[x] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[x] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
[x] Even Better, What If We Snuck Out and Went to Zaun in Disguise?
As much as I don't want it to actually happen, I'd love a little glimps into the alternate timeline where Lux thinks Jinx is a snooty piltie who doesn't care about the poors.
[X] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
The funniest part will be seeing the fallout of the foreign embassy realizing that Piltover is so out to lunch about Zaun's affairs that it's vassal state doesn't just have a coalition of drug dealers as it's de-facto government it's also waging a civil war against a resistance movement with both sides using innovative advanced military technology and the Council has no idea it's even happening.
I want Lux to see Firelights on hover-boards dueling Shimmer-tanks using knock-off Hextech and to slowly realize that Jinx isn't joking the Council just pay that little attention to Zaun. They haven't asked for any rights for the last four years so things must be fine in the slums.
"Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems, not problems like "What is beauty?" Because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems, for instance: how am I going to stop some mean sword slinger from tearing me a structurally superfluous be-hind? The answer, use a gun, and if that don't work... Use more gun. Take for instance this heavy caliber six barrel rotary lil' old number designed by me, built by me, and you best hope... Not pointed at you."
"Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems, not problems like "What is beauty?" Because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems, for instance: how am I going to stop some mean sword slinger from tearing me a structurally superfluous be-hind? The answer, use a gun, and if that don't work... Use more gun. Take for instance this heavy caliber six barrel rotary lil' old number designed by me, built by me, and you best hope... Not pointed at you."
Since Jinx was mentioned to have kept in contact with Ekko, shouldn't we know the state of Zaun before we vote for something like this? Like, is Silco winning? Is he losing? Do shootouts happen often? Is their chemtech as impressive as canon without Zaun's full resources thrown at Singed?
[x] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
[X] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
[x] Even Better, What If We Snuck Out and Went to Zaun in Disguise?
Ah, yes. Maxim #37: "There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'"
Though given the context, is sounds like Maxim #6 "If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it." might be more applicable in this instance?
Since Jinx was mentioned to have kept in contact with Ekko, shouldn't we know the state of Zaun before we vote for something like this? Like, is Silco winning? Is he losing? Do shootouts happen often? Is their chemtech as impressive as canon without Zaun's full resources thrown at Singed?
By the sound of things silco holds more territory and probably has a strong hold on Zaun's center as a result of superior numbers, but Firelight is a lot more successful in their resistance. Jinx for instance doesn't seem to have internalized losing any of her friends in the firelights. I'd reckon overall the conflict is a bit of a stalemate. The firelights can't dislodge silco and silco can't crush the firelights.
I'd recon without Vander as a personal project that can withstand the full might of chemtech better than most, Sing has hit a bit of a stumbling block. Certainly shimmer and chemtech aren't as far along as they were at the time of Vi's release in canon.
I'm torn between powpow and Fishbones, and would be fine with either. Otherwise I kind of want hoverboard and mage regulator, with Mage reform and crime fighting with Cupcake. Though we can't dismiss the possibility of interesting new options between a fully educated jinx and ekko getting schooled on Hextech because we took assisting with hexgem refining.
[X] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero
"Sounds like a great plan to me!" I knew the Council probably wouldn't be happy, but they could deal with losing a little face if it meant getting food sent to Zaun when people were going hungry. While we were on that topic... "I know the Enforcers are gonna be stretched pretty thin and try not to go into Zaun too often, but I know some local groups who'd be happy to help us out with organizing distribution and providing security for any charity work we're doing."
"That's wonderful." Lux grabbed my hands and squeezed them, beaming at me. "Thank you so much, Jinx. I feel like we really going to become great friends."
"I mean, it's not like I'm doing that much..." It was hard not to feel a little self-conscious when she was going all-out on the charm offensive.
"I think you've done quite a bit," Mrs. Kiramman said, with a smile on her lips that didn't quite reach her eyes. It was about the friendliest expression on any member of the Council's face, I'd definitely tweaked their noses a bit. "I'm sure Lux will have an interesting time visiting the undercity. I trust you'll ensure she has a pleasant visit, right?"
I got the unspoken message; if something went wrong there was going to be an extended conversation I would not enjoy. Most likely that whole adoption offer would be off the table too. I swallowed nervously. "Relax, don't worry about it, I've got a great plan." A plan that I was making up on the fly, but that was still technically a plan. "It'll probably take a bit to get everything set up, though. Are you good with touring Piltover and seeing the water plant and my friend's musical performance before that?"
"I'm really looking forward to that!" At this rate, I was going to need sunglasses to deal with all these bright smiles of hers. "I've never had a chance to hear what music in Piltover is like, and this sounds like a great opportunity to meet people I wouldn't at a diplomatic conference. The leaders of a nation are important, but so are all the ordinary people living their day-to-day lives. The whole reason families like the Crowguards hold positions of leadership is to help ordinary people live their lives. That's also part of why I want to visit the undercity, it's important to let even the poorest people in your city know that we see and value their contributions."
I was fairly certain most of the Council didn't do that. A lot of them flat out didn't care, and even the ones like Mrs. Kiramman who did care didn't always really understand it. Sure, they had some idea that things weren't great in Zaun, but none of them had ever walked the streets and lived life down there. You couldn't understand how rough things were in Zaun if all you knew about it was a bunch of stories from other people.
Lux's father cleared his throat. "My daughter will be ready to join you in the afternoon, young Miss Kiramman." It took me a second to realize he was talking to me, and another second to wrap my head around being addressed like that. It wasn't the first time someone had mistaken me for a Kiramman, but it was the first time that had happened since Mrs. Kiramman talked to me about actually making that happen. I was so weirded out that I almost missed the rest of what he'd said. "For now, we have other matters to attend to."
"Uh, right. Later, Lux." I waved farewell to her as the Demacian delegation departed. Most of the Council went with them, but Mrs. Kiramman stayed behind for a second. It wasn't hard to guess why. "So ... on a scale of one to kicking me to the curb, how pissed off are you?"
Mrs. Kiramman sighed and rubbed her forehead, probably dealing with another stress headache. "Taking an ambassador's daughter down to the undercity is obviously something nobody in the Council is happy about, but I'm sure they'll understand that she put you on the spot. Telling her no would've made us look bad. That said, you should have accepted in a way that left us with more control of the situation. I know you trust your Firelight friends, but do I even need to tell you how many different ways this could end badly? The undercity is hardly the sort of place we want to show off to foreign dignitaries and if, heaven forbid, she gets caught up in some kind of gang fight..."
I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest. "If the Council is so ashamed of Zaun that you don't want anyone else seeing it, maybe you should do more to clean it up."
Mrs. Kiramman grimaced. "You know it's not as simple as saying we should make things better in the undercity, Jinx." She sighed. "And please, at least while you're with young Miss Crownguard, do try to hold off on discussing certain ... contentious opinions and terms. I know you're very passionate about the undercity—about Zaun." Her voice dropped a bit when she said the name like she didn't want anyone overhearing it. "However, when it comes to foreign policy we need to present a united front. If other nations see how deeply divided our city is they will try to use that to their advantage. The last thing we need is the Noxians trying to play Piltover and the undercity against each other."
She cleared her throat. "Even with Demacia ... we want you to be friendly with Lux, but don't mistake her for a friend. She's loyal to her country and her family. How do you think she would respond if you gave her any information she could use to improve Demacia's negotiating position at Piltover's expense?"
I suppose that wasn't completely unreasonable. I could say I didn't care about Piltover's grain merchants having to pay a bit more for Demacian products, but they'd pass that cost along to their customers. Did that mean I needed to look at Lux the same way? I didn't like the idea of planning to stab someone in the back when we were both acting like friends, but if doing that meant more families in Zaun could afford bread...
I groaned and buried my face in my hands. "Politics sucks."
At least when I met up with Lux again that afternoon there weren't a ton of other officials hanging around messing with the mood. It was just her and me. And the pair of heavily armored Demacian guards following along behind her. Plus someone on the Council thought it would be a good idea to give us a couple of Enforcers to balance out the Demacians, and also probably so nobody would freak out over having a bunch of heavily armed and armored foreigners running around.
But other than two tin cans and two pigs, it was just two normal everyday gals being normal everyday pals. Except after my talk with Mrs. Kiramman I was also wondering if Lux was also trying to figure out some way to play me to give her country an edge. Or if I should be trying to play her to help Zaun out, as if I had any business getting mixed up with international political intrigue. You know, ordinary friend stuff.
The two of us were standing on one of the catwalks above the water treatment plant, watching the water flow between massive purification tanks. Lux observed for a bit, then turned to me with a bright smile. "Can you explain how it works?"
Obviously I wasn't supposed to give away all the details of how Hextech worked, but there was no harm in at least sharing and explaining any publicly available information. "It's pretty simple. It all starts with these." I pulled out Zapper and removed its refined hexgem, showing her the perfect blue glowing marble. "In their raw form, hexgems have a ton of magical energy, but it's dangerously unstable. One bonk, jostle, or dirty look and all that energy explodes out and turns everything around it into tiny little chunks of meat. That was why nobody ever wanted to mess around with them before us, without a way to control all that energy it was an accident waiting to happen."
Lux nodded along, a thoughtful look on her face. "Yes, magic of any sort is dangerous, and cannot be safely controlled, only contained. We've always thought it would be better if we could get rid of it entirely, but we haven't found a way to do that yet."
I barely managed to stop myself from saying something about that. I was starting to wonder if maybe my plan to bring Lux to Seraphine's performance was a mistake. Sure, Seraphine had her whole magic thing under control these days, but if she slipped up would the Demacians just try to storm the stage and take her head off right then and there?
I tried to stay focused on educating Lux for now. She probably didn't know any better and was just repeating the garbage she'd heard from her parents. "That's what people used to think, but Jayce, Viktor, and I found a way to stabilize hexgems using the resonance of their own magical energy, and eventually refine them into a new, safer form. Now we've been able to start using that energy to create safe and reliable new Hextech." I tossed the hexgem in the air a couple of times before catching it and sliding it back into Zapper.
I thought about how to explain the way we used runes to control the energy. Too bad we weren't in a classroom, so I couldn't use Jayce's old 'pass me a tome' speech. "The runes we use for Hextech are kind of like a magical language. We can use them to control and direct the flow of magical energy so that all the power in hexgems does what we want it to instead of exploding all over the place."
"So then you use your runes and these hexgems to cast spells?" Lux asked. Her Demacian guards started muttering among themselves after her question, probably wondering if they needed to start setting up a witch trial and burn me at the stake. Or at the very least shove a magic-suppressing petricite potion down my throat, not that it would do anything.
"Not exactly." I made sure I'd locked Zapper to its low-power welding setting and pulled the trigger, producing a small arc of lightning that only extended a centimeter or two from the tip. Then I flipped it around and offered it to Lux. "Pull the trigger."
She stared at Zapper for a second, then shrugged and took it from me. "Okay." She did, and the exact same thing happened.
"And that's the two key differences between Hextech and magic in a nutshell," I concluded with a grin. "Magic can only be done by mages, while anyone can use Hextech. On top of that, Hextech produces consistent and stable results, while magic is much more individualized. Every mage has different abilities, and even when it's the same mage casting the same spell it'll be a little bit different every time With Hextech you get the exact same result every time, no matter who does it."
Lux thoughtfully looked down at Zapper as she handed it back to me. "So then Hextech is completely safe, unlike mages?"
"I wouldn't say it's completely safe," I admitted with a sheepish grin. "I mean, we did kinda blow up our first lab, and there's been the occasional incident since then. When it comes to setting Hextech up, it'll do exactly what your runes tell it to do. That's great if you have everything down exactly right, but if you make a tiny mistake or don't know exactly how two runes will interact with each bad things can happen."
I waved down at the water treatment plant. "That's all in the development phase, though. Once we work out the kinks and fix any problems, it's safe, reliable, and effective. Of course, we still need to keep an eye on things to keep them running smoothly." I waved down at the water treatment tanks. "For example, if there's something bad in the water that we didn't know about when we first set everything up we'd want to check and make sure that the purifiers are catching it. We also don't want to take any of the good stuff out of the water by accident, our first set of purifiers did that and would've deprived everyone drinking it of a lot of nutrients and minerals they needed."
"It's all quite elaborate and impressive," Lux conceded. "I can tell you're quite proud of your work here."
I grinned. "You don't have anything like this back in Demacia, do you?"
"We don't." She smiled back at me. "Of course, in High Silvermere we also don't let people dump things into the rivers in the first place. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just order everyone to clean up after themselves and punish anyone polluting the river?"
"We do have laws against that kind of thing, but it's hard to stop everyone in a city this big, and once crap gets dumped into the water someone has to do the cleanup." After all, some of the factories responsible for all of the pollution were owned by members of the Council, or their close friends, family members, and business associates. Apparently it was easier to spend a lot of money building a Hextech water treatment plant than it was to enforce the law against rich and powerful people with connections.
I cleared my throat and tried to get back to the point I wanted to make. "You see, stuff like this is how we can use Hextech to make people's lives better. I know a lot of people have their doubts about Hextech or think it's still too close to magic, but because of it people who didn't have access to clean water before can get it now. In the right hands, Hextech is safe, effective, and makes people's lives better."
Hopefully everything I'd just said was enough to sell her on the idea of Hextech, at least enough that the Demacians wouldn't still be mad at us for using it. Assuming that was why they'd stopped selling us as much food as they used to. It could be something else entirely.
After what felt like an eternity, Lux spoke up, a thoughtful frown on her face. "What would happen if a mage got their hands on one of your Hextech devices?"
I shrugged. "As far as I know, it would work the same as it does for anyone else." It wasn't like I could reveal that I'd had Seraphine check out a few of my things just to confirm that hypothesis.
"You say you use hexgems to power your devices." Lux glanced down at the water tanks. "Could a mage power them instead?"
"Maybe." I shrugged. "But Hextech is designed to work with hexgems that have a stable and consistent power output. At best they'd just be replacing the gem, and more likely they just burn out and break whatever device they were working with."
Lux nodded along, her eyes seeming to almost glow with enthusiasm as her smile spread. "Then these runes you use. If they can contain and direct the magical power of your hexgems, couldn't they also work on mages? Could you design something that would completely contain and direct a mage's magical power?"
I scowled and had to bite back my initial response. "That's not something we'd experiment with, and I can't imagine myself or my partners in Hextech development branching out into it. We have a strict policy against weaponizing Hextech. I'm afraid your uncle's mageseekers will need to look elsewhere for their tools."
Lux's eyes widened, and her friendly smile slipped off her face for the first time since I'd met her. "What? No! That's not what I—" Her eyes flicked back to her guards, and a second later her smile was back in place. "I think you misunderstand, we would never ask Piltover to provide us with weapons. It was pure curiosity on my part. I apologize if my questions went too far."
Yeah, I smelled bullshit. She'd been way too into the idea of designing something to control magic for it to be idle curiosity. Considering her uncle was in charge of the jerks in Demacia hunting people like Seraphine down, it wasn't hard to guess why she'd be interested in something that could lock a mage's power down. What better way to get in good with the family and show them how useful she was?
Except… something in my gut told me it wasn't that simple. It never was in situations like this. If she was really all-in on mage-hunting she probably wouldn't deny anything when I accused her, she'd proudly own it and make some big speech about how mages were dangerous and needed to be controlled. Fanatics who were convinced they were right usually doubled down on their beliefs, but she'd backed down and apologized. It wasn't like Demacia kept its anti-mage policies a secret to start with. Nobody would shocked if they did something like offering us food in exchange for a Hextech device to help them with their mage-hunting.
What did that mean? Maybe nothing, she might've just been trying to avoid an argument in the middle of a diplomatic incident. Or it could mean something big.
After we wrapped things up at the water plant it was off to Seraphine's school for her band's performance. It was technically part of some larger school-wide cultural enrichment festival or something, which just sounded like way too ridiculously rich Piltie nonsense for me to bother with aside from being there to support Seraphine. Especially considering it was a full week-long event with all kinds of stuff going on.
Normally a fancy private performing arts school would've been outside her dad's price range, but Seraphine had gotten a scholarship. I wouldn't have been shocked to learn that Mrs. Kiramman had pulled any strings to make that happen. Half of the schools in Piltover had a Kiramman Hall or Kiramman Park or something with their name on it thanks to all the donations her family handed out, so she had plenty of favors to call in. It was like Vander told me once, nothing in life was really free.
Maybe it was a nice school if you were super-into artsy stuff. Not that I disliked the arts, I loved to get my creative juices flowing, but apparently the headmistress here didn't consider graffiti 'fine art' or whatever. Her loss.
At least we got slightly fewer stares mingling with the crowd here than we had walking around Piltover. The Demacian guards still stood out like two metallic sore thumbs, but we weren't the only VIPs here. I'd spotted Salo talking to some kid who shared his blond hair and rat face, so probably some kind of relative, and there were a couple other rich families with kids here. No wonder I hated it.
Maybe I should've been making the rounds showing off Lux to all the very important people here, the way Mel did with me the other day, but I didn't care. Sure, I needed to understand Piltie politics enough to play the game, but I didn't want to sink too deep into it all. I was here for Seraphine, not to play stupid games in the hopes of winning stupid prizes.
Eventually I managed to find her, standing by the one thing worth coming here for other than Seraphine's performance: the buffet table. Our Enforcer escorts didn't waste any time rushing over to ransack in despite the fact that they technically weren't invited and were supposed to be on duty.
I didn't wanna leave Seraphine hanging for too long, but she could wait while I grabbed a slice of the huge fancy cake they'd made in the shape of the entire city. Naturally I cut a slice right out of the middle of it instead of taking something from the side, because why eat normally? Plus the slice I took was from right where the Kiramman mansion would be if the cake was completely accurate.
I was gonna get a second slice for Lux, considering I was basically her host and all, but she'd beaten me to it. I was kinda surprised she was cutting out a slice from the section of the cake representing one of the few above-ground parts of Zaun. She must've noticed me noticing that, because a moment later I could swear she winked at me.
With cake in hand and soon to be in belly, I was ready to face Seraphine. I snuck up behind her and slapped a hand over her eyes. "Guess who?"
Seraphine snickered and turned around. "Hello, Jinx."
"What gave me away?" I pouted.
Seraphine counted off on her fingers. "You always smell a bit like engine oil and gunpowder, you're the only one who wears mismatched pink and blue nail polish, and nobody else I know would say hello by covering my eyes and demanding I guess who they were."
"That's cheating," grumbled. "Anyway, meet Lux. Lux, this is Seraphine."
"It's a pleasure."
"Wonderful to meet you." Seraphine shook her hand. "Oh, before I forget, you might wanna avoid the punch. Someone spiked it."
If anything, that struck me as a reason to grab a cup of it before the teachers found out and swapped it out. "For real? You're sure?"
"Pretty sure," Seraphine said with a playful smirk.
I was about to ask what was so funny when something slammed into my back and a pair of arms draped over my shoulders. "Heeeeey Jinx! Have I ever told you that you're shtartin' to look like yet shishter, except skinnier and bluer? Ishn't that funny when now it'sh kinda like yer my shishter?"
I sighed and tried to disentangle myself from a very plastered Caitlyn. "Nice of you to come support Seraphine. How's the punch?"
"It'sh really good!" Caitlyn declared brightly. "Sera … um, Shearf … she-ra … um … her!" She pointed at Seraphine. "She's been sho nice takin' care of me while I wash waitin' for you. And she's got pink hair! Pink hair's the cutest hair. That'sh why I wash thinkin' about your shishter!"
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah…" I tried to figure out how to get Caitlyn off of me without dropping my cake. "I won't rat you out to your parents, but I am gonna give you so much grief over this once you sober up…"
My first thought was to take her home, but that would mean missing Seraphine's show. Speaking of which… "What're you even doing out here? Shouldn't you be prepping for the show with your band?"
"I was just grabbing something to eat real quick before we go on stage," Seraphine answered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Anyone who didn't know her probably would've missed how she used that gesture to cover one of her ears, close her eyes, and take a quick breath. Too bad for her that I was her best friend who knew all her tells.
She was nervous. Which kinda wasn't surprising when she was about to go on stage in front of her whole school. The ear cover thing had me worried, too. Back when she'd been younger she always covered her ears when her magic made her freak out, like that could block out all the songs she was hearing. It'd been a while since she'd had a full-blown breakdown, but if the pre-show stress was getting to her...
So great, I had a drunk Caitlyn to deal with, and my best friend was getting jittery right before her big show. Not to mention I was supposed to be showing Lux around and acting as a tour guide, so it'd probably look bad if I ditched her to deal with all of this. Too bad there was no way to use Hextech to make two extra copies of myself so I could be in three places at once…
Current Stability: -1
Willpower: 2
Who Does Jinx Prioritize?
[ ][Priority] Stick With Lux
Issues: Powder (-5), Abandonment (-3)
Failure Result: Jinx panics about not helping Seraphine or Caitlyn
[ ][Priority] Find Somewhere for Caitlyn to Sleep Off the Booze
Issues: Vi (-5), Abandonment (-3)
Failure Result: Jinx loses her cool with Caitlyn for messing up her plans for the evening and bringing up her dead sister.
[ ][Priority] Talk to Seraphine About Her Pre-Show Jitters
Issues: Trauma (-3), Abandonment (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1)
Failure Result: Jinx blames herself for prioritizing her friend over semi-family or her duty to escort Lux.
[ ][Priority] To Hell With It, Is There More Spiked Punch?
No Issues Roll Needed. Shenanigans ensue.
Willpower
[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls
Also, recently did a couple of side story things for Ruinous Ambitions which is a fun little quest that could use some more love.
Okay. Shenanigans are nice and all, But!
[X][Priority] Talk to Seraphine About Her Pre-Show Jitters
Caitlyn can make a bit of a fool over herself, though that's called being a teenager.
Lux...Jinx doesn't know enough about Lux and frankly I feel like she wouldn't take her as a priority.
which leaves Sera and I think that this has a double importance cause if Sera gets a bit too nervous and slips a bit of magic out, odds are that something worse is gonna happen.
Now we do have a -7 going on here and though its been a while 2d6 doesn't feel like a good shot with that mod.
sooo
[X] [Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
I want to spend Two, dear god I wanna spend two. but I don't know how likely we're gonna need one for the Zaun visit. so that's an open shout. if you can give a solid belief that we won't need the spare Willpower I'm happy editing this vote to be Spending Two Willpower.
Honestly, both Seraphine and Cait can take care of themselves, so let's stick to our job as Babysitter... Someone has to be the responsible adult here...
[X][Priority] Stick With Lux
[X] [Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[X][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls
