Tuition Costs How Much

Tuition Costs How Much — Ch 3.5

To find out who made the Church of ITYS’s infiltrators disappear, the party has to enroll in the church’s own university — but the con man in their midst isn’t faking his faith anymore, and the school stands on the bones of the very heroes who founded it. When the only way inside is a diploma, and the only witness to the truth died cursing the church in a stockade… tuition costs how much?

Chapter / Episode	3.5 — Tuition Costs How Much
Arc	Trinity (School of ITYS)
GM	Jesse
Date / Duration	2025-08-16 · ~3h32m (ch3.4 was a YouTube-only stream — skipped)
Party	Xeros (Dave), Nortle (Steve), TBD (Chris), Basil (Brin)
Ally	[[captain-sogman
Ends on	enrolled at the [[school-of-itys

Synopsis

The cold open is a heist gone loud: still aboard the Lycorisian smuggling ship they stealthed onto last time (the the ch3.4 stream lives only on YouTube), the party has woken two purple-flamed veil hounds by dropping the single most fragile thing in the hold. Basil nat-1s a leap and shrinks to regular-rabbit size — the Purple Filth in the air hitting her harder now that she’s small — while Nortle delivers “improvisational chiropractic,” collapsing a hound’s lungs so it can’t sound the alarm. When the sabotage finally lands, Basil punches the sea into a Wall of Force sphere that catches all five of them, and the whole ship goes up like it’s “loaded with this stuff” — blowing them across the water like a golf ball while a headless tortle skips along beside them, hand still scrabbling at its neck.

Floating in their little Wall of Force hamster-ball, TBD and Basil both blow their saves against the veil powder and go extremely suggestible — which the freshly-devout Xeros exploits with a fistful of pamphlets, tailoring a scripture lesson about disintegrated mountaintops to the pyromaniac wizard “because I know you, my friend.” A passing exploration ship hauls them out; its captain, the dwarf war-professor Captain Sogman of the League of Explorers, is less annoyed that they sank a Lycorisian vessel than impressed by it, and welcomes them aboard. Reading his great-grandfather Jacques Bjørn’s journal, TBD surfaces the session’s spine: per High Druid Kalinthe of the Iridescent Circle, veil roots are “memory anchors for the earth” — which means the Greenport vision of the giant morphed tortle Krull (whom Gypsy Jenkins beheads in the future, now standing stone-cold in the flames memorizing their faces) might be findable, replayable, true.

Then the bill comes due. Gypsy Jenkins — barred from the city of ITYS for what she is — peels off, and the party is escorted to the School of ITYS to do the one thing that will get them inside the church: become students. At registration the Draconic-speaking dwarf clerk Lucille quotes them 700 gold apiece and gets a “holy shit” for it, until Sogman’s name (and a re-gifted tub of his crew’s rancid “salve”) shakes loose a stack of unused scholarships. Kitted in blue robes and House amulets, guided by the terminally shy tiefling Morty, they tour the Observatory and the Meganacle, get sorted — Xeros and TBD into the School of Sorcery under Jenkins’ all-seeing-eye signet, Basil and Nortle into the School of Combat — and sit their first mandatory lecture, where the monotone half-elf Professor Lauren Sacks dismisses their ally’s ancestor Old Man Jenkins as a heretic who accused everyone of being shapeshifters, led a coup, and died in a stockade. Knowledge points banked, an essay looming (“why the Church of ITYS is the true church”), the session ends with the crew enrolled, Xeros sweating out his first sober day, and a midnight plan to smuggle Purple Filth to the Ringer Monument and ask the earth what it remembers.

🎵 Song Recap (rhyming — drop into an AI song generator)

Scheme: AABB verses + chorus. Suggested vibe: a sea-shanty stomp that turns into a gospel choir at the campus gates.

(Verse 1) We woke the purple hounds down in the smuggler’s hold, Basil shrank to a bunny and the powder made her bold; One punch to the water and we’re rolling out to sea — A ship that’s blown to splinters and a headless tortle, whee!

(Chorus) Praise ITYS! (Praise ITYS!) — but the toll’s a golden wall, Seven hundred each to walk the sacred hall; Drop the captain’s name and slide the salve across the desk — Tuition costs how much? Sign here and take the test!

(Verse 2) Sogman fished us dripping from the salt and from the foam, He liked us for the sinking so he steered us toward his home; The roots remember everything the sacred places knew — So Grandpa’s fate is written if the powder pulls us through.

(Verse 3) Blue robes and an amulet, an all-seeing eye, The heretic they buried is the reason we’re inside; Professor drones the doctrine till the wizard’s fast asleep — Pass the church’s essay and the diploma’s ours to keep.

(Outro) Tuition costs how much? — we paid it with a lie, There’s a monument at midnight and a memory in the sky.

📋 Point-by-point breakdown (player catch-up — everything that happened)

1. 00:00:00 · 📖 Recap — Jesse rewinds the YouTube-only 250725-ch3.4: the party stealthed aboard a Lycorisian ship, ate the Dark mantle dish from the Shrimp Shack for camouflage, and Xeros — clumsy with his new Conversion and his too-loud “meditative breath” — dropped the most fragile item aboard, waking two guard beasts.
2. 00:08:22 · ⚔️ Combat — The hold is full of Purple Filth / veil powder (“weaponizable, very damaging”); two purple-flamed veil hounds (modified hellhounds) wake, pack-tactics ready and about to howl an alarm.
3. 00:15:48 · 🎲 Mechanic — Basil leaps to knife a hound and nat-1s, shrinking to regular-rabbit size; the airborne veil powder hits the now-tiny fighter hard (“I’m high as a kite right now”).
4. 00:20:26 · ⚔️ Combat — Nortle’s brotherly instincts kick in: a flurry of blows for 27 damage collapses both the hound’s lungs, killing its howl. “Don’t touch my sister.”
5. 00:21:55 · 🎲 Mechanic — Xeros almost casts Shatter (loud!) before TBD silently shames him; instead he casts Minor Illusion to disguise himself as a hellhound “just like him.”
6. 01:30:19 · 🎲 Mechanic — With the ship doomed, Basil and TBD loot four Veil Stones and a bag of powder each; TBD disguises their escape craft as an empty raft.
7. 01:32:16 · ⚔️ Travel — Basil punches the water into a Wall of Force sphere just as the ship explodes; they skid across the sea “like a golf ball,” a headless tortle skipping alongside, its hand still clawing at its neck.
8. 01:36:02 · 🎲 Mechanic — Constitution saves for veil-powder exposure: Xeros and Nortle resist; TBD and Basil roll 5s and go extremely suggestible for 30 minutes (do whatever they’re told, short of self-harm).
9. 01:38:16 · 🎭 RP — The zealot Xeros pounces on the opening, pamphleting the suggestible pair with The Good Book of ITYS and tailoring “The Ways of the One Flame” to TBD the pyromaniac (“that’s not about an explosion?”).
10. 01:44:22 · 🎭 RP — An exploration ship hauls them out; Captain Sogman — a dwarf war-captain — nearly catches Xeros’s too-honest confession that “our ship just blew up,” then respects the ingenuity of anyone sabotaging Lycorisian vessels.
11. 01:49:14 · 📖 Lore — Recap of the Greenport vision: Krull, an 18-foot morphed tortle Jenkins decapitates in a possible future, stands stone-cold in the flames, “mentally memorizing every characteristic of the four of you.”
12. 02:09:13 · 📖 Lore — TBD reads Jacques Bjørn’s journal aloud: High Druid Kalinthe of the Iridescent Circle theorizes veil roots are “memory anchors for the earth” — maybe a way to learn his great-grandfather’s fate.
13. 02:11:17 · 🎭 RP — Gypsy Jenkins refuses to enter the city of ITYS (“they don’t even let people like me in”), warns them about the protective auras, and secures passage home.
14. 02:14:03 · 🧭 Travel — A loyal crewman escorts them through the tithe-slotted, aura-shielded port-city of ITYS to the School of ITYS campus and its registration office.
15. 02:18:56 · 🎭 RP — Nortle flatters the Draconic-speaking dwarf registrar Lucille and leaves a note for Foulclaw, who is locked down in “very intensive finals” and cut off from all outside contact.
16. 02:26:01 · 🎲 Mechanic — The title beat: tuition is 700 gold per student (500 course + late fee + robes + books). Sogman’s name and his re-gifted “salve” get Lucille to quietly apply unused scholarships, leaving ~150 gp each.
17. 02:31:02 · 🎭 RP — TBD forgets why they’re even there; the huddle re-states the mission — the Missing Lashïngs infiltrators and whether Purple Filth is being trafficked through the church.
18. 02:46:12 · 🎭 RP — They meet Morty, a painfully shy tiefling orientation officer, and don blue robes + House amulets; Xeros bonds over shared horns.
19. 02:51:38 · 📖 Lore — Morty’s tour: the Observatory (where houses converge and sort), the Meganacle arena, and the school’s true name — the University of Youth Bridgement, built around the four Forgotten Hour founders and their Four Houses.
20. 03:07:05 · 🎲 Mechanic — Sorting by amulet: Xeros and TBD get Jenkins’ all-seeing-eye signet — the School of Sorcery; Basil and Nortle the School of Combat. Xeros flags that Jenkins’ own descendant is barred from the city.
21. 03:13:38 · 📖 Lore — History of the Church with Professor Lauren Sacks: Old Man Jenkins branded an “old fool” and heretic for accusing people of being shapeshifters, leading a coup, and dying in a stockade; the Swollen Waste expeditions and forbidden Chronomancy.
22. 03:22:35 · 🎲 Mechanic — A Constitution save to stay awake through the monotone lecture; TBD sleeps and loses the point. Staying awake + studied books = knowledge points toward Thursday’s exam.
23. 03:27:23 · 📖 Lore — The exam preview: 10 questions plus an essay — “why the Church of ITYS is the true church” — graded like the party’s old rap battle (thesis, evidence, “facts according to ITYS even if not true”).
24. 03:29:23 · ⏸️ Pause — Wrap: enrolled, first class survived. TBD plots a midnight run to the Ringer Monument with Purple Filth; Xeros, 24 hours without a Sip, starts sweating and twitching. Successful campaign — great job.

Player Characters

Character	Player	Race	Class	Note
Xeros	Dave	Tiefling	Bard	The newly-converted zealot (Conversion 6); pamphlets the drugged, nearly confesses the sabotage in his “saintly state,” and begins withdrawing from his Sips
Nortle	Steve	Tortle	Monk	”Improvisational chiropractic” collapses a hound’s lungs; woos the registrar in Draconic; sorted into Combat with his sister
TBD	Chris	Goliath	Wizard	Reads [[jock-bjorn
Basil	Brin	Harengon	Fighter	Nat-1s into regular-rabbit size, then Wall-of-Forces the whole party to safety as the ship explodes; sorted into Combat

NPCs

NPC	Role	Note
[[captain-sogman	Captain Sogman]]	Dwarf war-captain & professor
[[lucille	Lucille]]	Dwarf registrar
[[morty	Morty]]	Tiefling orientation officer
[[professor-lauren-sacks	Professor Lauren Sacks]]	Half-elf professor
[[gypsy-jenkins	Gypsy Jenkins]]	Rogue ally
[[foulclaw	Foulclaw]]	Owlin student
[[krull	Krull]]	Giant morphed tortle
[[old-man-jenkins	Old Man Jenkins]]	Founder-hero (dead)
[[high-druid-kalinthe	High Druid Kalinthe]]	Druid scholar

Factions

Faction	Note
[[the-church-of-itys	The Church of ITYS]]
[[the-lashïngs	The Lashïngs]]
[[lycorisians	Lycorisians]]
[[league-of-explorers	League of Explorers]]
[[the-four-houses	The Four Houses]]

👹 Monsters

Creature	Encounter	Note
Veil hounds (×2)	⚔️ Fought	Modified hellhounds oozing purple veil-flame; pack tactics + an alarm-howl. Nortle collapsed one’s lungs before it could sound off; the other was disguised-away and outmaneuvered
[[krull	Krull]]	Vision (unfought)

🎙️ Notable Moments

00:15:52 — Basil leaps to stab a veil hound and rolls a nat-1; the airborne veil powder does the rest.

Basil: I just rolled a nat 1. TBD: You shrink! TBD: You just became a snack — not a meal. Basil: What about my cloaking abilities?! …It’s the Purple Filth. I’m high as a kite right now.

00:21:28 — With the hounds about to howl an alarm, Nortle unloads a flurry of blows on the one nearest his shrunken sister.

Nortle: So I do some improvisational chiropractic on the veil hound. GM: I’m pretty sure at this point you’ve collapsed both of its lungs — with like 50 punches to its ribs, it can’t even howl. Nortle: Don’t touch my sister.

01:32:41 — The sabotage lands and the whole ship goes up; Basil's Wall of Force sphere is the only thing between the party and the blast.

GM: This ship just explodes — it’s loaded with this stuff — so you get blown across the water like a golf ball. Xeros: It’s like a gerbil ball. GM: All you see is shipmates flying overboard — and one tortle without a head, just skipping along the water beside you. Nortle: His hand still scrabbling at his neck.

01:40:24 — Fresh off a nat-1 conversion, the zealot Xeros hands the drugged, suggestible party pamphlets — and custom-fits the scripture to the pyromaniac.

TBD: It’s nice, but there’s nothing in here about fire, explosions, music. Xeros: One person walked in and disintegrated the entire mountaintop — and that’s not about an explosion? Xeros: I tailored this lesson to you because I know you, my friend. And I love you. GM: …You’re talking about the story of The Ways of the One Flame.

01:45:33 — An exploration ship pulls the soggy party aboard, and the too-saintly-to-lie Xeros nearly hands their captor a confession.

Xeros: Our ship just blew up, so we’re just kind of… thank you for picking us up. GM (Sogman): That was your ship? Xeros: Yeah — this one was smart enough to put us in a little golf ball and throw us across the water. GM (Sogman): He respects the ingenuity. We’ve been growing very suspicious of those Lycorisian ships lately — pretty impressive you took the whole thing down.

02:26:01 — The party bellies up to the registration desk and asks the price of a diploma.

GM (Lucille): For the course itself it’s going to be 500 gold — Basil: Holy shit. GM (Lucille): — plus a late fee, your robes, and your books. So total, that’ll be 700 gold per student. TBD: …Let me guess. 100 gold.

02:27:41 — Facing a 700-gold bill, the crew drops Captain Sogman's name — and re-gifts the tub of rancid "salve" his sailors handed them.

Xeros: You know, we do have some of his special Sogman’s Seaman Salve. He gave it to us. Basil: He told us to come to you directly — by name. GM (Lucille): He mentioned me? …Well, I’m really not supposed to do this, but I can help you enter the university with a bit of a discount. Xeros: So basically we’re just getting a scholarship, right?

02:52:07 — At the Observatory, Morty proudly reveals the university's earnest full name, and Xeros reveals the version he'd been using.

GM (Morty): The university was meant to bridge the community — so it’s the University of Youth Bridgement. Xeros: I thought it was just called Unite You Bitches. GM (Morty): Oh my gosh! I didn’t hear that! I did not hear that! Basil & TBD: I love that name so much.

03:08:14 — The house amulets flare, and the signet that sorts Xeros and TBD is a very pointed one.

GM: Xeros, TBD — this signet appears on your amulet. The School of Sorcery. TBD: It’s Jenkins’ eye. Xeros: I’m really surprised they don’t let Jenkins in — when her great-great-grandfather actually founded one of these houses. GM: That’s true. That does seem odd. Keen observation, sir.

03:15:47 — In History of the Church, Professor Lauren Sacks delivers the official verdict on the party's ally's ancestor.

GM (Sacks): Jenkins, as you know, was something of an old fool — not to be taken seriously. Xeros: I hear his family line has been excommunicated — understandably so. GM (Sacks): Jenkins was deemed a heretic after accusing many people of being shapeshifters, then led a coup to overthrow the church. He was put in a stockade, and he died. Xeros: …And no one seems to know what happened to his remains.

🗺️ Locations

Location	Mentioned / Traveled	Note
[[school-of-itys	School of ITYS]]	Traveled
[[itys-the-city	ITYS (the city)]]	Traveled
[[the-observatory	The Observatory]]	Traveled
[[meganacle	Meganacle]]	Mentioned
[[ringer-monument	Ringer Monument]]	Mentioned
[[swollen-wastes	Swollen Wastes]]	Mentioned
[[greenport	Greenport]]	Mentioned
[[shrimp-shack	Shrimp Shack]]	Mentioned
[[school-of-magus	Magus]]	Mentioned

🎒 Items

Item	Used / Introduced	Note
Purple Filth	Used	Veil powder — weaponizable and flammable, but also a hallucinogen that heals and aids memory/divination; secondhand exposure leaves the party high and suggestible
[[veil-stone	Veil Stone]]	Introduced
[[dark-mantle-dish	Dark mantle dish]]	Used
[[the-good-book-of-itys	The Good Book of ITYS]]	Used
[[house-amulets	House amulets]]	Introduced
[[echoes-of-itys	Echoes of ITYS]]	Introduced
[[knuckles-of-change	Knuckles of Change]]	Used
[[moon-touched-rapier	Moon-touched rapier]]	Mentioned

⛩️ Pantheon & Religion

Power	Mentioned / Seen	Note
Father ITYS	Seen (faith)	The [[the-church-of-itys
Selûne	Mentioned	Moon goddess; [[morty

Cliffhanger

The party is enrolled — blue-robed, house-sorted, and one monotone lecture into a week that ends in a church-doctrine exam. But the only man who knew what really happened in the Swollen Waste died cursing Father ITYS in a stockade, the Lashïngs infiltrators are still missing, and a headless tortle is memorizing their faces across time. Tonight TBD means to smuggle Purple Filth to the Ringer Monument and ask the earth what it remembers — while Xeros, a full day without a Sip, starts to shake.

Transcript

Full cleaned transcript: 250816-ch3.5-tuition-costs-how-much-transcript · bundle on the tedit scratch SSD (250816-ch3.5).

Related

Echoes of ITYS · 250626-ch3.3-to-the-library · 250911-ch3.6-meganacle-pride · School of ITYS · The Church of ITYS · Captain Sogman · Old Man Jenkins · Chronomancy · The Forgotten Hour · Gypsy Jenkins · Krull