#tzoam

The main antagonists of the campaign are from Noise (the Circle of Nine, or just the Circle). Tzipporah, by relations, was a part of this organization and they used the fact that he could blend in easily to send him to the surface. He was ordered to join the Four of Four, and act as a spy for them.

Tzipporah did, for a time, but his relationship with Loam changed things for him. He attempted to give Loam hints on what the Circle was planning, and tried to muddy the information he was giving back to the Circle. With him being less useful for them, they instead decided to use him as bait instead. While Tzip's half-brother, Vences, killed Loam (he got better) for distracting Tzip, other members of the Circle came for Tzip. He agreed to go with them, in exchange for leaving his teammates, his friends, unharmed. This is how most of the Four of Four, including Loam, found out he was a spy. (Talee was suspicious of him from very early on, and the confirmation led to a deeply victorious outburst of, "I knew it.")

The Circle took Tzip to the mostly empty, deeply cursed, and ravaged island of Demeter, and put a mask on him. This mask would allow their Titan to essentially assume control of Tzip's body. While his consciousness was 'sleeping', the Titan of Noise, Faith, could rummage through his knowledge and work his body into dust, essentially. Since this process is known and expected to hollow out a person, Tzipporah's warlock pact with Faith was broken at the same time - Faith essentially putting him in the recycling bin.

Loam, his team (fondly nicknamed LQH), and other members of the Four of Four mounted a rescue. They trekked through Demeter, and down into its depths to find him. They managed to subdue 'him' (as Faith was fighting them through him) and Loam removed the mask, saving him. This is how Tzip got his facial scars. As his body was driven around for months without sleep, he got one good look at Loam, smiled, and passed out in his arms. That's when Vences and other members of the Circle revealed themselves, expressing their disappointment that Tzip wasn't dead, and promptly began trying to 'kill' them (this is when Talee lost her arm).

The Circle wanted them boxed in enough to make a deal, so that they could get their hands on an item they had in their possession. After securing a deal for said item, the Circle allowed them to leave Demeter.

In the weeks spent sailing back, Tzipporah was mostly asleep the entire time. Odd Caster, his bff, watched over him during the day and Loam would watch over him during the night. When Tzip woke up, on Loam's shift, they got to have a very long and emotional talk, and reaffirm their love for each other. Tzipporah got to give him the full truth of his pretty horrific upbringing and show him the now defunct pact mark (a deep Void handprint on his back). Loam also got to cut and remove the threads that were sewn into Tzip's back in a large X, which were punishments he had received when he was in Noise. And they had their first kiss! Hooray!

They arranged for Tzip to be able to stay in the well-defended magical tower of a wizard they're close with, whenever he's not with them. While they had a period of relative normalcy, Tzip and Loam got to spend a substantial amount of time together. This includes re-doing their first date in a more open way, and sneaking away from a ball held in the Four of Four's honour.

As things started to pick up again, they learned of intense False Wisp activity in multiple different cities, at the same time. The Four of Four went to different cities, to see if they could help halt that activity. LQH went to Talee's city of Quietus first, and while there, they had reason to call in Tzipporah. They were traversing the Infinite Library, searching for a way to repair the damage done to it by the Circle. They were also acquiring information there, and they quickly realized that their information was coming from Tzipporah's deceased mother. They wanted to involve him, so he didn't have to hear it all second-hand. They were also facing some members of the Circle who had a direct hand in raising him, including Kiri, who was the one to stitch the X into his back. After, they helped the Wide Smile vanquish the False Wisp, A Reap of Faithful.

Tzipporah then went to help his former team of Four of Four in the Widow's Wood while LQH went to Ilsa's city of Zilpah. They spent some time there, recovering pieces of the Silence and protecting the Titan from the False Wisp, Singing Reaper. While they were doing that, Tzipporah and T3 managed to push the False Wisp back and then went to back up T1 in Impius. LQH managed to come to an agreement/alliance with a member of the Circle, Tivee - who is one of the people from Noise fond of Tzip, and he is fond of her. While they were beginning to talk, she wanted assurances from Tzipporah, which is when Loam discovered that he couldn't get in contact with him. He did have something precious that Tzip had given him, which was enough to allow Tivee to put her trust in them. Immediately after, they quickly put together that no one was able to get in contact with T1 or T3 either.

They eventually got news that Impius was encased in a sand storm that no one was able to cross, cutting off the city from the rest of Winyul. LQH went there, and were able to cross the storm through their dabbling/familiarity with Void-related magic. Inside Impius, they learned that the Titan, Gatekeeper, was dead and the False Wisp which devoured it, The Harvester, was dormant and becoming ??? Something. All of the people of Impius were also in a sort of stasis. They also found T1, T3, and Tzipporah! He and Loam had a good teary eyed reunion hug.

After they fought their way to the mechanic keeping Impius encased and shutting it down, they left the city and the changing False Wisp in the hands of the Scarabae leadership. Everything seemed to calm down after that, which opened up a substantial amount of time for Tzip and Loam to spend together - from dates in Dina and Vagari, to traveling through Tilden's bog together, and meeting Loam's parents! Tzip also proposed to Loam during this time, with rings that could transmit the beat of each other's heartbeat. A few more dates and then LQH was off to Themis!

Themis is their current predicament. Themis is a location which wasn't shown on any maps, with mentions being far and few between, and they had to work to ferret out a way to get there, the only route being through a singular person, Valda, a Direction in the Quarter Cities. Themis is the 'base of operations' for Ercilia, Winyul's trickster war-criminal divination-using nightmare. LQH had a few run ins with Ercilia, learned really close up about a couple of her war-crimes (including being the reason Demeter is as fucked as it is), and don't like her very much. They were teleported to Themis and the moment they arrived, one of the first things they notice was the day-night cycle being extremely fast, as though whole days were passing in seconds. This change in 'time' was also in Loam's ring - with individual heartbeats being replaced by a steady and constant thrum.

This was also when Loam realized he'd forgotten to give Tzip a heads up that they were heading for Themis before they left (although Tzip knew what was in their plans). They ticked off a bunch of methods of communication and found that they were not working at all. They had to work through most of Themis without knowing what was going on outside, and if the accelerated time was real or not.

During a safer time, Loam decided to try Dream - which is kind of their thing. When travelling as separate Four of Four, they spent time together in Dream, and it was a source of strength for Tzip during his time in Demeter, which they of course kept up after. This time, Loam got to experience time-lag/time catching up, where he was in Dream every time Tzip was asleep. Loam couldn't really move, slowed down to an incredible degree, while Tzip was flashing around him through the different nights, over months. Seven - to be exact - discovered when they finally opened up their little letter bags for the first time and a whole bunch fell out, informing them of things happening in their absence.