Chet Sapphire

Official image of Chet, drawn by @grace.pptx on Instagram

Chet Sapphire is a Player Character of Arc 11 played by John.

## Description

Chet is a 35 year old Harengon and a level 8 Gunslinger Fighter. He is 4'3" tall and a distant descendant of Serenity Sapphire, whom he idolises a bit, which motivated him to become a Gunslinger. He works as a ticket collector on the Ascendant Engine, but doesn't take it too seriously. Instead, he uses that job to smuggle cheap, mass-produced Borple guns.

He has a bag of holding in which he can carry the contraband guns. They are mass-produced by the Borple family and pretty cheap, but also have a high misfire score of 5, and blow up when they misfire. He is quite possessive of these guns. They have to be loaded not with ammunition, but by flicking a switch, which makes the tip of the gun glow red hot. Then, they can be connected to something metal, and take up a bit of it to form the ammunition themselves. Chet usually just takes part of the train as ammunition, which leads to a ridiculous amount of holes in the wall of his little nook, and keeps at least one shot in a weapon he carries.

Chet also has a little pet, a domesticated undersize displacer beast named Ringo, which usually just runs around invisibly. To keep Ringo out of trouble, usually Chet just puts him on his hat, even though his manager does not like it when the hat is dented. He has carrot sticks in a cigar box, and orders carrot juice at the bar.

His magic item are the Boots of Perfect Motion, which alow him to move faster and even across vertical surfaces.

## Backstory

Chet works on different trains before joining the Ascendant Engine. There is a point at which he is motivated about his job, but eventually he loses that motivation and stops respecting protocol.

He comes from a family of donkey ranchers. While his family is mostly caught up in that business, he idolises his distant descendant Serenity not necessarily for the donkey ranching, but for her abilities as a Gunslinger, and decides to follow into her footsteps that way. However, in doing that, he becomes estranged from his family.

## Character Arc

Chet has to be the first person on the train, because he checks everyone elses tickets, including the staff. He has a list of everyone who has a ticket, and in addition, they also have physical tickets to show. After checking everyone in for the first time, it is his job to check again in regular intervals. While not checking tickets, he often goes back into his room to look after the guns or fidget around with them.

As the train starts acting up, and later even plane shifting, Chet becomes involved with the group of people trying to find out and fix the problem. He is the most critical to the idea that the train might have a consciousness, as he has not had any indication of it so far, but also refuses to really engage with that idea much more, but helps bring metal to the vats to power the train enough to allow it to planeshift again.

They land in the Feywild, where they first have to fight off a fairy dragon. Atelut then receives a *Sending* from Bartholomew Albion himself, and tells Chet and Rian about her answer, during which she told him parts of what happened, but also that they have everything under control. Both Chet and Rian try to convince them that they should not trust Albion Rail, and only tell them as much as is absolutely necessary. While Atelut and Suds discuss whether they should try to cast *Ceremony* to shift the train's alignment back, Chet, Rian and Foq are in the bar car, handing drinks to the passengers, and ultimately turning it into a shooting range. Chet hands out guns to everyone who wants them, and seems to have more fun with this than ever in his life. Atelut asks them to please be careful with the train, but then just goes to bed. The next day, while they and Suds try to conduct the *Ceremony*, Chet and Rian try to help Foq open the puzzle box, and Chet is disappointed when he is not allowed to shoot it, but Rian finally manages to open it, revealing an ice cold ring.

After some discussion, Foq is allowed to put the ring on, but immediately gets possessed by the sentient ring, and tries to kill the train. Chet and the rest of the party try to stop him, and while the others are mostly in shock, Chet actually has fun chasing after Foq, racing up walls with his shoes, and exploding holes into the train by purposely misfiring his guns. However, Foq does knock him unconscious, and he gets only saved by Suds sacrificing his mechanical weasel to be able to see Chet. Later, Foq nearly kills Ringo, before being killed by Rian. Chet asks Rian to heal Ringo, as they realise that Foq is really dead and gone. Rian is struck by guilt, and Chet tries to be there for him, offering him carrots to chew on. While the others prepare a funeral, Chet rests for a moment to regain his health. As Foq's soul makes itself noticeable, Rian brings Chet back to witness the chaos happening. Chet mostly watches in confusion as Atelut and Suds try to put up Foq's body against the windows to allow his soul to get back into it, which does not work. When they hear a sound as if a zipper was ripping through space, Atelut immediately understands that someone important has come onto the train, and while they and Rian go to speak to Bartholomew Albion, Chet and Suds hide Foq's body in Chet's bag of holding. The two of them come back telling them that they killed Bartholomew Albion, and followed by Foq's ghost, and Chet and Suds bring out his body again so that the ghost and the body can merge, and Foq opens his eyes as the train planeshifts again, this time into a celestial plane.

In the celestial train station, Chet and Rian at first do not follow the others to the engine, but race each other towards the vats to find out that they are fully empty, including the dissolving agent. Next, they go check the vending machines to get something to snack, but to Chet's dismay, the machines are non-functional and do not actually contain carrots. They then go back to the locomotive, where all of the Arc 11 party sees Scenda in their reflections. At first, in each reflection, she looks like a different person on the train, but Chet is nowhere to be found. Despite all the evidence in front of him, he still doesn't believe in her, and Scenda can only take on the shapes of the people that do. Atelut questions Chet how he can still be sceptic, and he admits that he just didn't really bother thinking about it and thought it was simply beyond him, like magic. However, confronted with her right before him, his scepticism is waning, and as the staff and passengers of the train all together try to pull Scenda out of the engine, he helps, and is able to help.

Pulled out of the engine, the deity Scenda is waiting for them outside, in the celestial train station. They walk out and meet her there, about 12 feet tall and still glowing and shifting. Chet is a little bit ashamed as he walks up to her and offers her a carrot, thanking her for shaking up his day. She tells him and Rian to give Albion hell, and he is very willing to accept that order. As they leave, the dinosaurs that travelled on the train with them stay with Scenda. Chet has much less of a problem believing that they ascended than he did believing in a god train.

Back in Pistol City, Chet, Rian, and Piper do not leave the train together with the other staff and passengers, but sneak out through one of the holes the train gained in hell to leave the station unseen and start working on a revolution against Albion Rail.

## Trivia

* In Arcs 1 and 7, John's self-insert character built during the icebreaker questions was a Gunslinger Harengon.