who can, and what person they owe that needs to learn something you're good at. One of the only other pupils of Ostenso Academy to have any interest in obtaining a familiar. Total teacher's pet.

Also currently hanging on to Tetula's windowsill, which is on, what, the third or fourth floor?

"I'm not sure where to start, but maybe- Hi Tetula! Wanna make a deal? You don't have to if you don't want to."

That is the most unAsmodean sentence she's ever hear--

That is the most unAsmodean sentence she's ever heard.

Thanks, dream boyfriend!

"Yes! I strongly suspect I have a better counterproposal, but I want to hear yours first."

"I want to know the source of your suspicion! But mine is- I at first just planned to sneak some bread in. That worked. They didn't have water either and it's hard to carry. So I broke them out to enough to get to the well. But, well, we're out and nobody's noticed, and there's more students in there than we were told. I don't think school is a good trade for them, and that's pretty important actually? We're leaving, and I have surprising reasons to think you should come with us. This is stupidly dangerous and obviously we're all going to get recaptured and dragged back and it'll be even worse."

He must have his feet planted in some missing brick under her window she's never seen. 

"It is a vital principle that people not be trapped and unable to go to where their work will be more rewarded, that they try and improve their lives."

He's smiling? Why is he so cheerful.

"So what's your counterproposal?"

It is pretty obvious why he's so cheerful! He's planning to escape Cheliax!

"Oh, essentially that proposal. It turns out that a recurring character in my sex dreams is capable of giving cleric levels and I don't think he's a non-heretical god."

She says this with a completely straight face in the manner of someone remarking that the dinner today was underspiced, perhaps to give everyone Prestidigitation practice.

"That's a better counterproposal! You'll be even more useful in getting us all out. I was coming to you because I think I might have just gotten clericed, and part of the vision was you'd be a good person to trade with. I'm pretty sure mine's non-heretical, but you're really supposed to get dispensation first and I obviously didn't."

"Excellent! Who's yours?"

"Abadar! What is yours like, sex dreams means. . . Sheyln? A lady with long brown hair?"

"A man with short brown hair but I guess Shelyn could be a man... anyway, I'm probably Evil, so I don't think Shelyn can reach me. Maybe a demon lord of some sort? I think dream sex is much more demon lord behavior than god behavior."

"I can keep coming up with ideas but maybe we should do that when you've got your things together? The climb down isn't too hard but it'll be hard to bring anything too heavy. Your cloak for sure."

Tetula begins packing up her spellbook, some clothes, food for her familiar. 

"I guess it could be Belial? It would be very awkward if I became a cleric of Belial and then escaped from Cheliax, when I could have just found a random village that didn't have a cleric and encouraged its residents to have very interesting sex lives."

"I had not previously been considering what kind of sex dreams as evidence. If Belial is a consideration, maybe Norgorber? I wouldn't have thought of him as sex dreams but coming to you in the night, and the description makes sense. How sure are you that you're Lawful?" Asks the boy about to stage a breakout, to the girl helping him without an apparent second thought.

"Whenever we read about Law puzzles in theology class, I think to myself 'this is stupid. Instead of being extremely tricky with the exact words of my oaths, I could break them, and I don't really care if people know that I will predictably hurt them if they do things I don't want.' So I figure I'm Neutral or Chaotic."

"Yeah that would do it. Uh, if you think you're all the way over in Chaotic Evil, it might be Nephthys? That would make some sense, both she and Abadar are Osirion deities. I don't know if it works like this, but do you ever feel like you're drunk or otherwise like your mind is going weird when you're having these dreams, there's a story she seduced Osiris with wine one time. . ." His chipper voice takes on a concerned tone. "Hey, if you're chaotic does that mean our deal is off and you're going to turn me in?"

"You can't rely on my word, but you can rely on my self-interest. I, like any person who has thought about it, want to get out of Cheliax. And while I can get around my word with tricky word games, I can't get around my self-interest in any way other than getting what I want."

"On my Law, I'll trade my help getting you out for your help getting these students out. You can still trust my Lawfulness even if you aren't Lawful yourself, right?"

"Sure! But I'd help you regardless. I don't want anyone to be in Cheliax."

"I appreciate it but it's-" he scrunches up his nose a bit, "-against my principles to ask other people to do things against their self-interest. Not without finding a way to pay them enough to make up for it, so we're both better off. I feel like charity is maybe okay, if you think of it as buying something good you want? But you're Evil so that doesn't really apply."

"Fair enough!" Tetula says. "Nephthys, huh. I do think I remember drinking with my dream boyfriend... do you know what her holy symbol is?"

"Baskets? A basket on a castle or something? Sorry, there wasn't a picture in the book I read about her in."

"How good of a hiding place are your guys in? I'm not sure if we should figure out my holy symbol before we go. Do you have a key?"

"They're fine for right now, security doesn't actually patrol inside the school much once you're out of the dungeons. They might do something dumb if we leave them there for an hour, but I think they're fine for another fifteen minutes." He adjusts his grip on the windowsill. "I've got my room key. Mind if I come in if we're going to be here longer?"

"Oh, um. Sorry. Yes. --wait, no, you should get far enough away that I can try different holy symbols and figure out which god I have, so that I can channel negative and do Inflicts when we're running away." She finishes packing.

"Sure." He doesn't want to just hang out on a window for fifteen minutes. "I'll be at the base of the tree on the other side of the courtyard for the next fifteen minutes, then if I don't see you wave or anything I'll climb back up."

"But you're the one who knows all the gods! --Climb down and then I'll climb down and then I can stand thirty feet away from you."

"Oh, sure! I thought you'd be digging around in your room for oddments to try as focuses." He'll clamber around, his path going diagonal down the wall until he reaches a crack that provides at least one useful handhold. The kid isn't very strong but he's got a great reach.

Tetula climbs down after him! Climbing is fun!

"I think you can just sketch on a piece of paper, right?"

"I guess? I usually see priests use a twist of metal at least. I lucked out." He holds up the contents of his pockets and there's around a half-dozen copper coins, a marble, a piece of dried fruit, and importantly a couple of keys on a ring. "Should I just draw as many symbols as I can remember and you go through them one by one?"

"That sounds good. You should check that you can channel with the key too, just to be on the safe side."

"I already did. Luka was hurt on the way out, he fell and wasn't in a good way. I took a risk, but- it felt pretty sure to me. I channel positive." He'll start sketching design after design, in a fair artistic hand. Some of them he does multiple versions of, usually because he remembers what's in the symbol but not how it's arranged, like whether Nephthys' basket is on top of the castle or under it or behind it. He'll hand her the first page once it's full of a dozen patterns, helpfully marked with the name.

Bastet, a cat.

Nalinivati, a snake coiled on a flower.

Belial, a devil's mask.

Calistria, three daggers.

Dachzerul, a smile in the dark.

Droskar, a fire under an arch.

Grandmother Spider, a diamond of eight threads.

Laivatiniel, a chain-wrapped rattle.

Mestama, an eye atop three stones.

Nephthys, a basket atop a building.

She folds the paper so that she is brandishing one unambiguous drawing per channel attempt and attempts to channel for each.

Facepalm.

"It's not any of these. Very obscure demon lord?"

"I have some more but not that many. Checking our assumptions. How sure are you of Chaotic or Evil, here? Maybe you wound up True Neutral and I should be checking a Good god." He frowns. "If it was an obscure demon lord they should know you need a hint. Did you get, like, a sense of domains? I was thinking of trade and wealth and prosperity," and being anywhere but Cheliax, but that goes without saying " and that just got reinforced."

"He... wants me to be happy and joyful and strong and free. And he wants me to be able to get out of here."

"Tetula, that doesn't sound like any demon lord I've ever heard of. Maybe Nocticula." Here's a moon with a pointed crown. "It's not going to be Nocticula."

She tries it. It's not Nocticula. "He asked before clericing me. He wouldn't have clericed me if I hadn't wanted him to." She purses her lips as she tries to explain something. "And he's like-- you know how the wizard school has a hierarchy that fits into the broader wizard hierarchy which fits into the hierarchy of everyone in Cheliax which fits into a hierarchy of everyone who serves Asmodeus, and in principle you could put all the servants of Asmodeus into a big line and then you would know, for everyone who serves Asmodeus, who they're allowed to hurt and boss around, and who they must obey and be hurt by."

"Yeah. So?" Scarmignione, a crossbow.

"He's the opposite of that. It feels like-- he's my friend and we're equals, and it just happens that he can appear in my dreams and give me superpowers and that I need his help, but that's a coincidence, it could have been the other way. --I thought he wasn't real, just... a happy story my brain was telling me. People aren't like that, really. Especially if they're powerful."

"Yeah that's not a demon lord and that's not Evil, or even Neutral. A masculine god that shows up in sex dreams and wants you to be free and happy who got you drunk once oh Abadar I'm an idiot that's the drunk god that's Cayden Cailean. Tankard but any cup might do." Renzio's been stepping close enough to hand her new sketches before retreating to a safe distance, but comes in close again, close enough to put a hand on her shoulder. "Tetula. You're a Good person. And we're getting you out of this country."

Before she can stop herself, Tetula says, "the drunk? The completely inept and useless drunk who ascended to godhood on impulse? The god of wasting your entire life drinking in bars without ever accomplishing anything worthy of being proud of? The best argument for the inevitable defeat of Good? That Cayden Cailean???"

Harsh.

And mostly unfair.

If Cayden didn't know that Abadar was an ancient god and therefore incapable of jokes, he'd suspect him of a dry sense of humor.

"I do think he has a better reputation outside Cheliax." Renzio is dubious as well, Chaotic Good seems such a stupid alignment, but, well, he has already decided to assume everything the teachers say might be lies.

And then Tetula-- takes a deep breath, gets control of herself, focuses.

She is grateful to have cleric powers. She is grateful that her dream boyfriend turned out to exist rather than being a very unrealistic figment of her imagination. These are good things, and she can turn her mind to focus on the good things and ignore everything else. Why would she complain about the exact traits of her dream boyfriend that gives her cleric powers? She should just be happy to have cleric powers at all. 

From Renzio's perspective, Tetula has suddenly become perky and cheerful. "I guess that explains the dream sex! Cayden Cailean is not spending his resources the way a god like Asmodeus would."

Somebody is perhaps having dream sex with Asmodeus but Renzio never wants it to be him.

"They are very different gods! Do you want to try channeling with a tankard picture and see for sure?"

"Sure! --I wonder if I'm going to get pregnant. I'd have to keep it, it'd probably be a sorcerer or an oracle or an aasimar."

"I think realizing you're pregnant is a good reason to make a sudden and unexpected attempt to escape cheliax really. I don't know what my parents were thinking. Maybe they failed and that's when I was brought to the abbey actually, that would make sense."

Tankard drawing?

Tankard drawing! 

Did Renzio have any little cuts or scrapes, by coincidence? Because he doesn't have those anymore. 

He cleared the worst of it when he did his own first channel getting other students out, but he did scrape his hands a bit climbing up to that window.

"That worked! Uh, do you congratulations or commiseration? Buying you a beer once we're free and clear seems appropriate. "

"...I don't really drink."

"I don't really make free and uncoerced bargains either but Abadar chose me anyway. Maybe the beer in Cheliax is as unfathomably awful as their contracts."

"I'm really happy to have cleric powers and to serve my new master!" Tetula chirps. 

"I don't know enough about Caydenite theology to swear to it but I do not think it's a master and slave arrangement?" It's been a while since he read those books. "If we've figured this out though, we should get moving. Anything else you need?"

"Not really, let's head to where your rescuees are." As they walk, she says, "but surely any god is going to be their clerics' master."

"Mine doesn't feel like that? They're more like. . . someone offering to cut a good deal with me? They want me to do them a favour, but they're doing me one too and we're both better off. I'm not taking orders, I'm taking bribes. That's much better."

Here are a handful of half-starved wizard students! They're a scraggly lot, hiding in the bushes near the kitchen.

"I'm a cleric of Cayden Cailean," Tetula says, "and I'm going to get all of you out."

Six wizard students turn around at the sound of her voice, each one showing signs of having been locked in a Chelish dungeon recently. It's only a wizard school dungeon, but it is still a dungeon. Cheliax believes in motivating its students. Perhaps Tetula recognizes some of them from her classes?

Marc Valladares isn't necessarily the tallest, but he's certainly the biggest overall. "The drunk? The completely inept and useless drunk who ascended to godhood on impulse?  That Cayden Cailean?"

Malak Verdugo's sleeve is ripped in several places but she seems somehow more alert than Marc, like tonight's taken less out of her so far. She leans forward to get a better look at Tetula. "That does seem like the kind of crazy god who does self-sabotaging things like try and help people escape Cheliax." Tlthough there's no visible injury beneath the ripped sleeve, she's still rotating and stretching that arm as though getting used to there not being an injury there. On a not unrelated note, Malak Verdugo is ripped. 

In the back is a girl with a pronounced overbite who has put a light robe on over her uniform, her hood up and covering her hair. "You're Tetula, right? I remember you. I'm Leire. Thank you for your help." She turns a disapproving look on the other two. "And if he'll help us, then I'll thank Cayden Cailean as well." 

"Yep! The completely inept and useless drunk who ascended to godhood on impulse!" Tetula says cheerfully. "Is everyone on board with escaping to Andoran, or does anyone want to go back in the dungeons?"

"I'm on board with escaping to Andoran on impulse!"

"I can draw us a map if we don't already have one."

"Map seems helpful, although I'm pretty sure we can just head west and we'll get to Andoran eventually."

"I'm pretty sure we'll get out of Cheliax! Andoran specifically is a bonus. I would take Xopatl if that's where we wound up. If anyone has their heart set on Andoran though, we should start going east?"