Get Jinxed: A Tale of Mental Instability and Poor Decisions (Arcane/League of Legends)

[Chengar Qordath]

Blinded By The Light 2​

Spoiler: Vote

[x][Behavior] The Full Jinx Experience
[x][Entertainmet] Show off Cool Hextech
[x][Entertainmet] A Show by Seraphine's Band
[x][Willpower] Spend Zero

"Ugh. The things I do for Zaun and Piltover..." I flipped through another page of the driest history book I'd ever forced myself to struggle through. If I was serving as some kind of unofficial diplomat to Demacia it only made sense to make sure I knew about the place I was dealing with. Not that I'd been completely ignorant of the world outside of Piltover and Zaun, but for most of my life it hadn't been high on my priority list. Nobody in Zaun cared about international politics when they were worried about not getting wrapped up in a gang fight or where their next meal was coming from.

Though when it came to food Demacia might actually matter more than anyone in Zaun realized. Zaun and Piltover had a lot of people but not a lot of farmland, and while we could get some stuff for ourselves with our fishing fleet we had to trade for stuff like grain. If we could work out a new trade deal with the Demacians it would bring the price of bread down. Or at least stop it from going up more than it already had.

That just left me with the minor problem of figuring out how to play my part in making that happen. It didn't help that the more I read about the place, the less I liked them. "Ugh, freaking Dumbassia is just the worst."

"I do hope you'll know not to call them that to their face," Mrs. Kiramman remarked, making me practically jump out of my chair. I'd thought I was alone in the library. She chuckled and took a seat next to me. "Was there anything in particular you don't care for, or do you just dislike them in general?"

I grimaced down at the book I'd been reading. "I was just reading about the mageseekers. They sound like pretty massive jerks." It made me feel a bit weird about the fact that a couple of the tools we'd used in the early Hextech days had been designed by them. Thankfully we were far past the early days of needing to improvise with existing technology.

"Some of the rumors about their activities are rather concerning," Mrs. Kiramman agreed. "I'm sure you understand why groups like that exist, though. Not all magic or magic-users are bad, but in the hands of people who can't control it or mean to use it to hurt others it is simply too dangerous. If you're reading Demacian history, I'm sure you also know that their kingdom was founded by people fleeing the devastation of the Rune Wars."

"Yeah, but a bunch of mages being jerks in the past is no excuse for hurting people who didn't do anything wrong," I shot back. I wanted to point out that Seraphine had turned out fine despite her magic, but that was still a secret. I was pretty sure Mrs. Kiramman hadn't bought my whole story about how her flying light show was some new Hextech device, but she also hadn't reported Seraphine to anyone. I didn't wanna risk breaking whatever unspoken deal we had in place by bringing it out into the open. Besides, even if she'd mostly gotten her magic under control, sometimes she still got a bit overwhelmed.

Mrs. Kiramman was probably thinking about that too judging by the way she sighed and gently squeezed my shoulder. "There are a lot of things other nations do that I don't like. The Noxians are brutal conquerors who think they have the right to crush anyone and anything that stands in their way, and I'm sure you've heard that Noxus invaded Tobias's homeland. I sit across the Council table from Mel Medarda even though her mother was part of that invasion. Do you know why?"

I shrugged. "Because you don't have a choice?"

Mrs. Kiramman chuckled. "Well, I suppose that's also a factor, but it's not the only reason. It's because Piltover stands for something. We're the city of progress, a place where people can be safe from the troubles of the outside world, but that refuge is much more tentative than people realize. We're a rich trade port and hub of innovation, do you really think not a single warlord has had their eye on our city since it was founded? Piltover exists in a careful balance with the outside world, managing our relations with our neighbors and trade partners to ensure that we're always more valuable as a neutral trading partner than as part of someone's empire. If that requires smiling and going to Mel Medarda's parties while pretending none of her wealth came from plundering my husband's homeland, I'll grin and bear it."

I grimaced as I drew the logical conclusion. "And it means that if we need food from Demacia, we have to just put up with whatever they do to their mages."

Mrs. Kiramman grimaced and nodded. "Yes, it does. Sometimes working in the realm of international trade and politics means accepting unpleasant realities. We can't do anything to change Demacia's laws. Trying to pressure them on the matter would probably just lead to them cutting off trade with us completely. Not that the Council would ever risk our trade relations to stand up for the rights of mages in the first place. What we can do is make a new trade agreement to bring down the price of bread for our people. Sometimes we have to pick our battles and focus on the things we can actually fix."

"So we just have to accept this shi—garbage?" I growled and waved a hand down at the book.

Mrs. Kiramman took a deep breath. "Sometimes. Compromise where you can, but where you can't ... don't. We'll tolerate Demacia's treatment of their own mages because there's nothing Piltover can do about the matter. An embargo would probably hurt us more than them, and the only way we could change their laws is to invade them outright, which we simply don't have the population or resources for. I'd hardly say supporting Noxus against them would be a change for the better either, they're only more tolerant of mages because they see magic as another tool of conquest and subjugation." She fixed me with a pointed look. "That said, if Demacia were to attempt to export their values to Piltover we would draw a line in the sand. There may come a time when we need their food less than we need to take a stand for what's right."

I let out a sigh and slowly nodded along. Sure, maybe we couldn't pick a fight with Dumbassia over magic now, but that didn't mean we just rolled over and let them do whatever. She was probably right about the practical reality of it all. Piltover couldn't invade anyone, and I didn't think the average Piltie or Zaunite would be willing to pay more for bread just to protest how Demacia treated their own people, especially when those people were mages.

Mrs. Kiramman smiled. "I know you can do this, Jinx. The Council wouldn't be asking you to take this on if they didn't believe in you. Your performance in the Academy and your interest in politics was bound to get you noticed sooner or later. Though while we're on the topic of the Demacian visit, preparing all the documentation and ceremonial bells and whistles did bring something to mind that Tobias and I had already been discussing, in regards to your future."

Well, that sounded ominous. I defaulted to my usual response whenever things started sounding like that. "I didn't do it."

Mrs. Kiramman chuckled and shook her head. "Relax, Jinx, this is a good change. Or at least, I think it could be. Formalities matter to the Demaciansm, so this might be the time to address things we've left unspoken." She cleared her throat. "Or at least broach the matter. I hope you understand that you are not simply a houseguest here, but a part of this family in every way that matters." She started rubbing her hands together, almost like she was nervous or something. "When preparing the paperwork for the upcoming meeting one of the scribes recorded your name was Jinx Kiramman. I wanted to correct it, but the rest of the Council thinks it's harmless, and any explanation would overcomplicate things."

She was almost rambling. Was she actually nervous? That was a first. "In any case, it occurred to me that perhaps we could move forward with that. With you being Jinx Kiramman. Obviously I'm not presuming to erase your old family or your history, but I would like to make you a part of my—of our family in a more formal way. Assuming you have no objections to being adopted, of course."

"Oh. Um..." That was ... a lot. Sure, people had called me a Kiramman before or joked about the Kirammans being my parents, and they'd basically filled that role for the last four years. You could say filling out a couple of forms to make it all 100% official was just a bit of paperwork formality, but it sure didn't feel like a small thing.

What would Mom and Dad say? Or Vander? Would they be happy that I had good people like the Kirammans looking out for me, or mad that I'd got taken in by topsides who'd played a part in every bad thing that happened to Zaun? For all I knew, Mrs. Kiramman had been one of the people on Council responsible for sending the Enforcers to break up the protest where Mom and Dad died. I could probably find the answer in the Council archives, but I'd never found the guts to look it up. I was scared I'd see something that would ruin everything I'd built with them.

Mrs. Kiramman smiled and squeezed my hand. "Take some time to think it over, Jinx. It's a big decision. Though I'd ask you to hold off on speaking with Caitlyn about it, that's a conversation all of us should have together."

"Yeah, uh… okay." I rubbed the back of my head, feeling profoundly awkward. "I'll do that thinking about it thing."

Guess it was time to see if my nightmares tonight were about my dead parents being mad at me for leaving them behind or the Kirammans kicking me out for saying no to adoption. Or Mylo, Claggor, and Vi blaming me for killing them, that one was a classic. Knowing my luck, it would be all of them.

---

It turned out I was wrong. Instead my dreams featured myself in an epic battle against some big bad guy called The Bloody Barber while a pretty catchy background theme played, which somehow later turned into a vampire sex dream. Gonna have to cut down on the spicy food before bedtime. Or have more of it, maybe. Weird-ass dreams were better than trauma nightmares.

In any case, I was awake and presentable in time for the Demacian delegation's arrival. At least I didn't have to dress up too fancy this time, all my hard work at being an eccentric inventor who never followed the rules had really paid off. Half of them were probably just glad I'd put on clean clothes instead of turning up in an outfit covered in engine oil stains. In my defense, Jayce and Viktor did that kind of thing too, it was just part of being an engineer.

To complete the look I'd brought my toolbelt with me, including Zapper. It was technically a tool, after all. I could use it for spot welding and soldering. Blasting bad guys with lightning was just a happy little side effect, even if that was the only function that the hexgem powering Zapper wasn't gross overkill for. It didn't break any of Jayce and Viktor's rules against weaponizing Hextech. Technically.

The Demacians turned up in an old-fashioned sailing ship instead of an airship, which just reinforced the idea that they were a bunch of outdated traditionalists. I could see Salo poorly hiding a smirk as he watched the ship approach, while Hoskel openly scoffed. Which I got, it looked pretty crude compared to a Piltoverian airship. Still, the Piltie habit of meeting new people and immediately trying to figure out a way to believe you were better than them wasn't something I wanted to pick up. Demacia might not have all of our tech, but five guys with a sword could beat one guy with a gun, and Demacia's numbers were higher than that. All that farmland meant they never had to worry about having enough food, and apparently one of the other traditions they believed in was having lots of farm wives popping out a new kid every harvest season. I didn't see the appeal, but it did give them plenty of manpower.

After what felt like way too much waiting around the ship docked and people started coming out. The bodyguards came out first, probably so everyone knew these people were important enough to actually merit guards. Sure, we had plenty of Enforcers around securing the docks, but I couldn't blame the Demacians for trusting their own people more than ours. Though it hard not to point out that their people were all dressed up in steel armor and carrying big halberds, while our Enforcers had guns. Once a dozen big armored spear guys came out the envoys exited the ship, accompanied by a ton of the requisite hangers-on.

Naturally there was a ton of pomp and ceremony to go through to welcome the visiting envoys before I became relevant, so I was stuck standing around waiting for all of that. Heimerdinger and the rest of the Council members had to say something. Well, most of the Councilors, since Mel was sticking to the background. Probably because the Demacians and Noxians had just gotten into a fight, so she wouldn't make a good impression.

I took the opportunity to study what I presumed had to be the girl I was supposed to make friends with. There weren't any other people my age in the group, after all. The fact that she was my age, but somehow taller and better built than me just seemed unfair, despite four years of Piltie food I was still skinny enough that I looked like a stick figure. I'd ask what they put in the water to make girls in Demacia grow like that, but considering the whole water treatment plant I'd built I knew the more likely culprit was what we put in the water. Then again, Caitlyn came out tall too, so maybe I was just unlucky. Could just be our genes, I was about as tall as Vi'd been when she ... when I lost her.

Like the rest of the Demacians she had armor on, though in her case it was just a breastplate instead of a whole suit of armor. The fact she somehow made armor part of her outfit along with a white skirt and dark blue leggings made me wonder what kind of tailors they had in Demacia. She also had a sword at her side, which was somehow both kinda cool and another reminder of how backward her kingdom was.

She had blonde hair and bright blue eyes that seemed to be studying everything around her with open curiosity. They caught mine, and I realized I'd probably been staring at her like some kinda weirdo, even though it was totally normal to be a bit curious under the circumstances. I was gonna be spending the next couple of days trying to get along with her, after all. Thankfully, instead of being weirded out by my staring she just smiled at me, subtly raising one hand and awkwardly twitching her fingers in an inconspicuous little wave.

After what felt like forever, everyone finally got done showing each other how they were all Very Important People who recognized they were talking to other Very Important People, and Cassandra waved me forward. Once I was at her side she rested a hand on my shoulder, smiling proudly. "Lord and Lady Crownguard, this is Jinx. She's offered to keep your daughter company while you're visiting Piltover."

Said daughter immediately stepped forward, smiling so brightly that I could swear her face was glowing as she extended a hand. "Hello. I'm Luxanna, but my friends usually just call me Lux."

"I'm Jinx." I took her hand. "My friends usually just call me Jinx." A second after the words left my mouth I wondered if maybe the first thing I said shouldn't have been making fun of her. Though really it was her own fault for being so bright. And tall. And blonde.

Thankfully my attempt at humor got a faint chuckle out of her, which meant it was okay. Everyone knows you can't be mad about a joke that makes you laugh. "I'm looking forward to getting to know you, Jinx. I have a feeling we're going to be very good friends. So what did you have planned for us?"

"Well, I didn't get to pick everything on our schedule," I felt the need to establish right away that spending an evening at the opera house was not my idea, that was something the Council had set up for her whole family to show off our high culture. "I thought you might want a bit of time to settle in, but then in the afternoon we could check out the water treatment plant, and then I could show you my workshop."

Mrs. Kiramman spoke up, though more to the Crownguards than either of us. "Jinx played a huge part in the construction of the Grayson Plant, which helps provide clean water to everyone in Piltover and the undercity. It's fair to say it wouldn't exist without her. She's also at the top of her class at the Academy."

Ugh, she was gonna make me blush if she kept that up. I wasn't used to getting that kinda praise in public, especially in front of a bunch of swells like these.

Lux's mom smiled, though it didn't look anywhere near as bright and cheerful as her daughter's. "It's nice to see that some of Piltover's elite also believe that wealth comes with the privilege to give back to one's community. I've heard that far too many of Piltover's better families preferred to selfishly indulge themselves." Her eyes flicked across the harbor, towards the Zaunite side of things.

Mrs. Kiramman's smile froze on her face for a moment before she answered. "I can't speak to what you've heard, but the Kirammans have always believed that we should give back to our community. It's a pity that sometimes that's not enough to fix every problem."

"Hmm." Lady Crownguard's eyes shifted back to us. "In any case, Lux also knows the importance of charitable works. She's been dedicating much of her free time to the Illuminators, helping the poor and less fortunate in Demacia."

Lux nodded along. "There are too many people struggling to survive. If I have the power to help them, I should."

"That's cool." Assuming she actually meant it. From the way her mom had been talking she was more into charity for being seen to be all noble and generous than because she actually cared about anyone. There was plenty of that in Piltover too, rich jerks who'd give money to some kind of charity project, but only if they got their picture in all the papers and a building named after them. Their money also tended to dry up pretty quickly after they were done looking good.

I got back to our agenda. "After the water treatment plant, I thought I could maybe also show her a few of the things I've invented. I think they're pretty cool, at least. Then one of my friends has a band that's performing at her school, the first time they've done a big show like that. I wanted to go see it anyway and thought you might want to come along. It'll be a chance to hear what kind of music we have that doesn't come out of an opera house."

"Sounds like fun," Lux agreed, her smile back with blinding force. "Though actually, as long as we're setting the agenda, I was wondering if perhaps I could make one small addition to it. I know the Illuminators don't have a presence in Piltover, but I'm sure you still have people who are poor and suffering." Her eyes flicked towards the Zaunite side of the harbor. "Do you think it would be possible to visit your undercity and do some work? Normally when I'm with the Illuminators we like to distribute food and supplies to the less fortunate. I understand there might be a few differences in Piltover, you don't use firewood as much as many Demacians do, but that just means we can work together to design the perfect aid package!"

"Oh, uh..." Well, that was a bit of a wrinkle. My first instinct was to say yes, handing out free food to people in Zaun when the price of food had been a big problem sounded like a great idea. Really, the only problem with that plan was making sure we didn't get mobbed by hungry Zaunites, but we had security for that, plus I could work with the Firelights to keep things from spiraling out of control and stop people from fighting over food.

The only problem was that I was pretty sure nobody on the Council wanted Lux running around Zaun, especially the really poor and dirty parts of it where people who needed help the most were. It wasn't exactly the image that The City of Progress liked to project. Not to mention the risk of something bad happening. Even with whatever kind of security we took with us there was a much higher chance of something happening than if we stuck to nice bright clean Piltover.

Then again, now that she'd asked, it'd look bad if we said no. I wasn't gonna shoot her down outright, but I could always waffle about needing to clear it with the Enforcers or something, and let them slap a bunch of restrictions on us. Or I could say to hell with them, and probably make everyone a bit annoyed by showing Lux some of Piltover's ugly side. Especially if we weren't doing it with a ton of Enforcers backing us up and keeping anyone who didn't look nice enough from asking for help. If she wanted the real Zaun experience, why not just let the Firelights handle things?

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 2

[ ] Clear it With The Enforcers First
Issues: Daughter of Zaun (-1), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1), Powder (-5)
Failure Result: Jinx Comes Across as Not Caring About Charity

[ ] Make a Firm Commitment to Visit Zaun
Issues: Trauma (-3), Abandonment (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1)
Failure Result: Jinx Annoys the Council by Overstepping

[ ] Ditch the Guards Completely, The Firelights Can Handle Security
No Roll Needed

[ ] Even Better, What If We Snuck Out and Went to Zaun in Disguise?
No Roll Needed

Willpower

[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls

It is fun to have properly chaotic Jinx actions get the bonus of no roll needed. Granted, that doesn't save you from consequences, it just means Jinx doesn't have immediate stress over it. But what negative consequences could possibly come from sneaking out to the slums with the daughter of a diplomat?

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Blinded By The Light 3​

Spoiler: Vote

[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.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Blinded By The Light 4​

Spoiler: Vote and Roll

[x][Priority] Talk to Seraphine About Her Pre-Show Jitters
[x] [Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
2d6: (6+5) -5 = 6

"Hey, Lux, is it okay if I have a quick private chat with Seraphine before the show?" I nodded over at my best friend. Well, one of them. Ekko and her could have a death match over which of them was my number one BFF if they really wanted to.

"Of course," Lux answered with her usual bright smile. "She's your friend after all. I appreciate you showing me the sights in Piltover, but you're not required to spend every waking moment entertaining me."

"Thanks." At least she was being cool about it. Not that I'd expected her to throw a big fit, she'd been putting out so much nice girl energy I was starting to wonder if she should have a halo over her head. Well, aside from the whole 'asking us if we'd weaponize hextech to help her hunt mages' thing.

With Lux settled for the moment, I shifted my attention over to Seraphine. "Well, you heard the lady. Is there someone I can drag you off to for a bit, Ser-bear?"

Seraphine groaned. "Don't, Jinx. I can live with my dad using an embarrassing nickname for me, but that's because he doesn't know any better. You do."

"Aww, but you're so cute when I tease you." I snickered and playfully nudged her. "If I can make you blush hard enough your face ends up matching your hair, and you start doing this pouting thing where—look, there it is!" I grinned and pointed at her puffed-out cheeks and the way she seemed to be struggling to hold in an annoyed frown.

Before Seraphine could come up with anything to say about my teasing, Caitlyn hit me from the side with a floppy drunken one-armed hug. "Jinx. Jinx Jiiinnnx." She started poking me in the side until I turned my head to look at her. "Sherafine's cute and all, but if you really wanna get with her you gotta up your game. Teasin's a good shtartin' place, but you gotta show her that you're intereshted. Ash your unofficial kinda-shorta big shishter, I gotta show you how to get with the laydies! Jusht follow my advishe and shoon you'll be shneakin' 'em into your bedroom just like me!"

I groaned and tried to shrug Caitlyn off, but she was being an annoyingly clingy drunk who couldn't take a hint. "Seraphine and I are just friends, there's nothing like that going on." I looked to Seraphine for help, but she seemed to be far too busy snickering at me to do anything about my floppy drunk s—Caitlyn.

"That'sh only caushe you haven't made a move!" Caitlyn started poking me again. "You better hurry, she'sh cute and shomeone elshe'sh gonna do it schooner or later if you don't. In fact..." She detached herself from me, only to go over to Seraphine and flop a hand onto her shoulder. "Hey. What'sh a cute plashe like this doin' in a borin' girl like you?" She paused and blinked a couple of times. "No, wait, it wash... um ... Have you sheen my Heroine of Piltover medal lyin' around anywhere, I losht it..."

Was it possible to die of secondhand embarrassment? Because Caitlyn was definitely doing her best to make that happen to me. Maybe those cringe lines worked a lot better when she wasn't plastered on spiked party punch, or she just remembered to use better material. Something she did must work, or her trying to sneak girls into her bedroom wouldn't be a thing at all.

Seraphine groaned and slipped out from Caitlyn's grip, definitely blushing now. Hopefully just from the embarrassment of Caitlyn's antics, because if she was actually into Caitlyn we were gonna have to have a conversation about that. Caitlyn was too old for her, and off-limits anyway when she was my ... never mind. Once she'd slipped away from Caitlyn, Seraphine smiled politely. "That's very nice of you to say, but I'm afraid I already promised Jinx I'd talk to her before the performance. If you'll excuse me." She quickly attached herself to me, grabbing my arm and directing me towards the backstage area.

"Oh!" Caitlyn eyes lit up in drunken comprehension, and as soon as she started grinning I braced for an incoming horror. "Goooot it! You two have fun with your 'private talk' then!"

I groaned and thought about telling her how she was jumping to crazy conclusions, but trying to use logic on a drunk was a losing proposition. The only solution was to try to get out of there before Caitlyn could make things worse than she already had. Too bad I wasn't fast enough to evade her loudly calling out after us, "Use protection!"

"I'm gonna kill her," I grumbled as I fled the scene with Seraphine.

"I'll help you hide the body," Seraphine murmured back. She was smiling, so I was almost completely certain she was kidding. Then again, it was always the nice ones you wouldn't suspect who wound up having a secret brutal streak.

I sighed and shook my head. "Sorry about her. I'll give her a hard time for this once she sobers up." I was almost tempted to go to Mrs. Kiramman about it, but that was probably crossing the line. Even if she was being annoying, talking to her mom was a bit too close to snitching. Besides, it wasn't exactly Caitlyn's fault she was drunk when someone had spiked the punch. Though you'd think she would've noticed at some point if she was drinking enough of it to get that sloshed. Then again, one of the things booze was supposed to do was mess with your ability to tell how much booze you'd had.

Thankfully we made it to the backstage area without any more trouble from Caitlyn or anyone else. Which probably meant Lux had stepped up to deal with her for a bit. I was gonna have to thank her once all this was settled. Though knowing her, I'd probably just got another smile and a nice comment about how it was no trouble at all.

Spoiler: Rolling Those Dice

Jinx Perception: 2d6: (3+3) = 6
vs
??? ???????: 2d6: (4+3) +2 = 9
Jinx Loses

As we stepped into the backstage dressing room I could swear I felt something pass next to me, but when I looked over there was nothing. Probably just some weird airflow or something. I shrugged and sat down on the couch while Seraphine sat down in front of the mirror and quickly checked herself before turning to me. "So what did you want to talk to me about, Jinx?" A second later a wickedly playful smirk appeared on her lips. "Assuming this wasn't just your sneaky way of dragging me away for a sloppy makeout session. Don't mess up my hair or makeup, I'm gonna be on stage soon."

I scoffed and grabbed one of the cushions off the sofa and threw it at her head. "Don't you start too!"

Seraphine snickered as the pillow bounced off her head. "Blame Caitlyn."

"Oh, I intend to." That wasn't why I'd dragged Seraphine off on her own, though. I cleared my throat and tried to get back to what I'd been planning to talk to her about in the first place. "Anyway, speaking of being up on stage, that's coming up pretty soon. You feeling good?"

"Yeah." Seraphine sent a shaky smile my way, but after trying to hold it for a few seconds she sighed and shook her head. "Well, mostly good. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little terrified too. It's going up on stage in front of the entire school, after all. It's normal to be nervous before you perform, especially in front of your peers. If something goes wrong or I forget the lyrics halfway through everyone at the school is gonna notice and talk about it. And even if they don't say anything to my face, I'll know they're thinking it. 'Oh look, there's the girl who totally bombed at the school talent show.'"

"Want me to blow up the stage if that happens?" I offered. "I bet nobody would be talking about you metaphorically bombing the talent show if I actually bomb it."

Seraphine snickered. "Let's hold off on using terrorism to distract from any issues with my performance, but thanks for offering."

"Anytime." I grinned and clapped her shoulder. "You know what they say, a good friend will help you move a couch, and a great friend will help you move a body. Throwing bombs around in the middle of a talent show feels like it's a step past that. Which means I qualify as the best friend of all time, right?"

She grinned at me. "Something like that, yeah." She moved over to the couch and sat down next to me, bumping my shoulder with hers. "Thanks for being here. You don't need to set off a bunch of bombs to distract everyone from me messing up my performance to be my best friend, you've already got that locked up. It's just a shame you can't be on stage with me."

I shrugged. "Sorry, but you need someone who actually knows what they're doing up there. Though I suppose if you did start struggling I could just jump up there, grab a guitar, and start making things up as I went. I'd probably be so terrible that nobody would even notice if you were singing off-key or whatever." I'd wanted to help out with her music, but there just hadn't been time for it while taking care of everything else.

"Or I could always go a bit harder rock and put you in charge of the pyrotechnics," Seraphine smiled and leaned against me, letting her head rest on my shoulder. "Or maybe not. You'd probably make the explosions so big and awesome that they'd completely overshadow my performance. I'm not a diva, but I am the band's frontwoman..."

"Me overshadow you at music? Impossible." I grinned and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Music is your whole thing."

For a while we just sat there together, not really saying anything. Maybe that's part of what being good friends was, not always needing to fill the space with words and conversation. Though it probably also helped that she could do her whole empathy emotions-sensing thing. I tried to keep all the nice friendship thoughts front and center so she could pick up on them. I might not have any magical powers to read her mood, but it definitely felt like she was a little less tense now.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to make sure. "Hey, I saw you doing the ear thing earlier. You're not having trouble with ... you know ... your thing, are you?"

"A bit." Seraphine sighed and sent an apologetic smile my way. "It usually doesn't bother me too much, but there are a lot of people here, emotions are running high, and I'm a bit stressed out over going on stage in half an hour." She covered one of her ears and sighed, shaking her head. "So ... yeah, it's bothering me a bit more than normal."

I'd suspected that was probably the case. "Well, if you've got fifteen minutes before you need to start getting ready with your band, it sounds like you've got a bit of time left to blow off some steam. We've got this nice room all to ourselves, after all..."

"True..." I thought I heard something that sounded kind of like a gasp, but a second later it stopped mattering because Seraphine was singing.

Always on the outside,
Through a window looking in,
Never the right time,
So the chance goes by again,
The lines begin to show,
When we feel broken
To move on we have,
To drop the pieces we're holding

It didn't take long for the magic to start, as little glistening motes of light appeared from nowhere and began settling all over the room. The gentle pinks and blues of Seraphine's magic always reminded me of better times, when there'd been a different pink-haired girl in my life. Sometimes I felt bad about how much I'd moved on with my life. It's not like I'd forgotten about revenge against Silco, but after four years it just didn't hurt as bad as it used to. I had a life now, a pretty damn good one by most standards. It's not like I was abandoning Zaun or anything, it was just…

Wouldn't Vi want me to be happy?

Seraphine must have picked up some of what I was thinking because she leaned a bit closer and locked eyes with me as she kept singing.

And no one is Perfect,
You don't need to be strong,
Every single day,
No one really knows along the way,
That the best things in life won't be,
Perfect anyway

Oh. I'd forgotten how much harder Seraphine's music hit when she let her magic out. She was a good singer just purely on her own skills, but when she broke out her empathy and fused it with her singing it was on a whole other level. I'd never quite bought her talk about how everyone has a song written on their soul, but it sure felt like she was singing to something deep inside. Like yeah, maybe I was kinda messed up and didn't get things right, but that was okay.

Vi never wanted me to be some perfect person who never messed up and perfectly balanced everything with Piltover and Zaun. She'd just want me to be happy and do the best I could.

Spoiler: More Rolling

Jinx Perception: 2d6: (3+4) = 7
vs
??? ???????: 2d6: 2d6: (2+2) +2 = 6
Jinx Wins

Jinx Shooting: 2d6: (6+4) = 11
vs
??? ?????: 2d6: (2+1) = 3
Jinx Wins

I was gonna say something when I noticed something odd. There was a space in the middle of the room where none of Seraphine's magical lights were landing. A strange sort of blank area where there was nothing, even though something should definitely be there.

I whipped out Zapper. Paranoid? Probably, but sometimes paranoia is just the world's way of warning you that an invisible demon is about to eat your face.

I quickly rolled two dials on Zapper's side to set it to stun intensity and wider dispersal, then flicked off the safety that turned it from a tool to a weapon and fired. Seraphine let out a startled scream at the sudden and unexplained violence, but I was far more interested in the fact that someone else was screaming.

An instant later, Luxanna Crownguard popped into existence, seemingly out of thin air, twitching from the aftereffects of taking a direct hit from Zapper. At that power setting it wouldn't do any serious damage, but she wouldn't be doing much for the next minute or so.

"Gotcha." I grinned triumphantly down at her.

"Is that Lux?!" Seraphine gasped. "When did she—how—I thought I felt—" Her eyes were already wide with shock, but an instant later they nearly popped out of her head as she latched onto my arm. "Jinx, she saw me!"

The reality of the situation came crashing down on me. I'd just attacked the daughter of a foreign diplomat who was here to do vital business with Piltover. And said daughter was from a nation that super-hated mages, and Seraphine had just outed herself as a magic-user. This was… well 'bad' felt like the understatement of the century.

"Aw monkey-shitting fuckballs." I groaned. It wouldn't be long before Lux's guards noticed she was missing, and Seraphine was supposed to be with her band to start their performance soon. What was I supposed to do now?!

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 1

How Does Jinx Handle Lux Before She Recovers?

[ ][Treatment] Make Her Comfortable, This Was All A Misunderstanding.

[ ][Treatment] Take Her Sword, But Don't Tie Her Up

[ ][Treatment] Tie Her Up and Search Her For Any Hidden Weapons

What Approach Does Jinx Use To Talk To Lux?

[ ][Talking] Be Nice, We're All Friends Here, Right?

[ ][Talking] Interrogation, We Need Answers!

[ ][Talking] Threats, Seraphine is in Danger If Her Secret Gets Out

---

I resolved the problem of finding a song that matched Seraphine's voice by just ... using an actual in-character song for her.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O11UcwRctAE

I'll definitely bookmark a couple of those songs, though. Odds are Seraphine's gonna be singing again at some point in the quest. Plus a good library of songs might be handy when I'm vaguely toying with the idea of a "By Day They're A Rock Band, By Night They Fight Fascism" quest.

Also, you have to wonder exactly what Lux was expecting to see when she decided to do a little spying on Jinx and Seraphine, especially after Caitlyn was teasing them so much.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Blinded By The Light 5​

Spoiler: Vote

[X][Treatment] Take Her Sword, But Don't Tie Her Up
[X][Talking] Be Nice, We're All Friends Here, Right?

I didn't know for sure how long Lux would be rattled after getting hit by Zapper, it wasn't like I'd had a lot of opportunities to test it out on people using the stun setting. Or the kill setting, for that matter. There were all kinds of factors that went into exactly how effective a hit from Zapper would be, considering I was shooting people with electricity. I quickly grabbed her sword and set her up in the chair across from the couch Seraphine and I were on. We didn't want her freaking out and trying to stab us as soon as she recovered, after all.

That didn't mean I wanted to start things off in a hostile way. Sure, maybe it was a bit too late to worry about hostility after I'd shot Lux, but that had been almost a minute ago, there was no sense dwelling in the past. After all, Lux was gonna walk out of this room eventually, and that meant we needed to be on semi-decent terms. Well, that or I was gonna have to figure out how to kill an ambassador's daughter and get rid of the body while also deflecting any suspicion away from myself and Seraphine. Maybe if there was no other way to keep Seraphine safe I'd cross that bridge, but I really didn't wanna think about it.

After waiting a little bit, Lux shook her head, and her eyes seemed to be back in focus and locked onto me. She wasn't smiling either, when up to now she'd seemed to have a serious case of resting happy face. If I wanted things to be friendly and cooperative I probably needed to set the right tone. "Heya, Luxy. Sorry about zapping you like that. Didn't know it was you, I just kinda reacted on instinct. It shouldn't have been powerful enough to do more than rattle you a bit, but are you feeling okay?"

Lux blinked, and a second later she was back to smiling. It didn't exactly look like a normal smile though, something about it was a bit too forced. Well, I suppose I couldn't blame her for still being a little on edge. "Well, I suppose that's understandable. I imagine you took my sword away so I wouldn't accidentally hurt myself while I was suffering the effects of your... welding tool." Her eyes lingered on Zapper for a second. "That said, my sword was a gift from my Aunt Tianna, I'm quite fond of it, and since I seem to be fully recovered now I would like it back."

Yeah, that wasn't happening. I suppose it wasn't a surprise she didn't wanna make this too easy for me. I didn't wanna get sidetracked talking about her sharp hunk of metal that apparently also had sentimental value. "So, Lux, old buddy old pal, there was something I was just a little bit confused about that I was hoping you could help me understand. See, I thought you and I agreed that I was gonna have a quick private talk with Seraphine. Then next thing I know, I'm zapping what I assumed must have been some creepy stalker or something, and it turns out it was you. I'm sure you can understand why I'm a bit confused right now."

"Ah, yes, that." Lux chuckled and brought up one of her hands to rub the back of her head. As she did so I noticed something kinda funny about her gloves (Actually, why was she wearing gloves anyway? It wasn't cold or anything.). I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong about them, but in hindsight maybe I should've taken them along with her sword.

I wasn't gonna let worrying about her hands distract me from her words, though. There was the faintest hint of pink on Lux's cheeks as she spoke. "I suppose I do owe you an apology for being a bit nosy. It's just that your sister was teasing you two about being in a relationship, and neither of you exactly denied it, and I've always been a bit too curious for my own good. In hindsight, I really should've just asked the two of you directly if I wanted to know. In any case, I was on my way to the powder room when I heard the two of you speaking and I had a momentary lapse of judgment, forgot my good manners, and tried to listen in. I apologize."

"Yeah, well, sorry about shooting you or whatever." I shrugged. I wasn't actually all that sorry, but an apology seemed like the polite thing to do under the circumstances. Besides, I didn't want her holding a grudge about it, even if she kinda had it coming. That didn't even get into how bad things might get between Piltover and Demacia if word got around that I'd shot Lux, even if it didn't cause any long-term harm. Well, I was pretty sure there weren't any long-term effects. It wasn't like I could go around shooingt a bunch of people with Zapper and watched them for years to check for long-term effects...

"How much did you overhear?" Seraphine cut in, a lot blunter than she'd usually be. Though I guess I couldn't completely blame her for not being in the mood to dance around the question of whether Lux was gonna report her to anyone.

Lux cleared her throat, setting her hands on her lap. "Quite a bit, but I can assure you I'm not the sort to gossip about other people's private affairs."

"Just the type to spy on them," Seraphine cut in, an unusual frown on her face. "Oh, and you can drop the fake smiley act. Maybe you can fool Jinx, though I wouldn't bet on that, but trying to lie to me about your emotional state is never gonna work. You're scared, mentally preparing yourself for the possibility of violence, and wondering how far you'll have to go to get out of this situation. If I had to guess you're still hoping you can talk your way out of this, but if you think we intend to do you harm you're prepared to strike first."

Lux's smile vanished as she let out a sigh, slumping down in her seat. "So we're dispensing with any pleasantries and pretenses, then?" When she looked back up at us, she just looked ... tired. "Fine. Yes, I know that Seraphine's a mage. No, I won't be reporting you to any authorities in Piltover, and certainly not to my parents or anyone in the Demacian delegation. I give you my word of honor as a Crownguard that your secrets are safe with me. Even if I were captured by enemies of the state and tortured, I would die before a single word of this passed my lips."

"Those are some fancy words." I crossed my arms over my chest. "But talk is cheap. I did my research before I met you. I know your uncle's the guy in charge of hunting down and locking up people like Seraphine. Earlier today you were fishing for info on how you could use Hextech against mages. It's not exactly painting the picture of someone who's gonna ignore the fact that you just found a mage who's in hiding. How are we supposed to trust you?"

"Trust." Lux let out a bitter sound that technically qualified as a laugh. "I honestly don't know how you could trust me. How anyone could trust someone else. I haven't been able to trust anyone, not even my own family. Not since the day I discovered this."

She took off one of her gloves, revealing her hand. A hand that was positively glowing. With a flick of her wrist the light left her hand, coalescing into a small ball hovering above it. She waved her fingers around, and the ball of light followed them. Then she snapped her fingers and the light flew back into her hands and vanished, though it felt like I could kinda see it glowing from within her. "Now do you believe me when I say I won't tell anyone?"

"Yeah ... that changes things." There was a lot to process now that I knew Lux was a mage. Not to mention it put a new light on several things that had happened before, like our talk about using Hextech to lock down magical powers. I'd assumed she wanted it to help her government lock up mages, but it was probably a lot closer to the same issue Seraphine had. It wasn't like Lux could get any training in handling her magic when all the mages were hiding from the government. Even if she could find someone to teach her, no fugitive mages would trust her when her uncle was in charge of hunting them down. At best, they'd assume she was one of the mages who worked with the Mageseekers to hunt down rogues.

Wait, actually...

Seraphine put a gentle hand on my arm and whispered to me. "I'll tell you if I sense any deception."

I let out a breath and felt some of the tension ease out of my spine. Seraphine might not be an outright mind reader, but she could probably figure out if Lux was trying to play us. Especially if I asked the right kind of questions to get a reaction out of her. "So, you're a mage, while your uncle's in charge of hunting down all the mages in Demacia. That's gotta be pretty awkward. Do you get some kind of royal exemption for that?"

"No." Lux sighed and buried her face in her hands. "If anything the law applies much more strictly to us than it would to any other family. Uncle Eldred would insist on making an example of me to prove his dedication to his cause and quash any doubts. My parents and even my brother truly believe in Demacia and everything it stands for. It's why I can't trust them. My brother is one of the most noble, forthright, and honorable men I've ever known. He's supposed to join the Dauntless Vanguard soon. I know he'll always do the right thing. But ... according to the laws of Demacia, the right thing to do is to report me to the authorities so I can be locked up by the Mageseekers before I hurt anyone. I should've turned myself in as soon as I discovered my powers, but I..."

Was she scared for herself? For her family? Of her family? Probably all of those. There was one other reason I wanted to focus on, though. "You didn't turn yourself in because you know it's all garbage." I put an arm around Seraphine. "Seraphine here's basically the sweetest, most caring person I've ever met. She's not dangerous to anyone. I've only seen her use her magic to hurt a person once, and that was a real asshole who definitely had it coming. Even then Seraphine just blasted the bad guy back with magic a bit to stop her from choking me out. I did a lot worse once I got loose." Shot her eye out with a nailgun. Good times. I'd even put that nailgun on a mount back in my workshop, a trophy to first weapon I'd ever build to save lives.

Lux grimaced and shook her head. "That might be true now, but magic corrupts people. People were never meant to touch the Arcane. It drives mages mad until they become insane murderers like Sylas of Dregbourne. That's why I need to find a way to get rid of my power, or at least suppress it enough to stop it from destroying my mind. I can't get access to enough petricite potions to keep my magic suppressed without raising far too many questions, but if you could make some kind of Hextech device to lock my powers away I could finally be safe." She pulled her legs up onto her chair and wrapped her arms around them. "Is it so wrong to just want to be safe, and still have a life with my family? Maybe we could even free the other people in the Mageseeker prisons if there was a device we could use to seal their powers instead of needing to regularly dose them with petricite potions."

"I don't think it works that way." Hextech was all about finding ways to channel and control magical energy, so I could probably come up with something to help a mage regulate and stabilize their powers. I'd toyed with designs for something like that to help Seraphine, but I hadn't quite cracked it yet. Besides, what I'd been working on was more like adding training wheels to a bike, while Lux wanted me to build a brick wall that would stop the bike completely.

I could probably come up with something that blocked or disrupted magic as long as the person wore it, but that wouldn't satisfy the Mageseekers. A mage could just take the device off or break it. Besides, the problem was the existence of the Mageseekers in the first place, not the fact that their tools for messing with mages weren't efficient enough.

Before I could figure out a good way to explain that to her, someone pounded on our door. "Lady Crownguard, are you in there?"

Lux's eyes widened, and a second later she called through the door. "Yes, I'm here! I'm fine, I'm just talking to Jinx and Seraphine."

"Very good, milady." Judging by the thud of heavy boots and clinking of armor, the tin cans had taken up position outside the door, waiting for Lux to leave.

Seraphine glanced back at the clock and grimaced. "I need to go meet up with my band if we're gonna be ready to go on stage." She stood up and cleared her throat. "Jinx, Lux, thank you for checking in with me before the show, and for your discretion regarding what we discussed. I'm sure we'll have more to talk about later." She stepped out of the dressing room, her eyes flicking to the guards standing to the side of it before she closed the door behind her.

No way we could talk with the guards hanging out so close by. Even if they weren't actively trying to listen in, all it would take is one of them picking up the m-word and they'd start paying closer attention. "Yeah, we'll talk later." I picked up Lux's sword and started passing it back to her, only to pull it away with a teasing smirk.

Lux's smile was back in full force. "Jinx, I would appreciate having that back. I wasn't kidding when I said it was a gift from my aunt."

I was gonna give it back eventually. On top of the sentimental value, it was pretty clearly not that much of a threat. If she was a mage she didn't need a sharp hunk of metal to gut me. I just wanted to have a little fun with her first. I smirked and slipped the blade through my belt. "I dunno, I think I'd pretty look cool with a sword. Maybe I should take it back to my workshop and see if I can come up with some fun ideas for how to make it a bit better. A sword that shoots lightning or fire is just objectively better than an ordinary sword."

Lux tried to grab it off my belt, but I quickly stepped back out of range. Trying to tackle me and wrestle it back was probably beneath the dignity of a noble daughter of House Crownguard. Then again, if she grew up with a big brother she probably had some experience with wrestling. That's just how siblings were.

Instead, she opted for a different tactic. With a downright diabolical grin, she asked. "Jinx, while you were studying homeland, I don't suppose you happened to read up on what it means when a young woman of noble heritage gives her sword to someone else?"

"Technically you didn't give it to me, I stole it." I pulled it out, casually swinging it around until I accidentally hit one of the couch cushions, only for the blade to easily slice it open with barely any resistance. So she keeps her sword sharp, noted.

Lux watched with a raised eyebrow and an amused smirk as she watched me hastily stuff the padding back into the cushion before using Zapper to seal it shut, then flip the cushion over to hide the damage. Which would've worked a lot better, if not for the fact that the other side of the cushion had a large stain on it. I mean, really! Who ruins one of the cushions on a shared piece of furniture and just flips it over to try to hide the damage?!

Once I gave up on damage control she cleared her throat. "In Demacian tradition, a young noblewoman presents their intended with a blade upon their betrothal. It is meant to symbolize how their future spouse will guard and protect them from all who would threaten them or impugn their honor. If my parents see you running around with my sword, they might want to pull you in for a conversation about your intentions. It's rare for Demacian nobles to wed foreigners, but not completely unheard of, and I suppose Kirammans are a wealthy and respectable family..."

I quickly offered her the sword back without any further comment. Once she had it back and safely secured in its scabbard, she giggled at me. "Now I know you need to do more research about Demacian courtship customs, because I just made that up."

"Oh, you sneaky..." I quickly pulled myself back from any colorful language. The last thing I needed was for her guards to come barreling in screaming about defending the honor of Demacia after I called their lady a sneaky bitch. Even though she totally was one. Not in a bad way, though. Or at least I didn't think it was bad. If anything, it made me like her more.

I cleared my throat, and put on some haughty rich Piltie airs for the benefit of any guards who might be listening at the door. "Well then, Lady Crownguard, shall we head back to the concert hall?" I dropped the act as else something occurred to me. "I hope Caitlyn hasn't caused too much trouble while we were away."

---

"WOO! SERAPHINE!" I barely managed to grab Caitlyn before she could climb up onto the stage. "Hey, Seraphine! It's me, Caitlyn! Jinx's big sister! It's so cool that you're finally performing on stage!" She turned to one of the random audience members. "Isn't she just the coolest?! I've known her since she was a kid, and now she's up on stage performing and being the star of the show!" She went back to screaming in the general direction of the stage. "YOU'RE AMAZING SERAPHINE, I LOVE YOU! JINX LOVES YOU TOO!" She turned back to the random stranger she'd been accosting, who seemed to be trying to escape the conversation they'd somehow been dragged into. "Isn't she just so cool and amazing?!"

I was definitely impressed by Seraphine as well, but in my case I wasn't impressed by the spectacle of her being on stage so much as her ability to keep on singing despite Caitlyn being just the absolute worst sort of fan. She'd already tried to climb up on stage once to hug her, and I'd barely managed to cover her mouth in time to stop her from shouting about how Seraphine was 'her sister's girlfriend.' I guess I really must love Caitlyn like family, because I was putting up with her drunk ass despite all of this.

I threw a frustrated glower back and Lux, her guards, and the Enforcers all hanging back and watching me deal with Caitlyn on my own. "Could I get a little help here?"

One of the Enforcers sheepishly shook his head. "We suggested that she lie down and rest, but she didn't listen. I'd rather not manhandle Councilor Kiramman's daughter."

Everyone else nodded along, probably because they were cowards. I mean, I get it, they didn't want to risk anything happening that would bring Mrs. Kiramman's wrath crashing down on them like a ton of bricks. What they were missing was that if they let Caitlyn embarrass herself in public she was gonna be pretty pissed as well. Though probably a lot more of that anger would be going Caitlyn's way rather than being aimed at them, which was all they cared about.

Meanwhile, Seraphine kept singing like a pro, ignoring all the drama playing out on the floor beneath her. Though maybe not completely ignoring it, considering she was definitely looking our way while she was singing.

Whoever thought that we,
Could end up meeting,
It's been a journey!
It's karma possibly!
That it was always meant to be our destinies!
Within the clouds,
Just you and me!
If I could be a constellation with you in the sky...
We'll paint out all the stars,
Slowly creating our perfect night.
We may be outshined,
By all the Moon's light
But together, I know we'll see this through!
That's why I wanna be a constellation with you in the sky!
Together, shining so many colors with all of our might!
I'll never break this line...
Connecting all our lives!
No matter what it takes or how bright you'll become!

As the song wrapped up everyone started clapping and cheering, including Caitlyn. Which was a huge relief for me, because it meant she'd stopped trying to get on stage or doing anything else that required me to take action, so I could actually join in on the applause. Seraphine and her band had turned in a solid performance despite all the craziness that had played out in her dressing room. That was a relief, I'd been a bit worried she'd be off her game.

Of course, now that the concert and the rest of the school festival was wrapping up, I had a completely different problem to deal with. Lux and I needed to talk some more about everything that just went down, but I also wanted to check in with Seraphine and get her thoughts about it all. I could use walking Seraphine home or Lux back to her hotel as an excuse to squeeze in a little private conversation, but it wasn't like I could ask the other to wait back here while I walked one of them home, then turned around to pick up the other.

Then there was the whole Caitlyn issue, she was still pretty smashed, so I didn't exactly trust her to make it home on her own. Sure, since I had two Enforcers hanging around I could probably tell one of them to escort her home, but there were a few obvious problems there. Even leaving aside the whole 'do I trust a pig with a drunk girl' question, it was a pretty safe bet that the Enforcers would just take Caitlyn's drunk butt to the front door and bail. If I was the one taking her home I could help cover for her and explain the whole spiked punch situation.

Ugh. I really needed to figure out how to be in more than one place at the same time. At this rate going back to Zaun tomorrow morning was gonna feel like a relaxing vacation.

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 1

Who Does Jinx Walk Home?

[ ][Walking] Lux
- [ ] Write in what they should discuss
Issues: Abandonment (-3), Trauma (-3)
Failure Result: Jinx struggles with trusting Lux enough for a real conversation.

[ ][Walking] Seraphine
- [ ] Write in what they should discuss
Issues: Abandonment (-3), Trauma (-3)
Failure Result: Why do things feel so awkward right now?

[ ][Walking] Caitlyn
- [ ] Write in what they should discuss
Luck Roll: DC 5
Failure Result: Caitlyn is too drunk for much useful conversation.

Willpower

[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls

---

Lyrics shamelessly stolen from Here

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Blinded By The Light 6​

Spoiler: Vote and Roll

[X][Walking] Caitlyn
- [X] Why Caitlyn wants to become an enforcer, what it means to jinx for Caitlyn to become an enforcer, what Caitlyn could do instead of be an enforcer.
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero
2d6: (3+2) = 5
Success

"Hey, girls." I grinned at Seraphine and Lux. "I know I'm pretty popular right now, but I think I need to make sure someone gets home safe and sound." I rather pointedly nudged Caitlyn with my elbow, who didn't seem to pick up on what I was saying at all, just smiling happily at me. Sure, I could've trusted the Enforcers or someone else to take care of her, but could I really trust them? Even if they got her back in one piece, some Enforcer escorting her home wouldn't cover for her with ou—with her parents.

Sure, she'd gotten drunk by accident and was old enough that she was allowed to drink anyway, but the Kirammans still wouldn't be happy about her coming home smashed. She needed me there to help her get home quietly and sleep it off, and if that didn't work I could explain why she'd gotten drunk and keep the Kirammans from freaking out too much. Not to mention I could make sure she had plenty of water and something to help with the killer headache that was gonna be waiting for her when she woke up in the morning.

So that was how I wound up walking back to the Kiramman manor and trying to keep Caitlyn from wandering off and passing out in a bush or something. The only downside to that was it meant being subjected to her nonstop monologue of random drunk thoughts. The good was that she'd sobered up enough to stop slurring and actually follow a coherent-ish pattern of thought now. Though that also made it a lot harder to just ignore her drunk babble. "Why do you think Mom and Dad named me Caitlyn anyway? What's so special about the name Caitlyn? Why not name me something else? Maybe I should just follow your example and change my name. From now on, everyone shall call me ... Matilda."

I rolled my eyes. At least she wasn't giving me a hard time about Seraphine anymore. Though that was probably just because drunk Caitlyn was like a baby, once something left her line of sight she completely forgot it existed. Also like a baby, she was extremely messy and loud. At least she hadn't thrown up all over herself. Yet. Hopefully we were safe on that front. If she was gonna puke up a bunch of spiked punch it probably would've happened by now. I think. I'm not an expert on how booze works.

Caitlyn flopped against my side, grabbing my shoulder with one arm to hold herself up as she leaned against me. "You're so nice, Jinx. You're a nice girl. That's why I want you to have a nice girlfriend. You deserve someone who can take care of you."

"Yeah, yeah." I rolled my eyes and wrapped an arm around her. "At least now you're going from loud yelly drunk to quieter sappy drunk. Though for the record I don't need a girlfriend to take care of me, I can take care of myself just fine. And no, not like that, before you say anything." I wouldn't hate having one, but it wasn't exactly my top priority right now. Plus I wasn't too stuck on the girl part of it. What junk someone had in their pants was the least interesting thing about most people. Well, unless it was something cool, like some cyborg tech, or a hexgem. Or maybe a Hextech-powered... never mind.

"Yeah, you can." Caitlyn sighed and snuggled up closer to me, which was a little awkward with how tall she was. "You've got things so figured out compared to me. I'm the older one, I'm supposed to have all the answers."

I snorted. "You think I have things figured out? No way. I'm just really good at making it all up as I go and acting like it was all part of my plan." Sure, some things I'd planned out ended up working, like the whole clean water for Zaun thing, but a whole lot of other things I wanted for the future didn't pan out. I mean, if I was perfect at making my plans reality, Vi and Vander would still be around.

I squeezed her shoulder. "Besides, its not like you don't have things figured out too. You've wanted to be an Enforcer for as long as I've known you." Even if I wasn't wild about her career choice.

"But what if I'm wrong?" She clutched me a little tighter. "I know you don't like them, and every time I discuss it with Mom and Dad they tell me it's too dangerous and not a suitable career for a Kiramman. But ... I can't design a ventilation system or a water treatment plant. I tried learning about how our family's business interests work, but it all went over my head. You'd probably do better running the family business than I ever could. I hate math and barely passed my classes in it, you're brilliant at it."

I scoffed and shook my head. "Math makes me a good accountant. Running a business is about a lot more than that. You've got those people skills." There was a reason Jayce ran most of the business side of all our Hextech work, while Viktor and I stuck to focusing on the science. Putting Viktor in front of a bunch of investors led to them getting annoyed by all his tech talk, and I was never all that good at sucking up to a bunch of rich jerks. Not to mention they wouldn't take me seriously because after one look at me, they'd always write me off as 'just a little girl' or a 'lab assistant.'

"Do I have people skills?" Caitlyn sighed and ran a hand down her face. "I don't think I do. I can talk to people, but I don't feel like I'm especially good at it. What I can do is solve a mystery or investigate things, and I'm a good shot. I want to use what I'm good at to give back to everyone in Piltover and the undercity. I won't be some kind of ... idle rich leech enjoying my prosperity while contributing nothing to the city that provides it for me."

Caitlyn went from leaning against me to outright hugging me. "Everything I saw in the undercity, everything you suffered through, none of it was fair. I have to make things right. It's like Sheriff Grayson told me once, if I'm going to use a gun I need to think about what I'm using it to do. I want to use it to make this city a better place, and the only way to do that is as an Enforcer. It's not like I can go gallivanting around the undercity as a vigilante."

"Why not?" I tried to shift her around so she wasn't pressing down on me too much. "You did it before, when we went down there to save Ekko and Benzo from Sevika."

"Because they were in immediate danger, and the Enforcers couldn't help." Caitlyn started idly flicking one of my braids. "Sheriff Grayson always said the problem with the Enforcers is that nobody holds them accountable. The Council and the people of Piltover trust them to do their job and turn a blind eye to any reports of misconduct because that's easier." She scoffed, and suddenly there was scorn dripping from her voice. "Why give a shit about some dirty Zaunites who probably deserved a beating anyway? Even if they didn't commit whatever crime the Enforcers accused them of, they probably did something else wrong to deserve it. Oh, children are stealing so they won't starve? They should get jobs? They're orphans because the Enforcers killed their parents? Well, their parents should've thought about that before they broke the law."

I wasn't sure what I'd expected her to say about why she still wanted to be an Enforcer, but it hadn't been ... this. "I thought you still believed in what they stood for."

"I still believe in things like justice and fairness," Caitlyn shot back. "Do the Enforcers stand for that? They'll name a water plant after Sheriff Grayson, but while they claim they're honoring her memory they're throwing everything she stood for in the garbage. I know she wasn't perfect, but at least she tried to do something to keep the peace and make things a bit less awful than they were. Somebody has to do the right thing."

She groaned and staggered away from me, waving a hand towards the Council Towers. "I can't fix the Council or the way Piltover is. Even if I gave the entire Kiramman fortune once I inherited it, if I spent every last cog of it trying to help Zaun, it wouldn't be enough. Most of it would be stolen by chembarons, or wind up back in the pockets of all the other families. Nothing would change, except that now the Kirammans wouldn't have a seat at the table. At least as an Enforcer I can do something real. If I can save one little girl from going through everything you did, that would be enough for me."

"Aw, Caitlyn…" I didn't waste any time hugging her. "I didn't know you had so much going on. I thought you were just … I dunno." Part of me had always wondered if she was still holding onto all her old illusions that the Enforcers were good guys.

Caitlyn hugged me back. "It's… I've got this whole plan. Or maybe it's just a silly fantasy. But … I'm a Kiramman. As long as I prove I'm not just a spoiled rich girl doing this for fun it won't be hard to go up the ranks. I can't fix nepotism, so I might as well use it to my advantage. Grayson was always an outsider to the Council, but I would be one of them. If I became Sheriff eventually, maybe I could finish what she started. Make the Enforcers actually live up to what they're supposed to be, people who serve and protect Piltover and Zaun."

I gently rubbed her back. Part of me wanted to point out that it wouldn't work that way, but this wasn't the time to dump on Caitlyn's dreams. Besides, a Sheriff who actually believed in treating Zaun fairly might not fix everything, but it was better than nothing. "Do you really think you can do it?"

"Probably not," Caitlyn admitted. "There are too many people who'd want to stop me from fixing the Enforcers. But I have to try."

Huh. Well that gave me something to think about. Caitlyn wasn't just a naive Piltie who thought the Enforcers could be the good guys, she was pissed off, scared, and this was her way of fighting back. I still didn't like it, but at least I understood her a bit better.

I still hadn't figured out how I was supposed to feel about everything she'd told me when we got to the Kiramman estate. I was debating whether to try sneaking her in through her bedroom window or having her sleep it off in my workshop when the front door opened and Mr. Kiramman stepped out. "Good, you're home."

"Awww, Dad!" Caitlyn slipped out of my grasp to stagger over to him and give him a floppy drunk hug. "It's so late! Were you waiting up for us?"

"Always." He returned the hug, frowning as he took in his daughter's limpness and probably smelled her breath. "Looks like you've been having fun while I was busy waiting for my girls to come home."

I quickly stepped in before he got the wrong idea. "Someone spiked the punch at the party. We didn't know about that until…" I waved a hand at Caitlyn.

"That will tend to happen at school parties," Mr. Kiramman agreed with a wistful smile. "I remember at my graduation party with the help of a few glasses of punch, I was finally able to approach a young lady I'd been admiring from afar for some time and—mind you, this was years before I met your mother…"

"Yeah, yeah, we get the picture." I didn't need to get wrapped up in Mr. Kiramman reminiscing about a drunken school-age hookup. "Liquid courage, turns out she was into you the whole time, you snuck off to the broom cupboard and blah blah blah…"

"You make it sound so much less romantic than I remember it being." He chuckled and shook his head, then grabbed one of Caitlyn's arms and hooked it around his shoulders. "Jinx, help me get her to her bedroom. Cassandra should be asleep, and it will be less stressful for all of us if she doesn't see Caitlyn in her current state."

I grinned and got Caitlyn's other side. "Ooh, are we keeping this secret?"

"No, Cassandra always finds the truth eventually." Judging by the way he winced a bit when he said that, it was a lesson he'd learned the hard way. "Late-night lectures while she's still intoxicated or in the morning when she's hungover will do none of us any good, especially when she never intended to get drunk. We can have a more productive conversation once Caitlyn's sober and Cassandra is less inclined to be upset with her. She'll doubtless suspect the truth when I tell her Caitlyn's feeling under the weather, but I know how to break the news so she won't be too upset."

"Thanks." It seemed like the right thing to say since I'd definitely get caught in the blast radius if Mrs. Kiramman was mad about Caitlyn coming home drunk.

That was the last thing either of us said for a while, since getting Caitlyn to her room and cleaned up enough to put to bed was a two-person job. Especially if we wanted to avoid waking up Mrs. Kiramman, and probably have her come charging in with a rifle mistaking us for intruders. Once we managed to get her boots off, her teeth brushed, and her jacket off we agreed that was good enough. Trying to get her into a nightgown involved way too much risk of seeing things that could never be unseen.

Once we got Caitlyn settled in bed and happily drooling away on her pillow I was ready to get to bed myself, even though normally I'd be tempted to squeeze in a little late night workshop time. I'd had one heck of a day, after all, and tomorrow was gonna be busy too.

Right before I could leave, Mr. Kiramman cleared his throat. "One last thing, before you go."

Hopefully it wasn't anything big, I needed my beauty sleep. Or more likely, my staring up at the ceiling trying to sleep while my mind raced at a million meters a second. "Yeah?"

He smiled and squeezed my arm. "I know you're still thinking over the adoption offer, but I hope you understand that no matter how you answer, you will always have a home here, for as long as you want it. And even if you decide you don't want this to be your home, our door will be open to you if you ever change your mind or need our help."

"Oh." I felt my throat closing up and knew I needed to get outta there quickly before something really embarrassing happened. "Yeah … Thanks." I hated how choked up I sounded.

I headed back to my bedroom, already bracing for a restless night filled with too many things to think about and not enough time to do it all. Or I could have nightmares, those were always fun.

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 1

How Does Jinx's Night Go?

[ ][Sleeping] Slept Like a Baby
Costs 1 Willpower

[ ][Sleeping] Can't Sleep, Too Much To Stress Over
1 stability damage from sleep deprivation.

[ ][Sleeping] Nightmare Time!
Optional write-in for "fun" nightmare suggestions.

I'm a bit tired today, so have a shorter update. Also, after checking some of the feedback in the thread, I'm gonna put something up for a vote for players to decide on.

Should This Quest Have Discussion Periods Before Voting Opens?

[ ][Discussion Period] Yes, On All Votes.

[ ][Discussion Period] Only For Votes With Write-Ins or Plans

[ ][Discussion Period] No Discussion Periods Are Needed.

How Long Should Discussion Periods Last?

[ ][Discussion Length]: Short, Voting Opens Two Hours After The Post Goes Up

[ ][Discussion Length]: Mid-Length, Voting Opens Eight Hours After The Post Goes Up

[ ][Discussion Length]: Long, Voting Opens One Day After The Post Goes Up

 

[Chengar Qordath]

A Light in the Darkness 1​

Spoiler: Vote

[x][Sleeping] Nightmare Time!
-[X][Sleeping] Jinx is taking a bath when she's sucked down the drain and into her own water treatment plant, where all the Zaunite in her is filtered out until there's nothing but Piltie left, and she's deposited in front of an applauding council with ghoulish faces.
[x][Discussion Period] Only For Votes With Write-Ins or Plans
[X][Discussion Length]: Short, Voting Opens Two Hours After The Post Goes Up

I let out a bored sigh as I endured yet another of the endless meetings that were an inevitable part of setting up a water treatment plant. The science and engineering side of things was a lot more interesting than dealing with all the day-to-day management stuff. Sure, sometimes there were actual problems I needed to be in the loop on, but most of the things that came up were just boring or a waste of my time.

Like now, when they were going on about tweaking the rune cages to make sure they were getting all the contaminants out. It was just routine maintenance, why did I need to be here for this? Anyone with even a basic knowledge of the core principles of Hextech could figure out how to fix this problem.

Jayce sighed and shook his head. "We're making progress here, but we still haven't figured out how to remove all of Powder."

I blinked and shook my head as I snapped out of my bored half-doze. "Wait, what?"

"There's some kind of contaminants suspended in the water," Viktor answered. "So we're working on a way to get rid of this Powder. It's not like anyone wants it."

"Oh. Yeah, right." I nodded along. "Well, isn't the solution..."

Later that evening, I was soaking in the tub and trying to figure out the best solution to the whole problem. You'd think it would be simple to get rid of a little sediment. Ugh, this whole thing was so boring and time-consuming. It was just a lot of trial and error with different rune configurations to find out which one worked best. It wasn't the worst kind of work, at least I was still accomplishing something worthwhile, but I'd rather be putting my mind to working on something a bit more challenging.

"Ugh, whatever." I opened up the drain to let the water start flowing out of the tub. As I watched it all go down I noticed something weird. Was the water always so blue? Wait, what were those strange little blue particles in the—

Next thing I knew I was barreling down the drainpipe towards my own water treatment plant. I tried to swim against the current, but there was no way I could resist it when I was just a bunch of loose Powder. That was basically nothing at all. No, worse than nothing. If I was nothing I would be free to escape from this pipe, but instead I was a bunch of Powder that couldn't get away or do anything useful, headed straight for the purification chamber.

I was helpless as my form flowed into the purification tanks, and the blue light of my own Hextech passed through me, purging away everything. Somehow it didn't hurt, but I could still feel parts of myself burning away under the light of my own chamber.

Eventually, the outflow valve opened up, and I could finally escape. Except that what came out of there wasn't really me anymore. Instead of my usual long braids hanging down free, I had one of those efficient updos that packed all my hair into a single tight knot. My clothes were all fancy and Piltie too, but with none of the usual little tweaks I put on them to give them a little more personality. I was just pressed and perfect, like some doll.

The Kirammans were there, looming over me as they smiled and clapped. "Congratulations, Jinx. You're finally good enough to be part of our family."

"Oh, that simply won't do." Somehow my voice sounded even more posh and stuck-up than Caitlyn's was. "Jinx, such a crude name. I should have something that evokes class and sophistication. Please, from now on call me Lady Beatrice Eleanor Priscilla Kiramman."

"That's a much better name than Jinx," Viktor agreed with an approving nod.

"One I'm happy to have listed as our Hextech partner," Jayce started applauding. "Congratulations, Beatrice."

"Oh yes, quite the capital change," Heimerdinger joined in on the applause. "Such a fascinating change of identity. Like discarding an old, failed prototype to move on to a new, better version."

"It's the sort of strong name people in Noxus would respect," Mel agreed. "We should find a politically advantageous marriage for such a fine young lady."

"Duchess Beatrice Eleanor Priscilla Kiramman-Crownguard does have a nice ring to it..." Caitlyn pointed out, clapping me on the back. "We never would have considered something like that before we cleaned you up, but now that you're worth something..."

"Your song is so much more harmonious now!" Seraphine agreed, grinning down at me. "I need to find a way to incorporate this into my next performance! Something we can use to encourage all the other people in Zaun to go through the same process. Won't it be so much better for everyone if they're all cleaned up like you are? Won't that make the Council and all of Piltover's high society so happy with you? Then they'll fund whatever projects you want."

I wanted to say something about how that wasn't what I wanted, that I'd never try to destroy any of the things that would make Zaun unique. But no matter how loud I screamed it inside my head, the words never left my mouth. Instead, Beatrice smiled politely. "Why yes, that does sound quite lovely, doesn't it? We'll clean up all of Zaun, and once we're done with those animals we can have some lovely tea and crumpets. Tally ho, pip pip!"

We all smiled happily as a wave of purifying magic washed over Zaun.

---

"GYAAAARGGH!!!" I bolted out of bed, instinctively reaching for Zapper and getting halfway to powering it up when I realized there was nothing there. What was I even supposed to shoot with Zapper anyway? None of the people from my dream were there.

I groaned and walked into the bathroom, running some water into the sink and splashing my face. "Ugh, I'm really missing the weird dreams right now..."

"Chin up, old girl!"

I blinked and stared at the mirror. Except instead of seeing my own reflection, Beatrice was staring back at me with a vacant smile. "Just head on down the drain, and we can finally get rid of all that nasty Zaunite filth that's still stuck to you. You know they'll never really accept you as long as it's there, no matter how much they pretend they do."

I screamed as I whipped out Zapper, powered it up maximum, and fired. The shot bounced right off Beatrice's face in the mirror, reflecting back and disintegrating me instead.

---

"OH YOU MOTHERF—" I groaned and slammed a pillow over my face. "Stupid-ass double fakeout dreams!" I let out a wordless scream of pure rage into the pillow, angrily kicking my feet up and down as I vented a whole lot of very frustrated emotions I couldn't come up with another way to let out.

I kept it up until I heard someone knocking on my bedroom door. A second later, the maid's voice came through. "Miss Jinx? Are you alright?"

I groaned. "That depends. If I let you in, are you gonna turn out to be some bizarro nightmare doppelgänger version of me?"

After several seconds of painful silence, the maid answered. "…No?"

She didn't sound very sure about that. I sprang to my feet and ripped open the doors to confront her. "Nice try, Beatrice!"

The maid took a startled step back, holding up her hands to ward me off. "M-my name is Annette, Miss Jinx."

I frowned and carefully looked her over. She definitely didn't look like some freaky Piltie version of me. Though maybe that was the idea, and as soon as I turned my back she was gonna rip off her Annette mask and try to replace me so she could go to one of Salo's dumb garden parties or whatever. It's something I might do if I was Beatrice. Which I technically was, depending on how you looked at it.

When that didn't happen after I spent several seconds staring at her, I decided I was probably safe to go back to my normal morning routine. "Ugh, sorry about that. Don't mind me, I had one of those weird dreams that messed with my head."

Annette (if that was her real name) seemed to accept that explanation without any trouble. Or maybe she was just worried about getting in trouble if she argued with me. Ugh, stupid Piltover class divide. If we were both normal Zaunites she probably wouldn't feel like she had to put up with any of my crazy nonsense.

The worst part was that after four years of living with the Kirammans, I'd gotten way too used to having domestic servants. It was nice to have someone help me braid my hair in the morning, or help make my meals, clean up after me, and manage all kinds of other things. It gave me more time to work on engineering stuff. Plus it meant I ate good meals and got a decent amount of sleep even when I was in the zone plugging away at a new project.

By the time I got down to breakfast I was almost feeling like a normal human being again. The meal itself was pretty uneventful unless you counted Mrs. Kiramman being a little suspicious about the fact that Caitlyn had supposedly come down with a cold. She didn't seem inclined to go running into Caitlyn's bedroom to chew her out for getting drunk, so I figured Mr. Kiramman had done a good enough job of settling things down. Hopefully the hangover wasn't kicking her butt too hard. Maybe a little bit of pain would be payback for everything she'd gotten up to last night, but even then I couldn't get too mad about all the drunken antics when she'd never meant to get drunk in the first place.

I was almost in a good mood by the time I was ready to head out to the bridge to meet up with Lux for our big charity event in Zaun. I suppose I should've known that was a bad sign. Whenever things were going too well, it was a sign that the world was about to figure out some new way to punch me in the kidneys.

The first warning sign was when Lux was waiting for me in the plaza near the bridge. Well, her waiting for me wasn't a bad sign in and of itself, she was supposed to do that, but the fact that she'd been standing around looking out for me instead of supervising the people loading up several carts full of food was a sign something wasn't quite right. She smiled when she spotted me, though I was getting the feeling she pretty much just had a permanent case of resting nice girl face, which I hadn't even known was a thing before I met her. "Hello, Jinx. How are you this morning? Did you get Caitlyn home without any trouble?"

"I'm good, and Caitlyn got home fine and is sleeping things off." I took a look around the plaza, trying to figure out what was wrong. I didn't see anything obvious. There were more of the Demacian tin cans and Piltover bluebellies around than I'd like, but that could just be on account of them being the easiest people to conscript into helping load all the wagons up for our little charity trip. It would probably be quicker to just ask her what was up instead of trying to figure it out myself. "So, I'm still learning all your smiles, but that one looks like a 'I'm pretending everything is fine while internally screaming' smile. Something about how it doesn't reach your eyes."

Lux's resting nice girl face almost slipped for a second, and she let out a soft chuckle. "I'll have to work on that." She rapped a fist on her steel breastplate. "This is my armor for dealing with battles." She pointed at her smile. "And this is my armor for conversations. Both are dangerous things to enter without protection."

"Yeah, yeah." I smirked and poked her breastplate as well. "Though that armor of yours doesn't stop everything. Some stuff goes right through metal armor, or could even be drawn to it. You know, like an electrical attack."

Lux rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you'll find a way to make it up to me before we're done." She grabbed my wrist and started hauling me towards the wagons. "Now come on, I need your help. I'm still learning how things work in Piltover, but some people really can't take a hint, and you seem to be able to get away with being a bit blunter than I can be."

I was about to ask what she was talking about when I spotted one of my least favorite people in Piltover: Sheriff Marcus, Grayson's replacement. He was standing around like a jerk, keeping his right hand tucked into his jacket. I'd heard it never quite healed right after Vander busted the heck out of it in his last stand, and that was why he kept it in his jacket all the time. Too bad getting his arm so messed up made the Pilties think he was some kind of hero cop and pick him to replace Grayson. Or maybe the Council just liked him because he kissed butts and never pushed back the way Grayson had.

If he was here, it probably meant he was here to be a pain in the ass. As soon as he opened his mouth, he confirmed my suspicions. "Ah, Miss Kiramman, good. I was just explaining to Lady Crownguard that there seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding about your Enforcer escort for today's trip to the undercity."

Oh goodie, this again. "I'm not sure how there could be a misunderstanding about that when we were pretty clear with the Council about how we don't want any Enforcers tagging along with us." I'd put up with having them around when I was in Piltover playing by their rules, but I'd be damned before I went around Zaun with bluebellies tagging along. At that point I might as well stop pretending and just toss myself into my water plant and see if it really would turn me into some kind of Piltie.

Lux cleared her throat. "As I understand it, there are tensions between the undercity—Zaun, and your Enforcers." Her eyes flicked over to me when she corrected herself and I couldn't help nodding a bit. That name mattered. "I've seen similar problems in Demacia. The poor and desperate people of my home are never comfortable approaching a group of heavily armed guards, and I suspect that's one thing that our nations share in common."

"Yup." I wanted to point out just how bad of a reputation the bluebellies had in Zaun, but for all I knew the Demacians were just as bad. Maybe even worse whenever the Mageseekers were involved, at least Enforcers were mostly just corrupt assholes instead of a bunch of psycho fanatics. "Having a bunch of Enforcers around would scare off all the people who really need help."

Marcus cleared his throat and put on the most condescending voice imaginable, probably the same one he used to talk to his four-year-old daughter. "I understand your concerns, but Lady Crownguard is a visiting foreign dignitary. We didn't even allow her to travel around Piltover without a security detail, and now you're suggesting we let the two of you head into the undercity with no escort?"

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "We'll have local backup. People who actually know Zaun, and can protect us without scaring anyone away." Not to mention I trusted the Firelights a hell of a lot more than any of Marcus's Enforcers. Dirty cops were usually for sale to the highest bidder, and even if they weren't likely to risk causing us trouble I knew we couldn't count on them if things got bad. Most of them were just big bullies, and most weren't interested in getting into a real fight.

Marcus let out a pained sigh and turned to face Lux, probably knowing he wouldn't get anywhere with me. So he wasn't a complete idiot. "Lady Crownguard, surely you understand that we can't possibly entrust the safety and security of someone of your stature to members of a street gang."

"I don't see any reason to question Jinx's judgment," Lux answered with a polite but very insincere smile. "If the Council put her in charge of escorting me around Piltover, I'm sure that they trust her too. If she thinks liaising with the locals is the best way to move forward, then I see no reason to doubt her judgment."

"And I do think that, so ... scoot." I waved him away. "How do you think it's gonna look if Lux and I have to go to the Council to complain about you getting in the way and causing a big diplomatic incident? Just take your boys out for breakfast or something. There's a place nearby that does a great ham egg and cheese sandwich with bacon on it." I covered my mouth and whispered to Lux, just barely loud enough for Marcus to pick up. "Wait, should I not have suggested that? Isn't it kind of cannibalism?"

From the way Marcus's mouth twitched, he'd definitely heard that. Which was the point of saying it, since Lux just looked confused by my joke. I guess that figured when they didn't have anything like Enforcers in Demacia, they still ran things under old-school feudalism. I'd have to explain that kinda thing to her later. It would be pretty hilarious if I could turn a high-ranking foreign noblewoman into a proper anarchist who wanted to tear down the monarchy.

The best part of subtly insulting Marcus to his face was that he couldn't do anything about it. Well, he totally could've if he actually had a spine, but he didn't have the guts to risk running me in. The Kirammans would have his ass for touching me, and Heimerdinger would probably brush the whole thing off as just another example of me being 'an energetic brilliant young mind' or whatever. Mel and the rest of the Council basically treated me, Jayce, and Viktor as the geese that laid the golden eggs of Hextech. I'd say we could get away with anything short of murder, but Mel seemed like the kind of lady who would know how to dispose of a corpse and clean up all the evidence. It seemed like the kinda thing they probably taught all high-ranking Noxian kids. Maybe we could add that as a course in the Academy?

Marcus cleared his throat. "I understand your concerns, but I'm afraid I really must insist on providing some additional security. Perhaps I could send plainclothes officers with you instead of men in full uniform if you're worried about tensions with the locals?"

It wasn't the worst idea if the only problem anyone in Zaun was hating the bluebelly uniforms. The problem was that Enforcers had plenty of experience being assholes out of uniform too. The ones who'd gone and caused trouble in Babbette's all those years ago hadn't been in uniform, after all. In uniform or not, they'd act like Enforcers and cause trouble.

Lux cleared her throat and whispered to me. "If I can offer a suggestion? This kind of reminds me of how my brother would want to send guards with me or tag along himself when I was engaged in charity work. Obviously it's not exactly the same, but whenever he got in that mood I tried to find something for him to do to feel like he was valued and contributing while also making sure he stayed out of the way so I could work in peace. Perhaps we could find something like that for him? Outright snubbing him could cause a headache."

"I suppose we could do something like agree to take an emergency flare with us," I conceded. "Not like we'd ever set it off anyway." I frowned as I thought it over. "Then again, that'd just encourage him. I think it's more like when a poro takes a dump on the carpet: you don't compromise and say he can do his business in certain places or at certain times, that's just gonna confuse his tiny brain. You gotta set a firm rule of no potty business indoors, so they know not to do it anymore. Enforcers are like that, but dumber and meaner."

Lux's smile shifted to a genuine grin for a second, and she let out a soft chuckle. "You really don't like Enforcers, do you? You'll have to explain why when we have time."

I grinned. "We can cover that while we're in Zaun." That just left the question of how to handle Marcus. Even if I wanted to tell Marcus to buzz off, Lux's idea wasn't bad either. Sure, it wasn't as much fun, but if I let him feel like he was getting something out of it he was less likely to do something like just ignore me completely or try to go over my head to the Council.

Whether they'd actually tell him to butt out or not was hard to say, but I wasn't optimistic if he did while I was down in Zaun and he was the only one talking to them. It'd be pretty easy to spin some kind of line about how we might be in danger and the Enforcers needed to go in to prevent any 'incidents.' If Enforcers running around Zaun caused a riot, they'd just see that as proof they'd been right all along, even though they'd been the ones to spark the riot in the first place.

Ugh, what to do?

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 3

How Does Jinx Handle Sheriff Marcus?

[ ][Sheriff] Tell Him to Buzz Off
Issues: Daughter of Zaun (-1), Trauma (-3), Powder (-5)
Failure Consequences: Jinx is undiplomatic about this. Undiplomatic even by Jinx standards.

[ ][Sheriff] Give Him Something To Do To Keep Him Busy
Issues: Daughter of Zaun (-1), Trauma (-3), Powder (-5)
Failure Consequences: Jinx can't stop herself from mocking Marcus.

Willpower

[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Three for +9 to Rolls

 

[Chengar Qordath]

A Light in the Darkness 2​

Spoiler: Vote and Roll

[X][Sheriff] Give Him Something To Do To Keep Him Busy
[X][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
2d6: (1+3)-6 = -2
Failure

Okay, fine, I guess I could give Marcus and his bully boys something to do so they'd feel like they were involved and doing something important. If I left Marcus to his own devices he'd probably go to the Council to try to override me or send people to follow me regardless. He had a pretty consistent record of making terrible decisions, after all.

So I just needed to be diplomatic with the guy. While I was standing within sight of the place where he and his buddies gunned down Vander after he tore them a new one. Easy, right?

"You guys can stick back in Piltover, and if anything goes wrong we'll send up a flare or something." I probably could've left it there, but for some mysterious reason I couldn't resist throwing out one last comment. "We'll call you in if we need to gun down any Zaunite kids. Maybe you can shoot some little girl's dad in front of her and be so reckless about it that you hit the kid too. Maybe tell them all 'stop resisting' while you're at it." Sure, he'd barely grazed me, but that still counted as way too damn reckless. I smirked and threw a pointed look down at the arm he always kept tucked into his jacket. "Of course, you don't shoot so good these days, do you? Why don't you just make yourself useful, and go get us a bacon sandwich?"

Marcus' face turned a really nasty shade of purple, and from the way his eyes narrowed and started darting around I could guess what was going through his mind. Could he get away with acting like as much of an asshole as he really was, or did he need to keep up the respectable act since he was in public? He must've decided he had enough backup to get away with it because a second later he let out a venomous whispered snarl. "Don't think that just because the Kirammans and the Council think you're useful, you've stopped being nothing but another piece of worthless undercity gutter trash. One day they'll—"

I never found out what he thought they'd do, mostly because I cut him off by punching him in the face. It was very satisfying, even if all I did was bloody his lips and make him stagger back. I'd never been as good at punching as Vi was, but it was still enough to make my point. Everyone might have been ignoring us before, but we'd picked up an audience after I popped him. Seeing the Sheriff get decked was the kinda thing that made people start paying a lot more attention. With all those eyes on him Marcus could either back off or double down. Because he was an idiot and an Enforcer (though I repeat myself) he doubled down. "Oh, now you're in trouble, gutter bitch. You just assaulted an officer of the law. Now—"

"Sheriff Marcus!" Lux cut in, stepping in between the two of us and putting a whole lot of that noblewoman authority into her voice. "I am appalled. If we were in Demacia, Jinx would be well within her rights to challenge you to a duel over such abominable behavior. Rest assured, I will be having words with my parents about your behavior, and how it reflects upon Piltover's government that their sheriff acts so abominably."

He froze in place, and when I looked around I noticed the Demacians moving to back Lux up. That seemed to be enough to make the Enforcers start backing off, and Marcus quickly realized he'd been outplayed. He threw one last sneer my way before turning his back on me. "Let's move out, men. We're not needed here. Be careful in the undercity, Jinx. If you call the Enforcers for backup it might take us a long time to respond."

"Good thing I'm not gonna call you, then." I glowered at his back as Marcus took all his bluebelly thugs and buzzed off. Once he was gone I let out a breath and tried to get some of the tension ease out of me. I'd forgotten how much I really didn't like Marcus, probably because I'd never run into him so close to where Vander died before.

I turned to Lux with a grateful smile. "Thanks for backing me up." I probably would've been fine without her help—Marcus was stupid enough to arrest me and maybe rough me up a bit, but the Kirammans would've hit his ass like a ton of bricks once they found out about it. Though all else being equal, I preferred not having to deal with that. Not to mention Lux backing me up made it a lot more likely he would face some kind of consequences.

"Of course." Lux smiled at me. "I don't know all the details of what history you two have, but your sheriff didn't make the best impression and I'd like to think we're friends." She signaled her people to get back to work loading up the carts with supplies and turned back to me. "Now then, from what I was told you are originally from the undercity, and the Kirammans took you in. It sounds like there's a bit more to that history than what was included in the paperwork Piltover shared with us."

"There usually is." I sighed and started heading for the bridge to cross over into Zaun. I didn't love diving into all the messy nastiness of my past, but considering Lux had just stuck her neck out for me I probably owed it to her. "Short version? I'm sure whatever paperwork you got mentioned my family died in some kinda tragic accident or misunderstanding, but the truth is a lot closer to the Enforcers being massive assholes who killed them. It wasn't all on the Enforcers," Silco and Sevika's faces flashed in front of me, "but they played a pretty big part in making everything go to shit. So yeah, I don't like them."

Lux grimaced. "I'm sorry to hear that. I can guess how things went wrong." She quickly glanced around to make sure there were no Demacians nearby before she whispered. "One time, while I was working with the Illuminators, I saw the Mageseekers apprehend a spellcaster. They insisted that he was a dangerous mage who needed to be stopped and contained before he hurt innocent people, but he hadn't been causing any trouble or hurting anyone. He defended himself after the Mageseekers showed up, but that fight would've happened at all if the Mageseekers hadn't attacked him first. If they'd just left him alone maybe he could've had a normal life?"

"Probably." I was tempted to push her a bit more about her opinions on mages, after all her talk yesterday about how magic corrupted people. Probably not a good idea to do that while there were any Demacians around, though. Even if we were both careful to avoid saying anything that could possibly hint at an implication that Lux could potentially have magic powers, she'd probably get in hot water with her parents just sounding like she wasn't all-in on Demacia's anti-magic policies. That was probably the kind of conversation we could only have behind a locked and soundproofed door, like the one to my workshop.

I let out a relieved sigh as we made it to the bridge, and I finally felt like I was leaving Piltover behind. Even if Zaun smelled a little bit like rotten eggs, it was a familiar smell that still kinda reminded me of home even after all this time. Lux didn't seem to care for it judging by the cute way her nose started scrunching up as the scent hit her. "You get used to it."

"I don't think I want to." We walked along for a bit in silence, until Lux took a few quick steps to get in front of me before turning around, walking backward as she leaned forward a bit to look me in the eyes with a grin. "You know, Jinx, you're not what I expected when I first read about you. I suppose that was my mistake for expecting something based on my experiences in Demacia, but even bearing that in mind you've been quite interesting. It's an intriguing sort of contradiction, how sometimes you play the chaotic rebel, and sometimes you have an impressive sense of social responsibility. Most people your age don't care so much about things like learning how to play politics to help provide a city with clean water."

I snickered. "You're one to talk. I wasn't expecting the future Duchess of High Silvermere to want to run around the slums handing out bread to poor people."

Lux shook her head. "My brother's inheriting the main titles, he's older. I'll probably just get a nice little village with a small castle."

"Oh, 'only' a castle, and a small one at that." I blew a stray lock of hair out of my face. "I can just imagine you storming around, yelling about how your castle has five towers and two hundred servants, so you're practically a peasant."

Lux let out a haughty sniff and stuck her nose up in the air. "I would never. Everyone knows it's a castle with three towers or less that makes you no better than a commoner. Five would be acceptable for most nobles, though still a grave insult for one of the illustrious scions of the noble Crownguard family." She managed to keep a straight face for several seconds before she dissolved into giggles.

I chuckled along with her for a bit. "Okay, yeah, but that's my point. I was expecting someone a lot more … I dunno. 'Honor! Tradition! Demacia!'"

"Then it's too bad Garen couldn't join us, he'd be exactly what you were expecting." Lux let out a wistful sigh. "Which is a shame, I would've liked to introduce you to him. You'd…" she trailed off, then chuckled and shook her head. "Actually, you two probably wouldn't get along at all, at least at first. You're both good people, so I'm sure you'd figure it out, but like you said, he's a big believer in honor, tradition, and Demacia's honorable traditions and traditional honor. I love my homeland too, but I'm not blind to where it can be better. If Demacia was perfect, it wouldn't need the Illuminators doing charity work in the first place."

"Yeah, I get that." My eyes shifted over to the grimy pollution-covered shamble of buildings that was Zaun. It didn't look like the kind of place that would inspire nostalgia. "When I was younger, growing up in Zaun, it was easy to hate Piltover and everything it stood for. Now I know it's a lot more complicated than just saying that everything and everyone in Piltover is bad. Even with the Council, it's hard to think of Heimerdinger as a heartless uncaring oppressor when he's the Academy headmaster who responds to most of my pranks by eagerly asking me to explain how I managed to sneak past all his security. I guess most people are more complicated than just being good guys or bad guys."

Lux nodded along. "There might be a few extremes on both ends of the spectrum, but I think you're right. Most people are complicated."

"So getting back to you, then." I gave Lux a once-over. "You're way less snooty and stuck-up than I was expecting out of a Demacian noble, and a lot more smiley and nice. Though after what I saw last night and what you said about your smile being like your armor, I've gotta wonder how much of what I've seen is the real you."

Lux tsked and wagged a finger at me. "Miss Jinx, I don't know how things are done in Piltover, but in Demacia a proper noblewoman never takes off her armor on a first date." She glanced at something behind me. "One moment, I need to check on the wagons."

As she walked off, there was a single question burning its way through my mind. "When did this become a date?"

---

Ekko and the Firelights were waiting for us on the other side of the Pilt. Naturally, the first thing I did after spotting my best friend was run over and hug him until it felt like I was about to crack his ribs. About halfway through doing that I spotted a problem, backing away half a step and then placing a hand on top of his head. Then I brought it back to mine.

Oh no, this was a big problem. Huge. Titanic, even. "Ekko, who gave you permission to get as tall as I am? Because it definitely wasn't me."

Ekko raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know I needed your permission to keep getting taller. I thought it was just a natural part of growing up and getting older."

I scoffed and glanced back at Lux. "Can you believe this guy?" I sighed and shook my head tutting at him like the misbehaving child he was. "Ekko, Ekko, Ekko. You're allowed to grow up and get taller, obviously. You're just not allowed to get as tall as I am. That's just messing with the natural order of the universe."

"I wasn't aware that it was written into the laws of the universe that you would always be taller than me," Ekko chuckled. "Must've missed that in the physics textbooks you let me borrow."

"See, this is why they never let you into the Academy even though you're almost as smart as I am." I subtly adjusted my posture, making sure I was standing up straight to get as much height as I could without looking completely ridiculous. After a second Ekko smirked and did the same thing, looking me dead in the eyes.

Lux grinned at me. "Actually I think he might be just a bit taller than you, Jinx."

"What? No, that can't be—" I tried running a hand between the top of my head to his and— "Nope! Nuh-uh! Not happening! No way! I can maybe eventually learn to live with Ekko being around the same height as me, but there is absolutely no way in Janna's blessed Zaun I will ever accept that Ekko could possibly be even just a little bit taller than me!" I glowered at him. "You're cheating, somehow. Do you have platform shoes on, or lifts in your boots? C'mon, spill your secrets!" I tried to grab one of his feet so I could get a closer look at them, but he pulled back and refused to cooperate. Which I quite reasonably assumed was just more proof of his lying ways.

What I needed was a good distraction. "Anyway. Ekko, allow me to introduce Lady Luxanna Crownguard of High Silvermere, part of the Demacian delegation to Piltover and Zaun. Lux, this is Ekko, he's in charge of the Firelights. I guess he's pretty okay, aside from being a no-good dirty liar who's still pretending to be taller than me."

Ekko rolled his eyes at me, but offered his hand to Lux. "Nice to meet you, Lady Crownguard. I don't know much about what's going on with your family and Piltover, and I'm only mostly sure I could point to where Demacia is on a map, but we appreciate the help."

"Of course," Lux answered with her usual friendly smile. "And just call me Lux, I don't want to stand on ceremony, especially with one of Jinx's friends. I trust she's brought you up to speed on what we're doing?"

Ekko nodded along. "You're gonna be handing out food, and we watch your backs and make sure things are orderly and nobody tries to start trouble or steal from you."

"It should be fairly straightforward," Lux agreed. "We just want a little backup to make sure we don't want to get mobbed by desperate hungry people. That's a recipe for chaos that ends with good food going to waste. Not to mention that without security we have some would-be merchants taking more than their share so they can sell off our charity for a profit, or scammers trying to charge people for what we're giving away."

"Simple enough," Ekko agreed. "It'd be a bit easier if we were handling the giveaway completely through our own channels instead of you going out to do it yourself, but I'm gonna guess you're talking from experience with that remark about people trying to sell off or make a scam out of your charity."

Lux sighed and nodded. "It's inevitable when you're giving away something people normally sell for money. The Illuminators have had quite a few unfortunate incidents in the past. It's why we prefer to work entirely within our own circles instead of trusting local authorities. Sometimes even respectable noble families have stooped to stealing money and goods meant for the poor. It's not that I don't trust you, Jinx speaks quite highly of you, but..."

"But it's a bit easier to trust us if you're on the ground watching all the food you brought go out to people who need it," Ekko finished for her. "Don't worry, I get it. You probably won't find many people in Zaun who haven't been burned sometime by trusting the wrong person. Honestly, one of the benefits of having us around is that it'll help more people trust that you're not some kinda scammer or trying to give away bad food."

"That had occurred to me as well," Lux agreed with a tight smile. "In Demacia the Iluminators are a known and respected institution, but I doubt many people in Zaun have heard of us."

"We don't get many Demacians in Zaun," I agreed. "And really, odds are decent most of the ones who live here aren't gonna be inclined to draw attention to themselves." If any mages made it out of Demacia one step ahead of the Mageseekers, Zaun was probably only second to Bilgewater for being the kinda place you'd expect someone poor, desperate, and on the run to end up hiding.

Ekko turned to me. "Speaking of, where do you fit into all this, Jinx?" He waved a hand towards the other Firelights. "You gonna be sticking with Lux? On patrol with us? Or were you just gonna spend all your time trying to prove I'm using some sort of dirty trick to make myself taller than you?"

Rather than answer him with words, I darted down and grabbed his boot, hauling it up into the air and ignoring his protests as she struggled to remain standing. "What do you call this?!" I pointed at the raised surface attached to the bottom of his boot.

Ekko sighed. "A sole? Your shoes have them too."

"A likely story." I scowled at him. "Get barefoot. It's the only way to prove you're not cheating."

Ekko looked down at the pavement, then back up at me. "You want me to get barefoot in the middle of Zaun, just to prove my boots aren't giving me some fraction of a centimeter of a height advantage over you?"

"Yeah, obviously." I smirked and let our a pained sigh. "I thought you were supposed to be smart, Ekko."

My best friend just sighed and shook his head.

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 2

What Does Jinx Do During the Charity Convoy? (Pick 2)

[ ] Accompany Lux while handing out food.

[ ] Try to uncover the secret to Ekko's tallness (and maybe talk to him).

[ ] Bug the rest of the Fireflies.

[ ] Try to learn how to use one of the hoverboards.

[ ] Focus on perimeter patrol and security.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

A Light in the Darkness 3​

Spoiler: Vote

[X] Focus on perimeter patrol and security.
[X] Try to uncover the secret to Ekko's tallness (and maybe talk to him).
[X] Accompany Lux while handing out food.

It'd been way too long since I'd been properly out and about in Zaun during the daytime. Between Academy classes, setting up the water plant, and everything else I'd been up to there'd just been too much going on in Piltover. Plus with Silco running things most of my trips to Zaun actually involved just heading to the Fireflies' HQ to hang with them. I didn't want to risk a run-in with Silco's goons, after all.

At first I thought that at least Zaun was still the same as ever, but the more time I spent here, the more I realized things had changed. Zaun had always been a rough slum, that was what made it Zaun in the first place. But all the bad parts of it seemed a bit worse than I'd remembered. The streets seemed dirtier, the buildings a bit more run-down, and the people leaner and hungrier. For every person who met us with a happy smile, another had nothing for us but a suspicious glare and muttered comments. It wasn't like the city was in total decay or anything, but now it felt like it was decaying. When Vander had been around, there was a much stronger sense that even if things were rough, we were all in this together and trying to lift our poor city up.

I quickly discovered one big problem with my whole elaborate plan of participating in Lux's whole food giveaway and charity drive. Looks like four years hadn't been enough for everyone to completely forget about me, or rather the old version of someone they thought was still me. "Is that little Powder? Look at you, all grown up and fancy! I bet Vander would be tickled pink if he could see you now." The old lady raised a fist in an old revolutionary salute. "Zaun stands."

"Yeah, Zaun stands, but it's Jinx now." I didn't have it in me to stop and explain to every single person who still used my old name why I'd changed it up. I'd barely even explained it to people like Caitlyn, Ekko, and Seraphine who'd been there for the whole thing. Why did everyone wanna talk about Powder all of a sudden when she'd been dead and buried for years? Though I guess that was gonna happen when I started talking to Zaunites who'd never gotten to know me but still remembered when I was Vander's little kid.

If that had been the worst of it, maybe I would've been okay. Too bad it wasn't. I was in the middle of helping Lux hand out some more of that brown Demacian bread and something called salt pork (which I somehow figured out was some kinda pork with lots of salt in it) and corned beef (which confusingly didn't have any corn in it) when things took a really bad turn. Some weedy-looking guy who I vaguely recognized from The Last Drop smiled at me as he took his supplies. "Did Silco send you, Powder? He's been doing a great job keeping things running since the Pilties killed Vander. Yes, a very great job." Weedy Guy did this weird kinda twitch as he started walking off with his food. "Great man, Silco..."

I wanted to scream. Or blow something up. Or set it on fire. Preferably all three at once. The only thing worse than knowing Silco had gotten away with killing Vander was how so many people in Zaun seemed to think he was some kind of revolutionary hero who was carrying on Vander's legacy. Someone even put up a big graffiti mural of Silco's ugly mug, carrying the flag of Zaun with Vander walking behind him, smiling approvingly. It was like seeing Vander get killed all over again, except worse. Silco hadn't stopped at murdering him, now he was trampling on his legacy and ruining everything he'd ever stood for.

I growled and passed my care package over to Lux. "I'm gonna go check the perimeter for a bit. Lemme know if you need anything." I didn't wanna lose my cool and ruin everything she was working so hard to accomplish.

The worst part was that I couldn't even really get mad at most of the people talking to me. Yeah, it pissed me off that they were buying all of Silco's lies, but how were they supposed to know any better? Despite everything the Firelights had been doing to fight back Silco still ran the streets. A lot of people didn't know any version of events other than what they'd heard from him and his goons. How could they when only me and the Firelights knew the truth? As long as Silco kept the bad people rich, the good people scared, and everyone else ignorant Zaun would belong to him.

I started checking down alleyways. I wasn't sure if we needed to worry about Silco sending goons to jump us, that would bring a lot of heat down on him, but I didn't want to take that risk if I didn't need to. You never wanna look like an easy target in Zaun, or someone will take a shot at you just for the hell of it. Especially when we were giving away food that someone could be selling for money. Silco might be smart enough to think about long-term consequences, but there were plenty of desperate people who couldn't afford to worry about the long term. Who cares about what'll happen in a week when you might starve to death tomorrow?

I was gonna go looking for something to do to blow off a little steam when I spotted that weird weedy-looking guy from earlier. He had his food tucked under one arm, while the other was digging around in his jacket for something. After a few seconds, he finally found it, pulling out a vial of...

Vander dropped the flask. What came out of it didn't look like any drink I'd ever seen before. It was bright pinkish-purple, not the brown or clear color booze usually was. From the way Vander started gagging and how his veins started turning purple,

In an instant I'd crossed the distance to the weedy guy and snatched the vial of pinkish liquid out of his hands. "What the hell? Where did you get this?!"

"Give that back!" From the way he was glaring at me and clenching his teeth I wondered if he was gonna try to attack me. I pulled out Zapper, cranking it up high enough to deal with him if he tried anything.

"They call it Shimmer." Ekko stepped into the alleyway, gently putting a hand on my outstretched arm and pointing my gun away from Weedy Guy. "Silco's been pumping the streets full of it lately. Nobody knows exactly what it is, but it's one of the most popular drugs on the market right now, and Silco's the only one making it." Ekko sighed and turned to Weedy Guy. "Huck, I thought you said you were gonna quit and get clean."

"I was," Weedy Guy, Huck, complained. "I was just gonna take a small little hit. You know, to take the edge off, and keep the shakes from getting too bad."

Ekko sighed and shook his head. "You think you're the first Shimmer-head to use that excuse? Take the food, find somewhere quiet to hole up, and ride it out cold turkey. The sooner you get that junk outta your system, the better off you'll be."

Huck slumped down and slowly started wandering off, pausing to throw one last resentful glower back at us as he retreated. Once I was sure he was safely out of earshot, I turned to Ekko. "This is the same shit Silco dosed Vander with years ago. The stuff that made him go berserk and take out half the Enforcers in Piltover."

"It doesn't make people go crazy and sprout huge muscles," Ekko pointed out. "So I don't think it's the exact same. He's probably been tweaking the formula since then. Or he's just not selling the version of it that makes people into supersoldiers. This stuff just gets people high and hooked." He grimaced and added. "And since it's Silco we're dealing with, probably a lot of other stuff we don't know about. We don't exactly have the scientific know-how to figure out everything about how it works."

I thought it over for a second, then tucked the vial away in a secure pocket. "I might be able to figure something out or find someone else who can do it." Drugs weren't exactly in my usual research wheelhouse, but there was bound to be someone at the Academy who studied medicine, organic chemistry, or whatever science you needed to figure out Shimmer. Or I could just do some studying and take a few classes to learn it myself. What was the point of going to a fancy Piltie school if I never learned anything new?

"Right." Ekko seemed to hesitate for a second before clearing his throat. "So, uh, you good? You kinda bailed on us pretty suddenly."

I groaned and leaned back against the alley wall, slowly running a hand down my face. "Just got a lot going on right now, and the current state of Zaun isn't helping. At least it's not all bad, I knocked Marcus's block off on the way over here."

"Badass." Ekko grinned at me. "You gonna get in trouble for that?"

"Nah, he was being an asshole who had it coming." I scoffed. "Maybe Mrs. Kiramman will give me a lecture about keeping my cool, but she'll rip him a new one when he hears what he said to deserve that punch. She'd probably wanna smack him too, if not for all that pesky Council protocol. It's everything else that's got me down."

"Yeah, I get that." Ekko sighed and leaned against the wall next to me. "Feels like no matter what we try, Zaun's slipping away from us. Especially now that I'm having to step in more and more for Benzo."

I flinched. "I thought he was bouncing back from that whole heart thing he had last year. Do you need me to try to get more pills?" It'd scared the crap outta me when he just fell down clutching his chest one day while I was hanging in Firefly HQ. I'd gotten a weird look from the Kirammans when I'd tried to ask about what kinda meds would help with that, but once I explained everything they'd eventually helped hook me up.

Ekko shook his head. "I don't think it's pills or anything, I think it just kinda made him feel his years a bit more. By the time he bounced back from being sick he'd been stuck in bed so long he'd lost a lot of muscle, and at his age once you're out of shape it's a lot harder to get back into it. Especially when he still needs to take it easy on his ticker." He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "He can still keep things running back at home base, but he says running around getting into gang fights is a job for young men and women. Scar helps out a lot, but you know how he is, one of those strong silent types."

"Don't worry, you got this." I grinned and punched his arm. "Nobody's gonna mess with you when they know you could kick their butts. Especially with your new, not at all suspicious tallness."

"I'm barely taller than you," Ekko pointed out. "Really, if you wanna talk about tallness, you should take it up with the Kirammans. I don't think either of us stands a chance of catching up with Caitlyn."

"The freaky tall person genes do seem to run in that family." I chuckled and shook my head. "I've been thinking about getting a giant hat, but that would help me fit in more or just make it more obvious I'm shorter?"

Ekko shrugged. "No idea. Though the other day Zeri was telling me I should try to grow a mohawk to help me look a bit bigger." He chuckled and shook his head. "Speaking of the K's, are they still treating you good? You know if things ever go south with them, you've got us. I know you never officially joined up or anything, but as far as I'm concerned you're a Firelight, and I'm pretty sure everyone else agrees."

"The Kirammans? Yeah, they're good." I wanted to just leave it at that, but with everything that had been going on lately I kinda needed to bend someone's ear about it, and Ekko was about the safest person in all of Runeterra for me to talk to. "Though, uh, speaking of them, something did come up the other day. They, uh, they said they wanna adopt me."

Ekko frowned and cocked his head to the side. "Didn't they do that four years ago?"

I groaned and waved his question away. "Nah. They took me in and everything, but there was never an official formal adoption with all the paperwork and legal stuff saying I'm a full-on member of the family. It changes everything."

"Does it?" Ekko stopped slouching against the wall, standing up straight and facing me. "You think of Vander as your dad, and everyone calls you one of his kids, right?"

I scoffed. "Yeah, hearing that from everyone who recognized me is half the reason I'm out checking the perimeter instead of shaking babies and kissing hands or whatever Lux is doing right now. Why?"

Ekko let out a soft snort and smirked at me. "Now Jinx, I know you've gone all soft and Piltie on us, but do you really think Vander went into a courthouse and filed a bunch of legal paperwork to say that you, Vi, and the others were all legally his adopted children?"

"Of course he didn't." I sighed and started bouncing one of my braids between my hands. "But that's how things work in Zaun, nobody bothers doing things the official way. It's different in P-town."

"Maybe if you're a lawyer fighting in a courtroom," Ekko agreed. "Otherwise? I'm not so sure. A couple of minutes ago you sounded pretty sure the Kirammans would have your back after you punched out the Sheriff of Piltover. Dunno about you, but that sounds like some real mom and dad stuff to me."

It wasn't that simple. "But what about—"

Ekko cut me off. "As far as anyone in Zaun goes, none of us care what the law says one way or the other. The people who think less of you for living with the Kirammans won't give a damn if you're not officially one of them, and nobody who's cool with it is gonna change their mind. I know you say things are different in Piltover, but I snagged one of their papers when they were celebrating you opening up the water plant, and that paper had your name as 'Jinx Kiramman' right there in plain black and white."

"Apparently that's what my name was in all the official paperwork they sent to Lux and the Demacians too." I sighed and buried my face in my hands. "So … what? You're saying it doesn't actually matter if I get adopted or not because everyone is gonna assume I'm a Kiramman either way?"

Ekko smiled and gripped my shoulder. "No. If it matters to you, then it matters. What I'm saying is that you should pick whatever answer seems right for you. You don't need to worry about me, it wouldn't even be the first time you've changed your name since we became friends."

I glowered at him. "I'm not changing my name to Lady Beatrice Eleanor Priscilla Kiramman. If I change it at all, it'll just be Jinx Kiramman."

"That's… extremely specific." Ekko shook his head. "My point is, whatever you do, don't do it because you think it'll change how anyone in Zaun or Piltover or anywhere else is gonna look at you. Do it because it's what you want. It's your name, if you're not happy with it, what's the point? If anyone else has a problem with that, they're probably not worth worrying about to begin with."

Huh. That wasn't half-bad advice. It was like Ekko was my best friend who really got me or something.

As we started heading back to the convoy, he had to go and ruin the moment. "So what's the deal with you and this Demacian princess anyway? 'Cause call me crazy, but it seems like you two have a bit of a vibe going on."

"You're crazy," I deadpanned. "There's no vibe. And she's not a princess, just a duke's daughter." Sure, she'd maybe flirted with me once or twice, but I was pretty sure she'd just done that to mess with me. No way anything would come of it.

"If you say so…" He smirked and lightly elbowed me. "So does that mean I've got a shot, then?"

I scoffed. "With me, or with her?"

He shrugged. "I'm flexible."

I snorted and punched his arm. "You're an asshole, is what you are." I threw an arm over his shoulders as we headed back to the convoy.

I was back at Lux's side a few minutes later, helping her hand out food. From the way her eyes flicked over towards me a few times I knew she had questions, but was probably saving them for when there weren't any people around.

Those suspicions proved accurate, because as soon as we were done with that round of handouts and we'd mounted up in the wagons to head to the next location she pounced. "Is everything alright? You seemed a bit upset when you left so suddenly, but I wasn't sure whether you wanted me to come after you to check on you, or give you some space to handle things on your own."

"You're good, Ekko came after me." Plus while Lux and I were getting along pretty decently, there was still a lot of history she just wasn't part of and wouldn't get. "Ekko and I go way back, so he's kind of already in the know about a lot of what happened when I still lived in Zaun, and all the stuff that happened to make me leave Piltover. I doubt the Council mentioned any of it in whatever paperwork they sent your way."

Lux shook her head. "It was a single paragraph of information, not a full biography. You were working with Mr. Talis and Viktor when there was a family tragedy, and the Kirammans took you in. The rest of the information focused on your accomplishments as a student and Hextech researcher."

"Sounds like the kind of info they'd send," I agreed.

She sighed and placed one of her gloved hands on top of mine. "Though I can make a guess or two about what they left out. Considering how much you seem to dislike the Enforcers in general and Sheriff Marcus in particular, I take it the Enforcers were involved in the 'family tragedy' the paperwork referred to? And that their behavior was less than honorable?"

"Understatement of the century," I grunted. "Though it wasn't all on the Enforcers. Some of it was an old enemy of Vander's who came crawling out of the woodwork to get payback and a friend we thought we could trust. That old enemy is kinda the top dog in Zaun these days, and he's got a lot of people thinking he's some kinda hero carrying on Vander's legacy."

"If Sheriff Marcus was involved in the death of your loved ones, then I'm glad I supported you against him." She gently squeezed my hand. "If not for all the reasons why that would be an extremely bad idea, I would've been tempted to throw a gauntlet at his feet and demand satisfaction."

"Yeah, we don't do that here." I snorted and couldn't resist adding. "Plus I doubt Marcus has ever given anyone satisfaction. He says his wife died in childbirth, but rumor had it that she actually just ran off with a hunky sailor from Bilgewater after the kid she was carrying came out not looking enough like her husband." I had no idea if that was true, probably not considering I'd just made it up, but the truth had never gotten in the way of a good rumor. And really, there was a chance it could be true, which was almost as good as it actually being true. Plenty of Enforcers lost spouses because of 'job stress,' which I always assumed was some kind of polite code for being a massive asshole.

Lux opened her mouth, but before she could speak one of the Fireflies poked her head in. "We've got trouble."

"Oh great." I stepped out of the wagon and found Ekko facing off with a shirtless guy whose torso was covered in really bad tattoos. Not only had he managed to misspell 'fuck,' he'd done it in two different ways. And then this brilliant example of Zaunite intelligence had that embarrassment permanently inscribed into his skin.

I walked up next to Ekko and whispered. "Who's this asshole? Looks kinda familiar."

"Deckard," Ekko murmured back. "He runs a petty street gang."

"He with Silco?" I asked.

"He pays tribute and does some odd jobs for Silco, but I don't think he's with Silco's organization," Ekko answered. "Just someone who busts a few heads, pushes Shimmer, and collects protection money."

That tracked. It was a lot simpler to let the street gangs run themselves, and just collect tribute and hand out the occasional job to whoever the current top dogs were. Especially since Zaun street gangs got into turf wars and skirmishes that led to them constantly swapping territory and changing in strength.

"Hey, fancy Piltie girl," Deckard smirked and tried to flex his unimpressive muscles to look intimidating. "Maybe the Dumbflies didn't tell you how things work, but if you wanna pass through my territory, you gotta pay the fee." He smirked at Ekko. "It'll be a big fee, Silco's offering a lot for your head, so you gotta make it worth my time." He turned back to me. "Though I doubt you fancy types care about that. Tell you what, we'll give you a discount on the toll if you drop that zero," he pointed at Ekko, "And get with the me-ro!" He grinned and pointed both thumbs at himself.

I let out an incredulous scoff. "Is he for real?"

Ekko sighed. "Unfortunately, he is. We can take his gang without too much trouble, they have a very inflated opinion of themselves."

I snorted, "Ya don't say?"

Ekko let out a quiet chuckle. "Not sure if a fight is the call you wanna make, though. Fights can get messy, and it could get us a lot of attention we don't need. If you wanna try to talk him down, or just pay him off and keep moving I'll understand."

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 2

What Does Jinx Do About the Gang?

[ ][Gang] Start blasting
No Roll Needed

[ ][Gang] Try to Talk Them Down
Issues: Trauma (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1), Daughter of Zaun (-1)
Failure Result: Negotiations fail, a fight starts without the element of surprise.

[ ][Gang] Just Bribe Them
Issues: Trauma (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1), Daughter of Zaun (-1)
Failure Result: The thugs see Jinx as weak and squeeze her for more supplies.

Willpower

[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls

 

[Chengar Qordath]

A Light in the Darkness 4​

Spoiler: Vote

[X][Gang] Start blasting
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero

"Screw that." I whipped out Zapper and blasted this wannabe badass right in his badly tattooed chest, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. It was hard not to laugh at the dumb look on his face as he started twitching on the ground like a fish out of water. Lux hadn't done that when I zapped her, but then I'd hit her with a lower setting.

Not that I'd cranked Zapper all the way up to max power, so Deckard should be fine. Eventually. Unless he had some kinda heart condition. Or brain condition. Or ... well I was still pretty sure that he'd probably be okay. And if he died, would it really be that big of a loss? The guy wanted to shake down a charity convoy giving away food to starving people, Zaun could do without him. Yeah, yeah, all human life was precious and he had a family and all that, but was this time and this guy really the place where we wanted to stand on principle?

While Deckard was on the ground groaning and twitching the rest of his gang charged in, only to get intercepted by the Firelights. I was in the middle of drawing a bead on the guy who was trying to knock Ekko's block off when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye: Lux getting out of the wagon and drawing her sword. "Nope. Nuh-uh. Sit that cute butt of your back down and let us handle this, Lux."

Lux frowned at me, stubbornly shaking her head. "I can fight. I didn't take all those swordplay lessons with Aunt Tianna so I could sit on the sidelines and do nothing when we're being attacked. I'm going to help."

"You're the VIP we're supposed to be protecting," I pointed out. "If you get scuffed up in a street fight with some wannabe gangbangers the Council's gonna be after my ass. Not to mention whatever your parents are gonna think about me getting you messed up in a fight."

From the way she set her feet and the pout building up on her face, I could tell she wasn't gonna accept that. I wanted to be annoyed by that, but I couldn't blame her. Normally I wouldn't be too bothered over hacking off the Council or some fancy nobles either. Of course, there was another good reason to keep her out of the fighting. I dropped my voice to a careful whisper. "I know you wanna be a light in the darkness to Zaun, but think about how messy things could get if you're a little too worked up once the fighting gets going."

I didn't know a ton about how mages and fighting worked, but I was gonna bet that once her blood was up and things got intense it'd be a lot harder for her to hold her magic back. Not to mention if some bad guy got the edge on her and she was in a tight spot she'd break out her magic to turn things around. While basting some goon with magic was obviously better than letting herself get shanked by some no-account ganger, it would cause a whole heap of trouble I'd rather not have to deal with.

She grimaced but didn't argue the point further, which meant she knew I was right. I got it, I'd always kinda hated not being able to contribute whenever Vi got into a scrap with some of the other kids in Zaun. Sure, they were all bigger than me and would've kicked my butt if I'd tried, which was why I usually hid or ran away, but I'd always hated having to do that instead of being able to have her back.

Lux sat back down, and I took that as a signal that it was safe for me to jump back into things. I was impressed by how well Ekko was holding his own in his fight, but maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. All that time training with the Firelights was bound to pay off sooner or later. "Hey, Ekko! Is this one of those times where you want everyone to sit back and handle your fight by yourself to prove you can win things fair and square?"

"Hell no!" Ekko grunted as he caught a kick to the ribs, countering with a punch to the face that sent his opponent staggering back, while Ekko hopped away to create more distance between them. "Shoot his ass!"

I shrugged and didn't waste any time doing exactly that, dropping the guy Ekko had been up against with a single shot from Zapper. "You're welcome!"

Ekko rolled his eyes. "I was gonna say thanks once I caught my breath, but if you're gonna be like that I won't even warn you about the guy on your left."

I grinned and ducked away just in time to avoid getting clocked by the guy flanking me. I wasn't a close-quarters brawler like Ekko was, or Vi had been, but I knew some moves. I kept dodging and dancing away from the big muscle-covered grunt, waiting for him to get pissed off and make a mistake. It didn't take long for him to get mad and come after me a bit too aggressively, leaving himself wide open after he swiped at me with one of his massive paws. He'd have to do better than that if he ever wanted to hit me.

I kicked his knee as I danced back, making him stagger. I didn't have the muscle to snap his leg or make it bend backward or anything cool like that, but then I didn't need to inflict any kind of massive damage to win. Just making him slow down for a second while he had to get his balance back gave me more than enough time to back off and bring Zapper to bear, ending the fight.

I took a moment to metaphorically pat myself on the back for handling a close-quarters fight before taking stock of the wider battlefield. Well, maybe that's giving our little gang brawl a bit too much scope and grandeur. I could help Scar out, but it was always hard to get a read on that guy. Plus he was already winning, so I'd just be getting involved for the sake of saying I contributed. Ekko was kicking butt against one of the second-string gangers, plus I'd already helped him out once before.

That left Zeri. She was good in a scrap, from what I'd seen of her sparring practice she was quick enough that I would have a hard time keeping up with her, but right now she was having a rough time of it. Probably because between muscle and fat the guy she was up against weighed three times as much as her. Speed's great, but eventually you gotta have the muscle to hit hard and take hits back. Or just be like me and shoot the big guys.

I drew a bead on the guy and waited for a good opening. "Zeri, dodge left!"

An instant after I pulled the trigger Zeri darted to the side, placing her and her yellow-green pigtails in the line of fire. I groaned as the bolt left Zapper's barrel, "No, your other left!" She wouldn't take a direct hit, but Zapper's bolts tended to arc towards anything nearby even if they would be a direct hit.

I was about to let out a few very colorful curse words when something unexpected happened. When Zapper's electricity hit Zeri, instead of dropping her to the ground like it had anyone else, it kinda just passed through her, then went straight into the big slab of muscle she'd been up against. I could swear the lighting had changed from the usual Hextech blue of Zapper to more of a yellow-green color too.

Whatever it was, it must've made the blast a lot stronger, because when it hit the thug it didn't just stun him and drop him to the ground like the guys I'd shot before. Instead the guy let out an utterly blood-curdling scream as he fell to the ground, and I could see smoke coming off of him as he twitched. The lack of groaning and moaning also wasn't a great sign. At least that seemed to take a lot of the fight out of the rest of Deckard's gang, letting Ekko, Scar, and the others mop them up.

Once that was settled I went to check on Zeri and the guy she'd been fighting. Zeri looked okay as far as I could tell, but I'm an engineer, not a doc. "All your insides still in one piece?"

"Yeah," Zeri grimaced, looking over at the guy she'd been fighting. "Is he…?"

I went over for a look, but I didn't need medical training to figure out the answer to her question. "Oh yeah, this guy's definitely cooked."

I spotted Zeri's face turning green, and just barely managed to dodge out of the splash zone before she puked. The Firelights had been in scraps before, but one of the unwritten rules of gang fights in Zaun was that you didn't make things lethal unless the other guy crossed that line first. Like most of Zaun's rules, it was really more like a vibe than an ironclad law, but it was still a line the Firelights tried not to cross. Killing people was how blood feuds started, and if every scuffle between two gangs started one of those Zaun would rip itself to pieces.

Once Ekko was done calming Zeri down, cleaning up the barf, and reassuring her that she was gonna be okay or whatever, I spoke up. "I'll take care of the blood money. I pulled the trigger." I didn't love the idea of having to pay out to Deckard of all people, especially when this fight started over him trying to extort us, but I didn't want Ekko and his gang having to pay for it, or being stuck in a blood feud.

Though come to think of it, I still had no idea what had made Zapper's bolt act that way. It was like when it hit Zeri it passed through her and got powered up somehow. Maybe it had something to do with Zeri? Did she have a lot of copper in her diet or something?

As I puzzled over the mystery of why this guy was dead in the first place, the smell of the fried thug reminded me that it had been several hours of work and one pretty serious fight since breakfast. Then my mouth started moving without consulting my brain first. "Speaking of cooked, wonder what he'd taste like?"

The sudden silence after I spoke was deafening. I turned around and found everybody staring at me with varying levels of concern on their faces. I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Oh come on! I'm not some kind of psycho cannibal or something, I'd never actually eat another person. I was just… you know…"

Ekko sighed. "Jinx? You know that thing most people have in their head that tells them, 'Hey, maybe I shouldn't say that out loud?' I think yours is broken."

I shrugged. "Yeah, probably. Just be glad I'm not letting the intrusive thoughts win." Which just reminded me of how a couple of weeks back I'd come up with an idea for a bomb where I'd take two big chunks of unrefined Hexgems and use some conventional explosives to ram them together super-fast. I wanted to crunch the numbers and see how that'd work, but I think if Jayce ever saw that math he'd have a heart attack.

"Anyway, let's deal with Deckard." I turned around to have a word with the gang leader. That was when I discovered we had a much bigger problem on our hands now.

Deckard wasn't lying on the ground anymore. Instead he was being held in the air by one of the biggest people I'd ever seen, if they even were a person. Whoever it was, they were wearing a set of chemtech-enhanced armor that put all the steel platemail that the Demacians were wearing to shame. Though Demacian armor didn't usually involve so many spiky bits. Whatever they were looked a lot closer to a massive steel golem than any kind of person, especially with the helmet completely covering their face.

Of course, a golem would mean magic, and there wasn't any of that involved in this being. I could see tubes running all through the armor, visible wherever joints opened up, all feeding from two canisters on the thing's back. Judging by the colors from the feed lines one was for chemfuel and the other was for Shimmer. Which at least confirmed that there was someone alive in there, probably. Whatever was going on with the whole thing, it was clearly bad news. Not to mention extremely strong, judging by how it was able to easily hoist Deckard up into the air in just one of its massive mechanical gauntlets.

"Shit," Ekko hissed under his breath. "It's The Tank."

"The Tank?" I whispered back.

"That's what we call them. Nobody knows who's in that giant suit. They just showed up one day and started kicking all kinds of ass. The only reason the Firelights are still around is that we've never had to go up against The Tank." Ekko answered. "What really matters is that they're Silco's number one enforcer. Which means…"

"Deckard, Deckard, Deckard…" the voice that had a permanent place in my nightmares hissed, and a second later Silco stepped out from behind The Tank. "I gave very simple orders. The convoy from topside was supposed to be watched but allowed to proceed unmolested. But you just had to get greedy and try to shake them down anyway. Did you think I wouldn't know? Zaun is mine. Now look at what you've made me do…"

He twitched a finger, and The Tank brought their other massive gauntlet down on Deckard's head. The result was very obviously lethal. Well, so much for having to pay blood money to Deckard.

Silco sighed and flicked a tiny remnant of Deckard's skull off of his suit before turning to face us. "Firelights, shall we call a food and water truce for the moment? Now is not the time to settle our differences."

Ekko's eyes lingered on The Tank for a long moment before he reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, we won't start anything if you don't."

Silco nodded, and the two leaders approached each other. Silco reached into his jacket, and I tensed up ready to shoot him until he pulled out a flask and handed it over to Ekko. For a second I feared he was gonna try to to dose Ekko with Shimmer the way he had with Vander, but Ekko had the sense to pour a little out onto the ground instead. Once that was done, Ekko handed over one of the loaves of bread from our wagons.

Lux watched it all play out, then turned to me and whispered. "What's going on? He called it a food and water truce?"

"It's an old gang custom," I explained. "Basically, anywhere that serves food and water is always supposed to be neutral ground for all the gangs. Nobody wants to get on the bad side of the guy serving drinks or serving up the best seafood you can get in Zaun." Like most gang customs in Zaun, whether people actually respected the rules could be a bit spotty. "It kinda mutated a little, so now anytime you swap food or eat and drink together it's taken as a way to signal you're serious about not fighting each other for a bit."

Lux's eyes lingered on The Tank. "Good thing there's not going to be a fight. That thing looks horrifying and very hard to kill."

"I wouldn't be so sure we're out of the woods on a fight." Silco must have had some kind of truce with Vander when he'd dosed him with Shimmer and killed him, after all. People broke Zaun's rules all the time, they just made sure they could get away with it first. All it took was eliminating all the witnesses or being strong enough that nobody would dare to call them out for it. Planning to kill us was completely in line with how Silco operated, and if he killed off the Firelights who'd even be left to call him out on breaking unwritten rules?

Silco smiled as he stepped forward, the expression more like a wolf that just spotted vulnerable prey than anything conveying human warmth. "I apologize for that unpleasant business." He nodded over at Deckard's corpse. "Now then, Miss Kiramman, Lady Crownguard, if I could have a moment of your time?"

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 2

How Does Jinx Respond to Silco's Request to Talk?

[ ][Silco] No Talking, Only Shooting.
No Roll Needed

[ ][Silco] Talk to Him
Issues: Trauma (-3), Abandonment (-3) Vi (-5) Daughter of Zaun (-1)
Failure Result: Jinx cannot control her temper.

Willpower

[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls

 

[Chengar Qordath]

A Light in the Darkness 5​

Spoiler: Vote and Roll

[X][Silco] Talk to Him
[X][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls
2d6: (3+6)-6 = 3
Success

I clenched my teeth and bit back the urge to whip out Zapper, crank it up to max power, and start blasting. Silco had asked for a truce, and while I hadn't agreed to it Ekko had. If I started a fight he'd get dragged into it along with Lux, and that was trouble neither of them needed. Not to mention it wasn't just picking a fight with Silco, The Tank was in the mix too. Maybe I could work out some way of taking down that hulking suit of chemtech and Shimmer, but that wouldn't be an easy fight even if I won, and if I was being completely honest with myself there was a decent chance I wouldn't win. That thing had a lot of armor to get through, and all it needed was one good hit to take me out.

"Alright, fine," I growled and stuck Zapper back into its holster. "If you wanna talk, talk. Make it snappy, we've got more important things to do than get caught up in whatever dirty schemes you're hatching. We're here to help people who're running low on food—mostly because of the shit you're pulling—not get mixed up in local gang politics."

Silco let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "Surely by now you must be aware that feeding starving people is a very political act. I can't imagine this trip of yours didn't ruffle feathers in Piltover, and it's certainly causing a stir in Zaun. There's a lot of money tied up in making people pay for food, and when you start giving it away for free it disrupts the entire ecosystem. You have no idea how many people have been in my office, asking me to do something to stop your charity. Deckard was a fool, but not so stupid he'd attack you for no reason. Walk with me."

He started moving down Zaun's streets, but when I was about to start following him The Tank stood in my way, effectively blocking us off. I sighed and spread my arms. "You know searching me for hidden weapons is kinda pointless when I'm openly carrying one, don't you? Lux is too." I nodded at her sword. Sure, Zapper technically wasn't a weapon, but I doubted Silco or his top goon would care about that distinction. I'd just used it to kill someone, they were gonna treat it like a weapon.

The Tank started to reach towards me, and I realized the utter absurdity of pausing so it could frisk me. There was no way it could search me for hidden weapons with those giant chemtech gauntlets covering its hands. Besides, it wasn't even reaching towards anywhere I'd try to hide weapons. For a second I almost thought it was gonna touch my cheek with one of its massive armored paws before The Tank dropped its hands, turned around, and went after Silco. I glowered at its back, wondering what the heck that had been about.

The crime lord glanced over his shoulder, then lit up one of his nasty cigars. "I suppose we should start with addressing the obvious. I'm aware that Jinx Kiramman was once Powder Warwick. You were working closely with the Kirammans while you were still calling yourself Powder, and it's not as if you took any pains to conceal your identity after you left. You're hardly the first daughter of Zaun to choose to make a fresh start with a new name, and it seems fairly clear you haven't forgotten your roots in any case."

"Yeah, well, I know your parents named you Fuckugly Dumbass Shitnugget." I growled back. "So I guess I can't really blame you for wanting to pick a new name for yourself either."

"I see they've taken the girl out of Zaun, but not the Zaun out of the girl," Silico shot back with a dry grin. "Good. I was hoping that was the case."

I scowled at his back as we started down the streets. He was heading towards the less shitty parts of Zaun, where gutters actually worked and hadn't been clogged by garbage and blood. I guess I shouldn't be shocked that Silco wanted us out of sight of Deckard's headless corpse. If he wanted to act like some kind of respectable businessman or community leader he couldn't do that while his boots were soaking in the blood of his enemies.

I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest. "If you know who I am, you know I don't wanna hear any of your bullshit. I'll let you talk because Ekko agreed to a truce, but whatever you think's gonna happen here, you'll probably be disappointed."

"We'll see," Silco answered with a cold smirk. "First things first, though." He turned to Lux and pulled out a small pouch that jingled with the sound of coins. "For your trouble, Lady Crownguard. Deckard might have been a fool acting against my explicit orders, but he was still affiliated with my organization, however loosely."

Lux took the money and tucked it away. "A lord is still responsible for the actions of his vassals. However, I wonder why you feel the need to take such action in the first place. I'm hardly an expert in the finer points of Zaunite gang factions, but from what Jinx has told me you're on bad terms with the Firelights. You wouldn't need to agree to a truce with them otherwise. Having one of your vassals attack your enemies would hardly be a reason for an apology, so I presume it has something to do with me and Jinx specifically?"

"Of course." Silco waved his cigar through the air, encompassing several nearby tenements. "As you've no doubt surmised by now, we rarely have the bearers of illustrious names like Kirammans and Crownguards walking our streets. I'm sure you can guess how your families and the wider Council would respond if something unfortunate were to happen to either of you. The last thing I want is for an army of Enforcers to come smashing through the streets looking for someone's head to mount on a spike to calm the Demacians or Kirammans. Which is precisely why I instructed all the gangs to allow you to pass unharmed and made an example of Deckard for violating my commands."

I knew that wasn't the only reason. Sure, he probably wasn't lying about not wanting that kind of heat, but it was basic gang leadership. If Silco had let some no-name like Deckard get away with violating his orders nobody would take him seriously. He had to kill Deckard, or all his minions would start talking about how Silco must have gone soft or lost his touch if he let Deckard off with a warning. He wasn't doing us any favors by shoring up his position.

Silco glanced back and Lux with his beady black eye, his creepy orange pupil burning within it. "I know your visit to Zaun is a one-time occurrence, but should that change I would advise reaching out to me to coordinate aid distribution. It would help avoid any unfortunate incidents."

"And it would mean you'd get to control who we hand out food to," I pointed out. "Like you were just saying, feeding starving people is political. If we're working with you, you'd get to control who the food goes to, and you'd make damn sure everyone knows the food's only getting to them because of you." I glowered at him and clenched my fists at my sides. "And you'd probably get some kind of sick thrill out of showing everyone how we're jumping through your hoops and going along with your demands."

Silco let out a soft scoff but didn't disagree with anything I'd said. Lux crossed her arms over her chest. "I might not be completely familiar with all the finer points of Zaun and Piltover's politics, but some things are quite universal. You're hardly the first person who wants to slap their name on the aid distributed by the Illuminators. You're not so different from the sort of frontier robber barons I've had to deal with in Demacia. You might wear a suit of fabric instead of armor and dress your words up differently, but I know a snake when I see one."

"I'm sure you do," Silco paused to puff on his cigar. "Well, no matter. It would've been a pleasant surprise if the two of you were amenable to working with me, but I've never been an optimist. I'll get straight to the point, then. The very fact that you're both here distributing food for free is proof that you know the people of Zaun are suffering, and you want to do something to change that. I feel the same way. If we have common interests, I see no reason we shouldn't be working together to achieve them."

"No reason to—" I had Zapper halfway out of its holster before I caught myself. "Do you think I've forgotten about the shit you pulled with Vander?! You poisoned him with that Shimmer crap you've been selling to turn Zaun into a nation of addicts! I dunno what you think it is you think Lux and I want, but it's definitely not the same thing you're after."

"Isn't it?" Silco smirked back at us. "We both want a Zaun where nobody needs to struggle to find their next meal. The only difference is how we make that happen. I'm sure you're aware of why your parents are here in the first place, Lady Crownguard: the grain trade."

"We're here because of Noxian aggression in our borderlands," Lux answered stiffly. "We had hoped that Piltover would finally understand that the Noxians can never be trusted to act as good neighbors and make common cause with us, but judging by my parents' mood yesterday it seems those hopes were in vain."

"If they expected Piltover's council to break their long-standing policy of not getting entangled in other nations' conflicts they were very optimistic," Silco answered with a cold smile. "They knew getting an alliance was a slim hope at best, and came prepared to settle for something else. The same thing everyone comes to Piltover for: trade." He paused to puff on his cigar a bit more. "It's no secret that Demacia's was very unhappy when Piltover's announced the creation of Hextech. It's not quite magic, but it's close enough to put the hardliners in your homeland ill at ease and justify your not-quite embargo. It was easy to reduce how much you sold Piltover when all was well, but if Demacia needs to gear up for another potential conflict with Noxus they'll need to fatten up the treasury. Armies aren't cheap, and the quickest and least controversial way to increase the amount of ready cash the crown has access to is to dump a lot of grain and other agricultural goods on the market."

"What's your point?" I growled, placing myself between Lux and Silco. "You're just telling us a bunch of stuff we already know."

"I suppose I should cut to the chase, then." His expression turned utterly cold. "It's not hard to guess why you're involved, Jinx. You're still a Zaunite at heart. Nobody goes to all the trouble and favor trading involved in setting up a clean water plant serving Zaun while getting nothing in return unless they actually give a damn. I'm sure the Council recruited you for Lady Crownguard's goodwill tour by talking about how it would bring down bread prices in Zaun, right?"

I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest, refusing to play his game. That didn't seem to deter Silco from continuing. "There's just one detail the Council forgot to share with you. Whatever deal Demacia and Piltover make, it won't fix things in Zaun. Piltover isn't the final destination for all of Demacia's grain shipments. Piltover is and has always been a trade hub. What do you think is more profitable for the great trade houses of Piltover: bringing down grain prices in Zaun, or exporting Demacian grain onward to other nations? You're not a fool, Jinx. You know I'm right."

I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of hearing me admit it, but he had a point. The Kirammans might care about bringing bread prices down in Zaun, but the other trading houses were all in it for the money. They'd sell grain to whoever would pay the most for it, and poor people in Zaun didn't have very deep pockets. Worse, at least as far as the Demacians were concerned, some of the merchants would be happy to sell the grain to Noxus, maybe even feeding the very same armies that Demacia was so worried might invade their homelands. Mel was the daughter of a Noxian warlord, after all.

Silco flicked some ash off his cigar and let out a soft hum. "I can see you two have already connected the dots. This trade deal won't ease the food crisis in Zaun. Not in a real way. Perhaps the Kirammans will do what they always do and provide enough relief for us to get by, but your adopted family's charity never goes so far as to outstrip their trading company's profits. Piltover wants to keep the status quo where Zaun is too hungry to plan another revolution. It's hard to get people to dream of revolution when they're more worried about where their next meal will come from. They'd never let us starve—then we'd have nothing to lose—but keeping us always on the cusp of total collapse, and keenly aware that we're kept from it by the charity of Piltover suits them just fine."

"I know a sales pitch when I hear one," I growled. "Why not just get it over with so we can laugh in your face and tell you to go fuck yourself with a rusty crowbar?"

Silco let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. "Jinx, you have to look at the big picture. I didn't kill Vander, Piltover did. The Shimmer I provided simply … gave him a nudge in the right direction. Don't forget, he killed Grayson with his bare hands without a drop of Shimmer in his body. Yes, his death was an ugly thing, but the base violence necessary for change always is. What truly matters is that since that day no Enforcer has set foot in Zaun without first getting my permission. I think the old Vander would be quite pleased by that outcome."

If not for Lux putting a hand on my arm I probably would've pulled Zapper and shot him then and there. I clenched my teeth and fought back the urge to scream. He'd probably said that specifically to get under my skin, and I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.

Silco turned to face Lux. "Now, back to present matters. I and my business associates are also in the market for Demacian grain. We can't purchase in the same bulk as Piltover's great houses, but we're not asking for any kind of exclusive trade deal. We simply want to be considered as another potential buyer. However, unlike the merchant houses that will sell Demacian grain to the highest foreign bidder, even if that means providing food to the same Noxian armies that are currently menacing Demacia's borders, we will sell our grain to the people of Zaun. The very same people you came here to feed. Your efforts here help them for a day, this trade deal could keep them fed for years."

"All while you make a tidy profit from controlling the food supply in Zaun," I pointed out.

"Because all the topsiders are running charity houses?" Silco countered with a dry smirk. "At least in my case, the profits will all stay within Zaun, helping develop local communities and strengthen our people."

If profits were the only issue, maybe he'd have a point. There was a lot more to it than just money, though. If he controlled the food supply he'd have even more tools he could use to force everyone else to fall in line behind him. The community-building he was talking about was probably another way of tightening his grip.

Lux frowned at him. "And I suppose you would be paying for our grain using the proceeds of your sales of this Shimmer drug I've been hearing about? That hardly seems like an honorable way of doing business."

Silco shrugged. "If you don't like drug traders, I would suggest not looking too closely at some of what Councilors Hoskel and Salo's trade ships get up to in distant foreign markets. In a perfect world perhaps the Illuminator Order could give away bread for free to everyone who needed it, but your parents would never approve that deal, and even if they did, your King Jarvan would reject it. The Firelights certainly don't have the resources to buy enough grain to feed everyone at fair market values. I do. It's the ugly reality of living in a capitalist system, where who gets to eat is dictated by the laws of supply and demand."

He flicked away the stub of his cigar, then pulled a letter out of his jacket pocket, offering it to Lux. "You'll find all the finer points of the agreement here. Feel free to have your parents look it over and provide an answer before you leave. Just send a letter to The Last Drop, or failing that, I'm sure we can figure out a back channel of some sort to get word back. I look forward to your response."

As he turned to depart, his giant bodyguard stayed rooted in place. The helmet made it impossible to know for sure what they were looking at, but the crawling sensation going down my spine told me that it was staring at me. After a few seconds, Silco paused and looked back. "Tank! With me!"

That seemed to be enough to get the mechanical monstrosity moving again. I let out a relieved sigh as the thing left. Something about it was damned unsettling, even beyond what you'd expect for a giant killing machine that ran on Chemfuel and Shimmer.

That just left me, Lux, and Silco's letter. I wouldn't have believed it was possible, but he'd found a way to make me hate him even more than I already did. He was gonna use the food crisis to make himself richer and more powerful and look like a hero to everyone in Zaun in the process.

Considering the stakes, I had to wonder why Lux was staring down at the letter with a troubled frown on her face instead of just tearing it up and throwing it down the nearest gutter. "What're you thinking?"

Lux groaned and shook her head. "Is he right about how this deal could help people in Zaun?"

"Forget him," I snapped. "He's an asshole!"

"Yes, but is he wrong?" Lux shot back. "It wouldn't be the first time the Illuminators had to come to an agreement with someone who didn't live entirely within the law in order to help the common people survive. I don't want innocent people in Zaun to starve because Piltover's merchants think they can make more money selling our grain to Noxus than by feeding their own people. If striking a trade deal with Silco ensures that nobody in Zaun goes hungry…"

I could see where she was coming from, at least. Piltover selling Demacian grain to Noxus when the two nations were gearing up for war would be a huge problem. It was also something Piltover's merchant houses would totally do. After all, we weren't gonna be at war with anyone. Still, this was Silco! "We can make some other kinda deal. Like going directly to the bakers or something."

Lux sighed. "Demacia isn't selling grain by the sack like a local greengrocer, Jinx. We're selling cargo holds full of it, we need people who can buy in bulk. That means going to the major trading houses." She opened up Silco's letter and gave it a quick scan. "Even the quantities he's asking for are only a small portion of how much we're trying to sell. Demacia is called the breadbasket of Runeterra for a reason, every year we export over three million tons of it, and that's before accounting for the fact that we've been selling less for the last few years and have a stockpile to burn through."

"So what, you're gonna take his deal?" I growled. "You know he's just gonna use this to make himself richer and get a tighter grip on Zaun!"

"The merchant houses of Piltover will do much the same," Lux pointed out. "But I don't know Silco or the local situation half as well as you do. My first instinct is to take the letter to my parents and leave the decision up to them, but if you really think it's that terrible of an idea…" she held the letter over the gutter, clearly willing to drop it into the sewers if I insisted on it.

I was about to tell her to throw the damn thing away when I hesitated. Was this really the right thing to do? Yeah, Silco needed to eat shit and die yesterday if not sooner, but was that still worth it if it meant people in Zaun going hungry? Maybe letting Silco have one small win was worth it if it meant people in Zaun wouldn't go hungry. Maybe being less desperate for food would change things?

Maybe…

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 0

What Does Jinx Tell Lux To Do?

[ ] Destroy The Letter
Issues: Abandonment (-3), Trauma (-3) Daughter of Zaun (-1), Big Fat Hero (+1)
Failure Result: Jinx Internalizes hatred of Silco

[ ] Take The Letter To Her Parents
Issues: Abandonment (-3), Trauma (-3) Daughter of Zaun (-1), Big Fat Hero (+1)
Failure Result: Jinx Feels Conflicted About Her Principles