Kindled Magic
Hana enrolled in the oldest (and arguably greatest) magical school in the world, the Magaambya, in 4721 AR along with Renton Woozi, Kinya Tiyeri, Sasa Lele, Tosu Kaizen, and K'okoa Morowynn as its newest initiates. They engage in a curious introductory interview with the kindly Takulu Ot before getting a tour of their dormitory. During this tour, Hana makes close friends with some of her new peers such as Esi Djana, Anchor Root, Ignaci Canterells, and Chizire. After settling into the Spire Dormitory the newly formed cohort, The Imagine Dragons, engage in service projects keyed to one of the Magaambya's five branches: Rain-Scribes, Tempest-Sun Mages, Cascade Bearers, Emerald Boughs, and Uzunjati. For the next five days, the Imagine Dragons help purchase rare Ojofiri chickens for Esi and Haibram Thodja (Rain-Scribe), clear out gremlins in one of the school's storage barns for Esi (Tempest-Sun Mage), acquire and prepare material components to ward off future gremlin attacks for Chizire and Anchor Root (Cascade Bearers), delivering mail around Nantambu for Ignaci (Emerald Boughs), and share a story about their experiences that week with Okoro and Noxolo (Uzunjati). The week ends with the Imagine Dragons introduction ceremony which is interrupted by a pair of angry gremlins led by the mysterious Stone Ghost. Successfully thwarting the gremlin threat, Hana is officially a student of Magaambya and eagerly decides to join the Cascade Bearers (Primary) and Rain-Scribes (Secondary).
The daily flow of life and learning at the Magaambya sweeps up Hana as she attends classes (halcyon spellcasting and metamagic her favorite subjects), makes friends (Esi, Ignaci, Anchor Root, and the rest of her trusted cohort), and growing her magical abilities. While attending classes, the Imagine Dragons are given directives by several of their teachers: collecting insect samples for Teacher Koride Ulawa (with Renton and Koko'a rallying nearby students to the kitchen to finish off the centipede swarm inside the kitchen), retrieving books inside the Tree Stump Library for Teacher Ot (lots of silverfish swarms and Hana was able to recover an extra copy of 'he Worlds Between Worlds: Exploring the Planes and Demi-Planes, Volumes I-XVI for herself), helping with a magical ritual using special ink with Teacher Zuma (Hana was given a ridiculous hat that she likes to casually wear), and participating in the Starday Tournament with Teacher Ayuwari (Imagine Dragons being victorious over the leshys and their bramble constructs). Some of their fellow students needed some help as well: Koko'a drinking disgusting potions from Chizire, Tosu hang gliding with Haibram, Renton helping Anchor Root find her lost chicken familiar, Hana mastering Okoro's dense and complex board game during their biweekly game night, and the dormitory coming together to help Zacha and Zanvi surprise their mother Tzeniwe on her birthday.
After a year at the Magaambya, Hana and the Imagine Dragons are invited to the Day of First Masking to craft their first true mask and advance from initiates to attendants. Excited, the crafty Hana arrives with her friends in her finest attire ready to begin the ceremony. She pulls inspiration from the story of the ancient witches of Taumata and magically shapes a macabre, insect-like mask to match her affinity to moths and butterflies and the mysterious magic flowing through her. Furthermore, she imbues her mask with Shōkan's essence allowing him to become both the mask and his butterfly self at will. Lastly, she instills a bit of her spirit reflecting who she is really underneath while visualizing the person she hopes to become. After finishing her mask, the ceremony is disrupted by an invading swarm of beetles and centipedes. The new attendants and teachers successfully repel the surprise attack and Teacher Ot asks the Imagine Dragons to escort the crowd to safety while assuring them that he and the other teachers will investigate the sudden attack.
As the dust settles and the Imagine Dragons are given time to recover, the teachers of Magaambya begin a thorough canvassing of all the meandering passages and recently carved tunnels beneath the campus and instruct the students to help clear any intruders wandering about. The cohort are assigned to a distant and supposedly "safe" set of caverns beneath the Archhorn Library, but within these passages, the vengeful oread Stone Ghost and his gremlin minions work to expand the tunnels and prepare more attacks. It takes two days of extensive mapping and relentless fighting for the heroes to defeat Stone Ghost and learn that he was, in an earlier life, a cruel student expelled from the university. Hana believes the aftermath of the insect attack and the discoveries beneath Archhorn Library hint at greater dangers and begin her own investigation of the strange happenings along with her extensive coursework.
The Imagine Dragons return to Takulu Ot and Koride in front of the Tireless Hall, now transformed into an enormous field station with insects of all sizes being hauled outside and sorted, and report to them of their findings. After listening intently, Teacher Ot provides to the cohort his thoughts and findings: 1) the insects were drawn by some pervasive yet persistent psychic call; 2) gremlins, pests, and other creatures that aren’t strictly insects (like spiders) have responded to the call as well; and 3) the emanation is virtually undetectable but seems to be ongoing. Hana ponders on her teacher's words for a moment until Esi rushes up to inform him of the arrival of three new prospective anadi students. The Imagine Dragons greet them along with Teacher Ot and before sharing pleasantries the spider-like people are attacked by three aggressive griffons. With the combined efforts of the cohort, Teacher Ot, and the three anadis, they are able to subdue the griffons before they caused further damage to the Magaambya.
After saying goodbye to Renton who leaves the Magaambya on a personal quest, the Imagine Dragons meet with Teacher Ot the next day who requests to speak to them to discuss everything that's transpired in the caverns. Learning the story of the once talented initiate Uduak Basniwho who fell from his arrogance and greed, Hana takes some time to reflect on what she has learned as she continues her studies and investigations of the deeper mysteries at work.
Spoken on the Song Wind
Two weeks after the griffon incident, the Imagine Dragons learn that the head of the Uzunjati branch, Janatimo, has returned to the Magaambya. Hana is excited to meet Janatimo as he is one of the five learned ones, scholars who lead each of the Magaambya's branches separately. Janatimo is kind, insightful, and entertaining, three important qualities that make any teacher popular. Hearing about the heroes' victories, he takes them under his wing hoping that, with proper guidance, the Imagine Dragons can be part of the next generation of teachers and representatives that the Magaambya needs. After some prodding, conversation, and reflection, he asks them to investigate two unresolved mysteries from their previous adventurers during the course of the school year. First, to question the anadi students about what drew them to the Magaambya and second, to figure out the origins of the griffons. Accepting Janatimo's request, the Imagine Dragons balance their increasing schoolwork and community service in Nantambu while investigating the mysteries looming over the Magaambya. In particular, Hana had great joy in balancing her double courseload of work in Halcyonics, Advanced Occultism, and Metamagical Theory with the opening of her new Tian Xia inspired bakery Salt and Butter.
With the help of Tzeniwe, the Imagine Dragons learn that their anadi classmates haven't made friends due to their preference for their natural humanoid spider forms and often spend evenings in front of the Hababe Building. The heroes find the three anadis, Goss, Maztachia, and Savanakin, deeply involved in an esoteric debate about the intricate webs of fate and causality. Hana is immediately interested in their conversation and joins in the debate to steer it to a conclusion so they can begin questioning the anadi's intentions in coming to the Magaambya. She learns that something in the storeroom in front calls to them at times and they've spent a lot of time discussing what might be in there, but are too cautious to look themselves. Sending their reservations, the cohort decides to investigate the storeroom where they encounter an animated terra-cotta statue and two suspicious young "humans" pretending to be students of Magaambya. After uncovering their lies and deceptions, the two drop their disguises and attack. Thanks to some clever hit and run tactics by the heroes and an angry set of snakes and wood golems surrounding the serpentfolk, the serpentfolk fall to their demise allowing the Imagine Dragons to investigate the storerooms. Inside Hana deduces that someone was studying a now-missing substance that produced strong formic acid in the area. With the mystery only getting deeper, the Imagine Dragons proceed in investigating the griffons.
Sasa knows that griffons don't approach urban areas unless they've been acclimated to humanoid and Hana knows that many people in Nantambu capture and domesticate animals for use as guards, mounts, or pets. Griffons though are difficult to capture and harder to domesticate. After a few days of investigating, the Imagine Dragons deduce their best option is to investigate Oba's Wondrous Creatures. After convincing Oba to let them search the menagerie, they encounter a herd of released and agitated animals. Once subdued, they thoroughly investigate the area and Hana deduce the griffon's diet of spiders is most likely the reason for them attacking the anadi. Including this, the cohort piece together that freeing the animals was an intentional act of sabotage. They confront Oba, but she nervously insists that she doesn't know anyone who would do this to her. Though suspicious, they leave her to her own devices sensing something is strangely amiss.
The Imagine Dragons report to Janatimo about Oba's Wondrous Creatures and what they discovered in the storeroom. Concerned to hear about serpentfolk on the campus, Janatimo vows to heighten the Magaambya's security precautions as best he can without alarming the students and staff. Janatimo also notes that it is both more mundane and more fantastical a coincidence about the cause of the griffons' aggressive behavior. Successful in their task, he praises the Imagine Dragons for their bravery and diligence in investigating the two mysteries he assigned to them and asks them to invite a few of their friends to attend a small ceremony where the cohort will be elevated to the rank of conversants and given new titles and responsibilities. Hana invites her close friends Esi and Ignaci as they all come together to stand and cheer in celebration of the Imagine Dragons' well-deserved promotion.
Janatimo explains to Hana that conversants supplement their learning with tasks that take them out of the school and into Nantambu and beyond. While many of these tasks serve the Magaambya or friends of the school, they also help the local community to further the Magaambya's mission of aid and protection. Serving as conversants give students practical application for their studies and create ties between them and others outside the school. Understanding their mission, Hana and the Imagine Dragons supplement their studies with community service. During the school year the Imagine Dragons did the following community service:
- Suspicious Alchemy: The heroes assist Magaambyan quartermaster Xhokan of the Powderpile on uncovering the issue with his longtime supplier and friend Bamidele's recent shipment of low-quality alchemical powders. The heroes uncover that Bamidele is unknowingly a middleman in a dangerous scheme run by a fence named Abeo who long fenced stolen goods under the guise of a textiles merchant. He apparently got in trouble at a gambling den and was tasked with delivering alchemical reagents to Bamidele for cheap by a secretive crime lord advancing in power named Froglegs. Fearing for his life, Hana takes the extra step herself to sneak Abeo and his family out of the city and prove Bamidele's innocence in the whole matter to the Chime-Ringers.
- Flooded Workshop: Amaechi the Potter's workshop is flooded as the canal's retaining wall behind the potter's shop has collapsed as the canal is overflowing the banks. Hana notices that the canal's flooding is unseasonal and unusual and there's something unnatural about it. Kinya, Sasa, Tosu, and Koko'a work to shore up Amaechi's sinking shop by erecting supports, diverting floodwater, and reinforcing existing walls and flooring as Hana researches the unseen underpinning and community repair ritual spells to help repair the workshop and canal's retaining wall. The neighbors bring a celebratory feast with the Imagine Dragons as guests of honor.
- Busker Woes: Someone has been robbing the street entertainers all over Nantambu according to Teacher Janatimo. Some of the cohort infiltrates the underworld, some speak with the Chime-Ringers, and Hana questions the performers and they discover a gang of lizardfolk led by a thug leader named Reth who was tired of making money slowly and thought robbing street performers was an easy and quick way to get all the extra things they wanted. Hana partakes in "enhanced" interrogation techniques with Reth and discovers the gang has been working for the reclusive grippli Froglegs.
- Tell a Tale: At the Black-Crowned Crane Restaurant, the Imagine Dragons meet with Teacher Janatimo who entered them into the "Tall Tails" contest where participants tell stories of encounters with strange or unique versions of ordinary animals. In hopes of showing the rest of Nantambu how imaginative students of the Magaambya are, he hopes the Imagine Dragon's past exploits will provide expert storytelling material. Hana tells a gripping and very personal story about a little girl and her phoenix guardian (not revealing that little girl being her) and wins the contest. She is presented a stylish black phoenix statuette as a prize and congratulations from her fellow conversants.
- Ghost Stories: Teacher Lesedi asks the Imagine Dragons to help out her friend Tokku whose new house has been haunted by a poltergeist. Hana recalls that many spirits, including poltergeists, can only be put to rest when something that's wronged them is put right. The Imagine Dragons enter Tokku's home and Hana is able to calm down the poltergeist so they can figure out what's going. They learn that the poltergeist's name is Gerrus and his former best friend Kalembi murdered him and stole a leopard figurine with beautiful rainbow hues. Once they confirm that returning the figurine will free his soul from Tokku's home, they ask him to be patient and wait for them as they search for the location of Kalembi. Hana gathers information around town and finds the location of Kalembi's home and business ("Everywhere and Beyond") and also hear rumors about Kalembi's decline in fortunes. After dispatching his three personal guards, they confront old man Kalembi who admits his role as a thief twenty years ago, forced to steal and kill his best friend due to his fear of Habu the Cudgel and his fierce grippli burglar Froglegs. Sensing his genuine grief resulting from killing his friend after all these years, Hana convinces him apologize to Gerrus at Tokku's home, return the stolen statue, and admit his crimes to the Chime-Ringers.
- Oozing into Trouble: The eccentric and gifted Teacher Zuma requests the Imagine Dragons help preserve one of his favorite places: the Carnivorous Gardens. According to Teacher Zuma, the caretaker Natofo was experimenting with oozes as a food source for the plants causing mayhem in the garden. The heroes descend upon the Carnivorous Gardens dispatching the four oozes inside while keeping the plants safe. In return for the help, Natofo leverages her brother's connections at the Magaambya and delivers a staff of evocation to Hana as a thank you gift.
- Fiery Debt: Throughout the semester the Imagine Dragons have been hearing rumors describing nighttime fires across campus and that an arsonist is to blame. Teacher Janatimo asks the conversants to look deeper into the matter and investigate. They investigates a few of the burned buildings and Kinya notices that a message is being left on each building. The word at the lecture hall is "Pay," the word at the dormitory is "Your," and the word at the lab is "Debts." Hana does a closer examination of the burn marks and finds a strange, highly refined alchemical residue gel that only reacts to high temperatures. She brings it to Xhokan and he says such compounds are too advanced for most students to use effectively. He does know where the heroes can find such a gel, however: Fire-Pot’s Forge just outside of town. The heroes head to Fire-Pot's Forge that night, dispatch his minotaur guards, and confronts Fire-Pot Ubanu who demands that he be paid the 300 gp the students of the Magaambya promised to pay for his stonerot solvent. He claims that two students named Oyo and Mtembe in a so-called advanced studies' class needed the solvent to neutralize and breakdown powerful acids. Hana informs him that such a class and students do not exist in Magaambya (though he does not believe) and asks if there is anything else besides money he would take for this unfortunate transgression. He requests to join the Magaambya as a student. Hana raises the possibility to Teacher Janatimo who says he will accept Ubanu under the condition that he come to campus and publicly apologize for his attack on the school and promise to never do anything like that again. Ubanu's pride makes this difficult, but Hana reasons with the evoker and lets Teacher Janatimo know she will accept close responsibility for his coursework and behavior to help ensure that Ubanu keeps his temper under control.
- Trouble from the Skies: The Imagine Dragons receive a request from Teacher Ahassunu, professor of diplomatic history at the school, whose iruxi friend Ibisu is a goat herder on the Nantambu outskirts with a family of jungle drakes grazing on her livestock. She asks the conversants to help stop the creatures. They head to Ibisu's fields and spot an elderly iruxi who pleads for them to not turn them into pelts and trophies and just have them moved somewhere else. Taking her request to heart, Hana asks they take two of her fattest goats as an offering to the drakes and as a negotiating tactic. After a day's travel, they arrive in an open clearing in the jungle and Hana converses with two drakes in Draconic, explaining that the drakes are causing trouble for Nantambu and must move further away. Using Sasa's knowledge of the local geography, Hana lets them know of a new hunting location and offers the drakes as a peace offering. They accept the two goats and the information provided by the Imagine Dragons and depart. Ibisu is incredibly pleased with the outcome and give Koko'a a bag of cats.
- Finding Froglegs: It is obvious to the Imagine Dragons that there's a reclusive and brutal new crime boss in Nantambu named Froglegs and she needs to be stopped. Teacher Janatimo has been doing his own investigation, following up on information the Imagine Dragons have acquired, and he finally has a lead. He tasks them to arrest Froglegs who currently is hiding just outside the city, in a swampy, unpleasant area where the city sewers deposit waste. The Imagine Dragons prepare for the assault against Froglegs and her minions the next day in the evening and, with their plans finalized, begin the operation. After subduing a grippli jinxer and disposing the other thugs, knocking out a humungous crocodile, and thwarting a I'iko Dragon and a Giant Dragonfly, they are able to reach and beat down Froglegs who throws down her weapons and raises her hands to surrender. Hana questions Froglegs who tells her that the chief criminal in Nantambu isn't her, but the person inside Magistrate-Mayor Asanda's house. She informs him the Magistrate-Mayor isn't exactly who he appears to be, and it's been like that for some time ever since the flooding of the Magistrate-Mayor's home. Including this, he's been taking secret trips across the city onto Magaambya campus. After turning over Froglegs to the authorities they update Teacher Janatimo who is pleased with the Imagine Dragons' performance and taking the extra step of showing Froglegs mercy and putting her on the long road to redemption. He’s troubled but not completely surprised at Froglegs’s implications about Magistrate-Mayor Asanda. Janatimo has known Asanda as far more responsible than he has shown himself to be lately, and Froglegs’s outlandish-sounding implications might have some merit. It isn’t a theory that the Magaambya can address directly now, but Janatimo promises to look into this further.
- Carving Trouble: Teacher Janatimo gives the Imagine Dragons a simple mission picking up special commemorative carvings of the Ten Magic Warriors for an upcoming ceremony from a famed Nantambu woodcarver named Goana. When the conversants arrive Hana realizes that the style of the wood carvings is remarkably similar to that of the wood golem they faced in the Magaambya storeroom, and that Goana must have made that, too. She remembers doing so, making pieces on commission for her friend Magistrate-Mayor Asanda. Before the conversation with Goana can get very far, an assassin swoops into the yard on a giant eagle and tries to kill Goana. The Imagine Dragons make quick work of the assassin and have all the evidence they need to confront the supposed Magistrate-Mayor.
After their service in Nantambu, all the clues the Imagine Dragons have gathered point to something suspicious happening at Magistrate-Mayor Asanda's manor. They investigate, only to find the manor filled with monsters and serpentfolk, including the scheming serpentfolk Salathiss perfecting his disguise as the magistrate-mayor. Once the conversants clear Salathiss and his minions from the mansion, Asanda takes stock of the manor and prepares to return to his normal duties. He’s particularly grateful to the heroes and asks them to keep the details of the serpentfolk infiltration a secret. He’s willing to shoulder the burden of people thinking he was unresponsive and lax in his duties but doesn’t want to risk citywide panic by letting them know how close serpentfolk came to infiltrating Nantambu’s government; though the heroes should share the truth with anyone they choose at the Magaambya. In the weeks that follow, Magistrate-Mayor Asanda works tirelessly to restore Nantambu. He directs the Chime-Ringers to focus on dismantling Froglegs’s criminal network rather than simply dealing with the low-level perpetrators and victims. He commissions city laborers to shore up infrastructure, including the failed canals and noxious Thieves’ Swamp. Finally, he works with the Magaambya on the best magical deterrents to prevent this type of infiltration from happening again.
When the Imagine Dragons return to the Magaambya and relay what happened to Janatimo, he’s beyond impressed with what they did and also muses about what kind of a story this would be if they could tell it. He understands the magistrate-mayor’s caution and supports his request to keep Salathiss’s plot a secret. Janatimo closely reviews Salathiss’s journals and discusses theories about the Vesicant Egg with Hana at length. The two come with the following conclusions:
- The egg is an artifact of unknown ability and power. Like most artifacts, it has proven impervious to damage.
- The egg plainly drew the insects, gremlins, and other pests plaguing the Magaambya in recent years. It was likely also responsible for drawing the anadis to the school, which Janatimo is quick to note as an unexpected benefit.
- Koride Ulawa kept a private laboratory in the Hababe Building, just on the other side of the solid wall of the storeroom. Janatimo believes Teacher Ulawa didn’t understand the danger the artifact posed, and she certainly wasn’t working with the serpentfolk—otherwise, Salathiss wouldn’t have had to work to keep his studies of the egg a secret.
Teacher Janatimo and the Imagine Dragons speak with Teacher Koride at her office in the Heron Archives and give her a full accounting of what they learned who responds with disdain but acknowledgement of the facts and reason. After they’ve presented their facts, Koride acknowledges that there isn’t anything to do but dispose of the Vesicant Egg. This will take some time however and the egg can't stay on campus. Koride promises to research these with her colleagues and find a solution. Hana, ever suspicious of Teacher Koride, pulls Teacher Janatimo away for a private conversation raising her concerns, but he assures Hana that her promises will be kept.
Upon proving their value to the city by rescuing Asanda and completing their coursework, the heroes graduate to become lore-speakers of the Magaambya. Teacher Janatimo leaves shortly after graduation for another mission for the school. He admits that staying around as long as he did is uncharacteristic for him, but the party’s exploits were just too fascinating for him to leave.
