Atelut

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

Atelut is a Player Character of Arc 11 played by Dillin.

## Description

Atelut is a level 9 Oathbreaker Paladin and a short, apple bottomed Firbolg with lavender fur that is darker on the outer patches and lighter on the inside. She has a bovine nose and downturned ears, hooked around one of which she has a little chain that comes down into a pocket watch in their vest pocket, and hooked around the other one they have the chain for the monocle they wear. They are a middle manager on the Ascendant Engine, mostly dealing with customers and handling the general Albion Rail business on board, but they don't have a lot of actual power. In her job, she usually wears a pin-striped vest and matching pin-striped pants, but no shoes as they have fully bovine hooves.

There once was a time when Atelut loved Albion Rail and believed in the company, but now they just follow orders. Still, she does and has done many things she doesn't love, but it is no longer from a place of conviction. This is the oath they broke, the oath to the train. Around people she doesn't trust, and for tips and raises, she will still act like a fan of the engine.

From the time when they first joined the company, Atelut wears a train token necklace with the effects of a Ring of Shared Suffering. An important person wears the counterpart, and if they take damage, Atelut will take half of it, but Atelut does not know who it is. Later, it turns out that the person is Bartholomew Albion himself, Head of Transportation of all of Visteria.

Their patreon submitted magic item is the Monocle of "No, I Heard What You Said".

## Backstory

Atelut join Albion Rail with hope and conviction in their heart, and worked their way up as hard as they could. However, at some point, they lose this hope, and only continue doing as she is told because it is her job.

## Character Arc

Atelut is the second person on the train, right after Chet. They immediately try to establish dominance by hanging their jacket in an inconvenient spot, and walk around the train checking that everything is in order. They are nervous before the big journey. As she meets Foq, who has never really interacted with the Material Plane and behaves very weird and entitled, she presents him her best customer service voice and smile, and then gets a drink from Rian, specifically made so it looks like water and she has plausible deniability.

When things start going wrong on the train, she assumes this is a punishment for her specifically. They form a sort of alliance with the rest of the staff, former staff member Suds, and Foq, who just happened to be there, to try and fix the train. She is the person responsible for damage control on the train, and the most high-ranking Albion Rail employee on the train, so this is her responsibility. They try pleading with the train, apologising, and begging it to let them get through this, and as they feel and later see a hand holding their wrist in acknowledgement, they hate how reassuring it feels. It is Atelut who first has the idea of chugging scrap metal and spells into the vats that are supposed to produce new train tracks. This gives the train enough power to planeshift again.

They land in the Feywild, and are immediately attacked by a fairy dragon. After fighting it, defending the train and the dinosaurs on board, Foq admits that he is a fey prince wanted for treason. Atelut asks him whether he can be tracked, and he throws his fey court ring into one of the train vats to make tracking at least a bit harder, while she goes to check on the passengers and assure them that everything is under control. The passengers, in the meantime, have armed themselves with some makeshift weapons and do not quite believe them, but they manage to convince them with free drinks. Then, Atelut receives a *Sending* from her bosses' boss, Bartholomew Albion, asking what has happened. She tells him that the problem with the engine will be fixed, and that they were attacked by a dragon, but everything is under control. As they tell Rian and Chet about it, they ask them to please be more secretive with Albion. Atelut at first is in denial that Albion would ever do something to them, but then has to admit that they are a powerful and ruthless company. However, they are still very scared of being fired, as they don't think they can do anything else, and have fought their way to where they are now tooth and nail.

While checking the train, Atelut finds out that the train's alignment has shifted from Lawful Neutral to True Neutral, and, after talking it over with Suds, they decide to try and reverse that shift the next day, but sleep over it for a night, as in the meantime, the others have turned the bar car into a bit of a shooting range. Atelut asks them to please take better care of the train, as she starts to become truly scared what Albion might do when they see this.

While they prepare the *Ceremony* spell, though, Suds checks in with Scenda and hears her afraid for the first time, begging him to make Atelut stop. He tells her, they decide not to continue with the spell, and Scenda promises to bring them back home, but also warns that it might get worse before it gets better. They see a figure made of light, which they assume to be the spirit of the train itself, who tries to reach out to them, but as they try to pull her through the wall, they don't manage to do so. As they go back to the others, Rian, Chet, and Foq have managed to open Foq's puzzle box, revealing an ice cold ring inside. Rian is against letting Foq put it on, as it might be dangerous and turn more fey courts against them, while Suds believes that it might be helpful for potential future fights to have a powerful magic item in their control. They look for Atelut for the final decision, and she rules that it is Foq's ring, so he should have it. As Foq puts it on, they planeshift again, this time into Hell, into the city of Dis. The ring, however, is a sentient ring, and Foq becomes possessed by Jeh'baqqan, the Frozen Fool. He tries to kill the train by destroying the engine, with the rest of the party chasing him. Rian manages to stop him finally, but Foq doesn't just fall unconscious, but dies. He does not wake up, even as Atelut takes the ring off of him.

Atelut tries to distract Rian from the suffocating guilt by giving him clear instructions what to do in preparation for the funeral. She has a short but earnest eulogy for Foq, even though they barely knew him, and Suds has a few words as well. Suddenly, they hear tapping against the walls, and realise that Foq's soul is in the train, together with Scenda. Through *Detect Thoughts*, they are able to communicate, and try to get Foq back into his body, but fail at first. Their attempts are disrupted by a sound like a zipper tearing through space in the staff car, and Atelut immediately understands that someone important has joined the train.

They and Rian go into the staff car, where Bartholomew Albion himself is waiting for her to explain the situation. They try, but he tells her that this is her last voyage with Albion Rail, not because she did anything wrong, but because Albion needs to assure the people that it was not a problem of the train, but of the operator, so she and Piper will be fired and watched so that they do not spread any stories. Rian hears the edge in Atelut's voice as they reassure themselves that they understood this correctly, and gives her the distraction needed to be able to hurt Bartholomew Albion with an *Inflict Wounds*. However, Bartholomew has the counterpart to her necklace, and she takes half of the damage she wanted to give him. As he tries to use his earring of *Sending* to inform someone about what happened, Atelut asks Rian to help, and Rian smashes their hammer into Bartholomew Albion's face, killing him. Atelut informs the person on the other side of the earring that "Albion Rail is up and running", then puts it back, and the two of them chuck the body out a window into Hell. As they go to inform the others about what happened, Foq manages to come back out of the walls of the train, and merge back with his body. Then, the train planeshifts again, into a celestial plane.

In the celestial train station, Atelut first checks that it is safe for the passengers to go out, before opening the doors. Bartholomew is dead, and thus, Atelut argues that they weren't ever really fired, and are still responsible for the safety and wellbeing of everyone. They hear a voice coming from the front, and see Scenda in all of the reflections of the engine. Together with the help of all of the staff and passengers on the train, they pull Scenda out, helping her finally fully ascend and become the deity Scenda, whom they meet outside the train, waiting in the station, 12 feet tall.

Atelut talks to her full of uncertainty of what is to come. She is scared of being killed by Albion, although Scenda assures her that they won't do that, but still cannot imagine any other life. She believes that the only thing she was ever good at was being taken advantage of and walked over. Scenda offers her to join her cause not as a fighter, but basically as a PR person, trying to find more people that can believe in her, and in change. With more believers, Scenda would be more powerful, thus being able to help her believers better in their fight against Albion Rail. Atelut agrees to the offer to work together with her, and takes on the Oath of Redemption, following a path of justice and diplomacy. Then, she leaves, and Scenda pushes the train back into the Material Plane, to Pistol City Station Town.

Arriving there, Atelut leaves the train like nothing ever happened. They still do not believe to be fired, and simply walk out, acting normal, thanking the passengers for travelling with Albion, although just shortly before she warned them to not talk about what happened, and that Albion tried to kill all of them. While Chet, Rian, and Piper sneak away to build up a revolution, Atelut stays with Albion to work on the inside.