Broken Diamond

Broken Diamond
Incorporating material from ‘Reign of the Exarchs’
A Mage: The Awakening ‘Actual Play’
As originally published on forums.rpg.net
By:
DaveB
Starring:
Mark – Thomas ‘Wolsey’ Dean
Sam – Kemi ‘Kali’ Simone
Rafe – Carl ‘Damascus’ Washington
Additional Material:
Brian Campbell, Wood Ingham, Robin Laws, Matthew McFarland,
Will Hindmarch and Bill Bridges
With thanks to:
ssheftall, Christian A, Cantankerous, BlackHat_Matt, Borogove, iresprite, Ujio,
TheBrassMonkey, The 23SidedDie, Wood, JLynn, Zooroos, IronSyndicate, tabrumj,
Ravious, Honken, Silver-Fire, Snoopy, Spectrum, Shisumo, Sensorium, ScottL, imrtl,
DeusIrae, Aryth, Raphael, Grantanz, Befuddled, BOAZ, DocTheWeasel,
LivingDeadGuy, Gnomish American, Strife, markpank, Jeph, mhacdebhandia, Jason
Anderson, Mozart, JoshShaw, Shadowchaser, Renchard, Harmast, Ebonheart,
kingofblarg, Deflare, Charade, Paradisio, Treborn, moray, Andrew Ellis Troubio,
Oakthorne, Ageis, 5monkeys, Kacie, Michael Brazier, Eynowd, Shadowchaser,
Earthscorpion, Ravenscroft, Exit, stage left, KakitaKaiten, Dakkareth, lycosidae89,
Nalanthi, ramenlord, iLikeSpoons and Azel & others
Collated by:
Rafe J Richards
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents...................................................................................................... 2
Chapter 0: Introduction.............................................................................................. 4
Themes ................................................................................................................. 5
Overview of the City............................................................................................... 9
Cabals, Legacies and People Known at the Start ................................................ 11
The Player Characters: A Summary .................................................................... 12
Chapter 1: “Through Me, Revelation” ...................................................................... 15
Session 1.2.......................................................................................................... 20
Session 1.3.......................................................................................................... 29
Story 1 Recap:..................................................................................................... 36
Interlude: OOC Decisions........................................................................................ 40
Chapter 2: "Instruments of Fate" ............................................................................. 41
2.1 Commentary .................................................................................................. 61
Session 2.2.......................................................................................................... 63
Session 2.3.......................................................................................................... 84
2.3 Commentary: ............................................................................................... 104
Story 2 Recap:................................................................................................... 107
"Not the Same Person" ......................................................................................... 113
Session 3.2........................................................................................................ 133
Interlude: Recap!!.................................................................................................. 159
Session 3.3........................................................................................................ 160
3.3 Commentary ................................................................................................ 185
Story 3 Recap.................................................................................................... 191
Chapter 4: "Five Things"........................................................................................ 198
Chapter 5: "Who Benefits?"................................................................................... 212
Session 5.2........................................................................................................ 233
Chapter 6: "Stop the Train, I want to Get Off" ........................................................ 279
Session 6.2........................................................................................................ 298
Chapter 7: "Scorpion"............................................................................................ 324
Session 7.2........................................................................................................ 346
Chapter 8: "The Only Place You Can" ................................................................... 375
Session 8.2........................................................................................................ 392
Session 8.3........................................................................................................ 413
Story 8: Commentary......................................................................................... 440
Chapter 9: "Nothing To Say" ................................................................................. 441
Session 9.2........................................................................................................ 463
Session 9.4........................................................................................................ 497
Session 9.5........................................................................................................ 524
Chapter 10: "A Polite Society" ............................................................................... 552
Session 10.1...................................................................................................... 552
Chapter 11: "Yours To Throw Away" ..................................................................... 577
Session 11.1...................................................................................................... 577
Session 11.2...................................................................................................... 599
Session 11.3...................................................................................................... 621
Session 11.4...................................................................................................... 639
Session 11.5...................................................................................................... 665
Interlude: A Sad Announcement............................................................................ 687
Chapter 12: “In The Air Tonight” ............................................................................ 688
Session 12.2...................................................................................................... 705
Chapter 13: “Is This a Rescue Attempt?”............................................................... 723
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Session 13.2: THE FINAL SESSION ................................................................. 755
Appendix 1: The Characters.................................................................................. 808
Wolsey’s Background ........................................................................................ 808
Carl ‘Damascus’ Washington: A Background..................................................... 810
Appendix II: Legacies ............................................................................................ 811
Appendix III: The Pentacle (and Independent) Cabals of the Broken Diamond and
their Members ....................................................................................................... 814
The Bringers of the Utopian Design ................................................................... 814
The Seekers of One Soul................................................................................... 817
The Defenders of the Forgotten ......................................................................... 819
The Recorders of Living History......................................................................... 822
The Gatekeepers............................................................................................... 826
The Wardens ..................................................................................................... 829
Children of the Book .......................................................................................... 832
The Ascendents................................................................................................. 834
Project: Twilight ................................................................................................. 835
The Crucible ...................................................................................................... 837
Independents..................................................................................................... 839
Appendix 4: Character Stats as at End of Story 9.................................................. 840
Thomas "Wolsey" Dean ..................................................................................... 840
Carl "Damascus" Washington ............................................................................ 841
Kemi "Kali" Simone............................................................................................ 842
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Chapter 0: Introduction
Washington DC - The Broken Diamond. Designed by a freemason, riddled with
murder and drugs, more concentrated power per square mile than almost anywhere
else in the world. Under constant pressure from people and.. things.. that try with
varying degrees of success to influence it's decision-making for their own ends. With
all the damage one creature of the night with mental influence could do in a lobby, or
in the White House, there's a high-stakes game of peace-through-mutually assured
destruction, where Mages live under paranoid lines of behaviour. The Dichotomy
between the Avenues of Power and the parts of the city that people actually live in,
worse in the World of Darkness than it is in the real world, has created two City-father
spirits - if two cities exist in the same space, which one is real? The effect the city's
plan has on the resonance of it's leys is too strong to be coincidental - should it be
encouraged and perfected or broken open like the cage it might be? When the
practices of the Pentacle mages - forced by their circumstances to wipe memories,
control minds and infiltrate the corridors of power to prevent their use by others approach those of the Seers, is there any difference between the two sides? When
you use the tools of the Exarchs, are you any better than a Seer?
Order and Chaos. Liberty and Control. The use of Power.
The man trying to perfect himself as an example to others, finding enlightenment in
serving others.
The one-eyed man in the labyrinth of the blind, breaking rules and committing sins in
his search for something precious.
The woman finding herself by destroying herself, ripping lives apart in a search for
something real.
-------------------The world needs another Awakening Actual Play, I think - specifically one covering
the things that I don't think I've seen addressed anywhere. I'm that small-pressgame-running-guy - I've AP'ed A|State, Everway, Deliria and (still ongoing) Primetime
Adventures. None of them are exactly mainstream - so why Mage?
I'm a Mage junkie, and have been since the release of Mage: the Ascension. I own
every book published for Ascension - two feet of purple, bar a couple of inches of
weird sparkly covers for the First and second edition Tradition books. I even have the
novels. I was involved in either running or playing the game for six and a bit years up
until well after the Time of Judgement. I could explain the metaplot to people, for
Christ’s sake.
So why's it taken a year to start my own Awakening Chronicle?
I was waiting for optimal conditions. My group contained several Mage-sceptics, and
I had the luxury of time. Now that my group consists of people who *are* up for it,
now that Awakening is a year old and I have the benefit of seeing how's it's
developed in the (excellent) supplements, most importantly now that there's space
between me and Ascension, I'm ready.
The thing I've not seen addressed in the NWoD actual plays so far is this - how do
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you go from running an Old WoD game to running it's successor? Do Forsaken
Storytellers have a hard time grasping the feel of the new game, or do they find
themselves sliding back to Apocalypse? What makes Awakening *different* to
Ascension - what is a good Awakening story as opposed to a good Ascension story,
where do they overlap and where do they differ? It's taken me a *year* to get to the
point where I'm confident enough to run Awakening - and even then, as we'll see, it
took until the second session for Awakening to "click".
Fortunately, it clicked hard.
My position on the eternal flamewar is thus - look, I loved Ascension too, it served me
well - but I *already own it*. If I'm going to run Awakening, I'm going to run it with
Atlantis, the Exarchs, the Seers, the Pentacle, the Western symbology and all. I'm
going to learn to love it like it's elder cousin, and find something that interests me in
it's themes, not try to force the themes I've been playing with for years onto it.
A note on format. Out of character, behind the curtain-type bits are written like this, allowing the reader to choose what they
emphasise on.
SPOILER WARNING
As it says in the title, There be spoilers for Reign of the Exarchs in here. I bought the
book after running the second session of this chronicle, and have decided to
incorporate it into Broken Diamond - changing huge chunks of it to make it fit in with
the chronicle I already had, but not that much, as the theme of the book was already
the main question of my own chronicle. With that in mind, people likely to play RotE
at any point would be well to be warned. I'll put spoiler warnings before each story in
this thread that's run based on the book as well, but as I'm a plot foreshadowing kind
of guy, there will be snippets and bits of run-up throughout the thread.
Themes
These are the parts of Mage: The Awakening that I'm consciously emphasising,
because they spoke something to me, because they're maybe different to Ascension
and because they fit the setting.
Masks and Identity Crisis
I like to explore matters of self-identity in my games (see.. pretty much every actual
play I've done - especially Malekin's story in Deliria and... the entire of the Everway
thread, really) based on a fascination with Phillip K Dick-like "what is real?" stories
and a certain amount of Real-life musing on the nature of reality during my growing
years. I've had characters have their personalities altered by magic and the other
characters have to debate whether the new personality is a person that they'd be
killing by restoring their friends. I've had deathlords in Exalted turn out to be the
ghosts of the first-age selves of PCs. I've run two successful campaigns based on
amnesia (the second of which is my Everway thread here).
Mage: The Awakening is as a gift to my sort of GM, and it's for this reason;
"What does it mean?"
"That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are"
"But an Oracle can?"
"That's different"
"What's your name boy?"
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"John"
"What's your real name, John?"
"Pyro"
I'm talking about Shadow names. For me, and in this game, the taking of a Shadow
name isn't something you do to make it harder for other people to cast magic on you
- though that's a big ancillary benefit. Consider - the entire world is the Gnostic prison
of the Exarchs. Your identity - your real identity - is the prison-tag they gave you.
Shadow identities are like the rebel's callsigns in the Matrix - based on their own
particular subculture, but taken as a badge of rebellion. The false identity you
construct for yourself as a mage is who you are, not who they intended you to be.
And when that magic's gone - when they call you by your slave name - your ass is
theirs.
Seers of the Throne in my game tend to do the "Mr Anderson" whenever they can.
But it goes further than that. You can't just change your name to "Lord Thraxnor" or
something and call yourself Supernal. It requires a big change, a directed alteration
of your life. When Banneker, the Hierarch of Washington DC in my setting, goes
home to his wife and kids he is not Banneker any more - his Fallen identity is not his
Supernal identity, and he keeps them rigorously separate. His body language is
different, he speaks differently. If he had enough grasp of the Life Arcana he'd *look*
different. For Mages without dependents it's easier - they can live their Supernal lives
nearer to 24/7. Even those Mages that require careers and mortgages in my
interpretation don't use their real names - they have their Supernal identity, a second
false identity that they use for dealing with the Fallen World and then, buried deep
somewhere inside, the real life they hide from everyone.
The player characters all fit this to a T, as we'll see - Kali and Damascus are both
motivated by trying to change themselves into what they consider their supernal
selves to be ("good" in Damascus' case, "bad" in Kali's, morally), while Wolsey is
both damaged by fallout from his Fallen life *and* a man of many guises and masks,
with a different name on every business card and identities like a puzzlebox.
Liberty vs. Control
"What Truth?"
"That you are a slave, Neo. born into bondage in a prison you can neither see nor
touch"
It's in this matter that I think Awakening is superior to Ascension. Ascension, in it's
later years, tried to recast the conflict between the Traditions and the Technocracy as
being one of Liberty vs. Control rather than Magic vs. Science, but it was a case of
one development too late and still buried beneath the *trappings* of the surface
conflict. Awakening has no such considerations - the Exarchs and their willing
servants use the same powers as the Oracles and their followers in the Pentacle
orders, the Seers of the Throne look awfully like the Guardians of the Veil crossed
with the Silver Ladder (as our Silver Ladder character has pointed out) when you
really look at them. It really is just down to the fact that the Exarchs control the world.
There's no "they use science" crutch to distract from the struggle against the archons
of the world.
Awakening is a Gnostic game, and for me it's horror comes from that - you are in a
world that your enemies run, and everything inside it - including you - can be altered
by them on a whim. Mages are ants that know they're in an ant farm.
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Fighting Fire with Fire - using the enemy's methods
The "Big Four" cabals of Pentacle Mages in my setting are driven by their reactions
to two elements of the background, which I'll explain at more length later: DC was
designed by a freemason as a very particular grid that somewhat worryingly
resembles a Kabbalistic mandala, and as the city's grown it's had more and more..
symbology.. built into it. Symbology that has an effect, resonance-wise - the
government areas, the mall and the other parts of this "grid have detectably more
orderly resonance than the rest of the city, which is a hellhole exaggerated from the
real DC's crime-ridden backstreets. One of the city's "ruling" cabals is dedicated to
perfecting the grid, which they think was inspired by the mortal architect's run-in with
an Astral vision of Atlantis. Another is dedicated to preventing supernatural influence
on American politics wherever they can - watching for and stopping vampires, seers
and even pentacle mages wherever they can.
Both of them are using the methods of the Exarchs. Controlling a human population
by geomantic means? Actively working to prevent supernaturals from changing the
world? Their *motives* are good, sure. But what, exactly, separates them from the
Seers?
Everybody Lies
There's a paradox inherent in Awakening's setup - and I love impossible quandaries
like this. Mages are driven by their search for Truth. In their Awakening, they see the
Exarch's lie for what it is.
Pity, then, that Mages seem incapable of being straight with one another.
The Orders all lie to one another, and to their members. Elder mages lie to their
youngers, who all lie right back at them. Mages - to an individual - live carefully
constructed false lives. If you've read Secrets of the Ruined Temple, you know how
there are dozens of contradictory Atlantis stories. The Guardians of the Veil
painstakingly build recursive dolls-nests of conspiracies and occult "secrets" for the
unwary to become lost in. The Silver ladder decides on it's own sweet time when
you're enlightened enough to be told what's really going on - and when you progress
beyond that, you'll find out that they were lying the second time too.
Being a Mage is a quest for truth in a world where everyone - including your own
damn self - is constantly practicing the art of misdirection, desperately safeguarding
their own secrets.
Morals are for Mortals.. or maybe not
"We make the Vampires look like boy scouts" - Beckett, session 3
There's a bit at the end of Ascension (the novel, not the game supplement, that
finished M:TAsc's metaplot) in which the world ends during the time of judgement
and everyone and everything is reduced to it's component spheres. All the mages
Ascend, become aware of the full span of the lives of all human beings. The
Ascension war stops, and the last thing they all do - Technocrats, Orphans and
Traditions alike - is heartfeltly congratulate one another for their efforts to better
humanity. It was hopeful, optimistic - it felt appropriate as an ending to a game where
everyone is trying to better the lot of humanity, but are fighting over how to do it.
Wouldn't happen in Awakening, beyond the obvious reasons. Because Mages in
Awakening? They're bastards.
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The path to ascension in Awakening (and it's odd that the game that isn't named after
the concept has the clearer view of what it means, and seems - to me at least - as
being a game in which it could happen more realistically) is a deeply personal one.
Mages in Ascension lose their individual hangups as they progress, realising their
paradigms don't matter. Mages in Awakening *gain* something akin to a paradigm as
their soul evolves along a Legacy. It's the other way around.
Because the path is so personal, because they have empirical proof that it's
themselves they need to worry about and not anyone else, because they're used to
living under the shadow of jealously guarding who they are from friends and coworkers for fear of someone getting an advantage... Awakening Mages are an awful
lot more narcissistic. Selfish fucks were the bad apples of Ascension, but they're the
operating standard of Awakening - everyone is out for number one.
Similarly, it's a lot easier - in a game which has a Morality mechanic - to handle
stories about the slide of a Mage's morality. Hubris IS one of the main points of the
game, after all. Of the player characters, Kali is deliberately becoming a less "moral"
person (and suffering the wisdom loss for it), because she's aiming for a level of
society which she believes to be more real. Wolsey lies to and uses anyone that gets
in his way, and can countenance selling out just-won allies to their mutual enemies in
order to buy a momentary advantage.
Atlantis and Alchemy
I like Atlantis. There, I said it. I never had a problem with it in the Corebook, simply
because it just made me think of Mage as a world in which Graham Hancock was
right all along and in which I could, if so inclined, adapt Indiana Jones and the Fate of
Atlantis. What could be wrong with that?
I was *so* glad when I got Secrets of the Ruined Temple.
In any case, the lost city looms large - DC is suspected in the chronicle of being a
partial copy of Atlantis and the plot threads from Reign of the Exarchs touch on the
battle against the false gods of reality. But it's not the only part of the "generic
western" trappings of Awakening that have seen use.
Because I like the feel of Awakening's magic.
I am having great fun putting Masks, Cups, Pentacles, Coins, Wands and Swords
into the chronicle in unusual places. DC's geography, with important sites laid out on
cardinal directions, helps.
I describe the world under Mage sight as having elements of the Supernal Realm of
the arcana being investigated - inspired by the movie version of Constantine, Mages
using Mage sight have an unsettling time of it.
Paranoia
"...which means anyone still connected to their system is potentially an agent."
Everyone's out to get you. The other four orders, your own superiors, your own
inferiors. And then there are the enemy. Mages are undercover in an espionage war
they can never win, constantly looking over their shoulders and second-guessing
themselves. This is present in the game as presented, but I've kicked it up a notch the Seers in my setting have more than one Profane Urim, and they're not afraid to
use them.
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When Wolsey, in session two, informs the others they can't use the restaurant
they've met at twice again for fear of building up a pattern others can use against
them, I knew I'd hit the right note.
Overview of the City
DC does not have the very best of histories - a diamond-shaped (originally, there's a
chunk missing of it's border after Virginia took it's portion back, hence "broken
diamond") lump of swampland that no-one wanted, set aside so that no one state
would have the capital city within it's borders. A grand plan by a French military
engineer for the layout of the city was delayed through lack of funds while the city
turned into a cesspit - when it *was* put into action, the distance between the grand
design and the reality was laughable. What's important for our purposes is the effect
that Design - and the parts of the city that follow it - has on the local resonance, both
inclining the areas covered by the "Grid" of traced lines towards orderliness and
doing the reverse to the spaces in-between.
DC in the World of Darkness is worse off than in the real world - the real DC has
racial divisions, huge areas of poverty and became the murder capital of the US in
the 70s. The World of Darkness' DC still is - the areas off the grid are still suffering
the after-effects of riots that went on longer and harder than in our world, the Control
Board never gave up power back to a mayor and the residents of the district still don't
have the vote (which they only got in the 60s in our world). In contrast, the "grid"
areas are under heavy lock and key, with even more armed police surrounding even
more lobbyists and bureaucrats. The WoD DC is more ghettoised, more violent, more
partisan and much more judgemental - a grid of imposed order on a semi-permanent
lawless hellhole. Without the residents being franchised, there's no reason for the
WoD's politicians to spend money on them - the overwhelming majority of DC's
funding goes into the Grid areas both subconsciously (on the part of sleepers) and,
tragically, by the design of one of the city's cabals.
The geomantic pressure exerted on the city by the collected power of it's
monuments, public buildings and avenues is constant, unyielding and entirely
artificial - like a tracery of pins holding it down in an unnatural shape. The pressure
"releases" in the areas not covered by the grid - a weak gauntlet is worryingly
common, and things creep into the dark corners of the city from the Twilight, the
Shadow and the Abyss. The nature of the city - grandiose capital city overlaid on,
coexisting within and contemporaneous with a resentful, ignored, almost-imprisoned
and poverty-stricken town - has meant that no one City Father has formed "Washington" and "DC" both have their own City Fathers, and the Shadowlands are
locked in a frenzy as the two spiritual ecosystems clash.
Into this come the Mages, of the Pentacle Orders and the Seers of the Throne, with
numerous independents and a worrying number of Banishers lurking on the edges.
Mages - and other creatures of the night - come to DC from all over the world,
looking to gain power and influence, and those already resident have to work hard to
keep their own control. Control of the Capital City of the world's Superpower is a
prize worth fighting over - covertly, of course: The two main "sides" both agree that
the spiritual chaos of the city's shadow should be contained, and that incautious
outsiders should not be allowed to meddle with politics. They disagree on who should
be the gatekeeper. The Pentacle mages of the city are faced with a City under
unnatural stresses, a larger than normal Seer population (with a Ministry rumoured to
be based in the city) looking to exterminate them and the unhappy prospect of
preventing any of their fellow Pentacle mages from shifting the delicate balances of
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power too far - by any means necessary. Much effort is expended to go nowhere, all
the sides in all the debates aware that if they stop struggling as hard as the others
they will find the city has no room for them.
The dichotomy of the city is interpreted according to Mage's individual prejudices - a
sizeable portion of the Awakened believe that Washington DC is clearly in the
process of merging with it's own Supernal self, held back by it's Fallen aspect. The
difference of opinion among these is over which city is Supernal, and which is Fallen.
Others believe that both cities are equally valid, and that the false divisions require
healing.
Three of the main cabals of the city's consilium are divided up along that axis - the
pro-grid, anti-grid and "unification" Cabals. Another is dedicated to the messy
business of preventing interference in mortal affairs on a grand scale. The last major
Pentacle cabal - and the largest - is based less on DC as a physical or supernal
*place*, but as a setting for events - chroniclers of history-in-the-making, students of
both populations, they think that the geomantic argument is worthless until the nature
of the grid is fully understood.
Power-wise, the Hierarch of the city (a Silver Ladder mage) is the least potent, in
terms of personal ability, of the City's Masters - he owes his position to careful
negotiation, the disinterest of two of his peers and a deal done with the last - the
head of the Gatekeeper Cabal and the senior Guardian of the Vale in DC - to allow
that individual and his followers great leniency in pursuing their mission. That the
Hierarch is in this situation is a result of the deadlock - the Silver Ladder's traditional
allies in the Adamantine Arrow are predominantly in the Cabal directly opposed to the
Hierarch's, so he's had to seek other friends.
The Consilium, painfully aware of the power struggle within itself and the constant
cold war against the Seers, issues the following advice to new Mages - adapted from
an apocryphal list of advice told to CIA agents about to be sent to Moscow.
* Assume nothing.
* Murphy is right.
* Never go against your gut; it is your operational antenna.
* Don't look back; you are never completely alone.
* Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
* Go with the flow, blend in.
* Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
* Any operation can be aborted. If it feels wrong, it is wrong.
* Maintain a natural pace.
* Lull them into a sense of complacency.
* Build in opportunity, but use it sparingly.
* Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
* Don't harass the opposition.
* There is no limit to a human being's ability to rationalize the truth.
* Magic will always let you down.
* Pick the time and place for action.
* Keep your options open.
* Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.
In an effort to build up his powerbase despite his precarious position, the Hierarch
has a habit of poaching new apprentices for himself - he declared long ago that the
placement of newly awakened mages would be at the discretion of himself, and
coincidentally declared his own cabal as the one that fostered all but a few of the
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younger mages in the city. He has been forced to abandon this policy after protest
from the other Councillors escalated, but has put a vengeful twist on his giving in the populations of the city's cabals are fixed. New mages will be trained by the city's
Prefects, and then formed into a new Cabal, with another Cabal being created every
ten years. In this way, those protesting get what they said they wanted, but not what
they actually wanted. And he still gets to try to win the new Cabal over to his own
point of view, same as everyone else.
And it's with the formation of the first of these graduating cabals that the chronicle
starts.
Cabals, Legacies and People Known at the Start
The Bringers of the Utopian Design ("Utopians") - Silver Ladder and Mysterium
mages who believe that L'Enfant (the sleeper architect who saw DC in a dream) was
influenced by the Oracles but that the combination of L'Enfant's mortal memory and
interpretation, combined with the city not following the plan exactly enough, has left
flaws in the design that create the "sinkhole" areas. The Utopians are dedicated to
figuring out what the missing parts of the design are and correcting those mistakes their members are architects, city planners and stockbrokers (for funding) in their day
jobs, and experienced geomancers when acting as Mages. Their leader is a Silver
Ladder Obrimos named Banneker, an architect and the Hierarch of the city's
consilium. Banneker has evolved his soul into a Legacy based around geomancy and
the careful design of buildings, blocks and whole cities to channel resonance, which
he has taught to a few of his followers.
The Seekers of One Soul ("City Souls") - Silver Ladder and Mysterium mages who
take the middle ground in the geomantic argument and believe that the two facets of
the city must be united and the pressures dispelled by homogenising the society of
DC. The majority of the Cabal's members take the tactic of working in the Shadow
first - thinking that by halting the war of the spirits, they can cure the wounded soul of
the city. Others work socially, breaking down the barriers between the grid and the
rest, and seeking to reconcile the destructive energies in most of the city with the
more "civilised" regions. The Cabal boasts two members of the Claviclarius Legacy,
one of whom - Suleiman, a Mysterium Mastigos, is the Councillor for the Cabal.
The Defenders of the Forgotten ("Defenders") - a cabal of Adamantine Arrow and
Free Council Mages (with one Guardian of the Veil) based in, and dedicated to, the
overwhelming majority of DC's population - the forgotten mass of people who live off
the grid, preyed on by predators of an urban and supernatural nature. The Defenders
fight off demons, drive out possessions, slay Vampires and argue that the Grid is the
cause of their problems to unfeeling ears. Their Councillor is a Free Council Moros
(of the Bokor legacy) named Dantor, though they have a Perfected Adept, a
Claviclarius and a Bearer of the Eternal Voice. The members of the Cabal our
characters have met are Bedlam, a Claviclarius who despite being institutionalised
with a mental illness watches out for anything preying on his fellow patients, and
Ulysses, a Catholic priest, Dantor's Prefect and the mentor of one of our characters.
The Recorders of Living History ("Recorders) are the largest Cabal in the city,
mostly Mysterium and Free Council with one Guardian mage and one Silver Ladder
mage. They are the main seat of the House of Ariadne Legacy, though that Legacy
(from Legacies: the Sublime. Think Walkers in Mists but urban-oriented) has
members dotted around the other Cabals too. Their leader - and Councillor - is
Samuel, the most powerful Pentacle mage in the city, Acanthus Free Councillor and
11
the leader of the House. Samuel is a temporal voyeur - he spends his days
establishing temporal sympathy with eyewitnesses to important events in history and
then projecting his consciousness backward and riding in that person's senses while
the scene plays out. His prefect is an Acanthus Mystagogue named Blaise, who
studies the flow of tourists around the important sites of the city's mall like water on a
prayer wheel. He's the inconstant mentor of another of our characters.
Project Twilight Is the mysterious all-Guardian of the Vale Cabal based in the
intelligence community of DC - the CIA, NSA and FBI.
The Gatekeepers are the predominantly Guardian of the Vale Cabal dedicated to
spotting - and stopping - interference in US politics by supernaturals. They contain a
number of Bearers of the Eternal Voice, who use their attainments giving power over
people's perception of truth to undo damage and pre-emptively strike against
troublemakers. Their leader is the Mastigos Guardian (and Bearer) Malakii, who has
gained the ability to alter memory through an attainment - and free of his Order's
rules about use of memory-wiping magic and it's vulgarity (because attainments
aren't supernal magic), he feels justified in using this ability against anyone he likes.
Other members of the Cabal are Mr Thursday, the City's Interfector, and Mara,
Malakii's student and Prefect and the third of our characters' mentors.
Aside from a number of Cabal-less Mages (one of whom is the fifth Councillor), the
last Cabal are the
Children of the Book, based in and around the University of Maryland (which is
technically not inside DC, being sited in one of it's suburbs outside of the diamond
border). Their leader - and the fifth Prefect - is an Adamantine Arrow Thyrsus
Perfected Adept named Marathon.
The Player Characters: A Summary
Wolsey
The Constant Mastigos
Thomas Dean was - and is - a political power broker and deal-fixer, a man who could
get people elected - or not arrested - with a handshake, who could negotiate...
difficulties.. with ease and who always had the knack of making people believe he
was sincere. He was also, along with his wife Amanda, heavily involved in the Occult
as a means of furthering his ambitions - if there were a society, a sworn brotherhood
or an after-hours social gathering going, he was going to be part of it even if they did
wear strange outfits. The cult the couple found themselves most involved in in their
native Massachusetts was very liberal and leftist, but had links with other, more
serious organisations. Wolsey now thinks of it as being like a gateway drug, that
captured Amanda and didn't let go.
One day, Thomas' wife disappeared, and Thomas himself Awakened. Caught up in
the chaos of his awakening as a Mastigos, he didn't realise that his wife's vanishing
had nothing to do with his visit to Pandemonium until she was long gone, and he
balanced his initial training with trying to figure out where she went and why.
Discovering that one of the cults his had links to involved the shedding of one's old
life, he came to the conclusion that Amanda must have joined it and decided to move
to DC - where that cult was based - to seek her. Introducing himself to a *third* cult,
also DC-based, by taking the role of a guest speaker they were expecting, he is
working his way through the Labyrinth of the city, looking for signs of his love.
12
Wolsey has named himself after Henry the Eighth's Cardinal and Power broker - a
man behind kings, who fell to his own hubris and ceasing to be useful to his
monarch. He takes great issue with the Guardians of the Vale, rightly recognising the
organisation he awoke in as being part of their Labyrinth, designed to *stop* people
from finding the truth. In particular, the Guardians in DC have refused to help in his
quest, citing their work as being more important. Wolsey sees occult organisations as
a means to enlighten it's members, and has already clashed with the Guardians on
his desire to "help up" people in the Labyrinth into true Enlightenment. His keen
sense for opportunity has led to him volunteering as a Herald already, and he is
poised to join the Bearers of the Eternal Voice legacy - ironically, the one that the
chief Guardian is the originator of.
Wolsey is a cross between Jodie Foster's character in Inside Man and Ralph Fiennes' in The Constant Gardner - a slick
power-jockeying suit, on a quest to find out what happened to his wife and if necessary take revenge. His views on the
Labyrinth put him - and the Cabal - at odds with the Guardians, who disapprove of his trying to use "their" powers to make
the impressionable people in the cults he infiltrates more likely to accept magic. He's the nominal leader of the Cabal and is,
says Mark, so white it hurts. And in the racially-charged atmosphere of the Cabal's usual haunts, it does.
Damascus
Ironmonger and Maker of unusual weapons
Damascus does not talk much of his past, bar a few offhand references - born Carl
Washington, he was a gang member in the deprived South-East of the city and had a
string of petty thefts and assaults to his name before Death caught up with him. The
near-death experience and the Awakening in the watchtower of the Leaden Coin
gave Carl a new lease of life, and he abandoned his old life in favour of a hidden
interest in metalworking and art.
Damascus (named for the folded steel) is a moderately famous artist, a sculptor in
metal and - to his fellows in the Adamantine Arrow - a supplier of unusual arms and
equipment. Damascus makes the silver bullets, prepares the holy water grenades
and has a sizeable collection of other oddments from blessed magic 8 balls to the
fingerbones of saints. His philosophy is one of self-betterment through using magic to
assist others, of enlightenment through giving loyal support to one's leader (the
Adamantine Arrow way) and through the forging of oneself into Supernal form
through long and proper action, like steel folded over itself. He is a prospective
member of the Uncrowned Kings legacy, though his current mentor is not one.
In the group, Damascus is the level-headed one, the most optimistic and the most likely to volunteer to help someone in
need. He's a decent human being, given a second chance at his life through near-death.
Kali
The Only Self-Improvement is Self-Destruction
Kali is a drug dealer and gang leader. She rules a nest of thugs, dealers and whores
in the decidedly-warzone like district South-East of the city centre, across the river
from the Naval bases. She is wildly promiscuous, has an open-door policy on her
rooms which allows anyone to wander in and out, smokes, drinks, takes drugs.
Personality-wise, she's foulmouthed and ill-tempered.
Kemi was a good middle-class girl, who never got into any trouble. Mixed-race of
Afro-American and Pakistani origin (though she points out that she's uncertain of her
grandparents, and is probably even more ethnically diverse in background than that),
she awoke in unspecified circumstances onto the Acanthus path and was caught up
in the House of Ariadne and the Mysterium - lessons which she learnt well.
Kali believes that it is the underclass - the gang members and street dwellers - who
13
are closest to the City, and as a nascent House of Ariadne member being close to
the City is godly. As a Mysterium mage, she sees her old life as being devoid of any
Truth or Meaning, qualities which she sees in abundance in the forbidden (to her old
self) world of the criminals.
Her persona, then, is the result of a calculated campaign of self-destruction scouring the girl Kemi used to be out of herself in a quest for Enlightenment through
devolution, trying to get closer to her nebulous Truth as she goes. In her new life, she
is connected to the city on a level that simply wasn't possible before. Without safety,
without any limits and with forcing herself to commit immoral acts, Kali is getting at
the core of the human condition and evolving.
Or that's what she tells herself anyway.
Kind of a female Tyler Durden, is Kali, and focused entirely on the "soft" Arcana like Space, Time and Fate. Kali is
exceptionally lucky - the result of her player taking the game system to heart and casting divinations on anything going. Her
twisted perception of the world - that this life is something to aspire to - pitches her against Damascus (who is trying to
escape the life she's succeeding at forcing her way into) and Wolsey (who she sees as being her opposite, preoccupied with
the playtimes of the rich as he is).
14
Chapter 1: “Through Me, Revelation”
Session 1.1
Early May, 2006.
Damascus has been informed by his mentor that his apprenticeship is judged to be
as complete as necessary, and that the time has come for Damascus to join a cabal.
Unfortunately, due to the political fall-out from a controversy involving the Hierarch
allegedly stealing apprentices, Damascus doesn't have any choice in the matter, and
doesn't get to pick which Cabal he's part of. His new Cabal mates (Damascus'
mentor provides the very barest of details - path, order and shadow name) have
been given Damascus' address, and he should be expecting them.
Accordingly, the Moros is puttering around his house, clearing his tools away and
straightening the furniture.
We don't see Damascus' mentor - this is all a given at the start. Ulysses turns up later on in the Prelude, and other than "he's
a catholic priest" I didn't want to spoil his entrance. This opening device is a *blatant* shoe-horn to get the characters
together, only one step behind "you all meet in a bar". I am deeply shamed.
Earlier, Kali is sat on a low wall somewhere in the Mall, next to a hot-dog stand.
Blaise - a dreadlocked white man who evidently didn't get any memos about grunge
being dead, wearing an army jacket and a T-shirt with a picture of a rainbow on it - is
wolfing a dog while explaining the situation to his now former student. He describes
her new cabalmates with a bit more detail - Wolsey is "a near-miss Guardian who the
Ladder managed to snag", apparently - and seems cheerfully unaware of how
unimpressed Kali is at the thought of working for the rest of her life with a "speechy"
Ladder and an artist. He waves her off, reminding her not to be late.
As Kali slouches away, she makes a mental note to be as late to Damascus' house
as she possibly can.
Blaise does not appear for the rest of the Prelude, despite him being the mentor that had more than one point spent on him.
Ah, well. He'll be important when Kali wants to join the House of Ariadne. Kali's eternal attitude problem - which serves
mostly to mask her inner thought processes from the rest of the world - is, I think, a reaction of Sam (her player) to her other
characters of late. She was Jacqui in Deliria.
Later again, now at night, and we fade back in on Wolsey sitting in the passenger
seat of a rather expensive car, looking out at the neighbourhood. The driver is his
mentor, a smartly-dressed middle-aged Indian (Indian subcontinent, not Native
American) woman named Mara. She's explaining the setup we've had explained
twice already, but gives more details still that indicate that she's looked into the
backgrounds of his new cabalmates - Damascus is from somewhere around here,
and is a weapons supplier for the Adamantine Arrow, while Kali is a barely-socialised
drug dealer from deeper into the south-east of the city. Mara's tone expresses
disapproval of his new Cabalmates (Kali in particular), but Wolsey is nonplussed, still
staring out at the endless procession of increasingly middle-class houses.
At length, they arrive, and Wolsey steps out of the air-conditioned bliss of the car into
the nasty humidity of an early evening in late May, crunching his way around the car
on Damascus' gravel path. He asks Mara if she's coming in, and she says not at first
- she'll let them get to know one another, but has something to tell them when they're
ready if he wants to call her.
Damascus and Wolsey exchange Shadow names and handshakes, and set in to wait
for Kali (whom neither of them have met), trading niceties that break down somewhat
15
when Wolsey turns out to know nothing about art and Damascus turns out to care
very little about Politics. But they're polite.
Outside, Kali is slowing ambling her way up the street, peering at house numbers.
She and Mara spot one another - Mara's still in the car - and manage to convey their
mutual disrespect over seven feet and through a tinted car window.
Inside, Damascus is elaborating on his art - he creates statues and installations from
iron - when Kali arrives in a cloud of cigarette smoke. After introductions, Wolsey
ventures that they should try to get to know each other.
You can almost hear the crickets chirping and the churchbell tolling in the
background.
Kali is prevented from tapping ash onto the floor by provision of an ashtray, and
Wolsey manages to drag out of her which Arcana she's been trained in, while he and
Damascus volunteer theirs. The information they share is on about the level of what
Mara told Wolsey - Damascus does volunteer that he was once in a gang, but a
near-death experience cured what prison couldn't. Kali calls this a "shame".
Wolsey smoothly asks if they should just get on with it, then, and call Mara in? The
other two shrug, so off he goes.
Wolsey, even at this stage, is setting himself up as the Cabal's chairperson - he's trying to take charge just as much as Kali is
determined to be annoying - but the bit about Damascus' background really is what she thinks.
In order to give the new Cabal something to do while they sort themselves out, Mara
says once she comes into the house, there is a "small matter" that the Consilium
would like looked into. It is troubling, but not important enough for anyone else to
have dealt with it for the time being - and as the new Cabal in the city, they get to
start with the jobs that no-one else wanted.
And the second part of the setup - the given-from-on-high quest! Beginnings are not my best thing... Mara's a Prefect of the
City (she's the prefect for the Guardians of the Veil Councilman, no less), which is why she's in a position to hand out
missions from the Hierarch.
This quarter of the city has a graffiti problem.
There is a pause for raised eyebrows and (in Kali's case) smoke-rings.
But seriously - there are four instances so far of someone painting crude images onto
surfaces - images of things that a Sleeper shouldn't be able to see. The first three
appear to be painted images of the Shadow Realm in those locations, as though the
painter was looking through the Gauntlet and tracing what he or see saw. The last is
more troubling - by accounts, the Shadow-world diorama is topped off with an
Atlantean rune. Their task is to find out who is doing it and why - anything further
than that is left to their discretion, though she gives Wolsey a rather significant glance
as she says it.
After she leaves, and they hear her car driving away, Wolsey points out that they are
unlikely to not be being watched throughout this exercise - they're blatantly being
sent on a low-risk mission so that the other Cabals can assess the new kids. And
they *do* have to work together on this - whether they like it or not, it's this or go
independent.
After a lengthy silence, Kali says that she knows the area the fourth image is in.
16
Damascus says he'll drive.
And they're off.
These icebreaking moments are always hard, and I've literally lost campaigns to them; I had a werewolf: the forsaken game
that failed because the characters - after ten sessions - never got past the initial uncertainty about one another. By this point
of the session, I was seriously afraid of the long-term prospects of the game. The next half of the session mollified me
somewhat, and session two cured me of the worry, thank gods. The characters are just so mismatched at first glance that it
took an active plot like the one of this prelude to get them to jiggle and rotate so that their angular edges match up and they
lock together. In a manner of speaking. Kudos to the players, who pulled off dozens of tiny adjustments as they settled into
their characters and their characters got used to one another. By the end of the prelude, they feel like a proper Cabal.
There's a long stretch of scrubby parkland, across the river from the DC naval bases,
which has a freeway elevated above it on great concrete struts. The cabal, following
the directions on the list Mara left them, walk down the bank into the trash-choked,
shadowy space beneath, backlit by the bright white lights of the naval yards and
picked out by campfires surrounded by the homeless people living down here in their
cardboard village.
The symbol is spraypainted onto the bottom of one of the struts - definitely Atlantean,
though not in the basic vocabulary any of the three of them have been taught by their
Orders.
Deep breaths. Time to start being Mages.
Literally. There was about a three-second pause here when they were faced with the rune before the spells started flying
While Wolsey sketches the rune, trying to make sense of it, Damascus casts Dark
Matter to gain the Mage sight and Kali - after consulting with the bums to determine
that the thing was painted "by some spaced-out guy" three nights ago - casts
Postcognition in order to scry backwards in time to when the rune was painted.
Damascus peers at the rune, seeing the weight of Stygian energies clinging to the
surface, and concludes that there *is* some residual spell energy - a spell that isn't
active now that used at least the Death and Mind Arcana, plus some others that he's
less familiar with. Kali, meanwhile, struggles with shifting her perceptions backwards
but manages to get a few seconds glimpse of the rune being painted by a thin black
man in a baseball cap, a heavy coat and worn sneakers.
Kali got but a single success, while Damascus got two. Kali actually uses Postcognition far more than any other spell, but
doesn't have it as a rote so has to rely on improvised casting - she is earmarked for the House of Ariadne as soon as her
soul is developed enough to join a Legacy, and their first attainment duplicates it's effects so Blaise considers teaching her
the power as a rote to be an unnecessary duplication of effort
Back at the car, they discuss the findings. There are three more sites - which don't
have runes, according to Mara, and an Atlantean rune to decipher. Wolsey suggests
that he go around the city's Heralds, both to introduce the Cabal and to find out if
anyone knows what the rune says. Damascus and Kali, after dropping him off
somewhere he can get a taxi, will go round the remaining dioramas and see if they
have better luck with their divinations.
..
The first site on their list is a basketball court. The painting is of a well built into weedchoked flagstones, sprayed onto the court itself. After Damascus casts Dark Matter
and Kali joins in with her own Mage Sight spell The Sybil's Sight, they assess the
energies as again being from a no-longer active spell cast using Death, Mind and
(this time) Space and Fate. Recognising the resonance as being from the same
caster as the last one, they proceed to stage two - Kali attempts Postcognition again,
17
while Damascus - on a hunch - casts Speak With The Dead. Kali's spell fails, but
Damascus' reveals the ghost of a little girl standing in the road. She appears to react
to something and flies sideways as though being run over, then reappears where
they are and runs back out, chasing a basketball that no longer exists. Damascus
attempts to ask her if she saw anything, but there's not enough of a sentience left in
her ectoplasmic repeating of her death to have a conversation with, and he is forced
to cancel the spell without success. Making a mental note to return once he has
progressed in the Death Arcana enough to do something about her fate, they consult
their list and head back to the car.
And here's one difference between Awakening and Ascension - Awakening Mages cast spells *all the time*. I recall one of
the design goals for the new game was 'encourage mages to cast magic', and it really does. I like the system for Mage sight,
and the way that the dozens of information gathering spells are both highly-focused and take account of successes - what
would have been a simple "conjunctional rote of as many 1-dot spheres as you have" to figure out any given phenomenon
becomes a delicate dance of figuring out which of your forensic spells you should cast in the time you have, which clues to
follow up and when to move on. And because they're covert and from the ruling arcana of the characters involved, they can
essentially do this all day without fear. I approve.
..
Wolsey is sitting in an expensive restaurant (the sort of place that has a harpist),
examining the menu, when he's joined by his dinner companion - the first of the city's
Heralds, a Moros Mystagogue named Francine. Francine is curly-haired, brunette
and bespectacled, wearing a mildly unfashionable dress that fits the dress code for
this well-to-do establishment. Wolsey thanks her for meeting him and she says that
it's no bother - after all, he's paying for her to eat above her means for the privilege of
meeting her.
They make small talk - Francine is a historical biographer by profession, and in her
Supernal life is a member of the Recorders of Living History Cabal. Which, given
their reputation for studiousness, is why she was first on his list.
Francine is visibly distracted throughout their conversation, glancing over Wolsey's
shoulder every now and again and fiddling with her cutlery. Eventually, she excuses
herself and gets up, walking to the table immediately behind theirs and - demeanour
changing in an instant, brightly asking the suited, heavy-set man sat there if she's
met him before. After some verbal back and forth (Wolsey gets the pins and needles
feeling that marks his Unseen Sight kicking off - she's using magic) he gives her his
name, and she returns to Wolsey's table.
Entirely straight-faced, she notes that the gentleman will be dead by the end of the
night. And then absorbs herself in the wine list.
To business - Francine can't read the rune herself, her Atlantean isn't good enough
either. Wolsey asks about the other members of her Cabal, and she says that she
doesn't think so. Disappointed, he thanks her and they return to small talk, finishing
the meal before he calls her a cab and then the next Herald on the list.
Francine is a member of the Stone Book / "Nametakers" Legacy - from Legacies: The Sublime. This whole side-quest about
finding someone that can translate the rune comes from my thoughts upon reading the High Speech chapter in Secrets of the
Ruined Temple - what happens if your Cabal *doesn't* have Linguistics: Atlantean, but someone in your city does, and they
need something translated? There's a major bargaining chip a person can offer to everyone else right there.
..
Damascus and Kali have taken in a fence which has a striking picture of a gallowsyard painted on it (same results as for the spell, though this time Postcognition
worked a bit better, offering Kali a few more seconds of their mystery graffiti artist)
18
and now stand at the last of their sites, at which an archway to some kind of alley has
been painted on the side of an apartment building. Mage sight has revealed - once
again - that the spell is no longer active and that it was cast by the same person as
before.
Damascus is stumped, but Kali has gotten into the mood for investigation - her surly
demeanour from before gone, she's now seriously considering the puzzle and trying
lateral methods. She casts Postcognition while still keeping Mage Sight up, to try to
get a better look at the spell's resonance, and determines that the man in question
was acting in a sort of trance - he wasn't possessed, though, it was an external effect
not something inside him.
Considering, she throws Interconnections at the painting, determining that there is a
strong link between the four sites - and that the young man has some degree of a
destiny. Working out the timeline in her head, she notes that they've taken the
paintings in rough reverse order - they're at the oldest one, which was followed by
the well, the gallows and then the rune. She and Damascus talk through the
symbology of it in case that's important - Kali rambles for a while about the
significance of the archway being first - like something that something has come *in*
through. Damascus considers the possibility that it's a ghost mage doing the deed.
In any event, they are beginning to attract attention standing in the middle of the
neighbourhood at 1am. After flipping a group of men that cat-call her the bird, Kali
concedes that they should probably head back before she starts a fight that
Damascus will lose.
…
Wolsey, meanwhile, has now pitched up at the bar of a hotel downtown, where he's
met by a blonde, elfin lady that looks like he's woken her up. This is "Trace", an
Acanthus Mystagogue in the House of Ariadne - and the Herald in the Gatekeepers
Cabal.
Wolsey is avoiding the third and final Herald in the city - because he is in the Hierarch’s Cabal, and Wolsey doesn't want to
involve the boss. Yet.
Trace rather disgruntledly asks Wolsey what was so important that he phoned her
and asked to meet at 2 in the morning, and Wolsey checks his watch - it *is* getting
rather late. He apologises, and cuts it short - he intends to be a Herald, and des she
know what this drawing means?
Trace looks at it, gives up after staring at it blearily for a while, and advises Wolsey to
speak to her superior, Malakaii, about it. The Master knows more Atlantean than she
does.
The sinking feeling of "I need a consult from the man who represents my bitterest
enemies" setting in, Wolsey goes home to bed.
And that's the end of session 1. Much set up and gathering of information.
19
Session 1.2
Oh yeah... the stark disconnect between the opulent areas Wolsey was wandering around in and the urban landscape
Damascus and Kali were in was deliberate - it's my "two cities" thing rearing it's head. In any case, as I say I wasn't *entirely*
happy with session one - would have liked to do more than just hand out clues depending on how many successes Sam and
Rafe got at their magic rolls, for instance. Fortunately, the break seemed to serve, in people's minds, as the demarcation
point between reacting and acting. The shape of the problem is (kind of) known. Time to start trying to solve it.
The next morning (well, nearer noon actually), the Cabal reconvene in a food court to
share their findings and theories. Damascus has been thinking more about his theory
that it's the ghost of a mage doing the deed, while Kali (only turning up slightly late
this time) still things there's something to the order of the sites - she plotted them on
a map, and they seem to be heading South-East, into the heartland of the poor
districts she calls home and Damascus lives on the fringes of.
I *think* that they're in the MCI, but I could be wrong - Rafe seemed very specific about where the mall was, implying it's
somewhere he knows of ooc.
Wolsey, thinking hard, says that he thinks they're going to have to consult with
Malakaii about the rune's meaning. He's clearly uncomfortable about it, and
Damascus volunteers to go with him. Kali says that she's going to go back to the
rune site - she's thought of a few more spells she can cast on the location.
Wolsey pulls out his cell phone and calls Malakaii. The Master answers before the
first ring, asking Wolsey (by name) what he wants. The other two watch Wolsey ask
for a consultation, then hang up and announce that Malakaii will meet them "at the
Temple of the West". They'll get going now, while Kali goes to the freeway support,
and all meet back up here at 4.
..
An hour later, Wolsey and Damascus walk up the steps of the Abraham Lincoln
memorial.
"This feels strange" - Damascus
"What does?" - Wolsey
"Meeting on our business next to the old guy" - Damascus, glancing up at the Statue
"Indeed, we should be respectful. This is the house of the City Father" - Malakaii,
moving around a tour group to join them.
The "capital city" City Father - the City Father of D.C., as it were, rather than the City Father of Washington - appears as Abe,
as you'd expect really. Oh, yeah - this is the point at which my memory is able to pick out lines of dialogue as well. The
quotes start here.
Wolsey thanks Malakaii for meeting them on no notice, and the older mage brushes
the comment off with a wave of his hand, appearing slightly wearied by it. Malakaii,
despite his fearsome reputation, is a small, balding man of advancing middle years
and an unfortunate angular cast of facial features - combined with his wide, round
glasses, his thin pointed nose makes him look somewhat like an owl with watery grey
eyes and a rumpled suit.
Upon examining the note, Malakaii harrumphs for a few minutes, thinking, then looks
at it again. Finally, he blinks up at the two younger mages.
"'Through me, revelation'. Possibly 'Through this...' - the niceties of the ancients'
grammar are one of the things of which we in this denuded modern age are
unaware." - Malakaii
"Revelation..." - Wolsey
20
"Something like Revelation, yes - the word does not translate exactly. This rune, as a
whole, is both meant to convey an enlightening idea and to *be* an enlightening idea.
The language of the old ones often has only the very barest of differences between
causes and effects, developed as it was to communicate Supernal ideas. The
'through me' is the equivalent.. hmm.. you could also say 'By reading this, you are
enlightened'." - Malakaii
Damascus and Wolsey thank him very much for his time, both relieved that he was
helpful and thoroughly confused by his explanation.
"Well, thank you both. Always a pleasure, Wolsey." - Malakaii
As he leaves, Wolsey frowns. He's never actually met Malakaii before.
Damascus, though, has a more pressing thing to point out - his watch. The entire tenminute conversation appears to have taken an hour.
Malakaii has erased five-sixths of what they just spoke about from their memories.
Yikes. And, as I said, this whole conversation? This is the fault of Secrets of the Ruined Temple and it's excellent primer on
Atlantean and the difficulties involved in learning a language invented to describe resonance flows.
Malakaii's party piece - using his Attainment on the unwary - is rolled ahead of time, and what we actually play is what the
characters *remember* doing and saying in his presence. It's extremely morally dubious though, as it's an attainment, it
doesn't conflict with the Guardians of the Veil doctrines. Well, if you're a rules-lawyering bastard like Malakaii, anyway. It is
intended to add to the general feeling of uncertainty about reality, paranoia and questioning how much you trust your own
senses that Mage relies on - Malakaii, abusing his position of authority to alter the perceptions and minds of his fellow
revolutionaries, is a microcosm for the Exarchs.
Do not do this with a group that isn't up for this sort of thing.
Under the freeway, Kali has thrown Interconnections, Sybil's Sight and Postcognition
at the graffiti, getting a better look at the painter in the process and discovering that
this site is more important, supernally, than the others. She has a nagging feeling
about the painter which she can't quite shake, but she leaves to meet the others back
at the food court.
"We can't come here again. We risk building a pattern" - Wolsey
When she does arrive, she finds Wolsey and Damascus bitching about Malakaii's
treatment of them. The men tell her Malakaii's translation of the rune, and they bandy
their theories about a bit more - Kali adapts her "something is coming through the
Shadow world into this guy" theory to include the new information, rationalising the
rune as being an attempt to call across the Gauntlet to someone. The part that's hard
to understand is why this last piece - obviously magical in origin (being written in
Atlantean) and the most important according to Kali's measurements of Fate - was
the *last* one to be drawn. If there was a candidate for "thing likely to give a sleeper
visions", a rune meaning "Revelation" would be high, but the painter was under the
effects of the spell beforehand.
At which point, their train of thought is interrupted by Wolsey's cellphone.
Wolsey takes the call, frowning and saying that yes, he will be there. When the
others wait patiently enough, he explains - he is a member of several societies, he
says.
"I suppose you would call it a cult" - Wolsey
21
This specific cult is his 'base' - the first one he joined upon arriving in D.C., posing as
a guest from another society far away. He's been using their contacts for his own
ends, searching through the occult underground of the capital. And there is
something that they feel the need to contact him about.
"If you are interested, you could come with me tonight. It shouldn't take long" Wolsey
The others shrug and agree. The subject returns to the mystery man. They can't
figure this out at a distance. They need to find him, somehow. Damascus mulls the
physical description, and says that he's likely poor - and the bums said he was on
foot, a fact borne up whenever Kali sees him in the past.
Kali has a bright idea - they need more resources than they have between them, and
need to ask around. What's more - he's spraying his dioramas all around.
"Gang tags" - Kali
"Excuse me?" - Wolsey
Damascus and Kali explain, patiently, that he *must* have sprayed over at least one
gang tag in the pursuit of his.. whatever it is. Those gangs will be looking for him.
"Hell, my..." - Kali
Kali suggests that they go to her place, and she can get her network of dealers and
thugs to ask around. He must have offended someone - maybe he's even offended
her gang and she just hasn't heard about it yet. Maybe someone *knows* him, and
by circulating his description among her people they can cut through all this.
"After all, he's poor and he's probably from that part of town. I've probably done
him..." - Kali
The nagging feeling comes back. Kali frowns, then goes wide eyed. Damascus and
Wolsey sense her casting a spell - Postcognition as it happens.
"Shit!.. I have done him!" - Kali
Kali's spell afforded her a brief glimpse of herself performing a sexual act on the painter, in the toilet of a club. Pity she can't
remember his name.
...
Damascus' car pulls up in the parking lot outside a converted warehouse, in a
crumbling, partially industrialised are south of the "park" where the rune-tag was.
There are several cars arrayed around - some of which have wheels - and there are
a lot of people loitering around them. Very loud music is coming from the open door
of the building.
Kali sees Wolsey looking at the lights of the Naval base across the water, and tells
him that most of her business nowadays is with the sailors. She gets out and strolls
into her lair. Wolsey and Damascus exchange a dubious look and both cast Mage
Armour before following her in.
Hee!
Inside, Kali pushes her way through the crowd, not fazed by the ear-splitting music,
22
and indicates to the others that she's going upstairs - she lives in what was the
warehouse offices. There's a very large man at the foot of the stairs, who she taps on
the shoulder.
Upstairs, the doorway has a beaded curtain hanging to one side rather than a door.
Kali's boudoir is low-lit in red and orange, flickering with candles. There's a collection
of junk, a filthy bed and a crooked poster of her goddess namesake.
Wolsey is faintly horrified by the whole place - especially by how many people are
lounging around Kali's rooms
Not for salacious reasons - just because it's inherently unsafe for a Mage to have this many sleepers underfoot
"Everyone out - not you Ichi" (to the large man) "Come on - out!" (pulls a stranger out
of her bed and pushes him towards the stairs) "leave!" (opens the wardrobe and
yanks the handcuffed man knelt inside to his feet) "OUT!" - Kali
She pulls the curtain closed, and brushes the worst of the debris off her bed before
sitting down.
"Ichi. Do you remember a guy I was with at a club, about a year ago?" - Kali
Ichi confesses that there have been a lot of.. clubs. Kali describes the phantom
painter, and says that he's taken up graffiti. Dispatching Ichi to make the enquiries,
she opens her wardrobe again and asks Wolsey what she should wear to this cult
he's taking them to. Wolsey confesses that she should probably dress like a man, if
she has anything suitable.
Ichi is named after Ichi the Killer.
...
Now that the hounds have been released, there's time for Damascus to drive them to
Wolsey's apartment - which they don't go inside, waiting while he retrieves something
from inside - and then onwards into what Kali dismissively calls the "nice part of
town". They're in Adams-Morgan, North-East of Dupont Circle, and park at Wolsey's
instruction around the block from their destination. He hands out what he was
retrieving - three metal masks, with differing degrees of facial features. One is almost
blank, which he keeps.
"Now. We ring the bell and - after one minute - go inside and put our masks on. Then
we go in through the inner door" - Wolsey
"Why the detail?" - Damascus, as regards the masks
"The higher in status you are, the less detail your mask has. It's a shedding of one's
identity thing." - Wolsey
"And why do you have three?" - Damascus
"Because as far as they're concerned I'm three different people" - Wolsey
I may have gotten that the wrong way around. Mark?
They enter, and upon going through the inner door are met by a woman in a plain
white robe with a emotionless mask covering her face. She invites the three of them
to follow her, and leads them into a meeting hall where just over a dozen men are
standing around in small groups, talking. They're all masked too - as are the handful
of women (all in identical costumes, unlike the men) who are circulating around
handing out drinks, cigars and newspapers.
23
Kali can barely contain her incandescent rage.
The meeting comes to order as they realise Wolsey (who they call "speaker") is here.
The leader - with a mask that is completely blank except for his eyes - tells him that
they have received feelers from another society who call themselves the "juncture",
who wish to have some kind of symbolic exchange in which some members of each
society visit the other. However, these persons have been asking about Wolsey
specifically (as "the guest speaker you have with you"), and the cult wants to know
what he wishes them to do about it.
Wolsey tells them to agree to an exchange of three persons each, in the name of
friendship, one evening as soon as it can be arranged. He will go as one of the
delegation, and see this "Juncture" for himself.
Everyone bows to one another, gibberish is recited, and the Cabal leave. Kali pulls
her mask off immediately. Damascus is thoughtful.
"Why three?" - Damascus
"If you are agreeable, I'd like you two to be the other two delegates. You'll have to
join this lot for a while, I'm afraid, or it will look suspicious. besides, it gives us an
opportunity" - Wolsey
He goes on to explain how he sees these people - this sort of person, not just limited
to this one society - as being their best chance to find allies - and maybe even
awaken some people. That goal is one the Guardians of the Veil are opposed to, and
many of the societies and cults are influenced by them, but he believes they can be
elevated anyway. These people *want* to believe in magic.
Kali is disgusted, asking if she'll have to be one of their handmaidens. Wolsey waves
it off, saying that when he's through, he'll be able to bring magic to the people this
way.
"To rich white men, you mean" - Kali
Damascus agrees to do it, good-naturedly, while Wolsey and Kali back away from
the argument. Now is not the time.
Good point, though. Although Kali hasn't thought through the lack of outrage - or of any sign that they noticed - due to her
manifestly not being male back there. And Damascus' hands were clearly visible.
...
Later, and the great run-around of the day (well, the night, now - it's gone 10) plus a
call from Ichi leads them back to Kali's warehouse. Her man has got results.
The supernatural spray painter is named Virgil Johnson. He's a former customer of
one of Kali's dealers - he was arrested shortly after Kali "met" him and spent six
months inside, cleaning up while he was in. He's got a job as a menial cleaner in a
hotel, that doesn't know about his record. Kali's hunch was right - the "well" tag has
seriously pissed off the group whose territory it's in.
"Buy them off - say that I've got a longer-standing grudge and we want to deal with
him ourselves" - Kali
24
He lives in a shitty basement apartment across Anacostia. Kali takes the address.
To Virgil's house they go.
...
Virgil's building has an outer door with an intercom. Rather than bothering with it,
Damascus casts Alter Conductivity on the magnetic strip holding the door shut, and
pushes it open.
Ah, alter conductivity. Most broken of the first-level Arcana effects, and I do love it so.
Knocking on Virgil's door, the gang smile when he opens it on the chain and peers
out at them. He looks wrecked - like he hasn't slept in a week - and is painfully thin.
his 'wha' is interrupted by kali demanding to be let in, and he goes wide-eyed as he
recognises her. She threatens his person, and points out the fact that he's been
spraying where he oughtn’t. Cringing, he opens the door.
Victory for the intimidation roll
Inside, the gang survey the cramped, stale-smelling apartment, lit by the dirty glow of
streetlights coming in through the tiny windows set near the ceiling.
They get right to business, asking him about his nocturnal activities. Virgil denies all
knowledge, clearly terrified. The Cabal get out the Polaroid’s of his handiwork and
show them to him one by one... until they get to the one of the rune.
All three of them sense a spell flaring into life, Virgil's eyes roll back in his head and
he lurches forwards, throwing the coffee table aside and grabbing a marker pen from
the wreckage before falling to his knees and - like a puppet on a bender - begins to
gouge thick lines into the floor describing the outline of stone slabs.
After a few minutes of this, he lurches to his feet again and stumbles into the next
room - his even tinier and more cramped bedroom - where he collapses on his single
bed.
Feeling the spell wane, Damascus gently shakes him awake.
"Oh god.. it happened again..." Virgil
And, much to their confusion, he bursts into tears.
The Cabal ask how long this has been going on, and he says that it's been since he
moved here - he got the place after getting his job at the hotel. Every now and again,
he blacks out and wakes up in his bed smelling of paint, feeling like he's walked
across the city.
Which in a way, he has. The drift in the sits that the Cabal figured out is pointing here
- the dioramas were getting closer and closer to Virgil's home.
The gang look at one another, and after Wolsey and Damascus cast Mental Shield,
all three cast various forms of Mage Sight before turning the rune Polaroid right-side
up again.
The fact that Kali doesn't have the Mind Arcana is about to become rather significant.
25
With an in-progress spell to work with, rather than it's afterechoes, they get a *much*
better feel for the resonance of it. Waking Virgil up (again), they go into a brief
huddle.
The question of why the spell hasn't failed through disbelief is raised - Virgil must be
a Sleepwalker, picked so that the spell could go on as long as it had to. And it's
clearly external to him, not anything possessing him - it's impossible to make a spell
permanent on a living being, and this has the feel of something set up to be
occasionally imposed on him, not a constant presence. They need to find out where it
came from, and then maybe they can see about getting it broken.
"Hopefully before he sleepwalks his way into annoying someone that will hurt him" Damascus
"Well... That *would* be one way to resolve this situation" - Wolsey
Said in all seriousness. It *would* solve the problem if Virgil were killed.
There is no answer to that. It is late, and they've had a very trying day. Kali and
Wolsey announce their intention to go home and sleep - they'll be back in the
morning. Damascus, though, decides to stay and keep Virgil company.
"I'll go to the store on the corner, cook us some food. We'll be fine. Right?" Damascus
"R...right." - Virgil
...
Later on, and - after eating what Damascus prepares and puts in front of him - Virgil
finally falls into a deep sleep. Damascus pokes around the apartment idly, looking for
anything that might give a clue as to who's decided to ruin the life of a random hotel
cleaner.
Deciding to make himself useful and put the coffee table back together, Damascus
picks up the pieces - and notices something. Small spots of old, white paint in the
carpet, trodden in over time.
Slowly, Damascus looks up at the green walls. And up again to the white ceiling.
This was a standard perception check to spot the clue, made when Rafe described Damascus running his eye over the
place.
Damascus considers his options, reaches into his jacket and produces his hammer,
personalised with tiny runes and thread tied around the handle. He reaches up to the
ceiling, boosted by a chair, and strikes the paintwork with the hammer, casting Steel
Windows on the paint and making it transparent.
Stepping down, with a rising feeling of dread, he looks at the great big honking rune the same rune Malakaii translated - burnt into the concrete of the ceiling.
This? Is not good.
The use of the dedicated magical tool negates the paradox for this vulgar spell - the first vulgar spell of the chronicle. I like
Steel Windows - it's another low-level Matter spell that has 101 uses.
...
26
Kali wakes up in the night to blearily see someone standing in her room, indistinct in
the darkness. She growls that she said she didn't want to be disturbed, and whoever
it is leaves. Her sleep has been disturbed, though, and after another hour of trying
and failing to rest she gives up, gets up and goes wandering outside.
Squinting into the wind, looking out across the city, she puts a cigarette in her mouth
and pats around her pockets for a lighter before being offered a light by someone
that's joined her without her noticing. Sad green eyes peer out from beneath a woolly
hat and above a massed, bushy beard with flecks of grey in it.
Kali nods to the bum and goes back to her vista.
"How are you finding it?" - Bum
"Excuse me?" - Kali
"The Orders. The whole backstabbing crew." - Bum
(carefully) "Not... They're alright." - Kali
"They're like the Democrats. Can't agree on how to oppose the people in charge. Full
of big ideas, but deep down? They're the same as the other guys. Scratch the
surface of Malakaii, or your new friend, and they're not that different." - Bu
"And you?" - Kali
"Ah. We're the Republicans. See you around, miss Simone. If you decide you're on
the wrong side." - Bum
And with that he strolls off, Kali watching him go.
My apologies for the analogy.
...
The next morning, and the gang have reconvened at Virgil's apartment. Wolsey is
well-rested and up for solving the mystery. Kali didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Virgil looking better thanks to Damascus' ministrations - has gone to work.
Damascus calls everyone into the room, and casts Steel Windows on the ceiling
again. Upon seeing the rune, Kali's eyes roll back and she stumbles over to a wall,
grasping for anything she can draw with.
Damascus cancels his spell, and he and Wolsey let her finish - the room is now halfdrawn over with what looks like prison cells - before waking her. Kali panics for a
split-second, then gets irate that whoever did it to Virgil is now doing it to her, too.
Wolsey points out that the rune was not painted by Virgil - he had no knowledge of it
when Damascus checked. Someone put it here before or just after he moved in.
Kali casts Mage Sight and then Postcognition, gritting her teeth and forcing her
perceptions back to when the ceiling was burnt. As she watches, the rune burns itself
into the ceiling, enspelled through a Space window. Whoever laid this curse on this
apartment did so at sympathetic range.
She tells the others this when she wakes up from drawing a rendition of a cell door
on one of Virgil's other walls.
The Cabal as one decide that - no matter what the benefits or drawbacks of letting
Virgil suffer this - they're not going to allow Kali to have a Mind-effecting spell of
unknown origin knocking around in her head. Determining that it's beyond either of
27
their expertise to counter, Damascus offers the fact that his mentor lives not so very
far from here - and is an Adept of prime, able to dispel magics much more efficiently
than their own methods.
...
A short time later, and the gang have arrived at a small church. Damascus asks for
"Father Joyce", and they're allowed in. Father Joyce turns out to be Ulysses - a
middle-aged black man who as it turns out *is* a priest as well as being a Prefect in
the city's consilium.
Ulysses invites Kali to the confessional, and with the sinking feeling of one who is
going to be made to work for having her brain cleaned out of supernal influences, she
gets in.
The confessional is short, painfully so. Ulysses attempts to get Kali to open up, but
she won't - he says that even if she doesn't believe, there must be something she
wants to get off her chest.
"Nothing. I regret nothing." - Kali
"Well, all right then." - Ulysses
The elder Mage leads her out again and turns his back on them, preparing
communion.
"Oh you have GOT to be kidding" - Kali
(holding out a chalice of wine) "Drink this." - Ulysses
While she's slowly drinking, he puts a hand on her forehead, and casts Supernal
Dispellation, topping it off with the Communion ritual. Kali - feeling slightly queasy,
mildly disgruntled at being made to go along with the religious setting and vaguely
empty after the scrubbing bubbles of the prime Arcana have done their work - thanks
him roughly and gets up.
Pulling her jacket on, she says they need to get back to Virgil's apartment.
"You should be grateful that's all he wanted in return" - Wolsey
"Oh, I am" - Kali
Ulysses calls to them just as they're on the threshold.
"Children. The resonance of the one who cast this... I recognise it. I know who did it."
- Ulysses
They are all ears
"It's Beckett" – Ulysses
28
Session 1.3
A few things that may not have been entirely clear in the previous recap - when Wolsey asked the other two to join his cult,
Damascus agreed but Kali didn't.
I have been continually using the word "Prefect" to describe a Consilium position in this thread without explaining what I'm
talking about - it's a local name for a "Provost", arrived at after I said Prefect by mistake one too many times. I went back to
calling them Provosts later on, but Prefect has stuck. Just one of those little details, I guess.
In any case, the consilium structure of the city is pretty direct - The Council consists of the Hierarch and Five Councillors.
Each one of those five Mages has a Prefect/Provost who handles the day-to-day work and the divvying out of tasks to lower
Mages. Such...
(Banneker)
Suleiman - Promethea
Malakaii - Mara
Samuel - Blaise
Dantor - Ulysses
Fisher - Marathon
There are three Heralds (plus Wolsey) - Francine and Trace we've met, and there's also a Obrimos named Hoban. There are
also three Sentinels, whose names are Link, Proteus and Jude - we're about to meet Jude. The city's Interfector is a Bokor
named Thursday. Dantor is responsible for all the Sentinels, while Francine reports to Samuel, Trace reports to Malakaii and
Hoban reports to Suleiman. As part of the wholesale compromises on his power Banneker was forced to make for the
support he needed to become Hierarch, no Consilium officials report directly to him at present. This will be important.
So. Who's Beckett?
"He's a renunciate - an ex-Guardian of the Veil, who hasn't joined another Cabal ever
since he left Malakaii's group. I have no idea why he's doing this, but I'm certain. That
spell was cast by Beckett." - Ulysses
Now this - this raises a whole other set of questions. The Cabal restrain themselves,
though, and both thank Ulysses for the tip and ask for his discretion. Once they're out
of the church, the debate starts flying.
Wolsey by now is in a paranoid circle - they've stumbled into a rather dangerous
situation here and need to be very careful about extracting themselves without either
mortally offending anyone more important and powerful than they. They need to
know the particulars. They have a few hours to decide what they're going to do
before Virgil gets home from work.
A hardcore planning session at the International House of Pancakes ensues. They
knew it was a possibility that a member (however obscure and isolationist Beckett is and none of them have ever heard of him before today) of the Consilium would turn
out to be the person causing the disturbances, but it makes it much more difficult
than if it were, say, a Ghost Mage or a Seer doing it. Because they need to know
*why*. Wolsey brings up the point that their mission was to find out what's causing it a mission that's now been completed - but Kali and Damascus reject the notion of
simply reporting their success now, on the grounds that it would leave Virgil to his
fate and potentially endanger them depending on what Malakaii does to Beckett. In
order to ensure their own safety and Virgil's, they need to have a part in any "what
happens now" that's going to go on.
So Wolsey calls Mara - she gave them this job, she's Malakaii's Prefect.
There's voices in the background on Mara's end, and the IHOP is rather packed on
their end, so the conversation is in the half-code of people speaking about a thing
without speaking about that thing. Wolsey manages to get across that he's found out
the thing that Mara wanted found out, and he'd prefer to have their conversation
about it in person. He implies there might be a problem with it, and that Mara
probably shouldn't tell her boss about it yet.
29
Time is pressing on, and the Cabal decide that Kali should go to Virgil's house to
watch him until Wolsey and Damascus return from meeting Mara.
...
Mara meets the lads outside Union Station, with two other people in tow - neither of
whom Wolsey or Damascus have met. Mara introduces the serious, suited woman in
her mid-thirties as "Elizabeth", and the red-haired gangly man as "Jude". Elizabeth is
a member of the Hierarch’s Cabal, and Jude is a Sentinel.
Jude is named for the saint - he's an Acanthus.
Wolsey and Damascus explain what they have discovered - that Beckett, for reasons
known only to himself, has cast a spell on Virgil that grants him Mage Sight and
makes him draw whatever he sees. The effect is based around a rune in Virgil's
house, and hasn't been dispelled through disbelief because Virgil, they suspect, is a
Sleepwalker.
Now. Who the hell is Beckett?
As Mara tells it, Beckett was Malakaii's friend and colleague when they were
younger, but ever since Malakaii became a Bearer of the Eternal Voice they fell out Beckett eventually disagreed with Malakaii to the point of renouncing the Guardians
of the Veil and leaving the Cabal, though he hasn't left the Consilium. He lives in the
North of the city, near the Maryland border, and discourages visitors.
And now Mara wants a favour from them, which comes as no surprise to either
Mage. Whether they realise it or not, their being the ones tangled up in this is
probably a good thing in the long term - Beckett lives in his Sanctum, and has
publicly announced that he denies the Right of Hospitality to any members of the
Guardians of the Veil or Malakaii's Cabal. Because of the Consilium laws of the
sanctity of a Mage's chosen home, Beckett can use force on any member of either or
both groups trespassing. Even if this case went to the Hierarch and the Council, even
if they did decide that Beckett had broken protocols, bringing him in for punishment
would be a very bloody business.
Wolsey and Damascus (and Kali, though Mara adds her as an afterthought) aren't
Guardians, and they aren't in Malakaii's Cabal. Mara asks them to go to Beckett, find
out his motivation for his frankly random actions and try to persuade him to stop.
Defuse this before Malakaii hears about who's doing it, and prevent a magical battle.
No pressure.
Beckett was also what Mark was going to call Wolsey in an earlier version of the character, which is my nod to his role in the
Chronicle. As we'll see. This was the first mention of the Rights in the chronicle, and the tricky twists of the Lex Magica.
...
Kali, meanwhile, is 'guarding' Virgil and getting increasingly bored doing it. The
combination of Virgil's self-pity and the thought of the Rune that affected her only
being hidden by a thin coat of paint is setting her on edge, and the conversation isn't
helping. Virgil has started reminiscing about their past encounter.
"It's weird, you being here like this. You were there when I was at my lowest, you
know? Back before my arrest. I look back at some of the things I did and.. I'm
30
ashamed of myself. But I've turned my life around. I've got a job" - Virgil
The pride in his voice at being a menial cleaner makes Kali grit her teeth, while he
continues oblivious.
"And thank God for it. For my second chance. I've been clean for six months, now,
and my life has... I just thank God I was able to escape that life. It's no way to live,
how we were. You okay?" - Virgil
(through clenched jaw) "Fine" - Kali
"So how about you? I tell you, I nearly didn't recognise you when you turned up at my
door. God, some of the shit *you* used to do..." - Virgil, puttering about in the kitchen
Kali's temper finally snaps, and she casts Evil Eye on him. That'll teach him.
Vice: Wrath, after all. Virgil's next dice pool is in trouble.
Kali answers his questions with an increasing series of grunts and noncommittal
phrases, until he returns from the tiny kitchen bearing a bottle of wine.
"But the two times I've been at my lowest, you've been there. I can't tell you how
grateful I am for that" - Virgil
He looks at her.
And Kali realises that just when she thought this couldn't get any worse.. here's a
worse place.
His next dice pool, sadly, is to attempt to seduce her. Would have failed anyway, but thanks to her hasty cursing is *really*
going to fail.
When Damascus arrives to collect them both, he finds Virgil desperately trying to get
the wine off his clothes, the glasses smashed on the floor, a burst pipe in the kitchen
sink and Kali looking at him like he's the second coming of Jesus.
"Er. I can come back later if you'd like?" – Damascus
"No. No. That's fine" - Kali, breezing past him
...
After Damascus explains what their new agenda is, the car ride is extremely
uncomfortable - for Damascus and Wolsey and especially for Virgil. Kali - in reaction
to Virgil's complete misreading of her signals earlier - is taking a cruel delight in
bullying. She smokes in the car, laughs at him when he complains that he doesn't
know where they're going and, for her big finish, "accidentally" puts out her cigarette
on his hand.
Yelping in shock and pain, Virgil - half-crying - demands to know what she's trying to
do. The other two Mages just watch as Kali grins at Virgil, who - summoning the
tattered remains of dignity and self-respect, demands to be let out of the car.
"We're nearly there.." - Wolsey
"Let me OUT! I'm not staying with this crazy... this...person" - Virgil
31
Wolsey, grimacing, relents and pulls over. Virgil jumps out of the car and - declaring
that he never wants to see them again - storms off, nursing his hand.
"Well done, Kali. Very well done" - Wolsey. Being sarcastic.
Kali angrily says that they don't *need* Virgil to do this. Beckett cast the spell
remotely, he can remove it remotely too.
Wolsey looks to Damascus for backup. Damascus shrugs helplessly and resumes
driving.
Kali was fine until her way of life was described as worthless, then she lashed out both magically and otherwise in a temper
tantrum that regained her willpower (Wrath). The other two don't know her well enough to call her on it - this cabal is still only
a few days old after all, and both Damascus and Wolsey are being careful around their clearly-volatile colleague. Even as
early as next session, they wouldn't have let her go so far.
And so, exit Virgil stage left. He does not reappear in our story.
...
They finally pull the car up outside the gates of Beckett's house - according to the
address that Mara gave them, anyway. The Mage Sight spells the trio all cast reveal
various Atlantean glyphs drawn onto the high walls dividing the property from the
outside world. The finer meaning is lost with their knowledge of the high speech, but
one thing's clear: They're warning signs to keep out.
Trespassers will be astrally projected into the Abyss.
Wolsey hesitates for a moment, and then presses the intercom on the outside edge
of the gates.
"Who is it?" - Beckett
"I'm... my name's Wolsey. I'm here about Virgil Johnson." - Wolsey
"Wolsey? How delightfully ironic. Come in." - Beckett
They're both named after historical English churchmen.
The front door is opened by a man in his 50s, pale from lack of sunlight with squinting
eyes and a somewhat off-putting smirk. They all feel him cast some kind of spell on
himself. One by one, they introduce themselves and politely ask to come inside. Still
smirking, Beckett invites them in and leads them into his living room. Once everyone
is seated, and they've all declined a drink, Beckett steeples his fingers.
"So. What do you think?" - Beckett
Damascus blinks and says that a spell of Beckett's is afflicting a young man with
visions of the Shadow Realm.
"Yes, yes. My virgin sacrifice." - Beckett
"I.. ah.. think you'll find not." - Kali
"I think you'll find that doesn't count. Not since Clinton" - Beckett
"Fair point" - Kali
"Why him?" - Wolsey
"Because he was in the right places at the right times - he is a sleepwalker, he had a
sympathetic connection to you, no matter how weak, and was released early enough
before you were turned loose from your tutors that I could have the whole thing
32
waiting for you. That and his name amused me... But what do you think about it?" Beckett
Beckett is pushing the envelope, here, of being an obnoxious storyteller character just for the sake of it. He does have a very
punchable face, and it was my fervent hope that they'd twig to the fact that despite his bwu-ha-ha I'm-so-very-clever routine,
they'd realise that *they* have the power in this situation. Fortunately, they did.
"Why don't you explain?" - Wolsey
It's really very simple, says Beckett. This entire thing is a raised mid digit to Malakaii,
intended to teach him - and anyone else like the Cabal that happened to cotton on an object lesson.
"Malakaii has become an instrument of the Enemy, my young friends, whether he
knows it or not. He has the gift of the Watchtower and what does he do with it? He
seeks to establish his own control over the world of men, jealously prevents others
from attempting to climb as high as he and denies the existence of the Supernal to
the men and women of the world. It is one thing to avoid Vulgar magic for fear of
empowering the Abyss, but it is another to do the Exarch's work for them. And that's
what Malakaii, with all his abuse of his abilities to alter mind and memory, does.
When he turned down that road, we fought. When it became clear that the Guardians
of the Veil supported his view, I left." - Beckett
He could have gone somewhere
"They're all as bad. We make the Vampires look like Boy Scouts. Banneker?
Banneker wants to use the geomantic nature of the city - a formation of this Fallen
world - to suppress the disorderly, messy nature of mankind." (To Kali) "I don't think I
need to lecture you, dear, on why that's a bad thing. Between them, they lead the
mages of this poor city into hypocrisy and into their system of Control. Now, I could
wrap myself in webs like Pool or turn consciously turncoat like Seraph - he's sent
underlings to try to recruit me several times, but this house is now warded such that
anyone riding a visitor with a Profane Urim will wish they kept their mind in their own
body. For years now, new apprentices have been grabbed by one or both of them,
with the scraps sent out to other Cabals. When Banneker was pushed into his decree
on training, I had an opportunity to get my point of view across before you were
hooked by any of their controls." - Beckett
"By abusing Virgil" - Damascus
"You want me to dispel the enchantment upon him and his apartment. It is as good
as done, and will be by the time you return to report your findings here. But please..
what do you think?" - Beckett
"you believe that Banneker and Malakaii are wrong to try to control. But what are you
doing to Virgil but that?" - Wolsey
"I have only shown Virgil the Truth. His thoughts remain his own, but his sight is
enhanced. And he has survived. His mind has not snapped. Bent, yes, but not
snapped. You see, Virgil now believes in magic. Perhaps one day he will Awaken.
Malakaii's doctrine of Control is based on the 'fact' that people are weak and would
not be able to cope with the Truth. Virgil has coped. Banneker's doctrine of Control is
based on people like Virgil and your two friends here being somehow worth less than
you - and yet here you are championing them. And I believe you will find that I have
done nothing against the letter of the Lex Magica in this city - against it's spirit,
certainly, but not it's letter. By virtue of Virgil’s sleepwalking, my magic was not
33
vulgar. If they change the Lex to prosecute me, then they make criminals of
themselves." - Beckett
"We will have to tell Malakaii this" - Damascus
"I expect you to. Maybe you're already working for him but don't know it yet. Maybe
he erases the memory of your agreement with him every time you meet. Who
knows? But I tell you this, Wolsey. We are allies. I can tell that you disagree with
what Malakaii does, the same way I do..." - Beckett
Wolsey stays silent, Beckett frowns, and sits back.
"Before you go, allow me to apologise for making you my instruments in this. Their
failings are too obvious in some ways - everyone is used to them, and it requires
something special to illustrate how wrong they are. In any case, I owe each of you
my gratitude, and a favour to be repaid. Wolsey?" - Beckett
"I ask.. that you not use us again in your vendetta." - Wolsey
Beckett seems disappointed, but agrees. Damascus and Kali both carefully say that
there's nothing they want right now - Kali is open about saving it for a rainy day.
And with that, they leave.
...
"I say we throw him to the dogs" - Wolsey
Back in the car, the gang are debating what they should do about this.
"May I ask why?" - Damascus
"Look. He's.. he's right that I don't agree with Malakaii, but he's gone the wrong way
about this and I'm unconvinced by his rhetoric. I say we give him to Malakaii - keep
our enemies closer." - Wolsey
"So you'd sacrifice him to get in with your enemies?" - Kali
"Frankly, yes. I have my own ways of breaking the Guardian's control" - Wolsey
Kali makes disparaging remarks about Wolsey's cults, and offers her opinion that all
he's doing with them is creating another means of Control, grabbing power for
himself. Wolsey says that's true to an extent of all mages, and Damascus disagrees,
pointing out that the Adamantine Arrow and, in fact, the Guardians of the Veil are
both based around the principle of serving others.
Damascus points out that if what Beckett says is true, then he didn't actually break
the Lex Magica. Malakaii will be too afraid of losing face to do anything - especially
as Beckett good-naturedly threatened as they were leaving that he'd kill any team the
Council sent to apprehend him. Why don't they just tell Malakaii or Banneker exactly
what happened?
"I don't like it" - Kali
Kali is still hung up on abandoning Beckett to his fate, accusing Wolsey of being
afraid of Malakaii. Wolsey points out that Malakaii is in a lot better position to take his
34
revenge on them than he is to take it on Beckett. Kali suggests saying that there was
no case to answer, and Damascus says no - repeating his view that they report
everything. Wolsey rejects the idea of telling the entire story to Banneker, saying that
Malakaii would be furious that they went over his head. No, he concedes: if they're
just going to tell the whole truth, then it has to be to Malakaii.
Unsure, Kali casts Momentary Flux to check the plan, and - satisfied that this course
of action bodes well for herself, nods
"Do it" - Kali
"Look, we don't have to decide right now. We can sleep on it..." - Wolsey
"The Enchanter says 'Do it'. Do it" - Damascus
Wolsey phones Mara and explains what's happened - how the whole thing was
Beckett's laying down of a Gauntlet, how Beckett was careful to not break any local
laws and how the phenomena should now stop. Mara says they've done a good job,
and that she'll pass it on carefully to Malakaii.
...
As they pull up to Damascus' house, Malakaii thanks them for their efforts, reassures
them that he does not take issue with the way they handled this and gets out of the
car, walking off down the road.
None of them remember him getting in.
"I am beginning to really dislike that man" – Wolsey
35
Story 1 Recap:
Session 1.1
• We are introduced to Mysterium Acanthus gang-leader KALI, Moros
Adamantine Arrow Artist DAMASCUS and Mastigos Silver Ladder Cult
Leader and Political Fixer WOLSEY, plus their mentors (in order) House of
Ariadne Busker BLAISE, Obrimos Catholic Priest and Adamantine Arrow
ULYSSES and Jungian Psychologist Mastigos Arrow MARA.
• The three PCs, now at the end of their apprenticeships, are told that for
political reasons stemming from BANNEKER (the Obrimos, Silver Ladder
geomancer who is the city's Hierarch) and his habit of stealing all the
apprentices they are banned from joining any existing cabals - instead there
will be one Cabal created every five years to hold any new Mages that arise.
Starting with them
• After the meet and greet, which is awkward, Mara gives them something to
get them started - a job so minor no-one else wanted it. Graffiti depicting the
Shadow has appeared dotted around the city, and they are to find out why.
• They go to the first site (a rune), beneath a freeway support pylon in
Anacostia Park. Mage Sight reveals traces of a Death and Mind spell, and
Kali's Postcognition shows a rather spaced-out young man doing the painting.
Wolsey now goes to find the city's Heralds to introduce himself and find out if
anyone has seen the rune before, while Kali and Damascus continue going
around the sites.
• The second site (a well) is in a basketball court. Damascus encounters the
ghost of a little girl who was run over chasing a ball. This time, they discern
the spell as having been cast with Death, Mind, Fate and Space
• Wolsey meets with FRANCINE, Stone Scribe and member of the Mysterium.
She takes the name of a businessman close to death behind them, but does
not know the meaning of the rune.
• Damascus and Kali have been to the third site (a gallows-yard on a fence)
and are now at the fourth (an archway on an apartment building). Their
cumulative efforts have revealed that the painter was in some sort of trance,
but was not possessed. Also, they know now that they have been taking the
paintings in roughly reverse order - archway, well, gallows and rune is the
progression. Damascus believes a ghost mage may be responsible.
• Wolsey meets TRACE, socialite, political secretary, member of the House of
Ariadne and Guardian of the Veil. She advises him to speak to MALAKAII,
Guardian Councillor and leader of her Legacy, as he is a reputed expert in
written Atlantean.
•
Session 1.2
• The Cabal reconvene in a food court. Damascus gives his ghost-mage
theory, and Kali points out that the sites seem to be drifting steadily SouthEast over time - heading for the districts she and Damascus are from. Wolsey
talks it through with them and arranges to meet Malakaii at "The Temple of
the West"
• The Temple is the Pentacle Order's term for the Abraham Lincoln Memorial which is the locus inhabited by one of the two City Father Spirits in the
Shadow: the one corresponding to "DC" rather than "Washington"
• Malakaii translates the rune as "Through me, Revelation" or "Through this,
Revelation". He implies that he has met Wolsey before, though Wolsey can't
remember it, and what they remember as a ten-minute conversation takes an
hour. Malakaii has used his third Attainment (a variant of Psychic
Reprogramming) to edit their memories.
36
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Kali is casting more and more Knowing and Unveiling spells on the first site,
getting a nagging feeling about the painter for her trouble.
The Cabal reconvene at the food court again. They discuss theories, and are
interrupted by Wolsey being invited over his phone to a meeting of one of his
cults - another society has been asking about him. Returning to their
investigation, Kali rationalises that the painter must have obscured some
gang tags, and therefore should have offended someone. Going through what
they know of him, Kali places his appearance as being poor, and possibly
from "her" area of the city. At the last, Kali realises where she's seen him
before - she performed a sexual act on him a little over a year ago.
The Cabal go to Kali's home in a converted warehouse sited in a partially
industrialised area of Anacostia, sandwiched between two Naval bases with a
river between one base and them. They meet ICHI, the alpha male of the
gang and Kali's sometime lover. Ichi doesn't remember the Painter, but will
ask around.
They now go to Wolsey's Cult - The ORDER OF THE SOLAR DISK, who all
wear masks, and are told that another society called the JUNCTURE are
asking about Wolsey. Wolsey tells them that he'll meet this Juncture and after
the Cabal leave (Kali outraged by the cult's treatment of women) Damascus
agrees to Wolsey's suggestion that he join the cult and also come to the
meeting.
Ichi has by now got results. The painter is named VIRGIL JOHNSON - he has
spent six months in prison since kali knew him and is now clean, working in a
hotel. Kali orders Ichi to buy off the gang who were outraged by the "well"
drawing on their court, and gets Virgil's address.
Virgil hasn't slept in days and is scared of the Cabal. When they show him
pictures of the paintings, he goes into a trance and draws all over his
apartment's floor. When done, he lurches to his bed and collapses. After
Damascus wakes him up, he bursts into tears and explains that this keeps
happening to him - ever since he moved into this apartment.
The Cabal all activate Unveiling spells and trigger the spell effect on Virgil
again, getting a much better feel for the resonance and figuring out that Virgil
is a Sleepwalker, which is why disbelief hasn't eroded whatever it is. It's
impossible to permanently enchant a living being, so the spell must have an
anchor somewhere.
Kali and Wolsey go to their homes to sleep. Damascus, after Virgil also goes
to bed, looks around the apartment. He sees paint drips on the carpet and
realises that the ceiling has recently been repainted. Turning the layer of paint
transparent with magic, he finds the Rune binding the spell to the space.
Kali is woken by someone in her room, even though she told everyone she
wasn't to be disturbed. They vanish before she can see them properly,
though. She goes for a walk and is approached by a Seer of the Throne (later
identified as SERAPH, a Mastigos traitor from the Mysterium who is now in
the Panopticon Ministry) inhabiting the body of a bum, who compares his own
Order to the Republicans and the Pentacle to the Democrats. He is especially
scathing of Malakaii and Wolsey - and calls her "Miss Simone", saying she
may realise she's on the wrong side.
The next morning, they all meet up at Virgil's again. Damascus reveals the
run and both Virgil and Kali go into trances. Kali has been affected by the
spell. Angry, kali uses Postcognition to learn that whoever cast the spell did
so at sympathetic range - and then has the effect triggered on herself again.
They go now to Ulysses' church, where Ulysses casts Supernal Dispellation
on Kali to remove the spell. In a brief confessional, Kali says that she regrets
37
nothing in her life. Ulysses recognises the spell's resonance as belonging to
BECKETT, an ostracised Magus of ill repute.
Session 1.3
• Ulysses explains that Beckett is an ex-Guardian of the Veil (now
Independent), who left Malakaii's Cabal under a dark cloud. The Cabal ask for
his discretion and leave the church
• At the International House of Pancakes, the Cabal try to decide what to do they need to try to avoid offending anyone by their response to the situation,
especially both Malakaii and Beckett. Their mission has been completed (they
know who's causing the graffiti) but in order to ensure their own safety and
Virgil's they have to have an active part in anything that happens as a result.
Wolsey calls Mara and arranges to meet along with Damascus, while Kali
goes to watch Virgil.
• Mara meets them along with ELIZABETH, a former student of Banneker's
and therefore in the Hierarch’s inner circle and JUDE, a Sentinel of the
Consilium. Wolsey and Damascus tell them what's going on and ask who
Beckett is, learning that he is a former friend of Malakaii's who fell out with
him when Malakaii developed his Legacy. He lives near the Maryland border
and has seceded from the Consilium - he reserves the right to attack anyone
straying onto his territory. Mara asks them to try to resolve the situation
without the bloodshed a Guardian response would bring - defuse it before
Malakaii hears about it.
• Virgil's attempts to seduce Kali go disastrously wrong when he expresses his
disgust at the life he used to lead - the life that she, as we'll learn later in the
chronicle, made a conscious decision to follow. She curses him with bad luck
and all hell breaks loose in the apartment before Damascus and Wolsey
arrive.
• Kali spends the car ride to Beckett's house bullying Virgil, until he finally has
enough and demands to be let out of the car. He declares he never wants to
see them again and storms off.
• Arriving at Beckett's, they note the Atlantean signs offering to banish intruders
to the Abyss. Beckett is amused by Wolsey's Shadow Name (they're both
named for English churchmen) and lets them in.
• Beckett admits what he did, and is quite proud of it - the entire affair is a
raised mid-digit to Malakaii, proving that despite Malakaii's beliefs magic can
be shown to the unawakened. Beckett expresses his opinion that Malakaii
and his allies do the Exarch's work for them, and it was for this reason that he
quit Malakaii's cabal. He is disgusted with Mage society, and mentions as
examples POOL, the head of Project Twilight who is lost in webs of her own
making and Seraph, who he says sent Seers to try to recruit him until he set
up hostile wards designed to torture people using Profane Urim in his
Sanctum.
• By the letter of the law, Beckett has done nothing wrong - Virgil was a
Sleepwalker - but in order to undo what Beckett did Malakaii will have to be
seen to publicly deny the supernal to someone who has shown that it hasn't
broken him. He expects the Cabal to tell Malakaii that and offers them each a
favour. Wolsey asks that he no longer use them to fight his feud with Malakaii,
and the other two sae theirs for later.
• Safely away from Beckett's lair, Wolsey argues that they should throw him to
Malakaii in order to get in good with the Guardians, which the others oppose.
They instead decide to do as Beckett asked and tell Malakaii everything Wolsey rejects the idea of going to Banneker instead. Kali checks the future
and agrees that this plan is for the best.
38
•
•
Malakaii arrives, hears their testimony and then erases their memories of the
interview.
Later, the Cabal go looking for an untapped Hallow to take for their Sanctum.
They discover one in a roof garden near to Kali's house, which they buy out
with Wolsey's money and put Kali's gang to work guarding. They decide to
name their Cabal CRUCIBLE and declare themselves to be following the
Rights of Hospitality, Nemesis, Crossing and Sanctuary
39
Interlude: OOC Decisions
Last little bit, which was semi-IC at the end of session three - the planning and the
setup of the Cabal itself. We had a list of decisions that needed to be made, OOC,
and the gang hashed out the arguments IC.
First and most important was the Cabal's *name*. After rejecting numerous options
(mostly revolving around the number three. Rafe liked "Troika"), the three of them
have decided on a common theme of transforming oneself through effort and
reaction to one another. So the Cabal has wound up being called The Crucible.
Second, the location of the Sanctum. We went out of character here entirely, as the
design of the character's base of operations is really a part of character creation. As
such, when the characters went Hallow hunting, I had a list of possible Hallows with
different resonances, depending on what kind of base they wanted for their Merit
dots. In the end, they plumped for a half-abandoned apartment building a block and a
half away from Kali's warehouse, the Hallow being a hidden, but lovingly-maintained,
roof garden soaked with an almost territorial resonance - the idea of taking what’s
within your power, even if small, and making everything you can out of it. All three
players agreed this fit with their characters, so into the Chronicle it goes. For security,
they have Kali's gang.
Third (and this part nearly made Mark cry. He hates deciding this sort of thing) was
what rights the Cabal intends to follow. Out of the five...
Hospitality: No real arguments here, though it depends on where the Cabal's
sanctum is. Accepted
Emeritus: After much wrangling, it was realised that only Damascus would ever
follow it - Wolsey is too much of a maverick and Kali’s incapable of being polite.
Rejected
Crossing: This had the biggest argument, and was based on where the Sanctum
would be. Kali and Damascus weren't fussed, but Wolsey said that he wanted it especially if the Sanctum were in Kali's part of town. They went, in the end, for a
"safe route" through the gangland, marked on each end by Atlantean sigils drawn
inside phone booths. Mages wishing to cross have to call the number and speak a
phrase. Accepted.
Nemesis: A short discussion led to this being accepted, Damascus offering to stand
any challenges to Wizard's Duels that they may be issued with.
Sanctuary: Lastly, the idea that none of the trio should endanger their new home
away from home, it's Hallow or each other. Damascus and Wolsey insisted on it and the implications for Kali will be evident at the start of next session, when the
conflict between this and her activities is pointed out to her. Accepted.
40
Chapter 2: "Instruments of Fate"
Session 2.1
Five Weeks Later. Mid June 2006.
One of the hardest decisions when doing an Actual Play is what to call the stories. Deliria and A|State both had pun-fuelled,
jokey titles. Everway was just the spheres involved in the sessions. For this thread, though, I've plumped on "a significant line
spoken in the story which has more than one meaning". Like the translation of the Rune last time. This one was a toss
between "Instruments of Fate" and "At this stage, you'll just have to trust me". The shorter one won.
As I say, this is where Reign of the Exarchs begins to rear it's head, and where in the spirit of unorthodox choices I move the
story on vastly within the fourth time we sat down together. I could have spun Wolsey's quest for his wife out and out and out,
but you know? For a Mastigos with a sympathetic connection to her AND knowledge of her real name, there's really no
excuse why he can't find her in one city when he tries hard enough. Better to get it over with straight away, and then have
that plotline become the tale of Wolsey realising what he's always pretty much known - that he's not Thomas any more, and
Amanda isn't Amanda any more. That way the chronicle keeps "on-message" about Shadow names and Shadow lives and
Mark gets a more interesting time than an endless series of investigative dice pools.
The Cabal (and they are a Cabal now) have gotten settled. The Hallow has been
tamed, with the Cabal accepting that they can't stop people from squatting in the
lower floors of the building with the justification that they'll make the place blend into
it's surroundings a bit better. Each of our three Mages have been engaged in their
own projects and interests, meeting up every couple of days and getting used to one
another
The Cabal (and they are a Cabal now) have gotten settled. The Hallow has been
tamed, with the Cabal accepting that they can't stop people from squatting in the
lower floors of the building with the justification that they'll make the place blend into
it's surroundings a bit better. Each of our three Mages have been engaged in their
own projects and interests, meeting up every couple of days and getting used to one
another.
Wolsey's Shadow life has taken off, with him spending most of the intervening month
negotiating the merger of two companies and persuading various high-management
people to quit in order to smooth the transition. Damascus has been busy - he's had
several commissions, and has been locked away in his workshop. Kali, on the third
hand, has seen her little empire grow and go deeper - she has started to drift from
her usual product into Crack, something which she hasn't told the other two.
When we catch up with them, two dates are looming - the emissaries from The
Juncture are coming to Wolsey's pet cult tomorrow afternoon, and both Wolsey and
Damascus (who joined following last story and will coincidentally be the one that
Wolsey picks to go to the meeting with him) are meeting them. Then, the evening of
the day after, the City's bi-monthly Caucus is being held. The meeting of most of the
Consilium's members and the potential for furthering agendas would have been
enough for Wolsey, but this particular meeting is the one that the Cabal will be
formally Recognised by the Hierarch, and (Wolsey has heard) the one where Wolsey
will be made a Herald.
So, at the start of the story, Wolsey is telling Kali that a) she'll attend and b) she'll
behave herself.
"This is a fat cat thing, right?" - Kali
"A what?" - Wolsey
"A fat cat thing. Where they fight over the cream" - Kali, disinterested.
Wolsey tries desperately to regroup, but Damascus smoothly picks up the slack
"It's where the important people are. Wolsey here is getting made Herald" -
41
Damascus
"Ahhh, so Your Cat's getting cream" - Kali
"Cream?" - Wolsey, not so much confused as horrified she's reducing his life's work
to this analogy
(quietly) "So many jokes I could be making about your pussy" - Damascus
Damascus, as well as being the sanest of the Cabal and the voice of reason in their dealings (because, for all Leadership
qualities, Wolsey's just as unhinged as Kali really) is often the comic relief. The Cabal stays together because while Wolsey
and Kali have the "brother/sister that I love despite their irritating the hell out of me" vibe, the both of them honestly *like*
Damascus.
Betrayed by Damascus, the exasperated Wolsey manages to get Kali to promise to
at least turn up in a dress and watch him get.. creamed. He waits until the other two
stop grinning at him before asking her the *important* favour he wants from her.
"Kali.. I need your help. To find someone." - Wolsey
"Sure." (lazy shrug) "I'll get the guys on it" - Kali
"No. I need you to do it. Supernally" - Wolsey
"Got a name?" - Kali
"Amanda" - Wolsey
Kali mock-considers
"Amanda Fisher? Who?" - Kali
The surname, as Kali is mockingly pointing out, is required for it to count. Amanda Fisher, incidentally, was the character
Amanda in this was named after - A verbena in my first Mage: The Ascension Chronicle, who was played by Mark/Wolsey - it
was his first Mage character.
"Amanda Nicola Foster" - Wolsey
"Married?" - Damascus
"Ah.... yes." (cagey) "But that's her maiden name." - Wolsey
"Why are you after her? Steal something?" - Kali
"I used to... know her" - Wolsey
Damascus doesn't know where this is going, but at the sound of that last line sounds
a note of caution
"Wolsey, I used to know many people. Three are in the Maryland state pen, three are
in the cemetery. I don't want to find the others." - Damascus
Damascus' point is that, if his reading of Used To is correct, Wolsey is trying to find someone from his pre-awakened life.
Which is dangerous, usually leading to the Mage's awakened life conflicting with his secret real identity leading further to both
being compromised unless very carefully managed. Because of Damascus' background, he considers going back to be a
mistake.
Kali, suspicious, casts Exceptional Luck on herself, at the same time that Wolsey
says..
"I just knew her. Wait.. what was that?" - Wolsey
"What?" - Kali
"That Spell you just cast!" - Wolsey
"You're lying" - Kali
Abusing your powers as an Acanthus for fun and profit! The 8-again spell may be prolonged, but the 9-again version is
instant. Kali cast it, and the 9-again rule allowed her to beat Wolsey in a contested subterfuge roll. Sam does this an awful lot
- using her character's Fate 3 to get 9 and sometimes 8 again whenever she really wants to achieve something. She
sometimes uses Bestow Exceptional Luck to grant 9-again to the other characters, too.
42
"You cast a spell to tell that!?" - Wolsey
"Unnecessary. Just watch his eyes." (to Wolsey) "You haven't quite gotten the hang
of not looking left" - Damascus
"Oh, for God's sake. I lied to you pretty much all day yesterday, and you didn't cast
any spells then." - Wolsey
Damascus managed to beat Wolsey's subterfuge roll without magical enhancement. The jokey tone defused the situation
nigh-immediately. And Wolsey? Might not want to admit that, mate.
Wolsey sighs.
"Fine. She's my wife." - Wolsey
Kali laughs in his face, and waves him back down when he gets to his feet.
"I like this. I'll do it." - Kali
Particulars are hashed out - Wolsey provides Kali with an old hairbrush with some of
Amanda's hair still on it.
"Okay. That's kind of creepy" - Kali
"Her name will probably have changed, but the one I told you is the one the Exarchs
gave her." - Wolsey
Kali centres herself, takes the brush and casts Interconnections
"Yup. That's still connected to her" - Kali
"...and?" - Wolsey
"...And I can't actually scry across space. If you knew somewhere she'd been it'd
help" - Kali
Kali does not have Space 2. Which is the slight flaw in this plan
"Oh for... Are you actually qualified? I thought you were earmarked for the House of
whatever!?" - Wolsey
"I am" - Kali
"Why don't you tell us why she left you?" - Damascus
Wolsey hasn't seen her since before he awakened. In fact, it was her disappearance
that *led* to his journey to Pandemonium. Damascus asks how he knows she's in
DC, and Wolsey says that that's why he's here - he's tracked her this far through the
cults, but then the trail went cold.
"At this stage, you'll just have to trust me" - Wolsey
Kali makes a comment to the effect of that *always* working, which Wolsey,
frustrated that he's given up one of his secrets for no gain, takes badly.
"I won't suffer Kali's taunts forever" - Wolsey
"Awww. you don't want to play my game?" - Kali
"We are the only people who *shouldn't* be playing one another." - Wolsey
"So your lying doesn't count?" - Kali
43
Defusing the sudden staredown, Damascus pulls Kali's attention toward him, instead
"Kali, I've been meaning to ask you something. I've been commissioned to make a
Caryatid Column, and.. would you like to model for me?" - Damascus
"A what?" - Kali
"It's a column carved into the shape of a woman." - Damascus
"Oh. Uh... okay? I guess?" - Kali
"Don't you think it's perverse to make Kali a pillar of society?" - Damascus
"Well, it is for a Folly" - Damascus
"You're sort of a white government building, Wolsey. I'm holding up the ground
beneath you" - Kali, smugly
"So what you're saying is you're a sewer?" - Wolsey
And we're back to squabbling like children, but Wolsey has managed to use Damascus' attempt to defuse it into a riposte,
turning the focus onto Kali instead of himself.
"No. What I'm saying is that people like me, and the things that I do, prop up the
world you come from. Without us, your beloved middle classes would fall into the real
sewers." - Kali
"How does your running a gang prevent the middle classes falling?" - Wolsey
"Think of it as.. avoiding the government trap" - Kali
Pause
"Government Trap!?" - Wolsey
Mere text cannot convey the acres of incredulity Mark put into those two words
"You're all... all Shiny and Clean. If it weren't for me, you'd be sliding into the
molasses." - Kali
"If it weren't for you, the crime rate would be lower" - Wolsey
"Do you really believe that? That I *increase* it? Trust me, if I weren't handling it, it
would be a lot worse." - Kali
"So you're the friendly face of the criminal element?" - Wolsey
Kali tries to explain, that it's *necessary*, but Wolsey just can't believe her.
"you're making money on it, aren't you? You're not just doing it for kicks" - Wolsey
Kali smiles uncomfortably
"You know, I think she is" - Damascus, matter of fact
"Why!?" - Wolsey
"... At this stage, Wolsey, you'll just have to trust me" - Kali
Ouch. But it's his own fault - he used the line when she got past the region of his life he was comfortable having her in, and
now she returns the favour. Difference is, she stopped. Wolsey keeps on digging...
"Have you thought of what would happen if you got arrested?" - Wolsey
"Yes" - Kali
"And?" - Wolsey
"I thought about it, alright?" - Kali
Wolsey presses on, demanding she do more than think about it.
44
"We'll.. we'll just lie low for a while, until anything blows over. I have it covered." - Kali
"You're being a little blasé about this" - Wolsey
"Well, that's the fun of it" - Kali, annoyed.
"Fun!?" - Wolsey
"It's.. being on that line. You're too high above it - it's... you're walking on the top of a
cone, while I'm lower down." _ Kali
"So you're standing on the edge of a cliff" - Wolsey
"Yeah. It's like.. abseiling" - Kali
"Abseilers only endanger their own lives" - Wolsey
Kali says that Wolsey's world is built on patterns of behaviour, that the people in it
are locked into set routes which the likes of Wolsey change around to their
satisfaction. But there are people outside those routes.
This is the heart of Kali's prejudices - she sees the people outside the grid (metaphorically as well as the geo-magical one)
as being worth more than the people inside it, more "real" or at the very least ignored by most Mages
"I'm making life better for the people who you can't" - Kali
"No you're not. You're just selling them drugs" - Wolsey
"People can't knife one another when they're high" - kali
"Rubbish. You're not helping these people, you're just allowing people to wallow." Wolsey
"Wolsey, have you ever taken drugs? I'm giving people a choice to wallow in
something other than their own misery" - Kali
"Weeks ago, you said I was applying another system of control. Well so are you once people are addicted they're addicted. they get one choice." - Wolsey
Kali gathers her thoughts, hurt by the prolonged accusation.
"... If the point of this is saying that I'm endangering the Cabal, then say it." - Kali
Damascus has now had enough.
"No-one's saying it." (pointed look at Wolsey) "But they are perhaps saying that you
could be doing something else." - Damascus
"Why would I?" - Kali
"Selling drugs to people is wrong" - Wolsey
Mmm'kay? Seriously, though, for all that he's a like a dog with a chew toy on Kali here, he does have some good points.
Damascus could have probably made them better, though, and this whole conversation is not really likely to make her
change. It's more likely to make her counterattack...
"And selling them political innuendos isn't? Selling masks and costumes isn't?"
(without letting him answer) "I don't think it's different. In my heart, it isn't different.
They're playing Peter Pan, your cults" (said with disgust) "their escapism into your
world, they can't do anything else. How do you leave that life, when you're in it?" Kali
Which - and Wolsey knows it - is what happened to his wife.
"They leave. It's a lot easier than coming off drugs" - Wolsey
"Then you can give up your mage name?" - Kali
"That's different. They're not Mages"
"It's no different. How many just go deeper, Wolsey? Looking for more and more
half-truths and revelations?" - Kali
"Kali. No matter how you couch it they are not the same." - Wolsey, now on the
defensive
45
"Karl Marx would disagree" - Damascus
"Karl Marx said a lot of things" - Wolsey
Opiate of the masses and all.
Damascus, though, has had enough of all this again.
"*He's* using Cults to do something else. You're using drugs to do drugs to do drugs.
What are you trying to achieve?" - Damascus
"I'm trying to give people a choice they don't have" - Kali
"The choice to walk into a cage?" - Wolsey
Damascus warns him off with a look
"If I didn't, they'd complain. The foundation Wolsey's world is built on would crumble.
I'm not saying what I do is right, I'm saying it's something someone needs to do." Kali
"You say someone would replace you. Do something only you can do." - Damascus
After the long pause, Wolsey remembers why he came here today in the first place. If
Kali can't help, then he'll try to find Amanda himself.
After telling the others what he's doing, he takes the brush back from Kali and
concentrates, casting Scrying and failing, though not in the way he was expecting.
His spell worked, he's sure of that... but he hit a Ward. Wherever Amanda is is
magically protected.
A few seconds later, he thinks about what that means and tells the others to get
ready, casting Spatial Awareness to gain the Mage sight. Sure enough, a Spatial
window opens up in the Sanctum next to him. Wolsey hurriedly recasts Spatial
Awareness down the window, hoping to project his senses to wherever whoever cast
it is, but finds himself being countered. Seconds later, there's a wave of magic and
Damascus disappears, the Spatial window snapping shut.
Six seconds later, Damascus reappears, rather shaken
"What the hell was that?" - Wolsey
"You all just jumped, like a record skipping" - Damascus
Kali, though, is uncharacteristically quiet
"Kali?" - Damascus
That last spell was a vulgar Time-based attack, an attempt to literally kick the target
into next week. She recognised the Nimbus (an attack of Deja Vu) as belonging to
Samuel. Fourth-Degree Master. Councillor of the city. Acanthus, Free Council leader,
Weaver of the House of Ariadne. Head of the Recorders of Living History Cabal. By
common recognition, the most powerful Pentacle Mage in the city.
Whoops.
This short magical battle was a colossal fuckup for all concerned - Samuel, upon detecting his ward being probed, scried
back on Wolsey's location (how he knew to is implied later). Hurriedly countering Wolsey's second Spatial Awareness, he
then activated a prepared Temporal Stutter which, despite his mighty dice pool, only got four successes. The Paradox roll for
a Gnosis 8 npc, however, *was* successful, causing a Havoc which meant his spell - intended for Wolsey to prevent him
from following the link again and give Samuel time to withdraw - hit Damascus instead. Damascus' Gnosis+Composure roll
cut it down to two successes, and Damascus was thrown two turns into the future.
46
Somehow that makes me feel better about the situation. The first time they meet the highest-statted npc he panics and
causes a Paradox manifestation. Not exactly intimidating.
Far worse, though, is Wolsey's career prospects. He just had a supernal punch-up with one of the ruling body of Mages in
the city. Days before he's supposed to be granted a title by said body.
Wolsey, thinking desperately, tries to head this off at the pass. Francine the Stone
Scribe is the Herald within Samuel's Cabal, so he phones her... to find her phone
busy.
"I know who *she's* talking to." - Wolsey
Moments later, Francine calls him back. She tells him that Samuel apologises for the
incident, especially to Damascus who happened to be standing in the wrong place.
The impression is given that Samuel is highly embarrassed by the whole thing, and
will not mention it again if the Cabal don't - the damage to his own reputation if it got
out that he hastily attacked Consilium members (who he mistook for Seers of the
Throne) and caused a Manifestation would be just as bad as the damage to theirs for
their own part in the fight. Wolsey for once isn't thinking about political advantage and
agrees that it was a mutual mistake which should go no further.
He just wants Amanda
"Can I talk to him?" - Wolsey
"He's.. he's busy." - Francine, hanging up
"SHIT!" - Wolsey, snapping his phone shut.
So close, and yet so far.
The next day, and while Kali wanders the streets of the city, practising "following
Ariadne's Thread" ready for her initiation test by wandering randomly hoping to come
across Blaise, Wolsey keeps trying to find someone who can give him Samuel's
number
"Look, is he available now?" - Wolsey
"I'm afraid not. He's in 1890" - Francine
Wolsey hangs up, and looks across at Damascus. They're both in the antechamber
of the Cult of the Solar Disk, pulling on their robes, gloves and masks.
"No joy?" - Damascus
"He's in 1890" - Wolsey, disgusted
"Have you given any thought as to why she would be with Samuel?" - Damascus
"I don't know. I don't know her. She might be Awakened. She might have forgotten
me. She might be awakened and have thought she had to leave me behind in her
new life." - Wolsey
"What was the name of the cult you were both in?" - Damascus
"Back in Boston. The Order of Ophidius. Bunch of Hippies." - Wolsey
They put their masks on
"Let's do this" - Wolsey
...
Meanwhile, across town, Kali has wandered for hours. Her mentor - who normally
47
shows up at times like this - remains conspicuously absent. She looks up from
following the wispy, ephemeral threads of sympathetic connection she's been tracing
to find herself in leafy suburbia, on a street lined on one side with retail units. A cafe.
A dress shop. A bookstore.
This is not a place she belongs.
...
Wolsey and Damascus have been introduced to the "Observational Adjunct" of the
Juncture, a small man in deep red robes that nervously fingers the Astrolabe hanging
from his belt and murmurs numbers under his breath. After speeches expressing the
hope the two societies can learn from one another, he invites Wolsey (as The
Speaker) and one other to come with him. Wolsey picks Damascus, and off they go.
They're not going far - the three of them are soon ensconced within the back of a
limo, the Adjunct sat facing backward towards them. After pleasantries, he starts to
explain.
The Juncture believe that a Great Change is coming - in this, they're not that different
from the pre-millennial cults that sprung up all through the Labyrinth in the last years
of last century and still occasionally surface espousing one gehenna or apocalypse
or other. Where they *do* differ is their belief as to why, and what they intend to do
about it.
The Juncture practice Stochastic calculations to try to extrapolate trends in the world
- in society, in natural events and in large groups of people. Based on the twin ideas
that if the universe is a closed system it must be possible - if one knew, for example,
the position of everything in the world - to accurately predict the future and that what
appear to be chaotic systems (like the interactions of individual people) become
predictable when one takes an overview of many of them (like a social trend), the
Juncture have determined that a great change is coming. Civilisations rise and fall,
says the Adjunct, and the America of the early 21st century is faced with building
pressures that must be released. How those pressures will be released is unknown it could be a war, it could be a social revolution, it could be political reform for good or
ill. The important thing is that a change is coming.
The Juncture themselves hope that they can create the concept for which they are
named - a Great Change of their own design that releases the tensions of society in
a safe manner.
Now they're talking Wolsey's language. At this point, Wolsey begins having daydreams of a magical revolution with himself at
it's head
They've come to him because they've heard he's travelled far, and like them has
seen many of the secretive groups in the occult world. Word has reached them
through emissaries to other societies of a quarrel between two of DC's occult groups
- or perhaps rival factions of one group. As he explains, as one gets deeper and
deeper into the occult world, the societies get smaller and smaller and much more
secretive. But because their members are also members of "higher up" groups, their
influence is comparatively greater. It's like a pyramid.
Or, as Kali was trying to explain to Wolsey, like a Cone. Different argument, but it's a parallel
"'The House of Stone and the House of Steel are quarrelling, and their quarrel is
shaking us all'" - Adjunct
48
The Juncture does not know who these groups are, only that their disagreement is
affecting other societies, which are affecting other societies and so on. The
Juncture's calculations are off, and they fear that a Great Change they cannot
foresee is on the way.
Wolsey says he's never heard of the two rival factions either, but he will keep his ear
actively out and let them know if he does hear anything - which the Adjunct gladly
accepts as second best. He expresses interest in the Juncture's calculations, and the
Adjunct gives him some literature to go away with.
And with that, they pull back up outside the Solar Disk's chapterhouse.
the Juncture are an example of a group that aren't supernatural, but were maybe affected by one early in their development.
In their obsession with looking for signs that they interpret, they're maybe grown from an initial group of people who
interacted with the Seers of the Throne or other, stranger groups.
...
Kali, still wandering, is getting increasingly uncomfortable and getting past it by
making everyone around her uncomfortable too. She's loitering outside the stores,
looking in through the windows and meeting people's eyes - not quite knowing why.
...
"Are they crazy?" - Damascus
The boys are disrobing.
"I don't know. This makes little sense to me" (flipping through the book they were
given) "but I think they're sincere. I'm more interested in the two groups they
mentioned - the pentacle and the seers?" - Wolsey
Damascus shrugs, and Wolsey's phone rings. He checks the caller id, and notes that
it's Mara.
First thing he does is ask if she's heard from Samuel, which she denies. After
checking he's not around any Sleepers, Mara gets to the point - she's not calling as
his Mentor. She's calling as a Provost requiring a Herald for a job.
"Then it's official?" - Wolsey
"Think of this as your final examination. The Consilium need to see you do the job
successfully before I formally recommend you to Banneker." - Mara
"Of course" - Wolsey
Mara lays it out - there's a Cabal of Silver Ladder mages living in Virginia, close
enough to the city for it to be their "local" Consilium. They're quite reclusive and
traditional - much more traditional than Banneker, for example - and their physical
distance means they aren't proper members of the Consilium. The Consilium does,
however, regard them as being under it's protection, which they have agreed to pay
for with an artefact, rotes and certain texts. The books were delivered upon their first
moving in last year, the rotes have been taught to members of the Consilium and
now - after the Consilium has protected them for seven months - the time has come
to seal the deal officially. Mara gives Wolsey the address of this cabal - who call
themselves the "Ascendants" - and tells him to go get the promised artefact, then
return it to her with due speed and security.
49
And this task in no way gets Wolsey out of the city and not making trouble looking for Amanda. Oh, no. Not at all.
Wolsey agrees, cuts the call and tells Damascus what's going on. Damascus wasn't
doing anything particularly important today either, so he agrees to go. Wolsey
phones Kali - who is more than happy to do something interesting - and arranges to
pick her up on the way.
"... This has got to be more complicated than she said, doesn't it?" - Wolsey
Cynic
Wolsey calls Francine again.
"He still isn't available, Wolsey. He'll see you at the Caucus" - Francine
He explains that that wasn't what he was calling about - though he *was* going to
ask - he actually called to see if she knew anything about the Ascendants.
"Oh, they gave you that job! They must have confidence in you - Well done!" Francine
She's only met them once - when the deal was brokered. "Traditional" is one way of
putting their demeanour. They believe - honestly believe - that Mages have lost their
way and that their Cabal is the one to set things right, show everyone else where
they're going wrong and so forth. Which is probably why they left Europe and live on
the fringes of a relatively permissive Consilium.
Wolsey asks her about the thing he's going to collect, and Francine says she's never
seen it. But it's actually "them". A pair of twinned artefacts called the Eyes of Salt,
which although obviously magical don't actually do anything that anyone can tell
(which is why the Ascendants are willing to part with them). They're Atlantean or
Hyperborean in origin, due to their permanency and age, but they're apparently parts
from a much larger artefact, without which they don't do anything. Still, they're
valuable enough as archaeological treasures that Banneker considers them a good
price for sheltering a trio of contentious know-alls.
Thanking her for being most illuminating, Wolsey rings off.
Kali, still looking around and muttering to herself, is broken from her reverie by
Damascus' car arriving.
"What are you doing out here?" - Damascus
"I.. Have no idea. Let's go" - Kali
Ariadne's thread led her to Suburbia, but she is not a Weaver yet. When she gets her attainment, we'll be back.
Once they're on the Freeway, Wolsey explains his worries. Not that the Council is
getting him out of the way - that remains unspoken. No, he's worried that this seems
like a nice, easy little courier mission. So it's bound to go hideously, hideously wrong.
But fear not! For Kali, fate-witch and prognosticator extraordinaire, is here.
Kali casts an advanced-level Unveiling of Time on the Cabal.
Kali's spell here is the first spell we've had from outside the standard lists in the Awakening Core, as we gained confidence in
50
the magic system. It's effectively the Time-1 spell "Temporal Eddies made longer-reaching and covering more targets than
just herself by means of her greater ability in the Arcana. Or, put another way, we altered the Spell Factors.
"All right... this course of action we are undertaking will be.. beneficial... for me...
neutral... for Damascus and..." - Kali
Kali's eyes open, and she looks at Wolsey
"What? What?" - Wolsey
"And very, VERY bad for you" - Kali
Wolsey doesn't quite know how to take that.
"How bad?" - Wolsey
"Really bad." - Kali
"Well.. we're going to pick up an artefact. What's the worst that could happen?" Wolsey, starting to get worried
"You could be transmogrified into a gelded water buffalo with terminal bone cancer?"
- Damascus
Granted, that *is* pretty bad, but I don't think it was what Wolsey had in mind...
"Okay. Hold up. I'm thinking ambush. Or it's a trap" - Wolsey
"Hm. Are these people in Langley?" - Damascus
"No - near Mount Vernon." - Wolsey
"Not a CIA hit, then" - Damascus
"you could get killed" - Kali, trying to be helpful
Wolsey considers
"Are you saying that my getting killed will be good for you?" - Wolsey
"I don't know! I'm an instrument!" - Kali
And there's the session title.
...
A few hours later, and the Cabal arrive at the Sanctum of the Ascendants, deep
within picket-fence territory on the far side of Arlington. Kali's bones are itching with
the surroundings, and Wolsey is still distracted by the unhappy news of his
impending demise.
Various forms of Mage Sight reveal the Ascendant’s markings - they've drawn their
glyph on their own front door in Prime energies. Their heraldry follows the very
strictest letter of the forms, identifying them as numbering three - one Acanthus, one
Obrimos and one Moros. All Silver Ladder. And their Cabal recognises all five Rights,
making them true sticklers for form.
Wolsey pauses, then knocks on the door. It opens to reveal a man in his middle to
elderly years, his hair and short beard white. The two Mages greet one another
formally, and the Ascendant (who calls himself "Melchior") invites them into his
Sanctum. Trooping in, they're shown into the study.
The room is lined with thick leather books on bookshelves, broken up by tapestries
depicting supernal patterns and complex cosmologies. There's a particularly
impressive ancient scroll locked tight within an atmosphere-controlled case in pride of
51
place, unrolled to show three abstracted figures bestowing treasures upon the
unseen figures beneath them.
Melchior divides his conversation between Damascus (it transpires that he is the
Moros), and Wolsey (as the fellow théarch and the Herald tasked with coming here).
He's stiff and formal throughout, but polite - he makes it clear that he considers the
Silver Ladder in the city to be failing it's duty.
"You have come, of course, for the item promised to your Hierarch. We are true to
our word as Magi should be. This will only take a moment, and you will have your
payment" - Melchior, putting a particularly disapproving stress on 'Payment'
Melchior draws one of the tapestries aside to reveal a wall safe, which he opens with
an overly-long sequence of numbers. Within is a metal box, which he opens with a
five-inch long, jagged key. Inside *that* is a dark wooden lacquered box, which he
carefully lifts out and carries over to a desk before pressing his fingers to it's surface
in a highly precise pattern.
By now, the Cabal expect what's inside to either explode or do something equally
impressive
The mystery box clicks, and Melchior pulls on gloves before lifting off the lid. He
carefully retrieves a drawstring velvet bag from inside, like a large dice bag, and
holds it by looping the string around his fingers while he closes the mystery box,
sealing away the rest of his Cabal's treasures.
"And here they are - the Eyes of Salt. Take them and go with good faith, for I won
these after many battles, and I expect them to be treated accordingly now that I buy
our security with them" - Melchior
"They will be" - Wolsey
And with that, without looking in the bag, Wolsey gives Melchior a formal "until we
meet again" and they walk - not run - to the car.
Once they're IN the car, though, and are out of sight of the house, the curiosity takes
over.
"Did you SEE that place?" - Kali
"Gods. They're everything I'm not, all in one package." (shudders) "Still, I seem to
have come out of it alive" - Wolsey
Kali recasts her spell
".. That's because it hasn't happened yet. You're.. uh..." - Kali
"Still doomed?" - Wolsey
".. yeah." - Kali
Damascus, as resident Moros and the member of the Cabal with knowledge of the
Prime Arcana, has been given the bag to hold. It's... cold.
While Wolsey goes through his options for getting them to Mara's safely, including
several complex spell she intends to cast on the car to shield them from prying eyes
of would-be ambushers and artefact thieves, Damascus opens the bag and tips it out
onto his palm.
52
The Eyes of Salt are like two large, grey marbles made of something with the
qualities of granite and frosted glass combined. They're freezing cold to the touch,
and an involuntary shudder goes through Damascus - these things feel *wrong*, like
they're an aberration.
"Well" (showing the others before putting them back in the bag, and blowing on his
palm to warm it up again) "I think I know what they're for. They're for making *really*
cold Halloween punch" - Damascus
"I think it's pretty obvious what they're *for*, Damascus. And I know where they're
unfinished" - Wolsey
"Yeah? Why.. oh" - kali
Wolsey shudders.
At this point, Mark started making 'Head of Vecna' jokes. Ah, how innocent he is. Remember - if you've read Reign of the
Exarchs, don't spoil my players, okay?
"Right. I've got a plan that should shield us from most forms of interference. It will
take about six hours to cast, so we'll need to hole up near a freeway ramp or
something." - Wolsey
"Or we could drive the two and a half hours to Mara's house right now" - Damascus
"... Or that, yes" - Wolsey
Kali recasts her spell
"Still..." - Kali
"I get the idea" – Wolsey
Two and a half hours later (still doomed, by the way), the Cabal park up back in the
city, in a very expensive neighbourhood, all stone columns on white buildings, faketurrets and high stories.
Wolsey leads them to one building, looking like the other houses around it but for the
small plaque next to the door proclaiming it to be the practice of "Dr Madhuri
Dhawan"
That being Mara's real name - or maybe just the name she gives Sleepers rather than 'Mara'
Going inside, they find that what would be a front hall has been converted into a
reception area. The receptionist looks up at Kali and asks if she's the eight o clock
appointment. Wolsey cuts Kali's bemused reply off to say that they're here to see Dr
Dhawan, and the Receptionist correctly guesses that they're "the couriers" Dhawan
has been waiting for.
On the way up, Kali asks what sort of Doctor Mara is
"She's a psychiatrist" - Wolsey
"...Huh" - Kali
Specifically, Mara's a Jungian - she's named after the Belarusian and Hindu gods of death, the Buddhist tempter-figure and
the Germanic nightmare-spirit. All of them seem appropriate to her - for al that she's Malakaii's former apprentice and current
Provost, Mara is actually in the Adamantine Arrow, not the Guardians of the Veil. She interprets people's dreams and assists
her Cabal in "cleanup" work - people that Malakaii erases the memories of usually wind up as her patients, so the Cabal can
check up on them. Hers is one of the character descriptions that got changed fairly late on in my writing of the setting - she
was originally a lawyer, and the current npc is a merging of that one with a Claviclarius mage. In the final setting, Mara flirted
with the Solomonists before being drawn back to her mentor's Legacy, which is equally useful for her work. The relationship
between the Bearers of the Eternal Voice - as fronted by Malakaii - and the Claviclarius fronted by Suleiman is one of the
53
less-obvious axis of the setting. About which Banneker will speak later on.
Mara gets up as they enter her office, and thanks them for the prompt turnaround.
Damascus hands over the bag and Mara - after checking the Eyes - puts them into a
safe behind a painting.
"Thank you. All.. three... of you. I'll see you tomorrow." - Mara
Wolsey, hovering in the doorframe, starts to ask about Amanda, but Mara shakes her
head. Not now.
Denied! Anyways, this whole elaborate sequence is what I believe is termed Chekhov’s Gun. Wave the important plot
macguffin around early on, go for several stories without mentioning it and then BAM!
Back outside, Wolsey asks how his destiny is looking. Kali just gives him a wide-eyed
look of horror and sympathy. Wolsey turns to Damascus.
"She's just shitting me now, isn't she?" - Wolsey
Damascus mirrors Kali's expression
"Now *you're* just shitting me" - Wolsey
Even so, when they drop him off at his apartment, and he fails to get through to
Samuel yet again, Wolsey triple-locks his doors and windows, casts various Wards
around the place, casts a second Ward around his bed and spends the night not
sleeping, sat up in the bed he's pulled into the middle of the room and sealed away
from the outside world with every spell he knows.
The next day, round about lunchtime, Damascus is feeling restless. He needs to be
doing something - Wolsey's troubles are out of his sphere of expertise, apart from a
few sage words of advice he could offer regarding mortality and the fear of the
unknown. In any case, the Caucus isn't until that evening and he needs something to
take his mind off things. he needs to keep his hands busy.
Kali wakes up to find a text message from Damascus ("WLD U LKE TO MDL
2DAY?") and Ichi waiting to tell her how the Crack Factory is doing. Listening to Ichi
tell her how they've nearly got the process sorted, the argument from the other day
maybe resonating somewhere inside, she tells Ichi she'll be back tomorrow.
She calls Damascus and agrees to meet him at his workshop.
...
"Hi" - kali
"Heya" - Damascus
Damascus' workshop is an extended lockup close by to his house, with sculpting
equipment for metal and stone neatly ordered, half-finished pieces stacked (the
occasional spear, sword and rack of silver bullets among them) to one side and an
easel set up with a large sketchpad on it. Kali looks around appreciatively, and
Damascus busies himself setting his stool up and putting a sheet on the floor.
"All right." (strikes a pose) "How do you want me?" - Kali, grinning.
"Stand on the sheet, will you? And put your hands above your head like you're
holding something up." - Damascus
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Kali obliges, still grinning at him, and he sketches a couple of outlines.
"You know..." - Damascus
There's a pause
"...These things are usually, well..." - Damascus
Kali lowers her arms and waits
"...Nude." (quickly) "But only if you feel okay with it" - Damascus
Kali quirks an eyebrow and strips naked, then goes back into the pose.
"Better?" - Kali
"Oooookay." - Damascus, concentrating on his sketching.
About an hour later, the buzzer attached to the bell outside rings. Kali stretches the
feeling back into her arms as Damascus goes to answer the door.
Wolsey - looking like he hasn't slept - is leaning on the wall outside.
"Are you busy?" - Wolsey
"Kali's here. We're working on that column. Hang on." - Damascus
He walks back in
"Kali, it's Wolsey. Okay if he comes in?" - Damascus
Kali shrugs
"You should probably get dressed. I've got a good start anyway" - Damascus
Kali starts pulling her clothes on, and Damascus gives Wolsey the all-clear.
"Safe" - Damascus
"Oh good. Maybe that's the doom - I'll be struck blind" - Wolsey
"And then you could use the Eyes" - Kali
"...OR I could find a Life Master" - Wolsey
In any case, the Doom has now gone - it's only readable when he's actively doing
something that causes it, and apparently gooseberrying doesn't count.
Damascus packs his sketches away.
"Still no luck?" - Damascus, sympathetically
"None. We'll see tonight, I guess" - Wolsey
And after this quiet little character interlude, we head to the Caucus
That Evening, Wolsey drives around to Damascus' house to pick the other two up now shaved and looking more like himself. Damascus has put a suit on, and Kali - to
55
Wolsey's shock, amazement and slight sense of unease - has put on an evening
dress and done her hair.
The evening's Caucus is being held in the function room of a restaurant / hotel that
the Consilium has fully booked for the evening, somewhere in Mt Pleasant. The
Cabal breeze past the doormen and walk through the deserted restaurant, between
the tables covered in upturned chairs, to a pair of blacked-out doors guarded by a
doorman not in hotel uniform. He opens the door and lets them in.
Inside, the function room has been bedecked for the Consilium. Tables for each
cabal have been set up, and most of the Mages present are already seated. The
Sigils of all the city's Cabals are displayed - including Crucible's - along one wall
while at the far end, six seats for Banneker and the Councillors have been set up.
One has a short wooden carving, like a tiki, sat upon it.
Kali glances curiously at the suited, shaded gentleman stood next to the door on the
inside, who's just standing their, hands crossed in front of him, like he's waiting for
something. Everyone else seems to be avoiding him.
Wolsey, though, has spotted Samuel at his Cabal's table, explaining some kind of
point to a woman Wolsey doesn't know using a bread roll as a visual aide. He's
intercepted on his way over by Mara, who smoothly rises from the Gatekeeper's
table. Wolsey turns to face her, and briefly meets eyes with Malakaii, who raises an
eyebrow and very calmly shifts to studying the menu.
"I have something to tell you" - Mara
"Go on" - Wolsey
"I won't be your mentor any more after tonight. I've been asked to cease our
arrangement in order to concentrate on a new apprentice. Look, I'm sorry - I'll still be
your tutor for the Bearers, and help you through the first attainment when you get
there, but... You know who it is I've been tasked with teaching, don't you?" - Mara
Yeah. He knows.
"Talk to Banneker, Wolsey" - Mara
Dinner is served. Wolsey troops back to the Crucible's table, right at the back (and
opposite a trio of Mages, one of whom is Melchior so who must be the Ascendants).
The quiet pleasantries of the evening don't calm Wolsey's unease, and he looks
around the assembled Mages.
Amanda isn't here.
Idly, he eats without really looking at his food. Laughter erupts from the Recorders of
Living History's table, as Samuel cracks a joke. Kali, feeling out of place, looks down
at the cutlery provided for eating lobster
(whispered) "How do I use this?" - Kali
(also whispered) "Watch Wolsey and copy what he does" - Damascus
Kali, seeing Wolsey's expression, casts her Advanced Unveiling of Time again.
Whatever Wolsey is doing now will have a very bad outcome for him. She grimaces,
and says nothing.
Wolsey's doom has now stopped being a joke. Even Kali's worried about him.
56
Eventually, the dessert plates are taken away and people sit up as Banneker,
Suleiman, Malakaii, Samuel and Dantor get up from their Cabals and proceed to the
front of the room, where they're seated as Councillors and Hierarch. Banneker
stands up again, waiting for silence, and starts in on his speech.
It's a very long speech.
Banneker's speech covers all the bases - brotherhood, sisterhood, the need to stay
vigilant against the Seers, notable accomplishments if the Consilium's mages over
the last two months, a bit of philosophy about the Platonic city, the virtues of the
Wise, etcetera and so forth. Along the way, he notes that more people have turned
up than usual, though Fisher (the fifth Councillor) can't make it, and the majority of
the Children of the Book aren't here, there is a representative of Project Twilight
making a rare appearance (this, by everyone turning to look, would be the suited
gentleman stood by the door). Kali nods off, but is nudged awake by Damascus
when Banneker reaches the subject of new Cabals - only to find that Banneker has
decided to Recognise the Ascendants first.
(listing their names) "...Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar of the Silver Ladder..." Banneker
(aside) "They haven't.. They *have*. They've named themselves after the three wise
men!" - Damascus
Wolsey shakes his head in disbelief.
Rafe called that one all by himself. Font of useless information is Rafe.
"Also, as you all know, the first fruit of our new protocol on apprenticeship has been
borne. The Consilium Recognises the Cabal of the Crucible, naming Wolsey of the
Silver Ladder, Damascus of the Adamantine Arrow and Kali of the Mysterium as
members in good standing. Welcome." (pause) "It is also my pleasure to announce
that, given his willingness to serve and proven ability, the Consilium has conferred
with it's Provosts and recommended to me that Wolsey of the Crucible be named
Herald..." - Banneker
(muttered) "This is the part where they kill me, right?" - Wolsey
(whispered conspiratorially) "I have a gun in my knickers. I'll shoot you before they
get to you" - Kali
"...I name you thus. See me later." - Banneker, winking.
While Banneker closes his speech, Francine turns around in her seat further up and
gives Wolsey the thumbs up. He smiles, unconvincingly.
And then Banneker bows, closing the speeches.
Time to Mingle.
Wolsey gets up and leaves Kali and Damascus behind, heading straight for the
Hierarch. Banneker nods in recognition and walks towards a side door
"We can talk in here, Herald" - Banneker
Once inside the small room on the other side, Banneker closes the door and casts a
57
spell. The sound of the Consilium outside buzzes for a brief moment and is then
silent.
Banneker has cast a Forces spell proofing the room he and Wolsey are in for sound and much of the electromagnetic
spectrum, ensuring privacy
Banneker runs a finger along one wall idly.
"We haven't met, have we Thomas?" (off his look) "Isiah" - Banneker
Isiah is Banneker's real name. He named himself after the famous Benjamin Banneker, mathematician, astronomer and
inventor - and also, despite being African American, the man hired to conduct the initial survey of what was to be DC. Isiah
chose his shadow name as an aspirational story - he himself is an African-American from one of the poorer districts of the
city, who became a successful architect even before he Awakened as an Obrimos and formed a Geomantic Legacy.
Wolsey blinks, and realises the Hierarch is holding out his hand
"I.. don't think so." - Wolsey, shaking it
"I've kept my eye on you, though. And your new position is earned. I have no doubt
you'll continue to earn it." (frowns to himself) "The Heralds in this city are assigned to
the Provosts, but I have decided to change that with you. You'll be working directly
for me, Thomas." - Banneker
"... Thank you?" - Wolsey
"I normally get the Heralds together once a month to go over things, catch up on
news and so forth. I'll be in touch regarding it, but your honour isn't what you have on
your mind. Which is why I wanted this chat" - Banneker
"My wife is here" - Wolsey
"Yes she is." (sighs) "And now you have been very patient, and deserve some
answers. First - she is Awakened, though only recently. She arrived in the city having
met no other Mages, and stumbled into a situation Samuel was handling. Once he
determined she was not a Seer, he took her to his Sanctum and contacted the rest of
the Council. This was while you were still an apprentice. She is a Mastigos, and has
not yet joined an Order." - Banneker
"A Mastigos" - Wolsey
"Yes, and.. I am sorry to tell you that her journey through Pandemonium was harder
than yours. We have decided to give her time with two mages, both qualified for the
task - Mara and Promethea of the Seekers of One Soul. Have you met Promethea?"
- Banneker
Wolsey shakes his head
"She's good - a Claviclarius. Which brings me back to you, and my own selfishness.
You see, when you first came to us, there was some discussion regarding whether to
place you with Mara or Promethea. We knew that whichever of our two Mastigos
Provosts trained you would predispose you towards their Legacy - it's only natural. I
hope we made the right choice" - Banneker
"You did, sir. I wouldn't have been suited to the alternative" - Wolsey
"No?" (sadly) "Maybe not. But I saw an opportunity. I have a problem, Thomas. My
position relies on someone who I do not wish it to rely upon. And after many years of
seeing new Mages join Malakaii's Legacy who weren't *quite* up to my requirements,
you came along." - Banneker
"You wanted me to join the Bearers?" - Wolsey
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"I wanted someone in that Legacy who I could trust. Someone of our Order, with the
ambition to advance down it's teachings.. and replace Malakaii in usefulness to the
city." - Banneker
The rest is left unsaid.
"But as for Avatar - that's her name now - her destiny is her own." - Banneker
"I want to see her" - Wolsey
"I'll see what I can do, Thomas. She.. there is a reason, I am afraid, for her being
tutored by a Claviclarius and a woman of Mara's profession beyond that of her
sympathy with Pandemonium. And Avatar does not know that you are here - in fact,
that's how we figured out who she was - once we convinced her she wasn't insane,
she asked us to find her husband, who she left behind in some snake-handling cult in
Boston. Mara recognised you." - Banneker
Note that Banneker is still calling everyone but Thomas by their Shadow names, even Amanda. He's not calling himself Isiah
and Wolsey Thomas for shits and giggles - he's establishing a sympathetic link between them and making sure they know
one another's real names. Because Wolsey's going to be his Herald, and they need to be able to target one another
magically.
"Thank you" - Wolsey
"My card" (gives it to him) "And I've kept you long enough. Talk to Samuel on your
way out." - Banneker
The Hierarch cancels his spell, and the room is unsealed.
...
Back outside, Kali and Damascus are sat at their table still, when the suited
gentleman from before approaches them.
"Ms Kali, is it?" - Man
He gives a very greasy smile, sucks the air through his teeth and sits down.
"My name is Nimrod, Ms Kali. We have not met" - Nimrod
"Named after the Hunter?" - Damascus
"Just so." - Nimrod
"And who are you, Nimrod?" - Kali
"I represent Twilight. Do you know who we are?" - Nimrod
"Nope" - Kali
Nimrod licks his lips.
"We are a Cabal of Guardians of the Veil, very specialised. We act exclusively within
the Intelligence Community" - Nimrod
"Which Agent are you? CIA? NSA?" - Damascus
"FBI. And your name, Ms Kali, has crossed my desk." - Nimrod
Kali waits
"I tell you this as a courtesy. I have shifted resources in your favour." - Nimrod
"That's very kind of you. I won't let my name cross your desk again." - Kali, flatly
"See to it that you don't" - Nimrod
He gets up, and leaves.
59
Project Twilight, the Guardians of the Veil internal faction that deals with the intelligence community, is from that Order's
supplement.
Ulysses, seeing this exchange, comes over
"I would have thought it would be the DEA" - Damascus
"Do you know who that was?" - Ulysses
"Nimrod" - Kali, matter of fact
"Young lady, when an Assistant Director of the FBI who's a Moros of a group most
people here think is Left-Handed comes to a Consilium to talk to you, there's a
problem." - Ulysses
"It's all under control" - Kali, not being especially convincing.
...
Over the other side of the room, Wolsey emerges from the side door, and looks
around. As he passes the Recorder's table, Samuel gets up and catches his arm.
"Wolsey. I believe you wanted to see me" - Samuel
Wolsey agrees that yes he did, and everyone around him stops as Samuel's nimbus
flares. The Consilium is frozen in time - or Wolsey and Samuel have been taken out
of it.
The latter. Samuel has cast a pre-prepared Fairy Glade
"I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I was in 1890" - Samuel
"I heard" - Wolsey
Samuel explains that his life's work revolves around building up Temporal sympathy
to bystanders at historical events, then projecting his consciousness back into their
minds which he rides as an observer. Back in the future, he then uses the information
so gleaned to discern elements of Ariadne's Web his Legacy would not be able to
otherwise spot. But Wolsey didn't want to talk about that.
Avatar, Samuel says, is currently with Fisher while the Consilium is going on. After
that, she'll go to her new mentors.
"Now, to our own business. You have been told, I think, that a mishap lies ahead?
Kali has told you what she read in your future?" - Samuel
"She... has." - Wolsey
"Kali's a good girl. Enthusiastic - and willing to do the parts of the work too many of
the House take for granted. We all join the House out of a desire to know, to follow
the threads of destinies binding everything together and see the hidden causes
behind mundane events, but most of us are content with the Upper City. It's all well
and good taking the pulse of the city, but sometimes to understand what condition
ails it you have to listen to it's guts. And that's what Kali's good at. As I say, a good
girl and an able student... but she is not as advanced in the Arcana of Arcadia as she
could be. As advanced, as for example, as a Master who is deeply ashamed of his
behaviour two days ago." - Samuel
Wolsey smiles, weakly. Samuel puts his fingers on Wolsey's temples and
concentrates, casting Divination.
"Such a person would be able to tell you the specific doom you face, the dark fate
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that Kali can get glimpses of... that your actions, taken in good faith, will at first
reunite you with your wife and then cause you to be forever parted after far too short
a time." - Samuel
Wolsey opens his eyes, breathing steadily. Samuel is solemn.
"Such a person would also tell you that this can be averted. That the future, unlike
the past, is not set in stone. They would use the powers they misused two days ago
to tell you..." (casts Prophecy) "... to pay especial attention to her dreams." - Samuel
Samuel steps back, and the world begins to accelerate back into line with Wolsey's
perceptions.
"Pay attention to her dreams? What does that mean?" - Wolsey
Samuel sighs
"I don't know, I'm afraid...
...I'm just an instrument" – Samuel
2.1 Commentary
As I said at the start, this is less about Wolsey searching for Amanda as figuring out
what to do once he's found her, and dealing with the new situation. He's aware,
rationally, that Avatar and Wolsey are not Amanda and Thomas, but he's determined
to have a part in her new life - not least because if she's as unsettled as the Council
are implying, he knows her better than anyone.
The council and provosts have taken great pains to hide her presence from Wolsey
and vice versa - trying to keep them in isolation for some as yet unrevealed reason.
But this can't last forever: not least because as a new mage, under Banneker's new
rules, when Avatar "graduates" she'll join the Crucible. As will any other new mages
for the next few years.
Kali's plotline for the session got an airing, though it's not clear enough for me to talk
about here. Similarly, Damascus' hasn't really kicked off. More Damascus next time.
Banneker, after the build-up he got of the Cabal refusing to go anywhere near him,
turned out to much.. nicer than I initially thought he'd be. It stems from a conversation
I had with Mark about how a man who is the third most powerful Mage gets the
position he has - Samuel is uninterested, Malakaii is too unpopular. Banneker, for all
that his Cabal has a severe Hubris problem (especially from where Kali's standing),
is a nice guy. And - importantly - a good manager. In the antithesis of the typical
World of Darkness style of leadership (see also the guy from Boston and every
Vampire Prince ever), Banneker gets by by building relationships with Mages when
they're young, supporting the less established Cabals, seeding the city with his own
apprentices and playing a constant juggling act keeping the Councillors and Provosts
working together. His position is weaker than a classic Hierarch, stunted by Malakaii
and Samuel's presences, but it's made him a better leader.
Reign of the Exarchs watch: Amanda / Avatar is Cymbeline Hand.
Yes, I *am* a rat bastard.
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I knew, ya see, that my players would be watching out for Reign of the Exarchs plot,
which is why I introduced the Ascendants (who are from Story Four - hi Matt!) so
early, blending them into the ongoing game and using them as the vector to get the
Eyes of Salt (from Story Two) into the chronicle. The advice for Story Two has to try
to make the players care about the "Cymbeline" character, or whichever character
from one's own chronicle that replaces it, so I figured what the hell? I was intending
to bring Amanda back early anyway. And because they correctly "called" the
Ascendants as being from the book, they believe the Amanda plot to be part of "my"
storyline. Hopefully, once they see how integrated everything is they'll get past that,
but I couldn't resist the opportunity for a rollicking twist in a few month's time.
And with both her and the Eyes being in Mara's presence, the stage is set. The
payoff will be in three stories' time - we have the first Reign of the Exarchs next time,
then one or two of my own tales before we finally get to it. Chekhov’s gun is loaded.
62
Session 2.2
"Instruments of Fate" continues to rumble along, now. This session was short, *very* talky and has a definite "middle of the
story" feel to it - not a lot gets introduced or resolved, but quite a bit gets moved along. Our theme of the evening is rising
paranoia - the Cabal, by the end, are seeing the designs of their enemies everywhere. Kali especially is paralysed by taking
her half-inducted training from Ariadne's House too far, and Wolsey... Well, Wolsey doesn't have a very good time of it.
Damascus, though, is starting to come into his own, with his background beginning to be used and his personality getting
more defined.
Mark, after reading the thread, has a clarification to make. Wolsey wasn't looking so diligently for Amanda and constantly
phoning Samuel out of desperate love - he was doing it because she's a threat to him. She knows his real name, and he
knows hers. He *does* realise that Wolsey and Avatar aren't Thomas and Amanda, but he's more concerned that she's being
used as a weapon against him. Or that he's being used as a weapon against her. As Mark tells it, Wolsey's already *had* the
breakdown caused by desperately trying to find her - it was his Awakening, and now he's much colder about it - Wolsey's
typified by long stretches of being in control, investigating objectively punctuated by brief periods where he completely loses
it.
And now that I've said that, he's about to spend this session spiralling into the fraught state I thought he was in last time.
And we begin right where we left off.
While Wolsey is having a conversation with Samuel under the aegis of a Fairy Glade,
Kali and Damascus are having conversations of their own.
Ever since she was an apprentice, Kali has heard about Dantor. Gang Leader, head
of the Defenders Cabal, Necromancer - as a Bokor, Dantor is not exactly the most
"right-handed" of Mages, in fact she's positively fearsome. Her only direct apprentice
joined the Guardians of the Veil rather than her own Free Council, but Mr Thursday
learnt his lessons so well he became the city's Interfector. Dantor's gang territory
backs onto Kali's and is much larger.
Clearly, Dantor must be doing something right. Kali would like to ask her for tips.
It doesn't go very well. Dantor all but laughs in Kali's face - and not in a nice way. The
older Mage implies that Kali is a day-tripper in the underworld, with an area of
influence limited to 40-odd men and a brace of junkies. She points out that Kali buys
loyalty by positive reinforcement - people work for her because they want the things
she supplies - while people are loyal to Dantor out of respect and fear. Her zombies
are literal, not figurative. And what's more...
"...Even away from the influence of Banneker's leys, people in our profession draw
notice. The police leave you alone because other Mages warn them off" (jerks her
head in Nimrod's vague direction) "making you beholden to them in turn. The police
leave me alone because I killed the last five. When you have killed men to protect
your little empire, girl, come back and talk to me again." - Dantor
Mildly humiliated, Kali thanks her for the "advice" through a fake smile and retreats
back to their table.
I like Bokor (from Tome of the Watchtowers, though mentioned, I think, in the Mage corebook). They're uncomplicated. Well,
nearly uncomplicated. Dantor - named for the loa who is associated with protection - especially of single mothers and women
suffering domestic violence. Dantor runs her Cabal as a matriarchy, casting herself in the mother role for her Mages (with
Ulysses, the celibate Catholic Priest, as the "Father" role) and, in her mind, for the people under her protection. She has no
time for Mages such as Kali, or Mages such as she assumes Kali to be.
Naming her after a mother figure of terrifying aspect is a deliberate parallel to Kali herself. Besides which, I felt like using
imagery other than Hindu and Freemason for a change.
Damascus, meanwhile, is receiving both a commission and some careers advice
from Ulysses. It seems that Ulysses has a pressing need for a magnetised iron
dagger that has been blessed by five holy men.
"Slashing or Piercing?" - Damascus
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"It has to be able to pierce a ribcage" - Ulysses
"Should be do-able." - Damascus
And as for the Careers advice, Ulysses tells Damascus that there is a member of the
legacy Damascus has expressed interest in joining. As it happens, said Mage isn't
here at the Caucus but his roommate and fellow in the Recorders of Living History, a
Thyrsus named Cerberus, is.
Thanking Ulysses for the tip, Damascus seeks out Cerberus - a somewhat twitchy
middle-aged man, thinning on top, wearing somewhat shabby clothes that look
several years old. And cheap when new. Damascus introduces himself
"You're the guy making us the dagger, aren't you?" - Cerberus
Putting that in his mental notebook, Damascus heartily agrees
"Good. Because it's really getting out of hand" - Cerberus
Cerberus looks over Damascus' shoulder and growls. Damascus looks and sees
nothing.
"Shaman?" - Damascus
"That's right. I'm the... ah.. zookeeper, if you like." - Cerberus
Damascus notes that he's unlikely to ever be able to experience such things, being a
Moros, and Cerberus shrugs. Damascus asks about the Uncrowned King (whom it
turns out is named John Dee)
"John's not here. He had term papers to mark" - Cerberus
"I heard. He's a.." (thinks through his mental list of mages) "..chemistry professor,
isn't he? At Georgetown?" - Damascus
"That's right. But I'll tell him you're looking for him. He'll be glad of it, actually. He's
the only one in the city, had to go to MIT to learn his Legacy himself. Some guy
named.. no, it's gone." - Damascus
"Well, at least I don't have to go that far." - Damascus
Damascus gives Cerberus his card, and heads back to the table in time to meet the
returns of both Kali and Wolsey, who has appeared as Samuel realigns his timeline
to the common timestream.
I don't have the Boston book, remember, so the MIT reference isn't from there. John's tutor would have been called
"Freeman" in homage to that university's most famous student.
Cerberus himself is named for the three-headed dog of
Greek Mythology that guards the entrance to the otherworld. He's a security guard for the Smithsonian Institute, and is
employed by his Cabal to look after and feed the spirits of the various exhibits. Hence the zookeeper reference.
Wolsey looks like a man with thoughts upon his mind.
"So. Went well, did it?" - Damascus
"Samuel wanted to apologise in his own inimitable fashion" - Wolsey
"A quick hummer under the table?" - Damascus
Wolsey explains about how Samuel provided - unasked, as it happens - a prophecy
concerning how his dark fate can be averted.
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"We will be joined in a few months by another Mage named Avatar. The fate Kali
sensed was that I would somehow drive her away from the Cabal" - Wolsey, being
very careful to not mention how he's connected to Avatar
"Who's.. Oh, are we talking about your wi.." - Kali
"PLEASE! Not here" - Wolsey
Wolsey looks around the room, then gives kali his sternest look
"... I am curious as to how that is good for Kali and Neutral for me." - Damascus
(quietly) "Maybe I've done her, and she leaves him for me..." - Kali
Kali gets a far away look
".. hang on... no... wait... no. "Looks back at Wolsey "It's okay. I haven't done her." Kali
Hee!
"How is this to be averted? Could we buy you a better breath freshener?" Damascus
Wolsey does not appear to appreciate the humour. He tries his best to explain what's
going on, without giving away anything he doesn't want anyone who happens to be
sitting within earshot to hear. In any case, Wolsey is looking across the room where
Mara and Promethea are deep in conversation. He tells the others that Avatar is
being trained by both of them together for some reason, probably due to her unstable
nature. Kali, preoccupied by being dissed by Dantor, is fiddling with the cruet set.
"She doesn't seem to have had an easy time of her Awakening. Pandemonium is
unsettling" - Wolsey
"Pandemonium's real?" - Kali
"..Were you listening?" Wolsey
"no" - Kali
Wolsey explains that it matters that it's Mara who's training Avatar
"Because Banneker is wrapped up in this. Has it escaped your attention that Mara's
in the Cabal of his enemies?" - Wolsey
"...Had it escaped my attention that Mara was in the Cabal of one of Banneker's
enemies? No. In fact, it was pinned down in the centre of my attention like a butterfly
in a case with a very big pin." - Damascus
In any case, Mara gets up and starts walking toward the room Banneker met Wolsey
in. Wolsey rapidly gets to his feet.
"I intend to find the reason all this is going on" - Wolsey
"...Good luck" - Damascus
Wolsey intercepts her before she can leave.
"Can we talk?" - Wolsey
Mara regards him dubiously.
"I want to see her" (Mara sighs) "Because she's a danger to me. And me to her - you
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can't expect me to sit here while she's in the city. You wouldn't expect it of any other
mage. - Wolsey
"Wolsey. She doesn't know you're here. And I don't know what it would do." - Mara
He insists. Mara claims to have never actually met Avatar yet - and to need time
before she can allow Wolsey to go barging in. Wolsey intimates that he won't wait
forever, and Mara becomes more stern.
"This is not for any reason you might be thinking. Our lives before are not our lives
now - this is about my rights. I can't allow someone who knows who I am to run
around without talking to them - she doesn't know I'm a mage, so she doesn't know
to keep quiet. And if she's to join the Crucible I should be involved, as a Mastigos
and one of her future colleagues." - Wolsey
The display of professionalism seems to win Mara over a bit, and she semi-relents
"Fine. But not now. I will assess how learning about you would affect her, and give
you a reply within two days. And Wolsey - I am not on your side here and that isn't a
definite "yes". You aren't my student any more. You're right, about the danger, but it's
not the danger to you that I'm preoccupied with. It's the danger you pose to her. If I'm
convinced that meeting you will help her, do nothing for her or even hold her back a
little but help her in the long run, you'll get what you what. But I am unconcerned
about what happens to you. You've been released from your apprenticeship, you've
got your own Cabal. You're powerful enough to look after yourself - she isn't." - Mara
"I understand. You have to look after your charge, and I commend it. I will be waiting
on your call." - Wolsey
They shake on it.
Damascus, meanwhile, is talking to Dantor. It goes much better than Kali's
conversation with her. Dantor checks that Damascus has been asked for the item,
and shares that it's intended to bind a Spirit. She also asks Damascus if he is tired of
being the back-up guy and would like to come along for the action. Damascus,
considering, says that he'd be happy to, which Dantor seems to appreciate.
Returning, the gathering now thinning out significantly as the various Cabals pack up
and leave, Damascus asks Wolsey how the talk with Mara went. Wolsey looks
around some more - not here, speaks his body language - and spies Banneker and
Malakaii having a conversation in the distance.
"I wonder what they're talking about?" - Damascus
"We probably wouldn't be able to hear it anyway" - Wolsey, darkly.
Kali - long silent - offers her opinion on the political shenanigans going around.
"Look. You're playing cards with these people, yes? You're afraid that she's going to
be used in their hand." - Kali
Wolsey says that both Banneker and Malakaii are far more powerful than he, and
that at the moment they know what's in his hand and he doesn't know the rules of the
game.
"So at any point they could get four aces out of their sleeve." - kali, producing four
aces
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"I.. am unsure what that's supposed to prove." - Wolsey
"They're *cheating*. Whatever game you and they are playing, they're cheating. So
cheat." - Kali
Kali, having reached an impasse, has kicked off her heels and is rubbing her feet.
"Can we go, now?" - Kali
Wolsey nods
"Where to? The Sanctum?" - Damascus
"Home, I think" - Wolsey
"Uhuh. Because, Wolsey, I don't actually know where you live." - Damascus
Wolsey blinks
"Well, then. Would you two like to come back to my apartment?" - Wolsey
They, it turns out, would.
---------------------------Once they're all in Damascus' van and are on the road, Wolsey clarifies that yes,
Avatar IS Amanda, and then doesn't really want to talk about it for a while. Which
gives Damascus time to explain his task.
"Does anyone know how to magnetise an iron dagger easily?" - Damascus
"Couldn't you use your powers?" - Wolsey
"Well... it depends. They want it blessed, so it presumably has to be pure in some
way." - Damascus
He thinks while they wait at a set of red lights
"How many holy men do you know?" - Damascus
"Do cults count?" - Wolsey
"Are any of them especially holy?" - Damascus
"Depends on your definition of Holy. More otherworldly" - Wolsey
Damascus makes a face.
"23" - Kali
"And how many of those are Rastas?" - Wolsey
"I don't have anything against Rastas" - Damascus
"Except that they're a joke" - Wolsey
Kali starts in on a rambling explanation of her twenty-three, but as it turns out to be a
partial list of her conquests Damascus gracefully rejects them.
"Well. There's another way of thinking about this. All we need are an Imam, a Rabbi
and a Priest" - Damascus
"Let's hit the bars" - Wolsey
A joke! About jokes! Wolsey IS actually human - it's just that a lot of the character's humanity is in his tone of voice and the
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way Mark plays him, rather than the strict meaning of what he says. Mark is concerned that his character comes across in
the thread as being played by Chris Barrie rather than Ralph Fiennes, which I can understand. Most of his insults are said
with a half-smile, and are taken as such by the others. The dynamic between him and Kali in particular is far gentler than it
looks like from a transcript. All in the acting, baby.
"Would a Rabbi or an Imam really bless a Dagger for me?" - Damascus
"Good point. Well.. Ulysses probably would" - Wolsey
"Hence only needing four holy men rather than five" - Damascus
"Sikhs!" - Kali
"That's not a bad idea" - Damascus
They cross the river
"I know. I'll nip out to the airport." - Damascus
"Why?" - Wolsey
"It's where the Hare Krishnas all hang out" - Damascus
"I'm not sure they'd bless a knife either" - Kali
"If you gave them money they'd do anything" - Wolsey
Not so big on alternative religion is Wolsey. Partly because he views them as large cults, and he knows how fake cults are,
and partly because he's Whiter than Michael Jackson
Reaching Wolsey's building, and noting that Kali is at least dressed like she belongs
there for once, the gang ride the elevator up.
The Cabal survey Wolsey's apartment. Furniture that came with them place, kitchen
appliances still in their boxes. Tasteful wallpaper
"You know something, Wolsey? Like most Moros, my house has begun to take on
the aspect of Stygia...
...Your apartment's deader." - Damascus
More to come soon, in which Kali expresses a liking for the whipped stuff, the Cabal is compared to a Honda Civic and
Damascus gives Wolsey a talking-to about God.
back to Wolsey's apartment, and Damascus' critique of his decor
"Decorating's dangerous" - Wolsey
"Many are the people maimed by a stray paintbrush" - Damascus
"No. It would begin to link the place to me" - Wolsey
The operating standard of Mages in the new World of Darkness is "paranoid". Wolsey is a champion.
After a pause to remember if he bought a machine, Wolsey asks the others if they
want coffee. Kali always wants coffee, and seems most impressed by Wolsey's
expensive (and still boxed) machine.
"Ooo! the whipped stuff! Do you have marshmallows?" - Kali
Once everyone is furnished with caffeine, and Damascus has his plan to find some
holy men, Wolsey returns to his musing on the nature of the trap he feels he's
walking into. His reverie is broken by Kali throwing marshmallows at him.
Picking them up, he looks around. Pauses. Looks around again.
"I'm *sure* I have a bin..." - Wolsey
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Eventually finding it, he continues, outlining for the others the details of his
conversation with Banneker.
"Avatar..." - Wolsey
"Avatar. Hm. Do you have a dictionary?" - Damascus
Wolsey goes and fetches one. Damascus flicks through it, and reads aloud.
"avatar \AV-uh-tar\, noun: 1. The incarnation of a deity -- chiefly associated in
Hinduism with the incarnations of Vishnu. 2. An embodiment, as of a quality, concept,
philosophy, or tradition; an archetype. 3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a
continuing entity. That.. could mean many things. I could be reassured by a Thearch
named that, or intrigued by a Shaman. But a Warlock..." - Damascus
"They did say she had a hard time adjusting." - Wolsey
"What else?" - Damascus
"Well. Banneker apparently has big plans for me. It came up, when we were talking
about Avatar being placed with both Promethea and Mara. Apparently the choice
was there when I was apprenticed, but Banneker had me placed with Mara. He
wants someone of my 'talents' to be in Malakaii's Legacy. Banneker sees me as.. I
don't know. A replacement for Malakaii - one he can control himself rather than
relying upon." - Wolsey
"Are you okay with that?" - Damascus
Wolsey considers, and admits that it changes nothing. Malakaii is his natural
opponent based on many more things than Banneker attempting to use him.
Banneker hasn't done anything that Wolsey wouldn't have done himself - and if given
the choice, Wolsey would have picked Mara anyway.
"You will know how well this works by who inducts you. If it's Mara, it's working. If it's
Malakaii, leave the city" - Damascus
Wolsey says that he can handle it even if Malakaii does become wise to Banneker's
game and try to win him over to his own side.
"You will be a Jedi, like your father before you" - Damascus, imitating Palpatine
"What about the rest of us?" - Kali
"Malakaii will try his damnedest to crush my spirit. He'll be betting that by the time I've
progressed in the Legacy, I won't have any fight left in me and he'll stay in charge.
Banneker, on the other hand, is hoping that I'll last long enough to oust
Malakaii but that *he'll* then be able to crush my spirit and have me as his pawn." Wolsey
"..Have you considered that Banneker may just want to work with you?" - Damascus
"Don't be ridiculous" - Wolsey
"You know, I could just flick marshmallows at you until you answer me. Where do we
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fit into Banneker's plots?" - Kali
"I don't know. Banneker just told me about myself and Avatar. Samuel mentioned
you, I think - that'd make sense. Banneker gets me and Samuel gets you" - Wolsey
"And Damascus?" - kali
Damascus makes a joke about being a free agent, and notes that they're probably
blowing this up out of all proportion.
"Damascus is right. Samuel didn't sound like someone looking to manipulate you,
Kali - he sounded like he appreciated what you do." - Wolsey
So with Mara due to phone back in 46 hours, there's nothing much they can do but
wait.
"What now?" - Kali
"Well.. I have a lot of reading to do" - Wolsey, indicating the book from the Juncture
"You need me to model again?" - Kali
"The Caryatid? On purely aesthetic grounds, you should feel free to stand around my
workshop naked whenever you like. But it's not strictly necessary." - Damascus
Again, I think Rafe was slipping into his normal speaking voice there.
"... that raises a point. We've decided how we interact with the outside world, the
rights and so forth. How about intra-cabal issues? How, for example, do we feel
about fraternisation?" - Wolsey
"Fraternisation?" - Damascus
"Yes. Because with only three of us, I think it could lead to an imbalance. Obviously,
when Avatar joins, we could rethink, but..." - Wolsey
"...Don't worry. I'm not about to bump uglies with Kali" - Damascus
"You can say that again" - Kali
Rafe: "Damascus prefers his pools chlorinated". Thanks for that, Rafe.
But that's gotten the subject on to Avatar again. Kali presses Wolsey on his
intentions, and he repeats that it's "just" because she knows his real name.
Something not even Mara knows. Something he hasn't told the rest of the Cabal.
"Ultimately, I don't trust you enough yet." - Wolsey
Wolsey returns to Banneker, and Kali notes that Banneker's effectively gotten around
the restrictions he was forced to put on apprenticeships. She says that Wolsey will
probably drift towards the hierarch, and Wolsey doesn't correct her - in fact, he notes
that it's likely Banneker, Samuel and the others see the Cabal as a neutral holding
place for young Mages, that they can then recruit from into their own Cabals. Wolsey
suspects that as soon as he's in the Bearers, Banneker will offer him a position in the
Utopian Cabal, which politically speaking Wolsey would have to take up..
"So is that it, then? You're using us for the time being, then you'll go off to join
Banneker's Cabal as soon as you can? Because I've worked damn hard to think of
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the three of us as a Cabal, and if you're not bothered..." - Kali
This? Is truth. Kali was the least engaged in the Cabal at the start of the Chronicle, now she's probably the most, as she's the
one who's changed her behaviour the most to suit the others already.
"For the time being, it suits my purpose to stay here." - Wolsey
"So we're just a step on the road?" - kali
"It's more... like a Honda Civic" - Wolsey
"I'm sorry. I don't follow you." - Damascus
"It's the perfect vehicle for the moment" - Wolsey
"And you'll ditch us for a Maserati?" - Damascus
"As soon as something sexier comes along, yes" - Wolsey
"So, Amanda, basically?" - Kali
Wolsey meant "sexier" in metaphor, not literally. Kali took it literally.
"Could you please not? Kali? She has a Shadow name." - Wolsey
"Fine. When the woman currently known as Avatar comes along, you'll abandon the
Cabal." - Kali
"That's not certain. I don't.. I don't even know her. Not any more." - Wolsey
"How long has it been since she disappeared?" - Damascus, quietly
Wolsey sits down.
"Two years ago" - Wolsey
"And how long have you been married?" - Damascus
"Two... and a half years." - Wolsey
"That was quick" - Kali
"How long did you know her?" - Damascus
"About half a year" - Wolsey
"That was really quick" - Kali
.
Damascus considers.
"I'm going to ask you a question that I asked many of my compatriots who moved
that quickly..." - Damascus
"...Did I make her pregnant?" - Wolsey
Damascus mimes cocking a shotgun, complete with 'Chuk-CHUK' noise with his
mouth
"No" - Wolsey
Kali frowns.
"What makes you think you can claim her after six months?" - Kali
"It's not... It's not claiming her, Kali. I've explained already." - Wolsey
"Well, by your own admission you're ready to ditch us for this woman and put
yourself further into Banneker's web." - Kali
"Why are you so worried?" - Wolsey
"Wolsey. I'll tell you something about me. Because *I* trust *you*. Alright? I'm moving
into Crack. Have been for a while. And this? This is you moving into Crack." - Kali
He's becoming obsessed, is her point, and in considering abandoning them for Banneker's schemes is going to far into his
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chosen path, away from the guiding influence of her and Damascus. Kali can recognise her own bad traits in someone else.
"Have you ever been in love?" - Wolsey
"Yes" - Damascus
Kali is thoughtful.
"Define 'love'" - Kali
"When someone else's happiness means more to you than your own" - Damascus
"Does making sure it's your back flat against the flush count?" - Kali
"No" - Damascus
"Then no." - Kali
Wolsey reiterates that he doesn't know what he'll feel. Avatar and Wolsey may have
nothing in common. This is a professional interest, made more complex by their both
of them being enmeshed in Banneker's web.
"Are you religious, Wolsey? Other than the Cults?" - Damascus
"As much as anyone in Boston" - Wolsey
"The bits about In Sickness and Health, till Death do you part?" - Damascus
"yes" - Wolsey
"Do you intend to keep them?" - Damascus
"I always keep my oaths" - Wolsey
Wolsey is protesting his objectivity - the objectivity he needed to get as far towards seeing Avatar as he has done - while both
his Cabal mates are seeing this as a non-objective issue. Kali is mixed up on the matter - she thinks Wolsey is already
making Avatar's choices for her, but mostly that he's in denial about his feelings. Damascus, as the above shows, is
concerned that Wolsey is missing the part that he's *married*. Damascus is Catholic.
Wolsey rambles about how in a sense both he and Amanda are "dead", having
Awakened. Damascus accuses him of playing with words.
Rafe tried desperately to not just say "sophistry", on the grounds that Damascus didn't know the word.
"I am a different man, Damascus. And she's a different woman. We cannot be who
we were before the Watchtower." - Wolsey
"You're not a different man at all" - Kali
"Said with the confidence of one who knew him so well before." - Damascus
"I feel different" - Wolsey
Damascus sighs
"It's between you and God" - Damascus
"I won't deny that if there is something there, I can see it, but I don't want to assume
anything - either that she'll feel anything or that I will..." - Wolsey
"I'm sorry, Wolsey, you're missing my point. You're talking about feelings while I'm
speaking of duties" - Damascus
Wolsey blinks.
Over to Rafe for a bit for characterisation: "It wasn't just the Christianity thing that made him say that. Still being connected to
a mundane life more than quite a few mages, Damascus thinks that the one's who deliberately try and cut themselves off are
missing part of the point - they want to change the world but aren't part of it. The one's who isolate themselves naturally (the
ivory tower scholar who has no time for anything but his work) or through necessity (on the lam) - fair enough. The ones who
seem to be under the impression that it's a necessary part of being a mage or are doing it because they've been told to (as
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Wolsey very much seemed to be) irk him. It's partly a Moros thing - Death is certain *whatever* you do. Should you not live
first? And he does appreciate although possibly not really grok that he is endangering both himself and his family. The
viewpoint may change if it backfires. Or may not."
"She has to realise that she's not Amanda any more. It sounds as though Promethea
and Mara are dissuading her of that, which can only be good" - Wolsey
Kali and Damascus do not seem impressed.
"Look. I.. I realise that I'm perhaps not as well liked by you as I could be, and that I
give the impression that I don't want to be..." - Wolsey
Kali shifts
"I don't think you're a bad person. I think you've missed a chance. And I think that's
sad" - Kali
Damascus shrugs
"I don't think I can judge" - Damascus
"That makes you a wiser person than myself or Kali" - Wolsey
Soberly, the Cabal decide to leave it, at least until they know more of what's going
on.
"After all, what's the worst that could happen when we meet her?" - Wolsey
"You could get run over" - Kali
"Is that a prophecy?" - Wolsey
Said with just the right amount of suspicion and paranoia there. I get the impression - and I've been wrong spectacularly
before, mind - that Wolsey doesn't want to ditch the Cabal. He just can't see a way out of this that doesn't involve it
eventually. When push comes to shove, he's certain that there will be more for him to gain by going solo or joining
Banneker's cabal. But I think that it already hurts to think of it.
The cabal now split up for a couple of days to follow their own individual interests and plotlines for a couple of scenes. This
sort of thing's fine for about half an hour ooc - slapped in the middle of the session (and, in fact, the story) like this is, it says
that they occasionally need their space from one another. Giving a player character the amount of time they need by
themselves to either get a grip or fail to regarding a situation, or the time they need to train, is always a hard thing to judge - I
am painfully aware of it in Mage, where a character can't by definition learn their legacy along with another PC unless they're
both in the same one. Too much of an Awakened Mage's life is meant to be done in isolation to ignore it.
On the other hand, the last nWoD chronicle I ran was Vampire, and in that the characters were never in the same place. So I
do appreciate Werewolf and Mage's built in character parties.
First and easiest is Damascus - the Moros goes home and stays away from the
others for a while, first working on the knife and then hocking it around the city trying
to get it blessed. Damascus eats simply, sleeps better than he has done in days and
in his spare moments works on the sketches for the caryatid. On the second day, he
is visited by his sister for a couple of hours.
Damascus' downtime, sadly, turned into an extended craft roll while the other two - deciding to be active in a sense of
needing the storyteller's time more - got the attention. I must watch out for that.
Wolsey - now that the ball's entirely within Mara's court and he can't do anything
more without causing a ruckus - goes back to his other ongoing investigation. The
book that the Juncture gave him.
Reading through it himself, he gets a third of the way before deciding that the more
opinions he can get the better off he'll be. The rantings in the book, describing the
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conflict between two shadowy organisations, may be a metaphor for the Pentacle
and the Seers. He needs someone he can trust to not spread it around who may be
more knowledgeable about the Seers than he is and able to spot things he can't Wolsey has never really considered the Seers of the Throne to be a credible threat,
and holds them in low regard as near-irrelevancies compared to the Guardians of the
Veil. It's not that Wolsey doesn't believe in the Exarchs - he just doesn't believe that
the Exarchs would care enough about the Seers to send them the omens the Seers
are supposed to claim they do. And he *certainly* doesn't believe that the Exarchs
would ever accept newcomers, so the Seer's goal of Ascending to join the gods on
the Exarchs' side is the wishful thinking of someone who should be powerful but has
been well and truly duped.
But now he finds himself in need of someone who takes them a little more seriously.
And no-one he knows takes them more seriously - and is not liable to go blabbing
about his inquiries - than Beckett.
I like Wolsey's take on the Seers - "Even if the Exarchs are real, you're still a sucker".
When Wolsey arrives at Beckett's house, the elder Mastigos makes him wait a
moment before letting him in. When He *is* allowed in, Wolsey can smell a distinctive
coppery tang in the air in Beckett's Sanctum room.
Human blood. You betcha.
Without reacting, Wolsey explains about the book, and how he'd like a consultation.
Beckett leafs through it, then fetches a blank book from among his paraphernalia
which, upon the casting of a spell, begins to fill with a copy of the Juncture's text.
Beckett would be happy to give the book a close look to check for any signs that one
of the groups described represents the Ministries. Wolsey asks if the Seers are really
all that active, and Beckett looks at him oddly. As though he wasn't expecting Wolsey
to say that.
"Ask Kali. She met one just before you came to me that first time" - Beckett
"She..." - Wolsey
Wolsey breaks off his sentence.
"Oh yes. During the time that she was affected by the spell I made for Virgil. I
detected the use of an Urim near to her. You'll have to ask her what they spoke of." Beckett
"I'll do that, thank you" - Wolsey
And... away!
The conversation with the Seer is in session 1.2, I think. I like Wolsey's complete non-acknowledgement of the blood. It'd be
impolite.
With "Seers" covered, Wolsey now seeks out someone likely to cover the other base.
"Rantings of madmen".
He's off to see Bedlam.
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Who, you ask? Bedlam's a character the PCs have known about since the chronicle started, but who hasn't been seen in uptime yet. He's mentioned in the descriptions of the city right near the start of the thread.
Bedlam is judged by some of the Consilium to be one of the Mad, and by others to be
an unfortunate that's a hairsbreadth away from it. He was a Paranoid Psychotic
before he Awoke as a Mastigos, and his trip through Pandemonium didn't do him any
good. The Adamantine Arrow found him and helped him as much as they could, and
by using Mind rotes on himself he can go for periods of lucidity, but a permanent cure
is beyond the skill of anyone that cares. He's a member of the Claviclarius in good
standing, and watches his fellow patients at the mental home he's a resident of for
signs of supernatural affliction - there are too many things preying on the most
vulnerable of the World of Darkness, and Bedlam is adept at hunting them right back.
Mara's a psychologist, but Wolsey doesn't want to go to her - or Promethea. So
Bedlam it is.
"You. Do I know you?" - Bedlam
"My name's Wolsey" - Wolsey
"Yes." (scratches head, and there's a flare of magic) "I thought it was. You've got a
fair amount of them on you, but you're pulling in the other direction. Maybe the
strings'll snap" - Bedlam
"Can I show you something?" - Wolsey
"I've seen too much already. Heard too much. Not spoken yet, though. Then I'll be
done for." - Bedlam
Wolsey puts the book down in front of them, open to the page about the two Houses.
He taps it.
"What do you think?" - Wolsey
Bedlam considers
"I think this was written by a crazy person" - Bedlam, casually flicking through the
book.
"You can understand it? All the equations?" - Wolsey
"Parts of it. See - this here? These are stock market fluctuations. This whole
chapter's about weather fronts in Minnesota. Here's an equation governing bisexual
tendencies in holders of high office." - Bedlam
The book reads rather like Timecube, by common consensus of the group
"Anything else?" - Wolsey
"We're not either of these entities you're asking about. It's describing two groups of
the same thing separated by common cause, common methods but dissimilar goals.
Like two Cabals that are struggling against one another." - Bedlam
Wolsey nods
"Or maybe the author's just nuts" - Bedlam
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...
"Stop making crack" - Kali
"'scuse me?" - Ichi
"You heard me. Shut down the lab, stockpile everything we've already made
somewhere safe" - Kali
Ichi looks at his mates, gathered in Kali's warehouse. Kali - just back from Wolsey's has made her pronouncement. Still, the gang has survived this long based almost
entirely on Kali's "hunches", and they're credulous enough to take her word for it. So
they get to it.
Throwing everyone out of her room, Kali crashes into bed.
In the morning, she heads downstairs to find Ichi waiting for her.
"The stuff. Did you do what I told you?" - Kali
"Every last gram" - Ichi
"Get rid of it. Sell it cheap if you have to." - Kali
And with that, she leaves. Half-asleep still, mulling over how close she is to the edge
of her metaphorical cliff - and how seeing Wolsey tilting over the edge of his own
made her realise that - she casts Interconnections and sees a faint strand of destiny
leading from her Warehouse into the North, and into the past. Not really knowing
what she's doing, she follows it.
Hours later, and she's in suburbia - around the place she came to her senses the last
time this happened, but further along. She looks around at the neat houses and
apartment buildings, sees the manicured lawns and the flags flying from houses.
Counts house numbers and discerns no numerology in them.
Knowing where she is, Kali walks to the next block corner and looks right. Within
sight - so close she can feel it - is her father's house.
She's home.
"Thought I'd find you here" - Blaise
Blaise and Kali have a talk about Ariadne's thread - the interconnectedness of all
things, or - as Blaise puts it - Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
"You can sense, using your Arcana, the connections between people and objects,
right? Take a person. Any person. They can be linked to any other human being on
the planet in an average of eight steps. Go looking for common ancestors and you
find that we're all of us related when you go back a surprisingly small amount of time.
Everything is connected to everything it affects, and the web of those branching
connections fills the world. Within cities, the web gets so tangled, so thick, that it
becomes partially self-aware. When you learn to listen to what it's saying, when you
learn how to follow the threads to find anything you want to, you'll be one of us." Blaise
But it's not easy, he explains. The interconnections are so fleeting that it takes great
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concentration and practice to sense them - following Ariadne's thread isn't like
walking along a direction line in a hospital. She's here because she followed the
easiest trail of all to spot - her own.
Time for a Case Study
"Take this Nickel" - Blaise
Blaise carefully takes a nickel out of his pocket and places it on the sidewalk, then
moves with Kali to a bench where they can observe.
"In a few hours' time, a young boy will pass this way and pick up that nickel. This will
give him the money he needs to buy a certain work of graphic fiction, and he will
proceed to the comic-book store. Because his journey home will be thus delayed by
five minutes, he will be approaching the main road rather than crossing it when the
auto pile up occurs, and escape a slow and painful recovery from his injuries in
hospital. However, because they will not have the chance to reconcile over his sick
bed, his estranged parents will not get back together and his sister - destined to
become a high school teacher - will never be born. Someone who would be in the
world won't be, and all for a Nickel" - Blaise
Kali studies the Nickel
"I just made all that up." - Blaise
Kali looks at him
"True. I have no idea what's going to happen - you'd have to be as powerful as
Samuel to get an idea that accurate, but it's worth bearing in mind that if you live long
enough and evolve your soul enough you *will* get that powerful." - Blaise
"So what does this prove?" - Kali
"Homework assignment. I want to know whose life is most affected by that Nickel
being there. Best of luck" - Blaise
And with that, he strolls off whistling.
Kali observes the Nickel.
After a while, she glues it to the sidewalk with chewing gum and settles back into the
bench.
...
The appointed hour approaches, and Wolsey sits at home, phone next to him.
With two minutes to go, it rings. Mara has agreed to his request, and he can come
round.
Phoning Damascus, he declares it time to gather the Cabal back together again.
They call Kali from the road to try to find out where she is.
Kali - a day later - is still on the bench, still watching the nickel, watching people pass
it by and occasionally try to pick it up. Her sleep deprived thoughts, void of caffeine,
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are getting increasingly wrapped up in her task - what if the bird pecking at it is
significant? What if that guy who tried to pick it up really REALLY needs loose
change later on that day?
What if the person most affected by the Nickel being there is her?
"Kali" - Wolsey
"Mmmmmhmhmmm" - Kali, intently watching a cat walking past the fateful coin
"Kali, where are you?" - Wolsey
She gives the street numbers, and the menfolk ask her what she's doing all the way
out there. Again. She trails off mid-fobbing off, wide eyed as the cat sniffs at the
chewing gum.
"Kali?" - Wolsey
"I'm watching the cat" - Kali
He rings off
"Okay. She's high" - Wolsey, to Damascus
Damascus makes a face, and they drive.
Kali remains kind of spaced-out for the rest of the session, getting increasingly worked up by the interconnectedness of all
things. Make someone truly aware of the butterfly effect, and they'll be paralysed with inaction.
...
When they reach her, Kali is standing over the Nickel, which she keeps looking at
while they talk to her.
Once in the van, she looks around as though seeing the thing for the first time.
"Where are we going?" - Kali
"We're off to se Avatar" - Damascus, in the tone of someone who has explained this
already
Kali slaps her knees repeatedly and exaggeratedly.
"I'm glad it fills you with such joy" - Wolsey
While in the car, and slightly annoyed with her for her weirder than normal mien,
Wolsey demands to know when she was going to tell them she'd been contacted by
the Seers
"I haven't" - Kali
"Beckett says you have. When you were affected by his spell" - Wolsey
"I can't remember being contacted by the Seers" - Kali
"Well think back. Did anyone speak to you that night? Did you stay in?" - Wolsey
"No - I mean, I went for a walk" - Kali
"Did you SPEAK to anyone?" - Wolsey
"A couple of Bums jabbered at me about politics, but I ignored it." - Kali
"'A couple of Bums'?" - Wolsey
"Okay... Let's consider that if they said anything blatant it went straight over Kali's
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head" - Damascus
"Maybe it's you two that are changed by the Nickel" - Kali
"What the hell have you been taking?" - Wolsey
"Little pieces of Arcadia" - Kali
"Shit. You can't come down from that" - Wolsey, said simultaneously with;
"Ah. Fairy Snuff" - Damascus
Wolsey eventually prevails upon Kali to go back into her own timeline and tell him
what the "bum" said. She dutifully repeats it.
"Sorry - a beggar asked you to go over to his side? What's his side - the bum's
union?" - Wolsey
"I didn't think anything of it" - Kali
"Gaaah" - Wolsey
"Maybe it's happening there right now, now that I'm no longer around" - Kali
"What is?" - Wolsey
"The Nickel" - Kali
"Will you QUIT it with the Nickel?" – Wolsey
Eventually, they reach Mara's practice. And this time the receptionist knows they are
not there for the eight o clock appointment.
Mara meets them outside the office and gives them final warning. Avatar might not
be what Wolsey was expecting. But she has, at last, been told that her husband is a)
alive and b) a Mage.
They go in, and sit down across from her. Wolsey just stares at her, while Kali darts
concerned looks back and forth. Damascus is left to make the introductions, which he
decides to do formally, as a Cabal meeting a prospective new member.
Avatar is dressed in sweatpants and a worn sweater. Her hair's been spiked up in
places, uncombed in others and dyed green. She's pale, and is picking at the chair.
Of all the things Wolsey is shocked about, I think Amanda being a punk has shocked him the most.
In body language, she reminds Wolsey of Bedlam.
He says nothing.
When they do eventually speak to one another it's quiet and halting. Wolsey is doing
his best to be calm and collected, and Avatar appears to be in shock.
"Damascus" - Damascus
"You are to join us eventually." - Damascus
"I heard... I'm supposed to join your P..Cabal" - Avatar
She looks up at Kali
"I'm sorry - what was your name?" - Avatar
Kali repeats it, and Avatar frowns
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"I misheard the first time. It's all right. Thought you said Rani." - Avatar
Go look it up
Wolsey asks how long it's been since she Awoke, and she concedes that she's not
sure - about four months.
"That's strange. I awoke first" - Wolsey
"Were you..?" - Avatar
Wolsey waits
"Were you always..?" - Avatar
"No. Not when we knew one another" - Wolsey
She considers
"When they told me, about you. I thought - I thought maybe that's why it happened to
me. Because you were already." - Avatar
Wolsey admits that it was her disappearing that made *him* Awaken, though he's
distracted by dark thoughts.
"I'm sorry" (to Kali) "I thought I recognised you. It happens a lot. I get.. I don't know
the word for it. A sort of false recognition, like I've already been somewhere and
already met someone. It's always happened a little, but ever since It happened it's
been coming more and more." - Avatar
"Before you Awoke?" - Wolsey
"My whole life, though nowhere near this bad. I thought... When I first met you, it
happened." - Avatar
Wolsey goes pale.
The conversation stutters and falls
Avatar apologises - she's still reeling, and trying to take everything in. But she's
getting better - much better even after the last few weeks - and will be all right
eventually.
Wolsey stands up, and promises he'll be back in a few days
"I am glad you're alive" - Avatar
Wolsey returns the sentiment, and leaves. Damascus gets up to follow him, bowing
to Avatar
"Mara. Could I have a word?" - Kali
Mara looks quizzically, but Damascus has just left. She nods, and Avatar goes into
the other room, smiling wearily at Kali.
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Kali smiles broadly back at Avatar until the other woman is out of sight, where she
starts frowning.
"I have a question" - kali
"And you want to ask *me*?" - Mara
"Who made the rules?" - Kali, fierce
"I don't know what you.." - Mara
"The rules of the game. All of this. Who did it? We're surrounded by webs - who wove
them? Who made the Nickel?" - Kali
"If you're meaning the world - well.. The Dragons, and then the Exarchs and the
Oracles. According to myth anyway" - Mara
Mara *doesn't* believe in the Exarchs - she thinks "they" are the shadows of the human soul on the supernal, a sort of selfinflicted cosmic cage
"I just.. I want to bash their heads together until they get it - that they're still in love.
And I don't know why this is making me angry" - Kali
"Perhaps it's your conscience?" off her look "You're seeing the world, and realising
it's not as it should be. And perhaps you're realising you've had a part in that, and
you don't like it. Hence your conscience." - Mara
"Maybe" - Kali, thinking of Crack
And with that, Kali leaves.
...
Outside, Wolsey has gone to kick a tree. Kali nearly collides with Damascus at the
exit of Mara’s
"Do I have a challenge to answer?" - Damascus
He's asking if she started a fight - it's his job in the Cabal to oversee the Right of Nemesis
"My conscience is giving me a blasted hard time. Make it stop" - Kali
She sits down on the kerb, sighing. Damascus joins her, and they watch Wolsey
kicking the tree before sinking down to sit himself, head in his hands
"They're both so... It's like they've been told over and over again that they can't allow
anything other than self-control, so they're trapped. I said to Mara, I just want to bash
their heads together.." - Kali
"It had occurred as a plan" - Damascus
Kali looks up, and spots something shiny on the floor. It's a nickel
"Oh no" - Kali
She hurriedly retrieves some chewing gum and glues this one down too.
"I suddenly see where this thing is coming from. Where is the other Nickel?" Damascus
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Kali explains, feeling more foolish as she does so. She prises the Nickel loose and
pockets it.
"Guess I was right the first time. It IS me that it's most affected" - Kali
At which point a passing jogger steps in the gum, stumbles and continues, clutching
at the slight sprain in his left leg.
Damascus tugs at the shaken Kali to get up.
"You didn't do that." - Damascus
"Do you really believe that?" - Kali, apprehensive
They go over to Wolsey, who seems to have calmed down a bit
"Wolsey. Would you agree that it is vital that contemplation of action does not lead to
inaction?" - Damascus
"...yes. Though that's interesting coming from you" - Wolsey
"I think I've just been insulted" - Damascus
"Only in comparison to Kali" - Wolsey
"I think I've just been insulted" - Kali
"Well, then - I'm doing the rounds" - Wolsey, tired and with bleak humour
"Come on. Let's at least do this in comfort" - Damascus, offering Wolsey his hand.
...
Less than half an hour later, and the Cabal are in a Cafe, drinking odd things
Damascus has ordered. Tea, mostly.
Wolsey explains his bad feeling about all this.
"My whole Awakened Life, I thought she was the reason. It was following her that led
me into the Labyrinth, into my Shadow Play, into the Watchtower. But... If she's had
these notions all along. If she felt them when I met her... what if our entire life
together was nothing but HER Shadow Play? What if all I am to her is the vehicle for
her own Awakening?" - Wolsey
Ouch. Wolsey has now hit crisis.
He shakes his head, and asks that they give him time to process these notions
before bringing it up again.
Kali and Damascus make small talk about Damascus' work until the cafe closes for
the night, kicking them out.
The Cabal walk along in uncertain silence, Wolsey ahead of the other two. Kali turns
to Damascus
"...I was just thinking. If he looks at his feet for long enough, he'll see the Nickel" Kali, nodding at Wolsey
"Talk about someone else" - Wolsey
"Sorry" - Kali
Wolsey stops.
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"I think.. I think I'm going to go home. I'll leave you two here" - Wolsey
"You sure?" - Damascus
"Well, this isn't the best part of town..." - Wolsey
"It's reasonably good. You don't get organic chai latte in the barrens" - Damascus
"Goodnight, Damascus. Kali" - Wolsey
And he walks off, still deep in his thoughts.
The other two look at one another and follow him, at a discrete distance.
"I'm feeling something. Mara called it a conscience" - Kali
They talk about that for a little while. Kali expresses her discomfort with the way
things have turned out for Wolsey and Avatar. She speaks of the Nickel, and it's
lesson - that the world is a choking web of happenstance.
"Kali. you don't create the world. You alter the events within it" - Damascus, patiently
"Do you really believe that?" - Kali
"I really do" – Damascus
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Session 2.3
We begin with three extended scenes intended to show the characters 'at rest' - they've achieved their goals regarding
finding Amanda, and Wolsey has pleaded time to think this thing through, which the other two are only too happy to oblige
him with. It is a couple of days later - by consensus, a Friday.
We continue.
Damascus, taking the opportunity to get away from the other two, is working in his
workshop on the dagger, which he's magnetising by repeatedly heating it while facing
it Northwards. He's managed to get four of his five necessary blessings, and is
considering which faith to approach for the fifth.
I can only remember three of the four, sadly - Bahá'í, Sikh and Catholic in the shape of Ulysses. I know what the fifth and last
is, but can't remember the fourth. Rafe may be able to help.
He's hammering away, when the buzzer linked to the doorbell of his workshop
sounds. Carefully putting down the ret-hot metal, he answers it to find, rather than
Wolsey or Kali, that his younger sister Maree has dropped in.
Making quickly sure that there's no obviously magical paraphernalia lying about, he
lets her in, curious as to what brings her to see him. It quickly becomes apparent that
Maree was passing and - noting that Carl hadn't been to see *her* for a while,
decided to impose.
Maree - short for Amariyah - is only part of Carl/Damascus' family. His dad's a trucker named Jerome, his mother Tonya
works at a supermarket and his older (by a year) brother Richard (or Ricky) is - as far as Carl knows - unemployed. As
unhappy as I was with this scene, which kind of stalled as the first one of the night when I hadn't warmed up to the session
yet, I like the fact that Carl still has a casual interest in his Sleeper family. It sets him apart from Kali and Wolsey. Or, rather,
from Kemi and Thomas. Note that while Maree's here, I'm calling Damascus "Carl".
While Carl makes the dagger safe, Maree wanders around looking over his piles of
junk-cum-art. He asks how her job - she's a hairdresser - is coming, and manages to
put the last of Damascus' things away while she talks through a long, complex story
involving the love life of one of her co-workers. Maree reaches the sketches of Kali
and enquires, with just a tiny amount of fishing, as to who the woman in them is. Carl
says - after a moment to think about it - that she's a friend, and flatly denies her being
a girlfriend.
Maree finally tells him the news she came in here to tell.
"Ricky got a job" - Maree
"Really." (flatly) "Maybe it'll last more than a month this time" - Carl
"That's unfair" - Maree
Carl notes that his brother's something of a deadbeat, and asks how long his new
career at the burger bar has lasted so far. Upon hearing that it's been a week and a
bit now, he asks why noone's told him sooner.
"Well, you're not exactly around a lot" - Maree
"I see Mom at church every... most... some... Sundays" - Carl
Suitably abashed, Carl promises to see his parents more, and then it's time for
Maree to leave.
Once she's gone, Damascus gets back to work.
---
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Wolsey, meanwhile, has been hired as a consultant on delicate matters and
negotiations - not his usual company mergers and buyouts, but a more personal
matter this time. The 17-year old daughter of a Colorado Senator has run off with the
hired help, who has committed the triple 'sins' of being poor, 26 and black.
Wolsey has been paid a large sum of money to split the happy couple up.
If the irony of shattering love's young dream reaches him, he doesn't show it. He's
spent the last day tracking the elopers down to a hotel up-town: not very hard to do,
as the girl has taken several of her father's credit cards, and the Senator would prefer
this is kept quiet, so she's free to shop as she likes.
Lurking outside until he observes her leaving alone, he heads inside, breezes
through the Hotel staff using low-level Mind effects and acting as though he owns the
place, knocks on the door and says that he's here to talk.
In the end, it doesn't take much Emotional Urging to do the trick. Wolsey patiently
points out that he represents the carrot rather than the stick - and that the young man
can keep the money they took from the Senator when they embarked on this
foolishness. After all, he reasons, it's for the best.
"How long do you really think you'll last? At the very least, they'll just send someone
to kill you." - Wolsey
The young man does indeed seem to have been thinking about this rather more than
his girlfriend has - and to be painfully aware that in the World of Darkness, they
probably *will* just send someone to kill him. Wolsey hands him a mobile phone and
tells him kindly but firmly to phone the girl and tell her it's over.
Finger hovering over the "send" button, the lad finds the tiny spark of outrage at the
way he's being shafted within himself.
"You ever been in love?" - Man
"Yeah. I have. And I know that you'd want to help the other person - even if it doesn't
look like the thing you want" - Wolsey, identifying.
In the end, though, Wolsey doesn't have to release the Imago of the second spell
he's preparing. The young man goes through with it, curtly telling his love that they
never really had a chance, and that she'll never see him again. He grimaces, and
offers Wolsey the phone back.
"Keep it." - Wolsey
It was, as Mark pointed out going into this scene, a fresh clone that morning. Wolsey is not in the habit of holding onto items
which can be sympathetically linked to him.
The lad gets up, and Wolsey gets up with him - telling him that they're leaving by the
back door of the hotel, and that Wolsey will go with him.
At the end of their time together, as he's getting into a taxi and now starting to cry,
Wolsey does what is necessary;
"Last question." - Wolsey
"What?" - Man
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"Did you use a condom?" - Wolsey
The unfortunate Romeo stares at him, and says that yes, he did. Then the taxi
leaves. Wolsey looks up into the rain, sighing.
Wolsey is, after all, an excellent judge of when people lie to him.
.
When the heiress arrives back, far sooner than expected, running into the hotel by
the front door, Wolsey is already sat in his own car across the street. After a
calculated seven-minute wait, he returns to the suite to find her trashing the place
and screeching.
"Miss? I'm here on behalf of your father" (looks around, assessing the damage) "you
knew this was going to happen, I think." - Wolsey
Carefully gauging her level of meltdown, Wolsey says that she doesn't have to go
back to her father - but that Wolsey will take care of the room, and sort this out above all else keeping it out of the news. Whenever she seems to dwell on her lost
love, Wolsey nudges her mind with Emotional Urging towards feelings of rejecting the
weakling who took the money and fled - turning the pain she's feeling at being
dumped around.
And, as the piece de résistance...
"Let's go somewhere else. You don't want anything he's left behind" - Wolsey
As they leave, he smoothly puts a packet of the morning-after pill into her bag.
Job done.
This whole sequence is intended to show Wolsey at work, being the professional he can be. The choice of subject matter
was deliberate for what happened to him last session and what's going to happen to Kali later on in this one - Wolsey's
actions towards the Sleepers here are interesting in parallel with his actions in a few scenes' time, I think. Note that unlike
Carl's downtime above, Thomas is "Wolsey" here. The professional cleaner and consultant on delicate matters is as
premeditated and calculated as the Mage is.
The bit not shown in this narrative is Wolsey researching the age of consent in Colorado and DC. "Romeo" is lucky she was
legal - not out of any sense of moral outrage, but because it would have suited Wolsey far more to just have him arrested and
take him from custody.
--"We could always start a brewery" - Ichi
Kali is in the now-shut down Crack Factory, a five-storey brick building, hollowed out
from a tenement and storage space, sited on the East edge of her territory where it
abuts with Dantor's.
One does not simply say "ok, boys, stop making the rocks" - they now have a large
building full of chemistry equipment that is plainly not for legal use. Plus an awful lot
of cocaine and crack just sitting there. And it's the question of what to do with all the
pipes, trays, burners and so forth that they're trying to answer.
Hence - after meth has been discarded - Ichi's sarcastic suggestion of a
microbrewery.
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"Why are we doing this?" - Ichi
"It's... just messy in my head right now, all right? I'm taking too much flak to be risking
this kind of thing right now." - Kali
"Has someone been leaning on you?" - Ichi
"You could say that" - Kali
Ichi tries - unsuccessfully - to get the identity of the person pressuring Kali to shut
down out of her. Not surprising, given that the answer is variously a) other Mages b)
an AD of the FBI who is also a Mage and c) her own resurgent conscience.
"You've never steered us wrong. If you're sure..." - Ichi
"I'm sure" - Kali
The Crack Factory is another Chekhov’s gun: It will be important later, so it's presence here is a flag to the player and reader
to say "hey! remember me! In six stories' time when I turn out to be really important you'll think Dave was the coolest
Storyteller ever!" or some such
Damascus, deciding it was time he checked in (and running low on Mana) heads to
the Sanctum the next day, to find Wolsey already there leading a small gathering of
hippy-life-energy cultists in what they think is a rooftop garden prayer meeting but
what to Wolsey is an Oblation.
After they're done, the two Mages greet one another. Wolsey says that he took all the
Mana out of the Hallow today, but Damascus shrugs - it was Wolsey's turn anyway,
he just turned up on spec.
two of their shared Sanctum merit dots are actually in the Hallow, meaning it produces 2 Mana a day, which the characters
take on rotation. I completely forgot that being inside a Hallow reduces your mana expenditures for all spells by one point, as
will become apparent later on this session when Damascus runs out of Mana while sitting downstairs from the thing. Ah well Mage is a very complicated game, and I am not by inclination a GM of this weight of rules. I try my best.
"I was hoping to run into you anyway. I'd like to ask you something" - Damascus
"Ask away" - Wolsey, packing up his props
"I was going to ask you if I could go talk to Avatar" - Damascus
"You don't need my permission. But why?" - Wolsey
"I don't know. I just think it may be a good idea" - Damascus
Wolsey frowns as he carries his box of props back down into the Sanctum proper,
then shakes his head to clear it - deciding not to rise to Damascus' fairly blatant (to
his point of view) prodding.
"How's the Dagger going?" - Wolsey
"Nearly finished - just the last blessing to go now, and I have an appointment." Damascus
"Where?" - Wolsey
"Nation of Islam" - Damascus
"I thought you didn't want Cults" - Wolsey
Damascus and Wolsey argue good-naturedly about the Cult status or not of the
Nation of Islam, before Damascus pounces and asks Wolsey how he's doing.
Wolsey says that he's better now, this last few days. He's had a chance to think
about it, and his current course is the best for all concerned. After all, even if he was
part of Avatar's mystery play, then she was surely part of his. Damascus, though, is
not satisfied.
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"You are relieved that her shadowplay does not invalidate your awakening. Wolsey..
have you thought about how it might affect her and you?" - Damascus
Wolsey repeats his well-trod argument that there *is* no "him and Avatar". Their
sleeper lives are long behind them, part of the lie which they've both cast off.
"The fact that you were once a man that loved a woman makes no difference?" Damascus
"I didn't say that" - Wolsey
"But you haven't thought about it?" - Damascus, disappointed
"I haven't thought about because if I do, I may do the damage Mara fears. I will meet
her like I meet any other person. If there's something there and I'm convinced it's
real..." - Wolsey
"Wolsey, I would hate to see you give up the chance for something real based on
your ideas about keeping your Shadow life separate" - Damascus, just not getting it.
Wolsey launches into a speech about how he can't afford a family - how he's
intending Great and terrible things, how he's planning on going up against the
Guardians of the Veil - maybe even the Exarchs - and winning, using his cult
societies and the Attainments he'll learn from his enemies to create a widespread
force of Sleepwalkers.
That's Wolsey's plan. He doesn't want to be a Bearer of the Eternal voice for the neat mind-fu. He wants the "lower disbelief"
power.
"People have done amazing things while having a family..." - Damascus
"They have also done terrible things to their families in the course of doing amazing
things" - Wolsey
Damascus just cannot understand why Wolsey - and apparently Avatar - are willing
to throw away their marriage.
Partly because of his religious background, and partly because Carl is the member of the Cabal that keeps up with his old life
and manages perfectly well. Wolsey's reactions are alien to him.
Wolsey, though, is deflated from arguing the same point over and over again, and
lets slip something;
"I.. will admit that the thing that attracted her to me was that she *believed*" - Wolsey
Damascus says nothing
"...And that I didn't" - Wolsey
"I ask two things. Remember you're a man as well as a Mage. Keep an open mind.
No - I don't ask. I suggest" – Damascus
Damascus and Wolsey continued their conversation, on and off, in the background while I was running this next bit with Kali.
I don't mind people doing this, as it leads to cases like the end of this scene. But it does mean that I didn't catch any of it, so if
they said anything deeply important and character building.. tough.
Still discontent, not knowing what to do about it, Kali decides to finish what she
started. She doesn't know what she's meant to be doing, so she puts her life in fate's
hands, following Ariadne's thread as best she can - though not quite at random. After
spending a half hour finding the thread that led her twice to suburbia and once to
Blaise and the Nickel incident, she grasps it with her perceptions and turns around.
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She's following the same thread, but in the opposite direction.
Sam isn't quite sure what this represents, but if you read back over Blaise's description of that thread, it should jump out at
you.
Eyes half-shut, muttering to herself as she goes, trying to maintain he concentration
necessary to perceive the thread, Kali wanders around her "turf" and then further
south, walking through more and more deprived, soulless neighbourhoods, barely
aware of her surroundings.
As she walks, Kali lets herself go almost on autopilot. Sensing the thread is
becoming so difficult she doesn't have spare time to think about anything else - which
at least is helping her into the Zen state she's trying to achieve, letting Destiny show
her where to go.
The thread leads to a dilapidated house. There's a note tacked to the door reading
"come on in, it's not locked", and the thread goes right through it.
Which is a reference to A Scanner Darkly, which put Sam into the right frame of mind for the scene.
Kali pushes the door open and goes inside. The air is heavy with fumes and smoke
of a medicinal nature, and there are human forms lying about the place, halfglimpsed in the gloom of the boarded-up windows. Carefully negotiating around a
pool of vomit, she climbs up the stairs, one hand out in front of her tracing the
ephemeral thread of interconnection.
Upstairs, there's a very male bathroom and a few closed doors, covered in odd
graffiti she tries and fails to decipher. the thread goes into one of them.
After standing outside for a few minutes, breathing in the fumy air and feeling slightly
dizzy, Kali pushes open the door. The tiny thread of destiny suddenly thickens and
becomes more obvious - she's done something that's altered her Fate.
Inside, there's a large, muscled, bald man with various forms of body art displayed
sat on a sofa watching a television while toking on a pipe connected to a large metal
and glass cylinder that's occasionally leaking milky smoke. His only reaction to Kali
coming in is to slide to one side.
Kali loses the thread. Blinking, she sits down. Her new companion leans back and
offers her the pipe.
"Where am I?" - Kali
"The house of stone" - Man
"I can see that" - Kali
"Why are you here?" - Man
(shrugging) "I was following... I just had to be here" - Kali
He nods, as though agreeing, and takes the pipe back off her.
"Now what?" - Man
"I don't know. Are you going to talk about politics to me again?" - Kali
"Would you like me to?" - Man
"Not really. I get enough of that at home" - Kali
"We've pretty much covered all that anyway" - Man
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She takes another long drag. The Seer of the Throne puts his arm behind her,
casually, and casts Emotional Urging on her.
"What's your name?" - Seer
"Kali" - Kali
"What's your real name, Kali?" - Seer, casting Emotional Urging again to relax her a
tiny bit more.
"...Kemi" - Kali
"Seraph" - Seer
Note the name - Seraph is the Seer of the Throne Beckett said was "a conscious turncoat" back in 1.3. He is also the Seer
who was possessing the bum that compared the Seers and Pentacle to the Republicans and Democrats, which is what Kali
references above.
And yes, Seraph making Kali compliant through mind magic IS a deliberate parallel to what Wolsey did earlier. She adds her
Gnosis to resistance as she's Awakened, so he's only getting bare successes each time he does it - but she's not stopping
him from doing it. He casts the spell a total of seven times over the course of the scene, some of which Kali noticed and
some of which she didn't.
And why 'Seraph'? Because he's the servant of God, of course.
This scene reads much better if you can imagine their voices, by the way - both Seraph and Kali are extremely stoned,
slurring their speech and talking very slowly, as if they're half asleep. That, too is deliberate.
"So why are you here?" - Kali
"I am an instrument of Fate" - Seraph
aw, yeah. Feel the story title. Again.
Kali takes another long drag and rests back on his arm.
"That doesn't really help" - Kali
"We're all part of something larger, Kemi. We're all doing our part in the world, laid
out for us by the Gods" - Seraph
"So you're a servant of God" - Kali
"You see.. it's all.. when you observe something, you change it, right? Well, the world
is observed by things outside - that's what creates our stable world. I serve the AllSeeing Eye" - Seraph
"So, you're saying.. God creates the world by looking at it?" - Kali, stoned
"That's right" - Seraph
"And By looking at it too you can tell what God wants?" - Kali
"Right again. I watch them. The people. They get high and speak in tongues. I listen,
and pick out Fate from it. That's my role, see? I don't.. I don't see Fate myself. I just
serve it. Doing my part in the machine."
Kali nods, commiserating. Her role in the universe isn't so fun, either
"I feel like a pedal, I think. I'm the one that gets trodden on, but I'm needed." - Kali
That's her issues again - the idea that she may not enjoy her position but thinks the world needs someone like her to do it.
"I'm more the part holding up the pedal, the.." - Seraph
"..driveshaft?" - Kali
Seraph chuckles, and casts Emotional Urging again
"Something like. You're like a Pythia." - Seraph
"hrm?" - Kali
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"You communicate the.. plan. The..." (waves his hand around vaguely) "Design to the
other parts" - Seraph, admiring.
'Pythia' will get explained later on - but essentially, this whole thing is non-hostile because Seraph doesn't want to hurt her. In
fact, he *likes* her and is trying to recruit her to the Seers.
Because, as Samuel said in 2.1, Kali is making the mistake of thinking that Fate is immutable - that she's an Instrument of
Fate and that what she reads in the Omens is what's meant to happen, regardless of her feelings. Sometimes she
personifies Fate as a force, and describes herself as serving it.
Which is what the Seers of the Throne believe. Seraph wants her to join his Pylon as an interpreter of the Exarch's will.
That this position is flat-out wrong in Mage's metaphysics - where you can and often do change the future - is the central
theme of this last three sessions.
Seraph starts to undo the buttons on Kali's shirt.
Back at the Sanctum, Damascus and Wolsey are talking about life as a Mage, and
the skills needed. Wolsey has a suspicion, and he's about to voice it.
"Damascus. Would you say that you've done most of your learning in the last few
years?" - Wolsey
"And in prison, but yes" - Damascus
(Kali, eyes nearly shut, lets Seraph undress her)
"And you've come up in the world. You used to live around here?" - Wolsey
Damascus nods, knowing where he's going now.
"Did you ever get people from elsewhere?" - Wolsey
"Sure. You know how it is. Kids from places with slightly more money, hanging out
down here because they were looking for something. It usually ends badly" Damascus
(Kali and Seraph go off the sofa)
"Does Kali give the impression that she paid much attention to lessons in the last few
years?" - Wolsey
"Not really no" - Damascus
"Or that, given the life she has, she ever has?" - Wolsey
Damascus frowns
"No" - Damascus
"I didn't think so either" - Wolsey
(Kali and Seraph fade to black)
What Wolsey's getting at is what he voiced to her a while back - Kali's too smart, she's too well-read. She thinks about things
too much (too little for his taste, but too much for her "background").
She's a fake.
Hours later, Wolsey's mobile of the week rings, called by one of Kali's gang. The
'banger, (and, as Wolsey remembers, one of the guards that provide their Sanctum
with security) says that someone has called "the number in the phonebox".
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The number being the number beneath the Atlantean sigil for "Crossing" that's
painted in a phonebooth on the edge of their territory. The Crucible have a visitor.
Telling the gang member to hold the newcomer there, Wolsey and Damascus get
underway. When they arrive a short distance later, they find their guards standing
loosely around a stranger - a youngish man, wearing the sort of overcoat that is
inadvisable in DC's July humidity, boots covered in red clay and holding his arm
oddly. As Wolsey observes, a trickle of blood runs out of the man's sleeve and down
his fingers.
"Forgive the intrusion." - Man, in a British accent
Damascus nods to the guards to back off, and the stranger waits until they're back a
ways.
"My name is Gawain..." - Gawain
"..and you want Hospitality?" - Damascus
Gawain nods.
"...To recuperate, yes. I promise to uphold your own Right of Sanctuary" - Gawain
"How were you injured?" - Wolsey
".. I was attacked, but I have time. Days - perhaps weeks." - Gawain
"We'll get you fixed up. We... ah.. Wolsey, do you know any first aid? Or Life?" Damascus
Wolsey casts Healer's Trance
"not enough" - Wolsey, calling Kali.
...
Kali, meanwhile, woke up - still slightly out of it - to find Seraph gone. She's walking
home, feeling dizzy and not sure how much of that was imaginary, when Wolsey's
call reaches her mobile.
"..yeah?" - Kali
"Where are you?" - Wolsey
Kali looks around
"I have no idea. Nearly home" - Kali
"We have a guest. He's injured - bring a Doctor. One that won't report gunshot
wounds" - Wolsey
"I know a woman" - Kali
"I thought you might" - Wolsey, ringing off
Wolsey shrugs at Damascus' questioning look. Better than last time they interrupted
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her on the thread.
"You're sure you're not being followed?" - Wolsey
"it will take them weeks to track me, don't worry. And I’ll be long gone by then" Gawain
Gawain casts a spell, which both men sense. The situation becomes tenser
"What was that?" - Wolsey
"Forgive me. I had to make sure you were who you seemed to be" - Gawain
Wolsey frowns, but lets it go.
The three of them head into the Sanctum, Gawain making appreciative small talk
once they clear the abandoned levels and hit the Sanctum proper. Wolsey casts
various wards on a room, to prevent anyone scrying for him, and Gawain sits
painfully down to await the Doctor. Wolsey then activate Mage Sight via Spatial
Awareness in case any scrying windows open in the Sanctum. A short while later,
Kali arrives with her back-street doctor.
While the medic is treating Gawain behind closed doors, Wolsey and Damascus fill
Kali in - and ask her to check Gawain out, as covertly as she can. Just to make sure.
Kali agrees, though is still slightly out of it. And there's a faint whiff of resonance on
her.. something...
"Where have you been?" - Wolsey
"A stone house" - Kali, distracted
"A what?" - Damascus
"What? A house of stoners" - Kali
"And what were you doing there?" - Wolsey
"No - wait go back *where*?" - Damascus
"She said, a drug den" - Wolsey
"That's *not* what the Acanthus just said" - Damascus
"I'm not going to take everything she says as prophecy unless I know she's doing
prophecy..." (to Kali) "...was that Prophecy?"
Heh. But yes - Seraph's Pylon is one of the groups from the Juncture's book.
His suspicions aroused, Wolsey activates Sense Life to check out her odd state. He
discovers that she's partially drugged, that she's just had sex, and that there are the
remains of several spells on her.
"Kali... WHAT did you do?" - Wolsey
"I was just talking to some stoners" - Kali
"About what?" - Damascus
"Weird stuff" - Kali
"What kind of stuff?" - Wolsey
"weird stuff" - Kali
"Weird like Beggars Union weird?" - Damascus, joking.
Damascus sees Kali's expression
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"Oh shit" - Damascus
"How could you... What were you thinking?" - Wolsey
"I was just following the thread! I'm just an instrument!" - Kali
"You can't use that excuse all the time - you can't blame Fate for everything!" Wolsey
Damascus and Wolsey grill her for details, while she gets increasingly distressed.
Her memory of the afternoon is full of holes.
"I can't remember everything. I was out of it" - Kali
"Then remember, oh Time mage" - Wolsey
"...Didn't think of that" - Kali
"You didn't last time either" - Wolsey
Kali casts Postcognition and witnesses what she did.
"...I did him" - Kali, resigned
Wolsey and Damascus immediately throw up Mage Sight spells and check her. As
far as they can tell, she got off lightly - there IS the remains of what looks like an
attempt to use Space magic to strengthen the sympathetic link to her the sex caused,
but it looks like it failed or was only partially successful.
But as she hasn't washed, and as Wolsey's Life magic detected earlier, she's still got
his bodily fluids on her - which would mean he could track her back...
"Right. Get in there - now" - Wolsey, hustling her towards the warded room Gawain's
in.
Gawain and the Doctor look up as Kali enters. She sits down in the corner and smiles
weakly. The medic goes back to removing a bullet from Gawain's arm.
Kali massages her forehead while Damascus and Wolsey discuss what to do now in
urgent tones just loud enough to hear.
"Stop WHISPERING about me!" - Kali
"Okay - you're a stupid bitch" - Damascus, finally snapping.
Gawain looks up at that, and all concerned feel him casting some sort of Unveiling
spell.
"Don't worry. This is just what happens around here" - Kali, to Gawain
...
Eventually, the Doctor finishes her work and leaves. Gawain gets up when
Damascus and Wolsey re-enter the room to continue their conversation with Kali.
"Excuse me. But you are obviously busy and I don't want to impose. Is there another
room, where I can rest out of your way?" - Gawain
Wolsey snaps out of trying to fix the latest problem enough to show Gawain across
the Sanctum to another bedroom. Gawain, admitting to being an Adept of Space,
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wards it himself this time. He does, however, quietly ask Wolsey if there's anything
he can do to help by way of repayment.
"Maybe. And you? Do you want us to call the Consilium?" - Wolsey
"No, but thank you. I'll be gone long before I get caught up in local affairs" - Gawain
...
Back in the warded room, Damascus is apologising for snapping at Kali, who shrugs
it off in a way so as to communicate that she's grateful he apologised but wants to
appear nonchalant.
Wolsey comes back in.
"All right. Kali - does he know your name?" - Wolsey
She nods
"My first name. I don't know if he knows my surname" - Kali
"Okay - well let's hope he doesn't." - Wolsey
In contrast to Damascus - who lost it and is now regrouping, Wolsey's reacting in the same calm manner he dealt with the
starting scene. This is what he's *good* at, and while Damascus is flipping out, Wolsey very carefully isn't trying to give her
the impression that he blames her, or that he's judging her. Which he totally is, but as Mark says upthread he's being kind.
"Kali.. why do you do this? I'm trying to understand. Why do you take risks like this?"
- Wolsey
"I'm not stupid" - Kali
"I know that" - Wolsey, looking at Damascus
Kali says that she knows what she looks like to them, but that isn't her - she doesn't
want to be treated as she appears
"You don't wish to be treated as you appear? What do you wish to appear as?" Wolsey
"I... I don't know. That's why I'm following the threads" - Kali
"May I suggest Marilyn Monroe?" - Damascus
Wolsey describes Damascus as "Self-made", implying that Kali is as well.
Kali explains that ever since she Awakened, she's felt like she's not in the right life.
That's what the threads are to her - arrows pointing her to her true self. She has to
follow them to find out who she really is.
"This could have gotten you killed - and it still could" - Wolsey
"He didn't hurt me. I don't think he would... and the threads led to him" - Kali
"Has it occurred that the threads could have been tampered with if it led to a Seer?" Damascus
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Kali doesn't seem to think that's very likely. Wolsey switches tactic to the danger of it
all, asking if the threads are worth risking her life for, if they occasionally turn up
Seers of the Throne.
"Are you willing to risk your life for what you want?" - Kali
"Only if I was on the very cusp" - Wolsey
Kali shrugs, helplessly
"What will happen will happen" - Kali
Wolsey grimaces
"Blind fatalism. God help us" - Damascus
Damascus gets it - this has always been Kali's problem.
Kali reiterates her faith in Fate, and her belief that if Ariadne's thread led her to
Seraph it was for a reason.
"Who do you think weave Fate?" - Damascus
"...Fate" - Kali, in a 'duh' voice
"The Exarchs" - Wolsey
"They can't weave it" - Kali, dismissive
"They can and they do" - Wolsey
"Kali, they have a plan for everyone. A plan that is forced on us by Fate just as they
bind us to the world with Space and control our Minds. Fate is part of the Fallen
World" - Damascus
"Then what happens if I go against that plan?" - Kali
"...You *Awaken*" - Wolsey
Good argument that.
"All right. What are you going to do if he comes around again?" - Wolsey
"I don't know" - Kali
"You're going to let him do it to you?" - Wolsey
"... I don't know how to make it stop" - Kali
"You're a *Mage* goddammit" - Wolsey
"Kali. He doesn't have puppies in his car, and he doesn't have candy. If you see him,
tell a policeman" - Damascus, trying to cheer her up
"No! For god's sake don't tell a policeman" - Wolsey
She's not convinced - and now looks both abashed (though how much she believes
them that her future isn't entirely fated is up to debate) and scared.
"You've put the shits up me" - Kali
"What was that question I asked you, Wolsey?" - Damascus
"If I agreed that the contemplation of Action should not lead to Inaction" - Wolsey
It's not as easy as that, she says. If the Seers are after her, then there's nothing she
can do about it unless she abandons her own Path. Which she *needs* to move on
with
The implication here is that Kali is tired of being at the bottom rung of society. Whatever she was hoping to achieve here, or
find out about herself, it hasn't worked to her satisfaction. Her conscience has returned with contact with the others, and
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she's dissatisfied. But now they others tell her if she follows Ariadne's thread looking for an alternative, the Exarchs will get
her
"Is taking practical precautions really going to dilute your purpose?" - Wolsey
She doesn't look happy.
This is, as Mark has pointed out to me, the crucial difference between the three characters. Damascus doesn't have a vast
wide-ranging goal in mind for his Path, while the other two do, but while Wolsey is careful, prudent and above all *patient*:
willing to defer his success, to serve Malakaii and Banneker while it gives him what he wants in the long term, Kali accepts
no compromises and wants to live her grand goal every day. She's already nearly a year into carrying out her grand plan,
while Wolsey hasn't even started his.
In any case, they've come to an impasse - and have hopefully convinced Kali to look
before she leaps next time. They decide that Kali will go shower while Damascus and
Wolsey clean this room up, and then they'll go talk to their new house guest. They're
all curious as to how he got the gunshot, and Wolsey hopes to enlist his help in
shredding the last remains of Seraph's sympathetic link to Kali.
The night wears on, and Kali - wearing entirely different clothes (as Wolsey intends to
burn the ones she was wearing) - has her connection to Seraph magically severed by
Gawain, who uses the rote version of Destroy the Threads on her.
And, that favour discharged, Gawain offers them his story.
Gawain was part of a Mysterium Cabal - a group of Magical Archaeologists
specialising in "Atlantean, Lemurian and Hyperborean" traces. Eight months ago, he
and two of his Cabal were attacked by persons unknown - definitely Mages. His
Cabalmates were killed, and he's been on the run ever since. Every two weeks he
wards himself and teleports, then they manage to break through his ward and come
after him again forcing him to run again. He daren't go back to the rest of his Cabal
for fear that his pursuers would follow him.
Wolsey notes that when he had Mage Sight up, there was something in Gawain's
satchel. Gawain says it's an artefact from the last place his Cabal investigated, but
that he hasn't been able to do any further research on it due to his constantly either
fighting, fleeing or preparing for both. The Cabal ask the obvious question, but
Gawain says that he found this artefact months before the attack - it's not it they're
after, it's him.
"Do you have any idea why?" - Wolsey
"None, I'm afraid" - Gawain
The gang offer to get Gawain more qualified help, but he says it isn't necessary. The
chance they've given him to calm down and rest will mean he can get away again
much sooner, and if he teleports enough times he hopes to eventually lose his
assailants.
Nodding, the Cabal leave him to settle down. Once outside, they briefly discuss his
story - there's some scepticism, but no-one thinks he's lying per se, just not telling
them everything.
In any case, the Crucible divide up duties. Gawain - as trustworthy as he *seems* shouldn't be left alone in the Sanctum, especially not at the moment. Kali draws first
shift, while Wolsey and Damascus will go home to sleep and then return with
supplies for a longer stay at the Sanctum.
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Kali, not wanting to be alone and still having the fear of the Seers put into her by the
other two, decides to get herself some food and ask Gawain if she can hang out in
his room. When she goes in he's changed, washed and is sat up in bed reading
Robin Hobb's "Fool's Errand".
This minor piece of detail from Reign of the Exarchs - Gawain's choice of reading material - won kudos from the gang. For
being a book that a player might have actually read, which led to them trying to figure out if it's plot was significant in some
way to the story. Good times.
Gawain and Kali, surprisingly, get on quite well. They're both in the Mysterium something which Kali realises not many people understand about her. It's all about
the search for Truth, a subject which Gawain can relate to. He correctly guesses the
reason for her Shadow name - Kali, the half-black half-Indian, has named herself
against the black-skinned goddess of time.
"And if I dance backwards the world ends" - Kali
There's one other thing in the room, though - a metal object like a handbell, which
Gawain says is the artefact Wolsey asked him about. He promises to share what he's
found out about it so far with Kali before he leaves, but spends the rest of the
evening distracting her from her troubles with tales of high adventure and the
exploration of Atlantean Ruins. There was this one time, see, where the Ruin had a
cunning system of mirrors set up with Forces-amplification spells that turned the
place into a deadly web of laser-like energies.
...
Sunday
Wolsey wakes in his deader-than-Stygia apartment to find a message from Mara on
his answering machine, saying that Avatar is now doing much better and that Mara
thinks that contact with the Cabal has turned out to be a good thing.
With that bit of good news in his head, Wolsey heads to the Sanctum to relieve Kali
and take his shift sitting up next to the Hallow in case of unusual happenstance.
Damascus, meanwhile, keeps his appointment with the Nation of Islam and checking that his dagger now meets design specifications - heads to Ulysses' church,
where he finds his mentor waiting rather more impatiently than last time.
"We lost it" - Ulysses
"You lost it?" - Damascus
"Gone. We were too late, lad. It's crossed into our world already" - Ulysses
The dagger will still be useful, Ulysses says, especially if the spirit is in twilight rather
than possessing a human. Ulysses gives Damascus more of a background on the
beast - it was once the spirit of a memorial in the middle of a small park, part of the
DC spirit ecology and fed from the resonance of an island of peace in the middle of
the more energetic resonances around it. Only the city council bulldozed the park,
and a few months ago someone was murdered in the car park that resulted. The
spirit of pain and despair that resulted swiftly ate up all the surrounding spirits of
hopelessness, part of the Washington ecology.
The two spirits clashed, and the monument spirit, in desperation, absorbed it's rival.
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The resulting creature, a spirit of finding contemplation in pain and suffering, is made
of twisted resonances, a mishmash of the two rival umbrood hierarchies of the city.
Rejected by both ecologies, it's been consuming everything around itself in the
Shadow, but has finally been pushed out now - pushed out into the physical world,
that is.
In Werewolf terms, it's a Magath - a spirit that has fed inappropriately and is now a hybrid of two or more concepts. I just
thought it'd be neat to show the two ecologies of umbrood clashing.
Damascus reasons, with his limited grasp of Spirit lore, that the creature is either
inside a human that meets it's needs or that it's found a ley nexus or Hallow of the
correct resonance...
"...I think I might know where it is" - Damascus
Rushing to the Sanctum, Damascus says that he suspects they have more than one
house guest - and informs Wolsey and the now-returned Kali that he thinks the spirit
is lurking in their Hallow, which matches the description of it's initial resonance.
That afternoon, while the people Damascus has phoned (Promethea and two of her
colleagues - a Perfected Adept Acanthus in the Defenders named Link and a
Mysterium Thyrsus in the City Souls named Heinrich) search unsuccessfully for the
spirit and - after asking Gawain to return his room to normal space from the pocket
realm he's put it in - declare the Sanctum to be in the clear in the Astral, Twilight and
Shadow - Kali says that she's going to try to find Blaise to try to get some guidance
on her own issues.
Blaise is nowhere to be found - even in the spot he gave her the Nickel lecture. And
the Nickel is gone. She stays on that street corner, watching one particular house,
until after nightfall. Eventually, someone turns on the lights in that house and can be
seen looking out, but Kali has gone.
It's not actually said in character - but that's Kemi's father. She grew up in that area.
.......
Monday
Having failed to find Blaise, Kali has thought long and hard all night and plucked up
her courage.
She's going back to the House of Stone to confront anything she finds there.
Unfortunately, the house has been stripped - the people, and all the furniture, has
gone. The mysterious graffiti has been removed, and the place s free of sympathetic
connections. The Seers have pulled out.
Damascus and Wolsey, meanwhile, are talking about Legacies while lurking in the
stairwell of the Sanctum. Damascus still hasn't been rung by the Uncrowned King
that works at the university, and he and Kali have been speculating about which
Bearer of the Eternal Voice Wolsey is going to petition - Mara or Malakaii? Wolsey
refuses to be drawn on the matter, though...
...And then they feel a big spell cast above them, in the Sanctum
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Wolsey's choice is what we're going to start the next session off with. Who do YOU think he's going to try to apprentice to?
Rushing upstairs, they find Gawain gone, with his nimbus fading around where he
teleported out.
When Kali gets back to share the news that the Seers have gone, she finds the other
two sat regarding an object on a table.
Gawain has left the handbell - and a letter.
The letter is quite long, thanking them for their Hospitality and begging their
forgiveness for leaving so abruptly. He hopes that the artefact will be useful to them
as repayment, and that they are able to give it the attention and research he cannot.
The letter reminds Kali that although Their influence is everywhere they are fought
every day, by everyone that uses Supernal Magic, and that she shouldn't think her
situation is hopeless.
Finally, he signs off with a quotation.
"By Her grace She leaves this Ring / So all may find the Truth they seek" - Gawain
Damascus picks up the handbell, noting that it's actually more like a Tibetan prayer
wheel - it doesn't have a striker inside. Still not much of a ring, though.
"It's a trap" - Wolsey
"..." - Kali
"... Who are you, Admiral Ackbar?" – Damascus
"Look, it's obviously evil. We can sell it." - Wolsey
"For what?" - Damascus
"Who cares? A bag of chips!" - Wolsey
Heh
"Maybe something's meant to go in it" - Damascus, musing.
"It's a bell of evil, I tell you" - Wolsey
Damascus casts Grim Sight, but doesn't glean anything from the artefact other than
the fact that it's magical.. and it contains all of the Arcana in it's enchantment.
He picks it up and waves it in the air as though ringing it.
Nothing.
He ties a piece of string around a small metal doohickey ties that to the artefact's
handle and waves it again. When the improvised striker hits the bell, Damascus feels
Mana being drained out of him and hears a loud, bass tolling as though he was in a
cathedral at the hour mark. He looks around at the other two, who it seems didn't
hear anything.
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But they *did* sense the bell casting a spell on Damascus.
At which point Damascus had a morality check, which he failed. Wisdom 6 for you, my lad!
Everyone does the examination of Resonance game again and determines that
whatever it cast is still there - Kali's Sybil's sight detects the telltale sign of a Fatebased contingency upon him. Whatever the bell did, it's now "hanging", waiting for
something to trigger the effect that is now embedded in Damascus' pattern.
"Told you so" - Wolsey
"Well. Uh. Learning through experimentation and so on, I suppose. Happenstance
and action..." - Damascus
"You can frame this with all the Mastigos phrases you like, but you're still the one
with the contingent effect on you" - Wolsey
Damascus rings the bell again, with the same effect. The new contingency cancelling
the old one. As far as Kali can tell, anyway. He puts it down again, and has a think.
"Okay. What IS this thing?" - Damascus
He casts Dark Matter, and Kali through her Mage Sight sees the Contingent effect
trigger and alter his pattern.
"Whoa.. That's..." - Damascus
"That's what?" - Wolsey
As Damascus tells it, the Mage Sight spell he just cast is not behaving normally - he's
sensing the resonance making up matter as normal, but now everything - even the
Cabal - have a sort of "pull" to them, like a gravitational effect. Kali's is strongest,
then Damascus' own. Wolsey has hardly any. Looking out of the window, a group of
gangers he can see have some, but an old lady hanging out her washing has more.
The Bell, though, is like a black hole. He can't look at it without wincing.
He cancels the spell, and Kali reports that his pattern is back to normal.
"What *was* that?" - Damascus
"A Bell of Evil" - Wolsey
They argue over it some more - Wolsey wanting rid of it, the other two still fascinated.
Eventually, Kali picks it up and - against Wolsey and Damascus' warnings, rings it
herself.
"Did you hear a big bell when you did it?" - Kali
"Yeah. That's it activating" - Damascus
She casts a spell at random, but there's no effect other than the Imago's own.
"Try a Mage Sight spell" - Damascus
Kali casts Sybil's Sight. It too is "weighted", though in this case it's more obviously
symbolic. The strands of Fate wafting around everyone are even more numerous
than usual - and the new strands extend up into the sky, connecting invisibly to
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people by their wrists, ankles and head. Kali herself has a full set, Damascus has just
arm-strings, while Wolsey - to this sight - has lines on the side of his chin, like
ventriloquist's dummy. The Bell of Evil, as Wolsey insists on calling it, has a thick
rope made of multiple strands of Fate stretching up through the ceiling.
She describes this, slightly weirded out.
"Try another" - Damascus
"YOU try another" - Kali
"I'm out of Mana now" - Damascus
"Wolsey" - Kali
"Oh, no" - Wolsey
She rings the Bell again, and casts Temporal Eddies.
To her newly-enhanced Mage Sight, Wolsey has a slight shadow behind him.
Damascus is somehow himself and also himself as a 'ganger in his youth, and the
old lady outside is her sinful younger self. The 'gangers on the street all give the
impression of not having much of a future left. Kali herself is simultaneously dressed
in rags and wearing a silk Sari, laden with jewellery, like a Queen.
She immediately drops the spell.
"Okay..." (shaken) "This isn't fun anymore." - Kali
"Wolsey, you sure? If it's showing something different for each Arcana" - Damascus
"No, thank you. I prefer my perceptions unmuddled by the Bell of Evil" - Wolsey
"All right. What's it showing? It's showing us something there, that you can't see with
the Arcana. Something that I have more than you, and Kali has more than us. The
Bell has loads, the old lady across the street about the same as me. An 11th
Arcana?" - Damascus
"Sin" - Wolsey
"I'm sorry?" - Damascus
"Well, what does Kali have that I don't?" - Wolsey
"Tits?" - Damascus
"Sin. You're an ex-ganger, Kali's a drug dealer. That old lady probably got up to all
kinds of things when she was younger." - Wolsey
"I object!" - Kali
"shh" - Damascus
"I'm just saying, comparatively I'm less sinful" - Wolsey
"Comparatively's a fine thing" - Damascus
"Or maybe Hubris" - Wolsey
"Maybe it's honesty - or connection to the world, huh? Or *lack* of Hubris" - Kali
"All right. Gawain said it was Atlantean, right?" - Wolsey
"Yes.. Some artefact. Who's 'she' - the female in the quotation? Maybe this is from
some Atlantean archmage" - Kali
They look at the quotation
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"Anyone recognise it?" - Damascus
Negative
"Well, in absence of academia... let's try Google" - Wolsey
There's always Wikipedia
...
Once set up with Wolsey's laptop, they begin their search - though not at a popular
Silicon-Valley based search engine. Instead, Kali directs them into a Mysterium web
repository of texts, hidden behind ten layers of security including "translate this rune".
It somehow isn't enough for Wolsey to not be mildly outraged.
"Weren't we supposed to have picked up an occult library by now?" - Kali
"Well, I can contribute 'To Ride A Silver Broomstick'" - Damascus
Too much. Information.
The text is matched after half an hour to "Gifts of the Dethroned Queen"
By Her grace She leaves this Ring
So we might fid the Truth we seek.
She leaves this Robe of mystic night
So we might dwell beyond Their Sight.
This Scepter drawn She leaves for all
To brush aside Their distant calls.
She leaves to us this Crown of souls
To twist Their thralls toward our own goals
By Her grace She leaves this last
A Throne whose seat will let us pass
Kali clicks on the hyperlink in "Dethroned Queen"
"...She's an Exarch" - Kali
The Queen, says the site, was a woman who appeared in the centuries following the
Fall, claiming to be an Exarch that had been cast out by her fellow Gods back onto
Earth. She refused to use magic, eventually dying of a plague, but said that the
regalia she wore as a Queen in the Supernal Realms fell with her. Treasure-hunters
have looked for them for centuries - men like Gawain and his crew.
"Well.. An Ex-Exarch" - Kali
"Get rid of it. Sell it. Give it to Ulysses or Samuel" - Wolsey
"This Crown sounds really useful" - Damascus, thoughtfully
"It sounds like a Profane Urim" - Wolsey
"Why would an Exarch need something to hide from the other Exarchs?" - Kali,
pointing to the robe line
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Maybe she wasn't one. Maybe she was an Oracle.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
Either way, they now have a hot potato on their hands. And Gawain's story about it
being him that his mysterious assailants were after is looking a little less certain.
"Perhaps he used this thing. Saw something he shouldn't have." - Wolsey
"Or they knew he had the Bell" – Damascus
2.3 Commentary:
DaveB: Okay, then. Apocrypha and general witterings on my lunch hour (tm) for
Instruments of Fate
1) First off, after promising it, I completely forgot the Pythia scene in the writeup.
Fairly short, but offers insight - Kali asked Gawain what the word meant, and found
out that it's the title of the Oracle of Delphi, a priestess that would be sat in a tripod
over a natural fissure that produced unusual hydrocarbons as gas and would then
have her babblings interpreted as prophecy by the priests of Apollo that looked after
the shrine.
The link between that interpretation of drugged-out people and what Seraph was
saying to her clicked, and she realised what the Seers want her for.
2) Wolsey had a moment, when Kali told them about Seraph, of being slightly
insulted that it wasn't him the Seers tried to recruit. Then he got over it, realising why
Kali meets their requirements and he certainly doesn't.
3) There was a certain amount of exposition of the Atlantean mythology, with Wolsey
saying he didn't believe the Dethroned Queen could have been an Oracle that was
caught and expelled from the Supernal - simply because he doesn't believe the
Oracles *could* be.
------------So yeah. That was Instruments of Fate - three sessions of the cabal labouring under
perceived inevitabilities, from Wolsey's doom (still doomed, by the way) to Kali's
hangups, to Wolsey's attitude about his marriage, to the young lovers, to Gawain
refusing all help because he thinks it's pointless - with the consequences of the
attitude building and building. Because that's the way Seers think, not Pentacle
mages. Despair is a killer, especially in this universe.
Next story should see the gang be more go-getter. They have all now earned *just*
enough xp to buy Gnosis 3, so I expect next session to be the Legacy inductions.
And there's their Seer problem to sort out: I know Mark has plans in that regard to
take defensive action rather than sitting and hoping Seraph will go away.
I believe they've decided to go trust Ulysses with the Ring (and they did figure out
why it's called the Ring - it's the sound it makes, not the physical object).
And now, for the non players...
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So yeah. Reign of the Exarchs then. The last two posts of narrative roughly cover the
first scene in the first story, which takes place a couple of weeks before the rest of it
(essentially, the time gap is for the people hunting Gawain to realise he's dropped the
Ring off) - we'll get back to The Ring as Story 4 in this chronicle.
Mark turned to me the other day - before 2.3 was played - and said "I'm sorry, Dave,
but I've rumbled you. I know Avatar's the Dethroned Queen"
Hardy har har. 8D
For those keeping score, characters that have been introduced, replaced by my own
npcs or hinted at are as follows:
Story One: Gawain and the Ring of the Dethroned Queen are as in the book. What
you might not have spotted was the setup regarding the Nickel - Kali is in for a
surprise come 4.1
Story Two: Seraph's method of Omen reading is the same as the Seers in this one,
as a foreshadowing and so that the players'll understand it when they see it.
Amanda/Avatar replaces Cymbeline.
Story Three: Nothing yet
Story Four: The Ascendants have turned up already, and the characters have even
seen their Scroll. Bedlam replaces Remainder. Note the completely coincidental
(seriously. It was an accident) match-up between the Indian-born adversary of this
story and Kali. I'm not quite sure what to do with this, and the reason I haven't posted
Kali's background yet is that I'm adjusting my notes to make this story better, playing
off the striking similarity between the two women.
Story Five: Seraph isn't in Mammon: He's a Panopticon Seer, as hinted by his
rambling about Observation and his frequent use of Space magic (he's a Mastigos).
Rafe / Damascus: Actually, the suggestion that it was measuring sin was,
unsurprisingly, Damascus. I think it was Wolsey who raised the possibility of an 11th
Arcana.
Sam / Kali: Hello again. More musings from the female end of the party:
Firstly I seem to recall the thread Kali followed into the room with the Seer
disappearing as she opened the door. I don't remember it getting stronger
('solidifying' is probably better, becoming more real) but it's entirely possible I
completely missed it. The difference between one conclusion of the thread and the
other is quite significant and will change Kali's thinking depending on which one it
was. Memory-jog anyone
I think I know what following your thread backwards means - it's Kali who is
experimenting. Sam is having trouble with the easy bits, and getting the harder bits,
and this is completely normal for me. For example, the answer to the homework
question set her by Blaise is completely eluding the both of us (that's me and Kali).
I'm currently on the posit that nothing has changed - but my paranoia often whispers
furtively in the back streets of my mind that if nothing has 'changed' (and I'm normally
good at word games) some of what Blaise said during that first stage of Nickeldom is
invalidated. But he doesn't have to be right all the time... right?
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Um... yeah. Kali has an important choice coming up, really. She is relegating the
Seer for the time being to something Wolsey and Damascus care about more than
she does. What she wants is to start reconciling her choices, and this means of
course accepting that she can change her fate. Following Ariadne's threads is all well
and good, but Kali is coming to realise that she is not Ariadne - and maybe she
should start being responsible for her life instead of trusting it to a force that seems to
lead her only places that cause her pain. Sam doesn't entirely understand, and again
this is a common problem for me. A lot of Kali's frustrations with Mage society are
based off Sam's inattentions and misunderstandings - but that's fine. That way we
learn together, and the journey becomes a lot more fun. What sort of a journey is it
where there's only the silence of your own silence and the words in your own mind
(except for a contemplative one)? How do you learn when it's only you and no
relativity exists to throw something new and unaccounted for into the gears?
And lastly, a small weeping for a moment back that made Sam cry and Kali snigger,
and that moment was Mark mentioning 'Wolsey' and 'morals' in the same line. I do
not disagree that Wolsey has morals. But I think his morals are more fanatical. His
morals are the morals of a middle class, white American boy. I might be wrong - and
probably am. But it often seems as if to Wolsey, power is where the kudos goes.
Morals are a way of getting people in power what they want, and possibly even
deserve. Kali really feels that Wolsey's morals are constrictive and inward-facing.
Instead of being freed by his morals as she is, she just sees him as tying himself in
more and more knots. And perhaps this is why she was surprised at seeing him
through Sybil's Sight - even more reliant on Fate to shape her perceptions. Instead of
being wrong because her perception does not tally with Fate, however, she is now
beginning to question.
DaveB: More corrections, thanks to Mark / Wolsey.
Gah.
Most importantly, Wolsey went with Kali on her return trip to the seers, showing her
how to go in prepared with mind shields and such.
It was Damascus who spotted the artefact with Mage Sight, and in the conversation
about the Exarchs weaving Fate, the "They have a plan for everyone" was actually
Wolsey.
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Story 2 Recap:
"Instruments of Fate"
Mid June 2006
Session 2.1
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The Hallow has been tamed, the Cabal have settled into their new Sanctum
(though none of them live there, and the place is mostly unfurnished). Wolsey
has negotiated the merger of two companies, Damascus has several
commissions and Kali's gang have started to experiment with producing
Crack. The story starts the day before the meeting with the Juncture, and two
days before the Bi-Monthly Consilium.
Wolsey expects to be made Herald at the Consilium, a job he has been
picked for since halfway through his apprenticeship, and asks Kali to behave
herself at the meeting. Furthermore, he asks her a favour - there is someone
he wants finding.
Kali discerns via magic that Wolsey is not being entirely truthful with his
patchy description of the person he seeks - one AMANDA FISHER. He
admits that Amanda is his wife, and has been missing since before he
Awakened. He came to DC from Boston following a lead that said she had
come here. Kali admits that she doesn't have the Space Arcana needed to
find her and Wolsey realises he's been tricked into revealing personal
information.
Damascus defuses the impending argument by asking Kali to model for a
Caryatid column (a column in the shape of a woman) he's been asked to
produce. Wolsey mocks her being a "Pillar of society" and they have the longdelayed fight, Kali saying that people like her prop up the world of people like
Wolsey. Wolsey rejects that, and is horrified to learn that not only did Kali
choose her lifestyle, but outright enjoys it.
They talk about what Kali would do if she ever got arrested (she hasn't really
thought about it) and Wolsey says that all Kali does is put people into another
trap of Control while she argues that she's setting them free - and that it's
*Wolsey* who's just exchanging one Lie for another.
Finally, Wolsey decides to find Amanda himself - and discovers that her
present location is warded beyond his ability to pierce. He throws up a Mage
Sight just in time to see a returning scrying window open. A brief magical
struggle results in Damascus being thrown a few seconds into the future, and
Kali recognises the resonance of the person on the other side as being
SAMUEL, Acanthus Free Councillor and leader of the House of Ariadne.
Wolsey, trying to head off a political upset, tries to phone Francine - who he
knows to be in Samuel's Cabal. She's on the phone to Samuel, but calls her
back and apologises for the incident. When Wolsey tries to ask about
Amanda, Francine just says that Samuel is "busy"
The next day, Kali practices following ARIADNE'S THREAD, the House of
Ariadne's term for the strands of sympathy interconnecting all things. Picking
the thread that is clearest and most distinct to her - the one leading back to
her personal past - she follows it and realises that it's leading her back into
the wealthy suburbs she grew up in.
Wolsey still hasn't had any luck finding Samuel - who is in the year 1890 - but
he and Damascus have an appointment with the Juncture. The Juncture
believe that a Great Change is coming and that by analysing the world via
Timecube-like stochastic equations they can figure out what it will be and if
necessary mitigate it. Two societies, shrouded in rumour and hearsay, that
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the Juncture emissary calls THE HOUSE OF STONE and THE HOUSE OF
STEEL, are quarrelling, and their struggle is having a debilitating effect on the
future. He gives Wolsey and Damascus a book f their calculations.
Mara phones Wolsey with a task - sort of a job interview for the position of
Herald. A Cabal of Silver Ladder mages living in Virginia wish to be brought
under the Consilium’s protection, and are willing to pay with - among other
things - an artefact, which Wolsey is to collect and courier to Mara. Trying and failing - to contact Samuel again, he asks Francine about this Cabal, who
he learns are called THE ASCENDENTS. The artefact they're giving to the
Consilium is called THE EYES OF SALT.
They go to find Kali - who is still in suburbia. Wolsey explains his fears that
this nice easy little courier mission will go horribly horribly wrong so Kali looks
into the future and discovers that their course of action will be very, very bad
for Wolsey. Which doesn't help his mood.
Arriving at the Ascendant’s Sanctum, they meet MELCHIOR, who expresses
his belief that the Silver Ladder in the city has lost it's way and that only he
and his comrades BALTHAZAR and CASPAR are cleaving to the right path.
He gives them the Eyes of Salt, saying he won them after many battles.
Outside, Kali informs Wolsey that he's still doomed. The Eyes turn out to be
two small stone balls the size of eyeballs, that are freezing cold to the touch.
Putting them back in the bag, the Cabal begin to drive to Mara's
They arrive at Mara’s practice and deliver the Eyes. Mara puts them into a
wall safe in her office.
Still doomed, Wolsey goes home, wards his bedroom as much as he is able
and spends a sleepless night waiting to be attacked.
The next day, Damascus asks Kali to model for his column. She does so,
nude, until Wolsey interrupts them.
That evening, the Consilium is held in the back room of a black-tie restaurant.
Mara tells Wolsey she can't be his mentor any more - she's been asked to
take on a new apprentice. Who he's pretty sure he knows the identity of. She
instructs him to talk to Banneker
After the meal, Banneker gives a speech recognising the Ascendants and
Crucible as having joined the Consilium. He names Wolsey as a Herald, and
instructs Wolsey to meet him after the speeches.
Wolsey goes to see Banneker - who, calling Wolsey "Thomas" instructs him
to call him "Isiah". Banneker reveals that Amanda is indeed in the city, and
Awakened as a Mastigos - she's Mara's new student - but warns Wolsey that
AVATAR, as his wife is now known, has become slightly unhinged in her
journey through Pandemonium. Avatar will be trained by Mara and
PROMETHEA, the Provost in the Cabal of SULEIMAN, Mastigos Mysterium
Claviclarius and one of the remaining Councillors of the city.
Banneker further shares his vision for Wolsey's future - Banneker wants
Wolsey to be Banneker's man on the inside of Malakaii's Legacy, and to
eventually replace Malakaii in doing the things Banneker needs done for the
Consilium to function without the downsides Malakaii's abrasive personality
and politics bring. Wolsey agrees to it, and Banneker tells him to talk to
Samuel - warning Wolsey that he has no special rights to see Avatar if Mara
doesn't deem it necessary.
Outside, Kali is approached by NIMROD, a member of Project Twilight, who
rather threateningly says that her name has crossed his desk in the FBI. As a
gesture of respect to another mage, he's suppressed any operations against
her little drugs business so far, but he warns her to not let her name cross his
desk again.
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Wolsey, on his way back to the Cabal, gets flagged over by Samuel, who
takes them both out of time. Samuel apologises for the misunderstanding the
other day. As an effort to apologise, he casts Divination to determine how
Wolsey can avoid the doom he is labouring under - and tells him that the dark
fate is that Avatar will leave him a second time, permanently. And to avoid
this, Wolsey should "pay especial attention to her dreams"
Session 2.2
• Kali approaches one of her heroines - a Moros Free Council Bokor named
DANTOR who is the chief of the much bigger gang to Kali's East - and asks
her for tips. Dantor all but laughs in Kali's face, calls her a day-tripper and
tells her to come back when she's killed someone.
• Damascus is receiving a commission from Ulysses. Ulysses' (and Dantor's)
Cabal are looking into a Spirit that is threatening to break through the
Gauntlet. They've determined the nature of it's ban, so need Damascus to
make them an iron dagger blessed by five holy men. After he takes the
particulars, Ulysses tells him that there's also a member of the Uncrowned
Kings - a Legacy Damascus has expressed interest in joining - in the city.
• Damascus meets CERBERUS, a Thyrsus in Samuel's Cabal, who says that
he's the Uncrowned King's roommate. The Mage in question is named JOHN
DEE, and teaches Chemistry at Georgetown University. Damascus gives
Cerberus his card asking the other mage to ask John to get in touch
• Wolsey returns briefly, telling the others what's going on with Avatar. He spots
Mara and asks to see his wife. Mara says that she'll think about it - but only
based on what Mara thinks knowing Wolsey's alive, Awakened and here will
do to Avatar's fragile state of mind.
• The Cabal decide to go to Wolsey's apartment - where the other two have
never been - to relax after the Consilium. Damascus gets opinions on which
faiths to try to get the dagger blessed by. When they arrive, Wolsey explains
the utter minimalist deadness of his apartment as being designed to have as
few sympathetic connections as possible. They look up the dictionary
definition of "Avatar" and are worried about just what concepts - as a
Mastigos - she might be declaring herself the embodiment of.
• Wolsey claims his need to find Avatar is based entirely on her knowing his
real name, and therefore being a threat. Kali presses him and he lets slip that
he thinks of the Cabal as a step on his road, which hurts Kali's feelings. It
comes out that he and Avatar were only married for six months before she
vanished, and that they married only a month after meeting. They are
dubious, and he asks them if they've ever been in love. Damascus has, Kali
hasn't.
• Damascus attempts to lecture Wolsey on the fact that he's still married, and
therefore still subject to the vows he took.
• The Cabal now split up and go their separate ways for a few days.
• Damascus works on the Knife and getting it blessed.
• Wolsey goes back to the book the Juncture gave him. He decides the Two
Houses may be a metaphor for the Seers and the Pentacle orders, and elects
to get it checked out by someone who knows more of the Seers than he does.
• Wolsey goes to Visit Beckett, who examines the book and check it for signs
one of the houses might be a Ministry or Pylon. Beckett reveals that Kali was
visited by Seraph - Beckett felt the presence of the Urim when Seraph talked
to Kali (who was under Beckett's spell at the time) during 1.2
• Wolsey next goes to see BEDLAM, an Adamantine Arrow Mastigos who is
institutionalised. Bedlam identifies some of the variables in the Junctures'
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equations and says that in his opinion it describes two groups of the same
thing.
Kali - who has been facing a crisis of conscience ever since Wolsey gave her
a talking to, she had the run-in with Nimrod and Dantor mocked her - tells Ichi
to cease production of Crack, and to just stockpile what they've made so far.
The next morning she tells Ichi to get rid of the Crack any way he can, and
goes following the threads again. She heads the same way as before, ending
up outside her father's house, where she's met by Blaise. Blaise gives her
instruction on the interconnectedness of all things and - placing a Nickel on
the sidewalk - instructs her to determine who's life is most changed by that
coin.
Mara calls Wolsey and agrees that he can meet Avatar under her supervision.
Wolsey gathers the rest of the Cabal together. Kali by now has overthought
her task to the point that she's almost afraid to move, and is constantly
distracted.
Wolsey grills Kali about the fact that she was contacted by a Seer and didn't
say anything. Kali, still spaced, says that she didn't realise he was a Seer.
Arriving at Mara's, they meet Avatar - who mishears Kali's name as RANI.
Avatar, they learn, suffers from occasional false recognition, like she's already
met people before she has. She says that she's always felt like her life was
pre-ordained, and that she felt that when she first met Wolsey.
Wolsey - aghast that his life with her, including his own Awakening, might
have just been part of Avatar[s Mystery Play - excuses himself and leaves.
Kali confronts Mara, demanding to know who made the webs of fate Kali can
sense all around them. Mara interprets Kali's feeling that the world is not as it
should be - this is the first mention of this defining characteristic in the
chronicle - as being her conscience.
Outside, Kali complains that she can't make Avatar and Wolsey see that they
still love one another. Damascus counsels both her and Wolsey - who is
despondent after his revelation - that thinking too hard about the
consequences of an action should never lead to inaction. Wolsey goes home,
broken. Damascus tells Kali that no matter what she may think, she alters the
world: she doesn't create it.
Session 2.3
• Damascus, working on the dagger, is interrupted by his younger sister
MAREE who chides him about never visiting his family and tells him that his
brother RICKY has found a job. Damascus is unenthusiastic about Ricky's
chances.
• Wolsey takes money from a Senator from Colorado to split the man's
daughter up from the man she's run away with, on the basis that the young
man is poor and black. Wolsey does so by means of Emotional Urging and
veiled threats of force combined with allowing the youth to leave with the
money the couple took. He makes sure the girl isn't pregnant, then reports
back to the Senator
• Kali and Ichi are surveying the shut-down Crack Factory, a building on the
edge between her and Dantor's territories. They're trying to decide what to do
with all the equipment they now have - Ichi is plainly unhappy at stopping, but
trusts her enough to go with her on this one.
• Damascus heads to the Sanctum to find Wolsey already performing an
Oblation at the Hallow. Damascus wants to talk to Avatar - he's not even sure
why. Wolsey is feeling better now, but resists Damascus' attempts to get him
and Avatar back together.
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Kali decides to follow the thread again, but in the opposite direction (which,
although she only figures this out much later, means she is heading
metaphorically into her own future). It leads to a drug-den in an even worse
part of town, where Seraph is waiting for her - identifying this place as the
House of Stone from Wolsey's book. After partaking of Seraph's concoctions,
Kali and he talk about the nature of Fate - Kali believing that everything is
preordained and that she is destined to be the pedal being crushed but
driving the machine of the world onward. Seraph compares her to the Pythia
of Ancient Greece, and his own methods of divination as relying on drugging
people and listening to the Glossolalia - speaking in tongues - that results. He
finds out her first name (and as per 1.2 already knew her second) and they
have sex.
Wolsey and Damascus are told by Kali's gang that someone has appeared
claiming the right of crossing. This turns out to be a British mage named
GAWAIN, who has teleported to DC at random after being attacked. He begs
Hospitality to lick his wounds and rest, and they agree, phoning Kali to
summon a Doctor. Gawain uses a spell of unknown providence to "check"
them, and Wolsey wards the room he's staying in against scrying.
While the Doctor looks over Gawain's injuries, Kali lets slip that she has been
in "a stone house", which is enough for Wolsey. They learn she's been with a
Seer again and are aghast - she blames fate and predestination for it, which
they do not accept - pointing out that the destinies we're born with are given
to us by the Exarchs. Kali uses Time magic to remember sleeping with
Seraph and the others are even more angry, forcing her into Gawain's
shielded room
Wolsey asks Kali why she takes risks like this, and Kali explains that since
she awoke she's felt like she's not in the right life. The threads to her are
arrows pointing to her true self. Wolsey says this could have gotten her killed.
Kali admits that she doesn't know how to make Seraph stop intruding on her
life.
Gawain tells his story - he was part of a group of magical archaeologists.
Eight months ago he and his Cabal were attacked by a pair of unknown
mages, who have been chasing him ever since. He gets a week's rest while
warded, and then when his ward breaks they find out where he is and come
after him again. The Cabal note the artefact he's carrying with him but he
says it's from the last place his cabal dug up before he attack - and he found
it months before the attack.
Gawain and Kali, that night, get on well - he tells her stories of his adventures,
and shows her the artefact, a metal handbell without the clapper, inscribed
with runes. He tells her one story of a cunning set of mirrors loaded with
Forces spells that amplified light into lasers.
Wolsey gets a message from Mara saying that Avatar is doing much better.
Ulysses tells Damascus that the Spirit has escaped across the Gauntlet - it's
a Magath, a hybrid of a spirit of contemplation from the DC hierarchy and a
spirit of pain and suffering from the Washington one. Damascus, fearing that
it may be attracted to the resonance of the Cabal's node, has the Sanctum
searched by Promethea, a Perfected Adept named LINK and a Mysterium
Thyrsus named HEINRICH, but they declare it free of infestation.
Kali fails to find Blaise. Shaken by events of the last few days, Kali stays
watching her father's house too long, and a light comes on - did he see her?
Kali and Wolsey return to the House of Stone to see what is there, but find
that the place has been stripped.
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On their way back, Gawain teleports away from DC early - leaving them a
letter thanking them for their help and the artefact he showed Kali, along with
two lines of poetry
After much experimentation, they discover that the artefact alters Mage Sight
cast by the user, to reveal an additional layer of information keyed to
whichever Arcana is being perceived. This information appears to reveal the
presence of some kind of taint on some people - Kali and Damascus are both
tainted while Wolsey is not, and an old woman living across the street is while
Kali's gang aren't.
The poetry turns out - after a search on a Mysterium online Lorehouse - to be
from a poem about the Dethroned Queen, a legendary figure said to be an
Exarch cast out by her fellows back onto Earth. She left five items to guide
others into her footsteps - the bell, from the quotation, would be "THE RING
OF THE DETHRONED QUEEN" which "finds truth".
Wolsey suggests Gawain was being hunted because he saw something using
the Ring. Damascus suggests he was being hunted because he *had* the
Ring.
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"Not the Same Person"
Session 3.1
The title of Story Three is from a line by Wolsey towards the end of 3.1 that meets up with the themes of the rest of it - this
group of sessions are about the gang joining their legacies, an act which changes you a great deal - not as much as
Awakening does, but still not anything to be dismissed. You are, after all, deliberately altering your soul in the process. That's
all mixed up with Wolsey's firm belief that they are not the same people that they were before their Awakenings, which *itself*
is all mixed up with our first proper look at Kali's background.
An Alternate title, which was sadly said out of character and thus ineligible, is "The greatest trick the devil pulled". Which I'll
try to use later on in the Chronicle.
In the intervening time between stories, the Cabal have considered what to do with
the Ring of the Dethroned Queen. Also known as the Bell of Ultimate Evil (tm
Wolsey). Wolsey and Damascus both want to let Ulysses - as a much more
experienced Prime Mage - take a look at it, and after a few days of resisting the idea
Kali relents. After a bit of thought, Damascus opts for full disclosure, and tells
Ulysses everything.
If they were hoping to have Ulysses take it off their hands, they'll be disappointed he tells Damascus that he wants no truck with the thing, and that Damascus isn't to
bring it to the church again. Aside from Ulysses' instinctive interpretation of the thing
as a tool of the devil-Exarchs (Ulysses interprets the Exarchs and Oracles into his
Catholicism a little more directly than Damascus does), he is worried about the effect
the Ring will have on DC's mages should word of it's existence get out - artefacts
have a way in even the most understanding of Consilia of trickling up the power
structure, and if Malakaii were to hear of a device which shows how tainted a person
is he would surely use it to conduct a pogrom. Out of the best of intentions, but still:
this must never fall into his hands. Or Banneker's hands for that matter.
He *does* tell Damascus, though, that the artefact has more than one effect laid
down into it, distinguishable by Prime Mage Sight. The Ring, as well as casting it's
conditional spell to modify mage sight, is something similar to a Grimoire.
After a few days of resisting, Kali triggers this second effect and learns the "Ring
Sight" spell from the Ring.
I'm having fun showing little bits and pieces of how the various npcs interpret the Awakening backstory - Ulysses faith is the
counterpart to Mara's firm belief that Atlantis, the Oracles and the Exarchs are all just mental projections of humanity's
subconscious, and don't actually exist. Not everyone has to be cookie-cutter.
We breezed past this bit on the night, as I had an idea for an opening sequence that wasn't it. So I was denied the chance to
have someone say that they would use this Ring out of a desire to do good. Ahem.
Later.
It's Thursday the 29th of June, and the city is getting itself ready for the celebrations
of the forthcoming week. The crowds are swelled by patriotic tourists, the parts of the
city outside the diamond occasionally let off fireworks and the climate has turned the
sticky humid that comes before the mother of all thunderstorms.
In a hidden nook of the waterfront, shielded from sight by metal containers, Kali is sat
quietly and alone, watching the ships come into the Naval base across the river. The
city is especially full of the military this year for Independence Day, and Kali's finding
it hard to avoid men in uniform. Still not quite over her depression following her
encounter with the Seers of the Throne, the 4th July - and all the men in uniform have come at a particularly bad time. She associates them with... someone she used
to know.
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...
Damascus, meanwhile, is sat in an especially cheap diner. With him are Dantor,
Ulysses, Link, Cerberus and a Mage named "Shore" he hasn't met before. They have
tracked down the renegade spirit, and are about to go fix the problem. Cerberus'
briefing is most instructive for Damascus, who learns of the three stages of
possession by creatures of the Shadow World - emotional urging, direct control and
then physical mutation. Hopefully, it hasn't gotten to physical mutation yet. The Spirit,
seeking something in line with it's odd resonance of "peaceful contemplation of horror
and pain", has taken up residence in a Nurse at a nearby Cancer Hospice. Which
would seem to fit. The poor unfortunate hasn't left the building - the spirit wouldn't
want to leave the resonance of the area where it could feed - so has probably made
a nest somewhere on the premises.
"It's always the basement" - Damascus, who has seen too many horror movies.
Which is also an in-joke to my aborted Werewolf: The Forsaken chronicle. The possessed human / Host / whatever *always*
lurks in the basement.
...
Wolsey, meanwhile, is in a bar - and buying a round. Handing out drinks, his fellow
drinkers are revealed as Francine, Trace and a blond, square jawed fellow who turns
out to be Hoban. The Heralds of the city are catching up before the busy season.
Francine and Trace turned up in person in 1.2. Francine was also fielding Wolsey's attempts to find Samuel in 2.1. We
haven't met Hoban before now - he's a very Ivy-League sort who's the Consilium's Scribe.
Oh, and Wolsey drinks Cranberry juice. Just so you know. Though Mark protests that that was cause he was driving, rather
then any significance
News from the Consilium is "busy". Hoban has been back and forth between
Banneker and the Ascendants - who keep sending the Hierarch long missives on
where he's going wrong and ought to be going right, while Trace and the rest of
Malakaii's Cabal are rushed off their feet with the huge influx of people - and things
that are also people - into the city for the celebrations. The 4th July is not only the
City's Birthday (an event which apparently means the House of Ariadne are having a
sealed ceremony), but the reliable day that the Hallow on the Washington Monument
opens, sending a pulse of Mana rippling through the Hallows, Ley lines and
Junctures in a spreading wave. The council, as is the tradition in the city's consilium,
have picked one Obrimos to be the one who they get inside the pyramid on top of the
monument after first having exhausted all of their Mana, ready to absorb as much of
the Pulse as possible. The lucky person so feted this year is a member of Samuel's
cabal named Marian.
Marian being selected is a sign of Banneker's increasing wielding of real authority rather than being a lame duck Hierarch she's in his Legacy, and is the girlfriend of his own former apprentice. Neutral enough to not be argued about, obvious
enough a sign to Malakaii and Suleiman that Banneker is in charge here to suit. Besides, are they going to tell Samuel she
can't do it?
...
Still sat out on the waterfront, Kali looks down at the mobile in her hand, wondering
why she hasn't deleted that number yet.
...
Damascus and company have performed a little breaking and entering and are
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brandishing various weapons of an unlikely nature as they descend the stairs into the
basement. The air tastes like a battery on the tongue, and it's hot as hell down here.
As Link peers through the gloom, there's a cry from behind them as the nurse - wildeyed and crazed with possession - attacks them.
At which point Dantor punches her in the middle of the chest and she drops like a
stone, unconscious or dead.
Cerberus wipes his brow and begins the long process of exorcising the spirit.
Exorcism is an extended spell, and not something to be done in combat. Dantor, therefore, cast Suppress Other's Life to put
the victim into a coma for the duration.
...
Kali's finger hovers between "Call" and "Delete". The entry on her mobile clearly and
simply reads "Dad"
...
Wolsey, meanwhile, is checking up on some facts before he puts a plan into action.
Still worried about Kali, he's been intending to go to Beckett for advice on defending
her against the Seers, but has realised that he doesn't actually know anything
*about* the man, other than his enmity for Malakaii. So he asks his fellow Heralds.
The story isn't an encouraging one.
Beckett, as Wolsey is increasingly incredulous no one told him, is considered to be
Left-Handed. He tried to kill Malakaii by summoning an Acamoth - a spirit of the
Abyss - and installing it into a body he then left as a trap for Malakaii. The plan went
that when Malakaii tried to use his Attainment to modify memories on the Acamoth, it
would use the contact to kill him. Or eat his soul. Or both, Trace isn't quite sure.
"For God's sake, why?" - Wolsey
"The Abyss is the only thing he's sure isn't under the control of the Exarchs" - Trace
In any case, Beckett is technically living under a warrant for his arrest and trial for
conspiring with the Abyss against a fellow Mage and a member of his own Cabal.
The warrant was issued, but has never been carried out, and Beckett has never been
brought in because of a lack of will for the bloodshed that would result. Plus, it is
speculated, Beckett knows things about Malakaii and perhaps others he would be all
too happy to vocalise in a trial. So Beckett remains silent and lives under exile in
virtual house arrest, his trial and sentence deferred indefinitely.
Whoops. And he seemed *such* a nice man. Still, he still owes Kali a favour, Nefandi or not. Incidentally - this reaction to the
Left-Handed - the way that although everyone knows Beckett consorts with abyssal entities, they're all still very polite about
it, on the understanding that he'll kill anyone who tries to arrest him and they'll fireball him the instant he leaves his house.
Other than that, it's live and let live.
"Well... At least he's not a baby-eater. ARE there any Baby-Eaters I should worry
about?" - Wolsey
Well, there's the technically-Guardians Project Twilight, who've all but cut themselves
off from everyone else while they do.. whatever it is they do. There's Beckett. There's
the Seers... There's a Mastigos named Alexander who believes people learn by
adversity, so he spends his days as a lobbyist against anything that improves
people's lives and deliberately sabotages relationships between people Even other
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mages.
But no baby eaters that have been identified, no.
...
Back in the basement, the exorcism is complete and Damascus - using magic to see
into Twilight - watches as the mangled and misshapen spirit rises up out of the
comatose nurse, before being stabbed by Link with the Dagger Damascus made. it
explodes into shards of Essence, and the group divide up tasks. Cerberus will clean
up any offspring it may have been trying to create, Shore will cleanse the resonance
of the site, Dantor will check to see if it was prolonging the deaths of any of the
patients and put them right if it was, Ulysses will clear up any physical signs and
Damascus will phone Mara to get her over here to modify the mind of the poor
unfortunate who was possessed.
"Right then. I'll be off. And please remember me in future for all your future spiritstabbing needs" - Damascus
...
Kali hears a noise behind her and nearly drops her phone before fumbling it away.
"Kali" - Samuel
She's clearly not happy that the master found her here - she mutters that this is a
private place, and he apologises.
"A quiet place to think. I understand - could we talk somewhere else, then?" - Samuel
She thinks about it for a moment, then agrees.
Damascus, in search of a stiff drink, has just by coincidence entered the bar that the
other Heralds have recently left, leaving Wolsey deep in his thoughts. Wolsey's
rather concerned by the accidental running-into one another, but decides that it must
just be one of those things as Damascus relates the tale of victory. Or rather his own
standing by and watching as his handiwork is used to achieve victory, which
Damascus is taking to be the same thing.
...
Samuel asks Kali if she's figured out the answer to the Nickel problem she was
posed by Blaise, and she has. After a brainwave, she used Postcognition and found
out where Blaise got the thing from - it was put in his busker's hat by a tourist, who
Blaise then blessed with Fate magics to have an especially auspicious few days. So
the person most affected by the Nickel was that man.
Samuel seems satisfied by that, and on the walk explains that he's been worried
about her - word has reached him that she's been having trouble and he's been to
see Blaise, who in Samuel's opinion isn't doing too great a job with her. The slow and
steady path to developing a Mage is all very well, but not when she's having the
trouble Kali is.
Besides which, there's a big party for the house on the 4th, and Samuel wants he
inducted by then. So he's taking over her training for the next couple of days. She
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should tell her friends that she's going to be busy, and he'll pick her up tomorrow.
He's got a few errands to fulfil over the coming week, but he'll turn them into
instructive demonstrations and field exercises for her, and in the end it runs
something like Friday 30th applying themselves once and for all to the questions Kali
wanted to join the Legacy to get answers to, Saturday 1st A Field trip to 1953,
Sunday 2nd practice for her initiation test, Monday 3rd her actual initiation test. Easy.
Agreeing (though a little apprehensive), Kali takes her leave and ducks into the
nearest bar.
What are the chances?
After his bout of paranoia at the three of them coincidentally meeting, Wolsey brings
up what he learned about Beckett. In a roundabout way.
"Philosophical Question. Is it morally justifiable to take out a Seer by using the power
of the Abyss?" - Wolsey
Kali says yes, Damascus says no, but Kali changes her mind when it's explained to
her what Wolsey's talking about. In fact, she becomes convinced that Wolsey is
intending to summon a demon to kill Seraph, and spends a lot of time trying to argue
him out of doing something he wasn't going to do.
Once that's sorted out, though, and they have a bit of conversation comparing the
use of such things to guns (Kali) and grenades (Wolsey), Wolsey becomes
concerned that Kali is arguing not from the standpoint of "Abyss bad" but from the
standpoint of "Killing Seers bad".
Kali points out that they don't actually know what the Seers want, and that they
haven't been hurt by them. How bad can they really be?
"You're not from Massachusetts are you?" - Wolsey
"You're starting to sound like John Bloody Kerry" - Damascus
Of course, the irony here is that Wolsey is from Massachusetts.
Kali protests that, saying that there's a lot they don't know - after all, the Seers could
be *right* for all they know. That does not go down well.
"How can you be like this? You know the secrets of the universe" - Wolsey
"No I don't" - kali
While Damascus declares that if they're going down this route he needs a beer (and
beer is summoned), Wolsey puts forth his view of the Seers as cosmic chumps
"They're serving people who don't need their help" - Wolsey
Kali protests that they don't understand the Seers.
"I find the way you're thinking disturbing" - Wolsey
"I'm playing Devil's Advocate" - kali
"You're not the Promotor Fidei" - Damascus
"Well, don't. Don't try to understand them" - Wolsey
"I'm just saying - have you considered that their point of view is different?" - Kali
"I don't care. If you're doing *that* because you think it's the right thing, you're still a
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shmuck" - Wolsey
"Somewhere, Wolsey, there is the Judge who knows right from wrong. We are not
Him" - Damascus
Wolsey thinks about that, and decides that it's a fight he's not willing to have right
now - he'll have *this* battle when Kali's on his side and it's two against one.
Wolsey is of the opinion that religion is the tool of the Exarch. And furthermore, if you believe in God you at worst believe
what they want you too, and at worst you’re directly worshiping one. Yep, Wolsey reckons God’s an Exarch. Family and
Religion are two problems that Wolsey reckons Damascus has.
"We... have drifted so ...far. Kali, you're talking dangerously" - Wolsey
"And you're just being a Nazi" - kali
Godwin! The argument is over!
"Just.. Stop Asking about them. You're too curious" - Wolsey
"I just want to know about them to know how to fight them better" - Kali
"Well don't. Leave the Exarch dealing with to me. For now, keep your pretty little
head out of it." - Wolsey
Yeurg. Kali's expression here, portrayed through Sam's, spoke volumes. Oh, Wolsey...
"... ... Do you realise how much of a stick you sound like you have up your ass?" Damascus
"Can I remove it?" - Kali
Wolsey tries to regroup from the sexist slip, trying to make her see how much of a
target she's made of herself for them already.
"You have too much of an open mind to be dealing with the enemy" - Wolsey
"Look. I told you already that I'll shoot him the next time he appears" - Kali
"You might have just said that to make me happy" - Wolsey
"... ... Think I'm interested in making you happy?" - Kali
Damascus, now fuelled with enough beer to try to be the voice of reason here, points
out that the war is a cold one for a reason - Pylons and Cabals don't tend to go
around blowing one another up because it's bad for business.
It's like gang escalation, he says. If people are on your turf, then you don't
immediately shoot them. You catch one of the slower ones and work him over a bit,
or send him home covered in painted tags.
"You release the tension through little things, rather than one big battle that kills
everyone" - Damascus
"You've read Romeo and Juliet. Like that with a less good ending" - Kali
"You've read Romeo and Juliet?" - Wolsey
"Yeah. And?" - Kali
And Wolsey decides to quit while he's ahead. He's raised his fears, but Kali is in a
mood to be belligerent.
The Cabal's plans are discussed - Kali tells them that she's going to be with Samuel
for the next few days, and Wolsey says that Francine mentioned something about it
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earlier. Kali wants the Cabal to have at least some time together on the 4th,
assuming the world doesn't end or anything, which the other two seem to agree to.
And with Kali off on an intensive training course with the House of Ariadne, it's
maybe time for the other two to start thinking about their own ambitions of joining
legacies too. Wolsey has made his decision already, and asked Trace to try to
arrange a meeting between himself and Malakaii. Damascus considers that now post-exams, during the holiday - is probably the best time to find John Dee with any
spare hours in his day. John is in Samuel's Cabal, so he asks Kali to ask Samuel to
contact John on his behalf when she gets picked up tomorrow. She is to tattoo the
reminder on her hand if necessary, but she says she'll remember.
And that's that.
This next bit took the bulk of the session - three pretty involved sequences of the characters and their Legacy tutors, or not
as one case will turn out. Although it was pretty unavoidable, I hate doing this sort of splitting of the party for the bulk of a
session (there were one or two Deliria sessions in particular, that I still shudder about - the gory details are in that other
thread).
We begin with Kali, with a look at the issues that have been bubbling under for a while now. What's that?! Smells like...
background!
When Samuel said he'd pick Kali up, she wasn't expecting him to do it in a Green 60s
Volkswagen Beetle. Remembering the night before, she tells him about Damascus'
search for the elusive alchemist, and Samuel busies himself for a few minutes calling
John, before opening the car door for Kali.
"Where are we going?" - Kali
"To my Time Machine" - Samuel
"There's an actual Time Machine?" - Kali
"Oh yes. You should see what this baby does when she hits 88 miles per hour" Samuel, patting the dash affectionately.
There's never a reason to not have a Back to the Future joke
Samuel goes into a long, rambling speech about the House of Ariadne, and what
Ariadne's web actually is - how the knock-on chains of sympathy and contagion
cause the threads that the House sense, and how they collectively make up the soul
of the City. The threads can show you why something happened, and even what is
likely to happen, but not for certain. Everyone living causes changes to the web,
pulling it this way and that - Mages especially.
"Always in motion, the future is" - Samuel, in a Yoda voice.
Predictions are never certain, is his point, and it is the nature of Fate to evolve and
change. That's where she's maybe going wrong - thinking that the future is fixed.
"Now, was what you wanted to learn from the City in the future?" - Samuel
She says not - rather the opposite. He encouragingly says that the past is much more
fixed, and if there are answers to be had they will have them today, so that she can
then decide if she wants to go on with the House or not.
They arrive at what appears to be a decommissioned TV transmitter station on a hill,
somewhere on the Maryland side of the Diamond. Samuel proudly introduces it as
his Time Machine, and he doesn't seem to be kidding this time.
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"So what are you looking for?" - Samuel
Inside the building, Kali feels strange, and oddly familiar. Time seems to contract and
jump as they walk through the corridors, a feeling like she hasn't experienced since
her Awakening.
Samuel explains that the place is a Demesne, tuned by a piece of his soul into
Arcadia to make his Work easier. Along with certain other factors, it makes up an aid
to his time travelling, hence Time Machine.
It took this session to convince me of my initial design placing him in the Free Council.
They reach the tower itself, and start to climb the ladder. Kali explains that she feels has felt, ever since she awakened - like she's missing out on another life, as though
her destiny was stolen from her at some point, and the past she remembers was
fake.
They reach a point high up above ground level - in the centre of the Hallow. An eggshaped room, padded on the lower half for reclining, is reached through a small
hatch. The upper surface of the ovoid is covered in complex High Speech and
ideograms like circuit patterns, and the place is lit by a Lava Lamp glooping merrily to
itself in the centre.
"This is my meditation chamber. Where we'll go on the voyage. Now - about these
feelings of disconnection. Are you certain they are not caused by your Awakening?" Samuel
Kali says that she felt it before she Awoke, and that she had a proper mentally-inArcadia Awakening, not a mystery play. The disconnection was there before she
awoke. In fact, it was probably why she awoke.
"I feel different. I.. *feel* it. I don't know what it is" - Kali
"The passage of time makes everyone feel a little like that. We don't notice, normally,
as it's so slow and human memory cheats. But it's easy enough to see for ourselves we can go back to before, and compare how you felt then to now" - Samuel
Kali's okay with that. nothing she hasn't done before. What IS slightly disconcerting is
Samuel casting a spell and speaking first into her mind from a point between her
ears, and then shifting so that it sounds like he's speaking from just behind her.
When he clearly isn't.
"We're linked, and all set. Do you want to drive?" - Samuel
Cue Postcognition.
They're inside a house, exaggerated-large from childhood and well-kept. Kemi, aged
12, sits reading a bad fantasy novel involving unicorns while Kali and the
disembodied Samuel look on. At the other end of the room, exaggerated large from
the perspective of Kemi the girl, sits the man Kali's been running from the thought of
for four years.
Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Simone. Her father.
The mother is never mentioned. Kevin, incidentally, is named after someone Sam had to deal with at work. Apparently.
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Kali murmurs down their telepathic link that she had no idea - she knew it would be
different, but.. she can feel the traces of her childhood self's regard for her/their dad,
and they're stronger than she thought possible. Whatever changed in her was more
of a wrench than she realised. Samuel answers that they could try looking later, and
Kali cancels the spell, then recasts it, this time aiming for the age of sixteen.
The feelings have changed, but not so much as to be noticeable - just the reactions
of a teenager rather than a child. But in the slightly older Kemi, Kali can detect the
faint tinges of whatever it is - the feeling that not all is right with her world, that her
dad isn't telling her something.
Back to the present.
"So what happened? Before you Awoke?" - Samuel
"I..." - Kali
Kali casts Postcognition again.
Four years ago, Kemi accuses her father of lying to her her whole life. Kali and
Samuel watch as Kemi shouts that she knows the truth - that she's adopted. Her
father, hurt and shocked, doesn't deny it. Tears streaming down her face, Kemi
storms off out of the house.
"That was the last time I saw him. Silhouettes in curtains aside" - Kali
"I understand now. Your worldview was shattered." - Samuel
And then she Awoke, while wandering, penniless and hurting. While in Arcadia, Kemi
saw half-glimpsed images of a child dressed in rags in some hot country. She put two
and two together with her father's old posting to Kashmir and figured it out: he took
her in, brought her to the US, maybe even claimed she was his daughter.
"Why do you hate him?" - Samuel
"He stole my life. My destiny. What I should have done, when I was there." - Kali
"I said to you before: Fate changes. The future changes, in line with people's actions.
What he did - if he even did it - hasn't overridden anything." - Samuel
"Why do I feel like this?" - Kali
"He didn't deny it. That's true. But he didn't confirm it either. You don't know for sure,
and maybe that's what's nagging at you. There's one way for sure of finding out." Samuel
Kali is hesitant - she's shied away from doing this, ever since she learned enough
Time to technically be able to. Part of her doesn't want to know.
She attempts to cast Postcognition again, looking for herself as a baby. And fails.
"Nothing" - Kali
"Would you like me to drive?" - Samuel
(deep breath) "Go ahead" - Kali
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"All right. What's your name, Kali?" - Samuel
"Kemi. Kemi Simone" - Kali
Deliberately the same line Seraph used
Samuel casts... and fails.
"Hmmm" - Samuel
Kali gives a broken half-shrug, sort of a "oh, well", but Samuel isn't about to give up
that easily.
"There is another way about this. These feelings, they're in your mind. Somewhere,
in your subconscious, you knew the truth. That's why your suspicion grew, why you
had that argument with him. This is a thing within your mind... So we should look
inside your mind." - Samuel
Samuel begins to explain Astral Space to her.
The astute would notice something. If she WAS adopted, then it's likely her real name isn't in fact Kemi. Unless she was
*very* young.
....
And from that long-overdue exploration of a character's backstory, we head to an extremely tense conversation. So tense, in
fact, that I didn't capture any dialogue for it at all, so it will be briefly recounted here.
Trace has come up with the goods, and so Wolsey heads for the French Embassy,
outside which Malakaii is lurking. Wolsey notes that this is the first time he's ever
seen Malakaii *waiting* - he normally erases the memory of his comings and goings.
They greet one another in the manner of cold war spies.
"Why do you want to join my legacy?" - Malakaii
Excellent question.
Wolsey decides, in the face of the man who can probably tell if he's lying anyway, to
tell the whole truth. He outright says that he wants to learn Malakaii's powers so that
he can use them to lower the disbelief of the people he works with in his cults, in
order to Awaken more people.
Malakaii, for his part, is vaguely horrified at the idea, and asks how he's supposed to
agree to that.
Wolsey says that with the Guardian's focus on protecting magic they don't have time
to devote to the potential recruitment of making more mages, and acknowledges that
that does go against the purpose of the Labyrinth. Malakaii says that the Labyrinth is
there for a reason - to trap the unworthy and simultaneously give the worthy a route
by which they *can* Awaken. Like, for example, Wolsey himself. Wolsey repeats his
belief that the Guardians miss people that he could find, and Malakaii repeats that
the safeguards are there for a reason.
They break down into a brief conversation about the Silver Ladder vs. the Guardians
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of the Veil. Wolsey confesses that he doesn't really know what the Guardians stand
for, and Malakaii gives a speech about sacrifice for the greater good, and protecting
magic from the sleepers. Wolsey asks why magic needs to be protected from the
sleepers, and Malakaii states his Order's belief - every paradox causes the Abyss to
widen, so every sleeper that witnesses magic harms the supernal. Wolsey concedes
that, but points out that the technique he wants to learn lowers Disbelief, so mitigates
that. Wolsey’s argument is that disbelief causes paradox. So if you lower it, you can
show magic to sleepers safely.
Well, actually, it doesn't. Disbelief has nothing to do with when a Paradox occurs - Sleepers instinctively countermagic spells
with their disbelief, but Vulgar magic is still vulgar.
Wolsey takes issue with the idea that only a handful of people deserve to make it out
of the Labyrinth, and Malakaii launches into describing it in terms of efficiency - the
Labyrinth IS a trap, to allow the unworthy or unsuitable to expend their energies and
desire for secrets harmlessly. The worthy advance anyway, and are picked up by
Guardians trained in spotting such people.
Malakaii then admits something - that he "created" the Legacy out of a need for such
elegant efficiency in the Guardian's *other* line of work. He asks Wolsey, rhetorically,
how many people the Guardians have executed, or placed under Geas, or branded,
or even reprimanded, within the city in the last few years. Wolsey doesn't answer,
and Malakaii triumphantly says that the answer is none.
Because everyone assumes Malakaii will find out about anything they do, they all
behave by and large. All Malakaii has to do is wipe a few random seconds from
memories and rewrite a few conversations that weren't significant anyway, and he
has the city in such a paranoid mess that they fall into line. Efficiency.
Ha!
Wolsey claims that recruitment is not the Guardian's first priority, and so he would
inherently do a better job, which claim Malakaii finds insulting.
Mark: Wolsey’s argument was purely on the fact that Malakaii, and the guardians, can’t do everything. It would be more
efficient to let someone else do it, for whom it was a higher priority. And yeah, there is a little of the fact that the side effects
of Malakaii’s technique are what Wolsey sees as the more profound. How much better would they be if they were the
primary?
Malakaii points out that the Guardians and their Labyrinth are responsible for more
than half of Awakenings, more than any other Order, but that they are the smallest
Order - because despite what Wolsey may think, when they say "suitable" they do
not mean "for the Guardians and only the Guardians". The trap of the Labyrinth is for
people that for the good of all should not be given the powers of the Supernal, not for
people who disagree with Malakaii. Otherwise Wolsey would never have made it out
of the Boston Labyrinth.
Mark: This was where Wolsey tuned out. He accepts these as probably true, but beside the point. He’s never accused The
GotV of being selfish of awakenings. As far as he was concerned, Malakaii was going off on a tangent here.
The wider issue is that Wolsey thinks the GotV are whiny. They do bad things that are necessary, but seem to have some
guilt complex that compels them to do other things to make up for it. As far as Wolsey’s concerned, the bad things that they
do are worth it just by themselves.
Of course, if I’d been on the ball, I’d have taken his argument one step further. If the Malakaii can let him awaken, why can’t
he let him have the gift of the legacy on the same ground.
Wolsey sticks to his guns, and eventually forces Malakaii to admit that there IS in fact
a Guardian who's sole job it is to watch the Labyrinth for potential Awakenings and
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shepherd people up when he finds them. Wolsey asks who it is, and Malakaii bluntly
refuses to tell him.
Wolsey doesn’t believe him. He believes that GotV do do this generally, but he didn’t believe Malakaii has one in the city.
Cause he doesn’t reckon there’s anyone spare.
Though thinking on this, he might try to find them.
The meeting ends. Wolsey refuses to believe that the Veil does more good than
harm - they do a lot of good, but a lot of harm - but asks that he be allowed to
remember this conversation. Malakaii - rattled beyond reason - says that he just
doesn't trust Wolsey to not Awaken a horde of Banishers or Seers, which mildly
insults Wolsey. Malakai says that he has devoted his life to building a model of
efficiency such that he and his Guardians do not have to have the sin of dealing more
directly with transgressors weighing on the souls - even though the means of doing
so mean that Malakaii is hated by everyone. But if Wolsey achieved his aims, then
Malakaii *would* have to start killing people. And that's not something he's willing to
do.
Wolsey is refused membership in the Legacy.
He thanks Malakaii for the time, and leaves to have a think about what he's going to
do now.
More on this in later sessions - especially what this means for Banneker's master plan, which is now looking more than
slightly shaky.
...
Damascus, having received Samuel's message earlier in the day, is exploring the
corridors of Georgetown University's Chemistry Department, looking for a particular
office. Finally locating the correct room, he knocks and enters to find an elderly
British man with grey shaggy hair and a deeply wrinkled face irritably marking exam
papers. "Irritably", Damascus will learn, is Dr John Dee's standard operating
procedure.
"You're the one Cerberus was talking about" - John
"I am, yes" - Damascus
"What do you know about Alchemy?" - John
Damascus apologises that his education has holes in it, and starts in on an
explanation (straight from Wikipedia) about how it's commonly held to be about the
transformation of lead in...
"Zzzz. Spare me 'Commonly Held'. What do YOU know about Alchemy? *FAIL*." John, marking an exam with a big fat F
"Pretty much the same. Only I'm the lead" - Damascus
"Better. Why do you want to join my Legacy?" - John
"I have, in my life, done certain things for which I feel guilty..." - Damascus
"Oh for fuck's sake. Don't whine to me about your guilt. Guilt is useless. 'Oh woe is
me, I must be hated by all for my position'" (mimicking Malakaii) "If you didn't know
something was wrong when you did it, but later found out it was, then you shouldn't
do it again. If you know something is wrong but choose to do it anyway, you're
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making a conscious decision. Anything else is a lack of conviction, or worse still knowing what needs to be done but whining about it all the way." - John
Damascus processes that.
"For most of my life I was a.. what's the word? Something that feeds of something
else and doesn't give anything back?" - Damascus
"A Parasite" - John
"A Parasite. I.. have changed, through my Art. I think that it helps me and, if I may
say so, it helps others - if some kid can see what I do and be inspired, then it's worth
it" - Damascus, a *tad* self-importantly
"I'm sure they do that all the time" - John, dryly
"I came here because I was recommended to listen to you, to learn what you did.
Why don't you tell me about your Legacy?" - Damascus
John, relishing a chance to lecture, gives a summation of the Legacy - internal
changes, his theory goes, lead to changes to their environment, so by deliberately
changing their environment and studying how they do, the legacy can effect internal
changes according to their desires. They are "Uncrowned kings" because they are
the masters of their own selves, not for any other reason.
"It's hard work. Bloody hard work. We're not flashy, we're not popular. We can't
rewrite people's minds, and we can't do funky things with ley lines. This Legacy is
about how your toil changes you, not about pulling Goth chicks at the Consilium." John
Damascus sits back
"I'm sold. If you'll have me" - Damascus
John looks him up and down.
"Done. We'll meet up tomorrow and perform the necessary rituals. And now,
youngster, your first lesson in Hard Work. You didn't know the word Parasite for
fuck's sake. Did you even finish High School?" - John
"I have a GED" - Damascus
"Not good enough. It's June, nearly July. First Semester starts in September. You will
be a Freshman at one of the colleges in the city when it starts. You will not us magic,
nor social influences. You'll apply, sit the entrance exams, and you'll pass. I don't
care *how* late you stay up revising - you, sir, are getting an education" - John
Damascus, sensing a lot of cram sessions in his future, agrees.
Back to Kali, now, and Astral Space. If ever there was a scene which hinted at the future of the chronicle, by the way, this is
it.
I really like the Astral Realms as presented in Awakening and it's supplements, by the way. All the possibilities of the Umbra
from the oWoD without ever forgetting that what you're experiencing is not strictly physical. The Abyss and the Supernal
Realms are inside all of us, more states of the soul's being than physical places.
Samuel has talked Kali through the various levels of Astral Space - from the world of
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waking consciousness, through cogent dreaming and meditation, through the Astral
barrier into the world of one's own Soul in the Oneiros, into the soul of humanity in
the Temenos and then the soul of the world in the Dreamtime.
"And beyond that, the Abyss. And then, lost on it's far side, the Supernal Realms" Samuel
Kali expresses her hope that they won't go quite that far, and Samuel says the Abyss
is very hard to reach deliberately for the Awakened - they should be fine. Throwing a
switch that turns the lavalamp from red to green, he tells her to close her eyes and
begins talking her through the meditation necessary, aiming for the Temenos.
It is a long, slow and difficult process. Kali's never done this before, and Samuel's
pushing her quite hard. After a couple of hours, though, she feels her consciousness
expanding inwards and the Astral Barrier break, and opens her eyes to find herself
within the Temenos.
The Astral DC has a sky of Stars and Stripes, burning in places. The buildings loom,
rising and falling like ships as they jostle to bock one's view from the burning
wasteland behind them - the "two cities" extending even to the soul of humanity. Halfformed, blurry people run around her, effortlessly crossing the surface of reflecting
pools like quicksilver.
Samuel is nowhere to be seen.
He overshot - accumulating too many successes, and ending up in the Dreamtime.
Considering her actions carefully, not sure of what she should be doing, she
concentrates on finding a familiar place and starts walking in the direction that, if this
were the real world, would be towards home.
What she finds, when she gets there, isn't entirely encouraging. The ceiling of her
warehouse stretches up impossibly tall, the stairs to her bedroom have been
represented by a spiral iron staircase twisting up and up and up, and above her,
hanging from the ceiling, there's.. something. Something dark, with the distinct edge
of webbiness about it, and the feeling that she's being observed by something within
it.
At which point the cracked stone floor says "Eid" in the voice of a dozen choirboys,
and Samuel is disgorged with a smell of ancient dust.
"Sorry. Overshot." - Samuel, looking around.
Samuel says that this is what the City looks like to the people within it, deep down
inside their souls where they can't fool themselves. The Temenos, he says, should
be thought of as a sort of average of all the thoughts people have about the city.
"So this.. *this* is what people think of me?" - Kali
"Some people, yes." - Samuel
This isn't the point of their journey, he points out, only an educational side trip. If
she's going to spend her life serving the soul of the city, she may as well see what at
least one version of it looks like. Their goal lies both deeper in some ways and
shallower in others - certainly more personal, into her own personal mindscape, but
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actually closer to waking reality.
"Just concentrate. I'll help you. Some of this around is you - you contribute your own
opinions and stereotypes to this mishmash all around us. Focus on those. Find
something that is definitely yours, and concentrate on it, tuning out the influences of
other minds. We're going up, now, filtering out just your own projected scenes..." Samuel
They successfully shift into Kali's Oneiros, and the scene around them dissolves into
a half-glimpsed confusion of broken imagery and memories playing out within one
another, shifting around like half-remembered dreams. The private thoughts of her
inner mind and soul, projected all around them.
"There will be Guardians - elements of your own psyche that don't want you to learn
what you seek. I can help, but I can't fight them for you." - Samuel
"I understand. I want to find my father" - Kali
"There are probably several of him" - Samuel
They begin their search, and quickly run into a scene from an exaggerated child's
perspective - her father as seen from the very young Kemi's viewpoint.
"The Patrician character. Noble, truthful, powerful and protective. If you were a boy it
would probably be Jesus or Optimus Prime" - Samuel
"Another" - Kali
The next Father Figure they find is dressed in combat gear, brandishing a rifle like a
spear, guarding a rope bridge across a chasm. On the far side screams a horde of
Raksha, but her father has his back to them.
Kali, noting that her subconscious seems to have come up with the goods, observes
the Raksha, but something's wrong - they're not moving right, not entirely..
convincing. As she watches, the optical illusion resolves itself and she realises that
the demonic "Raksha" are flat, two dimensional - they're shadow puppets put up on
the far side of the chasm.
"They're fake. The enemy he's protecting you from is fake" - Samuel
"Maybe it represents what he was keeping from me" - Kali
They try another, and this one seems to be much more in line with what she was
expecting. The front room of her childhood home, her father sat in a chair blocking
the front door, which is slightly ajar. From the tiny gap visible in it, and the shafts of
light and half-muffled sounds coming from the heavily draped windows, whatever is
outside isn't the leafy DC suburb she grew up in. Smells wafting from the door hint at
strange and wonderful things to be found outside.
She takes a step forward, and the Father-figure's eyes snap open.
"No" - Father
"This would be one of those Guardian" - Samuel
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Kali nods and walks forward again, and the father-guardian stands up, looming
impossibly tall above them.
Kali tries to duck past him, and the Guardian grabs her in the crook of an elbow,
lifting her off the ground easily, before freezing solid.
Samuel has cast Stop Time
"You don't have long!" - Samuel
She struggles, and manages to slip back down to the floor just as the Guardian
reanimates. Kali lunges for the doorjamb just as the Guardian turns and reaches
down again. It grabs her legs and pulls her away from the door, just as her fingers
manage to hook around the doorjamb.
The door is pulled open, and the Guardian vanishes - forgotten and left behind - as
Kali's perceptions accelerate forward, scenery opening up around her like an opening
flower.
In a field of yellow flowers, Seraph (and although she's never seen this body before,
she knows it's Seraph) lies dismembered. Trampling on it, feet moving in an
elaborate dance, is Kali herself, dressed in a sari topped with a short cloak with three
metal plates sewn on and a grey gauze wrapped around her eyes like a blindfold.
She's poking her tongue out, as she dances backwards.
"That's me. Me now, I mean" - Kali
"Seraph..?" - Samuel
Before she can ask him, Samuel prods the scenery, which vibrates with concentric
ripples
"I thought so." (apologetic expression, which makes Kali's face fall) "Kali.. This isn't
what was beyond the door. It's as fake as those demons." - Samuel
"This isn't the secret?" - Kali
"You didn't beat the Guardian. He caught you. This is what your mind has covered up
what it really knows with" - Samuel
They concentrate, and bring themselves back to waking reality, Kali blinking and
stretching after hours spent immobile.
"I didn't learn what he was keeping from me" - Kali
"No. But we can try again, another time. Or you can yourself - you know how to reach
the Oneiros now" - Samuel
Kali nods, and smiles in thanks
"Enough answers for today. I don't think the questions will ever run out" - Kali
"Enough for today full stop - it's dark. I'll take you home, and tomorrow we'll visit
1953" - Samuel
Kali muses that maybe there isn't anything. Maybe this IS just all teenage feelings of
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not belonging mixed up with her Awakening. Maybe there wasn't a life stolen.
And then Samuel, rather shamefaced, tells her something important.
What? You'll find out in a bit. Shameless whore that I am, I'm keeping it in stead for the point at the end of the session when
Kali tells the others, even though Samuel actually told her here. Reads better this way.
...
This bit played out while the above was going on, so I wasn't listening to it properly.
Damascus and Wolsey, fresh from their own interviews, have somehow wound up in
the same (but different) bar again, Wolsey by now too tired to properly get worried by
it. They swap progress;
"You've been to university, right?" - Damascus
While Damascus asks for Wolsey's advice on how to get into college, Wolsey goes
through his own failure in his mind, the slight sympathy he had for Malakaii's position
vanishing in the slew of bitterness. Where before he was willing to concede that he
would have to make some limits on his plans to Awaken people, now he's of the
opinion that he's had enough of tiptoeing around the Guardians. Damascus asks him
if he's spoken to Avatar lately, and seems slightly concerned when Wolsey says that
he hasn't. Damascus voices again his intention to spend time with her, which Wolsey
gives an utterly disinterested reaction to. He's more interested in something he's
been thinking about for a while now, bubbling under but released with the thoughts of
cults and secret societies.
"The Houses that the Juncture spoke of. We know from Kali that the House of Stone
is the Seers, and I thought the House of Steel might be us. But now I don't think they
are. I think they're another.. what do they call them? Pylon?" - Wolsey
"Pylon" - Damascus
"Right. I think it's the Seers infighting. On my turf." - Wolsey
Kali appears, sitting down next to them wearily.
"How did you find us?" - Wolsey, paranoid
"Magic. Duh." - Kali
Wolsey 'oh's and goes back to the conversation, talking about his options now that
Malakaii has turned him down. If he's to continue with his plan, then he needs some
way to prevent Malakaii from intruding on it - and especially some way to prevent
Malakaii from editing his memories.
"Banneker must have some way of protecting himself. I could ask him. 'Excuse me
Mr Banneker, how do you stop the nasty man from raping me? My Ass hurts'" Wolsey
The others ask what caused the derailment, and Wolsey casts it as a conflict
between the Guardians and the Silver Ladder - that the Guardians want to prevent
people from Awakening, while the Ladder (especially Wolsey) want the reverse.
It's not quite that simple, but Wolsey is bitter and has a few beers in him
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Damascus tries to counsel that maybe Wolsey's plan wasn't all that hot to begin with
- he doesn't seem to have thought it through much.
"What was that you say about contemplation of action not leading to inaction?" Wolsey
"I'm never going to live that quote down, am I? - Damascus
"No" - Wolsey
Wolsey says that he's thought it through fine. Every soul awakened is another one
saved from the Exarchs, from the lie. That the Guardians want to keep some people
there is unforgivable.
"I want everyone to have the chance to see the real world, to be free" - Wolsey
Damascus and Kali try to argue that some people shouldn't be Awoken. Kali brings
up the seers, asking how Wolsey knows that the people he wakes up won't join the
opposition. Wolsey shrugs it off, claiming that no-one given an informed choice could
possibly choose the Seers over the Pentacle. He asks rhetorically if they've heard of
anyone ever going over to their side.
Actually, as a couple of people have obliquely mentioned, Seraph is a turncoat.
Damascus uses the example of a particularly fiery preacher they passed outside to
ask if everyone is suitable. Wolsey says that people will change.
"You can't deny you're not the same person" - Wolsey
"I wish I couldn't" - Damascus
Kali, quiet in the background, silently agrees with the Moros
"I think.. I think you're going to bend and snap people's minds. Look at Virgil" Damascus
"I'm not trying to make people happy. I'm trying to show them the truth" - Wolsey
Damascus blinks
Whoa, there.
Kali, faced with Wolsey saying that his purpose is offering people a choice, brings up
her drug-dealing ways which he has criticised in the past. She admits that that
mission got sidetracked, but that she's stopped the Crack being produced and is
focusing on less forcibly addictive outlets for people Sometimes, giving people a
choice IS too far, and he helped her see that. Wolsey, though, waves it off, saying
that they're not parallel situations at all.
Harsh, this. She gave IN to his earlier ranting, and now he's taken over her former position.
"Don't say you're giving them a choice. What you're talking about is ripping their
blinders off" - Damascus
Wolsey swigs his beer and says that this is all hypothetical anyways - a long way off
if at all. A maybe unattainable goal.
"Do you know what those big things are made up of? What does a ladder gave?" -
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Kali
"Oh, no. Don't give me that" - Wolsey
Kali stops.
"The problem with me is I have ambition" - Wolsey
"Really? I thought you were a meek unassuming guy" - Damascus
Wolsey elaborates. His flaw, he says, was admitting his dream to Malakaii. If he had
compromised, said he'd follow Guardian recruiting practices, he'd have probably got
into the Legacy. But he felt he had to be honest about his ambitions, no matter how
lofty.
And on that note, they've hit impasse.
"We shall see what morning's light brings, and what insights can be gleaned from the
hangover" - Wolsey
In an effort to get off the conversational impasse, Damascus and Wolsey ask Kali
how *her* day went...
...
Flash back to the time machine, as Kali and Samuel are leaving.
"You're not imagining this, Kali. You can feel there's something wrong in your life, but
can't find any proof of it. Even inside your own dream realm it's locked away. You
don't have any special Destiny, nor any curses laid on your Fate. I've checked. Your
father issues, much as they pain you, are entirely ordinary - but there's something
*else*." - Samuel
Samuel says he believes that she can tell there's something missing, but not be able
to see what it is. He says that he told her before, about how people, and especially
mages and other supernaturals, move the threads of Ariadne all the time.
"For a while now, I have seen threads moving without cause - or without *seen*
cause. Shifted by the actions of something that isn't there, like corks bobbing in
rippling water that I can't see. Sometimes - just sometimes - when I come back from
the past, I can... I can *tell* that I learned something. I have a great sense of urgency,
like I've found out something crucial. But I can never remember what it is. There's
something missing, Kali. Another spider in Ariadne's web. So I believe you." - Samuel
...
Back in the bar
"He said.. He said that he cast a prophecy, to find out how he would discover what
this thing was. It said that *I* would lead him to the answer." - Kali
"And.. 1953, I would guess, is one of these places from which he returns changed?" Wolsey
"That would be my guess" - Kali
Fun. And foreboding.
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Fin.
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Session 3.2
Session 3.2 covers two full days in the lives of our characters, during which no one gets much sleep. The characters realise
that one cannot simply take time out of the world to work on one’s Legacies and expect the world to stay still around them –
things have been happening while they’ve been wrapped up in their own concerns, and they can see the half-glimpsed
shapes of larger concerns.
And a last note before we start, as I realise that I haven’t mentioned another element to the chronicle: soundtracks. I have an
extensive collection of movie soundtracks, which adds on to Mark and Sam’s CD collection. This particular session is brought
to you by the soundtracks for Miami Vice and Fight Club, along with Evanescence’s “Open Door”.
Saturday 1st July
In a disused chemistry lab in Georgetown University, Damascus and John Dee are
hunched over equipment borrowed from other labs, cooking up an alchemical
preparation to assist in the process of inducting Damascus into the Legacy. The
creation is some sort of bezoar, coated in a sticky brown substance that may look like
but in no way smells like (and, as Damascus is about to find out, definitely doesn’t
taste like) chocolate. After Damascus ingests the noxious substance, he and John
study Damascus’ resonance in a piece of his own statuary (actually a very early
piece) he brought with him. Gradually, John takes away the various Mind and Matter
spells allowing him to read his own aura in the art, until Damascus finds that he’s
doing it without magic.
A bezoar is essentially a hairball. A Magically significant hairball, but a hairball nonetheless. Damascus has now joined his
Legacy and gained his first Attainment. Rafe points out that this is technically a trichinobezoar. There are apparently different
types.
…
Kali, theorising that when Samuel said he’d pick her up when she got up he meant
that he’d use his magic to arrive at the proper time, has herself a nice lie-in until early
afternoon, sat in bed watching TV. When she does emerge she finds Samuel sat on
the bonnet of his car, eating a hot dog.
On the drive to the Time Machine, Samuel explains the particulars of time travel.
“I’m sorry we don’t have any more time to examine your own questions” – Samuel
“It’s fine. Gives me something to think of when I join the House” – Kali
“Yes, well I hope you find today instructive, even aside from the possibility we’ll learn
more about our shared problem. We’ll be visiting New York in 1953” – Samuel
He launches into a technical description of the processes involved as they drive.
Samuel’s method of time travel involves a gonzo-level Time and Mind conjunctional spell to project one’s mind – and the
minds of anyone he’s previously set up a telepathic link to – back in time into the target’s own consciousness, which he then
rides the surface thoughts of. This obviously can’t be used on Mages, who might sense an interloper from the future scrying
on them, so a variant exists using other Arcana to build a construct out of ephemera in a state of Twilight which is then used
as the host for his reverse-projected mind. That’s what he and Kali will be doing today. Much of Samuel’s time is therefore
spent building up Temporal Sympathy to people and places – made easier by his habitual use of the Time Arcana in a
reverse-engineered form of the Space “threads” spells. Put simply, whenever Samuel finds he doesn’t have time to give his
attention to more than one thing, or he suspects something important is going on, he casts a spell to give himself artificial
temporal sympathy to the present, which he can then use at his leisure to go back and make a more exacting go of things.
As they climb the ladder into the meditation chamber, he tells her the downside.
“Unfortunately, I can’t show you the Imago for the spells involved today, as someone
in our present is active in the time and place we’re going to be visiting, and I’ve used
him as our target point. It would cause a… situation… if you were to find out their real
name through me.” – Samuel
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Kali somehow contains her disappointment at not seeing the Imago for a spell she
isn’t remotely capable of casting yet.
“For that reason, I’ve modified the mind-linking spell for the occasion. Whenever
someone says the name, you should just hear a beep” – Samuel
“Just a beep? Not a duck quacking?” – Kali
Samuel considers, cancels the pre-prepared spell and starts casting the mind link
anew.
“All right. Done. Okay – comfy? Close your eyes and hold onto your lunch. We are
about to visit the early career of Malakaii. Or, as I prefer to think of him,” quack –
Samuel
Samuel, and this is crucial to his character, is a dork.
Kali feels a disconnection, a lurch, a huge surge of Supernal Energies and Samuel’s
nimbus washing over her, then she’s standing blinking in the sunlight on a New York
street. The small details fascinate her eye – the lack of neon, the appalling fashions,
the lack of many skyscrapers. But mostly the cars.
While Kali admires the much cooler automobiles of the period, Samuel looks around,
the crowd of passers-by walking through him as if he weren’t there apparently not
bothering him in the least.
“1953. Back where we are, Truman has just become president. The Korean War has
finished. McCarthyism is in full swing, Teachers and Actors are losing their jobs –
and sometimes their liberties – in their droves. This is a bad time to be different.” –
Samuel
They walk, Kali trying not to be walked through.
“They can’t sense us. We are as ghosts – in fact, if I could be bothered to modify the
spell putting us in Twilight, we’d be able to see them all around us… Ah. There he is”
– Samuel
It takes Kali three tries to trace Samuel’s outstretched finger to the correct person.
The young man is maybe twenty, his expression serious, his arms full of books and
his bow-tie crooked. With a squint, though, he is recognisable. It’s the haircut. Malakii
today has the same haircut.
“That’s Malakaii!?” – Kali
“That is. He’s not yet Awakened, a student at Brooklyn University – where his father
is a Professor of Anthropology, as it happens, and famously liberal.” – Samuel
They follow Malakaii-to-be to a diner, where the young man orders and sits, opening
one of the books in his pile and putting on a pair of seriously retro glasses.
“quack himself has followed his father’s example – the Civil Rights movement hasn’t
properly started yet, not as you’d know it, but he’s something of a vocal… well…
enthusiastic… alright: committed member of some seriously radical student activist
bodies. He believes, would you credit it, that coloured people and women should
have rights. Fancy that. His family mix in some odd circles – through his father’s
friends and his own, Malakaii has developed a keen interest in the Occult. All part of
the same liberal mindset, you see? He sees the society of the world as a cage he’s
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trying to break out of. If he’d been ten years younger he’d have been a hippie.” Samuel
“What happened to him?” – Kali
Cutting right to the heart of the matter there. Both Kali and Samuel see the young Malakaii as someone they’d… well... like
Samuel turns very sombre
“This year, a legal precedent will allow state ‘loyalty review’ boards to fire teachers
they decide are subversive. Within less than a year, his father will be expelled from
his job and blacklisted from Academia. And Malakaii’s behaviour will be used as
evidence against his father.” – Samuel
Kali watches the young man, who’s intent on his book. In the background, Samuel
goes on to describe how the family leave the country in the end, off to India. How
Malakaii’s father dies within two years and how Malakaii Awakens through the
experience, fleeing into the occultism that damned his family, still trying to escape
that cage. How his first Cabal is trapped and killed by the Seers of the Throne and
how, in the end, Malakaii comes to blame himself. Then blame everyone else. Then
blame freedom for persecution. How when he eventually returns to America in the
60s it is as a vastly different man.
“And this is the lesson I wanted to teach you. This is not the same person as the
Malakaii we know. Look back at anyone this distant and they will be different, but his
is such a powerful case it makes an object lesson. Everything is evolving – no one is
the same person after fifty years, a year – even a day. Ariadne’s gifts will let you see
the past, but it is only ever useful by seeing how it has led to the present.” – Samuel
Spot the story title again
Kali nods, and turns her back on the young Malakaii
“But we are not changed by large events alone - they are easier to see, but the true
course of evolution is the long slow pressure of small things. We can teach you to
look to the past, and the temptation of the historian is to look for revolutions, but if
you neglect the understanding of day-to-day life your calculations will be in error,
your conclusions half-formed and your life dangerous. Malakaii did not end up the
way he is overnight – there were large events to be sure, but it was the work of
decades that turned his heart sour." – Samuel
“You know – I meant to tell you this, but I thought that it might have been him altering
your memory” – Kali
Samuel says that the thought had occurred, and that he’s checked. He is certain, by
various means both magical and mundane, that Malakaii isn’t the culprit.
“Speaking of which. Are you ready to go back now?” – Samuel
Kali agrees that it’s time to get back to her own body, and asks Samuel what
happens – does he experience missing time, lose his memory of the entire trip or
what? He says that it’s more of a feeling – actually, more like a certainty – that he’s
figured something absolutely vital out that he somehow can’t express.
Actually – you know what’s strange and only apparent when I come to write this? How much more businesslike and serious
Kali is when not around the other Cabal members.
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Samuel cancels the spell, and Kali…
… Wakes up in the Time Machine shaking, tears streaming down her face as she
gasps for air. Samuel returns to his own body and looks crestfallen as he realises it’s
happened again, then concerned as he sees Kali’s far stronger reaction. Kali, for her
part, has the oddest feeling of disconnection as her body catches up with her mind
and she abruptly stops crying.
“Well… At least I’m not imagining it” – Samuel
Cut for space (and because it doesn't fit into the narrative, and came up retroactively later): Samuel says that he'll pick Kali
up in the morning. And that she should try to actually make it the morning this time, as they have a lot to do.
…
And now, Wolsey. Mark and I work in different departments of the same company, and the couple of days leading up to the
session whenever I’d see him at work he’d remind me to remind him to “go see Avatar” once we resumed playing. Because
he hadn’t forgotten, he’d just not had time last time.
It is Wolsey’s turn to watch the Sanctum, and he has taken the opportunity to invite
Avatar around. While he takes her on the tour, they talk about.. well… avoiding their
many and varied issues, mainly.
“I heard about Malakaii turning you down. I’m sorry” – Avatar
Wolsey harrumphs. Avatar says that Malakaii went to see Mara about it, and that
afterward Mara was heard to curse Wolsey’s name
“Literally Curse?” – Wolsey
“Not literally, no. But she was upset” – Avatar
“Huh. I guess I’ve disrupted her careful plans” – Wolsey
Which gets him thinking, and will lead to a visit to Banneker later on
“What’s in here?” – Avatar, pointing to the warded room
“You’d be amazed how quickly a new cabal picks up things of significance that have
to be carefully put away. That’s where they go” - Wolsey
Avatar catches Wolsey looking at her like he’s about to say something, and attempts
to deflect by asking if he has any plans for the 4th. He offhandedly says that he
thinks the Cabal might be planning something, and says that she seems to be doing
better than when they were first reunited.
“I feel better” – Avatar
“Good. How are you sleeping?” – Wolsey
Damascus returns to the Sanctum as she says that her sleep is no different to before
her Awakening, which Damascus realises is a blatant lie, and subtly signals Wolsey
to that effect.
Aside from Magic use, rolls to lie convincingly / perceive people lying are the thing we use the system for most in the
Chronicle. When Mark designed a very “social” character, I promised to actually remember to use the rules for such and so
far I’ve been true to my word. it is a pity, therefore, that despite his much, much larger dice pool he still manages to do worse
at these rolls than Rafe does.
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Avatar tries to deflect attention by asking about Damascus’ day, but Wolsey is not for
turning and asks how her dreams are really. She says that they're more vivid, and
that she remembers them now, but that they're essentially the same as before. She
always dreamt about the same thing, but she couldn't remember them.
“You’re sure about that?” – Damascus
“I know it sounds stupid, but I just know. They’re the same. Have been my entire life.”
– Avatar
Wolsey frowns – she never mentioned any of this when they were living together.
“What are they of?” – Wolsey
“Random images. Objects made up of inappropriate materials, you know what I
mean? Like gingerbread houses, or a sofa made of cats or dreaming the people are
made of glass. Random” – Avatar
“What specifically?” – Damascus
“A… a heart made of flies. A tree made of flesh. That sort of thing.” - Avatar
The boys confer, and say that it’s important that they get as good idea as possible.
Would she consent to them reading her surface mind while she thought really hard
about the images?
With an air of someone who’s had a lot of people examining her head over the last
few months, she agrees, and they see fuzzy half-formed images of a heart made of
flies and a tree made of flesh. They drag the process out a bit too much for her
patience, trying to get a good look at the latter, and just before Damascus cuts his
mental link he hears “come on, Tom. Get on with it” from her mind.
That being Wolsey, of course. Damascus doesn’t know what Wolsey’s real name is – well, up to now, anyway. Amusingly,
this is a case of me really dropping the ball. Neither mage actually has the Arcana necessary to DO this effect, by my reading
in the harsh light of day. Whoops! Well, they did it now.
“The imagery is… Can I ask, is Pandemonium like that?” – Damascus
“Not when I was there, though I gather it differs” – Wolsey
Avatar says that yes, actually – they are representative of her experiences in the
Supernal realms.
“Because it’s rather Dantean.” – Damascus
“How do you mean?” – Wolsey
“Well, the tree especially. It reminds me of the wood of suicides. Uh… Avatar, could I
ask..?” – Damascus
“Did I try to kill myself?” (looks at Wolsey and sees that he’s waiting on the answer.
Firmly: )“No.”
*Good* call from Rafe (or Mark. We're mostly certain it was Damascus that said that, but not 100%), there. Nice link.
Kind of fitting as well - I hadn't made that link between the flesh grove and Avatar/Cymbeline's rebirth before now. Neat.
At which point, just as they’re getting somewhere, Kali returns – slightly boozed up,
still reeling from what she experienced coming back to the present and raring for a
good old-fashioned argument. At first sight of Avatar and Wolsey standing awkwardly
next to one another, she barks an order at Wolsey to get on with it and ask her what
he was in fact in the process of asking her. At which point, just as they’re getting
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somewhere, Kali returns – slightly boozed up, still reeling from what she experienced
coming back to the present and raring for a good old-fashioned argument. At first
sight of Avatar and Wolsey standing awkwardly next to one another, she barks an
order at Wolsey to get on with it and ask her what he was in fact in the process of
asking her.
"YOU. You're doomed. you're still doomed. Get on with it" (Wolsey tries to say
something) “Shut it! Doomed! DOOMED! DOOMED! I’ve told you. Samuel’s told you.
You know what you have to do to avoid it so DO it.” - Kali
Kali's rant was far, far longer, but I failed to record most of it.
Wolsey suggests that Kali may be acting belligerent out of something that's
happened to her today rather than because of anything he's done.
"Were you reading my mind?" - Kali, suspicious
Wolsey sighs, wearily
"Yeah, why not?" - Wolsey
"Well don't. And do something about your doom - you go on about it, hide under your
bed, whatever, but when it comes to taking action, nothing. Get on with it" - Kali
“I am doing something about it. I’ve asked Avatar about her dreams. And that means
you owe me a…” – Wolsey
“Nothing. I owe you nothing. Doomed!” – Kali
"I'm talking. That's what I do" - Wolsey
"I refer you to Damascus' comments about inaction that I can't remember all of" –
Kali
Damascus groans ever-so-slightly audibly
"Talking is just sitting on your ass. Do." – Kali
“So… You’re Doomed?” – Avatar
Hee!
Wolsey explains that various Fate mages have been sensing that he is, in fact,
doomed.
“And Samuel told you to do something about her dreams” – Kali, accusatory
Wolsey patiently explains that Samuel in fact told him to “pay attention” to Avatar’s
dreams. Not “do something about”. Avatar noticeably shifts when Wolsey says
Samuel’s name, and Kali narrows her eyes.
Kali, at this point, remembers that Avatar had a sympathetic connection to her when viewed in Fate sight.
Kali casts Ring Sight: Fate on Avatar, learning that Avatar has more of whatever it is
that the spell reveals than Wolsey, but not as much as herself or Damascus. Wolsey,
sensing the supernal, grabs Kali's shoulders and shakes her.
Wolsey crosses that line - that line of getting physical with another Cabal member. Like breaking the 4-minute mile, this
cannot be undone.
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Which translates as "he shoves her, she's going to punch him by the end of the session. He's just demonstrated it's okay"
“What the hell are you DOING!?” - Wolsey
“Casting a spell. I wanted to check something” – Kali
Wolsey goes into a rant about flinging spells at other mages without permission,
which Kali doesn’t take very well.
"So you don't trust me?" - Kali
"It's polite to ask first" - Wolsey
"So you don't trust me?" - Kali
Kali casts Interconnections on Avatar, discerning that she has a strong Destiny of
some kind, which is connected to Kali herself
Wolsey goes apeshit, while Avatar gradually shrinks into the background. He
accuses Kali of reckless behaviour, and asks if she would act like this to Banneker,
Malakaii or Samuel.
He means that doing so would be very dangerous, and probably lethal as they defended themselves against the potential
attack. I think there’s a bit of ‘so why is it okay to do it to Avatar?’ in there, but Kali hears the wrong lesson. Because…
“Yes” – Kali
“Well… Don’t” – Wolsey, horrified
Kali shrugs and says that Avatar has a potent Destiny of some kind. Avatar says that
that makes sense – her entire life, she’s had a feeling that she’s been meant to do
something, which drove her into the cults, drove her to Wolsey and has only gotten
stronger since she Awoke. As for the dream thing – they’re obviously part of it, and
Promethea and Mara have both taken great interest in them and the feeling of
preordained significance she lives with most of the time.
Wolsey, though, is still with the reckless casting of it.
"This is me shifting from telling to begging. Don't" - Wolsey
"You're asking me to change my ingrained behaviour" - Kali
"I'm telling..." - Wolsey
"I thought you were begging" – Damascus
Wolsey asks Kali if she has ever shot someone without warning, hoping to use it as
an analogy for the potential threat other mages might see in her randomly casting on
them. The point is somewhat spoiled when she says that yes, actually, she has.
"I am not an altruistic person. Your doom is important to me, but there's something I
need to find." - Kali
"Have you tried religion? - Damascus
"Yes, and it gave me the creeps" - Kali
"I meant have you tried turning to god?" – Damascus
Kali reminds him that when she went to Ulysses, apropos of nothing, it was at
Damascus and Wolsey’s’ insistence and that she didn’t enjoy it.
Damascus notes that, getting back to the whole dream thing, now that Kali and
Wolsey have fought one another to impasse again, that it would help if they could
see them better. Wolsey suggests the Oneiros, and Avatar asks if they have a
powerful enough Hallow. Wolsey asks Kali if Samuel would let them us the Time
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Machine but Option 2 – reading Avatar’s mind while she’s asleep – seems much
more convenient and gets group approval.
“I guess I’ll be staying over then” - Avatar
That settled, Wolsey asks the Cabal – now that they’re assembled – what they’re
doing on the 4th. Kali says that she has “a House thing” but that she wanted to do
something with the Cabal. Agreed to a nebulous something, they invite Avatar to
whatever it is they’re going to end up doing.
…
Later, the preparations for the examination of Avatar’s dreams take place. Kali casts
Bestow Exceptional Luck on both Wolsey and Damascus and – drained after her day
and the argument, and not having any skill in the Mind Arcana, bows out of the
proceedings. She’s going to go to her thinking place on the waterfront and try to get
her shit together. Agreeing to come get her when they’re done, Wolsey and
Damascus start their casting.
Again with the “you can’t do this with Mind 2” of it all ( I believe it’s Mind 4, IIRC), but fuck it. I didn’t remember that on the
night. The spell as built in Creative Thaumaturgy was of concentration duration after an extended casting roll that took
Wolsey and Damascus a couple of hours to get off – no using High Speech when one is trying to cast on a sleeping person.
When they do finally manage to build the necessary Imagos, they find…
…That Avatar is between REM cycles, and so not actually dreaming at the moment.
Arse.
They manage to hold the spell active for an hour, after which she does finally start
dreaming. Avatar’s dreams are of being somewhere underground, cut clay and loose
soil, with what is unmistakably a heart made of living flies floating in the centre of the
chamber? Tunnel? Cave? Something. The noise of the buzzing is fearfully strong,
but gives way as the dream shifts to the second request – the trees made of flesh,
dripping ichor, babbling from a thousand mouths in what both Damascus (who’s
religious) and Wolsey (who’s spent a lot of time in fringe religions) recognise as
Glossolalia, or ”Speaking In Tongues”. The scene shifts again to be Mara’s office,
viewed in negative colours. The dial of the wall safe spins and clicks, too fast for the
eye to see even though they are somehow aware each time it stops on a number for
an infinitesimal amount of time. The safe swings open, and Avatar’s dream cycle
ends.
Exhausted, and unable to hold on until she starts dreaming again, both men let their
spells fade and quietly leave.
Wolsey, rubbing his eyes, phones Kali, who for her part has fallen asleep propped up
against a container.
“Whuh?” – Kali
“We’re done” – Wolsey
“What time is it?” – Kali
(checks) “Just gone… half four. Did you go home?” – Wolsey
“No. Still here” – Kali, pained
“We’ll come and pick you up” – Wolsey
When they collect her, the heavens have begun to drizzle. Kali mumbles something
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that may be “what took so long?” but she’s pretty out of it as Wolsey bundles her into
his SUV.
Back to the Sanctum. And sleep. They can talk in the morning.
Sunday 2nd July
The Cabal decided, before crashing, that they should probably talk about what they
learned before Avatar gets up. Which means that after the bare minimum sleep the
three of them are up again, sitting in the Sanctum's living room clutching coffee. But
when they do wake up enough to converse, Wolsey has things on his mind other
than his wife's dreams.
The coffee, a small detail I know, is from Wolsey's expensive machine. he moved it to the Sanctum figuring it'd get more use
than in his sterile apartment.
"I want to bring something up, before we continue" - Wolsey
Kali and Damascus regard him with bloodshot eyes
Wolsey says that so far they've been getting freebies - he's been treating the both of
them like he thinks Cabalmates ought to, by giving them his honest advice and trying
to catch them when he thinks they're making mistakes. But apparently (and he looks
at Kali as he says this) they don't seem to appreciate it. Essentially, he's had enough
of having his advice thrown in his face.
A counter-argument would be that they didn't exactly ask to be lectured in the way he lectures them. Kali gets a lot of grief
from him, as the thread has demonstrated - she deserves some of it, for certain, but he has a particular *way* of putting his
advice that sounds like condescension to her. And although they're friendlier, I don't think Damascus is under any illusions
about what Wolsey thinks of his deeply-held beliefs. (The counter to which is that Damascus is if anything worse for
unwanted lectures).
So, he says, he's changing the deal. From now on, he's going to treat them as he
treats his clients - and will give them as much or as little respect as they give him.
"You get the Wolsey that you pay for" - Wolsey
Kali is not impressed.
"So what? We pay you when we need you now?" - Kali
"You'll get what you want. Something better suited to you." - Wolsey
"If I wanted something better I'd ask for Tom Cruise and, sorry, you're not..." - Kali
Urg. Kali apparently has a liking for the Cruisemeister.
Wolsey interrupts, thinks, and waves her on
"...no, just carry on" - Wolsey
Kali and Damascus both say that the Wolsey they would much prefer to have in the
Cabal is the real Wolsey. He says that that's just not possible - such a thing doesn't
exist.
Which is a very sad reflection of Wolsey's life, and the root of this - he treats everyone differently, as any born politician does,
and is honestly just trying to find a niche in the Cabal that suits them better than the one he's taking so far. That they object
so vehemently to the idea is, I think, a reflection on the differing viewpoint the two of them share against him - Kali and
Damascus see their Mage lives as being the "real" them, or the them that they'd like ideally to be. Wolsey doesn't, and
therein the problem lies.
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Kali attempts to argue that, but Wolsey blocks her.
"This conversation's over. Do what you want" - Wolsey, flatly
"I want you to not not act like yourself" - Kali
Damascus pinches his nose
"I've had four hour's sleep. Could we stop with the double negatives?" - Damascus
"OK. Let me restate what I meant because you've gotten me confused. What did I
mean?" - Wolsey
Damascus offers a recap, and Wolsey reiterates his point - he feels that the gang do
not want the Wolsey he has been presenting them with, and so wants to change that
to give them the Wolsey they seem to need.
"I don't want the Wolsey I 'pay for'. I want someone who wants to be our friend" - Kali
"We're not friends" - Wolsey
Mark does not watch 'House' (I am obsessed with it) - thus. the parallel to Foreman's 'we're not friends, we're co-workers'
speech to Cameron is entirely coincidental. Which if anything makes this harsher. And mildly cooler.
"We're not friends. We're co-workers at best - I've known you for not two months.
That's not long enough." – Wolsey
"It was long enough for us" - Avatar
Wolsey turns around. He's not quite sure how long she's been standing there.
"Morning" - Avatar
While the gang stay silent, caught in the middle of their semi-argument, Avatar
doesn't seem to notice. She wanders through the room and out through another
door. After a few minutes of silence, they hear the shower start up.
Wolsey looks the way she went, then back at the others
"That was different. I'm not madly, desperately in love with you. Sorry Damascus." Wolsey
"I'll cope" - Damascus
Also interesting that he can only say that when she's not there...
Kali starts rambling again, and Wolsey restates that this is what she *wants* - she
plainly isn't happy with him at the moment. This does not seem to help - she gets
more and more upset.
Kali's getting worked up because Wolsey has *given up* on her. He has as good as said that he's tired of all her shit, so she
should just carry on doing what she wants. He won't bother trying to reach her any more. It's this end-of-patience thing that's
important - the way that her behaviour has apparently pushed someone she should be close to away from her. Because it
reminds her of what's foremost in her mind right now...
"You're talking like my father used to talk and at the moment" (starts tearing up)
"that's not doing me any good" - Kali
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Damascus and Wolsey stare at her.
Kali, close to tears, starts laying her own cards out.
Sam's acting here was top-notch - you could hear her choking back the meltdown.
"There's a hole in Avatar. There's something missing in her. I know, because there's
something missing in me too. I don't think they're made by the same thing, but it's the
same hole." - Kali
Kali explains about Samuel's "problem", and how it's linked into her own feeling of
disconnection since before she Awoke. There's something missing from her,
something important. And Avatar, as she said herself the night before, feels like that
too.
"But I was thinking about it last night, in my place. Why would Samuel need me? He's
far more powerful, he can do everything I can... Maybe it's not a magical thing.
Maybe he needs something I *know*" - Kali
She looks Wolsey in the eye
"Like Avatar's real name" - Kali
Wolsey shifts uncomfortably.
"Don't worry. I promised I wouldn't use it, and I won't" - Kali
At which point the doorbell goes. Damascus, seeing Kali in a state and Wolsey not
moving, gets up to answer it.
...
"Ah. Hello." - Samuel
"... Master." - Damascus
"Is my date in?" - Samuel
"Quite possibly. If you mean Kali, then yes" - Damascus
They stare at one another.
"Would you, then, care for our Sanctum's Hospitality, Master?" - Damascus
"Thank you, Disciple. I will abide by your right of Sanctuary" - Samuel
Odd little exchange, that.
...
Samuel greets Kali, and asks what they're talking about. Damascus explains the
topic as being Samuel's memory problems and - thinking that Avatar has been an
awfully long time - goes to check on their other guest.
Wolsey ventures that the problem might be Malakaii, and Samuel again shoots that
one down confidently. Wolsey presses, and Samuel says that he's certain because
he has Malakaii under a Geas to not use his attainments on Samuel.
Damascus returns with Avatar - who was just finishing getting dressed - and Avatar
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reacts to the Master's presence. Kali tells Avatar that she suspects that Avatar's
feeling of having something she's meant to do is linked to the feeling of missing
something that Kali herself has.
Avatar says that whatever in her case it doesn't feel bad - she's always taken comfort
in it, in the sense of inevitability and destiny.
"But if it's connected to the Spider..." - Damascus
"The Spider?" - Samuel, amused.
"Well.. It seems fitting, for what Kali said about it. How about 'The webmaster?'" Damascus
"No, no. Spider will do. It's good - to name a thing is to begin to know a thing" Samuel
"Or to begin making assumptions" - Wolsey
They talk about Avatar's Destiny some more, and Kali tells her that it's definitely
connected to Kali herself somehow.
If only they knew what her Destiny was.
"I am very dense" - Samuel
Kali looks at him.
Samuel explains that he forgets sometimes, the full extent of his Arcana, and tells
Avatar that he can, if she is so inclined, offer more detailed insights into her Destiny
using the Prophecy spell.
Avatar sighs wearily.
"Look. I'm grateful to all of you, but this has got to stop. I have been poked,
enspelled, analysed and noted for over a month now, and it's getting past the point
that I can stand it. I know you're all trying to help - the four of you, Mara,
Promethea..." (off Wolsey's expression) "Alright. This one last time. Do your worst." Avatar
Samuel casts Prophecy
They all wait.
He opens his eyes after having released the spell, and takes a deep breath.
"All right. First thing - I managed three questions. One is related to Kali, so I'll tell her.
The others.. Not here. In private - when you want to know, ask me." - Samuel
Avatar nods. Wolsey and Damascus, feeling themselves be very excluded by all this,
look perturbed.
"And now, if you'll excuse us, we" (nods at Kali) "need to be going. My thanks for
your Hospitality" - Samuel, getting up
"See you later" - Kali, also getting up
Damascus checks his watch
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"Actually, I should be going too. Church. Are you?" - Damascus
"I'll be fine. I need to go see some people" - Wolsey
Even Avatar is leaving - back off to Mara's. Samuel offers her a lift, and she accepts.
"...but..." (looks at Wolsey, who's the only one still seated) "I should like a few
minutes with my husband, if it's all right with everyone" - Avatar
"Of course. Kali." - Samuel, leaving, Kali trailing after him.
...
Out front, Damascus bids both Kali and Samuel farewell when they reach the street,
walking off in the direction of his van.
Samuel looks at Kali speculatively.
"No. Don't tell me. Not until she's made her decision" - Kali
He shrugs.
...
"I'm tired of this. Being examined all the time. I need to get away, Tom - somewhere I
can be *myself*. God.. last night, when Damascus was in my mind? I nearly slipped
and thought of your name." - Amanda
Thomas - alone together, they are finally Thomas and Amanda rather than Wolsey
and Avatar - agrees that the mood in the city is getting too tense. And they need a
chance to catch up - catch up properly, with no magic to get in the way.
"Could we go somewhere? Away from the Cabals and the Consilium? For a little
while?" - Amanda
"Tomorrow night?" - Thomas
"Tomorrow night. Where?" - Amanda
"I'll book us somewhere quiet." - Thomas
"And we'll be ourselves, not Wolsey and Avatar?" - Amanda
Thomas nods, exhaling, feeling the mask lift off.
"I'll see you then" - Amanda
She leaves, and Wolsey breathes, getting back into character. Ready for the day
ahead.
Time to go see Banneker.
...
Downstairs, Samuel and Kali are sat on the bonnet of Samuel's car, Kali smoking, as
145
Avatar emerges from the Sanctum's stairwell.
"My decision.. is no. Tell her the parts about her, but I.. Don't want to know. I don't
care." (smiles happily) "Whatever is meant to happen will happen, and I trust that it
will work out for the best in the end. Don't ask me why, but... I don't need what you're
offering" - Avatar
Samuel crosses his arms, but agrees.
.
Some time later, as Kali and Samuel watch Avatar enter Mara's house, Samuel tells
Kali what he saw
"I asked how her Destiny was linked to you. I saw her *give* you something.
Physically - she is supposed to turn something over to you which will lead to you
discovering your own missing... Of *course!*" (he slaps his own forehead) "It's a
causal chain!" - Samuel
Kali looks blankly at him. He rambles happily and rather dorkishly about how it's a
chain of interlinked Destinies - Avatar will realise her own Destiny which will allow
Kali to see what she's missing which will somehow show him himself what *he's*
missing. He might not even be the end point of the chain - in fact, he very probably
isn't.
He slaps his steering wheel and half-laughs happily.
Kali, though, does not seem anywhere near as impressed.
I like nMage's gradual but inexorable slide from Humanity as you get more and more powerful - and I think that last bit
illustrates it quite well. Malakaii may have done a 180 from everything he believed he'd be when he was a young man, but
Samuel isn't exactly normal either. He's a cheerful, helpful sort of guy but he just doesn't get that people may find his sort of
help, casually reading the future and telling people their fates, rather creepy. Wolsey in particular hasn't felt comfortable
around Samuel since the "pay attention to her dreams" incident. Not because of the content, but because Samuel *didn't
ask*. It doesn't occur to him that people might not want to know, so long has he lived without having to take a chance on any
decision without being able to see the outcomes. This is what happens when you're too long and too learned an Acanthus,
and it troubles Kali to see him like this, because she can see herself easily ending up like that against her better judgement.
Having said that, I'm about to completely undermine it by showing how well Banneker holds himself close to Humanity. But
then, he has a much higher Wisdom score than Samuel or Malakaii.
Samuel parks on the side of a relatively quiet street, somewhere in the North-East
quarter of the Diamond.
"Alright. Practice run. Breath.. Focus. Find the thread. Feel the strands of Fate..." Samuel
Kali, concentrating, centres herself and begins to see.
"Okay. Now - that woman there. She'll do. See her? See the strands she's pulling
around her? Let's follow them. Wherever they go" - Samuel
Kali takes a deep breath, nods and starts walking.
At this point, my narrative will completely break down, for which I apologise. I am totally unable to remember, after half an
hour of trying, the sequence of objects and people that Kali followed in this first Thread incident. I know that she made it
somehow to a post office (probably following a parcel someone was carrying) and then jumped to follow the sympathetic
connections left by a different letter. I DO know that she was deliberately trying to go "out" of the city, picking threads to
follow based entirely on which ones seemed most likely to lead her out to suburbia - after her admission to Wolsey earlier
that morning, Kali is aware that she needs to somehow *deal* with her feelings about her dad.
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In the end, several hours later, she and Samuel are stood outside a house in a leafy,
quiet avenue, watching the reunion of a student who's been out-of-state at college
and his family. Home for the holidays.
Kind of what she was looking for, but not exactly.
They start heading back towards the city centre.
"I will admit, I'm impressed" - Samuel
Kali admits that she was trying to recapture whatever it was she was following when
she first met Blaise and the Nickel.
"I don't think you'll find that again through Magic" (sidelong glance) "After all, you
know very well where that thread leads" - Samuel
To her dad's house, and to the reunion she doesn't feel capable of having yet. Yeah. She knows.
"In any case. You've picked this up very quickly. I *am* pleased, Kali. And... Well...
I'm wondering why we should wait until tomorrow? I think you're ready - you're as
prepared as you can be. Would you like to do your test? Now?" - Samuel
Kali thinks for a moment, then agrees. Samuel pulls over, and stops the car.
"Okay then. Off you go" - Samuel
She looks at him for a few seconds, as he indicates via the medium of eyebrow
movements that she should get out of the car. She does so, and he drives off,
leaving her stood on the sidewalk.
Now what?
She considers, taking in the passers-by, the shops, the cars.
There is a Nickel on the sidewalk.
She has her thread.
--Somewhere across town, in the very good part of town, Wolsey rings the doorbell of
a rather well-kept house, after checking the number against the contact details
Banneker gave him.
The door is opened by a ten-year old girl.
"Hello?" - Girl
"Er... Is Isiah in?" - Wolsey
"DAAAAAAD!" - Girl, calling inside
Deeper into the hallway, Banneker (wearing *very* normal clothes rather than his
ceremonial robes) emerges from a room, wiping his hands on a tea towel. A lady
that, from context, would be his wife, also emerges.
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"Ah! Yes - Mary, this is Tom from the office. Tom's our advertising man" - Banneker
Which is one way of putting it. I like having npcs call Wolsey 'Tom'. Which means it's pretty much just Avatar and Banneker
that do it, as they're the only two who it's acceptable from.
Mary greets Wolsey, who says hello smoothly, shifting gears internally
Banneker - or, at the moment, Isiah - tells his wife he'll be upstairs in his study, and
indicates the stairs to Wolsey. When they get upstairs, into Isiah's book-lined study,
Isiah closes the door and offers him a drink. Wolsey, examining the architect's
drawing table, the various rolls of plans and the map of DC with pins carefully placed
into it, accepts.
"I heard about your promotion being turned down" - Isiah
"Yes. In truth, I'm afraid that I allowed myself to get.. competitive. With others in my
circle. It was not the right time to approach Malakaii, and I know that now" - Wolsey
"Gideon. Not Malakaii. In this house we refer to the members of our community by
their real names, understood? I won't have any codes and obfuscations here." - Isiah
"Gideon?" - Wolsey
Isiah nods. Wolsey takes that and files it away.
Interesting that Wolsey admits to rushing into his Legacy as some kind of race with Damascus and Kali - and regrets doing it.
Banneker's absolute refusal to allow the dealings of the supernal to change the way he lives within his own house is his
means of keeping a grip, and coping with the fact that his wife and children are to date all Sleepers and unaware of his other
work. Mages from the city are welcome to go to see him, but do so on the understanding that he will rip the veils the
Awakened all construct around themselves away, and refuse to deal with anything other than what he believes to be the real
person beneath. To Banneker, the Supernal remains separate, and is something that is drawn down and put on *when
needed* - He is only "Banneker" at a formal gathering of Mages or when directly dealing with the stuff of magic.
"Right. Well, the strategy is as follows - I'm not giving up on you Tom. You don't get
off that easily. Mhaduri and Daniel are working on persuading Gideon to rethink his
position, but it will have to be a long, slow process now. We've rushed in and gotten
burnt, and we can't deny that. While they do their sweet-talking [b]you[b/] should
busy yourself with being impressive. Let's make a case for you that he can't ignore" Isiah
Wolsey agrees with that - that's the conclusion he'd come to himself, as it happens.
To concentrate on his work as a Herald, being useful and eventually indispensable to
the Consilium. Essentially, Wolsey acknowledges that he's going to have to *earn*
his advancements, with the grim determination of a man who has his foot on the
second rung of the ladder and is surveying the climb to the top.
'Mhaduri' is Mara - which Wolsey already knew. 'Daniel' is Samuel - which he didn't and still, IIRC, doesn't know explicitly.
Though it's fairly obvious.
The realisation that in all the politicking and fallout from the Legacies, Wolsey hasn't actually been selling himself as a Herald
came to Mark a few days before we ran the game. Wolsey, he tells me, is now starting to draw up a chart of the power
players in the city and how they interact - he's determined to lay the Consilium game to it's fullest - maybe all the way to
Hierarch.
The tale of a promising young official denied recognition by the old guard who harbours ambitions of the top job, but has to
get there by his own cleverness, reminds me of the life of Cicero.
"Excellent. Well, in that case, I have a job for you. I need you to get one of Gideon's
counterparts to contact me - the one your wife's other tutor works for, yes? Not a
rush, but once you've made contact I'll need you to ferry a few files back and forth" Isiah
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That would be Suleiman, Mastigos Claviclarius Mysterium Councillor
Wolsey nods, and Isiah asks him if there is anything else going on he should know
about.
Carefully using mundane language, Wolsey explains the situation with the Houses of
Steel and Stone to Isiah, including Wolsey's theory that they are two conflicting
Pylons of Seers.
"Or Ministries. The opposition are worse than us for infighting, I'm afraid - our Orders
manage to work together, but their Ministries don't." - Isiah
Wolsey takes that in, and says that there isn't anything else he can think of.
"What's that?" - Isiah, pointing at the jacket in which Wolsey has concealed the Ring
of the Dethroned Queen
"An item my friends and I were given. We are unsure of it's providence, and rather
than leave it lying around we take it in turns to carry it around." - Wolsey
Isiah nods, considering... then shrugs, accepting his words at face value, and invites
him, if this meeting is over, downstairs to have a drink and meet the family.
Wolsey stays for a drink.
This sequence reminds Mark of the bits of the Lethal Weapon films dealing with Murtaugh's home life, apparently. Which led
me to think and conclude that, actually, Danny Glover nowadays *is* a good actor for Banneker.
Which led us on to a bit more discussion. It emerged that Sam thought Samuel was meant to be elderly and bearded, like a
stereotypical wizard - he's in fact pretty young, physically in his 30s. I don't know of an actor for him.
Malakaii, on the other hand, is played - in my mind - by Joel Grey. Who, I have just learned from IMDB, is *exactly* the right
age for the role as well as being a physical fit. He was 21 in 1953.
--Rewind a couple of hours, and Damascus is driving away from the Sanctum. After
heading home to get changed he heads to Ulysses' church for mass. The
congregation has mostly already gathered when he arrives, greeted by Ulysses as
"Carl".
Ulysses' sermon of the day is about the ending of things, and about letting one's
children grow up and move out of one's shadow. Damascus, realising what his
joining of John Dee's Legacy must mean to Ulysses, feels appropriately guilty.
After the event, when Ulysses has spoken to the last of his congregation, Damascus
and he sit down in the pews. Damascus starts by saying that it was Ulysses that told
him about the Uncrowned kings in the first place, and Ulysses apologises for laying it
on a bit thick. It was a good sermon, even if the content was dictated by his current
thoughts.
"Besides, it's not like I have a Legacy of my own" - Ulysses
They briefly talk about the reason why that it - Ulysses believes that Souls, as God's
design for a person, shouldn't be meddled with by Mages who don't fully understand
what they're doing. Carving your own soul for temporal power does not seem wise to
him, especially as the powers - Attainments and Demesnes - that result aren't worth
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the cost. A Soul is a coin that can only be spent once, and what do most Mages
spend it on? Wiping memories without paradox, or looking back in time. Nothing they
can't accomplish without doing so.
Oh, there's no room for characters that have alternate interpretations of Mage's cosmology in Awakening without them being
flat-out wrong, oh no. Bollocks, there isn't.
Damascus says that that's true for some Legacies, but not others - the Uncrowned
kings, he contends, focus on the right things. Theirs is a programme of improvement,
not twisting oneself into an unnatural shape.
"Listen to me. You made a wise choice, and I hope it works out for you." - Ulysses
Damascus asks what Ulysses himself is getting up to. He tells him about a bit of leyline readjustment Dantor has asked him to do- a rich vein of Lawlessness is coming
out of the Cabal's territory and into Dantor's, and she wants it shifted. Not a problem,
especially with his grasp of Prime.
The older mage frowns
"There's something I need to tell you, lad" - Ulysses
Ulysses leans in close, and quietly and quickly begins to speak
"I've heard things, lad. Dark things. Dantor has been going around some members of
our Cabal and giving them specific instructions for the Fourth. When she gives a
signal, they are to abandon the roles the Consilium has picked out for them and
follow the orders she's prepared. And it's not just her - Malakaii's lot as well. The
Defenders and the Gatekeepers are colluding for some purpose, and I'm being kept
out of the loop. I don't know what Dantor and Malakaii are planning, but I do know
this - it is something to do with your friends." - Ulysses
Damascus doesn't like the sound of that.
"Any clue at all?" - Damascus
"Nothing. Just that it's connected to the Crucible. Dantor is apparently angry with
you" - Ulysses
"Who's involved?" - Damascus
"That I know of? Dantor, Malakaii, Thursday, Link. Shore. Some others of Malakaii's
people I'm not 100% on." - Ulysses
Damascus thanks him, promises to look out for himself and for Wolsey and Kali, and
bids Ulysses good afternoon.
"Going so soon?" - Ulysses
"I'm afraid so. Things to do" - Damascus, smiling apologetically
Ulysses offers confession, which Damascus turns down. He has brooding to do.
---
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On the trail of the Terrible Nickel, Kali is following Ariadne's thread.
The initiation test of the House of Ariadne is to be able to sense and follow the thread for four-seven hours, something which
Kali has been able to do for a long time - which is why Blaise took such a hands-off approach was as far as he was
concerned she didn't actually need training. Samuel, though, has been pushing her to consider the House's viewpoint, and
whether she really wants to join it. This test, then, is a formality - but crucially Kali doesn't know that. She's had her
confidence - in her abilities at least - boosted by the last few days, and is mentally ready for her Attainment
She follows the Nickel with Postcognition and Interconnections to a woman who
dropped it on her way from a bakery to work. Following it back to the Bakery, she
leaps to following another customer who spent it there the day before, and back
further to their place of work. From there, it heads backward to the cash box of a third
shop, in which Kali browses for a while deciding which thread to follow and buys
some jewellery. The cash was delivered as a small change bag by an employee, she
learns with Time magic, and she follows their now-days old trail back to the bank.
And then to the National Mint, where she finds...
...Samuel and Blaise waiting for her on the steps.
"And so you have found your way here, to the birthplace of all Nickels" - Blaise
Samuel regards his Prefect with an expression that could be agreement or could be
'no thanks to YOU, mate'. He does, however, hand Kali a bag full of freshly-minted
Nickels.
"I thought it appropriate" - Samuel
"Thanks, but I think I prefer the worn one" - Kali
"Oh, I entirely agree. Think of them as practice tools. When you need to attune to the
city, put a Nickel where someone will find it. Sit back, and see where it goes" Samuel
Kali has passed her test, and in that moment, gains her Attainment. She is now a
member of the House of Ariadne.
Home stretch now, and it's back to Damascus
Damascus, needing something to keep busy with while he has a good hard think
about things and try to figure out if he knows anything that could shed light on
Ulysses' worries, has driven to his workshop, where he's putting the finishing touches
onto the Caryatid Column. The exercise and the sense of producing something helps
(and proves what a good fit he is for his Legacy), but after four hours his door-buzzer
rings.
Sliding the lockup's door open, he discovers Wolsey standing outside, here fresh
from Banneker's house
"Hi" - Wolsey
"Wolsey" - Damascus
"Could I come in?" - Wolsey
Damascus steps aside.
Again in the spirit of disclosure, this was one of those Damascus and Wolsey conversations - that is, Mark and Rafe adlibbed
it in the background while I was running Kali's second following of Ariadne's thread. So the details are hazy - I DO know the
topic of what was discussed, though. Consider this scene heavily paraphrased
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Drinks are furnished - Damascus takes a jug of water (ironworking is hot). Wolsey
starts off, saying how he regrets how this morning and last night went. 'Not the way
he was expecting' about sums it up.
The statue of Kali is very much the elephant in the room.
"Oh, for.. What do you think she *needs* from me?" - Wolsey, indicating his
Cabalmate's likeness.
"Spanking?" - Damascus
Wolsey gives him A Look. Damascus shrugs and finishes up, saying as he works that
Kali is working though something, and that if Wolsey would maybe listen.
"Well, my strategy to deal with her doesn't work. This morning proved that" - Wolsey
It just upset her more. Reminded her of her existing issues
"I think.. I think the carrot rather than the stick." - Wolsey
Damascus clarifies if this means Wolsey is seriously considering being *nice* to Kali
"Pretty much. Roll with her verbal punches, agree with her. Whatever. Just.. not try to
start any more arguments" - Wolsey
"Being an authority figure isn't working" - Damascus
Speaking of Authority figures, Damascus tells Wolsey what Ulysses told him. They
consider the dire possibilities of Dantor - who let's face it has never really liked Kali uniting with Malakaii against them. The fact that they two are the calmer, wiser heads
of the Cabal stands them in good stead, though, as they decide that rather than
creep around and try to figure out what's going on over there...
...They're going to walk right into Dantor's territory and ASK her.
--I now resumed Storytelling for those two, having finished with Kali
As the sun goes down on DC, Wolsey and Damascus cross the rough boundary of
Dantor's territory. The area, to the East of their own, is pretty much a continuation of
the downward trend of theirs. We're in gangland here, and Wolsey hopes that the
Space Armour spell he just cast will save him if anything kicks off.
Searching (and trying to not look like they're hanging around) on the periphery of
Dantor's dozen or so blocks, they spot the Atlantean glyph of Crossing among the
graffiti outside an alley entrance, and begin following the Crossing trail. The route is
winding, following more alleys than Wolsey thinks it's possible to fit into those blocks
without use of the Space Arcana, the route dotted with Dantor's "soldiers": some of
whom are human, some of whom are.. recycled.
Eventually, the route leads them through an underpass choked with rubble and out
into a patch of yellowing grass. Although the half-block of turf, some ancient
recreation ground, is bordered on three sides by a street, it somehow gives the
*impression* of being cut off from all access other than the underpass.
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In front of them, lights flickering in the windows, is a deconsecrated church.
"Oh, that's just wrong" - Damascus
Wrong or not, it's Dantor's Sanctum.
Checking their protective spells, they take a deep breath and march right up to the
door, telling the soldier on guard that they're here to see Dantor. After a few seconds,
they're admitted.
The meeting, in what was once the nave, is brief. Damascus asks if they've given
any offence, and Dantor says not - should they have (she adds dangerously)? She
says that she is troubled by a ley line from their "poorly-managed" territory, but that
Ulysses is dealing with it. The lads ask if there's anything else, and she says that as
they're here they could answer her a question. It seems that a series of unusual
home invasions have been plaguing her western reaches - apparently random, but
designed to cause fear and upset. Her gang are accusing Kali's gang of it.
Damascus and Wolsey haven't heard of anything like that, and assure Dantor that
Kali has nothing to do with it. They promise to find out if it's been happening in their
turf too.
At that point in the conversation, Wolsey senses a distinctive resonance.
Malakaii is here.
"Well.. we'll be going, then, and leave you to your guest. Thank you, Councillor" Wolsey
Dantor smiles without humour, and bids them goodnight.
They exit the Sanctum and walk - not run - to the underpass.
While they beat their retreat through the alleys, they run into Mr Thursday - the City's
Interfector - heading in the opposite direction. The tall man bows to them as they
draw near, and expresses his wish that they have a very safe night.
"They're waiting for you" - Wolsey
By the time they're out of Dantor's territory, Wolsey's paranoia has hit overdrive Ulysses' suspicions were correct. Dantor and Malakaii are in cahoots. The end is
quite clearly nigh.
And to cap it all, when they get back to the Sanctum, someone has graffitied
Someone is Looking For You in bright yellow paint over the door to their living
quarters.
Inside the Sanctum, Wolsey and Damascus are having a crisis conference. Wolsey
places the Ring of the Dethroned Queen back in it's place - realising after he does so
that he just carried it all the way to Dantor's and back.
"Dantor's mobilising, and it's probably against us" - Wolsey
"But why Malakaii? There's no love lost" - Damascus
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Wolsey doesn't know, but (as he tiredly notes) he's supposed to find Suleiman for
Banneker.
At which point, Kali gets back fresh from Attuning herself to the city.
Wolsey immediately asks about the attacks on Dantor's Turf and about the Graffitied
door. Kali, caught off guard, says that *of course* she's attacking the Defenders
Cabal in their own territory, and just how stupid does he think she is?
"I didn't say you'd done it. I said your GANG might have done it" - Wolsey
"Well I haven't spoken to the boys for a while. I've been busy" - Kali
"You know what? Screw carrot" - Wolsey
"Carrot?" - Kali, confused
"You would have liked carrot. You would have loved it. You would have loved it more
than a big shiny bag of nickels" - Wolsey
"I have one of those already. Carrot?" - Kali, still confused but now a little irritated
"Carrot is gone. There is no more Carrot." - Wolsey
"Carrot?" - Kali, dangerously
Wolsey continues to ignore her, talking (as she perceives) about her failings without
giving her a chance to respond.
Eventually, she takes a swing at his head, but he still has his Armour spell up and her
punch goes wildly off-target.
Everyone takes a deep breath and tries to chill the hell out. Kali quietly says she's
going to go talk to her people and find OUT if there's anything going on.
It doesn't take her very long
"Yeah. Bastards from over East - the voodoo lot." - Ichi
That would be Kali's gang believing that it's Dantor's gang doing it, then...
Apparently not, says Kali, as she demands a situation report.
Turns out they've been hit as well - three so far, break-ins and brutalisations. Last
night a man living two blocks away was woken up by being beaten with baseball bats
- he's still in the hospital. And this morning one family, including a young girl Kali says
she recognises, had their pet dog nailed to their front door.
"Nailed?" - Kali
"With a nailgun. No shit" - Ichi
"Okay. I'm going to need some chalk. And a chicken" - Kali
Kali's role as mage and priestess / gang leader / communal sex object is a complex one, and relies on a fair amount of
showmanship. What she's doing was before today a coincidental, concentration-based spell and now is an Attainment, so
would work anyway, but she's trained her gang over the years to just shrug and get on with it. They're still sleepers (and Ichi
in particular just puts her scrying down to intuition dressed up in mumbo jumbo), but in her own way she's pushing them
towards Sleepwalker status.
Ichi grumbles about 'that magic crap' but fetches the requisite while Kali inspects the
door in question - the bloodstain and nail holes still visible. When Ichi returns, she
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performs the short and entirely unnecessary incantation for his benefit, and then uses
her Legacy Attainment to look back in time to the incident.
What she sees is.. somewhat surprising.
It's the little old lady that lives across the road from the Sanctum. The one that was
heavily tainted under ring sight. She drugged the dog and nailed it up.
Ichi doesn't believe her when she tells him, but she swears it's true and - never
having been told incorrect information by her in three years - he trusts in that. She
says that she'll deal with it herself, but he is to do something equally as important:
make sure everyone knows it isn't Dantor's gang that are doing this.
"And... I've been away too long." - Kali
"Four days" - Ichi, dismissively
"Still too long. Get them all together - we're going to have a party" - Kali
Reporting back to Wolsey and Damascus, Damascus remaining calm while Wolsey
frets about the impending doom he can sense somehow is coming down on them
from an unexpected angle. They talk about how she was tainted by.. whatever it is
they still haven't decided the Ring shows. Kali says that whatever is was, the old lady
had as much as Kali, more than Damascus or Avatar - and that Wolsey remains
relatively unscathed.
Damascus reminds her about their own front door. Kali blinks and scries back a few
hours. She goes white, and Wolsey asks her who did it.
"Seraph. Seraph wrote it" - Kali
She's getting a lot of mileage out of that Attainment
Wolsey is horrified - and suddenly kind of glad he had the Ring on his person all day,
as the Sanctum has doubtless been searched. Damascus is thoughtful
"Alright. What is Seraph trying to tell us, and I realise your answer is 'it's a trap'" Damascus
"Actually, it wasn't" - Wolsey
"Really? One of us is slipping" - Damascus
Wolsey is in fighting mood.
"'Fuck their shit up.' Is that the term?" - Wolsey
"Pop a cap in their ass, yo" - Damascus, with irony
Whoever's doing this, Wolsey argues (thinking to himself out loud), is stirring up
trouble between them and Dantor - something which was already one of their weak
links with the Consilium, thanks to Dantor's disdain for Kali. With Dantor and Malakaii
doing.. something on the Fourth that somehow involves all of their combined force of
combat mages, the situation is becoming extremely murky. And now Seraph has
gotten involved as well...
"We need to do something about Seraph" - Wolsey
"One day soon. But Independence Day is in two day's time and Malakaii and Dantor
are planning something" - Kali
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He accepts that, and continues thinking out loud, working through the problem.
Calculating strategies and possible conspiracies against them.
"I don't... I don't think we can win this" - Wolsey
gave me chills, that did
"There are too many fingers in the pie" - Kali, agreeing
"We need to hunker down. Go to the Sanctums of powerful allies for the Fourth. Kali you should stick around the House gathering with Samuel. I'll go to Banneker.
Damascus can go to Ulysses or John. I'll keep scrying on the Sanctum every hour or
so and if they do something, we can respond to that from a position of strength. We'll
have a legitimate grievance on our side once they've invaded our sanctum, but we
need to survive that first." - Wolsey
Kali points out that she can't just go running off - she has to keep the gang on side.
"You realise that if you'd been away for even three more days, you'd be at war with
Dantor's gang by now?" - Wolsey
"That's why I need to have this party" - Kali
Wolsey thinks, and eventually nods, having made a decision.
"This is the important bit. I could really do with knowing your names" - Wolsey
Damascus regards him, and then goes to root through some things in his room,
eventually returning with an advertisement for an exhibition featuring work by Carl
Washington, which he taps.
"Well, alright. I *could* have found that out. But I was lazy" - Wolsey
Kali stares at him, and then bites off her name as being Kemi Simone. Wolsey thanks
them both then - off their expressions - remembers to introduce himself.
"Oh!... I'm Thomas Dean. It's.. uh.. nice to meet you." - Wolsey
He says that he'll scry on them regularly as well, keeping the Cabal in contact even
though they'll be spread out among their allies. Kali ruminates, then asks him to stop
a moment
"My name might not be my real name" - Kali
"How so?" - Damascus
Frowning, she finally lays out the parts of her background she'd been keeping from
them. The fight she had with her father, the feeling of missing something important,
like her life wasn't meant to be her life... When she Awakened, she found out she
was adopted.
"Or at least I think I did. I'm.. less sure now. But if I was, then what I think is my real
name might not be" - Kali
Wolsey says it depends how old she was when she was adopted - if she was. It's
about the name you have when your identity forms, not what you're baptised with if
the two differ.
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"Look. This is easy to test - you go into another room, and I'll try to scry on you. No
sense worrying about it." - Wolsey
Hide and Scry it is. Kali goes to her bedroom while Wolsey attempts to scry on her
using Space... and fails.
Oops. I am staying schtum as to whether the spell failed because Mark had a bad roll or because Kali's name isn't Kemi
On second attempt, though, he succeeds. Just.
"That took a while" - kali
"Well, we're hardly bosom buddies, and I haven't slept with you. Sorry... Sorry..
Carrot" - Wolsey
Aaaaaanyway.
They need to deal with their doorstep first of all - these home invasions have to stop.
But Wolsey has a foreboding feeling. The old lady was tainted, right? Maybe it was
showing her as a Seer's favoured puppet.
"We're going to get screwed. I can't shake that feeling" - Wolsey
"By Dantor?" - Damascus
"I don't know. That's the worst part. It's just.. We're going to get screwed" - Wolsey
He's broken out of his reverie by Damascus saying they'd better get a move on.
"So, are we going to go beat up an old lady now?" - Wolsey
"I prefer the term 'question gently'" - Damascus
"No. I want to be one of the 'hoodies" - Wolsey
Kali would like to introduce a note of caution, based on the "Seer Puppet" theory just what DOES Seraph have to do with all of this? Wolsey is dismissive of her
attempts to understand her quisling semi-stalker, as per form, and she says that
Wolsey isn't the font of all knowledge. If Seraph was trying to warn them... well,
*why*? Why would he?
"I just believe there are things you don't know" - Kali
"Impossible" - Wolsey
"Hubris much, Wolsey?" - Damascus
And on that note, they head outside and to the old lady's house.
Knocking at the door receives no answer, so Damascus puts up Grim Sight.. and
discovers that there is a dead body inside, and the residue of several spells.
"Hells" - Wolsey
They analyse what resonance they can, learning that the spells are the remains of
Space-based teleportation and of some kind of Mind effect.
"They teleported in, then out again. Locked-door killing" - Damascus.
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Damascus slaps the lock, then considers. He retrieves a soda bottle from down the
street and runs back to the scene, casting Shape Liquid to manipulate the soda into
the lock.. and to turn the tumblers.
The lock clicks, and Damascus yanks the door open.
Inside, the old lady's corpse is hanging from a noose.
"Was she?" - Wolsey
Damascus casts Forensic Gaze and shudders. She was alive when they hung her and terrified.
"The mind spells.. she was under magically heightened fear when it happened.
Someone teleported in, scared her half to death then went all the way." - Damascus
Kali looks back through time gradually, noting that the *last* person in here was
Seraph - in the body she slept with. He teleported in and out himself, when the old
lady was already dead.
"So he was her tool. That's why she was tainted - she was Seraph's puppet" Wolsey
"Nearby, to keep an eye on us. And someone killed her. He found out, and tried to
warn us..." - Kali
"Why Graffiti?" - Wolsey
Obvious really. He must have known Wolsey wouldn't allow Kali to read any
traditional note. He had to do something she'd be certain to see.
"Who killed her?" - Wolsey
Kali looks back in time again, and describes two men, one greasy and thin, the other
muscular. They talk to one another with Irish accents.
"It's them" - Wolsey
Wolsey's feeling of dread returns, and he remembers the Ring up in the sanctum.
The Ring he had on him all day
"It's the people who were after Gawain" - Wolsey
End
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Interlude: Recap!!
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Session 3.3
Spoiler Warning, yet again - this session contains what of Story One from Reign of the Exarchs wasn't in 2.3. Big chunks of
my foreshadowing finally "fire".
It also contains the first combat of the Chronicle, which was over *very* quickly. Magic is the killer app, you know?
At the end of the session's writeup I'll review "The Ring" from Reign of the Exarchs, now that we've finished it, and provide a
spoiler-blacked summation of what the hell is going on for thread-readers that fancy seeing my players walk into my cunning
traps.
Or Word and BlackHattMatt's cunning traps, at any rate
So. The cabal had just learned that the guys who were chasing Gawain around the world had surfaced in DC and been
performing Home Invasions on innocent civilians in both their and Dantor's territory, and that (maybe separately, maybe not)
Dantor and Malakaii were collaborating on a secret project that somehow involved them.
Also - a thing I forgot. Rafe thought, on the reveal of the old lady's hanging, that the two baddies were Fangs of Mara.
Hurrying back to the Sanctum, the Cabal find that the Ring...
...Is, thankfully (or maybe not from Wolsey's point of view) still there.
NOW what the hell do they do?
Damascus asks who these guys are, and Wolsey reaffirms his belief that they're the
very same Irish mystery men who attacked Gawain.. then immediately qualifies that
by noting that Gawain was more than slightly dodgy. Damascus nods.
"This could all be part of some wider scheme... I've been hanging out with you too
long" - Damascus
Wolsey raises the possibility that they're maybe working for Dantor - after all, she's
been agitating against them for some reason, and the only complaint she's voiced to
them has been the activities of these two. Damascus is still musing on shadowy
conspiracies.
"Gawain could have been working with them" - Damascus
"There's a happy thought for late at night" - Wolsey
What evidence do they have that they're the same pair, though? Gawain was
attacked in Ireland, according to him. But many people have Irish accents. Boston,
for instance. Damascus raises the possibility that they're not people from Gawain's
past, but instead from Wolsey’s
"I mean come on, you're from Boston, and now we're being terrorised by two Irish
guys. Coincidence? I think not" - Damascus, partly in jest
"I'm willing to accept Boston as the root of all evil. But not now" - Wolsey
In any case, Wolsey points out, this makes their plan of cutting and running all the
more important.
Except Kali - who's been oddly quiet so far - has now decided that "retreat to
powerful allies" is the cowards way out. Seeing the bodies, and knowing that this has
been going on under her nose, has deeply pissed her off. She's not going anywhere,
and she's certainly not leaving her gang for another three-day jaunt
"I'd be doing them a disservice if I ran away again" - Kali
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Wolsey has misgivings about this. Severe misgivings. The lady, however, is not for
changing her mind. Wolsey asks what she'll do if they come back.
"Kill them" - Kali
Wolsey gives her a look
"What? Look - we can't be all like you, Wolsey, in your safe, middle-class world,
sitting in your metal apartment..." - Kali
"Mostly concrete and glass, actually" - Damascus
"Sitting in your concrete and glass apartment. We're down *here*, and these fucks
are attacking *us*" - Kali
Kali was really affected by the two crime scenes she's seen so far - especially as they're so close to home. The implication is
that she's not been paying enough attention to the home front, and she's maybe overcompensating. Mind you, given what
happens later on, this is the best decision she could make to avoid a Mage War with Dantor.
Wolsey asks for calm, as the talk has by now gotten a bit tense, and outlays the plan.
He'll go to Banneker's while Damascus goes to Ulysses...
"You've already said. You're running away" - Kali
"I'm setting a trap" - Wolsey
While they're in safety, Wolsey will periodically scry on the other two and on the
Sanctum. When Dantor and Malakaii move in, they'll gather their own allies and...
"Wait. We were talking about the Irish Guys. Not Dantor" - Kali
"Well..." - Wolsey
They decide that yes - they're all running away with theories and plans here. There
are two problems and, speculation to the contrary, they don't know that they're
connected. So they'll do this in order. Irish Guys First, Dantor and Malakaii second.
So. What do they know about them?
Not much. Kali gives physical descriptions, but it doesn't help. The accents are a
pointer but by no means definitive. And they don't know what they *are*
"They used Arcana. They're Mages" - Kali
"Could be demons. Abyssal entities" - Damascus
"If they were full abyssal entities, home invasions would be the least of our worries" Wolsey
"They could be Banishers that have *really* gone off the deep end" - Damascus
"And awoken to the sound of a Bell?" - Wolsey
Oo! good idea!
"Yeah. They could think it's an artefact of a great evil...
...they'd be right." - Damascus
Wolsey nods.
The suggestion is raised that they could be Seers, working with Seraph.
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I forget which of the men raised it
Kali points out that Seraph tried to warn them about these people, which doesn't
make Wolsey any happier. Seraph is not their friend, he says.
"He's not our enemy right now either..." - Kali
"Look. If you're going to put a cap into the Irish guy's heads, and into Dantor's head,
you might as well put a cap into Seraph's head too." - Wolsey
There is a pause, caused by Wolsey attempting to speak "street"
"Could you do me a favour and just say 'shoot them'? Please?" - Damascus
"Sorry" - Wolsey
So - problem the second. Dantor. Again, they're working of supposition - they don't
*know* that Dantor and Malakaii are going to attack them. Just that they're doing
something shady involving them, which is reason enough to be on their guard. And
given that Dantor's annoyed about the home invasions too, and has much more
resources...
Solve two birds with one stone - go tell Dantor about the Irishmen, and watch them
fight it out. Kali isn't enamoured of the idea of it, and even less so when Wolsey says
that they shouldn't all go - but that Kali definitely should.
"Great. Not content with paddling my ass yourself? Want to see me extra
humiliated?" - Kali
Prophetic. I know, I know, I'm being a tease. Soon.
"The last time you met, Dantor..." - Wolsey
"Called me a child and paddled my ass." - Kali
She very fixated on that terminology. There is no sexual tension betwixt her and Wolsey - none at all. Kali is increasingly, in
this three-session story, dwelling on her failure to communicate with her father and seeing Wolsey as a sort of replacement
Father/Authority figure who she's instinctively acting out against. Watch (and go back and see) how much she uses childish
references, goading him by repeating left-field utterances until they become absurd ("Carrot?" last time) and constantly
pushes against his assumed authority.
This moment of insight brought to you by Pinot Grigio.
Wolsey tries to persuade her - that they need to show strength, not look needy but
still like they respect Dantor, and that it would be insulting if the only member of the
Cabal she never saw were Kali. Kali resists, Wolsey tries again. All in all, the
paddling reference is used too many times by both sides, until Damascus tells them
both to stop it. Or pay him to build them both a playroom.
"Kali. It is better to be patronised tonight than raised as a zombie tomorrow" Damascus
"That's not what I'm afraid of" - Kali
"What is?" - Damascus
"Things closer to home" - Kali, pensive
By which she means The Spider, and the implications her trip into the Astral had about her life. Kali has too much on her
plate right now to be worrying about random Irish Seers (and yeah, they're Seers. Sorry).
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Kali casts an Unveiling of Time and decides that going to Dantor's won't be
detrimental to her.
Meeting adjourned. Wolsey - carefully retrieving the Ring from it's hiding place - goes
home, while Damascus and Kali head to Dantor's and get as far as the start of the
Defender's Right of Crossing, where they are turned away by a Sleeper guard. Kali
gets dangerously in his face, telling him to run and tell Dantor that the invasions are
being carried out by two Irishmen, giving their descriptions. The guard says, with no
small amount of sarcasm, that he'll tell her when he sees her.
Eventually, Damascus tugs at Kali enough to get her to come away, and they retreat
back into their own turf. This is not a good night so far.
Damascus flees to his own home and - after shutting the Sanctum up, Kali heads to
her place, where Ichi, true to his word, has gathered the troops together for a party.
Kali throws herself into the night, trying to forget all about everything that's going on
and failing miserably until she drunkenly makes an announcement around 4am - she
tells everyone what the Irishmen look like, and that they were behind the attacks. And
need killing.
There is much hoisting of weaponry as people vow to do just that, and Kali allows
herself to be swallowed up by her people. Sex, drink.. and then oblivion.
Monday 3rd July
Morning. No-one - but no-one - is an early riser. Unless you count Kali, who hasn't
yet gone to bed. The closest to it is Wolsey, who does see single-digit hours in his
"mostly concrete and glass" apartment. Remembering what he promised the other
day, he successfully applies clout and manages to somehow get a table reservation
on this night of all the calendar, and then calls Avatar to tell her where they're going.
Remember that? Avatar and Wolsey decided to go on a "first" date? Was in last session.
"Yeah, that's fine. I'm at Promethea's today..." - Avatar, mid-ramble
Wolsey remembers his Heralding duties, and after a brief negotiation with Promethea
via Avatar and then Promethea via Avatar's phone, gets the number of a law firm
downtown. The senior partner of which likes to call himself "Suleiman" when
associating with a particular group of acquaintances that share his interests.
I can't remember the name of the firm - or in fact Suleiman's real name. Because they're the name of one of the credits from
the World of Darkness corebook, which I don't have on me at time of writing.
Calling Suleiman (and after pleasantries n which Wolsey makes it clear that this is
supernal business and Suleiman does.. something.. to the line), Wolsey passes on
the message that Banneker would like to see the Councillor ASAP. Suleiman gives
Wolsey a return message, and then rather oddly starts talking about Wolsey.
"I heard about Malakaii refusing you. Terrible business. You know, when you first
came to us there was some question about who you'd be trained by..." - Suleiman
Wolsey listens to the invitation, all-but-spoken, to join Suleiman's Claviclarius instead
of Malakaii's Legacy. He thanks the elder mage and hangs up.
Suleiman - like Fisher - would be a more important character but for our cast of PCs. Because when I was designing the
chronicle, Rafe was going to play a Claviclarius mage. I quite like the Goetic mages, they're neat - and as I've mentioned I do
appreciate Awakening's take on the Inner Realms. He's someone that will become more important as I start to show things
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other than Legacies - He's the senior Mastigos, equal to Malakaii, and he's actually the head of the Mysterium in DC. Which
would be the Order Kali's in - Samuel's a Free Council Mage.
In any case, the offer was genuine but I knew ooc Wolsey wouldn't take it. He's unsuited to the Claviclarius. They're too
inwardly-focused for him, and as Mark puts it - can you imagine Wolsey if he tamed his arrogance and kept it chained up in
the cellar?
Before he forgets, he calls Banneker at home
"Hello? Yes... No.. No dear, it's not the delivery people. We *have* enough
cranberries... No, it's someone from work..." (to Wolsey) "Sorry about that." Banneker
"I found the partner you wanted me to find. He'll meet you at your usual place." Wolsey
"Ah, thank you. Yes. That's good. And listen... whatever happens tomorrow, don't
worry, all right? Just keep your head down and stay out of it." - Banneker
"I'll bear that in mind" - Wolsey
"Seriously, lad. It's all in hand. *Trust me*" - Banneker
----Damascus is studying at home, idly considering what courses to aim for and if he can
get away with doing an Art major. He calls his family, learning that his brother has so
far managed to keep his job and that in absence of a reply, his parent's haven't
bought enough food to feed him tomorrow along with everyone else.
"Ah, it's all right. I'm looking to be busy tomorrow anyway. Look,. I'll come round on
Wednesday and eat the leftovers, okay?" - Carl
After he hangs up and returns to his work, something... odd... happens. Everything
jerks around him, almost imperceptibly - like a disc skipping, or a few frames of a film
being repeated. As someone who has experienced missing time at the hands of
other mages, he immediately checks his watch - no difference. He casts Supernal
Vision, but can't see anything unusual among the mass of Prime-forms all around.
Everything seems in order.
More about this later - there is a reason, a very good reason, why Damascus has started to experience these deja-vu
incidences.
He's the guy who has just gained a *non-magical* permanent Mind shield, thanks to his Legacy attainment from the
Uncrowned Kings. The extent to which the perceptions and memories of all or characters are tweaked is rather higher than
'whenever Malakaii's around'.
As Damascus says later - a deja vu is a glitch in the Fallen World. It's when the Exarchs change something. But - and this'll
bake your noodle - the events of the chronicle are what the characters *remember* happening, not what actually happened. I
don't tell them 'and you forget all this', rather the lives of the characters we experience by playing the chronicle are the endresult of all the editing that's going on in the chronicle. If that makes any sense.
But there's another couple of layers yet to all this - which will be revealed in time.
----Later
Wolsey and Avatar - determinedly Thomas and Amanda for this evening - have met
at Thomas' restaurant of choice and are in the awkward phase where they feign a
deep and abiding interest in the menu rather than confront the mammoth-sized
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issues between them. Amanda has dyed all of her hair blonde for the occasion so as
to avoid too much attention in the restaurant, which gives Thomas his "in" for a
conversation-starter - what's the hair all about?
Avatar's got a very odd hairstyle - spiky in places, short in places, dyed a couple of different colours
Amanda says that she's dissatisfied with it, and just trying different things out. Her
hair never feels quite *right*.
"So. Experimentation. And I suppose a part of it is wanting to.. I don't know... change
who I see in the mirror, I suppose." - Amanda
"Trying to be different" - Thomas
"Trying not to be who I used to be, or feel like I used to be. I'm not the same person."
- Amanda
"I'm unusual in that, I think. I don't feel much difficulty coping with it - letting go of
parents and so on. Though some people don't seem to have a problem separating
their day-lives at all" - Thomas
Like Damascus, or Banneker. Wolsey's saying that he's not like - say - Kali or Avatar, who feel so strongly different to their
pre-awakened state that they're uncomfortable in themselves.
"Yeah. I'm still feeling it out. Like I said the other day - I can tell there's something I'm
supposed to be, and that's reassuring and comforting and all, but... at times it's like I
don't know myself. Like with the hair. I must think, on some level, that I might cut it
just right and then recognise the woman in the mirror." - Amanda
Example.
"What was it you used to watch all the time? The sport?" - Amanda
Thomas 'oh's in recognition
"The playoffs. I always used to watch the playoffs. Though... Um... It was mostly so
that I could have something to break the ice in hotel bars" - Thomas
That is very Wolsey. That is the essence of Wolsey right there.
Amanda laughs
"I watch Cricket" (off his expression) "No - really. Since I was in.. that other place... I
don't know. I honestly have a thing for Cricket. Don't know why. It's Baseball with one
base and a break for dinner, but it's fascinating." - Amanda
Wood - if you read this - don't say anything, all right? Consider this your shout-out.
"Do you feel especially English?" - Thomas
"Could be Indian. I put it down to Mara. I choose to blame Mara" - Amanda
...
"This is good" - Thomas, pointing with a fork at the food that had just arrived.
"Yes. Good." - Amanda
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There is some uncomfortable silence
"So.. What are we doing..?" - Amanda
"Afterward? Well... This is a first date, right? No expectations on a first date." Thomas
Yeah. About that.
"I've been meaning to ask you. Was there anyone? After I went?" - Amanda
Thomas shakes his head
"What? No one? No nubile cult-addled maidens?" - Amanda
"Not one. And you? Any authoritarian mysterious leader-types?" - Thomas
She smiles, pained, and shakes her own head. Then gets serious.
"Listen. About that..." - Amanda
"You don't have to tell me" - Thomas
"I do. You say authoritarian. When I Awoke, I was in a cult dedicated to money,
influencing people - they thought of the world as made up of commodities. Very
capitalist. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that they... ah.. Batted for the other side." Amanda
"Back in Boston?" - Thomas
"No - here." - Amanda
She's quite lucky, in a way, that the Seers usually don't consider satellite societies to be recruitment grounds. If they'd kept a
closer eye, they'd have spotted her as an Awakening in action and she'd have ended up in a Pylon.
----And now, at the one-third mark, we catch up with Kali.
Meanwhile, across town... Kali, vaguely awake - though the party has moved onto a
more chilled phase now that most people have slept - is woken up properly by a
young boy bursting in through the warehouse door and shouting that there's another
attack going on right now. The dozens of 'gangers arranged in various poses and
conditions hear the call to action, weapons are brandished and people begin to
hustle. Quickly pulling her boots on and retrieving a pistol, Kali rushes outside at the
back of the wave, gang men and women piling into cars and onto bikes. Kali hitches
a ride on the back of Ichi's motorbike for the short trip across the two and a half
blocks to the apartments the boy named.
As they arrive, a young woman - soaked in blood - stumbles out of the door to the
building, and is quickly guided away by the 'gangers. Kali orders someone to take
care of her, casts Fortune's Protection then leads her men and women in. When they
reach the stairwell, Ichi and Kali in the lead, bullets are fired down from a floor high
above them. Carefully advancing up the stairs, mind full of vengeance, Kali and Ichi
take the last few floors at a run, leaving the rest of the gang behind. One apartment
door is ajar, and Kali kicks it open as they run in...
...Just in time to see one of the Irishmen jump through a Portal.
Ichi goes very wide-eyed, and Kali feels the Paradox building. She runs at the Portal,
hoping to get through before the insurmountable barrier of Ichi's disbelief shuts it
down, but the enemy has Keyed it. The Portal shrinks in Ichi's gaze and eventually
vanishes with a small rush of displaced air. Ichi blinks, his memory all spongy and
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refusing to accept what he just saw.
Kali, though, saw the room on the other side of that Portal. She knows where they
are.
"They're in the Factory!" - Kali
Ichi looks around, then at the window
"Jesus... the *drop*" - Ichi
He thinks the Seer jumped out of the window
"Fire Escape. They're heading for the Crack Factory - come ON" - Kali
She runs out, half dragging him after her. The first gang members are now at the top
of the stairs, and have to turn right around again. Kali and Ichi get back on the bike,
and two cars' worth of gangers have made it back down in time to go with them.
Kali's not waiting - rushing around. Her people are getting strung out.
Arriving at their former drugs-lab, Kali assesses the six gang members that made it
thus far and splits them up, sending three in each of the main entrances on either
side of the building. She and Ichi will head for the back door. Everyone moves
rapidly, aping gun sieges they've seen in movies, and Kali is soon within sight of the
back door.
There, on the sidewalk in front of the building, is a Nickel.
Kali blinks, and casts a Mage Sight, reading the object as obviously magical. She
waves Ichi to wait even as they hear the doors being kicked in by the other teams,
and squats down to look at the coin. It's embedded in the sidewalk, edge-on.
Very carefully, she reaches out and tugs it. The Nickel emits a noise, loudspeakerloud, that Kali will later realise is her own voice shouting "Go!".
Not all Nickels are good.
There's a flash of light as conditional spells trigger. The coin focuses the reflection of
the sunset into a tight beam of orange light that flashes around for a split second as
the coin moves in Kali's hand, then targets dead-on at a traffic mirror, rebounding
and shining through an upper-story floor of the "Factory".
Which explodes.
The orange fireball and clump-whummph sound of a gas explosion rocks the city for
several blocks, as an expanding cloud of superheated gas shatters the once-factory
to pieces. Burning masonry goes flying, and Ichi and Kali are stood right in the way.
Big blocks of redbrick come crashing down, narrowly missing her thanks to the
armour spell. Kali doesn't much notice, as the blast sent her flying. When she lands,
she's unconscious.
--"Did you just hear something?" - Thomas
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Cute.
--Damascus, still at home, flicks the TV on as he goes to fix a meal. The news is
plastered all over the local stations - an explosion in Anacostia. There's a crash as he
drops his plate and runs out of the house, jabbing the number of Wolsey's cell into
his phone while simultaneously trying to find his van's keys in his pocket.
--Thomas waves Amanda's taxi off, considering his life. He's interrupted in his musing
by the call from Damascus. Wolsey frowns and answers.
Damascus tells him the news - which Wolsey had missed - but says that he's stuck in
traffic. The police have cordoned off the roads all around the place, for fear of
another blast.
They quickly establish that they don't know where Kali is. Wolsey scries her location
with Space Magic, and tells Damascus that she looks okay - she's in an ambulance
somewhere.
"Ichi looks pretty bad, though. Where would they be taking her?" - Wolsey
"St Jude's, maybe. I can go check." - Damascus
"No - we need to know what happened. I'll meet you in the Sanctum" - Wolsey
"Or as close to it as we can get" - Damascus
Damascus hangs up, pounding his horn and trying to remember back routes.
"...SHIT!" - Wolsey, hailing a cab.
Mark wishes to make it clear this is Wolsey driven to frustration at the situation, not in surprise at something new.
--Kali wakes up in the Ambulance, groggy as hell and comfortably numb from the drip which, the Paramedic tells her, has painkillers in it. She's all right, though, the
wreckage somehow missed her ("damn lucky").. but Ichi was not so lucky. He's alive,
and the Paramedic is working on re-inflating his left lung.
As the medic talks, his words turning into a kind of droning buzz, Kali gets a huge,
crushing feeling of inevitability and predestination, like all of this is fated to go exactly
the way it's going. She realises there's something in her hand, and looks down - it's
the Nickel, still clutched in her left hand.
Kali, pained, tries to roll over and look away from Ichi. Trying to make the world go
away, covering her head with her arm.
Weird little human gesture, that. Kali is in varying degrees of shock and reaction to her trauma for the rest of the session.
--Damascus is the first of the menfolk on the scene, picking his way through the
wreckage (it's started to rain, and the fire brigade have managed to get the fires put
out) and looking over the scene of utter chaos, with emergency vehicles, onlookers, a
TV camera and spectators all crammed around. He carefully casts Incognito before
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crossing the tape, and listens to the lead fireman give an initial verbal report to a cop
- the building detonated due to a gas leak meeting a spark, probably electrical. They
haven't gone through the wreckage yet, but they have been finding pieces of what
looks like chemistry equipment. The implication is clear.
At which point, Damascus is joined by Nimrod - the Guardian of the Veil in the FBI,
who since we have seen him last has become a Sentinel of the Consilium. Nimrod
calmly greets him, and they step aside from the ongoing investigations to have a
polite chat. Nimrod explains that Kali will likely be arrested as soon as she leaves the
ambulance - both she and Ichi were carrying firearms - and that the Cabal will have
to exercise great subtlety and wisdom in what they choose to do about it. Strings will
be pulled - it does no one any good to have one of the community behind bars - but
the more strings that have to be pulled the greater the chance there is of her being
punished for this by the *magical* community. Damascus references the equipment
in the rubble and suggests that they try to tell the police it was a Micro-brewery
Which is a referential joke back to the Factory's last appearance. When I said it was important to the chronicle and you'd all
realise it soon...
Wolsey arrives, and Damascus and Nimrod fill him in. They need to get to Kali as
soon as possible, and learn exactly what happened here - in particular if there was
any breach of the Veil - before anyone else does. Nimrod informs them both that six
bodies have been recovered from the wreckage so far. He'll stay here to assist with
any magical cover-up that may be required, and after a brief consultation Damascus
and Wolsey decide that Wolsey will go to the Hospital to find Kali while Damascus
stays here and assists Nimrod - the Cabal needs to show anyone who may be
watching that they're covering all their bases.
After Wolsey leaves, Damascus - scanning the site with Mage Sight spells - learns
that there were several small spells that triggered one another like dominos, and that
the end result was the blast. He also finds that there was a large amount of crack on
the ground floor - it isn't crack now, given that it's been well and truly cooked, rained
on and blasted under intense pressure, but the police will still find it unless the two
Moros do something. Nimrod starts erasing the traces of drugs, while Damascus
works on understanding the spells that brought the building down.
--At the hospital, Kali is withdrawn, still clutching the fateful nickel. Wolsey, covered by
Inconspicuous, enters, and tells her that it's him. She looks like the thing she wants
the most is for Wolsey to go away - pale, covered in tiny wounds and very very tired,
feeling that oppressive inevitability again.
Wolsey tells her that she's likely to be arrested, and she asks why - she was a
bystander, after all. The gun, maybe - but no. For it turns out that it's legal. She
doesn't have a concealed carry licence, but it wasn't concealed.
"...Ichi's shotgun, however, was definitely NOT legal" - Wolsey
Kali asks where Ichi is, and Wolsey says that he's still in surgery. She nods - the last
thing she did, when they wheeled him out of the ambulance, was cast Exceptional
Luck on him.
At which point, Damascus arrives, fresh from his inquiries.
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"The building was blown up by a simple Matter and Fate spell - when the correct
conditions were met, produced by another spell, the gas meter's conductivity was
reversed - it became electrified, and set off the gas that had been building up in the
building" - Damascus
Kali clutches the Nickel and doesn't say anything
"There's more... Nimrod says that witnesses are claiming you ran up and threw
something in through the window. And also that these Witnesses are being
influenced magically. He's counter-influencing them, and he's destroyed all trace of
the drugs you had in the place, but Malakaii has already brought charges against you
for endangering the veil. Mr Thursday is on his way to take you into custody - the
police charges have been squashed by Nimrod, but.. well.. It's the magical ones we
need to worry about." - Damascus
Not once do the lads ask her if she's okay.
"What happened, Kali?" - Wolsey
"Oh, you've finally got around to asking, have you?" - Kali, bitter
She tells the story, from the beginning. Wolsey and Damascus listening. All told, not
_too_ bad - she did Magic, but it was Covert. The only Vulgar spells were cast by the
Seers, and she sent the majority of her gangers away before the final explosion.
Wolsey starts theorising (to increasingly angry looks from Kali) that they could claim
she was minimising the damage to the veil - showing good character.
At which point, Mr Thursday arrives and joins the little party. Bowing politely, softlyspoken, the Bokor ignores the other two and asks Kali directly what damage there
was to the veil. He has already had Nimrod's report, he points out to Damascus. Kali
explains that only Ichi saw any Vulgar magic, and Thursday nods as if ticking a
mental box.
"And your man is still in surgery?" - Thursday
"Yes" - Kali
"Do you wish to keep him?" - Thursday
"*yes*" - Kali
"Very well. The gentleman is my one area of concern - the accusation against the
lady will be heard in due time, but we must deal with the breach. You should decide
what to do about the situation among yourselves. I will be outside. When you have
decided, the lady will be released and I will take her to a Consilium Sanctum." (to Kali
directly, rather than to the whole room) "Look at it this way - if you are being targeted
by someone, then it is best to put you under our protection" - Thursday
Thursday has the quiet authority of an executioner at times like this, though since my Invisibles overdose I keep seeing him
as Jim Crow.
Thursday goes outside politely, and the lads talk to - but mostly around - Kali as they
try to decide what to do with Ichi.
Both Damascus and Wolsey skirt close to "kill him", but Kali fiercely opposes even
the suggestion of it. Damascus speculates that what Dantor really wants is maybe
their turf, or the threat of a rival gang eliminated...
"...how many men do you have left?" - Damascus
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Dozens, as it turns out - 'only' six died. Which squashes that idea, but Kali is
outraged that he even thought of handing over her hard-fought territory to Dantor as
a peace offering.
Damascus *keeps* suggesting that this session - that the gang is a problem that they need to get rid of.
Back to Ichi
"Make him a Sleepwalker?" - Kali
"It's an idea.. But we have no idea how to do it" - Wolsey
"I don't want you to wipe his memory, or remove that experience from him. He
deserves the chance" - Kali
"There is no way of telling..." - Wolsey
"You're failing the test you're setting yourself at the first attempt. If you really believed
all the crap you spout you'd be trying to *help* him. Or does he not deserve magic
because he's poor?" - Kali
"I thought you were against me doing it at all - or is just because Ichi's someone you
like?" - Wolsey
She has no answer to that.
Damascus and Wolsey promise to do what they can - and that they won't kill him.
Thursday comes back in, asking if they've talked it through and - when they say they
have - saying that he will take Kali now. Wolsey asks how the Consilium handles
legal matters - it's a simple argument and counter-argument until the Council decides
the verdict, unless the Cabal decide to challenge Malakaii to a duel for the result.
--An hour later, Kali and Thursday arrive at Samuel's Sanctum. Thursday and Samuel
- who doesn't look at Kali - engage in a very formal exchange of greetings and
authorities, as Thursday asks for the Right of Hospitality for himself and his prisoner
in accordance with the Lex Magica as enshrined in the Consilium of Washington-DC
and by that point Kali isn't listening.
Samuel lets them in, and half-smiles sympathetically to her when Thursday is closing
the door. He indicates a corridor, and says that they can sleep this way.
This bit passes oddly - and the conversation between Samuel and Thursday was described in imprecise terms ('they're
speaking formally about rights' rather than the actual words) as part of Kali being numbed with shock. Also, Samuel's dealing
with the 'situation' not with her, just like Wolsey and Damascus. Only when Thursday turns his back does Kali get the first
human sympathy since being attacked.
--Damascus and Wolsey lurk in the waiting room of the hospital, hanging on word of
Ichi's operation. Damascus says - guiltily - that he has almost wished Ichi doesn't
make it in the last few hours. Wolsey knows what he means.
The clock ticks around to Midnight.
What a day.
Tuesday 4th July
The sun rises on Independence Day, as Ichi finally wakes up. He came through the
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surgery okay - and thankfully, from Wolsey and Damascus' point of view, Disbelief
has done it's work and he can no longer remember the precise details of what
happened. As far as Ichi is concerned, the Irishmen escaped from the apartment by
the fire escape and - when they tracked them to the Crack Factory - Kali stopped him
going inside at the last minute, spotting something Ichi didn't see on the floor. Then
the building exploded.
Ichi's troubled - and not just because his memory's taking a beating from the Abyss.
He asks about Kali, and the guys say she's fine - but that doesn't seem to cheer him
up. The two Mages have bigger fish to fry, though, and they leave him to his
thoughts.
Ichi's reaction to the whole thing will wait until next story.
Wolsey and Damascus, safely away from Ichi, talk about what their response to
what's going on should be. Someone's clearly agitating against them, and given
Malakaii's haste in having Kali seized it looks like the person manipulating the
witnesses is closer to home. Or that the Irishmen are working for him and Dantor.
Wolsey wants to focus on defences for Kali - the charges are that she endangered
the Veil. Wolsey talks it through, and points out to himself and Damascus that Kali
hasn't actually used Vulgar magic in front of Sleepers. He rhetorically considers
whether Malakaii believes Kali's gang-running lifestyle is one huge veil
endangerment, but decides that that can't be it - Dantor has zombies walking around,
and no one accuses *her*.
"And in the end.. If she did get into the position she's in with the gang through magic,
then that could be argued in her favour - she felt the need to follow this path, so she
moved to a part of the city where it was possible and blended in with the natives.
Being obviously *not* from these parts would be endangering the Veil." - Wolsey
What they need is a counter-attack against Malakaii.
And neither of them is feeling particularly soft-footed right now.
"Should I go talk to Beckett? I cannot think of anyone better qualified to screw with
Malakaii" - Damascus
"And he DOES owe you a favour" - Wolsey
They think it through, and reject the idea - going to the left-handed mage to have
someone done over would not be sending the correct signals.
"Malakaii's a Businessman, as I recall. And a grand Mason." - Wolsey
"I say we fuck him up - arrange a little demonstration that this could happen to
anyone, and counter-charge HIM with endangering the veil when he moves to cover
it up" - Damascus
"I don't know - don't you think that's.. No. Fuck it. Let's be ambitious. Let's screw
Malakaii over AND make Ichi a Sleepwalker. We can do two impossible things or be
damned trying" - Wolsey
Wolsey phones Banneker, hoping to find out the timeframe of it all, and learns that
it'll be dealt with at the Consilium that evening before the rites to expend DC's excess
energy are performed. Banneker expresses his admiration for the way they're
handling this so far, and tells Wolsey in no uncertain terms not to do anything stupid.
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"And Tom? That thing I was talking about staying out of? This isn't it." - Banneker
When the Hierarch hangs up, Wolsey informs Damascus that plan 'blow up
Malakaii's house' is on temporary hold, and that however bad things are now they're
liable to get worse later today.
Mark says Banneker's call and the realisation of how little time they had was what calmed it down
--Samuel is telling Kali much the same thing - trying to ensure she stays calm and
telling her not to be afraid of the hearing. Even if she's found guilty the sentence
won't be fatal for this. And, "goddess willing", he'll see her at the House of Ariadne
party afterwards. Kali, throughout, is plagued by her feeling of inevitability - and
eventually asks if she can use the Time Machine to meditate. Samuel checks that the
conditions of her house arrest don't apply to Astral travel as long as her body stays
here, and lets her up the tower into the meditation chamber.
--Wolsey and Damascus have now left the Hospital, driving back into town towards
Damascus' house. They stop at an intersection, and Damascus - for just a split
second - sees the word "HELP" written on a wall. Then it's gone.
"Hn. That's odd" - Damascus, pulling over once it's safe and looking back over his
shoulder
"What?" - Wolsey
To Damascus' perception, the scene jumps forward a fraction of a second again. He
can't see any changes.
"I.. did you feel that?" - Damascus
"Feel what?" - Wolsey
Damascus explains that he's been having these odd sensations, like deja vu, and
had one yesterday before the blast. They both activate Mage Sight spells but can't
see anything try as they might.
"Well.. There is the Bell" - Wolsey
"Do you have it?" - Damascus
The gang refer to the Ring of the Dethroned Queen as 'The Bell' or 'The Bell of Evil' pretty much exclusively IC.
He does, and hands it to Damascus grimly. They talk about using the Exarch-made
artefact and whether it's a good idea, until Damascus strikes the Bell, feels the effect
settle into his pattern and then casts Supernal Vision. Under the modified Ring-Sight,
both he, Wolsey and in fact a large area around them are tainted with the energies
the Ring detects. Whatever they are.
Wolsey can't see anything with his own Magic, and Damascus really needs a second
set of senses. Grimly, feeling dirty about even considering it, Wolsey uses the Ring
for the first time
And passes his Wisdom check, maintaining his morals. For these purposes, I consider Wisdom loss to be when you *don't*
feel guilty about doing something - I give bonuses to the roll when the character's already acting guilty about it, and penalties
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when they're justifying their actions to themselves.
So for me - and this came up in the game later on - "self defence" as an argument makes you more likely to get a die
knocked off your pool for the roll. Morality scales are about what feels like a transgression to you.
Wolsey activates the Ring Sight using Space and notes that yes indeed - both he and
Damascus have some kind of other energy on them. Damascus starts talking quietly
about the thought he had when they first experimented with the Ring - what if this
thing shows the presence of a 6th Arcana pair? The Ring was part of the regalia of
an Exarch - but they don't know which Supernal Realm she was Queen of, and
according to legend there are hundreds of such realms beyond the five that the
Watchtowers were built in.
"It's to do with our Minds. Something acting on our minds. 'Help', which then
vanished. Help who? 'Help me?'" - Wolsey
"What if it shows the Exarchs changing something. What would they change?" Damascus
"Covering something up. Covering someONE up. What if someone were being
hidden by forces beyond our understanding. What would that feel like?" - Wolsey
"Maybe the writing was like a glitch - a momentary affect of whatever They
changed..." - Damascus
At which point, Damascus receives a phone call.
It's Ulysses, and he has something important to say - He's been with two of the
people selected for Dantor and Malakaii's special mission all day, and they've just
made their excuses and left him. Whatever's going to happen is about to happen.
"Where are you? Do you have somewhere to get to?" - Ulysses
Damascus explains that they've got places of safety figured out, and hangs up.
Wolsey and Damascus have a brief moment of paranoia that this might be connected
to the "glitch in the matrix" Damascus just experienced, and Damascus asks Wolsey
where the safehouse is. Wolsey never actually asked Banneker for sanctuary, and
Damascus calls Ulysses back, arranging for them both to take shelter in Ulysses'
church.
When they arrive, Ulysses has taped a note to the door apologising to any
worshippers that may come around for having to close the church today, but their
nearest catholic mass can be found at X address. Inside, Ulysses has locked the
main entrance and is sat on a pew, regarding a shotgun with a certain sense of
loathing.
It's eerily quiet as the three Mages greet one another. The lights are all out, so the
interior is lit only by the colours from the stained-glass windows.
"Thanks for taking us in" - Wolsey
"It is no problem. Better safe than sorry. I heard about Kali" - Ulysses
Ulysses and Damascus talk about the hearing that evening as Wolsey phones
Avatar, checking she's somewhere safe herself. She's at Mara's - and spent most of
the night and this morning hearing about the explosion. Wolsey says that Malakaii is
out to get them, and Avatar says that Malakaii was at Mara's when she arrived this
morning.
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"You know we were talking last night, about the Cult? Malakaii quizzed me about
them this morning. Wanted to know everything." - Avatar
"Wait. Back up a second. What was this Cult *called*, Avatar?" - Wolsey
"Something about a coin" - Avatar
"Did it have 'Steel' or Metal in the name?" - Wolsey
"That's it. Some Enochian or something.. Translated as the Order of the Steel Coin" Avatar
Wolsey feels a great weight lift from his shoulders.
(addressing both the phone and the other two) "That's.. They're going after the
SEERS! Malakaii and Dantor's strike force - they're going after the House of Steel.
Bastards! They're going to take credit for my Intel... But..." - Wolsey
"Are you okay?" - Avatar
"I.. Yeah. Yeah. I think.. I think it's all going to be okay." - Wolsey
At which point, the window shatters as someone throws a grenade through it.
--Kali leaves her body behind in the Time Machine, walking through her own mind. Her
Oneiros is full of images of fire and death, shattering and cracking. She spots the
door to her father's living room, where the Guardian within her psyche seals..
something.. off from her, and turns away. She concentrates, pushing herself further
away from herself, entering the dream of DC. Which is even more Patriotic than
before, consumed by Independence Day.
Under a stars and stripes sky, Kali sadly contemplates her fate.
--In the church, Wolsey drops the phone and - in kung-fu slow-motion, hastily forms an
Imago and makes a punching motion towards the grenade. The grenade vanishes
through a fold in space, flung yards away from Wolsey onto the other side of the wall.
From outside, there's a panicked shout and then an explosion. All the windows
shatter, dust rains down from the ceiling and car alarms go off.
Yeah, he doesn't have Matter 2. I disagree with the rulebook on this, and think you should only need the Arcana of whatever
you're teleporting if you're drawing it to you. Punting an object away should just be Space, same as you don't need Life to
teleport yourself. Besides, it was cool.
Ulysses casts a spell of his own, and the dust-filled sunlight streaming in through the
shattered stained glass somehow changes, becoming muted.
He has cast a conjunctional Dead Zone with a Fate component to exclude himself, Wolsey and Damascus - an area of effect
anti-magic shield. I note the sunlight as I figure that Sunlight is the Fallen World's purest expression of Mana in the
conversion of Prime to Forces as it crosses the Abyss. More minor Mage cosmology, there.
The three Mages look at one another. Wolsey casts Spatial Map and crosses to the
side door they came in through, while Damascus retrieves a metal rod from the
smashed-up stained glass. Wolsey pushes the door open, seeing one body lying in a
pool of blood just outside, and a car with its trunk open, someone shielding
themselves behind it.
Wolsey relays this to the others, and Ulysses and Damascus leave the church by the
main door, heading towards the still-upright assailant. The man at the car, spotting
Wolsey, casts some kind of spell and fires a gun. Wolsey ducks back in as the shot
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hits the wall next to him.
The Seer's spell was a Sharpshooter's Eye. Didn't do much good, though.
Damascus reaches the man, running in from the side, and smacks him in the legs as
he runs past. Ulysses unloads a shotgun barrel in his direction to keep him from
going after Damascus. In the background, Wolsey has emerged and scooped a gun
up off the body, also firing at the assailant - who he realises is one of the Irishmen,
the body being the other. Having the Seer pinned down, Ulysses fires the other
barrel, dropping him.
Wolsey gasps a breath, and asks if he's dead. Damascus casts Grim Sight and says
no - neither of them are, though both are injured. The Seer Wolsey's standing over,
though, is too far gone to save - his life is pumping out all over the church car park.
As Damascus watches, that man passes away.
"We need to clear this up. Now" - Ulysses.
Wolsey's hands are shaking as Damascus takes the gun from him. Wolsey has never
fired a weapon at a person before.
Wolsey's second Morality check of the day, now - he killed the first Seer indirectly using magic. He passed again.
By the time the Police arrive, Ulysses has erased the corpse, converting it into Mana,
and they've stashed the still-alive but unconscious Seer in the confessional.
Damascus and Wolsey have retrieved all the shotgun shells, bullet casings and other
suspicious elements. Ulysses tells the police a story, backed by Damascus and
Wolsey both using Mind magic, of vandals throwing fireworks at the church, and how
this is a sad reflection of the moral state of today's youth.
The cops gone, Ulysses visibly deflates, weeping as he prays for forgiveness for
unmaking the pattern of the dead assailant.
It's not so much the converting him to Mana that Ulysses minds, it's the way that that Mana then gets added to Ulysses' own
reserves - a form of magical vampirism based on annihilating something.
Damascus returns from outside, where he's searched the assailant's car. It was a
hire car, and judging by the sleeping bags and supplies in it they've been living out of
it for a couple of weeks. There were more grenades, a rifle and a bunch of plastic ties
in the boot. There was also a notebook containing several Polaroid’s of the Cabal
over the last fortnight and notes on their habits - especially Kali's. From context, they
were indeed Seers of the Throne, and they've been tracking the Ring.
Wolsey spots his phone lying on the floor - the call disconnected. He picks it up.
"Who are you calling?" - Damascus
"We need to tell Kali we got them.. and we need to get a Sentinel out here to take
that one into custody." - Wolsey
He *tries* to call Kali
"Sorry. She's not on this plane" - Samuel
Which is a joke referencing another joke - the deadpan way people say whatever year Samuel's in when people try to contact
him during his time travelling.
Wolsey asks him to get Kali to call once she's back in the Material, and then calls
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Banneker - who is pleased (VERY pleased) with news of a Seer being captured.
Especially so when it turns out Ulysses - a Provost - was a witness to both the attack
and the capture.
"We can use this. Excellent. Excellent work, Wolsey. I'll send Thursday" - Banneker
After the call, Wolsey considers. And then phones Avatar to apologise for the cut-off.
He has a very good excuse, though.
--Hours later, Kali returns to her body, finding Samuel watching over her.
"Your Cabal called..." - Samuel
"Not interested." - kali
Samuel shrugs and opens the trapdoor.
--The Consilium is held that evening at Dusk, in the Grand Masonic Temple on 16th
Street.
The Temple's website in the real world is at http://www.scottishrite.org/where/hq.html - in the gameworld, the choice is rather
significant, as both Banneker and Malakaii have ties to Freemasonry.
Of the six seats set at the front of the meeting hall, two are unoccupied - Dantor's
and Malakaii's. The seat normally left vacant at Banneker's right hand is actually filled
for the first time Damascus and Wolsey can remember, by an elderly man, balding,
dressed roughly and at the moment deep in conversation with Banneker.
"That must be Fisher" - Damascus
Fisher - short for Fisher King - is a Thyrsus of no Order, who practices alone and is the fifth and almost never-seen
Councillor. He's a variant of both the House of Ariadne and the Neocologists - his magic style is based on the belief that the
City itself, not any Shadow world reflection or technical expression of tangled destiny and fate - is a life form, a vast creature
with many sub-ecologies living in it like bacteria in a human's gut. In his role in the chronicle of 'magic hobo', he's most like
Tom O'Bedlam in the Invisibles.
Wolsey, who's entered with him, spots Kali sat in the rows and nods to Damascus.
They go to sit either side of her.
"Did you get our message?" - Wolsey
"No" - Kali
"Well... we..." - Wolsey
He starts to explain, but she isn't listening to him. Annoyed, he stops and focuses on
the hearing.
"We've been thinking, and we reckon the best argument is to claim that you were
trying to preserve the Veil by..." (from her expression) "Why am I bothering? We
spent hours trying to find a way out of this for you." - Wolsey
"I'm very grateful" - Kali, flatly
"You know what? I'll keep on helping you. And on, and on." - Wolsey
"Is this a carrot thing?" - Kali
At which point a hush falls over the assembly, as Malakaii and Dantor arrive. Dantor
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is inscrutable, Malakaii looks like he's the king of the world.
Banneker opens the Consilium by naming Marion - sat at the front in prime position as the Magus who will disperse the Mana when the central Hallow of the city opens.
"You will all be glad to know I'm sure that this gives us a deadline for tonight. This
meeting must be completed within four hours" - Banneker
The Hierarch finishes by noting that there is a judgement of the Lex Magica to be
heard. Malakaii gets to his feet and denounces Kali, then starts to say something
else but is cut off by Banneker holding up his sceptre.
Wolsey watches intently as Banneker thanks Malakaii for his denouncement and
says that the judgement will be added to the agenda for the evening as Other
Business. As a procedural point, though, the Council speak on one topic each in turn
until all reports are finished.
"We are pleased to have our dear Colleague Fisher - the eldest of this Council in the
Art - here with us today. Master, would you care to address the Consilium?" Banneker
Wolsey explains, quietly, that the Councillors are going in order of seniority - and
Malakaii is second-to-last, before Dantor.
Fisher, getting to his feet and taking the lectern, peers out over the assembled
Cabals with brilliant blue eyes before beginning to speak.
At length.
Extreme length.
Fisher's speech is long and wide-ranging, difficult to follow but fascinating - and
appears to be for it's first two hours to be on the subject of the supernal implications
of the migrations of birds, and how the precise patterns of guano upon the roofs of
cars construct a city-wide system of complex four-dimensional writing, the exact
shape changing constantly as cars move around the city and bring the overall effect
into different configurations. Damascus takes enthusiastic notes, which start to
descend into doodles by the end of the first hour. Those Mages that went on Malakaii
and Dantor's mission look scandalised - Banneker glares at any members of his
Cabal that start to nod off, and puts on a great show of finding the lecture both
informative and fascinating.
Wolsey recognises a Filibuster when he sees one, and speculates under his breath
on what Banneker had to do to get Fisher to do this. He leads the applause as Fisher
finally concludes his talk and sits down, smiling happily and sweetly at the adulation
he's receiving. Which mostly seems to be coming from Banneker's and the Cabal's
allies.
Suleiman and Samuel speak for a calculated fifteen minutes each, leaving just a
single hour left on the clock. Banneker finally gives way on the lectern to Malakaii,
quite graciously, and Malakaii describes the strike.
Acting on information gleaned from the newest member of the community, still an
apprentice under Mara, members of the Defenders and Gatekeepers moved on a cult
based in the North West triangle of the city that they believed to be under the
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influence of the Seers of the Throne. They made several captures, and have three
Acolytes imprisoned while the rest of the cult is being deprogrammed - the Seers
were using them as puppets.
Banneker stands again, thanking Malakaii and - after checking that Dantor doesn't
have anything to add - declaring it a great victory for the Consilium, and for Malakaii
and Dantor personally.
But not the ONLY victory that day.
One by one, everyone turns and follows Banneker's look to the back of the hall,
where the Cabal are sitting. Damascus stands up and, recognising the way this is
going, declares how the Cabal - and Dantor - have been under sporadic attack by a
Pair of Seers for the last week, culminating on two attacks on the Crucible in the last
two days. The Seers escaped the first time (he looks at Malakaii and holds eye
contact) but the second attack, this afternoon, resulted in the death of one Seer.
"And the live capture of the other Enemy Mage" - Damascus, underlining that last.
Ulysses stands and declares this to be true. Malakaii looks at Thursday - who took
the Seer in and apparently didn't tell him, who shrugs slightly.
Bit of a betrayal - Thursday's a Guardian, and in Malakaii's Cabal. There will be fallout from this, too.
Everyone looks at Malakaii, who has returned to staring at Damascus, still holding
that Eye-contact - says that this is wonderful news, and asks that the prisoner be
interrogated at once.
Banneker, clearly relishing it, says that Malakaii as Guardian Epotet should of course
be the one to ask the questions...
"..but, sadly, there are only fifty minutes left before we must all leave. Under the
circumstances - and especially as it was this Seer by all accounts who actually cast
the Vulgar effects you denounced the young lady for, would you care to alter the
agenda?" - Banneker
Malakaii, with all eyes on him, drops his accusation against Kali.
He has bigger fish to fry.
Damascus sits down again and Wolsey frowns, thinking through the politics of this.
Banneker used the Seer as a bigger target to get Malakaii to stop going after Kali,
with the help of the Filibustering to put Malakaii under pressure for time. But
Banneker could only do that after Wolsey and Damascus captured the Seer, yet said
that everything would be alright before that. 'Everything' was referring to Malakaii and
Dantor's mission, which as it turns out 'concerned' the Crucible in that Avatar is
connected to them but wasn't actually against them.
"We have had great achievements today. Great achievements. We commend those
responsible for this Seer's capture, and we commend those who struck against the
servants of the enemy also. I am sure" (to Malakaii) "that you will join us in
commending the person whose hard work made your operation successful?" Banneker
By now, Malakaii knows that something is going on, but with everyone watching can
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only agree. Banneker looks back at the Cabal. This time at Wolsey, who realises why
Banneker didn't tap him last time.
"I am pleased, Masters, that my information was put to such good use" - Wolsey
Wolsey sits back down, as Malakaii - looking like Banneker has shat in his heart leads the applause for Wolsey.
"Damn, he's good" - Wolsey, under his breath, looking with new admiration at the
Hierarch.
Banneker adjourns the Consilium, and Malakaii - glaring at the Cabal - leaves with
Thursday to go question the seer.
I call this sequence "When Banneker got his groove back" - the actions of the Cabal have already started his transition from
lame-duck Hierarch towards taking firmer control over the city. And especially over Malakaii.
Damascus breaths a sigh of relief, and looks at Wolsey, who is watching Malakaii
leave
"We've made an enemy today... Good." - Wolsey
Banneker approaches the gathering, Marion and the rest of his Cabal in tow, and
addresses Kali.
"Young lady. We take such matters very seriously in this Consilium. Therefore I must
warn you in no uncertain terms to exercise caution when using vulgar magic in front
of Sleepers - which I understand you did not. You should never initiate conflict which you didn't - and always report Enemy activity to your nearest Consilium official"
(pause) "...Which you did. So carry on, and consider this to be a stern warning to
keep not doing those things I just told you to not do. Clear?" - Banneker
Kali, blank-faced, agrees, and Banneker - looking awfully pleased with himself departs.
"I just realised. The Seer will tell Malakaii about the Bell. Well... nothing we can really
do about it." - Wolsey
Samuel wanders over and sits backwards on a chair.
"Told you you'd be okay. Party tonight?" - Samuel
"Yeah" - Kali, feeling that Inevitability again
Kali hates having things decided for her, which is pretty much what everyone has done this session. She's furious with the
other two for the way they acted in the hospital, and these feelings of Fate she's been getting simply aren't helping.
Samuel congratulates the lads on the victory, and everyone speculates what the
Seer will tell Malakaii. Halfway through one of Samuel's sentences though,
Damascus frowns.
"You... This..." - Damascus
Damascus looks around, then to Wolsey
"It just happened again" - Damascus
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Wolsey and Damascus explain to Kali and Samuel that Damascus has been having
odd feelings, like time jumping.
Which is actually what Samuel's Nimbus feels like, which no-one remembered. Still, in the interests of the thread - it isn't him
doing it.
Kali casts Ring Sight and finds that all four of them are tainted by whatever it is.
Worried, she reveals that she, too, has been having odd sensations - she describes
her feelings of predestination, which she was having back when she met Seraph, and
which she's been having since the attack.
She’s not the only one, remember? Avatar's been feeling it all her life.
"Maybe it's not just me" - Kali
Wolsey asks why She and Damascus can feel these thing but he can't. Kali
speculates that it's because she and Damascus are more in tune with whatever it is as the Ring has constantly showed them.
"What are you talking about?" - Samuel
"We think there's someone changing things. Someone we can't see... Your Spider?" Wolsey
Malakaii and Thursday return, arguing. The gang overhear - Thursday is patiently
explaining that the Seer was held fast by magic, and definitely alive when he left him.
"Well he's not alive now" - Malakaii
The Cabal and Samuel look at one another. Curiouser and Curiouser.
What was it Wolsey was saying, about the Seer telling Malakaii about the Ring?
"We can't do any more good here wondering about what might be going on, and I
have a Legacy to lead. Kali - are you coming?" - Samuel
Not looking at the other two, Kali leaves with her mentor.
What a day. Again.
That evening, The House of Ariadne holds it's annual gathering in the Octagon
House , the emergency White House from the British invasion. There is drink, talk of
omens and signs observed over the last few weeks, weed and much relaxing.
The Octagon House was the emergency replacement for the White House when the capital was burned in the war of... 1812,
I think. http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc22.htm
The House, for reference, are:
Samuel, Shepherd (a stockbroker in Banneker's Cabal apparently), Katherine (a
rather snobby woman in an expensive gown who's from Suleiman's Cabal), Blaise,
Trace and Kali
All those established in the House tell a Thread that they've discovered: Blaise tells
everyone how the flow of people around the presidential memorials in the last five
days has - if you trace the same shape out - revealed one of the secret names of
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God. Shepherd has seen certain omens in the share-price boards that revealed the
coordinates, if you take DC as a Diamond-shape and plot an XY axis, the X being
South to West and the Y being West to North, of the major Hallows. Trace says that
the halls of government appear to be waiting for something, and Katherine tells of
two rich families fated to intermarry.
When the more formal part of the meeting is over, Shepherd departs and Samuel
and Blaise go off to smoke weed together, leaving the three women behind. Kali,
after the events of the last two days, is determined that she's not going to fuck this up
and is at her most ingratiating. She wants to be friends with these people, and is
practicing her atrophied social skills. Katherine turns out to be pretty much the
antimatter double of Kali. Big money - moves for the House in the affairs of rich
parties, debutantes and idle families of politicians. Kali, clearly hating every second,
hangs off her like a lost puppy - clearly hating it but doing what the cool kid is doing
for the sake of being cool.
Eventually, though, Trace manages to get into the conversation and both she and
Kali discover - to their mutual relief - that neither is as bad as their Cabal affiliations
may indicate. In fact, they've got a personality mesh going on as Trace, once she
gets past the fact that her Cabal head just tried to prosecute Kali, proves much easier
to get along with. Katherine has an edge of taking everything very seriously indeed and when she talks to Kali it's about the Thread, and how important it is - she acts
like the House is it's own reward, like she wants to be Samuel's favourite. Trace
treats it more like Kali. The thread is something to be used to find things out, a
means by which she can effortlessly keep track of the entire complicated mess that is
US politics. And she knows to leave it behind when partying. Kali treats Trace more
as an equal.
Sam says it's an "on the pavement" equal rather than an "in the gutter" equal
As the evening wears on, Kali self-consciously slips more and more into the buried
"real" her, trying to slip back into how she remembers being before she left home. A
little more open, more jovial; not happier, but more free, more trusting.
Sam: She has yet to decide whether more trusting is good or bad. Trust means you get dicked over, but makes you more
friends. Lacking in trust means you're forever holding people at arms length - which is how she sees herself now. Always one
step beyond the crowd - looking over them, protecting them, but not involving herself for fear of hurting herself under
trampling feet.
Kali remembers being Free, more than anything - a rather rotten irony considering she ran away to be more free. But deep
down, I think she realises that freedom was what she had, once. Freedom to trust, and be hurt, and learn - rather than this
endless holding oneself apart from everything that is potentially formative. She is shunning the empirical in order to exemplify
herself as a stand-alone complex.
Trace is more open with her the more open Kali is with her in turn, and the pair of
them find that they actually like one other. When Katherine goes to the bathroom,
Trace offers a disparaging opinion about Katherine - the other woman thinks that
being methodically serious-minded about the Threads will get her ahead in the
House. Trace points out that Samuel has been getting stoned all this time with
Blaise, while Katherine's been preening herself at her and Kali. Kali starts agreeing
when Katherine returns.
When the gathering descends into one-upmanship and sniping between Trace and
Katherine, Samuel - stoned as a skunk - returns and tells Kali he'll take her back to
the Time Machine so she can collect what of her things she left.
She ends up staying for a nightcap, and Samuel - ruminating over something, says
that he is starting to have misgivings about driving her deeper and deeper in pursuit
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of his own... whatever it is.
"Some rocks hide creepy crawlies, Kali, and should be lifted lightly. I'm not telling you
to stop, though. Just.. advising caution. This is probably not going to be the last time
you face strife - after all, you named yourself after the Consort of Shiva, Destroyer of
Worlds. You can't *do* that and expect an easy life." - Samuel
Anyways. Rather than drive home that night, she crashes at the Time Machine. Just
before she goes to sleep she receives a text message.
"Happy 4th. Wherever you are.
Dad"
Kali drifts off staring at the cell phone screen.
--Damascus goes home after the Consilium, falling back on his studies and his art as
he normally does when emotions run too high and Kali and Wolsey need space.
Considering what's happened, and being a practical man at heart, he decides to
make a peace offering to Kali in the form of a present - a metal bracelet, almost a
vambrace, which he idly sketches when taking a break from his SAT revision.
--Wednesday 5th July
Carl - as promised - goes to see his family, who variously chide him for not making it
over sooner and "ooh" over his application to college.
Kali finally makes it home, to find the gang looking for vengeance and scouring the
neighbourhoods for the Irishmen. Kali - weary to her bones - calls them together and
says justice has been served. The instigators have been killed. Over the next few
weeks, she gradually starts trying to persuade people to use less deadly weapons,
and tries to channel any outrage (and in a place like this, there's always someone to
be outraged at) to vandalism and graffiti instead of physical violence.
Sam: Kali learned something from Dantor - just not what was obvious: killing people is not the way for her to make the gang
strong. It might be the right way, or the best way, but it's not Kali's way. Yet.
--Damascus goes to see John Dee, who asks him how he's progressing. Waving off
talk of exams and applications as uninteresting but necessary steps, John wishes to
focus on the Great Work - the alchemical progression of Damascus' Soul into
perfection. The process, John says, begins with "Nigredo", in which one must reduce
everything to it's basest level. In non-flowery language, Damascus needs to take a
hard look at himself and explore the parts of himself that he doesn't like. Some
people, John notes, go a bit Antinomist at this stage - though John recommends
carrying out any especially antisocial urges in Astral Space so as to not risk
conviction.
"You're feeling things out with an aim to refine them later. So - homework. For two
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month's time. What don't you like about yourself and why?" - John
Damascus feels his hand clench, remembering smacking the iron bar into the Seer's
legs.
--Wolsey, a few days after the Consilium, attends a get-together of the city's Heralds
as the premier gossip-mongers and political barometers of the City take stock. Kali
seems to have made a good impression on Trace (who calls her a sweet girl once
you get past the piercings and the antisocial tendencies). She does tell everyone that
Malakaii and Thursday have had a spat. Malakaii was furious with Thursday's
actions. Thursday pointed out, respectfully and repeatedly using Malakaii's title in the
Guardians, that his position had to be above reproach - and that Malakaii instructed
him years before to be the very pillar of the Consilium. So Malakaii could go fuck
himself.
Malakaii's the Guardians Epotet, and Thursday the Interfector - the position of executioner requires the strictest devotion to
duty and moral sense, and is one of the positions the Guardians don't make the holder of commit actions against the
Consilium's interests - *everyone* has to trust the Interfector to act appropriately, and Thursday was following that to the
letter.
Alliances are shifting - people are regarding Banneker as being more and more in
charge, and the Gatekeepers are feeling increasingly pushed aside. The general
feeling is that with Samuel becoming increasingly interested, Banneker needs
Malakaii less and less - and is starting to take revenge for the way the arrangement
between the two of them has slid in Malakaii's favour over the last several years.
Time was when it was amicable, and Malakaii didn't ask for much. He's been taking
more and more liberties, though, ad it seems Banneker has finally had enough of him
- and has started to build enough support to get rid of him.
Hoban's considered opinion is that the Council will not have the five people it
currently has by the end of the year. Though he doesn't hazard any guesses as to
who would be out and who would be in.
And lastly, the Ascendants are back in town. Balthazar was in the Consilium, and
they've asked to meet Banneker.
We'll find out why next story.
--Late at night, sat up in bed nursing her wounds, Kali comes to a decision.
She finds her cellphone among her clothes and presses Send.
"Happy 4th, Dad. I'm here."
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3.3 Commentary
Sam / Kali: Once again I appear to have fallen a little behind. While I can’t promise
interesting, I can practically guarantee extensive and rambling. Once more we are
granted a fleeting glimpse into Kali’s mostly well-hidden mental recesses. Whether
they make any sense or not, of course, has nothing to do with me J
So here goes.
We begin back at the genesis of Session 3.2. An amusing sidenote to Kali’s sleeping
in prior to being dropped in on by Samuel is that the reason for this was her
assumption that Samuel, proficient in manipulating Time and understanding its
secrets (how coltish, that opinion, hee), would arrive at precisely the right time. What
the right time was (when she got up, when he was ready, when the solar
conjunctions were amenable etc.) doesn’t matter. She theorised that she could sleep
in so long as she wanted, as it certainly wouldn’t be the ‘right time’ if she was still in
bed. Thus she was slightly thrown, when he asked her what had kept her.
The bizarre incident regarding replacing Malakaii’s name with the sound of a duck
quacking was purely a random citation on Kali’s part. An enemy to tradition, the
sworn nemesis of convention, Kali of course objected to the staid and quite frankly
boring ‘beep’. Not only that, it reminded her of her dad’s old comedy vids. Eep. ‘Beep’
is conformist and negligent of imagination.
The curious thing, which struck me but swept Kali mostly by, was the fact that
Malakaii might well have been able to hear his name past the obnoxious and
offensive ‘quack’. I am not entirely sure how this would work in Mage, but it occurred
that someone was skilled as Malakaii could easily sit that ‘quack’ out, and be aware
of the Name being spoken. This was a more relevant misgiving when Malakaii was a
subtle suspect, instead of a direct one.
Samuel: to Kali, a brilliant, mad scientist without a shred of common sense. A sort of
smocked harridan of a man with large glasses, several bubbling test tubes and a grin
framed by wispy beard. Nothing quite like the wondrous fraternisation of imagination
with reality. Heh J
Kali saw a little of herself in Malakaii, when she perceived him in the endless bleak
reaches of the Past; the consequences of which may re-emerge later. His
patronisation of freedom from persecution (the strict protection of her father) is what
Kali knows she is trying to find somewhere in the gutter’s paragon. And yet how he
has changed – a lesson she will do well to learn for herself. Time has almost
irrevocably changed Malakaii, and she knows that however much she sympathises
with his shady double in history, Kali also realises that now, she would find it almost
impossible to understand and feel for him. Physician – heal thyself.
Dave’s observation that Kali is a very different person when not with her Cabal is
entirely correct; I think the reason for this is how they treat her, relatively; it of course
doesn’t help that the more the Cabal treat her like a helpless, dangerous idiot, the
more helpless and dangerous and idiotic she becomes with them, almost so that she
can blame them for the inception of this monstrosity – despite having as much, if not
more, a hand in her portrayal as they do. Kali believes that other people at least treat
her as a student – which is how she would like the Cabal to treat her. Of course, the
onus is really on her to change: but it is hard to climb out, if you slicked the walls
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yourself. In some ways Kali needs gentle handling – and most ironically, the greatest
gift one could allow her would be Time. Yes – that little beastie.
Kali badgers Wolsey to change his life because she knows that the Cabal are
discontented with the way she has chosen to live her life, and want her to change –
even if it’s only intimation and indirect postulating so far. Kali wants to show Wolsey
and Damascus that she has similar misgivings about their lives – and cannot see
how Wolsey’s double life is any less different than her own. Hence getting Wolsey to
practice what he preaches – sort of. The impact was somewhat lessened by Wolsey
addressing the issue while Kali was IC offstage – but the thought is still there. Kali
cares about them and can be frightened for them – it doesn’t mean she has to like
the Cabal, but even in her gruff angry way, she will try to improve their lot – by
haranguing like a marvellous little harridan.
Session 3.3 opens differently. Instead of being proactive, which Kali starts off the
session with, she becomes gradually more introspective and thoughtful about her
position, leading to some callousness and unfairness but also, I’d think, beginning to
dig in her nails to stop the downward spiral. As for why – bear with me.
The crime scenes affected Kali for exactly the reason Dave describes – that they are
close to ‘home’ and ‘family’, or rather, what these terms mean to her these days – i.e.
the turf, and the gang. Kali, in extreme hypocrisy, has determined that the gang is her
family, and she will protect them and their own – much as her father did with her; she
forgets conveniently that it was this that drove her away.
Seraph: Kali considers it less important that he is not a friend, than that he is not an
enemy – thus ‘saving him for later’ – or at least having the luxury, relatively speaking,
of sitting back and letting him move next, instead of feeling forced to move against
him because he is an enemy. She considers Malakaii and Dantor far more important
enemies at this stage – they must be dealt with now; Seraph can wait. Moreover,
while she doesn’t trust him, she still feels that killing him would be a last resort more
than a ‘shoot on sight’ solution. The onus on the Cabal is who their enemies are – not
those whose loyalties are uncertain. These uncertainties still need to be dealt with,
but they can be dealt with later. That’s the most important part.
Plus, Kali’s still not convinced Seraph isn’t trying to help them, a little – even if he is a
Seer. He is an ex-Pentacle Mage, after all.
Kali is also beginning to see Wolsey as the authoritarian/father figure that Dave
described: I’m not yet sure if the rebellion is purely instinctive, or whether there is
somewhat of a twisted intelligence at work there: the attractiveness of ‘freedom from
persecution’, or the malicious twisting of a probably mostly harmless protectiveness –
I’m not entirely clear. The important thing now, is that she sees the parallels between
the two, and knowingly or not, is repeating events up to her self-imposed exile. I
suppose the question really is, will she notice, before once again, it’s too late?
‘Closer to home’ – Kali actually meant, in the first instance here, where Home once
was, and where Dad remains; an OOC deliberate slip of the tongue, as Kali is not
aware she thinks of home as anywhere other than gangland anymore. However, this
is a little glimpse IC for the Cabal into the true depths of Kali’s mind – where she
knows that Home will always be There – and not Here. The eternal tragedy of the
youth: where Home is always where you are Not; where your parents are is only
home when you’re away, and when you’re there, Home is everywhere else. Dave is
right – she was thinking of the Spider on a shallow mental level – but deep down, she
knows that she really meant Home, and Dad, and things she thought she had
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forgotten, and relegated to a lost memory.
Later, when Kali reacts so astringently and instantly to the intrusion onto her turf, she
is doing the same thing: she will protect her people, even if it does mean ‘playing
Father’. Neither does she realise she’s falling back into a stereotype she herself has
railed at, cast off and denied. Not so much a tragedy, as a misperceived irony.
Her looking after Ichi also mimics this selfsame desire to keep her ‘family’ protected
and safe from things they don’t understand – she is only just beginning to realise that
she is the only one both able to protect them, and bringing Magical notice down on
them, all at once. Caught in the vicious circle of protection from a menace she alone
is responsible for in many ways, Kali needs to find a way to step out of this mental
spiral.
It is telling the Cabal don’t ask Kali how she is – also that she is not included in many
of their discussions. Most of this is Kali’s own fault. However, in discussing Ichi’s fate
without recourse to her – Ichi’s ‘mother’ – the Cabal lost much of Kali’s foetal respect,
such as it was. Ichi is hers – not theirs. It was Kali who asked Thursday if the Cabal
could decide his fate alone and together in private – mostly so she could get an
opinion in edgeways, and not give Thursday the impression of a fractured and
bleeding Cabal – the cause of which she is almost convinced is her. So much as her
own father did with her, Kali falls back into ‘protector of the weak’ role. Ichi cannot
defend himself against Wolsey and Damascus, if they choose to wipe his memory:
she feels that in his place, someone must defend him. Much like in the law courts –
where everyone is allowed their lawyer.
Note however that Kali never considers consulting with Ichi what he wants – exactly
what she hates the Cabal for not doing with her.
The similarities between Kali and Avatar terrify me. Kali is intrigued, and sees the
same Spider in both of them. Kali empathises with Avatar’s dissatisfaction of who she
is; they both have a feeling that there is more to both of them, a sort of hidden
destiny, or lost fate; and nothing feels quite right for either woman. Sam thinks the
Seers have something to do with it: Kali isn’t interested in the Who so much as the
Why and the What, and is content to plumb the depths for reasons and find out what
is going on between them, and if it really is just coincidence – which is not really real
anyway. Both have string aversions to their pre-Awakened states of being, and while
Kali secretly seeks reconciliation, it makes her wonder sometimes if Avatar does not
only not want to bridge the gap between past and present, but forge out her own
future autonomously, instead – and sometimes, she wonders if that wouldn’t be a
better things for her, also, to be getting on with, instead of wallowing in a sacrilegious
past.
“It’s at times like I don’t know myself.” Amen.
The Nickel: Kali has a horrible, nasty, probably blown out of all proportion suspicion
that the reason her voice emanates from the Nickel (aside from the obvious answer –
that someone procured her voice on tape, or Magically replicated it) is because she
is behind this event: the future Kali using Time magic to plant this terrifying ordeal
into the past – sabotaging her own self, or setting her on another path – who knows?
Kali has progressed beyond thinking whether it was her, responsible for blowing up
her own factory – and moved on instead to the Why, which again is more important
to the new, identity-bereft Kali: why would she sabotage herself? Is she sabotaging
herself at all, or trying to change the path she walks? Or is she just playing games
with her own memories?
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Kali blames the feelings of inevitability on the Exarchs/Seers, for now – but that
particular gnawing-bone of thought has certainly only been nibbled at, and she
intends to plumb that one more fully later.
Turning away from the world, covering her head with one arm, turning over in the
hospital bed and in the ambulance – all are ways of not only shutting the world out of
her, but also of sealing herself outside of the world. Kali is still unsure whether the
world is railing on her, or whether she is ruining the world around her. She is
uncertain whether to blame herself, or the world. Just like Malakaii – in a way. If she
can shut herself – a self-named catalyst for destruction – away from the world,
maybe she can save some of it still. I named Kali for a reason: the name felt shallow
at first, the chance application of like with like: but as time as gone on, the name has
become more and more apt. Samuel makes the comment that with a name like that,
Kali should be prepared for the consequences. She is only just beginning to see what
he means, and needs to step out of apathy if she wants to change her ‘fate’. Just as
she has been told, time and again.
Kali is frightened that so many people are doing her favours. She is worried that she
will eventually owe so many favours to other Mages that she will be forced to tear
herself apart meeting them all. There are an awful lot of people trying to ingratiate
themselves by making her life easier, and sheltering her from consequences she
should face; soon, she knows, will come their reckoning, when she will be forced to
repay what she owes.
In terms of gratitude, Kali was grateful to Wolsey and Damascus for getting a
defence together for her – but is tired that she gets nothing similar from them in
return. She wishes that sometimes, they’d be grateful to her, too. Just what for
currently escapes her, though
Sometimes, Kali does feel she is watching a Cabal of two, though. This is unjustified,
but there is also a long way for Wolsey and Damascus to go yet before they can
claim a morally superior position. At the present, I figure the scales to be fairly even.
There's an awful lot still I haven't said, and highlighted in my printout of the synopsis
but didn't comment on - which I'm not particularly worried about: they're not important
and will turn up again at some stage. It's hard to explain everything - especially in a
way that means the character meshes well.
But thanks for reading. I hope I've managed some small enlightenments out there,
somewhere. I enlightened myself.
I'm not scared anymore.
DaveB: Right then!
Where are we? Yeah.
"Not The Same Person" was 'about' the changes and sacrifices of Magely daily life,
compared with before the Awakening. So, we get Damascus' family life popping up,
we see Banneker's home life, Avatar/Amanda and Wolsey/Thomas start to establish
how their relationship has changed and try to figure out how they're going to cope
with this, we learn the names of Banneker, Samuel, Malakaii, Trace (unseen - her
name's Trudy) and the Cabal get glimpses of the people behind the grandiose
Shadow Names that they deal with.
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Most importantly, we find out about Kali's background and learn what's making her
tick.
And I managed to finish "The Ring" off, too.
And now... Some Spoilers for Reign of the Exarchs, and for the Chronicle.
The missing bits of motivation from Reign of the Exarchs for the Seer's seemingly
odd behaviour may well end up getting replaced if I like one of the half-assed player
theories more. I am especially tickled by Sam's theorising upthread that the Nickel
wasn't, say, loaded with a recording of her voice and set to be something the Seers
from their observations knew she'd go for, but was instead sent back in time by her
own future self. I shall ruminate on it.
Anyways - all this talk of "The Spider" and someone being erased from everyone's
consciousness may have gotten those that have read, or written, the book thinking
"hang on". As might the feelings of Inevitability Kali gets.
Because here's the especially cruel joke the universe is playing on Kali: She's NOT
adopted.
Anurati, the villain of Story Four, is her mother. The vision Kali had when she was in
Arcadia was of Anurati's background, not her own. When Samuel divines that Avatar
will lead Kali to what she needs to take it on, he's seeing - without properly seeing that events of "The Robe" and "The Scepter" will give Kali the tools she needs especially the latter one, which will let Kali undo the mental blocks Anurati has deeply
conditioned into her and her father. The feeling of Inevitability Kali feels is her
mother's nimbus.
The House of Steel, smashed up off-screen, was an offshoot cult of the Ministry of
Mammon from "The Throne".
"The Robe" should be Story 5 in this thread. I think "The Scepter" will follow on pretty
much straight after, maybe one or two sessions apart.
Micro-review time.
I have mixed feelings about this first story from Reign. It covers a lot of bases - the
instillation of paranoia, an example of how cut throat Mage politics can be. A lot of
the motivations and backstory, though, seem to be placed in terms that make it very
hard for a player character to find out - just what happened to Gawain in the old
country, for example, can only be found out by a rather determined Cabal. I'd be
interested to know how it played in playtesting.
My gang quickly got the hang of the Ring (though they haven't yet arrived at the final
conclusion of what exactly it detects, which I'm quite pleased by), and treat it with
appropriate trepidation. Only Kali has learned "Ring Sight" from it, and the Cabal are
reluctant to use the Ring except in downright inexplicable circumstances.
You may have noticed a metric buttload of foreshadowing of the Nickel. Sam - I'm
sorry. Blaise's Nickel test was written with knowledge of what the Seers were going
to do, not the other way around. It's a particularly nasty trick, the cascade of tiny
spells that ends up destroying a building.
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Oh, yeah. The Crack Factory was only written into the Chronicle to give me
something to blow up later.
The stop-start nature of the story is notable, with the three-week gap right smack
bang in the middle of it that led to it being split among two of my own stories rather
than being inserted whole. The next RotE story (which is the one Wood wrote IIRC)
is more discrete, and it'll be interesting to see how different that feels. This one
blended quite well into my ongoing narrative - looking ahead, the other stories will do
differing degrees of the same job.
The majority of the story - a two-man Seer Pylon tries to isolate the Cabal from the
rest of the Pentacle then strike to steal the Ring while they're cut off - is fine and
dandy, and features as I say some quite impressive and downright evil use of
Arcana. It's the first part of the story, in which the Cabal are handed this artefact of
ultimate evil almost gratis, that doesn't sit particularly well with me - and I regret not
trying to blend it into the Chronicle better.
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Story 3 Recap
"Not The Same Person"
29th June - 6th July
Session 3.1
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The Cabal have taken the Ring of the Dethroned Queen to Ulysses, who
bans them from bringing it to his church again and warns them not to let too
many people find out about it, but does tell them it contains a variant of a
grimoire. Kali learns how to cast Ring Sight from this secondary power.
The city is preparing for Independence Day, both the Sleepers and the
Mages, who have their own special concerns for the Holiday. There is a
celebration of the City's birthday for the House of Ariadne, and the major
Hallow in the tip of the George Washington Monument opens at midnight on
the 4th. An Obrimos named Marion, the girlfriend of Elizabeth (Banneker's
former Apprentice, who we saw briefly in the first story) has been selected
from the possible candidates to ascend the monument and absorb the Mana
surge with Prime magic.
Kali is sat in her Thinking Place, a partially-concealed section of the
waterfront in a disused stockyard, thinking about her encounter with the Seers
and about her estranged relationship with her Father.
Damascus is receiving a briefing on the escaped Magath Spirit, which has
been tracked down to a Cancer Hospice. The team are himself, Dantor,
Ulysses, Link, Cerberus and a Mastigos Demon-hunter named Shore.
Wolsey and his fellow Heralds are comparing notes prior to the celebratory
season - Francine, Trace and Hoban, a member of Banneker's Cabal who
serves as the Consilium's Scribe. The Ascendants are Banneker are
corresponding and Malakaii's Cabal is extremely stretched with the influx of
people and supernaturals into the city for the holiday.
Damascus and company break into the Hospice and descend into the cellar,
where they are attacked by the Magath which has possessed a nurse. Dantor
puts it into a coma with Death magic, and they sit about exorcising it from the
woman's body.
Wolsey asks his fellow Heralds about Beckett's background (he's considering
him as an ally against the Seers) and learns that Beckett is a Nefandi, driven
by what he saw as Malakaii's evil to summon an Acamoth in an attempt on
Malakaii's life. Beckett lives under virtual house arrest as a sort of magical
stand-off, his sentence deferred indefinitely. Wolsey asks about other LeftHanded Mages and learns of Project Twilight and a Mastigos named
Alexander, who are generally considered unpleasant - though not suspected
of allying with the Abyss like Beckett.
The nurse is exorcised and Link kills the Spirit by triggering it's ban using the
dagger Damascus made. The strike force split up to cover different aspects of
the clean up and Damascus finds himself without a role, so leaves to go drink.
Kali is found by Samuel who asks her the answer to the riddle problem ("the
person who gave it") and explains that Blaise has not been mentoring her to
his satisfaction, so Samuel is taking over as Kali's master. He will rectify
Blaise's mishandling with an intensive course of practical lessons over the
next few days.
The Cabal meet, coincidentally, in the same bar and Wolsey rhetorically asks
their opinion of using the power of the Abyss to fight the Seers. Kali
misinterprets him and an argument starts as he suspects - and calls her on -
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being too curious about Seraph and the other Seers for her own good. The
nature of the war between the Pentacle and the Ministries is discussed.
The next day, Samuel picks Kali up in his car and - after a tutorial on the
shifting nature of the future, and learning that Kali wishes to know something
specific about the past - takes her to the Time Machine, Samuel's Sanctum
and Demesne, converted from an old TV transmitting station. Kali explains
that since just before her Awakening, she has felt disconnected to her life, like
she's living a lie. Samuel links their minds and Kali uses Postcognition to see
herself at different ages - a girl, a young teenager and then in her late teens,
confronting her father (who is revealed to be an air force Lieutenant Colonel
named Kevin Simone) about her fears that she is adopted - fears which she
took his silence to confirm. She says that she hates her father for stealing her
fate, her proper destiny. Samuel says that the vicissitudes of time are
included in such things, and that people don't have a set path. He tries to take
her to when she was a baby, but fails.
Wolsey meets Malakaii, and they argue about why Wolsey should be allowed
to join Malakaii's Legacy when his objectives lie entirely counter to Malakaii's
own. Wolsey argues that the Guardians are too busy to handle recruitment
properly - and takes issue with the guardian's belief that they can tell who
deserves the chance to Awaken. Malakaii admits that he deliberately alters
people's memories and encourages the paranoia among the Pentacle Mages
of DC that it creates so as to keep the Mages in line through fear rather than
directly intervening. He refuses Wolsey membership in the Legacy.
Damascus has an interview with John Dee, Uncrowned King and lecturer in
Chemistry at Georgetown University. John is unforgiving of Damascus' lack of
knowledge, and punctures his ego, but they find that they both believe in the
same things and John agrees to teach him, on condition that Damascus apply
to and be accepted to College without use of magic: he considers Damascus
woefully uneducated.
Kali and Samuel have projected into Astral Space, into the Temenos of DC
where Kali is disturbed to learn that she and her home are represented as a
spider-like creature and it's lair. Samuel takes her into her Oneiros, and they
begin searching for the various mind-forms of her Father, trying to understand
her complex feelings about him. One father-image guards a bridge from a
horde of Raksha, but they are revealed to be a mental smoke-screen hiding
some memory or understanding that Kali is repressing. They find another
father-image and Kali attempts to fight past it to the door it's guarding, but
fails in the struggle and is confronted by another smoke-screen, this one of
herself as the Goddess Kali (wearing a strange cloak and Veil) dancing on the
body of Seraph, who is depicted as the God Shiva.
Waking up, Kali has a brief moment of thinking that maybe her feeling of
disconnection is imaginary, but Samuel tells her that he has been
experiencing something - missing time, and the occasional feeling when he
comes back from time-travelling that he learnt something important but
cannot remember what. He says that he cast Prophecy to learn how he might
uncover this hidden something, which he characterises as a Spider in
Ariadne's Thread, and learned that Kali would be the one to resolve the
mystery.
Damascus and Wolsey compare notes. Wolsey, avoiding his disappointment
by focusing on the other things in his life, has come to the conclusion that
both the House of Stone and the House of Steel are Seer Pylons. Kali arrives
as he continues, disparaging the Guardians of the Veil. They talk about
Wolsey's grand plan for Awakening as many people as possible, Wolsey
becoming more and more strident in the face of opposition.
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Session 3.2
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John Dee and Damascus conduct Damascus' entry into the Uncrowned
Kings by use of an alchemically-prepared Trichinobezoar.
Samuel picks Kali up again and uses the drive to the Time Machine to brief
her on the theoretical underpinnings of Time Travel. He explains that they will
be viewing 1953 New York: specifically the youth of Malakaii. Samuel casts a
spell so that Kali will not be able to hear Malakaii's real name.
Samuel's magic projects their minds back into Twilight constructs created to
hold them and allow them to observe events. Samuel tells Kali of the politics
of the period, and that Malakaii was a student activist before his father was
convicted under McCarthyism and the family fled to India where Malakaii
awoke. He shows her how different Malakaii of 53 years ago was, and
explains that while historians focus on big events the evolution of a person is
made up of daily events - it took decades for Malakaii's heart to turn sour, and
the root of Kali's problem with her past is not one night she argued with her
father. They return to the present, and experience missing time upon re-entry
to their bodies. When they come to, Kali has been sobbing, whatever the
missing knowledge is has clearly made her distraught.
Wolsey has invited Avatar to the Sanctum. They talk about his failure to join
the Legacy and how Mara is disappointed in him. Wolsey takes the
opportunity to ask about her dreams as per Samuel's prophecy just as
Damascus returns.
Avatar says that her dreams are always the same, and have been all her life,
though she is only able to remember them after her awakening. She
describes a Heart of Flies and a Flesh Tree, Damascus and Wolsey reading
her mind to get a look at the image. Damascus puts forth the theory that it's a
memory shadow of Pandemonium, the Flesh Trees especially looking like the
Wood of Suicides from Dante's Inferno.
Kali returns and - reacting to her emotional journey today - accuses Wolsey of
not doing enough to avoid his Doom, which lets Avatar know about said
doom. Wolsey admits the wording of Samuel's prophecy to Avatar and Kali
casts divinatory spells on her including Ring Sight, causing yet another fight
with Wolsey who objects to her casting on another Mage without permission.
Returning to Avatar's dreams, Damascus and Wolsey ask to read her mind as
she sleeps so as to get a live look at them.
While Kali spends the night in her Thinking Place, Damascus and Wolsey
read Avatar's sleeping mind and see the heart of flies in an underground
chamber and the Flesh Grove, which is babbling in Glossolalia. They also
see Avatar dream of opening the wall safe in Mara's office.
Collecting Kali, who has asleep in the open, they return to the Sanctum and
sleep.
After the bare minimum rest, Wolsey continues the argument from the night
before, distancing himself from the rest of the Cabal. This does not go down
well. He asks them who they want him to be - Kali wants a Wolsey that wants
to be their friend, and Wolsey says emphatically that they're not friends. Kali this being far too close to the arguments with her dad she's been brooding on
- tells them what's going on, and that she thinks Avatar is connected to it.
Because Avatar, too, feels like she's missing something.
Samuel arrives to get Kali, and they talk about his Spider problem. When
Avatar surfaces, and they move on to her problems, Samuel offers to cast
Prophecy on her - she agrees, but declares this to be the last test she'll allow
herself to be subjected to. He does so, and defers the results until they can
be given in private.
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Avatar and Wolsey decide that they need time together, away from being
Mages. When she leaves to accept Samuel's offer of a lift to Mara's, she tells
him that she doesn't want to know about her future - what will happen will
happen, and she feels comforted by her feeling of destiny. Samuel agrees,
but does tell Kali once Avatar has left that Avatar is destined to give
something to Kali, something that will trigger Kali's own future.
Samuel and Kali practice her finding Ariadne's thread and then - after that
successful test run - Kali has her initiation test, tracking a Nickel back to the
National Mint.
Wolsey visits Banneker at his home, meeting his wife Mary. Banneker talks to
Wolsey about Malakaii's rejection, and Wolsey admits to rushing things out of
a sense of competition with the others. They agree a strategy - Wolsey will
concentrate on making himself impressive, while Banneker thinks of ways to
raise his profile. It transpires that Malakaii's real name is "Gideon", and that
Samuel's is "Daniel". Wolsey tells Banneker about the Juncture's calculations
and the two Houses. Finally, Banneker asks Wolsey to contact Suleiman and
arrange a meeting.
Damascus goes to church, and they talk about Legacies - and why Ulysses
doesn't have one. Ulysses tells him that Dantor and Malakaii have in the last
hour or so told certain people to abandon their assigned posts on the 4th and
do something. Something connected to the Cabal.
Damascus, thinking, goes to his workshop and finishes the statue of Kali.
Wolsey drops by and the two discuss their third Cabalmate. Wolsey decides
to use the "carrot" rather than the "stick", trying to find a relationship that will
work without constant sniping. Damascus tells him about Ulysses' warning,
and they decide to ask Dantor directly.
They head into Dantor's territory and meet with the elder Bokor. She says that
she is troubled of late by a rash of mysterious home invasions, and that the
resonance of a major ley line from the Cabal's territory has become tainted,
but claims no aggression towards them. They sense Malakaii's nimbus as the
Guardian watches them from nearby, and leave for their own Sanctum - on
their way out they meet Mr Thursday, the city's interfector. When they get
back to the Sanctum they find that someone has grafitti'd the words
'Someone is looking for you' on the door.
Kali returns as they go through their paranoid theories, and Wolsey accuses
Kali's gang of being responsible for the troubles Dantor told them about. Kali after trying to punch Wolsey - goes to talk to Ichi about it.
Ichi accuses Dantor's gang of being responsible, and lists home invasions
that have happened in the last few days. Kali uses her new Postcognition
attainment to see the culprit, oddly, as being the old lady that lives near the
Sanctum - the one she saw as being tainted under Ring Sight.
The Cabal discuss these findings. Wolsey - fearing their enemies are about to
mobilise against them - comes up with a plan of splitting up and running for
the Sanctums of allies, while he occasionally scries back on their own
Sanctum to catch any invaders in the act. Kali uses her attainment on the
door graffiti and discovers that Seraph wrote the message - the Seer is trying
to warn them about something.
Going to the old lady's apartment, they discover that she was one of Seraph's
favoured puppets. And that she has recently been terrorised and killed by the
real culprits of the home invasions, after they themselves used her to commit
the one Kali saw. The attackers are identified as the men who were chasing
Gawain.
Session 3.3
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Kali is now incensed, and rejects Wolsey's plan of cutting and running. She's
been away from her people for too long worrying about her own problems,
and this went on while she wasn't looking. The Cabal - against Kali’s protests
- decide to go back to Dantor and ask for help, despite the possibility Dantor
may be moving against them. Kali is persuaded to go by Damascus, and the
pair of them leave.
Dantor's guards don't let them in, but they give a message telling Dantor
who's been carrying out the attacks.
Kali hosts a party at her warehouse for the gang, and tells them to be on the
lookout for the attackers.
The next day, Wolsey books a restaurant for his date with Avatar and - when
he tells her - finds contact details for Suleiman. Carrying out Banneker's
request and asking Suleiman to meet the Hierarch, he is offered membership
in the Claviclarius but turns it down. He calls Banneker, who tells him to keep
his head down over the next few days.
Damascus is studying at home and calling his family when he experiences a
brief moment of missing time.
That evening, Avatar and Wolsey go to dinner and talk about their reactions
to Awakening. They establish that they've both stayed faithful, and Avatar
tells him about the cult she moved to DC to join - which she's now certain was
linked to a Seer Pylon.
Kali's party, nearly a day in, is interrupted by another home invasion. The
gang go en masse to confront the perpetrators, and Ichi and Kali see one of
the attackers jump through a portal to the shut-down Crack Factory. Giving
chase, Kali sends six of her men inside while she and Ichi sneak around the
back. She spots a Nickel magically attached to the floor and picks it up,
triggering a cascade of spells that makes the building explode. Kali is saved
by her armour-granting spells, but Ichi is badly injured.
Damascus sees a news report of the explosion and hurries on his way, calling
Wolsey and agreeing to meet at the scene.
Kali wakes up in an ambulance and - consumed by despair and a feeling of
inevitability, despite what Samuel told her about the mutability of fate - goes
into shock.
Damascus uses Magic to get into the crime scene, where he is joined by
Nimrod - who has broken from the isolation of the rest of his Cabal to become
a Sentinel. Nimrod warns them that all eyes will be on them to see if they
have broken the veil - or break it trying to save Kali and Ichi from being
arrested. Wolsey arrives and they get up to speed before Wolsey heads to
the hospital and Damascus and Nimrod try to clean the site up.
Damascus figures out how the building exploded, and Nimrod erases traces
of Crack from the site.
Wolsey - all business - gets into Kali's hospital room and confronts her.
Damascus arrives and tells them that someone has tampered with witnesses,
who are claiming Kali threw a bomb into a window. Nimrod is un-tampering
them and has squashed police charges, but Malakaii is calling for her to be
censured for recklessly endangering the veil. Wolsey asks her what
happened, and she tells them. Wolsey immediately starts trying to find ways
they can spin what happened to their advantage.
Mr Thursday arrives and gives them a short time to discuss what to do with
Ichi before taking Kali into custody. Damascus and Wolsey skirt close to
killing him, but Kali won't hear of it - she wants to try to make Ichi a
Sleepwalker, but Wolsey admits he doesn't know if such a thing is possible.
Promising not to kill him, they settle in to wait for Ichi to come out of surgery
as Thursday discharges her and takes her to the Time Machine, where she is
placed under house arrest.
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Damascus and Wolsey confirm that Disbelief has modified Ichi's memories of
the two Vulgar spells he witnessed sufficiently to maintain the Veil. They
leave him to rest and discuss their response to Kali's arrest - deciding to
counter-attack Malakaii in retaliation, before they find out via a call to
Banneker that the hearing will be at the Consilium. They don't have *time* to
properly mount a counter-attack, and must settle for a defence. Banneker
says that he will handle the situation and that they should trust him.
Samuel tells Kali to be calm, and that hers was not a capital crime even if
she's found guilty. She asks if she can use his demesne to meditate.
While driving back to the Sanctum, Damascus experiences missing time
again - this time seeing a subliminal flash of "HELP" written on a wall. They
investigate and - at Wolsey's suggestion - use the Ring of the Dethroned
Queen to detect Taint all around, and especially on them. They speculate that
these deja vus are the result of Damascus' senses being expanded by use of
the Ring, such that he can tell when the Exarchs change something. Or, they
theorise, cover something up. Or someone.
They are interrupted by a call from Ulysses, who says that Malakaii and
Dantor's people are now on the move. They take shelter in Ulysses' church
but when Wolsey phones Avatar he learns that Malakaii has been questioning
her about the cult she was in, who turn out to be the House of Steel. Wolsey
finally realises that Malakaii and Dantor are attacking the Seers based on
Mara's interviews with Avatar - which is related to their Cabal. His relief is
interrupted by a grenade through the window.
A brief magical battle, punctuated by gunshots and an explosion, sees the
church damaged and Ulysses, Wolsey and Damascus unhurt, while one of
their two opponents - the home invaders who were chasing Gawain - is dead
and the other unconscious. Ulysses unravels the pattern of the corpse and
they stash the live enemy in the confessional, calling Thursday to come
collect him. They tell Banneker (who is delighted) and Avatar what's
happened, but have to settle for leaving a message with Samuel for Kali.
Kali - within Astral Space - shies away from the father-image-Guardian and
meditates into the Temenos, sadly contemplating her fate. When she returns
to consciousness, she says she's not interested in hearing the message from
the Cabal.
At the Consilium, Banneker has arranged a Filibuster to waste the meeting's
time before they must all leave to perform the ceremony at the Washington
Monument. The Sixth, and rarely seen, Councillor Fisher King gives a long
talk on birds before Malakaii finally manages to declare his victory over the
House of Steel. Banneker first reveals the Cabal's much more significant
victory - Malakaii captured only sleepwalker acolytes, while Wolsey and
Damascus have caught a full Seer of the Throne - and then that the final
evidence Malakaii needed to turn his suspicions about Avatar's story into a
strike on a Seer Pylon had come from Wolsey, and not from Banneker himself
as Malakaii had thought. Beaten, Malakaii drops the charges against Kali for
time, concentrating on interrogating the Seer.
Damascus has another moment of missing time as Samuel is talking to them,
and Kali links them to her own feelings of inevitability, which she is
periodically plagued by.
The Seer has died mysteriously, and Malakaii is furious. Kali - still angry at
the way Damascus and Wolsey acted after her injury - leaves with Samuel
Session 3.x (Downtime)
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The House of Ariadne party takes place at the Octagon House. Kali meets
Trace and Katherine, a socialite Silver Ladder mage. Kali and Trace become
friends after getting past the politics of being in their respective Orders and
Cabals.
Samuel, half-stoned and waxing philosophical, tells Kali he regrets using her
to try to find out his own mystery, and advises caution about "lifting rocks" in
the mind.
Kali receives a text message from her father, wishing her a happy 4th.
Damascus studies for his entrance exams and plans a present for Kali by way
of a peace offering.
The next day, Damascus visits his family while Kali goes back to the gang,
telling them that the attackers have been killed. She begins working to lower
the level of violence in her people's dealings.
Damascus goes to see John, who introduces the first step on his alchemical
journey - examining everything Damascus considers to be a bad quality in
himself, via the medium of external antinomist action and the creation of art
as a way of expressing negative emotions. Damascus chooses to concentrate
on the gang violence that still lurks inside of himself.
Wolsey meets with the other Heralds and hears the gossip. Banneker is
becoming more and more in charge of his own city, while Malakaii is being
pushed away from the centre of power. Malakaii has had several public
arguments with Thursday about Thursday's conduct during the last few days,
while is angering the Bokor. Hoban believes the council will not be as it is now
within the year, and notes that the Ascendants - after that last Consilium have asked to meet Banneker in person.
Kali, having been near-broken physically and emotionally over the last week,
has come to terms somewhat with her feelings about how she left home. She
returns her father's message, reaching out to him even if only hidden behind
a cell phone screen.
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Chapter 4: "Five Things"
Session 4.1
Change of plans.
This was *meant* to be the first part, previous form would have it as the first third, of a story called "Green Eyed Monster". As
was, the 'punch' point of the story which was meant to come about half an hour in came about four hours in, and we elected
to tie it off for the night there rather than attempt to shift narrative gears.
If that makes any sense.
Best way to think of this is as a teaser of a TV show episode that has been expanded to fill the full hour, because the writers
realised they were having too much fun. It just means that when the next story (which was going to be this story - "The Robe"
is now story 6) starts it will start with no preamble, no 'what they've been doing' and so on. Thanks to the cliffhanger here.
In any case, this session was almost all one long, rambling conversation which had enough structure to it that I hope I can
manage to recap it sufficiently. Mark, being his usual helpful self, tells me to think of this as "a broken-down lift": I always
express the way I try to run games as aiming towards a campaign when I can trap the player characters in a lift for the entire
session and they'll have enough to talk about that they don't notice I'm not actually doing anything.
This will be heaven for people who like deep exploration of character, and boring as hell for those who want plot progression.
Sorry.
Saturday 22nd July 2006
"We need to talk" - Wolsey, via text message
It's something they've not been doing a lot of in the three weeks since the Consilium.
In fact, the Crucible seem to have been trying to avoid one another.
It's not like Wolsey's been sitting around bored, either. Well, at least he hasn't been
unoccupied. Hoban has been sent to New York to conduct business for the DC
Consilium with their counterparts there, and Wolsey has been filling the breach by
acting as Consilium Scribe. The job's much less interesting than he might have
thought, but he's seeing it as an opportunity and carefully taking note of what's going
on in the city's magical community. The overall trend is that his fellow Herald's
observations after the 4th were correct - Banneker seems to be trying to build a
renewed powerbase of more, weaker ties rather than rely on Malakaii, who he's all
but shunning. Indeed, tomorrow Banneker meets Balthazar of the Ascendants and
Wolsey has been told to make an appearance.
But it's not all fun and minute-taking. He's been busy with the Cults - spending more
and more time with his societies, trying to figure out who the Guardian of the Veil
recruiter Malakaii mentioned might be and also trying to spot any more influences
from the Seers of the Throne. His latest, and oddest, encounter has been with the
Juncture, who are redrawing their equations and adjusting their stochastic predictions
in the wake of the House of Steel's being smashed up by unknown assailants (who
Wolsey knows only too well). The Juncture's emissary asks Wolsey what he thought
of their book, and when he makes polite noises asks if he wants the second volume.
Something Sam picked up on: the curious similarity between the 'House of the Steel Coin' and the Nickels that follow Kali
around
The *second* volume?
Oh yes indeed, and it's even larger than the original.
Dare we say that Wolsey is 'educated stupid'? It got Rafe speculating about a spell to suck the knowledge out of books and
impart it to yourself. Anyone fancy a go at statting such a thing? We think Mind mostly, Mark wants to add Space so you can
see (and absorb) every page in a book without opening it. Rafe thought Prime might be necessary to access the platonic
form of the text, but that may be a holdover in his mind from Sorcerer's Crusade.
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Some little light bedtime reading for him, there.
The third of his obsessions - his wife - is continuing her studies. In their snatched
moments together and sporadic phone calls, Avatar tells him that Promethea and
Mara have decided to try to "cure" her peculiarities by understanding, and have been
schooling her in Astral travel and the exploration of the Oneiros.
--Damascus, meanwhile, has been fighting. Instructed to go out and indulge his worst
qualities as a means of understanding them, he has rejected Inner travel (the route of
the Claviclarius like Promethea) as being counter to the goals of his Legacy - the
Uncrowned Kings understand and control their own minds via the medium of external
action, so just thinking bad thoughts isn't really going to cut it.
Well, that and he doesn't have access to a Demesne or a high-powered Hallow
Based on his attack on the Seer, he has decided to start with Wrath - taking part in
illegal bare-knuckle fights in order to understand the shape of his own aggression.
Which goes swimmingly until the first time he loses a bout, and then it's more like an
exploration of his own pain.
Let us hope he doesn't start hallucinating someone named Tyler. Love that book.
He's now sat his SATs and is awaiting the results before he starts applying to
colleges.
--Kali, on the third hand, has been troubled. Deliberately avoiding the other two, she's
been throwing herself into her gang - only to find that it may not be "her" gang any
more.
It starts small. She spends most of the first week after the Consilium at the hospital,
by Ichi's bedside - but although Ichi's recovering he seems.. off. He increasingly
wants to know what's going on with the gang, and so Kali divides her time more
evenly, telling him what's happening with everyone.
Then he starts giving advice.
Over the weeks, Ichi becomes more and more of a backstreet driver, until Kali resorts
to ferrying gangers to the hospital so that he can give orders in person.
There's one moment, about halfway through the three-week period, when she says
that his idea's bad.
"When did you stop being my girl and start being my boss?" - Ichi
When indeed? Kali started out in the Gang, three and a half years ago, as Ichi's
girlfriend. Back then the gang was much, much smaller - just a dozen young men and
women with too much time on their hands. Over the years, Ichi came to rely on Kali
more and more.. but the experience with the Crack Factory seems to have ripped the
veils off his eyes.
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Ichi knows - he now knows - that Kali isn't normal, no matter what his memory might
tell him. And that she isn't always right. The loss of the gangers killed in the blast
weighs on them both, and Ichi is reacting by taking control back.
"When did it become your gang?" - Ichi
Kali remembers when - with the aid of Postcognition Kali can remember everything
that's happened to her. It was a little thing, some year and a half ago. She said "my
people" instead of "our", and he didn't correct her. A year before that it went from
"your" to "our".
Still, she corrects herself in conversation, answers his questions and brings people to
see him. On one level, Kali knows what's happening - that her failure has led to her
being pushed... if not aside, then certainly downward. Ichi needs to reassert himself,
and the only person standing above him is her.
So when a gang member named Lisa answers Kali telling her not to do something
with "Well, we'll see what Ichi thinks", she knows what's happening.
On another level, she's relieved. Relieved that she doesn't have to do this all the time
any more. That she's going to be able to try to bring herself back to some kind of
equilibrium.
As Sam remarked, Kali's experimenting right now with bringing herself 'up', trying to leaven the persona she's made for
herself in the four years since she ran away from home with the young woman she remembers being - or thinks she
remembers being.
--So about that message from Wolsey, then...
When everyone finally turns up at the Sanctum, he explains that, well, they haven't
really been in touch with one another since It happened. Damascus acknowledges
that he's been busy. Kali barely acknowledges Wolsey's speech.
Wolsey asks what everyone's been doing, saying that he himself has been busy with
the Consilium. Damascus matter-of-factly says that he's been following an Antinomist
practice of doing evil and reflecting upon it.
Kali says nothing.
This has gone on far enough.
"Alright. What is your problem?" - Wolsey
Kali's problem, as she says at length, is them. Specifically the way they talked
around her, planned around her - basically denied her any input after her injury. Like
they didn't think she had any say in what happened to her, or to Ichi.
"We rushed to your bedside" - Wolsey
"Not really" - Kali, dismissively
"No - really. Look, I'm sorry the traffic was bad..." - Wolsey
He and Damascus repudiate her accusation - she never asked how *they* did, either.
And they're the ones who actually did the fighting.
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"I'm quite proud of how we didn't get blown up" - Wolsey
He goes on to admit that they probably owe their lives to Ulysses, but Kali is not
getting any less annoyed. They point out that - as they've told her several times - the
life she leads is *dangerous*. She agrees with that, at least, saying that there are two
lives: her as gang leader and her as a mage.
"What I'm saying is - it's clear that the lives don't mix, and I'm not willing to stop living
one" - Kali
"You can't keep throwing your gang at Supernal..." - Wolsey
"Ok - when we were setting this place up, you were okay with them as mooks,
guards..." - Kali
Wolsey and Damascus let that (accurate) accusation and slide by. Wolsey - who's
doing most of the talking here - says that she led her men into that situation knowing
that the Irishmen were Mages.
"You knew that was what I was planning" - Kali
Wolsey says that she shouldn't have run straight after them. Kali tries to explain
"Listen. If someone had nailed your daughter to a door, or beaten your mother, you'd
want to..." - Kali
"A Dog. They nailed a dog to a door" - Wolsey
"I'm speaking metaphorically" - Kali
Her metaphor ran longer, because Wolsey kept interrupting her so she started over again. And again.
Anyway - her point is, the attacks could not be allowed to go on. Even for one more when they turned up, she had to go after them. Wolsey disagrees.
"You're just saying that because you're cold and heartless" - Kali
"Cold and heartless might get less people killed" - Wolsey
Ouch
The two of them ask if she'd have run after them if they weren't mages - what would
she have done, say, if they were human, but had put Claymore Mines in the Factory?
"You could have called me" - Wolsey
"No" - Kali
"You could - or Damascus" - Wolsey
"I can't make time." - Kali
She starts jabbering - very cut up and confusing - about how not only did she not
have time to call them, but that she can't yet revisit the past and rewrite a phone call
into it.
Although oddly enough I gather that's one of the new spells in Tome of the Mysteries.
She tries to explain about gang perceptions - how she can't keep visibly stopping and
calling for the help of these two outsiders. The gang were moving, and she couldn't
get them to stop while she phoned her lawyer. She'd have lost what control she had
and the explosion still would have happened.
Rafe points out that, ironically, if she'd let the gang run off and not gone with them the building wouldn't have exploded.
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"You say you couldn't call us. I say you didn't" - Wolsey
Kali's about to angrily respond when Damascus cuts both of them off.
"The question is this: What do you want out of this Cabal?" - Damascus
"I don't know what I want" - Kali
"Well decide. And then we can decide if we can give it to you" - Damascus
"..You first" - Kali
Wolsey launches into how he sees the Cabal as a Vehicle. He says that given the
choice none of them would have chosen to be together, but they're stuck with the
Cabal that the consilium decree formed so they may as well make the best of it. Kali
starts saying how Wolsey gets Sleepers involved in the Supernal, which isn't that
different to...
"No. Cut this equivalence crap. What you and I do is completely different" - Wolsey
Damascus needs to take control of the situation again, and tells them they're neither
being helpful. Kali asks what HE wants.
"OK. I'll answer your question. This is to both of you: I want to know what your
problems are because your problems are our problems. I want to be considered part
of the solution or as a solution. I'd like us to be friends, but I don't ask it." (to Kali) "I
would also like you to clean your life up, but I do recognise I don't have the right to
ask that of anyone." - Damascus
Damascus is also arguing out of his position as the Cabal's Hand, as it's his job to answer any formal challenges, and as the
Arrow member (whose ethos revolves around giving support to other Pentacle mages)
They all consider for a while.
"I'll go first: My emotional damage is Avatar. What's yours?" - Wolsey
Give him points for self-analysis. Anyway - it's at this point, now that they've started asking each other what's wrong rather
than accusing, that we start to see progress. There will be more later thanks to Damascus having a good idea.
Kali half-shrugs, saying that she's got all sorts of problems but not openly saying
them.
Even now, they're too big. She hasn't told anyone what's going on with her - Samuel knows some, the Cabal know some and
Ichi knows some, but noone's got it all.
"What do you know about Samuel?" - Wolsey
"If you're asking if I know if he has a girlfriend, wife, dad, mother.. I don't know." - Kali
"Do you know his real name?" - Wolsey
No she doesn't. She's never asked.
"It seems that you've told Samuel a lot more about yourself than you've told us. And
he's not shared anything about himself." - Wolsey
"Oh, and you don't tell Banneker things?" - Kali
"I respect Banneker. You don't. You give NO respect to Banneker or to Malakaii people that no matter what you might think of them you should. Yet somehow, you
act properly around Samuel. Why him? Why is he worthy of your respect?" - Wolsey
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He continues in this vein, asking why she trusts Samuel with her secrets.
"Is it the Legacy? Having people that agree with you? Because if your Legacy is
meant to be your work friends, we're meant to be your family" - Wolsey
It's partly that - the House of Ariadne is more tight-knit than some of the other Legacies. The Uncrowned Kings are just
Damascus and John Dee, while Wolsey's regarding the Bearers as just being a means to learn a power he was after was the
cause of him not being accepted. The House is like a family.
Kali doesn't confirm or deny anything.
"We have a theory" - Wolsey
"That does not involve bunnies in any way" - Damascus
Buffy jokes for the win!
Wolsey and Damascus think that Samuel is after something from her - that he's
playing her in some kind of elaborate scheme. It's fishy. Kali says that it's fine, but the
fundamental cause of their worry remains - She's told Samuel what happened to her
four years ago, but she hasn't told them.
"What happened to you?" - Damascus
"You're assuming it was something big" - Kali
"Yes... yes I am. I think it was life changing" - Damascus
Except of course, Kali know that lives don't change by single epiphanies.
Damascus disagrees - his did.
She finally begins to explain - haltingly, as though figuring it out herself as she goes,
she tells them about the disconnection.
Wolsey attempts to ease the mood by poking a little fun at her.
Dave, though, can't remember what the joke WAS. I'll edit it in if Mark has a brainwave before the edit limit passes.
"You're making light of it" - Kali, annoyed
They apologise, but she's said enough for now.
"*everything*'s a game to you. That was the first thing you thought of - that Samuel
was manipulating me. Just because your life's being run by Banneker." - Kali
Wolsey objects, saying it's not like that. Kali starts quoting Shakespeare at him.
"Banneker's spending a lot of time on you to not be manipulating you, by your
standards. Much ado about nothing, you think? Or more of a Tempest?" - Kali
"Oh no. Don't do that. Don't go from ganger to high school honours student in the
same conversation" - Wolsey
Kali complains that she's *trying* to explain, but they're not making this any easier.
At which point, Wolsey's cell phone rings
"Hold that thought" - Wolsey, getting up
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Taking the opportunity while it's there, Damascus tries something.
"Alright. Here's the deal. I won't say *anything* - neither will Wolsey. Until you've said
five things. After that, we can talk about them if you want, but we don't have to. Go." Damascus
Kali stares at him.
He stares back at her.
"... One. I'm frightened all the time. Terrified. Scared. Discontent. Alone." - Kali
"Two. I don't want to do this... Three... Why do we spend so much effort on politics
when there's a clear Enemy to unite against?" - Kali
She pauses, thinking. Damascus waits.
"Four. I want to know what's through that door. Five. I want to know what's going on"
- Kali
"See? Not hard." - Damascus
"Six. I think the holes in me, the holes in Avatar and the Spider are connected." - Kali
"Can I ask about Six?" - Damascus
She shrugs, and says that the feelings of destiny Avatar's experiencing are similar,
but not exactly the same, as her own sense of inevitability. That she feels that they're
tied together, and that Avatar's missing the same thing she's missing - or that, as
Samuel says, Avatar finding what she's missing will help Kali find what *she's*
missing. If that makes sense.
Halfway through, Wolsey returns
"Sorry. Business... what are we doing?" - Wolsey
Damascus fills him in. The mood of calm remains.
"Kali.. can I ask you a personal question? You don't have to answer." - Damascus
"You can ask" - Kali
"Do you have a, uh... Destiny?" - Kali
"No. And that's the weird thing. Why don't I? Maybe that's what I'm missing." - Kali
She tells them of how this feeling drove her away from her old life, towards the gang.
"But now I'm not sure the gang was right either, because I can still feel it. So maybe
what I'm having trouble doing is letting go of the gang - going back to my old life or
finding yet another one." - Kali, ruminating.
"You might be destined to be a great chef" - Wolsey
"Have you seen my couscous?" - Kali
"...Is that slang?" - Wolsey
No, Wolsey, it isn't slang. Sounds dirty, though.
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"You spoke of a Door" - Damascus
"It's a door inside my mind, guarded by my father." - Kali
She tells them about how she tried to trick her way past it and failed, being shown "a
puppet show" instead of the invisible truth. Damascus nods.
"It stands to reason that you couldn't trick it - remember that it's part of your own
mind" - Damascus
"And that's why I'm afraid. Afraid that my dad has something to do with this, that I've
made the wrong decision..." - Kali
"The guardian could be in the shape of your father because that's what you associate
him with, not because whatever the secret is is to do with him" - Damascus
"And people keep doing me favours. It's starting to worry me." - Kali
And with that
"Is there anything else on the list we haven't covered? Ah - yes. Politics" - Damascus
"Politics?" - Wolsey
"Why we have it among ourselves, when there is an Enemy to fight" - Damascus
Wolsey is best qualified to take this one.
"Politics is the art of the possible..." - Wolsey
Otto Von Bismarck quote there (thanks Rafe!)
"...and it happens when people disagree. Always - even in this group of three, we're
constantly pulling and pushing at one another" - Wolsey
"Not from where I'm sitting" - Kali, ruefully
"You think..? You think Wolsey and I *agree*? On anything?" - Damascus
Kali shrugs 'well... yeah'
"We don't. We just haven't had a big argument yet. And that's what it is - most agree
that there is an enemy to fight, the politics is where people disagree about how best
to go about it." - Wolsey
And that's that. Kali and Damascus sit back. Wolsey's expression turns from pleased
that Kali has calmed down and opened up to realisation.
"Okay, then..." - Wolsey
Sam's expression as Kali while Mark was doing this bit was priceless. Kali gives him indulgent, mock-patronising smiles and
nods of approval every time he manages to say something. 'twas hilarious.
"One... I think that me and Avatar are doomed. Two. I think Malakaii's going to win..."
- Wolsey
They wait
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"Three. We haven't heard the last of the Bell. Four. I am never going to be able to
rest ever again" - Wolsey
He considers. They're patient.
"...Five. I hope none of these are true" - Wolsey
Lame! Still, it only gives four to actually respond to - and it does point out that for all his griping and paranoia, Wolsey would
LIKE to be an optimist. He's just jaded. Maybe appropriately jaded, but jaded.
They do Wolsey in order.
Why Doomed?
Wolsey says, sadly but with an air that he's thought this one through, thanks, and
reckons that although both of them will try, and both of them will be heartbroken, that
the pressures are too great. They're both different enough to their lives preAwakening that their marriage is getting in the way. They don't have the luxury of
finding out about each other.
One of the others says that at least Avatar is a Mage. True, he says - he's being
specific about his problem. He can't actually see how any Mage maintains a
relationship at all. It has not gone unnoticed, for example, that Banneker's highlylauded ability to separate his home and shadow life is a hollow boast: Banneker goes
home to Mary every day and lies about everything. A Mage can never truly trust
anyone other than a Mage, and they know how untrustworthy other Mages are.
His story gets worse.
"Ultimately, no Sleeper can be trusted. They're all irredeemably tainted by the
Exarchs, and the only people free are Awakened. A Sleeper can be a good person, a
kind person - even a loving person, but everything they do is still part of the Exarch's
plan and for a Mage to just go along with that is..." - Wolsey
"Wolsey... There are things older than the Exarchs. They took control of this world,
they didn't create it. Good exists independent of the Supernal" - Damascus
"Such as?" - Wolsey
"Such as God" - Damascus
"We're having this conversation, are we? - Wolsey
"Things like Love, faith and hope are good, and are given to everyone and can be
found in everyone." - Damascus
They agree, on this score, to disagree.
"Okay. Coffee? I think I have a machine here somewhere..." - Wolsey
In-joke!
"Why's Malakaii going to win?" - Damascus
(returning, mugs in hand, which he passes out) "Because he's desperate. More
committed, more dedicated. But mostly desperate. His position is... Well, I don't think
he has a life outside of this. He's got everything to lose. Also bear in mind number
five. But that's it." - Wolsey
"Three" - Kali
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"Three was the Bell, right?" - Wolsey
He says that the Irish guys were only the beginning. There will be more - and worse
things than Seers. The Bell is evil, and it will attract them nothing good.
"What should we do, then?" - Damascus
"Give it to the Mysterium?" (to Kali) "Aren't there any of your people we can give it
to?" - Wolsey
It is pointed out that they want to keep it out of the hands and minds of people like
Malakaii. Handing it off to Suleiman might not be the best and wisest solution.
They can't really DO anything about it - can't give it away, can't destroy it.
"We could throw it into mount doom" - Damascus
The suggestions got wilder out of character - including putting a false base on it and pretending it's a ceremonial goblet of the
Cabal. Mark could just see the Seers in some kind of pastiche of Indiana Jones, going for the most jewelled one - 'that looks
like the cup of God... and it is!'. That led to using Death or Time magic to have the aging-to-death trap, and then finally back
to the game.
We were in kind of an odd mood when we played this session.
And lastly, Never resting.
"I'll be watching out for all of the above for the rest of my days - and apart from
them..." - Wolsey
He laments how busy Banneker's been keeping him, and bitches about how the
Ascendants - for all their isolationist talk - are always popping up to have hours-long
talks about the lamentable state of the world. Which he has to minute.
And that's Wolsey done.
He and Kali look at Damascus
"Would this be a good time to take a devotion of silence?" - Damascus
"Only if you want your five things to be ow, ow, stop hitting me" - Wolsey
"Heh. Alright. I am not entirely sure I believe in the Exarchs... I am not entirely sure
why I'm doing what I'm doing - what my long term goals are" - Damascus
Wolsey nods
It is Wolsey's major criticism of Damascus - other than the fact that Wolsey thinks the Christian God is an Exarch - that
Damascus doesn't have a game-plan. For all he bitches about Kali's means of achieving her goals, at least she has them.
"It is more important to be who you are than what you are" (thinks) "...It is surprisingly
easy to be evil" - Damascus, considering
He makes his mind up
"I am concerned I may endanger those around me" - Damascus
In no particular order, then.
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"Like us?" - Kali
"My family, mostly. Or someone else." - Damascus
"Do you mean around you as a Mage, or around you as a normal person?" - Kali
"As a Mage" - Damascus
He can see what Wolsey means, about how hard it is, but he's not willing to give up
his folks.
"This the who you are thing?" - Wolsey
"Something like that. WHO you are. Not what your name is, or what your job is. Or
your Legacy, your Order, your Path.. just you." - Damascus
This ties into his thoughts about the capacity of Sleepers for 'good'. Damascus thinks it's better to be a good man than 'a
Mage'.
They can get behind that, which leads to the next bit of philosophy.
"The Exarchs" - Damascus
He comes out as a sceptic - he doesn't know if the Exarchs are the shadows of the
human psyche's need for control cast upon the Abyss, or if they're the devil or what.
But he's not sold on the Atlantean story. It's too pat.
Rafe: This kind of got blurred over in the session, since neither Kali or Wolsey seemed very interested in that statement.
Damascus can believe in the Exarchs, but not as the Atlantis myth tends to present them. He can accept the idea of 'ancient,
evil mages who influence a lot of things'. He could accept the idea of 'a principle of evil that is venerated by the Seers' - he
does believe in the Devil. He does not - at heart - accept the idea of Exarchs sitting in the Supernal potentially controlling all
material reality. In a sense, he thinks the Seers are either human (evil, but fundamentally human) *or* a supernatural
principle that never was human. It's the middle ground that the Atlantis myth presents that he doesn't like.
Second to last - how he's not certain about what he's doing. He confesses that he's
sort of rolling gently along the Path Moros. He still lives near his folks, he doesn't
properly maintain his Shadow Identity. He joined a Legacy, altered the very nature of
his soul, because it was a goal in itself, not as an end to another. It still seems a good
idea, but it wasn't out of any grand scheme. And much as it doesn't look like he does,
he worries about it. Mostly because everyone else seems to have a goal, not for any
feeling of the lack. He wonders if he should.
He doesn't consider being a Mage to be anywhere near as important as Wolsey apparently does. To Damascus, it's on a par
with his ability to create art. It's a talent, a gift, a skill and a tool but it's not as important as what you do with it and the kind of
person you are.
And last, that evil thing. He's finding it pretty easy - disturbingly easy.
"So John said to explore my worst qualities. But I didn't know which they were, so I'm
doing the Seven Deadlies one after another" - Damascus
He's done Wrath - that was the fighting.
"So.. can I ask... which are you doing now?" - Wolsey
"Pride" - Damascus
This entire counselling session, his idea, which has healed over the cracks and spread understanding amongst the Cabal, is
Damascus' idea of Antinomist behaviour. That amused the hell out of me.
Rafe: And if one considers Pride as the idea that one knows better than others what should be done... Damascus was pretty
much dominating the conversation, guiding and directing. With the exception of his 'Five', there wasn't a whole lot of humility
going on.
208
So endeth the lesson.
The next day, the Cabal are going about their various business. Wolsey's been called
to sit in on yet another meeting between Balthazar of the Ascendants and Banneker.
Kali, for her part, is hanging around the neighbourhood of the Sanctum, sweltering in
DC's July heat.
Which Damascus appears to be helping.
Kali, curious as to what's attracting a small crowd, discovers that Damascus has
parked his van and is taking money in exchange for bottles of liquid.
"What is this?" - Kali, sniffing one and discovering it's rather potent.
"My studies continue" - Damascus, cheerfully counting bills.
"You're selling alcohol?" - Kali
"Greed" - Damascus
He explains, smiling the while, that the alcohol was tap water until a few hours ago
when he used magic to transmute the liquid. He has made.. quite a lot of cash,
actually, for doing fuck all.
"Won't the spell wear off?" - Kali
"Nope. But by the time it does, it'll be digested." (shrugs) "They just won't get a
hangover" - Damascus
The more traditional lead into gold or stones into diamonds are too hard to do at Damascus' power level. Water into Vodka,
though - *that* he can do.
"Right. Well... carry on" - Kali, slightly weirded out.
A car goes past that she recognises - it's one of the gang's. And Ichi is in the back
seat.
"I'll see you later" - Kali, over her shoulder, heading after the car.
...
Kali arrives at the warehouse to find Ichi being welcomed home, released from the
hospital and all charges dropped (thanks to a rather good lawyer who will swear blind
he's doing it bro bono. And doesn't, as for example, work for City Lawyer Suleiman the head of Kali's Order. At all. Honest.)
Ichi starts making a speech, sounding like he's been waiting most of the day thinking
it up. Brotherhood. A return to the winning ways of the past.
"We've lost our way. Time to remember who we used to be" - Ichi
Kali, on the edges of the crowd, watches herself be forgotten.
...
209
"What the hell is this?" - Lisa
"I'm selling booze. Want some?" - Damascus, cheerful
Damascus - having made a sizeable sum of money for essentially no work - has
been challenged by Lisa, one of "Kali's" gang members.
And the girl who used the "we'll see what Ichi says" line to Kali in the opening.
"Kali said it was fine" - Damascus
"Oh, she did?" - Lisa, not impressed.
Damascus shrugs - he's made enough money here - and moves on to Dantor's
territory to continue gaining his ill-gotten gains.
-----Wolsey sits in on the latest meeting of Banneker, Suleiman and the Ascendants - or
Ascendant, as only Balthazar (a lanky black man with a very intense air about him)
attends. They've finally gotten to the point.
The Consilium, Balthazar says, has clearly become corrupted by having to rely on
the Guardians of the Veil for it's stability - an oversight which has led to Banneker's
law being overshadowed by Malakaii's, in which Cabals dictate the terms of the
Consilium not the other way around and in which the Silver Ladder is not respected
enough. In particular, they were disgusted by Malakaii's ignoring clear evidence of a
Cabal being attacked but instead trying to prosecute the victim for his own ends.
Naturally, they propose to dispense the wisdom of their cabal unto the Consilium.
They volunteer their services as impartial judges of the lex magica - providing the
much-needed oversight that making Malakaii chief prosecutor and policeman does
not.
When Balthazar leaves, Banneker turns to Wolsey
"What do you think?" - Banneker
"I think that for such recluses they pop round a lot" - Wolsey
"And their offer?" - Banneker
"Interesting. Though what they get out of it remains to be seen" - Wolsey
"Hmm. Well..." - Banneker
The Hierarch is interrupted by Marian - the Obrimos who siphoned the mana burst of
the 4th - entering the meeting room and whispering in his ear. Marian looks rattled,
and nervous - and to Wolsey's disquiet Banneker goes pale on hearing whatever it is.
"Wolsey. We need to find the rest of your Cabal right away - and Mr Thursday too.
And, while I think on it, someone needs to make sure Beckett hasn't left his estate. Banneker, gnawing at a knuckle.
"What is it?" - Wolsey
Banneker looks up, frightened by the implications.
210
"We're checking, and this is hearsay, but... Someone just killed Malakaii" – Banneker
211
Chapter 5: "Who Benefits?"
Session 5.1
This session starts off the story that was meant to be started last time, before it changed in the play to being a talky piece.
Before THAT, though, I had it roughly slated as Story Eight, coming after the third Reign of the Exarchs story.
So why the change?
There's a growing thread in the chronicle of things happening 'before their time' - it's something Sam has picked up on. Kali
has realised that her sexual encounter with Seraph in the House of Stone happened because she followed the Ariadne's
Thread that leads back to her father in the opposite direction - she's taken this, and the way that the house was completely
empty when she and Wolsey went back, to mean that it somehow happened in the future, or that Kali had stumbled into a
situation she wasn't ready for yet.
In that spirit, I had planned to kill Malakaii off and watch the fallout later in the Chronicle, but the way Wolsey and Banneker's
interactions have gone they were in danger of being pre-prepared for it. Banneker has a line, towards the end of this session,
about how this has come *too soon* - Malakaii's gone, and they haven't yet got anyone that can really replace him.
For those of you that like Consilium politics and murky deals, you're about to get a story that showcases them - Malakaii's
death brings two questions that need to be answered: Who did it, and who will fill his shoes?
Or, as the title says, Who Benefits?
We pick up almost right where we left off, in the early afternoon of Sunday 23rd July.
Wolsey is in the meeting room of the Consilium Sanctum Banneker's meeting was
being held at, waiting while Banneker phones, engages in long range telepathy and
sends urgent emails to other notables spread out across the city, trying to get an
accurate picture of what's going on out there.
We've shown this room a few times, but not the building it's in. I figure the Consilium has a couple of Sanctums held by it's
officers rather than individual cabals, for use in official business - large-scale gatherings tend to be in function rooms away
from such private bolt-holes and secure storehouses, though - the two Caucuses we've seen were in a restaurant (in story
two) and a Masonic hall (in story three).
Closing his phone, Banneker looks deflated as he tells Wolsey that it's now been
confirmed - Malakaii is indeed dead, and Jude (the Acanthus Adamantine Arrow
Sentinel in Malakaii's Cabal) has recovered the body.
"There will be chaos over this - Gideon was... It will..." (takes a breath and gets a
hold of himself) "First, we must establish the innocence of our allies. We can't act to
mitigate any fallout or steer the Consilium through the darkness of the next few days
if the people doing the steering are under suspicion. Thursday, yourself and your
Cabal are publicly known to have opposed Malakaii in recent times. And then there's
Beckett." - Banneker
"About Beckett - I'd like to be the one who goes to him..." - Wolsey
"Only once your own Cabal are cleared. Establish their alibis first. And quickly." Banneker
Wolsey considers, moving the cursor on his phone contact list from Kali to Damascus
to Kali again, before making his decision and phoning Damascus
"Hey T-Dog" – Damascus
T for Thomas.
Wolsey processes that, and decides to ignore it.
"Where are you?" - Wolsey
"Dunno. Somewhere roundabout" - Damascus, handing a bottle of magically-created
212
liquor to a customer
"Listen. I need to know if anyone can confirm where you've been for the last few
hours" - Wolsey
"Weeeeell.... Not sure. I saw Kali a while ago" - Damascus
Wolsey frowns. Damascus is sounding.. odd.
"Are you high?" - Wolsey, suspicious
You'll have to imagine the distracted tone Rafe was using. One of those things that isn't coming across well in text form. Also,
a meta-textual reference - Wolsey asked the same question of Kali when she was distracted by the Nickel riddle. Says
something - though I'm not sure what - that when someone is acting oddly he doesn't jump to the conclusion that they're
experiencing magic, but instead defaults to 'they're on drugs' - and he's always slightly frustrated by it; by people not acting
as he thinks they should.
Only when I come to write this, some days after running the session, do I realise what this implies about his background. I
think Avatar may have been fond of the weed at some point.
"Not really. I'm selling booze in order to indulge my Greed" - Damascus
"Just... listen. Can you meet me at the Sanctum? It's important. Malakaii's been
killed, and we're going to be suspects unless we can prove we didn't do it. We need a
Game Plan" - Wolsey
There is a pause.
"I've got a 'game plan'. Let's stop off at a 7-11 and buy party hats and streamers" Damascus
Wolsey is briefly speechless, but reiterates his desire to meet ASAP, and rings off.
He phones Kali
Kali has tired of Ichi's return to the neighbourhood, and has slunk off to her thinking
place by the river. She's ruminating on approaching thunderclouds when her phone
starts vibrating. Wolsey gives her the news and asks if anyone can verify where she's
been for the last few hours
"No" - Kali
His response is silent, though probably polysyllabic. He tells her to get to the
Sanctum - he'll be there shortly.
He hangs up. Banneker is communicating magically, the strands of resonance
twisting away through Space, on the other side of the room. The Hierarch concludes
his spell, and regards Wolsey
"I'm making sure of where they've been" - Wolsey
Banneker nods
"The body has been brought in - I have to go. Now. I'll be in touch." - Banneker
Pinpoints of light, connected by faint traceries like constellation maps, flare up around
Banneker, seemingly hovering an inch or so from his skin. The light grows as he
moves his hands in a rote mudra, gripping the fabric of space and pulling it apart.
There's a flash of light, and he's gone.
213
Wolsey runs for the exit, and his car.
First sighting of Banneker's nimbus here, as he teleports.
--Kali and Damascus have found one another outside the Sanctum and are comparing
notes - Damascus at least has the distinction of having been seen by dozens of
people in both the Cabal's and Dantor's ranges, but the only person who's seen Kali
is him. Still, that might be enough.
Neither of them are particularly upset about Malakaii dying.
"Heard the news?" - Kali
"Ding-dong, the Warlock's dead" - Damascus
They walk up the stairs, and unlock the Sanctum door, Kali shuddering at Seraph's
graffitied warning
"I keep forgetting to do something about that" - Kali, muttering
"Hm?" - Damascus
"Seraph. I need to deal with it - I know, I know, you and Wolsey want to kill him. But
I... I just think he's been useful, and hasn't actually attacked us." (sighs) "What does it
matter? You'll kill him. You don't trust me to handle it" - Kali
"I have no plans to kill Seraph" - Damascus
"...I can't decide if you're being complimentary" - Kali
"The only thing I'm aware that he's done to you is had sex. If I were to go after
everyone that did that I'd be booked up for two years" - Damascus
And thus starts an in-joke. Whenever Kali has sex and Damascus finds out about it from hereon in (first time next session),
he notes the running total of days it'd take him to kill them all.
They are interrupted as Wolsey arrives, abuzz with theories, plans and concerns - he
loops over himself several times before noticing that Damascus and Kali seem less
than concerned.
"I know this is bad of me and I should grieve that a man is dead..." - Damascus
"Yes, you should. He didn't deserve to die" - Wolsey
"Many who live..." - Damascus
"He didn't deserve to die. Plus, it's fucked everything up" - Wolsey
"Well, for those of us enmeshed in the Game" - Damascus
"THE GAME? Have you gone Apostate Damascus? Are you still a member of the
Consilium?" - Wolsey
"Forgive me, Wolsey. I am failing to see the ramifications" - Damascus
Wolsey stares at him.
"Maybe I did it" - Kali, staring at Wolsey
There is a long pause, as Wolsey shifts from concerned she's telling the truth to
confused.
"What?" - Wolsey
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She stares at him
"What?" – Wolsey
"I thought I'd stare at you like you understand me, like you're staring at Damascus. If
I'm not making this any better I'll just go sit in the corner" - Kali
"Did you?" - Damascus
"I don't know. I might be going to have done" - Kali
She has a theory, she declares - a conclusion she came to while in her thinking place
this lunchtime. What if SHE is the Spider? Or rather, her own future self? She
suspects that's why the trap on the Crack Factory was in the form of a Nickel, that
she placed it to make her own past self choose or not choose some significant thing
that would be life changing. Maybe she killed Malakaii, too.
"Did you, who are now standing here, kill Malakaii in your personal past?" Damascus
"No" - Kali
"Then it doesn't matter" - Damascus
Wolsey thinks about it, and shakes his head. It's a... theory... but he doesn't think the
Crack Factory was the result of Kali one day coming back to blow up her younger
counterpart.
"There'd have been a note. Signed 'Kali'" - Wolsey
Wolsey lays them out: Malakaii's death will have to be answered in and of itself, but
he leaves at least four key positions vacant - all of which have to be filled, but no
Mage in the city has the qualities necessary for all of them. Malakaii was a Councillor
of the Consilium, the leader of the Gatekeepers Cabal, the Guardian of the Veil
Epopt (regional head), the only member of the Bearers of the Eternal Voice to have
reached the third attainment (and therefore be capable of teaching the second) and
lastly the person most involved in.. well.. guarding the Veil. Smoothing over the many
minor infractions of the Wise, guarding against the Seers of the Throne and keeping
watch over the Labyrinth. Any one of these will be hotly contested, with the alliances
the Consilium is held together with suddenly cracking and shifting as people make
their moves for the vacancies. And worse, any one of them - even aside from
Malakaii's general demeanour and use of people's paranoia to make them follow the
Lex Magica - is a possible motive. The Seers have a grudge, thanks to the House of
Steel being broken up by Malakaii and his followers after they got the debriefing of...
"Avatar!" - Wolsey
He hurriedly phones his wife.
Kali and Damascus wait as Wolsey establishes that Avatar is okay, having a rocksolid alibi in the form of Trace, with whom she had gone bowling. It's all gone crazy at
Mara's place, though - as Malakaii's Provost, Mara is trying to hold their Cabal
together and answer the increasing demands for updates from other interested
parties while simultaneously making the first moves in her own bid to succeed him.
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Wolsey tells her to keep her head down, and rings off, telling the others what's
happening.
Damascus points out that Mara does stand to gain a lot from this, so she should be
added to the list already containing Thursday, Beckett, someone trying to frame
Beckett, Banneker himself (Wolsey disagrees with that - he doesn't think the Hierarch
wanted Malakaii dead, just less powerful politically) and the Seers.
"Try to remember the old policeman's rule: Who Benefits?" - Damascus
"Can you think about that - because I don't really care who did it" - Wolsey
"You don't?" - Damascus
Not as such, no. Obviously, it would be good (if Malakaii was killed by a Pentacle
Mage) if the culprit were caught, but Wolsey is more worried about the fallout. Mara
is likely to seek the position of Councillor, which would see the Guardians lose their
council seat.
"As opposed to now, when the Arrow don't have one?" - Damascus
"Yes" - Wolsey
In any case, whoever makes Councillor will vacate any post they currently have, and
then elevate someone to be their Provost. It's leadership of the Gatekeepers that is
most troubling - they're predominantly Guardian in outlook, and Mara's likely rival in
any such race is Mr Thursday - with whom Malakaii just publicly fell out. The Cabal,
which performs a vital function to the city, could splinter and go their separate ways
under the strain.
At which point, Banneker calls Wolsey back. There are voices in the background Wolsey recognises Suleiman and Dantor at least.
"Are your Cabal cleared?" - Banneker
"yes" - Wolsey
"There is much to do. Malakaii touched lives in a dozen Consilia across the world.
Hoban has been told to extend his stay in New York and seek out Malakaii's old
friends to tell them the news. There will be other such messages to send out, but for
now we need you to concentrate here. Link has been assigned to be the Sentinel in
charge of the investigation, but you can help." - Banneker
"You want me to go to Beckett?" - Wolsey
"Yes" - Banneker
"I need you to give me the order out loud, sir. So that your guests can hear.
Otherwise it looks like we were in on it with Beckett" - Wolsey
(slightly louder) "Wolsey. Take your Cabal and make sure that Beckett is still on his
estate. Tell that girl... Kali, isn't it?.. To make sure he didn't do it." - Banneker
And they're off, discussing further as they go. The race for Epopt is harder to call, as
Wolsey isn't that familiar with the internal workings of the Guardians of the Veil. He'd
expect it to be Thursday or maybe one of the Mages from Project Twilight, if they use
this tragedy to involve themselves more with the rest of the Consilium. As for
Councillor, Wolsey's considered analysis is that it's most likely to be Ulysses or Mara
- but either option (both Adamantine Arrow) will cause a rift between the Arrow and
Guardians in the city.
As they approach Beckett's house, speeding up the freeway, they consider if he
might have actually done it - he DID, after all, try to kill Malakaii once before by
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summoning an Acamoth in some unspecified manner. It's probably a little too
obvious, especially if the hints Wolsey has been picking up about the nature of the
death are true (that it was done by a demon).
"Protection. Just in case. Shielding spells" - Wolsey
Kali questions how much use a Shielding of Fate is likely to be, and after she asks
Damascus about changing the material of clothes to make armour, he offers to do so.
"For instance, I could swap some properties of your clothes with something metal but
flexible - like a chain" - Damascus
"Do you have a chain here?" - Kali
"no" - Damascus
"I've got some in my room if we want to go back" - Kali
"Too. Much. Information." - Wolsey, taking the exit ramp
They settle for bog-standard Practice of Shielding spells, and arrive in short order at
Beckett's house. Pressing the intercom, they wait for Beckett to let them in.
There is the sound, over the intercom, of someone eating something crunchy
(noises) "husiz?" - Beckett
"Beckett?" - Wolsey
(swallowing sound) "Who is this?" - Beckett
A minor Fight Club-ism
Wolsey explains that they've been sent to check on him, and asks to come in.
Beckett - sounding a little drunk - okays it, and the gates open.
"Please let him not be having a celebratory meal" - Wolsey
Beckett answers the door wearing a party hat, a streamer hanging from his lips.
"Vol-au-vent?" - Beckett, proffering a treat
Heh. Beckett's reaction, of course, is an exaggerated version of Damascus' - Damascus is Antinomist at the moment, and
was driven in Story Three to suggest attacking Malakaii anyway, but Beckett is labelled Nefandi by the Consilium. Both men's
celebrations offend the hell out of Wolsey, who considers Malakaii to have deserved better no matter what their differences.
Too often, I think, this principle is missed in roleplaying games - a person may be an antagonist, and oppose your player
character, but they're still a person. If you had a rival at work who disagreed with you, would you loudly celebrate in the
workplace when they were murdered? To Wolsey, Malakaii's death removes a powerful Mage from the equation - and no
matter what their personal strife, Wolsey regards that as dimming the light of the supernal. DC is a poorer place without
Malakaii, and Wolsey knows it. Even if he couldn't stand to be around the man.
But then, despite his cold fish image, Wolsey has the highest Wisdom in the room.
And now for the Democratic Response. Rafe says: 'I would argue that for Damascus, at least, the analogy is of hearing that a
local crime boss had been gunned down. You might have known him, you might have worked with him through necessity,
and the fallout might be going to be hell but... you're not going to miss him. And you're probably happy. Damascus
considered a lot of what Malakaii did to have been evil (so did Malakaii as I recall). In a good cause, perhaps, but you know
what they say about 'ends and means'. It's also why Damascus has more patience with Beckett than he might. Beckett did
the same thing - evil with good intentions (removal of an evildoer) but where Malakii (presumably) chose it, Beckett was
driven to it... by Malakaii.
"You've heard, then?" - Wolsey
"I felt it." - Beckett
How and Why will be explained in a scene coming up in a little while. Malakaii and Beckett still had a faint connection.
Beckett almost collapses, falling backward into an armchair in his living room. The
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table is set with a party buffet, and there's a few sad, faded pieces of decoration
stuck up.
Beckett looks incredibly lonely.
"Could I interest any of you in a drink?" - Beckett
"Did you attack Malakaii?" - Wolsey
"Yes." - Beckett
"What sort of drink?" - Kali
"Did you summon a demon to kill Malakaii?" - Wolsey
"Again, yes. Brandy" - Beckett
"I'd like some, please" - Kali
He pours Kali a drink, and smiles wearily at Wolsey
"When?" - Wolsey
"Ten years ago, now" - Beckett
They apologetically say that they need to confirm that
"I assumed as much. The young lady is here to rummage through my unutterables, I
take it?" - Beckett
A bit of an odd pun - Nefandi meaning "unutterable"
They are politely firm, but say that it's the only real way to clear him
"Children, do you really think that if the real killer - the one who has denied me my..."
(closes eyes) "Do you think it will make any difference? If someone more important to
Banneker than me did it, then believe me - it will be blamed on me" - Beckett
It can't hurt though.
"We could make it my favour if you want" - Kali
"No, no. Go ahead, my dear. Scrutinise away." - Beckett, sighing deeply
"Are you all right?" - Damascus
"Hm? My boy, I have spent a decade in exile, dreaming of the day I could take my
revenge on my former friend. And now someone ELSE has done the deed. With a
Demon no less" (nodding at Wolsey) "I spent ten years waiting for today and now
that it's here..." (trails off, then sighs in exaggerated self-pity) "Oh, pale fate!" Beckett
For all the amateur dramatics, Beckett is coldly furious - and they can tell. He's harbouring a murderous rage toward whoever
did this - simply because Malakaii was HIS, damnit. Sort of a "you didn't invite the Joker" thing.
Kali swirls the brandy around the glass, seeing how it pools. Not as good as coffee
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(caffeine fumes work better than alcohol) but it'll do. She casts her mind back through
the day - Beckett got up, puttered around the house, read a book in his study and
then, when he was putting it back on the shelf, stumbled as if having a stroke when
he sensed Malakaii's death. He crawled to the corner of the room, weeping, and
eventually dragged himself upright and drank most of a bottle of whiskey. Then he
ordered the party food and broke out the bunting.
There are darker things in Beckett's house, though - black and throbbing lines of
causality and pools of strong emotion that she can sense.
Without thinking, she follows one, to see Beckett catch a burglar sneaking into the
property. The stain on history ends with Beckett sacrificing the unfortunate to grant
essence to an amassed group of unpleasant spirits.
This is all using Kali's Attainment of the House of Ariadne, which lets you sense the history of a location. The cup of
beverage is Kali's personal stand-in for a Chalice: it's a path tool she habitually uses, especially for Time magic.
She comes back to the present.
"He..." (she looks at Beckett) "...He didn't kill Malakaii" - Kali
Good enough for Damascus and Wolsey, who ask Beckett if he has any idea who
might have.
"Summoned the Demon, you mean?" - Beckett
"Who could have done it?" - Wolsey
"Depends what type of Demon you're talking about" - Beckett
There follows a brief lecture on Demonology. Beckett explains, with the air of
someone who was once a good teacher (before he turned to trying to kill his own
colleagues and trucking with dark powers) but hasn't had the chance to lecture in
years, that there are five essential groupings of 'Demon'; the term covers any
malevolent entity from Pandemonium, the Abyss, the Shadow World, the Underworld
or Astral Space.
"Pandemonium Demons" (he indicates his head toward Wolsey, calling up the Path
Mastigos they share with the gesture) "Are seldom to never seen on Earth, and
cannot be directly summoned by Mages" - Beckett
"Because of the Abyss" - Kali
"Yes, but just as handfuls of people report seeing the Fae of Arcadia or the Angels of
the Aethyr, there are stories of Supernal Demons visiting our world. The Abyss might
not even exist for them. Next on our list are the creatures of the Underworld - now
that has NO Abyss separating us from it. Or there are creatures of the Shadow of
unsettling aspect - the spirits of atrocity sites or dark emotional resonances. Then
there are Astral Demons, the embodiments of a person's darker psyche made
ephemera through Goetic magic. And lastly the Acamoth, spirits of the Abyss" Beckett
"Who would be able to use them?" - Wolsey
"Supernal Demons - no one. Underworld demons - anyone insane enough to venture
there. I would say knowledge of the Patterning Practice of Death or Spirit or both.
Spiritual Demons, again you would need an Adept of that Arcana. Goetic ones,
anyone can meet, though it takes skill to summon them into the real world. I would
note, however, that there is an entire Legacy in this city dedicated to that very
practice" - Beckett
"The Claviclarius" - Damascus
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"Just so" - Beckett
"What about Acamoth?" - Wolsey
"Do you know how they work?" - Beckett
Everyone shakes their heads.
Beckett takes another stiff drink, and - hollow-voiced - describes the Acamoth.
Beings of the Abyss that were thrown up and trapped in Astral Space ("Or rarely, the
Shadow or this world") by the fall of Atlantis. The Acamoth do deals with any Mage
who meets them and agrees - the Mage allows his Astral journey to be taken over by
the spirit.
"It's like being forced to watch a video... no. More than that. You feel what it shows
you - you can't look away. You are surrounded by atrocities and commit them
yourself, as the Acamoth tries to degrade and horrify you. They are cut off from the
Abyss, you see - they hurt you to remind themselves of what their home feels like. At
the end of the hell ride, they give you what you agreed." - Beckett
"But not in your case" - Wolsey
"No. I made an agreement with the Acamoth I found - I used my magic to.. compress
it, I suppose, and insert it into the mind of a Sleeper, where it lay like a coiled snake.
The plan was to then manipulate Malakaii into using his Attainment on the body, at
which point the Acamoth would strike. Instead, he escaped thanks to Suleiman that's why they hated one another, you know. Malakaii could never forgive him for
saving his life, though Suleiman became a Councillor over it. The Acamoth itself was
destroyed, ripped apart and it's essence destroyed." - Beckett
They thank him, and get up to leave.
"Can I ask.. what are your plans now?" - Wolsey
Beckett says that leaving has crossed his mind.
"I could teleport far away, find a Consilium that doesn't know me and change my
Shadow name. I don't know, though. This city was my home for long before. I shall
think on it before making any decisions" - Beckett
It has been pointed out that Beckett's house arrest is mostly self-inflicted. He's a powerful enough Mastigos that he could
have teleported away - only his need to be around as an open challenge to Malakaii kept him there. Without that purpose in
his life, his exile - and his dealing with the Abyss - have been entirely wasted.
Lest this get too Sympathy for the Devil - Beckett IS a human-sacrificing, demon-dealing-with monster. He IS Nefandi maybe not a Scelesti, but certainly Left-Handed. No one should forget that, and Kali's vision reinforced it.
But as we'll see, troubled times make for interesting compromises. And he's never been anything but nice to the Cabal.
--The Cabal now head to Ulysses' church - where, they have learned on reporting in to
Banneker after leaving Beckett's, Link has set up an office.
Link is the Perfected Adept Sentinel who used the Dagger Damascus made to bind the Magath earlier in the Chronicle. He
was chosen for this task because he's alone in not having an interest in the outcome - he's an Adamantine Arrow in Dantor's
Cabal. The other Sentinels are Mr Thursday (suspect and possible shoe-filler), Jude (in Malakaii's Cabal), Proteus (in
Malakaii's Cabal) and Nimrod (Guardian of the Veil).
The afternoon is turning into early evening when they get to the church, the wind
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whistling in through the boarded-up holes where stained glass used to be. The place
is still shut after the Seer attack on Damascus and Wolsey.
Ulysses greets them and shows them inside, while Link emerges from Ulysses'
office.
Link thanks them for going to see Beckett for him and fills them in on what's been
gleaned in the meantime.
"The demon..." - Link
"We know it was a demon for definite?" - Damascus
"Yeah. Dantor sculpted the last thing he saw in ectoplasm. Looked something like
this" - Link
He concentrates, breathes, and creates a miniature phantasm of the assailant. In the
flickering light, and the monochrome (for Ectoplasm is all grey) it looks sort of like a
woman with a distended mouth and fingers, though they can't tell where what it's
wearing ends and it's hair - so long it trails along the ground behind it - begins.
Damascus, though, recognises a particular detail
For which read: Rafe passed the Occult roll
"The hands are on backwards, see? I don't know if there's any other types like that,
but it could be a Raksha. Indian shapeshifter-demon" - Damascus
Everyone looks at Kali
"What?" - Kali
"Any insights into Indian symbology?" - Wolsey
"Why would there be?" - Kali
"Tell me you didn't get your shadow name off the back of a packet of cereal" Wolsey
Not quite. More like a carton of milk
While Wolsey despairs, Link gives them the rest of the particulars of the deed - the
creature attacked out of nowhere in broad daylight, while Malakaii walked down a
street. He was cut down through his Shielding spells and tried to heal himself with
Mana, but the creature continued to rip into him.
"He didn't fight back. Wouldn't use vulgar magic in front of Sleepers - not even to
save himself" - Link
"That's a horrible way for a Guardian to go. Using his beliefs against him" - Wolsey
"Ironic, certainly" - Damascus
"Maybe it was an attempt to force him to go against them that backfired. Or maybe
someone has a grudge against the Guardians. The Policeman's rule: Who Benefits?"
- Link
Link's use of the line Damascus used - which also replaced 'Green Eyed Monster' as the title of the Story - is a deliberate
reinforcement.
Link lists most of the people Wolsey listed earlier.
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"And then there's his Legacy. Malakaii was the only one able to teach the second
Attainment - and he used the third regularly in annoying almost everyone. I'm
thinking maybe someone who was stymied by his tight control over the Bearers, or
someone who didn't want him to *ever* teach his memory power to anyone else" Link
"Who are all the bearers?" - Ulysses, breaking his silence.
(ticking them off on his fingers) "Roriko, Mara, Tybalt, Beckett" - Link
"Tybalt?" - Damascus
"Beckett's pet Lobbyist - Mara's last apprentice before Wolsey" - Link
Wolsey looks pained
Tybalt is Wolsey, re-cast as a loyal Guardian of the Veil. Inferior to Wolsey in almost every respect, but HE was allowed into
the Legacy. Roriko is a spymistress in Dantor's (and Link's and Ulysses') Cabal, and is that Cabal's sole Guardian of the Veil
"Of course, there's always Seraph" - Link, considering
"What does Seraph have to do with this?" - Wolsey
"He's a Bearer" - Link
"He's WHAT?" - Wolsey
"Seraph was Beckett's apprentice. It was him going to the Seers that drove Malakaii
off the deep end - and it was that that drove Beckett to the Abyss. Malakaii had a bad
run of it - his first cabal all went Seer, you know, back in India" - Link
Kali is quiet at that - she knew that, in fact, thanks to her trip with Samuel into
Malakaii's past.
"Why does no one TELL us these things!?" - Wolsey
"Because they don't like airing dirty laundry" - Damascus
"Anyway, he'd have only learnt the beginning, but he might have added to it since
then independently. And if he HAS, well... who knows how many Seers he's taught?"
- Link
That's it. Wolsey has his prime suspects
"We have to deal with Seraph. Immediately. Even if he didn't do this, we can't let him
run around. Back me up here, D" - Wolsey
"D?" - Damascus
"Big D? D-Man?" - Wolsey
Revenge for T-Dog earlier is sweet. Next session it escalates - 'K-Girl' joins the street name club.
Damascus, choosing to rise above Wolsey's attempt to sound 'street', asks just how
he intends to trap Seraph
"Oh, no. I'm not being bait" - Kali
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Wolsey looks at her
"NO. I mean it. No baiting traps with me" - Kali
Wolsey tries to think of a persuasive argument.
"You're the one he's stalking."
"Just because I slept with him..." - Kali
There is a pause. Ulysses, you see, knew that. Link didn't. Wolsey puts his hand over
his eyes in despair.
"You SLEPT with Seraph!?" - Link
Kali makes a despairing noise. Link says that he's just going to.. you know... leave
them to have this argument themselves, and to come find him if they think of any
likely avenues of inquiry.
"I have a much better idea. We can dig a big pit, cover it in banana leaves and bait it
with cheap rum. Everyone knows Seers can't resist cheap rum" - Damascus, after
Link has retreated.
(Hobbes)We're crazy like that(/Hobbes)
They drop the subject
Ulysses clears his throat
"Now that we're alone, I have something on an entirely unrelated issue that may
interest you. I know what the Eyes of Salt do" - Ulysses
Three pairs of eyes swing toward him.
"Does the name Cxaxa Querephas mean anything to you?" - Ulysses
"Sounds Aztec" - Kali
Ulysses explains that the rather distinctly-named person was an Archmage in distant
prehistory - one of the founders of the Silver Ladder in it's post-Atlantean state. She
ruled a kingdom of two million souls in a time when most Awakened were still on the
run from the precursors to the Seers and the Exarchs themselves.
"The location of her kingdom is lost to time, and there are only scattered references
to her - six fragments, all from different works. She was called the Cold Smile, and
ruled through blood, fury and belief in her own divinity - she thought she was a
Goddess" - Ulysses
"Sounds more like a Seer" - Wolsey
"Definitely a Silver Ladder, I'm afraid" - Ulysses, apologetically
They wait for him to get to the point
"She made the Eyes of Salt. I've been researching them for Banneker. And here's
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the interesting thing - the reason I waited to tell you. I used my access to the
Consilium libraries to look up that Ring you have, and any references I could find of
the others." - Ulysses
Kali's hand unconsciously goes into her bag, where the Ring of the Dethroned Queen
lies hidden.
"Some of the raiment of the Queen have never been seen - like that one you have, or
the Crown or Scepter. Others, though, have. The Throne - or something supposed to
be it - surfaced in Britain in the 1700s, but was stolen by a group of Seers. A few
people are supposed to have owned the Robe, though. And one of them, as
coincidence would have it, is our Cxaxa. Querephas believed her godhood to have
been signalled by her possession of an artefact, a mantle of divinity cast off by
another god" - Ulysses
They know where this is going
"'In this robe I rule. In this robe I hold Authority. Authority unto Death and Beyond'.
That's from one of the fragments. She had the Robe of the Dethroned Queen.
"You're sure?" - Wolsey
"Not really, but remember the poem. The robe is meant to hide the user from the
Exarchs. Cxaxa claimed that was how she ruled - she was concealed from the sight
of Heaven, where the other jealous gods ruled. That's how she built a kingdom back
then." - Ulysses
And the Eyes of Salt?
Ulysses asks if they touched them. Damascus admits that he did - that they were
terribly cold.
"That's her Nimbus." - Ulysses
"They're Soul Stones?" - Wolsey
"Imagine that you're her - thousands of years ago. Your rule depends on one potent
artefact, which your enemies would want to take away from you. You'd build a
storehouse, somewhere safe to put it where it would be hidden and defended. And
like a modern-day Mage keying a ward to his resonance, you'd make sure only you
could get inside alive. But if you wanted a backup, or a way to allow trusted servants
or allies in, you'd need a way to get them past the defences. Nowadays we impart an
object with our resonance, or set the Ban to not work against people meeting
criteria." - Ulysses
"They're keys" - Kali
"Or lockpicks" - Wolsey
"That's my theory, anyway." - Ulysses
They are sobered by it, and think deeply. Except Kali, who is frankly panicked by the
whole thing. She starts babbling about how this is all interlinked, about how she's
trying but failing to break out of the trap she's fallen into - about how she's even given
up smoking. She offers to give Wolsey the Ring, but he turns it down.
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"Damascus. You're nearly a monk" - Wolsey
"Nearly a what?" - Damascus
"Contemplative? Working on inner calm?" - Wolsey
"I try" - Damascus
"Beat the crap out of her, will you?" - Wolsey
"If it's a monk you want, Link's almost one" - Ulysses
Remembering Link, they head in to see him, now that Ulysses has filled their heads
with tales of blood-soaked Hyperborean ages. Link, they find, has had a brainwave.
He wants them to get some other members of the House of Ariadne together and go
postcognitise the scene of the crime to get a better picture of what the beast looks
like. And more importantly what happened to it after it attacked Malakaii.
Kali phones Trace, who agrees to meet her there, and to bring Katherine along "in
case of Minority Report".
And then they leave, and pile once more into Wolsey's car
"Alright. This is getting murky" - Wolsey
The Ring is connected to the.. Ascendants? The Eyes of Salt? This long-dead
archmage? The Robe?
"Queens. Too many queens. Avatar called me 'Rani' - know what that means?
Queen. Female version of Raja." - Kali
"India again. And Malakaii went to India. And 'Mara'... I looked it up once. Could be a
reference to the Tamil ruling caste" - Wolsey
"Or could be the demon that tempted Buddha" - Damascus
"There is deep symbology here that is pointing to the fact that you and Avatar are a
couple... of being..." - Wolsey
"...Gay" - Kali
She cracks up, giggling with the stress.
"You know, I have heard there are Mind mages that can tell a person to go fuck
themselves" - Wolsey
"Go ahead, but I will do it on the back seat right here" - Kali
Kali composes herself
"A Dethroned Queen and her Oracle - symbolically speaking, anyway. I don't know
which way round you go, though. Still, there is the deep trend of CAN WE GET RID
OF THIS THING!?" - Wolsey
Kali considers. And feels a crushing sense of Inevitability. Damascus feels certain,
somehow, that the last ten minutes of conversation were not what was originally said.
"OK - take it. TAKE IT" - Kali, holding the Ring out.
Wolsey doesn't want it
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"I meant give it away! There has to be someone more qualified. The Mysterium..." Wolsey
Kali says, quite convincingly, that they can't trust anyone to not misuse the Regalia especially if the other items are now circling them, destiny-wise. They can't risk the
Ring falling into the wrong hands. But SHE doesn't want it, especially not if it's a
roadmarker on her way to becoming her theorised evil future self who will come back
in time and mess with their heads.
"Us. Destiny. The Regalia. Let's do this!" - Damascus
"I like his style" - Kali
"That's because his style was your style" - Wolsey
Kali says that was before the coincidences started to stack up, and they drive.
"Maybe we'll get five and they'll turn into a giant robot" - Damascus
Keep dreaming, you crazy diamond. Keep dreaming.
--Later, the thunderstorm finally breaks. Katherine, Trace and Kali, soaked to the skin,
stand arranged around the site of Malakaii's attack, casting their minds backward.
Wolsey and Damascus are warm and dry in the car, drinking coffee and watching the
three Enchantresses.
"Mmm. Starbucks" - Wolsey
Hail, Wolsey - Head of the Crucible! Hail, Wolsey - Consilium Herald! Hail, Wolsey - thou shalt be Hierarch hereafter! Just to
get the Macbeth reference out of the way.
Eventually, the women get back into the car. The creature appeared to be made
entirely out of shed hair and flakes of skin, she says - and had bright glowing green
eyes. After it fatally wounded Malakaii it vanished in a going-Twilight way rather than
an explodo-way
They ask Trace, conversationally, how her Cabal is holding up. Apparently the battle
lines between Mara and Thursday are already being drawn - Thursday is deeply
insulted he's being kept out of the investigation, and has declared he'll never accept
Mara as Cabal leader. Mara herself is already campaigning - low key - for Councillor
as well as Cabal head. As for the Guardians, Thursday looks a shoe-in for Epopt
unless Pool or Nimrod challenge it, but to do so would break Project Twilight's
famous isolationism.
They drop her and Katherine off at her house, and get back on the road.
A Green-eyed monster.
They have a theory. It involves someone who they know to be resentful of being
ignored in favour of Malakaii, and of his authority over them. Someone who strikes
them as repressed and who might summon, say, an Envy-Demon in the shape of a
Raksha. Someone who Avatar told Wolsey was sitting in on her lessons in Goetic
theory with Promethea.
Hoping they're wrong, they head for Mara's house.
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They arrive at Mara's house/office - noting the Atlantean glyph denoting "official
business only at present" and heading upstairs. When they reach the lobby, they see
Avatar watching them from the stairs up to her and Mara's apartment.
"Hi! You are not going to believe the day we've..." - Avatar
She trails off at the expression on Wolsey's face. He's frowning, not greeting her.
Very quietly and calmly, he tells her that it's probably best if she waited outside the
building while they talk to Mara.
The rain has stopped by now. I loved Wolsey's 'Game-face' here.
They enter Mara's office, to find her on the phone.
"No, listen. You KNOW why they've asked you to sit this out, Jim - you had a public
verbal brawl with... No, I'm not trying to get you out of the way... Well, tell
BANNEKER that" - Mara, hanging up.
Jim is Mr Thursday.
While she's talking, the Crucible are idly casting their eyes over the paraphernalia on
her desk - including a small stack of leaflets that say, according to their limited grasp
of the High Speech; "Dream/Tempter, great-Benefit Consilium (emphasis)"
Damascus purses his lips
Literally. I never knew what the expression meant until Rafe did it this game.
Mara greets them rather stiffly, saying that she's terribly busy trying to stop the
Guardians from throwing their toys out of the pram. Damascus takes the lead in the
conversation, asking if she has an Alibi (she does) and what she plans to do. Mara
sees them looking at the leaflets and says that everyone knew the time had arrived
for her to be a Councillor - and the Adamantine Arrow have lacked one since the last
Hierarch. She's simply doing what she has to.
They ask her if she knows anything about the murder, and she says in honeyed voice
that she doesn't know what they're getting at.
A note on systems here - the first and second Bearers attainments (level 2 lets you do it to groups) adds your Mind Arcana in
*Successes* to attempts to persuade or lie to people. Which in Mara's case would be five. Even though they're suspicious,
even though they're spending willpower, even though Damascus' own attainment grants him bonus resistance dice, Mara
can still convince them of obvious untruths.
"Have you ever practiced Goetic magic?" - Damascus
"No" - Mara
"Avatar says you took part in her lessons on the Astral plane" - Wolsey
"Yes, I did" - Mara
"Did you take active part?" - Damascus
"Sometimes. Promethea did most of the teaching, especially of Goetic theory - which
is why you may have heard that from. I observed" - Mara
In the background, Kali casts Ring Sight, shifting uncomfortably as she tries not to
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look at herself. In any event, Mara is as un-tainted as Wolsey is.
The interview turns tense. Damascus casts an Unveiling of Prime and Mind and
reads her Aura.
"Your emotions, Provost, appear to have been altered magically." - Damascus
"Alright. I admit it. In my position, I am under pressure. I self-medicate, using Magic.
Augmenting my mind, ramping down harmful emotions, that sort of thing. I don't like
to tell people because it looks weak" - Mara
Which is, sad to say, actually the truth. And gives you the final piece of the puzzle, along with what Wolsey remembered
about Avatar being taught Goetia by Promethea, as to what happened.
She says that she'll remove the spell, and her Resonance flares as she casts a spell.
"There. Look again. I've removed the spell" - Mara
At which point Rafe - his dice pool boosted by Damascus' permanent mind shield - beat her subterfuge roll. And then beat
her successes on her false-aura spell with his scrutinising roll
He peers at her.
"It's a very good false Aura, Mara. Your real one, though, has not even a trace of
Envy" - Damascus, dangerously
Mara sits back, all dissembling abandoned.
"Be careful what allegations you make, Disciple. And as for you" (to Wolsey) "remind
Banneker who's side I'm on and THEN ask him what to do. I'm sure this will be found
to be the work of Beckett or Alexander in the end" - Mara
Like Beckett said, in fact
"If this thing..." - Damascus
"I will *deal* with it. Good evening, Disciples. And be absolutely certain to not spread
any slander before speaking to your Hierarch. He needs me - this city needs me. Up
to now I have been prevented from giving him assistance. Now I'm not, and I'm
willing to fulfil my part. Someone has to take over from Malakaii" (to Wolsey) "But I
can't do all of it. Someone will have to watch over the Labyrinth. A Bearer" - Mara
The implication is clear and understood by all - ignore this, and she'll teach Wolsey
his Legacy.
Damascus coldly thanks her for her time, and they troop out.
--They leave, Damascus quietly furious - she's going to get away with this, because
Banneker 'needs' her.
Wolsey tries to mollify him and Kali, reminding them of political realities. They DO
need her.
"Are you sure you're not being influenced by your desire to join the Legacy?" -
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Damascus
"It NEVER crossed my mind until she brought it up. Believe me" - Wolsey
I believe him
"This is a delicate situation, I know..." - Wolsey
"You don't know anything" - Kali
Wolsey finally snaps.
"DO NOT question my competence ever again" - Wolsey
"See this? I'd given up" (lights a cigarette) "I'm not talking shit. You're hearing shit" Kali
Kali asks what happens to the next person Mara feels envious of? What if it's Avatar?
He says they'll think of something and that yes - she probably will get away with this,
she may even Benefit. But that's life - and politics. Neither have a sense of fair play,
only of what is necessary.
He spies Avatar lurking down the road and calls her over.
"It's not safe for you to stay at Mara's any more. You're coming with us" - Wolsey
He returns to the argument. There are half a dozen Claviclarius - they all practice
Goetia. Damascus himself is on an Antinomist practice.
"How about it, Damascus? You've done Wrath and Pride. What's next? Envy?" Wolsey
Damascus says that he's not quite finished with Greed - he's done stage one, making
the money. Stage two...
"Las Vegas" - Damascus
Kali is right up for that. She points out how useful she'd be.
"Unless the LV Consilium have a Gatekeeper equivalent... defending the Casinos
from Supernal influence" - Wolsey
"Well, we could gamble, drink, visit the Nevada prostitutes..." - Damascus
"And do the most exquisite sin of all.. go see Celine Dion." - Wolsey
"... ... ...I'm practicing Antinomism, not turning Nefandi" - Damascus
Back in the here and now, though, they need to decide what to do about Mara. They
need to take this to Banneker - not Link - and get his steer.
While they drive, Wolsey speculates on how best to block Mara's ascendancy. They
DO need her - but not in all the positions, and they need safeguards in place. If
Thursday finds out about all this he'll probably kill her out of hand. But he'd be a good
candidate for Epopt - him or Nimrod. As for Councillor, Promethea is too young, and
according to Trace earlier would probably be the Provost for Mara should she make
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Councillor, leaving Suleiman to pick a new one.
They arrive outside Banneker's architecture firm and get out.
"What about Beckett?" - Wolsey
He continues - Beckett is a demonologist, he's capable - and he's a powerful
Mastigos, which is the *other* void they're left with with Malakaii's death. He's also an
Ex-Guardian, so he's at least familiar with the job that needs doing. His reason for
being in Exile has now vanished - if they could think of a way to get the standing
charges of Nefandism against him dropped...
The charges, I will note, that are TRUE.
"Have him catch the Demon" - Avatar
"Excuse me?" - Wolsey
"You want Beckett to demonstratively redeem himself, he has a grudge against what
killed his personal feud and you have a demon to catch. Have Beckett destroy the
demon" - Avatar
Wolsey turns to the others.
"Isn't she a wonderful Mastigos?" - Wolsey, proud
Avatar blushes, and Damascus asks her where she's going to sleep.
"You could stay at mine" (off everyone's look) "I have a spare room" - Wolsey
"Or, in interests of fairness, so do I" - Damascus
"The sanctum will be fine" - Avatar
Kali points out that there'll be company - she's been staying there increasingly.
Wolsey says that the Sanctum is a bit bare, and Kali defensively says that she's
*been* decorating
"The spare room has a whole novel in it" - Wolsey
"Hey! There's three novels now. Place just needs a woman's touch" - Kali
(to Avatar, straight-faced) "So could you help us out with that?" - Wolsey
They head inside, the security guard watching them dubiously from his desk.
Kali looks like a gangster, Avatar's a grunge-punk. Damascus just looks poor - despite not really being so any more. Wolsey,
for once in the chronicle, looks like he belongs.
Wolsey asks for Banneker by his real name, and says that it's Thomas here to see
him. The guard calls the lift.
The Elevator music is truly, truly atrocious
And played via the medium of my mobile phone's hideous, hideous, preinstalled ringtones. Oh yes!
Eventually, they find there way through cube farms and drawing stations left
unoccupied this Sunday night to Banneker's office. Inside, the Hierarch is peering
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over a large model of some kind of official building.
"Everything seems simpler at this scale. Clean, uncluttered... just the lines." (he looks
up) "Come in, sit down." - Banneker
They explain their findings, and their suspicions. Mara has been experimenting with
Goetic magic, and has released - maybe inadvertently, maybe deliberately - a demon
made of her own Envy. Which descended on her Mentor and shredded him.
"Where's Samuel when you need him?" - Banneker
Kali helpfully notes that Samuel is in 1812 and will be for a few weeks.
"By which time this will be all resolved one way or another. We have no time, and no
options. This has caught us ahead of schedule and we're suffering for it. We are
faced with swinging an election in favour of someone we don't want anymore" Banneker
Wolsey and Damascus introduce Wolsey and Avatar's cunning plan - to reintroduce
Beckett to Consilium society as a means of getting a potent ally and upsetting the
dead-cert thinking that's already going on.
"It's a possibility. One that rankles almost as much as helping Mara after this. But
Beckett would never be elected Councillor. With time, and demonstrated remorse,
maybe - in ten year's time or so - he would be fit to be a Herald. But the Consilium
wouldn't stand for anything else." - Banneker
So it looks like Mara. Which leads to the question of who her Provost will be
"Why not Wolsey?" - Kali
"Too young. The post traditionally goes to an Adept or a first-degree Master." Banneker
"I wouldn't want it anyway" - Wolsey
"How about Shore - either for Provost or Councillor? he's a Demon-hunter, he's a
Mastigos. Not as learned as Mara, but certainly more stable. And with Beckett
supporting him we could make a hero out of him" - Wolsey
Shore was the Mastigos with the battleaxe in Damascus' Magath-hunting sidequest.
"Who would you prefer to be Councillor?" - Kali, to Banneker
"Honestly? Ulysses. But he'd turn it down. Doesn't want to do it" - Banneker
"I might be able to work on that" - Damascus
"Whatever you do, don't tell him it was Mara - or Thursday for that matter. They'd
both kill her" - Banneker
The plan, then, and the new Conspiracy. Debts must be repaid and promises fulfilled,
so they'll not act against Mara's campaign for Councillor - but they *will* try to
introduce Shore and maybe Ulysses as potential other candidates, and bring Beckett
in from the cold to keep everyone off balance. They need to keep what actually
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happened this morning from Thursday while supporting him for Epopt, and give Mara
the impression they're supporting her while keeping watch on her. Avatar should
leave Mara and Promethea's care and join the Cabal.
Suleiman will be inducted into the conspiracy - as senior Claviclarius, he's best
placed to keep an eye on Mara for signs of further instability. Wolsey has the difficult
task of persuading Beckett, after ten years of persecution, to do them a favour and
eat humble pie in exchange for being forgiven. Damascus will try to persuade
Ulysses to stand for election.
Fun.
And, with that last meeting, hatched in the dim-lit night-time office, the session ends.
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Session 5.2
And see! The thread is done in timely fashion this week! Go me!
In other news, I got Tome of the Mysteries three days before the session, as did Mark. It sees use right off the bat, and a
particular plot point is made more complicated by one of the ideas within it - with the major plot twist in this session coming
from a *spoiler* about the TotM's content a few weeks ago. The spoiler was the fact that you can learn Legacies from a Soul
Stone (for reasons that should be obvious to long-term readers). The thing I hadn't heard and quickly yoinked was the idea of
annullities - anti-demesnes.
The reason Kali isn't in the story for a couple of long scenes after the initial setup was that Sam was late - some of her stuff
was repeated or gone over retroactively. It has been transcribed here in temporal situ, for reasons of clarity.
This session was mostly about the characters' first steps in building their anti-Mara conspiracy, and about clarifying their
objections to what she's done - as Damascus says, it's not so much that she accidentally killed Malakii, or even that she's
covering that up for losing the respect she has, but the fact that she's profiting from the death WHILE covering it up. That, to
some of our characters, is as bad as deliberately murdering him. Mara may need help, but as the ten-step programme says,
the first step is to admit that you have a problem.
Also one thing that I reflected upon after the session - Damascus started out in gangland, worked his way out of it into a
"safe" life and is now trying to understand himself by delving into it again. Kali started out in a safe life, worked her way into
gangland and is now trying to understand herself by poking her head above the parapet - she's realised that her identity as
Kemi isn't the enemy after all. That and our determination to show why Kemi/Kali is in the Mysterium of all Orders is our
vector for Sam's character over the next few weeks.
The parallel, and the move toward equilibrium, is interesting to me. I don't believe Sam and Rafe have cooperated on it; it's
just one of those neat things that has popped up out of the chronicle.
The gang, fresh from their meeting with Banneker, arrive back at the Sanctum in
order to drop Avatar and Kali off. Damascus drives home in his CV while Wolsey
wonders to himself why - when they were all for him trying to rebuild his relationship
with his wife - Damascus and Kali gazumped his attempt to get her to stay at his
apartment. In any event, Kali has decided to move out of the warehouse and into the
Sanctum, and the girls have procured wine from somewhere to christen the place.
Wolsey decides to bow out and heads to his SUV.
Awwww
Kali and Avatar get pretty badly drunk together and Kali - after explaining the whole
Seraph thing to Avatar - decides that she's going to paint over the graffiti'd message
on the Sanctum's door. While Kali searches for a can of paint (her decorating of the
place has reached the level that she's bought sporadic supplies) Avatar decides that
she, for one, is far too smashed to do anything else and goes to bed.
While Kali is busily throwing blue paint all over the door, she is interrupted by Blaise her elusive ex-mentor and Samuel's Provost, who apologises for the lateness of the
hour. Then looks at the door, dripping gently with ducks-egg-blue paint, and asks Kali
if she'd like to chill out.
Blaise, settling into the Sanctum's slightly collapsed sofa, says that he's here to ask a
favour. Well, actually, to pass one along. Samuel asked him to ask her something.
Samuel has been in 1812 for over a week. Blaise is not exactly the most reliable of persons. Samuel and he are almost the
wrong way round in activity and contactable-ness - it's meant to be Blaise, as Samuel's Provost, that does all the organising
of people, but Samuel tends to do it himself with Francine (the Bearer of the Stone Book and Herald, who we met back in
session 1.2) to manage his appointments. Lord knows Blaise can't do it.
Trace, he ramblingly explains, has hit a dead-end in something she's looking into for
Samuel, and needs to go look it up in the Athenaeum (the city's Mysterium
Lorehouse). But she's a Guardian of the Veil, so isn't allowed in by herself.
"Could you, like, go with her and let her use your library ticket?" - Blaise
Kali agrees and we fade out on them drinking the rest of Kali's supply of alcohol.
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--Wolsey gets home, flicking the light on and surveying his deader-than-Stygia (tm
Damascus) apartment. Police sirens can be dimly head over the hum of the airconditioning. We fade out from Wolsey's weary expression reflected in his window...
Poor Wolsey.
I like to do these little wordless moments, even if they don't translate very well to the thread, simply to
reinforce how hard his life is. It's very tiring, being Wolsey.
--...and into Damascus, reflected in a turned-off TV screen, as he equally wearily sets
himself down in an armchair, flipping through the stack of mail he had to shove his
way past on his way into his house. reaching into the plastic bag next to him and
retrieving the first of many cans of beer, he watches cable porn until he falls
unconscious.
--------------------------Monday 24th July
Damascus wakes with a snort, blinking in the hazy sunlight penetrating his living
room. he shifts the takeaway cartons and beer cans off himself - discovering a
human skull that someone (apparently him) has dribbled wax on to in the shape of a
rather rude Atlantean ideogram. Staggering to the kitchen, he fills a sink with cold
water and holds his head underwater for a minute before standing up, dripping.
Much to do.
The church is still closed - and there doesn't seem to be anyone in when Damascus
knocks. Considering, blinking in the humid sunlight, he leaves his van in the church
carpark and walks the short distance to Ulysses' house.
I could have had Ulysses be in the church, but I've done that the last two times running. Plus, it's still pretty early. And I
wanted to show the Obrimos in a more intimate setting, better for Damascus to have more of a meaningful conversation. I do
this with Banneker a lot too - when I want to show the Hierarch’s human failings, I set the conversation in Isiah's house.
Awakening is neat this way - the Shadow/Supernal life dichotomy gives a Storyteller this tool, this shorthand for 'the person
you're talking to is not dissembling. The conversation you're having is private and heartfelt'. When you really mean it, use the
real names.
Damascus knocks on the door, smiling (slightly hung-over) at the people in Ulysses'
building passing by in the hall.
"Carl... Good morning" - Ulysses
"Father Joyce. Could I come in?" - Carl
"Of course, lad" - Joyce
They close the door, and 'Father Joyce' tells Carl to call him Peter.
Peter Joyce / Ulysses becomes the third npc to have his full name actually said 'on screen'. We know that Mara is Madhuri
Dawan, that Banneker's first name is Isiah (the characters know his surname, I've just never said it), that Samuel's first name
is Daniel, that Malakaii's first name was Gideon and that Mr Thursday is apparently called Jim. Avatar is Amanda Dean, nee
Foster
Peter asks if Carl minds if he finishes his breakfast, and sits back down to his toast
without waiting for an answer. Carl says that this isn't exactly a social call - he's here
to ask Peter something.
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"You've heard that Mara is standing for election as Councillor?" - Damascus
"I had" - Ulysses
"Banneker has expressed a preference for other candidates... And, well... I was
wondering..." - Damascus
"Why don't I stand?" - Ulysses
He swallows orange juice.
"Lad, I am not the man that Banneker wants as a Councillor. Rather, I believe that
HE believes I am. It is my impression of the Hierarch that he regards me slightly
unrealistically - he can't see past our shared Path. My own revolutionary tendencies
are as a light hidden beneath Dantor's burning bushel. He thinks I'm safe, that I
agree with him or even like him. As a Provost my duty is to enact my Councillor's will.
As a Councillor, Banneker would find that I am nowhere near the loyal ally he thinks I
am - so, in good conscience, I cannot allow him to push me into it." - Ulysses
"Could I ask you some advice?" - Damascus, guarded
"Of course" - Ulysses
"If someone you knew had caused a death and was covering it up, and even stood to
gain from it, and you suspected it might not have been an accident, what would you
do?" - Damascus
"If you are speaking of the thing I suspect you are, I would say that judgement is not
for you to dispense. There are laws, and authorities. Take the matter to them" Ulysses
"And if I had already? And they had decided to help them conceal their involvement?"
- Damascus
Ulysses narrows his eyes
"Does the person claim it as an accident?" - Ulysses
"Yes. but they are covering up their involvement and.. well... they're reaping the
rewards of the death as though they had done it deliberately" - Damascus
"It does not matter if they did it deliberately, except in the eyes of the law. What
matters, Carl, is that they admit what they have done - and that they are helped. If
society punishes them, then so be it - but what they deserve is not your province. If
earthly authorities have failed, then we must trust that they will be judged by Higher
powers. And they will. We can only try to help them to come to terms with what they
did - if it WAS an accident, then they will surely be judged innocent." - Ulysses
Damascus thanks him, and sits back, considering.
"What do you think of Mara?" - Damascus
"I'm not a fool, Carl. I believe I have just given you my opinion" - Ulysses
"I'm sorry. I promised Banneker I wouldn't tell you directly" - Damascus
"I think he may have meant it more literally than that." - Ulysses, dryly.
Damascus describes what the Crucible discovered last night, and of their
confrontation with Mara and subsequent visit to Banneker.
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"As for Mara.. her biggest flaw is that she is in danger of being forgotten." - Ulysses
He gives his opinion on WHY Mara is so driven - Malakaii grew distant when she
joined the adamantine arrow, but she was never able to stand free enough of her
mentor to be as useful to Banneker as he hoped. Malakaii replaced her with Tybalt
and Banneker replaced her with Wolsey - and Mara was forced to train both of them,
the future (Malakaii hoped) Guardian Epopt
"..And Wolsey, who she knows will be Hierarch one day. Mara will never achieve that
office and she knows it - she's not radical enough in some ways and too radical in
others. She can see your friend rushing up behind her, and Malakaii stifling her from
above. She's trapped - and if she is EVER going to become a Councillor she knows
that this is her one and only chance" - Ulysses
But he still won't stand for Councillor himself.
"I stand by my opinion. If Mara accidentally caused the death of her mentor and
teacher - whom she was very close to, at one time, I will add - then it is a tragedy... If
she is concealing that, with Banneker's help unwilling or otherwise, in order to profit
herself, then is a travesty. She would be lost in her schemes, and we would have a
damaged Mage - one wrestling with her own grief and shame - as Councillor..."
(waves toast to punctuate his points) "...she must admit it. To someone - anyone. At
her level, crimes are heard by the Hierarch and Banneker would surely acquit her
regardless, but if this has happened once already through her need to control herself,
who knows what it will be like the next time?" - Ulysses
He considers
"She must admit it. The first step must be to admit that she has a problem. If she will
not, and Banneker goes along with it, then I will denounce her and - if she still denies
it - duel her. but listen to me, Damascus - be VERY careful who you tell this to. Mara
is the head of our Order in this City - if I confront her, I will be declaring myself
apostate. Don't destroy your own membership in the Arrow. be very careful before
making that choice yourself" - Ulysses
"I will be" - Damascus
--Meanwhile, across town, Wolsey has been out of bed for a while and has mulled over
his rather extensive To-Do list. At some point, he's going to have to go to Mara and
try to mollify her following Damascus' rather confrontational tone. A prospect which
doesn't make him feel very good, but political realities are what they are. The priority,
though, should be to go to Beckett - they don't want their Ace to skip town before
finding out that he's their Ace.
"Damascus. Where are you?" - Wolsey
"R and 24th" - Damascus
If you know DC, then don't worry - the WoD version as seen in this chronicle is somewhat fuzzy. As has been obliquely
mentioned, the chronicle is mostly set (that is, the Sanctum is in) Anacostia, in the South-East of the Diamond. But nWoD
Anacostia was never properly rebuilt after the riots, which were worse than in the real world. In the real world, the area that
Ulysses lives in is okay. In the nWoD, it isn't.
Kali's "core turf", including the warehouse and the Sanctum, is actually the southern tip of the National Capitol Park in the
real world. In the WoD the park doesn't exist, and the only green area is Anacostia park (which itself has been shittyfied, as
1.1 proved). Kali's thinking place is on the riverbank, overlooking the Washington Navy Yard
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An hour later, Wolsey meets Damascus outside Ulysses' apartment. Damascus gets
into the SUV and Wolsey just waits.
Damascus admits that he did in fact just tell Ulysses about Mara, which annoys
Wolsey slightly, but Ulysses doesn't look like he's going to run off and kill Mara any
time soon. He may challenge her to the dual arcane should she be elected, but that's
between them.
"Alright. Next move. You need to go to Mara and apologise" - Wolsey
"Uhuh" - Damascus
"Really - or I can try to do it. Are you alright to do this?" - Wolsey
Damascus does not seem enthused.
"Look... Is your problem with this the demon summoning?" - Wolsey
"I admit it's a large part of it" - Damascus
"Do you have a problem with Goetia?" - Wolsey
Damascus indicates that he doesn't think it's the most responsible of practices
"Because you can't just go around SAYING that, Damascus. There are too many
Goetic mages here - Suleiman and his lot for a start... I'm just saying that now may
be the time for moral relativism" - Wolsey
"Wolsey, have you seen me be polite to Dantor? I have been polite to Dantor. And
trust me, I have a much bigger problem with the Bokor. I can keep a lid on my
prejudices" - Damascus
Damascus explains that his problem with this whole situation has been nicely voiced
by Ulysses - it's not so much that Mara was irresponsible enough to fail to keep a
tight rein on her demon, it's that she's openly profiting from the death.
"Morally, it's equivalent to murder" - Damascus
"Moral relativism, remember" - Wolsey
"I just don't want her to be Councillor" - Damascus
Wolsey asks how he doing persuading Ulysses, and Damascus says it is extremely
unlikely
"He said he won't serve under Banneker. Maybe when you're Hierarch..." Damascus
"What?" - Wolsey
"Just before I left. he said he'd reconsider when you become Hierarch." - Damascus
"That's a pretty big assumption" - Wolsey
In any case, Wolsey says, they have to do the trip to Beckett's as a matter of
urgency. If Ulysses is refusing to step up, then they must pin their hopes on Shore as
an alternative candidate and Beckett himself as a wild card.
"He still owes Kali a favour" - Wolsey, turning the SUV in the direction of the
Sanctum.
237
As they drive, Wolsey asks Damascus the state of the Adamantine Arrow, and just
why Mara of all people is in charge. There are several reasons - she's a proponent of
the Ars Nova, and is seen as being more in-touch with modernity than Ulysses
(who's religious faith makes him seem a little odd to most Mages). She's subtle in her
Art and quietly fights and wins battles that the rest of the Arrow isn't capable of
fighting. And most importantly of all she's a counsellor and a professional calmer of
the spirit. Years spent defending the unwanted members of DC's society from horrors
takes it out of a person, and Mara gives the Arrow's mages someone to talk to. Not in
Damascus' experience - he has Ulysses for that - but Mara is the trusted confidante
of most of the Arrow. And more than half of the Guardians.
This does not make for an easy person to scupper in a fair election.
Not that it *will* be a fair election - never make the mistake of thinking of Mages as
Democratic. While it is true that the position of Councillor is voted upon and that
Banneker as Hierarch does not get to vote, each member of the Consilium has a
variable number of votes depending on their capabilities, seniority and certain
occluded factors that allow, strangely, the "in-crowd" to have more votes each than
members in barely-good standing. While Avatar will have one vote, and the Cabal
members between three and five depending, Samuel is alleged to have about twenty.
In this way, the meritocracy of Mage society is maintained, and the wishes of Masters
and Adepts are not overthrown by masses of apprentices.
And, chewing on that, they get to the Sanctum.
The menfolk tromp up the stairs, and survey the wreckage of the night before especially horrified by Kali's drunken attempts to decorate.
Wolsey, pained, asks if there's anything Damascus can do about it.
"Hang on" - Damascus
Damascus fishes his hammer out of his rucksack and concentrates, drawing down
Stygia into the Fallen world. In his mind's eye, he sees the paint liquefy and run away
from the door. This should be easy - the Practice of Weaving, no problem.
As he releases the power, though, he feels the spell go wrong. The energies have
come across the Abyss too strong.
The Vulgar spell got a success on it's paradox roll, resulting in a Havoc
Wolsey and Damascus barely have time to close their eyes and hold their breath
before every last drop of paint on the door, walls, ceiling.. the entire corridor, in fact,
liquefies and blasts into the air, forming a fine mist of paint globules that rapidly settle
over.. well... everything. Especially them.
Wolsey, now coloured blue and a kind of beige, opens his eyes, spits out blue gunk
and asks Damascus if he could maybe have another go at that.
Damascus tries again, and feels it go wrong again. He grits his teeth and absorbs the
excess energy into his own pattern, wincing as the paint is repelled away from them
and back onto the walls. The colours have all bled into one another leaving the place
a rather unappealing colour, but at least the two of them are clean.
"Sorry about that" - Damascus
238
"Ah, Damascus..." - Wolsey
Damascus wipes his nosebleed on his sleeve.
Another havoc, this time converted to damage.
--"KALI! AVATAR! ANYONE HOME?!" - Wolsey
"Heya" - Avatar, slightly bleary-eyed, emerging from her room holding Robin Hobb's
"Fool's Errand"
"You know that was left by a madman, right? Speaking of which - where's Kali?" Wolsey
"She's not up yet." (conspiratorial voice) "I think she had a man 'round. There were
noises" - Avatar
"She could have been entertaining herself..." - Damascus
"Not THESE noises..." - Avatar
"I hope it's not Seraph... Did we tell you about Seraph?" - Wolsey
"Kali did, last night. Just before deciding to paint the front door" - Avatar
They say what they're planning on doing, and ask if she wants to come along.
Wolsey points out that Avatar adds more stops on their way: they need to clear her
being released with Promethea (who they need to talk to about Mara anyway) and
then... well... she's still not properly trained.
(defensive) "I'm up to Shielding in Mind! And.. uh.. Knowing in Space" - Avatar
"Good for two month's work - not good enough, though. And you don't have an Order
yet" - Wolsey
"It was NEXT on our list. Believe me. We were going to go round everyone, let me
hear sales pitches" - Avatar
"Not a bad idea" - Damascus
"Especially if you need a replacement tutor anyway - though this just makes it more
important that we go to Promethea. We don't want to cause any offence by just
forgetting about her." - Wolsey
Okay, then. Options. Silver Ladder...
"The Hierarch?" - Avatar
"Oh, no. No no no. Too persuasive by far." - Wolsey
"How about the Ascendants?" - Damascus
"That'd work. Especially if we found Caspar..." - Wolsey
239
"I can't believe you're using my need to find an order as an excuse to spy on the
Ascendants" - Avatar
Wolsey shrugs.
For the Guardians...
"Trace" - Avatar
They both nod.
Free Council.
"Samuel?" - Avatar
"If Banneker's too persuasive, definitely no." (glances upward in the direction of Kali's
room) "He turned Kali's head. One cabal member in love with him is enough." Wolsey
"... ... you know he's gay, right?" - Avatar
No, Wolsey did not know that.
"He is?" - Wolsey
"Oh sure. Major bum-bandit, is Samuel" (grinning) "In FACT, I believe that.. what's
his name? The hippie in the House of Ariadne?" - Avatar
"Samuel IS a hippy" - Wolsey
"No, the other one. The one with the 'locks... Blaise! yeah. Blaise is Samuel's
boyfriend." - Avatar
"BLAISE? I.." (thinks) "Suddenly so much is made clear" - Wolsey
--Upstairs, Kali wakes in her bedroom. There is a presence next to her in bed. Fearing
the worst, she rolls over and opens one eye.
Blaise, naked and still sticky, snores gently with his arm around her.
Oh. Shit.
--Aaaanyway. John Dee might be good for the Free Council, Avatar says. Damascus
agrees, and says he'll talk to him about it. On a similar note Ulysses is the best bet
for the Adamantine Arrow, and Promethea herself can do the Mysterium sales pitch.
"Have you given any thought to a Legacy?" - Wolsey
"Not really. The Claviclarius aren't really a good idea - my demon would probably just
be a big tree made of flesh" - Avatar
240
"Are you still having those?" - Wolsey
"... ... yeah." (changes the subject) "Anyway. Dreamspeakers, maybe, if I qualify" Avatar
"There aren't any in the city" - Damascus
"No, but there's a lovely airport. I don't want the House of Ariadne" - Avatar
"Which is good, because you don't qualify for that either" - Damascus
Avatar nods.
"There's the Thrice-Great - I think that's what the Ascendants are" - Avatar
See Dave prepare for the next supplement. Oh yes.
"Hmmm... KALI!!!" - Wolsey, shouting
--Upstairs, Kali has just about extracted her bra from under Blaise's still-sleeping body
when she hears Wolsey's shout and freezes.
A long moment passes.
Blaise does not wake up.
veeeeeeery slowly, Kali reaches for her cell phone.
--"Besides, I don't want to be a Bearer..." - Avatar
Wolsey's cell phone beeps.
He has received a text message, reading only "Shh!"
"I think Kali is about to grace us with her presence" - Wolsey
And she does, sliding down the banister.
--There follows a brief recap of the plans for the day before...
".. And incidentally, who's upstairs?" - Wolsey
"huh?" - Kali
"Kali. Who have you slept with?" - Wolsey
"How long do you have?" - Kali
241
"Alright. Let me rephrase this.. Who is in our Sanctum?" - Wolsey
"Blaise" - Kali, muttering
"But.. he's gay" - Wolsey, looking at Avatar, who shrugs
"Two years, one day" - Damascus, quietly
And the running count continues. And Blaise, as is obvious, is a tart to both Genders. It's not so much sleeping with Blaise
that's Kali's problem. It's sleeping with Blaise-Samuel's-boyfriend. Good thing the boss is in 1812.
And yeah - about that. Mark made the mistake of commenting one lunch to me that Samuel was clearly my favourite NPC,
given how much I've used him in the Chronicle. To which my reaction was a friendly "right, then. He's not going to turn up for
six sessions at least"
"You don't want to know what I had for breakfast" - Kali
"I'm sure it was sausage-related" - Wolsey, with the air of one who has suffered Kali's
innuendos for too long.
Anyway, he says. NOW that they are all gathered, they should be going to Beckett's
"We need to get him to agree to help Shore, so that we can get Shore elected
Councillor instead of Mara" - Damascus
"Or, if Mara gets Councillor, to get Shore made Provost either to her or to Suleiman if
she takes Promethea" - Wolsey
"To the Campaign Car!" - Kali
I now mentally call Wolsey's SUV that...
Wolsey asks her to please not call it that, and Kali shrugs, saying that it's fitting. They
are, after all, in the first moves of Wolsey's eventual rise to Hierarch.
"I mean, that IS Banneker's plan for you, right?" - Kali
"... Okay. Seriously. I feel like Hilary Clinton here." - Wolsey
"Does that make me Bill?" - Avatar
"Do you play the Sax?" - Damascus
"Oh, all the time." - Avatar
"I'm sure you fill your evenings" - Wolsey
"We do. You have NO idea what we get up to at night, Tom." (Kali and Avatar link
arms, grinning wickedly at Wolsey) "We bathe. Naked and soapy" - Avatar
"Oh, yes" - Kali
Wolsey stoically ignores the good-natured taunting and trudges out of the Sanctum.
"What happened to the corridor?" - Avatar
"Damascus" - Wolsey
242
"Huh" - Kali
--The four of them clamber into the SUV.
"Do you think it's too early?" - Avatar
"It isn't like he has many visitors anyway" - Wolsey
"Not really, no. He tends to sacrifice them" - Kali
Everyone looks at Kali
Kali looks innocent
Wolsey drums his fingers on the steering wheel and stares at her
"Oh, all right. When were in his house last I looked through it's history, you know? the
sort of the feel of the place and everything that had happened and ANYWAY there
was this little occasion on which Beckett caught a burglar and, well.. fed him to a
bunch of spirits." - Kali
There are a few deep breaths.
"But - you know - Burglar!" - Kali
"I could understand maybe wiping the man's memory, or... But not killing them. For
Mana?" - Damascus
Different to Ulysses and the Seer - the Seer was already dead, and Ulysses even felt guilty about that.
This puts a new spin on things. They’ve been assuming that Beckett's crime was
limited to his Acamoth-fuelled attempt on Malakaii's life. But if he hasn't given up his
black magic ways, it will be much, much harder to sell his return to society. And he
may be unsalvageable.
"Maybe he can kick the habit?" - Kali, hopefully.
Wolsey presses the intercom button.
"Beckett? We'd like to come in" - Wolsey
"Solitary confinement has never been so sociable" - Beckett
They pull into the drive. Avatar elects to wait in the car, as the trio of more
experienced mages steel themselves and make for the front door.
Inside, they find Beckett engaged in polite conversation with a roughly humanoid
thing made entirely out of skewed perspective, like a human-shaped lens distorting
everything behind it.
"Atraxis, these are the Crucible. My young friends, this is Count Atraxis of the Shifted
Perspective" - Beckett
243
Recognising a creature of the Shadow world, they are polite. Beckett looks to the
spirit, then back at the gang, conspiratorially.
"I've been making enquiries, trying to find your demon. It would help, actually, if you
could clarify something with your master. There was never any terms imposed on my
informal exile, and I am not sure if Banneker meant for me to be free to roam in the
Inner Worlds or not." - Beckett
"We'll ask him. And.. we have a proposition" - Wolsey
Beckett asks Atraxis to excuse them, and the spirit de-materialises. The gang put it to
him that the "terms" of his exile could be made moot over this business.
"How would you feel about making a return to the Consilium?" - Wolsey
Beckett sits down, considering.
"In exchange for catching your new demonologist. I understand..." (looks at Wolsey,
angry) "I'll do so. IF Banneker goes to the Consilium and admits everything. Admits
that he has no idea how to deal with this, that he's using you as go-betweens and
that he NEEDS me. And If he then comes here in person to beg me for my help." Beckett
That is unlikely to happen, they concede
"I'm willing to make the first step here - I'm willing to work with him after a decade of
him propping his rule up with Malakaii's practices. But he has to take that first step.
He has to admit that he was *wrong*." - Beckett
Theme of the session again.
"Wrong to pick Malakaii over you?" - Kali
"To side with Malakaii, yes" - Beckett
Wolsey says that won't be really possible regardless - and that although the death of
the demon could go a long way to save Beckett's public image (Wolsey notes that
the mages of the city don't hold him in that high regard - and that the crucible are
pretty much the only people who give a shit).
"What we need is your advice. If it were to come out that you'd assisted someone
else in destroying the beast, then it will help your reputation, such that when
Banneker then drops the charges against you there won't be an outcry" - Wolsey
"So I am to be your pet monster, then? Helping the Hero to defeat the wild monster?
You are asking me to trust a lot. you're asking me to trust Banneker, who has long
proved he cannot be trusted to not simply go with the allies of expediency. I have my
pride." - Banneker
"So does he" - Damascus
"I'll think about it" - Beckett
He considers.
244
"What sort of demon is it, in the end? Do you know?" - Beckett
"Astral. A creature of Envy" - Damascus
Beckett nods to himself. Quietly, seriously and with none of his usual ebullient
manner, he starts to educate them.
"That narrows it down. The creature will be drawn to the emotions that created it - to
it's makers most strongly, but any source of envy or jealousy will allow it to subsist. It
will have a basic need, like you breath and eat, to foster those qualitative in others. It
is Envy, Jealous Rage and Inadequacy. It will desperately try to cause others to be
the same way. It will be able to enter Twilight, perhaps even leap back and forth
across the Gauntlet or into the Inner worlds. In manifested form, it will look like an
exaggerated form of it's maker, twisted by the emotion that drives it. Once you catch
it, it should be simple to trace it back to it's maker even if they have cut it loose." Beckett
"You see? This is the sort of thing we wanted to know. You're an expert - and we
need you if we're going to solve this" - Wolsey
"Flattery will get you everywhere, young man" (sighs) "Very well. I'll act as your
Doctor Lecter. Bring your Hero here." - Beckett
Thanking him, they get up to leave.
"Have you considered that all this - I imagine that out there the frenzy to be the one
to replace Malakaii is getting quite fierce - is the result of the demon? You are falling
into internecine struggles, conspiracies and secret meetings. Our jealousies of one
another are coming to the fore." - Beckett
They consider that
"And consider this - Malakaii's death hasn't just left a void in your Council. There is
the Legacy. The race, I imagine will be on" - Beckett
"What race?" - Wolsey
"Malakaii made a Soul Stone. He turned his Sanctum into an Annullity - the opposite
of a Demesne, where the minor Arcana of the creator is made impossible to cast
rather than the Ruling pair reinforced." - Beckett
"How very Malakaii. That'd be.. Matter" - Wolsey
"Indeed. And do you know what else you can do with Soul Stones, children?" Beckett
Wolsey realises
"That's right. You can learn Legacies from them. All those people Malakaii wouldn't
teach his secret to in life - all the members of his Legacy, in the Pentacle and my own
former student's brood in the Seers. They're all going to want to get their hands on it.
First one to the Stone wins the prize" - Beckett
Wolsey looks to the others. This is serious - if Mara gets the Soul Stone, or Seraph
245
"And fair warning, Wolsey. If I find it first.. I Will destroy it. That attainment has
caused too much pain already. I would advise you to do the same, but we both know
you wouldn't." - Beckett
"We do" - Wolsey, stating the fact.
"On your marks, then. Get set..." - Beckett, relishing it.
They leave. Rapidly.
Having the Soul Stone of a mage and Prime 1 to scrutinise it properly allows you to copy their Legacy for 10xp per attainment
rather than paying them 1xp per session, which actually works out okay if you think how long it takes to go up in Gnosis dots
even including Arcane XP. Wolsey has the Gnosis for the procedure, and the xp to burn. If he can get the Soul Stone, he will
achieve his much-desired Attainment and gain the ability to lower the Disbelief of Sleepers.
Of course, if Mara gets it then they have an unstable maybe-Councillor with the power to nonmagically persuade people that
their own memories are faulty and something other than what happened happened. If Seraph gets the stone, then the Seers
will leapfrog past the Guardians' ability to counter them.
--In the car, driving south, Wolsey imparts how urgent this is onto all of them - they
NEED to get that Soul Stone first. They have to be the people to find it. Or rather,
Wolsey has to be.
"Excuse me? Who here is known to be, oh I don't know... a finder of secret things?" Kali
"You volunteering? Because you couldn't find Avatar that time..." - Wolsey
"I know more Space than then, Wolsey" - Kali, through gritted teeth
She's got Space 2 and everything.
"Trust me, I know more. but alright - we'll start at the murder site, try to track Malakaii
back to his Sanctum" - Wolsey
Damascus points out that he - as a Moros - is going to be a liability in Malakaii's
Sanctum if it's been made to reject the use of the Matter Arcanum. He, it is decided,
will continue with their original number one priority - setting up the 'Shore
manoeuvre'. He's to find Shore and convince him to take part, then take him back to
Beckett's.
"Avatar, can we leave you at Promethea's? We WILL be along to get you later, but
you and her need to talk anyway, and, well..." - Wolsey
"Understood." - Avatar
Wolsey tells Kali that they're going to have to be on the lookout for the demon all the
time - from what Beckett's saying, the rush to the Soul Stone that is doubtless
building will be like an all-day buffet for the creature, as supposed allies turn on one
another in their mutually exclusive desire to be top dog.
At which point, Damascus experiences a Deja Vu and Kali feels the crush of
Inevitability.
"DAMNIT. I am getting sick of this" - Damascus, while Kali winces.
"What? Again?" - Wolsey
246
They pull up at traffic lights, and Damascus says that he'll make his own way from
here. He gets out and crosses to the sidewalk.
Trying to shake off the feeling that the world just changed in an infinitesimal but
significant way, Damascus walks the distance to a local council office, where Shore
works in his "cover identity" as a local politician.
We met Shore in 3.2, I think - he was in the group that went to kill the Magath with Damascus. He's a Mastigos - that incident
featured a minor character detail I don't think made it onto the thread, in which Shore walked from the diner to the cancer
hospice with a ruddy great battleaxe over his shoulder, using Mind magic to make everyone ignore it.
Damascus likes Shore, based on the few times they've met. The Mastigos demonhunter is especially devoted to the "Washington" side of the dichotomy, which is why
he's a local politician in a City government that has no representation and no mayor Shore is a campaigner for inhabitants of the Diamond getting the vote.
Which I think I've mentioned before, they don't have in my World of Darkness. It took them a while to get it in the real world,
too. In any case, Shore is played by an older, grizzlier Ben Affleck.
After passing by Shore's secretary, Damascus greets his friend. Shore asks how the
investigation is going - he's heard Damascus and his cabal have been deputised and Damascus says that he's actually here to ask for Shore's help. Shore agrees
quickly and eagerly - anything they need - and Damascus asks him what he thinks of
the various races going on. Shore's top tips, if he were a betting man, would be for
Mara to be Councillor and Thursday Epopt (though Shore has heard the Guardians
are considering asking neighbouring Consiliums for help reinforcing their
beleaguered state), with Malakaii's cabal ripping itself in two based on which new
leader they decide to side with.
Damascus asks Shore - who's closer to the centre of the Adamantine Arrow than
Damascus himself is - just how much do the others rely on Mara? The answer is "a
lot".
"I know I go to her when all this gets too tough" - Shore
In any case, Damascus fills Shore in on the Demon - how it's a creature of Envy and
how they're trying to track it. And just who's helping...
"A thiefcatcher, eh?" - Shore
"That's right. It is.. thought that the time may be right for Beckett to earn points
toward his release. And he does have a very personal interest in helping to destroy
the thing that cheated him of his revenge" - Damascus
"The idea is... I'll do it. I'm your man. I've never met Beckett, but I could learn a lot the man's library alone is legendary in certain circles" - Shore
And off they go, Shore telling his PA to cancel any appointments for the day.
--Kali and Wolsey are back again at the site of Malakaii's death, as Kali attempts to
find the thread of Malakaii's journey. She can't just decide to look for the Soul Stone
and then let the thread take her to it - that would be the second Attainment of her
Legacy - but she can look back through the history of this place to Malakaii's death,
use that to target him with a proper Postcognition Spell and then use magic to follow
his path through the city that day n reverse. Or that's the theory, anyway. They've
never seen the Soul Stone - Wolsey never even knew Malakaii had made one,
247
though now he knows it does sound like the sort of thing that Malakaii would do.
Especially the Annullity. They can't just scry for it based on that, and the fact that
they don't know Malakaii's full real name.
While Kali trances herself back to the murder, Wolsey modifies the Imago for Spatial
Awareness on the fly, coupling it to a specialised use of the Unveiling Practice of
Mind in order to sense Envy all around him. Just in case the Demon is lurking
nearby.
Building the spell (and see how much more confident we are with Tome of the Mysteries?) was pretty easy, but it ended up
being of Concentration duration. Which has it's own problems.
Kali, thinking that she has the thread, swaps seats with Wolsey as he tries to hold his
spell active in his mind. After some crunching of the gears, they slowly drive off.
Kali's lack of ability with driving is an ongoing minor joke. She's just not very good at it.
Unfortunately, Malakaii's Occultation and own powers of moving unseen get the
better of Kali's ability to keep a handle on him in the past, and she stops the car.
Wolsey continues trying to maintain his spell, while Kali takes his PDA/phone and
calls Banneker.
"Hello?" - voice
"Er. Hi, Banneker! We're just looking for..." - Kali
"DAAAAAAAAAAAD!" - voice
Kali shuts up, while Wolsey does his best to look annoyed while keeping his spell
going.
"Who is this?" - Banneker
"Ah! Hi! It's Kali..." - Kali
"The girl in Wolsey's Cabal. Yes." - Banneker
"...That's right. We're following up a lead, and think that the creature might have gone
to Malakaii's Sanctum - to feed off everyone trying to get his Soul Stone. Only, we
don't know where..." - Kali
Banneker rattles off an address and hangs up. Kali shifts the car into gear again and
starts driving.
--Back in Beckett's house, Damascus, Beckett and Shore are talking shop. The
meeting is going well, and Beckett is giving Shore hints and tips - including the
pointer about the Demon being traceable back to it's originator, which Shore (who
Damascus has kept in the dark about Mara's involvement) is taking an interest in.
--Kali and Wolsey - Wolsey still mumbling as he keeps scanning the area around them
for the Demon - are stood outside a perfectly ordinary suburban detached house,
shaded by tall trees, somewhere in College Park. This time on a Monday afternoon
there is no-one about. Satisfied that they're safe, Wolsey allows his spell to dissipate.
The chief Guardian of the Veil was not going to live in a wizard's tower. I leave that to Banneker, Samuel and Suleiman who
all DO have Towers after their fashion
248
"Hang on" - Kali
Kali casts Augury, trying to determine if what they seek is inside. She sees a brief
image of Wolsey stood in front of a portal, running his hand along it's surface. They're
in an underground room - a basement. She relays this.
"Can you get us inside?" - Wolsey
"Sure" - Kali, approaching the front door
Glancing around, Wolsey shields them both with inconspicuous appearance just in
case while Kali picks the lock.
"What's taking so long?" - Wolsey
"It's *been* a while, alright? And Yales are harder.." - Kali,
And with a click, she gets it open. At which point the beeping starts.
"Alarm" (pushing the door open) "Keypad" - Kali
The beeping speeds up, counting down to setting off the full house alarm, while Kali
uses her Attainment to see Malakaii entering the code. Eyes half-closed, she taps it
in and the system - satisfied - shuts down.
Wolsey is impressed enough to raise an eyebrow.
High praise
They begin searching the entirely mundane house, looking for the way into the
basement - and to the portal leading to the *real* Sanctum. Kali finds the stairs inside
what she took to be a cupboard door, and they carefully descend.
Downstairs, in the light given off by flashlights taken from Wolsey's car, they see the
bare basement wall Kali saw the Portal in. To Wolsey's just-cast Mage Sight, there IS
a portal there, held inactive without it's trigger condition. They have it's resonance,
but as they never saw Malakaii use Vulgar magic they don't know if it's his or not.
Wolsey does not put his hand up to it.
Then, from above, they hear the front door opening again.
Turning their flashlights off, Kali silently hands Wolsey one of two guns she produces
from under her clothes.
--Leaving Shore back at his office, Damascus is covering the rest of the bases and
spinning the rest of the plates that the Cabal need to keep up in the air. Specifically,
he needs to give Link the impression that the Cabal is still participating in his
investigation, despite having long since solved it and moved on to the Mara-nobbling
campaign.
As luck would have it, Shore tells him that Link said he intended to interview
Promethea about demonology - Shore assumes that Damascus coming to see him is
part of that. Heading to Promethea's, Damascus finds the Sentinel still there, sat
outside and smoking.
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"Damascus" - Link, warmly
"Hello, Chief" - Damascus
"Just had Shore on the phone - *Good* idea, getting Beckett on board. Only you
guys could have managed it. If I'd gone, he'd have assumed I was trying to arrest
him" - Link
"That was the idea." - Damascus
"So. Astral entity of Envy. Makes sense - how to bring all the jealousies out..." - Link,
thinking.
Damascus says he's here to see Promethea himself, about something else entirely.
Link mentions that Avatar is still inside, and Damascus nods, heading in.
Promethea spends her days within her place of business - an occultist shop that is
deliberately tinged towards the darker arts. Jars of unidentifiable things that may be
body parts, books of Sleeper-grade magical theory tinged towards practices that if
Awakened would be Left-Handed, that sort of thing. The resonance in here is rather
murky.
Promethea herself is a rather intense woman, hair rigidly corn-rowed and skin pulled
oddly taut over her features - she doesn't have any "give" to her.
We've talked about Promethea a lot, and she's been discussed a lot in the Chronicle and in this thread, but this is, I believe,
the first time we've actually met her. She's a deliberate delver into unappealing practices and the less pleasant side of human
nature - *very* Mastigos, in a different way to Mara or Wolsey
Promethea is sat next to Avatar, who greets Damascus. Promethea neither smiles
nor gets up as Damascus comes in. He asks if Avatar has explained the situation and Promethea says yes.
"I agree with it. She has reached a certain level of competence, and I do not believe
she is a fit for my Legacy. Best that she begin working towards her membership in an
Order. Especially now." - Promethea
"With Mara expected to be busy?" - Damascus
"We will *all* be busy" - Promethea, eyes glinting.
Damascus probes slightly, trying to find out if she will, as rumoured, try to become
Mara's provost should Mara make Councillor, but Promethea's not having any of it.
"I have duties in my Cabal, to Suleiman as his Provost and to my Order. I'm the
custodian of the Athenaeum - I am currently awaiting a visit from one of your cabal.
The Metropolitan Enchanter? Pretty girl. Needs a wash" - Promethea
"Kali" - Damascus
"Tell her to get on with it, will you?" - Promethea
--Darkness.
Wolsey and Kali hide in the basement, listening to whoever it is move around
upstairs. Clearly conducting, from what they can tell, some sort of search.
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There's a beam of light from the door, as whoever it is finds it and opens it.
"Hera! It's over here!" - Male voice
Two people come down the stairs, the portal-site illuminated in the shaft of light from
the door. A man and a woman. The man puts his hand out to the portal, running it
over the surface in the exact motion Kali foresaw Wolsey making.
"Definitely him. The old bastard cast this thing over time, made it permanent then
relinquished control of it." - Man
"Can you open it?" - Woman
"In time" - Man
The two strangers have their backs facing the room. Wolsey and Kali emerge from
hiding and aim at the backs of the newcomer's heads.
"Don't move" - Wolsey
The two strangers freeze.
"You didn't check for anyone already being here?" - Woman, to her companion, in a
slightly irritated tone.
Kali covers the woman, Wolsey the man.
Everyone takes a deep, deep breath.
"We don't have to do this, you know. We just want one thing from what's on the other
side of that portal. After we get it, you can have everything else." - Woman
"Curious. I was going to say the same thing." - Wolsey
"Then we are at impasse" - Man
"Don't move or I'll shoot. And don't cast any spells, either. I sense any magic forming,
and you're dead" - Wolsey
"I don't think so." - Man
The man turns around calmly (hands still in the air) and looks Wolsey in the eye
"After all, I'm not really here" - Man
At first, Wolsey thinks he means he's a projection, or partially in twilight, then he
twigs
"So you'd be killing an innocent, for no real gain. You can't open this thing, I'll bet and I'll also bet that we can get back here in force faster than you can summon allies
of your own" - Seraph (for 'tis he)
Wolsey considers, gun still pointed at Seraph's puppet.
"Put up or shut up, Tom" - Seraph
A shot rings out. Wolsey blinks, and realises that Kali has shot the woman - "Hera",
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he heard this one call her. Wolsey's own gun remains unfired.
Sam says it was Seraph calling Wolsey 'Tom' that made Kali do it - trying to save Wolsey from having his paranoia played
with. Also living up, it must be pointed out, to the agreement she made with Wolsey - when she's sure someone is a Seer
puppet, she's to just kill them as immediately as possible.
But it's easy to SAY that, isn't it Wolsey? Harder to actually pull the trigger - especially since the fight with the Seers in the
Church. Kali went through, without thinking, with a murder for the 'cause' while Wolsey, in the end, couldn't.
Seraph takes a slightly shaky breath.
"Right now Hera is waking up in my Pylon's Sanctum, safe and sound. She will tell
the others where we are and they will VERY soon be on their way." - Seraph
"Our people will get here first - and DON'T cast any spells. I'm warning you" - Wolsey
"We'll see. Tick. Tock." - Seraph, smiling
Wolsey's arm is getting tired.
"Tick... Tock." - Seraph
And on Wolsey's face, we fade out.
End of session.
Wheee! See you next time!
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Session 5.3
So, then. First off - no game session this week, so no recap next week. I'm otherwise engaged. That means we'll start story 6
(which is the second one from Reign of the Exarchs, as written by Wood and adapted for the chronicle by yours truly) on
Friday 8th.
Now then. Wolsey had a cunning plan, as I recall...
Positions.
Mid-afternoon, Monday 24th July
Damascus is sat in a Burger King, having lunch with Link and Avatar
Wolsey is in the basement of an anonymous suburban house in College Park that, he
is told, belonged to Malakaii. He is currently aiming Kali's spare handgun at the face
of a man who is possessed by Seraph, the Cabal's Seer of the Throne maybeNemesis.
Kali is stood next to Wolsey, also aiming at Seraph having just dispatched the
woman possessed by the Seer "Hera" to the great beyond.
"Look. You can't get through that thing, and you can't be sure your allies will get here
before mine will" - Seraph
"Oh, we can. Here's the deal - walk out of here and keep that body. Or we'll kill it." Wolsey
"I don't think so." - Seraph
Wolsey tires of this.
"Knock him out, will you?" - Wolsey
Kali shoots Seraph's puppet body in the face.
"KNOCK! HIM! OUT!" - Wolsey, aghast
"This was taking too long" - Kali
Kali managed to pass the Wisdom checks for the premeditated murder of the unfortunates possessed by Seraph and Hera.
The trauma of what she just did shows for the rest of the session, especially towards the end when she has more of a chance
to think about it. And blame Wolsey for it.
Wolsey stares at the expanding pool of blood for a few seconds, then snaps into
action, ordering Kali to use her professed now-increased abilities with the Space
Arcanum to ward the area, while he eliminates any sympathetic connections the
bodies have - the idea being that the combination of the two spells will prevent the
Seers from getting a sympathetic lock on the area.
Wolsey is successful, fervently burning away the threads of Sympathy by exposing
them to the energies of Pandemonium, while Kali's first attempt at the ward is far too
small. Her second go at the Imago is better - and the ward stronger - but still only
covers half the room. Wolsey grudgingly says that it'll have to do. As they work,
Wolsey feels a spell attempt - and fail - to connect to the male body.
Wolsey spent Willpower. The incoming spell was Seraph attempting to raise the corpse as a zombie to keep them busy, but
Wolsey's spell nerfed his sympathy modifiers and it didn't take. Har!
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Now, for that Portal. Wolsey phones Damascus and tells him that they have
something of a situation requiring his expertise and would rather he were there.
Damascus asks where they are and Wolsey says that, if Damascus can get
somewhere out of sight, Wolsey will open a Portal to him.
"Should I come alone?" - Damascus
"Don't bring anyone" - Wolsey
"Not even Link?" - Damascus
"Not even Link" - Wolsey
(shrugs) "your life" - Damascus
Damascus makes hurried apologies to Link and Avatar and hurries out into the car
park, where he hides between two trucks. On cue, Wolsey's spell opens an ovalshaped hole in space in front of him, about four feet high. Damascus ducks and rolls
through it...
...lands in the growing pool of blood, brain matter, hair and bits of hair on the
basement floor and slides to a rather disgusting halt.
"What is this I'm sitting in?... Who is this I'm sitting in?" - Damascus
"A pair of Seers, or their puppets. Seraph and a woman named Hera" - Wolsey
Wolsey quickly gives Damascus both a hand up and a sitrep.
There's a lot of playing with Portals in this session - Wolsey bought Space 3 a while back, but has now gotten to the point of
confidence that he's teleporting himself around to familiar places by spending willpower and coping with the bashing damage
from Paradox. And it's highlighted another difference between Ascension and Awakening to me - Space difficulties based on
sympathetic connection as opposed to Correspondence ones based on distance really, really alter how PC teleportation
works - no matter where you are, your Sanctum or your fellow Cabal members are only a spell away.
Wolsey and Damascus talk shop - as the member of the Cabal who bothered to learn
the Prime Arcanum Damascus is their go-to man on matters of dispellation and
countermagic. As far as Wolsey can tell, Malakaii first built this permanent portal to
somewhere or other, relinquished the spell control and then pinched it closed with a
Portal Key tuned to something unknown. Kali reports, using her attainment, that
Malakaii never performed any gestures nor appeared to carry anything specific when
he went through the portal, which raises the unhappy suggestion that it may have a
trigger condition of "me".
So. The trick is how to Dispel the Portal Key without Dispelling the Portal itself.
Quickly.
Damascus muses over the problem. The Compelling Practice of Prime can dismantle
spells, but the user needs to be able to Compel each of the Arcanum used in the
spell. The Shielding Practice of Prime can counter spells of any Arcanum, but only
when they're being cast right in front of you. After the spell's already been cast, you
need to be an Adept of Prime, a Master of Death or be able to Compel the correct
Arcana.
"Can you do it?" - Wolsey
"No. I could if I knew Space" - Damascus
"And I could If I knew Prime. And if only I had a heart..." – Wolsey
Kali feels the now-familiar feeling of inevitability caused by the presence of..
whatever it is.. and casts Ring Sight: Space. She gets a glimpse of something rather
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like a scrying connection vanishing, and announces to the others that they were
being watched. She doesn't know how long for.
Damascus has a brainwave - he uses Mind and Prime magic to alter his own
resonance, shifting his aura so that it feels like Malakaii's. To Wolsey and Kali, the
effect is uncanny - they can see Damascus in front of them, but he *feels* like
Malakaii. Damascus steps up to the portal, which crackles and opens reluctantly, a
black disk against the blood-spattered wall of the basement.
"Whenever you're ready" - Damascus, straining slightly.
Kali and Wolsey steps through, and then Damascus does too.
Wherever they are now, it's pitch-black. And echoey. Damascus fishes out a lighter,
but the tiny flame doesn't cast enough light to see anything - other than the greyish
stone floor they're standing on, gently sloping in one direction. Cell phones have no
signal.
"Either we're a long way from home or, more likely, we're under a lot of rock." Wolsey
Wolsey, realising this is one case where being a Mastigos will come in handy, casts
Spatial Map, modified to be of concentration duration. He tells the others that they're
in a cave (thanks for that one, Wolsey) and that there are stairs cut into the rock floor
in that (with a gesture) direction, leading down the increasingly-sloping floor to some
kind of door.
They carefully head off as directed, and discover in lighter-light that the door is
heavy, made of metal and has a mask welded to it as some form of decoration.
Classy.
At which point Damascus realises that he is suffering some kind of impairment. His
connection to Stygia seems damaged. Damaged like "the Matter Arcanum isn't
working properly here"; They would seem to be approaching the Annullity.
Pulling the door open, they are quite relieved to be bathed in dim, sodium-tinged
light. The door opens onto some kind of hallway stretching in either direction, the wall
that isn't bare rock made of red bricks. The light comes from old electric lamps that
have been drilled into the ceiling, thick rubbery power cables hanging between them.
Looking this way and that, they spot several turnings "into" whatever this is. Wolsey
cancels his spell and recasts it, trying to map out wherever they are by feeling past
the walls... and discovering that they're at the entrance to a maze. From what he can
gather, it's donut-shaped, tightly wrapped around a circular something. He tries to
map out the proper route through it and - eventually - announces that he's got the
best route to the centre. Kali, though, has cast her mind back and seen Malakaii
walking in another direction entirely.
Faced with the choice, they decide to follow the Guardian of yesterday.
"What IS this?" - Kali, feeling Malakaii's ghostly traces in the web of Time
"It's a Labyrinth" - Wolsey, grimly
"You okay?" - Damascus
"Yeah. And while I appreciate the symbology of actually building a fucking labyrinth...
If I EVER get to this level of power, remind me to build something that's practical and
not a twisted reflection of my fucking philosophy - it'll be bland, but with security...
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damn"
The damn is because 'bland, with security' is a pretty good reflection of Wolsey's philosophy.
And Malakaii didn't build the Labyrinth, though he did renovate it some.
Eventually, though, they reach a door, through which they find a much more brightly
lit (and actually decorated, in reds and oranges) circular chamber with an iron spiral
staircase stretching up into a hole in the ceiling. There are six equidistant doors,
including the one they just opened - each bearing a mask. But here's the thing - the
Labyrinth's final stretch wrapped all the way around this central hub. There's no room
for any of those doors to go anywhere.
"The amount of magic needed... the dimensions of the rooms must be altered" Wolsey, more in awe of the amount of work represented than anything.
The place stinks of Malakaii's nimbus - a deep, infectious feeling that the observer
has transgressed by observing, that what is happening should be secret. Kali, though
has gone wide-eyed at the sight of the staircase and is babbling again
"Oh, no. NO. NONONONONONONO" - Kali
"What?" - Wolsey
"This is in me. This thing.. I've seen this thing inside me" - Kali
"Inside you?" - Damascus
"In the Astral - my home has this thing in it... Coincidence? I don't think so. There's
no such thing as coincidences, remember?" - Kali, shaken
Kali refers to the appearance of her and Ichi's warehouse in the Astral Plane, which contained a rather similar staircase...
The boys manage to calm her enough to function (though she's not happy) and they
begin with door number five. Inside, there's a few bookshelves, a bed and several
amenities - including a TV and DVD player. Looking at the books, Kali notes that
Malakaii appears to be another Robin Hobb fan. You can also tell a lot about a man
by his DVD collection; Malakaii had recently watched "Goodnight and Good Luck",
for instance.
"A Few Good Men. The General's Daughter. Patriot Games. The Insider... Are we
detecting a theme here?" - Wolsey
"He was into social justice. When he was young." - Kali
The feeling of transgressing grows. This is Malakaii - his Sanctum, made safe from
the Arcanum he didn't know by a piece of his soul. Hidden away behind a twisting
maze lies the real man. Secret and Protected.
The next room holds a map of Washington DC, runes and traced lines marking more
Supernal elements - leys, Loci, even the Sanctums of individual mages are marked
with pins. One wall is lined with shelves, crammed with leather-bound notebooks.
Damascus pulls one down and flicks through it.
All written in some sort of cipher.
"His notes?" - Wolsey
"Looks that way. Diaries. Investigations. Dirt." - Damascus
Neither Wolsey nor Damascus is practiced enough with Mind to translate the text.
Damascus puts the journal back.
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Wolsey is worried about the amount of time they're spending and of the possibility
that the Seers have broken through the Portal by now (he keeps checking behind
them with magic, but there's no sign yet). They split up to take the last three doors.
Wolsey finds what must, judging by the materials within, be Malakaii's occult library.
Damascus finds Malakaii's living quarters - a small bathroom and kitchen attached to
a surprisingly normal living space.
Kali opens her door, and - horrified by what she finds - backs up back into the central
chamber. Damascus and Wolsey have a look, and find what appears to be a Hindu
shrine. There are three statues (Damascus thinks he identifies them as Brahma,
Vishnu and Shiva) and, among the paraphernalia, a wand and a mask that both
register as being Magical - the wand more so than the mask, which Damascus
reckons to be Malakaii's dedicated magical casting tool.
India again - hence Kali backing out. Given the staircase 'coincidence', she really didn't need to find a statue of Shiva. I'll
spoiler-black my response to the idea after,
All that's left is the staircase, and they still haven't found the Soul Stone. Damascus
starts up them, then comes back down, reporting that they've been warped, spatially
- they connect to somewhere a long, long way up. More importantly, after he climbed
for a while the Annullity's effects faded.
"So the Stone has to be down here" - Damascus
Wolsey considers the staircase, and the unknown destination it leads to.
"... Are we in India?" - Wolsey
As a matter of fact, yes they are - as will be revealed later.
It's as good a theory as any.
Searching more closely now with magical senses, Wolsey finds that the floor they're
standing on is not the original floor - they're standing on the wide end of a coneshape of packing material. Twelve feet below them there's an opening in the rock the
size of a barrel, without any physical means of accessing it. Wolsey's bet is that the
Soul Stone is there: Malakaii wouldn't need to have a way of opening the thing up,
he'd be able to use his sympathetic connection to his own Soul Stone to pluck it out
of it's resting place if he needed to.
"Can't you liquefy the rock?" - Kali, to Damascus
"Not in the Annullity" - Damascus
"I'll do it" - Wolsey
Wolsey concentrates all his effort on building the Imago. The Soul Stone, his hand.
Easy. Should be easy. Teleporting one object...
Sweat pouring off him, Wolsey pulls down Pandemonium and twists reality in his
hands.
Suddenly, Kali is elsewhere.
Kali is stood in a cave - a different cave to the one they were just in - terrified. A
metallic grey snake, fangs bared, twists and coils in her hands as she tries to
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wrestle with it, the fangs striking and narrowly missing her. She's very aware
that she's losing...
And just like that, Wolsey has the prize; a three-inch Tigereye stone, deeply resonant
with Malakaii's nimbus even after it's creator's death. Wolsey knees nearly give out
as he takes a shuddering breath.
That.. was difficult.
"...Time to leave" - Wolsey
Kali, wide eyed, says nothing.
Wolsey expended his last willpower casting that spell - it took High Speech, the use of magical tools in the casting and
willpower to get any dice to roll at all, and he *just barely* managed to succeed at the spell.
This, incidentally, is the first time a character in any of my WoD games over the last decade has EVER run out of willpower.
"Kali? Kali, COME ON" - Wolsey
"Snake." - Kali
"What?" - Wolsey
"I was fighting a snake..." - Kali
Wolsey grips her arm, shaking her out of it.
"Come ON" - Wolsey
They grab what they can, piling up the obviously supernal artefacts and as many
books from the library as they can carry. Damascus goes into the "DC" room and considering carefully - sets fire to the journals. Once they're merrily blazing, he
rejoins the others.
Wolsey reaches out to Pandemonium, feeling for his familiar connection to the
Sanctum back in DC. His Portal forms, and they begin throwing books through it,
finally climbing through and closing the portal behind them.
Checking the clock, they find that they've been wherever they've been for two and a
half hours - it's now late afternoon. And they don't know what's been going on in their
absence. Most importantly, Seraph and Hera *must* by now have gotten back on the
trail. Wolsey goes into full Paranoid mode, destroying all of his sympathetic
connections while Kali argues that Seraph knew Wolsey's name and has been to the
Sanctum before - if he wanted to find them he would. Wolsey is interrupted by a call
from Nimrod.
The Moros Guardian of the Veil establishes where Wolsey is, and where he was
several hours ago. Also that Wolsey has witnesses to his location - which he does,
as luck would have it. Nimrod says that Wolsey's car has been found outside a
certain address, and Wolsey smoothly mentions that it was stolen.
Using very polite half-code (Nimrod's clearly not alone on the other end) Wolsey finds
out what's happening. Seraph, his immediate attempt to get revenge foiled, phoned
the Police and claimed to have heard gunfire. Malakaii's address set off an alarm for
one of Nimrod's colleagues and he attended. Casting Corpse Mask to cover the
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obviously mortal wounds on the bodies, and then Quicken Corpse to animate them
as Zombies, he puppeteered them up out of the building and presented them to the
Sleeper officers as a "pair of roleplayers".
Wolsey promises to come pick his SUV up from the pound, and hangs up.
"I know why they hold themselves apart from the rest of the Consilium. They'd never
get a moment's peace" - Wolsey
"I should probably go retrieve my pickup from..." - Damascus
"...Avatar!" - Damascus and Wolsey
Avatar, when they phone her, is not impressed. For a start, her sympathetic
connection to Wolsey was cut not ten minutes earlier - and she thought it was a sign
that he'd died. Nope, not dead.
"So am I alright to come home to the Sanctum now, without getting raped and killed
on my way through gangland?" - Avatar
She rings off with the message that Link wants to see them all tomorrow morning he's getting Bedlam released tonight, in the hope that he can help find the Demon.
Wolsey rather ashamedly restores the connection, and - at Kali's rather annoyed
urging - the ones to Kali and Damascus too.
Kali's has now found her voice - and what she sees as Wolsey just acting yet *again*
without regard for what she or Damascus might think sets her off into a big row. She
all but calls him a hypocrite - committing the same offences he accused her of back
in the day, but feeling like he's better because he keeps his hands clear. The subtext
is that she blames him for her killing the two Seer puppets - after all, he DID tell her
to just shoot people she knew to be possessed.
"You give Orders all the time.." - Kali
"I do no.." - Wolsey
"JUST... Take your hand off the rudder of my life, okay?" - Kali
Kali says, fiercely, that she's trying to get her life on track, to try to recover something
of Kemi from within herself. And that she's late for taking Trace to the Athenaeum.
And with that, she storms out.
"What the fuck was THAT?" - Wolsey
"She's having a bad day. Who killed the Seers?" - Damascus
"Guess. But she didn't have to KILL them" - Wolsey
"... I believe you told her to, remember?" - Damascus
Oh, yeah.
They head off to retrieve their vehicles - Wolsey taking the artefacts - and Damascus
elects to pick Avatar up on his way.
Mark points out that Kali didn't tell them about the snake vision. He'd have a lot more sympathy for Kali if she ever told them
about the weirdness she experiences, rather than blaming them for it regardless. Sam, on the other hand, points out that she
*did*, almost as soon as it happened, and they just ignored her. This happens a fair amount - witness her trying to tell them
about the staircase earlier. She does try to tell them things, but when she does while freaked out they treat her like she's
being silly.
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Kali goes to Promethea's, finding Trace waiting outside.
"Good timing" - Kali
"I cheated. Knew this would be when you turned up" - Trace
Going briefly inside, they meet Promethea, who closes her shop up. And then the
three of them head North, out of the beltway and into the countryside, heading for the
Athenaeum - Promethea in Trace's car with Kali following on her bike.
Don't know if Kali owning a motorbike has made it into the thread before. It's why she can't drive a car.
The Athenaeum - the Mysterium's storehouse of knowledge - is a big house out in
the middle of nowhere, an hour into Maryland. Once through security (and Kali's
aware that they're being watched the whole while), the interior has been entirely
converted to storage for the Order's research materials.
Trace explains what she's looking for as Kali helps her find the correct place in the
stacks. Samuel, before he left for 1812, asked Trace to look into something for him
based on her status as a Guardian of the Veil. Specifically, she's supposed to look
for the background of the Bearers of the Eternal Voice. She knows (as does Kali)
from Samuel that Malakaii was trained in India after he first Awakened. Trace is
trying to track the mages who did the training.
While she's reading a stack of very thick books on the lineages of Cabals of the
subcontinent, Kali uses the time to look up the Regalia of the Dethroned Queen,
judging that every bit of pre-warning helps. As per previous descriptions, the Ring
has never been positively sighted (until them) that the Mysterium knows of, nor has
the Scepter. The Crown, according to one piece of scholarly conjecture from the
1920s, is clearly a Profane Urim of some sort. The Throne was once held by a Cabal
of Silver Ladder mages until it was stolen by Seers some 300 years ago. The patchy
records - the Ladder mages didn't exactly want to advertise it's powers or their loss imply that the Throne grants the user a sympathetic connection to the entire Fallen
World, much as the Exarchs themselves must have. It lets you scry anywhere, cast
spells anywhere...
Kali thinks she's figured something out, but is interrupted by Trace.
"Here - I think this is it. This Cabal I think were the Bearers, or the original Legacy
Malakaii drifted from at any rate. They all vanished, presumed dead, 26 years ago their Sanctum was burned to the ground..." - Trace
Trace says that the Cabal's Hallow, hidden somewhere near to their Sanctum, was
never found.
Kali knows where it is, though. She's just been in it.
Kali is still reading her own books, disturbed by the thoughts rolling around her head.
She looks up the Robe, and follows the trail already blazed by Ulysses to Cxaxa
Querephas. Querephas had many appellations, "splintered sight" and "cold smile"
among them, and Kali finds a dissenting opinion from a Mysterium scholar during the
civil war. He argued that the Robe - which supposedly hides the user from the
Exarchs - only served to enrage them. And in fact didn't hide the user at all, only
signalled to the secret rulers of the world that someone was *trying* to hide from
them.
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Trace has finished, putting her books back and making conversation. The premier
topic of conversation in the Consilium - Malakaii - comes up, and Trace tells her how
it's going - Mr Thursday has been haranguing Banneker, and has managed to get
himself involved again. He's been in touch with The Magister - Malakaii's boss, the
guardian who oversees a region of several states.
"Thursday's called in an Eleventh Question" - Trace.
Kali has no idea who the Eleventh Question are, and didn't ask. Trace was clearly impressed/intimidated by Thursday's
decision, though. The Question are a Legacy from the Guardian Order book (same as the Bearers, in fact) and will be
described later on.
Back at the Sanctum, having retrieved their motor vehicles and the still slightly
annoyed fourth Cabal member, Wolsey, Damascus and Avatar are figuring out what
they can do with the remains of their day. The quest to get her a tutor to induct her
into an Order is brought up and Wolsey decides to start the ball rolling, writing the
Ascendants a letter requesting an audience.
"I don't have any.. Damascus, could you make some ink?" - Wolsey
Damascus goes into the bathroom and returns with a glass of ink, freshly transmuted
from tap water. He then uses further magic to have it trace out letter-shapes to
Wolsey's dictation.
"I can't believe I'm bending the powers of Stygia to act as your stenographer" Damascus, wryly
Later, long after the sun has gone down, Kali returns to base and interrupts their talk
of orders.
"Guardians. Thursday? Nimrod?" - Wolsey
"I thought we'd gone for Trace" - Avatar
(entering) "Trace is cool" - Kali
"...She's the only sane we've met, true, Mysterium - Promethea?" - Wolsey
"No" - Damascus
"Why not?" - Wolsey
"Wolsey.. Have you ever been in Promethea's shop?" - Damascus
He hasn't
"You know how my Antinomism disturbs you? Well she lives her entire life like this.
I'm daytripping - she believes it. We do not want her getting involved" - Damascus
Kali, after establishing what they're talking about, gets annoyed with Wolsey again
and points out that the Cabal appear to be making decisions without her. Again.
Wolsey apologises, and they go through the choices for Order pitches again.
"Er. Hello? Mysterium person here" - Kali
"We'd... ah.. pretty much decided that none of us would do the pitches for our own
Orders" - Wolsey
"Oh we had, had we?" - Kali
"And how was your evening?" - Wolsey
Good change of subject, there
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"I know who the spider is" - Kali
She explains her theory (presented as fact) - a Seer of the Throne Tetrarch or
Minister or whatever has the Throne of the Dethroned Queen and is using it to spy on
everyone. She also tells them that Thursday is back on the Malakaii case (which,
they reason, would probably be what Link wants to talk to them about).
A tetrarch is a Seer of the Throne Archmage
If Thursday is conducting his own private investigation into Malakaii's death, separate
to Link's, then he must surely figure out that it was Mara before long. At which point,
the third pole in Banneker's tripod of power will well and truly shatter.
"Poor Link. We're really screwing him over, aren't we?" - Avatar
"Yes" - Wolsey, completely unrepentant.
They need to catch this demon, sooner rather than later. Time to think outside the
box.
"There is one plan that presents itself... It's insane, mind" - Wolsey
They are willing to listen.
"The demon is driven by Mara's jealousy to attack people she feels envious of."
(shrugs) "We tell her that Seraph has the Soul Stone" - Wolsey
And let them fight it out. Kali vetoes the plan, though - asking if Wolsey really thinks
Seraph couldn't handle it. Wolsey points out that Malakaii couldn't handle it and
Damascus - musing - agrees with Kali. Malakaii only didn't handle it because he
refused to fight back with Vulgar magic. Seraph wouldn't care how much Paradox he
caused. Besides, then they wouldn't get the kudos of killing it themselves.
There is, however, an alternative.
"We could lay an ambush. Get everyone together, and then own up to where we
were this afternoon to Mara. When the Demon comes for us, we can be waiting for it.
But I don't like that one - I'm not being bait." - Wolsey
"I said *I* wasn't being bait for the Seers, and you were okay with that" - Kali, bitterly
They argue about the Seers for a while - which leads on to them realising they made
different conclusions about Hera's status vs. Seraph's. Wolsey thought she was his
underling, Kali characterised her as acting like his mother.
"So they've got one driven mind-twisting sort, one woman who argues with him all the
time and spots the obvious traps he doesn't. Do they have a Damascus and a me as
well?" - Avatar, somewhat sarcastically
Well... as a matter of fact, yes they do. Seraph's Pylon is a Bizzaro-world Cabal. Or, as I like to think of them, "The Linear
Guild".
Oh, all right. They're probably not - this is a case of my players interpreting Hera bitching at Seraph about not checking for
enemies - plus the parallel between her and Kali's Shadow Names - as meaning they're a parallel for their own characters. At
the time, I actually just considered it to be a indication of how much more internecine the Seers of the Throne are. A Cabal,
as Damascus occasionally points out, are supposed to above all things be able to trust one another. A Seer is always aware
that their Pylon could sell them out at any second.
This feeds into something that will probably come up later in the chronicle - Seraph's Pylon are just as freaked out by his
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obsession with Kali as her Cabal are.
At which point Banneker phones Wolsey
"Thursday. Damned Thursday" - Banneker
"Good evening, sir" - Wolsey, mildly
The Hierarch complains that Thursday threatened him with the Guardians pulling out
of the Consilium, until Banneker was forced to cave and allow Thursday to join in on
the investigation. he THOUGHT Thursday wanted to join the Link-Crucible team, but
instead Thursday is calling in outside experts.
"The Eleventh Question" - Banneker
"Oh! Yeah. Forgot to mention. Trace told me that" - Kali
The Question, Banneker explains/moans, are a Legacy barely recognised as part of
the Guardians. Certain sections of Awakened thought hold that each Arcanum is the
answer to a specific question - the Legacy purports to be the answer to the
unanswerable ones left behind.
"I was going to ask what the other ten were" - Damascus
"You know Sherlock Holmes, Wolsey? How in the stories he could look at a person
and deduce things about them? The Question can do that - as beginners. A Question
of particular skill and age can look at his evidence, look at his suspect list and *know*
who did it. Sometimes even why. They're distrusted by the other Guardians because
the Order is dedicated to secrets, to hiding the Supernal. The Question are dedicated
to the Truth at all costs. They can't even *lie*." - Banneker
Wolsey thumps his forehead in the background.
"Have you ever seen Columbo?" - Banneker, trying to get this into their terms
"Half an episode" - Damascus
"Exactly. Exactly that. The Question will interview a few people, talk to some more,
examine the body... and then he'll have Mara arrested after making the deduction
with his Attainment. We're Fucked" - Banneker
Wolsey thinks through this as Banneker rants some more.
"Is there any way we can get Samuel back from whenever he is?" - Banneker
"1812? Um.. Probably not" - Kali
"Not strictly true. I bet he'll have spells to bring him back if his body is disturbed" Damascus
"...But given everything else, would you really want Samuel pissed off with us?" Wolsey
"No. No." - Banneker, resigned
He is doing it again. Banneker's strengths as a Hierarch are counterbalanced by his pretty whopping weaknesses. Like his
need to have someone to tell him he's doing okay and that something is the right decision. Also his tendency to think that the
devil you know is better than the angel you don't - Banneker tolerated Malakaii's excesses because he KNEW Malakaii, and
it got out of hand and eventually led to this. Even now, as it's all crumbling around his ears, Banneker wants to save Mara's
career because the alternative - scrapping all his plans and starting again - is unthinkable.
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This is option one. I'll point out option two later, and what they're about.
Wolsey points out that there's no-one but them. And with the Question coming, they
have a deadline.
"He asks questions. We need answers before he gets here. This must be resolved to
everyone's satisfaction now." - Wolsey
What does he have in mind?
"We go to Mara's now and talk to her. Her position is now untenable. Maybe this time
she'll be willing to see sense" - Wolsey
"Specifics?" - Banneker
"We go there and poke her until she breaks down or flips out. Then we try to kill the
demon when it appears" - Wolsey
Banneker reluctantly agrees to it and hangs up.
Sometimes, as Bill Adama tells us, we must roll the hard six. Whatever the hell that means.
It is now, though, just after 11pm. Wolsey doesn't want to wait until morning, though.
The plan, hasty as it is; They go to Mara and try to convince her, with this new
knowledge and Thursday snapping at her heels, to admit what she's done.
"And what if she just kills us?" - Damascus
"We'll go in unarmed. I know, I know - but we have to. Especially after last time, we
have to show her we're peaceful. Not even a Shielding" - Wolsey
Put it this way, he says - it'll determine if the whole thing WAS an accident or not.
Though Wolsey (and, oddly, Kali) are pretty certain that it was. She wouldn't have
been capable of attacking Malakaii of her own volition.
Do they want to bring a Claviclarius? Like Promethea?
"No. Anyone we bring would stand to gain, politically. We can't take the risk.
Especially not Promethea" - Wolsey
"Agreed" - Damascus
"I'm coming" - Avatar
"What?" - Wolsey
"She's even less likely to just kill me" - Avatar
"Point" - Wolsey
Kali casts a divinationary spell to see if going to Mara's is a good idea. Judging it to
be neither as far as she's concerned, she tells the others that the coast is clear.
---
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It's gone midnight when they get to Mara's building. Hoping she's not in bed already,
they knock. A dressing gown-clad Mara peers suspiciously out of the door at them.
"Oh. It's the Crucible" - Mara, weary
"Can we come in?" - Wolsey
"Why?" - Mara
They have information, they say. And they want to talk.
The door closes, and there's the rattle of the chain being taken off.
All assemble in Mara's office. She is initially dismissive, asking how the campaign on
her behalf is going with a rather superior tone. Not so good, they say - the Guardians
of the Veil are rebelling and now Thursday has called in the Eleventh Question. Mara
says, coolly, that such things can be dealt with - and that they had best deal with
them.
The Cabal say that her immediate push to replace Malakaii as Councillor is causing
more people to come out as her enemies than as her friends. Mara defensively asks
why she *shouldn't* be Councillor.
"Why *should* you? Given that you lost control of your Demon. Or was that
deliberate?" - Damascus, annoyed.
"It was an accident. And I am going to deal with it" - Mara
"Well, then, the fact remains. Why should you be councillor when you can't control
your own Jealousy?" - Damascus
Mara has no answer, just repeating her Mantra - that the time is now for her to be
elected.
"Why? You're a good Provost. And a good leader of our Caucus. All of the Order rely
on you for so many things - and half the Guardians as well. Why councillor? Why
now?" - Damascus
"If I don't do it now, I never will... Look, I AM sorry - more sorry than you know - about
Gideon. I will have to live the rest of my life with the knowledge that..." - Mara
"That you killed your Mentor" - Damascus
"YES. That!" - Mara
"Why did you hate him?" - Damascus
"I.. didn't. If I..." - Mara
Mara tells her story
"When I first came here it was fine.. but then I joined the Arrow. Malakaii all but gave
up on me - he tolerated me and found a use for me but he wouldn't treat me like a
successor. I was too loyal to Banneker for him and too loyal to him for Banneker.
Malakaii had me train Tybalt, so that he'd have someone to replace me with. And
then Wolsey came along, and Banneker knew he could get rid of me too. I am sorry
about Gideon, but I can't wait until the next time a seat comes free. Maybe one day
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Samuel will get bored and go off to become an Archmage. Maybe Fisher King will
retire. But by then the likes of HIM" (points at Wolsey) "Will have caught up with me.
It HAS to be now." (to Wolsey) "Be careful of Banneker, Wolsey. Or you might find
that after you've burned all your other bridges for his cause he'll forget everything you
did for him" (disgusted) "And replace you with someone more convenient as well" Mara
Option Two
"Why did Malakaii keep you as his apprentice?" - Damascus
"His own Mentor was my grandfather. My being trained by Malakaii isn't a debt I owe
to him - it was him discharging one against my family. I owe.. owed... him nothing" Mara
Kali asks her something, and Mara swears at her in Hindi before looking ashamed of
herself, like that was beneath her.
Whatever she called her, it was very rude - and a reference to Kali's mixed race. Mara has a problem with Kali - has all
chronicle.
Wolsey asks her, once again, why she HAS to be councillor.
Mara snaps.
"So that I would have one accomplishment that was MINE! NOT BANNEKER
GETTING A PUPPET! NOT MALAKAII OWING MY FAMILY! MINE!" - Mara
At which point the Demon materialises in the room.
Wolsey puts his hands up, refusing to do anything. Kali draws a gun. Damascus,
though, has a bright idea - he uses Mind magic to project emotion - specifically
contentment - directly onto the demon, trying to drive the creature away. Avatar
follows his lead and Mara, screaming at the creature that she accidentally made, tries
(and fails) to compel it to obey her.
Damascus and Avatar's spells use Mind magic to effectively deny the spirit the ability to use it's Influence, and do bashing
damage to it. Mara attempted to control it with the Spirit Arcanum but failed.
Instead of obeying Mara, the creature rounds on Wolsey - the focus of her Envy in
the room, as the person who Banneker has abandoned her for. Wolsey closes his
eyes as it lunges in at him, slashing long, bloody wounds with it's sharp fingernailclaws. Damascus keeps up his attack, but Avatar - seeing her husband fall to the
floor - screams and throws Mara's desk lamp at the back of the creature's head. Kali,
seeing Wolsey drop, drops the arm holding her gun and throws out the other,
weaving an Imago to Shield Wolsey.
In all the confusion, only Wolsey - lying there and concentrating on his pain - senses
an active spell none of them cast. Someone is scrying on the room
Wolsey has taken four lethal damage - which, irony of ironies, fulfils his virtue condition and refreshes his willpower. First time
*that's* happened in a nWoD game I've been in too. Kali's spell is a simple and robust Fate-based Shielding spell, cast on
another person at the third level of the Arcanum.
The creature continues to attack Wolsey, but it's flurry of claw blows, like a dog
digging a hole, somehow never hit and instead tear up the carpet all around him. The
demon looks up at Kali with baleful green glowing eyes. Kali - gun back in position -
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opens fire. While it's stumbling under her attack, Damascus - resorting to the direct
method - smacks it over the head with one of Mara's chairs. Mara, enraged, renews
her own magical attack and this time the creature shrinks away from her, howling.
Or maybe it's just the blows from the rather heavy metal chair-legs that are having
the desired effect.
The armour provided by Kali's shielding spell, plus the spending of some of his newly refreshed willpower, means Wolsey
didn't get hit by the Demon. Damascus has a specialisation in improvised weapon. Mara resorted to ugliness and cracked
open the can marked "Fraying Practice of Spirit", inflicting Lethal damage on the Spirit.
At which point, Space rips itself open and Beckett is in the room, surrounded by his
buzzing, cutting Nimbus.
The Demon is on the defensive now as everyone assaults it. Wolsey takes up the
slack left by Damascus and uses Mind Magic to dampen the resonance powering it.
Damascus - using a chair like a lion-tamer - tries to lead the Demon to look at him
and not anyone else, while Kali shoots it again. Mara - growing more confident Frays it again. The Demon, going toe-to-toe with Damascus, gets a lucky hit in on the
Moros and wounds his forearm.
Beckett, calmly furious, builds his Imago and releases it. The air rings like a bell as a
Ward keyed against Spirits snaps into life around the Demon, which rebounds on an
attempt to jump onto Damascus.
Mara and Avatar hurry to Wolsey, who by now is bleeding badly. Damascus - stood
*right* next to the ward - carefully steps backwards. Kali watches Beckett carefully.
Not holstering her weapon.
Beckett starts chuckling. Mara snaps her head round to glare at him from her position
crouched next to Wolsey
"You know.. I promised myself that I'd... 'Kill' is not the word... Violate the person who
cheated me. But this" (gestures around) "This is just FUNNY. Gideon's little adopted
girl from the mother country. You have to live with killing your mentor. And believe
me." (snarls) "I'm going to tell EVERYONE. But if you'll excuse me, I appear to be
violating my parole" - Beckett
There's an upsetting flash of his nimbus, and he's gone. Vanished.
The Demon, trapped in the ward, howls.
Mara, not looking him in the eye, focuses and heals Wolsey's wounds - over his
protests that he can do it himself with Mana.
Why Beckett, and this on-the-face-of-it hammering of the way the scene was going by the Storyteller? At the time it made
sense. I was thinking, mostly, that the cabal had known they didn't have the Spirit Arcanum all along. That they'd spent
almost all of last session getting Beckett on side, making the sacrifices necessary to do so, and that an ally turning up isn't a
deus ex machina when you've spent four hours of game time priming them to do so. Even so, it was de-protagonising - and
even five minutes later I regretted it. Would I do it again? I don't know. But admitting that something's tacky is the first step to
avoiding it. Storytelling is a learning process.
Wolsey, flexing his arm and wincing, gets to his feet, helped up by Avatar. They - and
Kali - tell Mara to fucking well DEAL with this and walk out, leaving her alone with
Damascus and the Demon.
Mara goes, shakily, to stand behind her desk.
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The Demon screeches.
"We can survive this" (to herself) "We can spin this. Yes" (nods) "Yes, this could
work. The creature came here. It came to attack us..." - Mara, shaken
"Mara" - Damascus, gently
"We can USE this" - Mara, shrugging off his attempt "This looks good. We caught the
demon. And by the time we've destroyed it no-one will know where it came from." Mara
"Mara. Beckett knows" - Damascus
"And who's going to believe him?" (laughs, cracked and raw) "I can survive this." Mara
She picks up her phone from among the wreckage and dials a number, tapping her
fingers impatiently as the other end rings.
"Shore? Yes. Yes, we've caught it! The demon came to my..." (she freezes) "You..."
(she stops tapping her fingers) "Well.. could... Yes..." (quietly) "Will you still come?" Mara
She puts the phone down and, finally defeated, falls backward into her chair. All hope
now destroyed.
"He's at Beckett's" - Mara, shell-shocked
--Outside, Wolsey, Avatar and Kali are tired, pissed off and furious. Kali is angry at this
entire business, raging against the world and everything in it.
Wolsey wants to throw Beckett to the wolves. He came out of his house, unasked,
and has dealt the final blow to Mara. He's not angry for Banneker, though - there's
something else there. Kali, though, has taken more than she can take today. She's
furious at Mara, furious at herself. The vision of the snake (one form of the
mythological Mara, as she remembers sourly), the mysterious Spider scrying on
them... Killing Seraph and Hera. It's all weighing on her and she's close to snapping
point.
Option Three
--Damascus and Mara don't say much to each other, as they wait for Shore to teleport
to the house. Damascus watches silently as Shore helps Mara to reincorporate the
Demon into herself, the awful thing vanishing as it takes it's proper place in Mara's
psyche.
Mara leaves the room, saying she needs to make a phone call. Sighing, Damascus
just waits for her, Shore packing his magical tools away in the background.
When she returns, she hands the still-active phone to Damascus and sits, her face in
her hands.
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"Damascus?" - Banneker
"Sir" - Damascus, weary
"Mara has begged the council's indulgence, claimed that she caused Malakaii's
death via magical accident. She has resigned from her position as Provost and is no
longer an officer of this Consilium. Please take all materials belonging to the
Consilium into custody. They will be safe with your Cabal until we can decide their
disposition" - Banneker
Damascus agrees, and hands the phone back.
"It's for the best" - Damascus, sympathetically
Mara, destroyed, doesn't answer to agree nor disagree.
It's good that it's Damascus - the member of the Order that is now Mara's only distinction and the person who was hardest on
her in the confrontations leading up to this - that's the one with her in these immediate post-battle fallout scenes.
While they assess what needs to be taken, Shore and Damascus talk about the
fallout. Including the fact that the Arrow will probably have to add guarding Mara from
the Guardians to their duty roster.
--Damascus steps out into the humid July night, spotting Wolsey and Avatar standing
alone together on the street corner, beneath the tree Wolsey despaired under when
he first found Avatar in the city. Avatar tells him that Kali muttered only something
about needed to get her head together before she left.
Damascus tells them what's happened, and Wolsey breaths a sigh of mixed relief
and anticipation of the work ahead. This means that Banneker's plan has failed - and
so new plans must be made.
They head back inside to collect the materials they're confiscating from Mara.
--Back at the Sanctum, Damascus and Wolsey talk about what they're going to do now
while Avatar adds Mara's items to the things looted from Malakaii's Sanctum. Books,
diagrams, charts... And the Eyes of Salt.
"What are you thinking?" - Damascus
"That we're going to have a hard time of it from here on in, and that there's
something that needs doing" - Wolsey
He sighs, swirling his hard-won cup of coffee around.
"Because, the thing is, Mara was right about Banneker. She was wrong about many
things, but she was right about that." - Wolsey
The Options dotted through the session are easy - they're the possible moments when Wolsey decided that Banneker
needed to be taken out. Care to enlighten us, Mark?
"You intend to do something about it?" - Damascus
Banneker is a weak ruler, and has caused untold damage already. Wolsey *likes* the
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man, and respects him - but he respected Malakaii, too...
"Why would you be better?" - Damascus
"I have you. And Kali. And Avatar. I trust and respect someone who is *different* to
myself, who I argue with." - Wolsey
Damascus considers, and nods.
Wolsey smiles, very tired.
"Take my hand" - Wolsey
They shake on it.
"That's it. We just formed the committee to elect the next Hierarch" - Wolsey
West Wing reference, Mark tells me.
"Step one. We get Ulysses elected as Councillor..." - Wolsey
Because he's the one Banneker wants - and the one that will hurt Banneker the most.
--Kali is sat in her thinking place, watching the stars. There's a crunch of gravel next to
her.
"Are you going to shoot me again?" - Seraph
"No" - Kali, sadly
They look at the stars
"Are your Gods looking down on us? Can you see them from here?" - Kali
"I had a big justification speech planned, explaining my point of view. Why I do what I
do. You'd have been impressed. Maybe even turned on the spot." (frowns) "But you
shot me and I kind of forgot it" - Seraph
Is true. I had a whole thing planned.
He sits down next to her.
"Why did you leave?" - Kali
"I became aware, in my early years as a Mage of the Guardians of the Veil, that there
was more out there than in my teacher's philosophy. They teach you all kinds of
things that don't hold up against scrutiny - like how, given that they control this world
and we all awaken after growing in this world enough, the Exarchs can't possibly be
responsible for your Awakening" - Seraph
Kali frowns
"Eventually, I became aware that there was something else. Looking down us,
observing us. You've felt it, I know, with that Bell thing you took from the Irishmen.
That sense of inevitability.. like everything is going to plan. If we can't beat the plan,
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Kemi.. If even the magics we use to alter this world are part of God's design, then
why fight? It is useless to fight on this world, when even the act of fighting is an act of
submission." - Seraph
He leans back, companionable but serious. Trying to explain this.
"I know that the Gods exist. I can feel the weight of their plan, and I know that you
can too. History teaches us, though, that the Gods can be joined. I have that right. I
believe I am worthy. We are elevated above normal humans through our magic - why
stop here? Why insist that we know everything? I want to observe the observer. I
want to look God in the eye, and in so doing be transformed. I want to Ascend. And
that's why I left" - Seraph
Kali is silent for a long time.
"Was this before or after you burnt down the Cabal's Sanctum?" - Kali
A-HA! Good link. Wrong, but good link.
"Wasn't me. Well before my time. By the time I was trained, Malakaii was all that was
left of that group." - Seraph
"I'm never going to join you" - Kali, quietly
"You don't have to" - Seraph
He touches her hair.
"You're like me. You can feel the sight of God on you. It's too late for me to be
anything other than a persuader, someone that can lie with a smile. But you - you're
good at finding things. At following threads and signals back to their source." Seraph
He stands up
"Good night, Kemi" - Seraph
Kali watches him leave.
--Later, and Kali returns to the Sanctum, where she hears of Wolsey’s decision. She
doesn't like it much - in fact, she doesn't want him to do it, and is unhappy (though
accepting) when he insists, and explains his reasoning.
In the morning, the Cabal go to see Link, who thanks them - rather stiffly - for their
part in the investigation, which is now concluded. He's understandably hurt that they
kept him in the dark for so long, but his sense of betrayal by Mara outweighs that of
the Cabal. In the afternoon, they catalogue all the materials they took, and - thanks to
Damascus providing Prime-based Mage Sight, Wolsey starts examinations of the
Soul Stone, ready to take on Malakaii's Legacy.
--Days later, and the contest for Councillor - now left wide open - begins. Malakaii's
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chair in the Consilium sanctum has been left out where everyone can see it. Those
that wish to declare themselves candidates place a metal disk showing their personal
sigil onto the chair. When the day to vote on it comes - at the Caucus to be held in
September - each member of the Consilium in good standing receives a number of
tokens determined by an arcane set of rules involving rank, seniority, ability and
Legacy. They then place their tokens into urns - one urn for each sigil on the chair.
Most tokens wins.
The only candidate to put themselves forward so far... Is Melchior, the Ascendant.
Wolsey notes that this is not entirely unexpected, given the Ascendant’s noises about
becoming more involved and leading the Awakened back to the 'true path'.
The fallout from Mara's admission is felt in large and small ways by all the Pentacle
mages in the city. The Gatekeepers Cabal is now, officially, split asunder - Thursday
has led his followers to form a new Cabal, comprising of the Guardians of the Veil out
of the old one. And - for although he has forgiven the Cabal he is less forgiving of her
- Link. The Adamantine Arrow, Damascus reports, are bodyguarding Mara for fear of
reprisals.
These little scenes now are the wrap-up, getting things out there and noted before we go off into the second story of Reign of
the Exarchs next time.
--Their letter is replied to a week later, and so the Cabal of the Crucible go to visit the
Ascendants. Melchior lectures them about the role of the Diamond Orders in both
Atlantis and today - he is dismissive of the Free Council - and tells them something of
their backstory. Balthazar, the Acanthus, makes all decisions of policy for the group,
using Fate and Time magic to read what the proper course of action is. Kali can
relate - she does it a lot, too.
I know Kali cast 8-again on herself at *some* point in this session, I just forget when.
Melchior also shows them a Scroll - they glimpsed this when they were last here which he claims is incredibly ancient, depicting three kings leading the Silver Ladder
back to greatness.
--Once back from the Ascendents, the Cabal know just what they're doing now. Hiding
all the non-magical material taken from Malakaii or Mara (in Wolsey's flat, mostly),
they take the magical items - Malakaii's tools, the Eyes of Salt, the Soul Stone, and
decide it's best they keep their heads down for a while.
So they're off to Las Vegas.
End
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Story 5 Recap:
"Who Benefits?"
23rd July - 4th August 2006
Session 5.1
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Wolsey waits while Banneker gets an accurate picture of what's going on.
Malakaii is dead, he says, and Jude has recovered the corpse. Banneker
says that first he and Wolsey must confirm the innocence of their own allies.
Thursday, the Cabal and Beckett are the most obvious suspects. Wolsey
wants to go to Beckett, but Banneker forbids it until Damascus and Kali are
cleared.
Wolsey contacts Damascus, who has moved into Dantor's area with his
booze-selling operation. Damascus isn't too upset that Malakaii is dead, but
agrees to meet up. Wolsey phones Kali, who admits that she has no alibi.
Banneker teleports away, promising to be in touch.
Kali and Damascus have met up and are comparing notes as they enter the
Sanctum. Kali promises to do something about the graffiti Seraph left. They
talk about Seraph, and Damascus assures her he doesn't share Wolsey's
opinion about what Kali should or shouldn't do about the Seer.
Wolsey arrives and - after discovering that neither of them particularly care
about Malakaii - gives a horrified speech about how no-one deserves to be
killed, and educates them about the possible political fallout of this - the
Guardians and the Gatekeeper Cabal both now need new heads, and the city
needs a new councillor. And then there's Malakaii's Legacy, which he kept a
tight reign on.
Kali expresses her theory that she might have done it - and says that she's
having an inkling that maybe the mysterious "Spider" mage is her own future
self.
Wolsey establishes Avatar's alibi (she's been bowling with Trace) and learns
that Mara is both trying to keep her own Cabal (the Gatekeepers) together,
answer demands for updates and make the first moves in a bid to succeed
Malakaii. Mara is henceforth added to the "suspects" list.
Banneker phones and - after Wolsey tells him Kali and Damascus are in the
clear - tells them to go to Beckett and establish his innocence or guilt.
Beckett - who has sensed Malakaii's death through the connection one has
with a Legacy tutor - is having an impromptu celebration fuelled by his misery
at having his revenge cheated out of him.
Kali uses her Legacy Attainment to prove Beckett's innocence (though does
learn that Beckett sacrificed an intruder a while back, feeding his essence to
various unsavoury spirits). Beckett says that he expects to be blamed
regardless. Following up on the hints Wolsey's been picking up from his
discussions with Banneker, they ask about Demons. Beckett gives a brief
lecture on Demonology and the five essential groupings of "Demon".
Beckett's lecture describes Acamoth, Underworld Demons, Pandemonium
Demons, Maeljiin and Goetic Demons, along with the skillset necessary.
Which, given how big Suleiman's Goetic Legacy is in the city, isn't much of a
help. He also describes the specific method he tried to use to kill Malakaii
back in the day.
Heading now to Ulysses' church, the Cabal report in to Link, who has been
assigned as Sentinel the job of investigating the death.
Link tells them what's been learned so far - it was definitely a demon, and
Dantor sculpted the last thing Malakaii saw in Ectoplasm. Link reproduces it
as a Prime-based Phantasm - a very long haired female form with backward
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hands. Damascus identifies it's form as a Raksha, an Indian shapeshifter
demon. It attacked it broad daylight, and Malakaii was killed because he
refused to use vulgar magic in his own defence.
Link lists suspects and includes Seraph - the Cabal learning for the first time
that Seraph is a Bearer of the Eternal Voice, and in fact Beckett's former
apprentice. It was him going to the Seers that made Malakaii hard-line, and
drove Beckett in turn to the Abyss. Link says that Malakaii's original Cabal in
India all went Seer too.
Wolsey tries to think of a plan to trap Seraph, Kali refusing to act as bait, and
it comes out that she slept with the Seer, which Link didn't know.
Link retreats to update his notes, and Ulysses tells the Cabal he's found out on an unrelated note - what the Eyes of Salt do.
The Eyes are the creation of the ancient antediluvian mage Cxaxa
Querephas, and reproduce her Nimbus of freezing, draining cold. Ulysses
speculates that they're to allow someone entry into a ward she set up, and
reveals that said ancient, ancient magus is supposed to have owned the
Robe of the Dethroned Queen - the second of the Raiment that the Cabal
have the first of.
Link has had a brainwave. He wants them to get some other members of the
House of Ariadne and postcognitise the scene of the murder. Kali arranges to
meet Trace and Katherine.
In the car, the Cabal muse over how little they know. Kali mentions that
Avatar called her Rani, which means "Queen". India again - like Malakaii's
background, and Mara. Kali and Wolsey are disturbed, but Damascus is now
riding high on bullish enthusiasm to collect all the artefacts. Maybe they'll turn
into a giant robot.
Damascus and Wolsey, safe and dry from the thunderstorm now soaking the
city inside Wolsey's car, watch Kali Katherine and Trace use their
Attainments. The creature appears to be made, they say, of shed hair and
flakes of skin. It had glowing green eyes, and seemed to shift to Twilight after
killing Malakaii.
Trace says the battle between Mara and Thursday for control of the
Gatekeepers is heating up. Thursday is insulted he's being left out of the
investigation. Mara is already campaigning for Councillor while Thursday
looks like a shoe-in for Epopt (head of the Guardians).
They have a theory - all the evidence coupled with Avatar saying that she'd
been practicing Astral travel with her tutors. They head to Mara's.
Avatar greets them, and Wolsey asks her to wait outside.
Mara is arguing over the phone with Thursday when they go in to see her. At
first she denies it, using her Attainments as a Bearer to cloud their minds, but
Damascus' own mental shielding helps him resist and he spots that her Aura
has no Envy within it. She tries and fails to cover with a false aura, but the
truth comes out - Mara was self-medicating for the stress and pressures of
her position by using Goetic magic, and formed her own Jealousy into an
external dumping form in Astral space. Somehow the resulting demon got
free and attacked the main cause of Mara's envy - Malakaii.
Mara, though, refuses to give herself up. Or even acknowledge that it
happened. She reminds them that Banneker needs her for his schemes, and
says that she will handle matters. She also hints that she'll grant Wolsey the
Legacy if he helps cover this up.
Wolsey tells Avatar she's coming with them, and they decide to take what
they've learnt to Banneker. They DO need Mara, but not in all Malakaii's
former positions, and they need safeguards in place. There are several
people who would try to kill her if the truth were revealed. Wolsey has the
idea of Beckett - they could try to redeem him now that Malakaii is gone.
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Avatar points out how good the PR would be if Beckett helped destroy the
demon - which Wolsey very much approves of as an idea.
Banneker agrees with their assessment. They'll not act against Mara's
campaign for Councillor, but they will try to introduce Shore - as a demonhunter - and Ulysses (Banneker's choice) as candidates, and bring Beckett
back into society.
Session 5.2
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It's now late at night, and Kali and Avatar are dropped off at the Sanctum. Kali
decides to make good on her earlier promise to Damascus and - fuelled by
wine - paints (badly) over the graffiti'd door. She is interrupted by Blaise
dropping by, who wants her to take Trace to the Athenaeum - the Mysterium's
storehouse of knowledge.
Monday 24th July
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Damascus has spent the night watching porn and drinking. He goes to see
Ulysses, who is at home rather than at the church. Ulysses' name is revealed
to be Peter Joyce and over the course of their conversation - in which
Ulysses says that he dislikes Banneker and cannot in good conscience allow
Banneker to obliviously sponsor him as Councillor - Damascus accidentally
lets slip what Mara has done. Ulysses' opinion is that Mara needs help, but
that the first step of receiving help is to be able to ask for it and acknowledge
what one has done. If Mara does win the position she's after and doesn't
come clean, then Ulysses will challenge her to Certamen. And, it is implied,
beat her quite soundly. He also diagnoses Mara's problem as being in danger
of being forgotten - Banneker has abandoned her in favour of less
troublesome pawns like Wolsey, and Malakaii had long since paid only lip
service to her being his protégée. He also warns Damascus not to get himself
thrown out of the Adamantine Arrow, which Mara is highly placed within.
Wolsey and Damascus meet up. The next moves, they decide, should be to
apologise to Mara for the confrontation of the night before. Ulysses is not
enthused - he isn't happy with Mara profiting from Malakaii's death, even if it
was an accident. They talk about the Adamantine Arrow and Mara's position.
Damascus says that it's Mara's position as a counsellor (in the psychiatric
sense) that makes her valuable - most members of the Arrow unburden
themselves to her, and she acts as their support. This does not make her an
easy person to try to fight an election against.
Pained by Kali's paintjob, Damascus tries to rectify it magically and Havocs
his first attempt, soaking everything with blue paint. His next try goes better,
as he absorbs the paradox into his own pattern as backlash.
Avatar is up, Kali isn't. Avatar says Kali had a male visitor last night, and that
there were noises of intercourse. They talk about what to do with Avatar - she
needs to have her training completed, and to be inducted into an Order. They
decide to make a list of possible tutors - and to go to Promethea to make sure
she's okay with releasing Avatar in the first place.
Kali wakes up in bed next to Blaise, who Avatar is just explaining to Wolsey is
Samuel's boyfriend. She sneaks out and joins the others.
Now that they're all gathered, they decide to head to Beckett's to make sure
he doesn't leave the city and agrees to help with the demon-hunt. Wolsey -
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and his inevitable rise to Hierarch - is discussed along the way. In the car,
Kali admits that Beckett has been in the habit of sacrificing would-be burglars.
Beckett is entertaining a guest when they get there - a Spirit of the Shadow
World name Count Atraxis, some kind of "perspective" spirit. Beckett has
been trying to find the demon. The gang put Banneker's offer to Beckett, who
agrees as long as Banneker publicly admits he needs Beckett's help and
comes in person. Beckett's pride is doing the talking, but the Cabal eventually
get him to concede by flattery and getting him talking about Astral demons which they confirm the creature to be to him. Beckett says it will be drawn to
Jealousy and Envy, and be compelled to try to create those conditions
wherever it is. As a parting shot, Beckett notes that the various races for
positions fulfils that quite nicely. Especially the race for Malakaii's Legacy. He
says that Malakaii had a Soul Stone, and had transfigured a Hallow into being
an Annullity using it. But whoever finds said stone could theoretically learn
Malakaii's Legacy from it. At the last, as they're leaving, Beckett says that if
he gets the stone he'll destroy it.
In the car, Wolsey imparts the urgency. They have to be the first to the soul
stone, or Wolsey has to be at least. They decide to split up - Avatar will go to
Promethea's, Damascus will enlist Shore in their scheme and Kali and
Wolsey will look for the Soul Stone, starting by heading back to the murder
site and tracing Malakaii's steps using Kali's attainment. Just before they split
up, they experience another flash of deja vu / inevitability, indicating the
presence of the "Spider".
Damascus goes over the plan to use Beckett with Shore, who is intrigued and
agrees readily to do it.
Kali and Wolsey try to trace Malakaii back to his Hallow, but fail. Wolsey
keeps a magical lookout for the demon. Eventually, they phone Banneker,
who tells them where Malakaii's sanctum was.
Beckett and Shore, under Damascus' supervision, meet up and go over
Demonology
Kali and Wolsey arrive at the suburban house Malakaii used as a Sanctum
and Kali's spells reveal a portal in the basement. They break in and search
the place, but as they reach the basement someone else enters the house as
well. They hide.
Damascus goes to Promethea's, where he finds both Avatar and Link.
Damascus gives Link as much of an update as he can without revealing it
was Mara that did it. Promethea agrees to release Avatar, though isn't really
drawn on anything else. She asks him to remind Kali about taking Trace to
the Athenaeum, which Promethea is the keeper of.
At Malakaii's house, Wolsey and Kali surprise Seraph and Hera, another Seer
in Seraph's Pylon. The two sides have a face-off for a while, until Seraph
reveals that he knows Wolsey's real name. At that, Kali shoots Hera in the
face, killing the body she's in instantly.
Session 5.3
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Damascus, Avatar and Link are in a burger bar having a late lunch.
Seraph tries to threaten Wolsey and Kali with his Pylon, saying that they'll be
on their way. Kali shoots Seraph's puppet body, and she and Wolsey take
stock. Kali wards the area while Wolsey destroys the sympathetic
connections between the Seers and their now-vacated bodies, preventing
Seraph from raising them as zombies. Wolsey then phones Damascus and
opens a portal, allowing Damascus to join them.
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Damascus considers how to get them through the portal to Malakaii's real
Sanctum, which is in the basement with them. Eventually, he disguises his
Aura with magic so that it resembles Malakaii's. "Recognising" him, the portal
opens, and the Cabal step through.
They appear in a cavern in some unknown location, and proceed through to a
door which leads to a Labyrinth. Using Kali's powers to follow Malakaii
through the maze, they reach the Sanctum proper - a hexagonal structure
built in magically-produced spatial dimensions, with a staircase leading to
wherever this place is in the real world. The Labyrinth and the Sanctum are
both far older than Malakaii - probably an Atlantean or Antediluvian structure
Malakaii has moved into.
Kali freaks out at the similarity between the Sanctum and the Astral form of
her own home. The Cabal search the area, finding a shrine to the Hindu
Trimurti, Malakaii's magical tools and mystical library as well as all his
notebooks on DC, all sadly written in a cipher.
Wolsey finds the Soul Stone, buried beneath the central chamber. He uses
magic to retrieve it and Kali has a vision (maybe - maybe not) of herself
fighting a metallic snake and losing.
Via another Portal Wolsey opens, they return to DC and their own Sanctum.
Nimrod has dealt with the bodies of the two Seer puppets, and phones
Wolsey to say as such. Wolsey phones Avatar, who is not impressed by his
attempts to cut sympathetic connections from himself. Kali, meanwhile,
accuses Wolsey of acting without consulting the rest of them. She leaves to
take Trace to the Athenaeum.
Trace is researching Malakaii's background for Samuel - and tells Kali about
the cabal back in India who took Malakaii in and trained him. Their Sanctum
was burnt down years ago and the Cabal all killed, though no-one ever found
their Hallow.
Kali, meanwhile, researches the raiment of the Dethroned Queen, learning
that the use of the Robe legendarily enrages the Exarchs.
Trace tells Kali that Thursday has called in a member of the Eleventh
Question to independently investigate the death of Malakaii.
Back at the Sanctum, Wolsey and Damascus have retrieved their vehicles
and Avatar. They're back to discussing who to take Avatar to when Kali
returns.
Kali reckons she now knows who the Spider is - based on her researches,
she declares it to be a Seer of the Throne Tetrarch (same thing as an
Archmage, only for the bad guys) using the Throne of the Dethroned Queen,
which her researches indicate gives the user an intimate sympathetic
connection to the entire Fallen World.
Kali also tells them that Thursday is back in the game, conducting his own
investigation separate to Links. They all take a moment to reflect on how
deeply they're screwing Link over.
Wolsey has an insane plan - tell Mara that Seraph has the Soul Stone and
thereby cause her to be incredibly envious of him. Then let Seraph and the
Demon fight it out, and pick off the survivor.
Banneker phones with the news of the Eleventh Question’s imminent arrival.
He describes said Legacy to the Cabal, and bemoans that this has escalated
matters. Wolsey says that this is the push they need - and the time has come
to confront Mara again. In order to show they're peaceful, they're not to have
any defensive spells up, not even a shielding.
The confrontation meets with resistance, Mara getting more and more worked
up while Damascus attempts to reason with her. She tells her story - how
Malakaii took her on out of sufferance and a debt he owed to her grandfather,
who was a member of the original Indian Cabal. She shrieks that she wanted
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to be councillor so that she would have an accomplishment that was entirely
hers, and the Demon manifests
The Cabal fight the Demon, Wolsey being badly injured while refusing to
defend himself, until Beckett (who’s been scrying on them) teleports in and
wards the Demon. After mocking Mara, he departs. Wolsey, Avatar and Kali
leave while Damascus stays. Mara still tries to salvage her political
aspirations, but chooses to phone Shore to have the Demon destroyed - and
Shore reveals he's at Beckett's house. Defeated, Mara calls Banneker and
resigns as Provost.
Wolsey wants to throw Beckett to the wolves, while Kali is angry at the world
and everything in it. Damascus is told to confiscate all consilium materials
from Mara.
Everyone but Kali heads back to the Sanctum. While Avatar catalogues the
confiscated materials plus what the Cabal retrieved from Malakaii, Damascus
and Wolsey reflect that Mara was right about Banneker - he uses and drops
people for his own expediency, and the entire thing was indirectly his fault.
Wolsey embraces what people have been telling him and decides that he will,
one day, replace Banneker as Hierarch.
Kali is joined in her thinking place by Seraph. She notes that she can't kill him
again, and asks him if he destroyed the original Cabal of Bearers back in
India. He says it was long before his time, and tells her why he defected to
the Seers. Ever since his Awakening, Seraph has felt the "inevitability" Kali
can feel, and he figured out that the "Spider" was observing everyone. He
thinks it's an Exarch, that the world is created by the Exarch's scrutiny and
that if he can observe the observer and look into "the face of God" he can
Ascend. Which is why he's in Panopticon. He wants Kali to use her talents to
find the Spider for him.
In the morning, the Cabal visit Link. He's annoyed at being kept out of the
intrigue - they've lost an ally there.
Days later, the election for Councillor opens. Melchior of the Ascendants
announces his candidacy. The Gatekeepers Cabal splits in two - the
Adamantine Arrow and Guardian of the Veil members have gone their
separate ways. Mara herself is now reduced, concentrating on her Order who
are, in turn, guarding her against any possible Guardian reprisals.
The Cabal visit the Ascendants, who explain their philosophy - the three
members believe they are fulfilling the roles marked out in an ancient scroll,
and they make almost all decisions based on it and the Fate magic of
Balthazar.
In desperate need of a respite, the Cabal make a decision. They're off to
Vegas.
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Chapter 6: "Stop the Train, I want to Get Off"
Session 6.1
Reign of the Exarchs II
Just as with Reign Part I, a disclaimer. This session (and next session) are not my own invention. They're taken from chapter
two of Reign of the Exarchs, written by RPG.net's "Wood". A very talented man. Some names have been changed, and the
precise circumstances of the run-up to this story are specific to this chronicle. Even so, you may consider this a playtest
review of that scenario. I will note differences from the published work as I go along in my usual blue text notes, as well as
my own burblings about the scenario. I'll do a more formal review of the story at the end of next session's writeup, as per last
time.
The story wasn't completed in one session, though - our session break happened at roughly the halfway point, so I'm pretty
sure we'll finish it next time. As such please - if you're one of the several playing along at home and have read Reign,
*please* spoiler-black comments about the bits that haven't happened yet, or save them for next week. I play fast and loose
with spoilers at the best of times, judging when to reveal things (Sam, for instance, knows that the chronicle so far is a
flashback her character is having, but not the circumstances). But it's for me to decide. You've all been good campers so far.
Don't wreck this thing and deprive us all of our fun.
And on with the show. Reign II starts with a npc disappearing with a certain magical artefact, but I wanted more of a run-up.
The artefact in question, as well as the npc, have accompanied the player characters on vacation in Vegas as per the end of
last story. So - especially as we'd had a couple of weeks off in the run-up to Christmas - I thought I'd begin with that vacation,
and have the plot kick off when I was up to race speed.
The story was originally called just "The Robe" as it is in the book, but I discarded it as not fitting with the rest of the
chronicle. "Eyes of Salt" was winning for a while, and then "What Happens In Vegas" (stays in Vegas) but a line from Wolsey
won out.
Las Vegas.
10th August 2006
The Cabal are now on the fifth day of their seven-day vacation, trying to relax in their
own various ways. Or, in Damascus' case, burn through as many vices as he can
before his month of being evil is up.
There hasn't been any sign of the local Consilium - the Cabal haven't seen any
boundary markings, but then they've been keeping to the Strip or.. other.. tourist
attractions of Nevada rather than going poking around. The Casino they're staying in
does, however, have a warning in Atlantean inscribed above the door. "Beast(Lion?)
Friend Ocean negativeYou".
"You are not Danny Ocean". The Vegas consilium aren't ever seen - though the cabal are aware of their opinion of cheating
at the casinos using magic. I had intended to have a couple of appearances, and base the characters off those in the
Ascension supplement "Fallen Tower: Las Vegas", but a) I decided it would be a particularly obscure in-joke that none of my
players and painfully few of my readers would 'get' and b) I forgot to.
Kali has been on the roulette, but has mostly being enjoying being in a strange city
with it's own feel and rhythms. She's been sampling the nightlife, and picking up men.
The night before we start, she's graduated (mostly because she thought it was a
laugh) to an S&M club. It is her ambition to 'do a Britney' and get married for five
minutes.
Damascus is continuing our licentious theme by gambling wildly (and losing a lot),
drinking into the very small hours and visiting the Nevada brothels.
Wolsey and Amanda are being more sensible than their steam-releasing comrades.
Avatar's been playing craps (and as she says, is crap at it), while Wolsey's abstaining
from gambling entirely. They're both spending more time at the shows - Wolsey in
particular has taken in a boxing match and the most deadly sin of all - Celine Dion.
The casino they're staying in has not been named, though it apparently has an Egyptian theme - that appealing to a group of
Atlantean-Order Mages. Celine Dion was mentioned in 5.1 as a plan for the Vegas vacation.
Mark: "Wolsey has been unwinding hard - hence the lack of activity (Sun in the day, and shows at night cause it gets cold -
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basically, nothing that really requires thought or competition on his part). The boxing match is practice - an awful lot of deals
take place by people taking others to boxing matches, so it's good to keep up."
Wolsey and Avatar sit in a casino restaurant, seeing how many complimentary drinks
they can get out of the place, when they're joined by Kali and Damascus, both of
whom seem to be enjoying their stay more than Wolsey. He makes the mistake of
asking Kali whether she's winning, and she says that she has now just about made
her start money back, which is an improvement on the day before. She has her
hopes on buying a motorbike, which causes a fair amount of good-natured horror
from the two men about her (lack of) skill on the road.
As regards Kali's infamous driving ability, I take (I think) Armoury's advice about different modes of transport - you get the
ability to drive one (plane/car/tank-type twin joystick/motorbike) as your primary drive skill track, and buy the others with
specialities. Kali's primary track is motorbikes, and she doesn't have the speciality needed to convert that into ability with a
car.
As for the gambling, my system was pretty simple - the characters staked how many Resources dots worth of "disposable
income", and the specific game had it's odds converted into die rolls. Roulette, which is (so Rafe tells me) anywhere between
9 in 19 to 1 in 38 chance of winning, was done with a couple of d10s and some mental arithmetic. Poker is a Wits/Subterfuge
contested roll with the other players.
The conversation switches from gambling to the other activity the pair of them have
been engaging in. Damascus tells them, and Kali cheerfully says what she was doing
herself last night. She's a bit excitable about how neat she's finding it here - and
wants to find somewhere to go bungee jumping. In all, Kali seems rather wired.
Especially about the club last night.
"Good thing we didn't go to Disneyland. God knows what would have happened" Avatar
"...And now I'm getting images of Kali in leather whipping Goofy in a gimp mask" Damascus
"Everyone's getting spanked but me" - Avatar
Not just a Buffy quote out of character, but one in character too - Avatar's a fan.
Damascus and Kali regard Wolsey.
Avatar, realising that the joke has put Wolsey well out of his comfort zone, excuses
herself, wanting to try to win some money at least all trip.
Could I just point out here that this is a microcosm of the session? Avatar says something that makes Wolsey feel bad and
then rather than confront it ignores it and leaves Damascus and Kali to talk to him.
Mark: "To be honest, I think this is characterisation of their relationship, rather then a sign of tension now. Wolsey is quite a
bit more conventional then Avatar, so while it's 'cool' to jokingly talk about sex like that in company, Wolsey isn't comfortable
with it. If you notice, Wolsey tries to change the subject when Kali and Damascus go on about sex, generally."
"Dude" - Kali, to Wolsey
"Oh, you two can wipe those grins off. You're the ones who blocked me when she
joined the Cabal." (mimics Kali's voice) "Oh, no! Stay at the Sanctum!" (mockgrimaces) "After, I'd add, I offered my apartment. And after you BOTH pushed and
pushed for me to try to get back together with her." - Wolsey
"We thought you'd *fight*. You can't just give in." - Kali
Wolsey gives her a look of exasperation.
"I was making my move, MY way" - Wolsey
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"If it isn't working out, you could always go to the club with Kali" - Damascus
Wolsey gives him a look of a different kind.
"...Or the knocking shops" - Damascus
"I didn't read that in the brochure" - Wolsey
"Wrong Brochure" - Damascus
Wolsey's reply is not printable.
Change of subject.
"Listen. This place is starting to get expensive. When Avatar comes back, could you
stand going to a bar? I mean, a real bar." - Wolsey
That seems like a good idea.
--Later, and the Cabal are ensconced in a bar on the edge of Vegas, out by the desert.
The topic, as Damascus sinks the pints, is his antinomism. Someone asks how long
he has to go, and he says not long - he's getting through the vices all right, but it's
taking longer than expected. It's not really satisfying.
"Well, it's been a bit lame so far, hasn't it? If you want my advice, I mean. The bareknuckle fighting was a good idea, but since then, what? Selling booze? Gambling?
Visiting legal prostitutes? Not very evil" - Avatar
"Yes, but it contradicts HIS values" - Wolsey
Mark: "That's very important for Wolsey. He doesn't agree with what Damascus is doing, but believes it needs to personally
tailored to work."
"But not by much - if you're supposed to trash your life and values to throw the rest of
it into sharp relief, then you could take pointers from us" (nods to Wolsey) "I mean,
we're the Mastigos. The hookers won't remember you and you won't really remember
them, not the way the injuries from the boxing will be remembered. Go for broke.
Have an affair." (thinks) "Sleep with Kali." (Kali grins) "She won't mind, but it'll put a
massive strain on your friendship once it's over. I guarantee you won't forget it" Avatar
Wolsey doesn't think it's such a good idea.
"Bad Mastigos" - Wolsey
Wolsey isn't a big fan of Evil for Evil's sake. And he _hates_ being typecast with Mastigos typecasting (unless its to his
benefit, which is rare).
Avatar, more than slightly drunk, shrugs.
"If you're supposed to be intentionally doing yourself wrong to assess your own
values, you're not doing as thorough a job as you could is all." - Avatar
Damascus considers.
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"You're values were not always your values, were they? You've done that kind of
wrong in the past.." (trying to counter-argue against Avatar) "I mean, you've been to
prison. You must have done something wrong to deserve that" - Wolsey
Mark: "The point for Wolsey is that Damascus's biggest 'bugbear' or fear might be what he was before. So if you're going to
go for it, go for you're centre - what you really don't want to do."
Damascus, finishing his drink, admits that he was arrested and imprisoned for
attempted GTA combined with numerous petty offences. He didn't even get stealing
a car right, but prison led to his conversion to Catholicism...
"So? The parking lot is right there. If that's what the foundation of your moral system
is..." - Avatar
Damascus considers the parking lot.
"If you'll excuse me" - Damascus, getting up.
Damascus proceeds to the bar, where he buys two bottles of liquor. He then heads
outside to the parking lot and selects his prey - going for the most expensive car he
can find, and the one that reminds him the most of the one he was caught trying to
break into as a teen.
Back then he was a second-string ganger with more balls than brains. Now, he's a
Mage.
Stealing a Ferrari is much easier when one has Alter Conductivity at one's disposal.
Modern cars are pretty much open to a Mage with Matter or Forces magic, from the door lock to the alarm, immobiliser and
ignition. And with Matter and Death, there's a handy spell in the Guardian of the Veil book to remove all forensic traces of
yourself.
The others quietly pay up and leave, heading out before the owner of Damascus'
prey realises it's gone.
--After driving far too fast out into the desert, and drinking one of his bottles, Damascus
considers the beauty of the sunset and the intrinsic beauty of the machine for a good
half hour. Before using the second bottle to torch it.
Whistling, and reflecting that yes - that felt worse / better than the prostitutes did - he
starts the walk back towards the city, shimmering like a mirage on the horizon.
--The others, meanwhile, have decamped to wait for him, sat on the edge of an
industrial park which is itself on the edge of the city. Kali is still with the hyper, trying
to get Wolsey to go bungee-jumping with her.
"You'd think you'd never been on vacation before.. wait. You've mentioned your dad
a few times. Does he live in DC?" - Wolsey
The link being he's just pegged her as a local girl (to DC) even beyond her faking her own social background, and then
realising the implication.
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Kali rattles off a street address
"Wait a minute. That's where I picked you up that time. When you were talking about
Nickels" - Wolsey
"Yup" - Kali
"Is.. Er... Is that wise? To be skirting that close to your old life" - Wolsey
"Duh. Of course it isn't" - Kali
Mark is often of the opinion that he often just doesn't get what Sam means when she's playing Kali, and from an outside
perspective most of the friction between the two is based on miscommunication - both characters are very wrapped up with
their own world and way of saying things that they miss what the other means, take offence at things that weren't meant to be
taken offence at and talk past one another for hours. Like, in fact, the end sequence of this very session.
That said, I would like to note that in this singular case, Wolsey (and therefore Mark) realised that Kali was admitting that no,
it probably wasn't a good idea, that she entirely understood his concern and that no further conversation was necessary.
To a storyteller that has to try to recap those wide-ranging hour-long rambling arguments, this was like seeing a Saint
Bernard after an Avalanche. There is hope.
They watch the mirage-enhanced smoke rising from the desert
"Poor Ferrari" – Avatar
That evening, Damascus joins Kali at the club, and after returning to the hotel in the
small hours they decide to go for it.
Kali's the top. In case you were brave enough to wonder. Damascus doesn't so much regard it, AFAICT, as fucking Kali,
more a case of letting Kali fuck him. If Kali were of a more self-analysing nature, she'd probably see that Damascus regards
this as something disgusting to his normal self. Or maybe she does and doesn't care.
While they're otherwise occupied, though, Avatar and Wolsey have a very nice
dinner together, take in an equally nice show and retire after also nice drinks to screw
like they're newlyweds again.
--11th August 2006
At breakfast, everyone is all smiles. Damascus and Kali are slightly awkward
together, but the palpable difference in closeness between Avatar and Wolsey
distracts them.
Damascus starts to explain, saying that he and Kali...
Wolsey cuts him off.
"I've made it my business and indeed my career not caring what people do" - Wolsey
"Odd attitude for a lobbyist" - Damascus, simultaneous with;
"Could have fooled me" - Kali
"Look at Abramoff" - Wolsey
"But did he ever bungee jump?" - Kali
Mark: "The point is, Wolsey doesn't care about peoples morals if he's working for them. Technically, given the cabal get the
real Wolsey this isn't the case here, so Wolsey should have wanted to hear. But, this is another example of not particularly
wanting to talk about sex."
Pecking Wolsey on the cheek, Avatar goes to play some more tables.
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Damascus and Kali, practically in one another's lap themselves, grin in a much more
congratulatory fashion than yesterday at Wolsey.
Wolsey, though, suddenly turns serious.
"Okay. She's still having the dreams" - Wolsey
He tells them that Avatar's sleep is disturbed, that she kept waking up and in a
couple of places muttered in her sleep. Whatever her mysterious and portentous
dreams are, she's still having them when she'd led him to believe they were
subsiding. Or maybe she just let him assume that they were subsiding.
Kali casts her spell once again, and confirms that he's still Doomed. And, if she's any
judge, it's much much closer to coming to pass than before.
"I keep telling you. DO something about them. Don't just ignore it and hope it'll go
away - if you want to fight this then DO something" - Kali
Wolsey starts to say something
"DO SOMETHING" - Kali
"All right" - Wolsey
Kali goes to play more roulette - she's pretty sure she's close to winning now - while
Damascus and Wolsey wait.
--Both Avatar and Kali eventually return, Avatar now being entirely out of money. Kali,
on the other hand, is jubilant - she's won a sizeable sum, and can now afford the bike
of her dreams upon returning to DC.
"And I'll even learn how to ride it properly" - Kali
Wolsey checks, just to be sure, that she didn't cheat. She says no and he, a good
judge of these things, believes her.
"Just to check - has anyone seen anything of the locals?" - Wolsey
"I think one of the croupiers cast something the other day, but it seemed just a Mage
Sight. Oh - and there was that vampire at the slot machines" - Avatar
There is a bit of discussion as to whether being a bit pale qualifies one as a vampire,
and then the merits of Vegas' near-24 hour operating to Undead Americans.
But other than the warning signs, there's been no actual contact with the local
supernatural underground, no.
"Maybe we should announce ourselves. get the local gossip" - Wolsey
"On the last day we're here, when we've been here a week? Pushing it. Besides,
we've crossed no boundary lines and we're going home. They *can't* have a problem
with tourists" - Damascus
Anyway. Business.
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"Tell us about the dreams" - Wolsey, to Avatar
Avatar hedges for a few seconds, then gives in.
"All right. They're getting stronger. I can remember more and more of them" - Avatar
The feeling that she's supposed to do something, she says, is getting incredibly
strong.
Wolsey's opinion, as ever, is that such feelings are traps - and that she should try to
fight it.
Avatar tries to explain.
"It's like... Did you see that movie with the demon rabbit? Donnie Darko? There's a
bit where he sees his future stretched out in front of him, like a sausage made up of
the next frames in the movie of him moving. It's kind of like that. Not far-reaching. I
can... It's like I know what I'm going to do NEXT - next instant, not even next second.
And it's always there." - Avatar
Deliberate choice of analogy. Mark hates Donnie Darko.
"Can't you do something about it?" - Wolsey
"It's so close to now that no... whenever I try to, trying to is included in the feeling. If
that makes sense." - Avatar
It doesn't the way she's explaining it, but hopefully my burblings here will make sense - the feeling Avatar's getting is pretty
much like Deja Vu rather than an outright "I'm going to do this tomorrow" precognition. It's like she's following a laid-down
track.
Avatar is moving something around with her hand, and stops when they look.
She's using the Eyes of Salt as a pair of Chinese worry-beads
"Sorry. They're comforting." - Avatar, putting the eyes away
"Hey, just as long as you don't use them for anything else" - Damascus, winking at
Wolsey.
In any event, they need to do something about the dreams.
"As soon as we get back, we ask Samuel if we can use his Demesne. Right, Kali?" Wolsey
"Uh.. He might not be too happy to see me... Oh, alright" - Kali
She's thinking of Blaise.
Agreed.
Regarding the Eyes, and the other artefacts they brought
"We could have left them in the hotel safe" - Avatar
"No, we couldn't. Just because the locals don't like people stealing from the casinos
doesn't mean that they don't do it themselves. If anything, I'd say they'd be ideally
placed to. Of course, what would outsiders think of us, eh?" - Wolsey
"They'd probably think we were a bunch of hopelessly paranoid politicos" -
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Damascus
"Or that we're a bunch of politicians in denial about the true state of our city... Which
is kind of true, from a certain point of view. Your lot know about this sort of thing,
don't they?" (to Kali) "How a city and it's consilium flavour one another, in the
Resonance" - Wolsey
"Like London being full of Guardians of the Veil, or Boston being a war between
Christian and pagan mages with a psychotic in charge" - Avatar
(nods) "I think we underestimate how much of an effect Banneker has on our city.
How his opinion tinges all of us." - Wolsey
Mark: "There are two points here. The first is that for all his politicking, Banneker has his own projects that have sailed past
out notice - he's primarily a politico, but that's not all. And Wolsey is giving him credit for it. The second is, despite everything,
he recognises that Kali has areas of excellence, and this was an attempt to go for a common ground discussion."
Avatar rambles briefly about the Nemean, the Hierarch of Boston, about which she
has heard from every mage she's told she's from Boston. He does not sound like a
reassuring man.
I can't remember where "London is a Guardian-run Consilium" comes from. I don't own Shadows of the UK, so don't know if
it's true or not - it's just something I appear to have picked up along the way.
That gets them talking about home. Wolsey talks about the Hierarch and his plans to
eventually replace him, speaking of himself disparagingly as Macbeth, with his
ascendancy foretold.
A brief "cast yourself as characters from the play" ensues, with Kali as the witches,
and Avatar as Lady MB. Damascus can't decide who he's most like - Duncan, he
reckons, is Banneker. On his good days, he reckons, he's Banquo. On the bad days
Seyton.
Rafe: Banquo - "...a foil to Macbeth, showing an alternate reaction to prophecy... retains his morals and allegiances...one of
Macbeth's best friends...pledges allegiance to Macbeth as long as his reputation is not lost."
Seyton - "Macbeth's lieutenant and servant that obeys every whim and command without question."
Back to the subject of home, and the election. Noone's yet put in a claim for
Councillor other than Melchior. The Ascendant’s ambitions, not only for the council
but also in their bid to be put in charge of judging the lex magica as neutral
observers, is raised.
"They're not neutral. They just think they are, but they're not. They'll be sucked into
the politics soon enough" - Wolsey
"Who'd you have other than them? Samuel'll probably leave in a few years, off to find
his Quintessence." - Avatar
Avatar thinks she means "become an Archmage", which is not what a Quintessence is (they're spell-specific magical tools
needed for a "boost" to the sympathetic connection to one's realm needed for level 6+ spells). The default assumption in my
setting - especially post-Tome of the Mysteries - is that Wolsey will one day be Hierarch and that Samuel, rather than take
the Consilium for himself, will leave to become an Archmage of Time, a direction in which he's already drifting. As portrayed
in the present time his leadership of the House of Ariadne, which is organised like a family with him at it's centre, and his
council position mean that Samuel doesn't qualify - but he's constantly shown as being bored or disinterested in the latter,
and the former might be overcome if he finds a way to the Imperial practices. To walk bodily in the past requires Time 6+,
and Samuel might think it's worth it.
The resulting power vacuum would make the fallout from Malakaii's death look like a party. Malakaii had many jobs that
several people can do. Samuel has only a few, but there's no-one to do them but him.
"What we need is zombie Malakaii" - Damascus
Or DOES he? No-one can quite remember. It's a mystery. The following is one of the few exchanges I actually noted down,
so we all know it happened. We just cannot remember HOW it happened.
I suspect one of us fudged a paradox roll.
286
"Last I checked Dantor had the body" - Avatar
There are groans, and denials that she would do such a thing
"She'd totally resurrect him for sexual purposes. She's worse than me" - Kali
"Kali... and I'm about to say something that I think will help you.. No-one thinks like
you do" - Wolsey
Kali sticks her tongue out at him.
"Right. Enough of this. I'm off to the pool" - Avatar
"I'll join you" - Kali
"I'm... I'm just going to go and watch them, okay?" - Damascus
--The day passes. The last show of the vacation is the Blue Men Group. Both couples
make encore performances of their own.
--12th August 2006
The sunlight plays over Wolsey, and he wakes up.
Avatar is gone.
Thinking she's gotten up early to enjoy the casino before they leave this lunchtime,
he goes to have a shower.
Over breakfast with Damascus and Kali, Wolsey reminds them that the flight is at
1300.
Avatar doesn't make an appearance, and Kali hasn't seen her.
Slowly but surely, Wolsey becomes concerned. When Avatar hasn't shown up by
1000, he voices it.
"Did you cut your sympathetic connection?" - Kali
"Yes but, ah, I *think* it may have grown back" - Wolsey, with irony
He scries on her, expecting to find her somewhere else on the Strip.
Instead, he feels resistance - which he manages to get through - from a ward that
she's put up on herself. When the scrying window does form in his mind's eye,
Wolsey sees Avatar, eyes half closed as if dozing, sat in the back of a pickup truck.
Somewhere definitely non-urban.
"The hell?" - Wolsey, confused
He describes what he's seeing and clarifies - when Damascus asks - that Avatar isn't
tied up or anything. She's just sat there. He phones her, but she doesn't answer - the
cellular customer he's calling is not available.
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"Could she be sleepwalking?" - Kali
Wolsey frowns
"I've heard of sleepwalkers getting into their cars and driving off" - Damascus
"We need to find out what's going on" - Kali
"Well thank you for that, little miss obvious" - Damascus
Kali says that maybe it's connected to what they've all been worried about.
"Can you check?" - Wolsey
She shrugs, and casts a sympathetic-range Knowing Practice of Fate to determine
the state of Avatar’s Destiny. Her eyes open, and she looks at Wolsey dead-on.
"Yeah. It's her Destiny. It's triggered - she's in the process of fulfilling it." - Kali
Kali and Wolsey describe Avatar's surroundings - which are pretty distinctively alien to Damascus, who's going over maps. They peg it as being Death Valley - she's on
the main road heading West, crossing the Death Valley park.
They decide, pretty much without discussing it, to get after her. Bumping their flight to
a later one and hiring a SUV, they get their stuff together in a hurry.
When he comes to pack his room up and throw Avatar's things back into a suitcase,
Wolsey notices that the Eyes of Salt are missing.
She's taken them.
In the published scenario, the quest is kicked off by the Eyes being stolen by the Avatar character - who's a young newlyawakened mage of Ghanaian extraction named Cymbeline Hand. The Cabal, by default, are ordered to retrieve the items as
they're the ones who 'Cymbeline' is closest to in the consilium. I just thought it neat to flip the Cabal motivation here, though it
was a last minute thing. Banneker giving Damascus custody of the Eyes and ordering him to look after them was the start of
setting up a "she's gone and so have they" scene that more closely followed the plotted scenario.
Ultimately, it came down to which Wolsey would notice first.
And for the record, she's on Route 190
--Once driving, Wolsey says he's going to check again.
"Want me to do it?" - Kali
"Tchyeah." - Wolsey, dismissively
"Aw" - Kali, disappointed
"I can do this" - Wolsey, trying to make her feel better. But still wanting to do it.
"I just wanted to be useful" - Kali
"You are useful" - Damascus, reassuring her from the driving seat.
"Why, thank you" - Kali
Avatar has renewed her ward after Wolsey and Kali broke it down, and is now in a
different car. As he watches, she casts some kind of spell, but it's Covert and too
quick for him to scrutinise.
The surroundings, though, are not Death Valley.
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"Okay... She's hitchhiking." - Wolsey
He and Kali check their maps again, and figure she's somewhere in the region of
Darwin. Maybe. East of Death Valley anyway, and with enough hours head start to
get that far from Las Vegas. Catching her is not going to be easy.
So they start driving, and intend to keep scrying. As soon as Avatar stops, they
intend to teleport to her location.
--Several hours of driving beyond the speed limit later, and they themselves are in
Death Valley. Avatar definitely isn't, though - she's now on foot, and hiking through a
meadow surrounded by forested hills.
(consulting the map) "Can you get a direction?" - Damascus
Wolsey casts Finder and reports the rough bearing of Avatar
"The Sequoia National Park" - Damascus.
Wolsey pulls over (he's driving now) and gets out. They discuss the mechanics of it out here, there's no-one around to witness the vulgar magic, but making a portal
large enough to drive a SUV through is going to tax Wolsey. So much so that he's
going to have to build the imago using a ritual.
"Do you have anything I can burn as a sacrament?" - Wolsey
Which is the first time we've used them in the chronicle - simply because it took this session's scrambled reading of the
extended casting rules figuring out Wolsey's spell factors to realise that you're meant to.
Damascus proffers the map.
He *nearly* gets it on the first attempt, but the Imago isn't quite satisfactory and he
wants to do this properly. Eventually, though, an hour and a half after he started,
Space tears itself open in front of them and Wolsey jumps back into the vehicle. It
won't stay open for long, he's told them - and Damascus floors it, propelling them
through and into the Meadow Avatar was in.
In an attempt to catch up more, they drive as far as they can, up to the forest's edge
a few miles down the rough path Avatar was following. Abandoning the SUV, they
begin to hike themselves.
As far as Wolsey and Kali can tell with Space Magic, they're catching up to Avatar
pretty successfully. When they get close enough, all three break into a jog - the effort
of which uphill causes Wolsey to fall behind.
Go look the Sequoia park up on Google for pictures. Beautiful part of the world.
And then, about a mile uphill, Kali and Damascus catch up with her.
"Avatar." - Damascus, huffing slightly.
Avatar seems rather preoccupied, casting a spell and then, as though deep in
thought, changing direction slightly.
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"Nearly. It's here" - Avatar, to herself
Damascus and Kali manage to get her to express herself properly. She proffers the
Eyes of Salt, and says that they've started to appear in her dreams. And that there's
a connection between her and them. The faint feeling of predestination has become
an undertow dragging her along, she says - but it's almost over. A new sympathetic
connection has appeared, and she's been following it using Space magic, seeking
whatever it is that she's linked to. Which is here, somewhere. "Within a mile"
somewhere.
Kali casts Mage Sight and verifies Avatar's ramblings - or the part about the
connections, anyway. She DOES have an extremely strong one to the Eyes, and to
something else, though Kali hasn't added the Space Arcana to her imago so can't tell
where that second thing is.
But they know what it's likely to be.
"The Robe?" - Kali
"Maybe. Maybe something else from my dreams" - Avatar, continuing to hike.
At which point, Wolsey catches up, wheezing and gasping for breath. Avatar
singularly ignores him, continuing to walk away. The others fill him in on
developments.
"So... What? You thought you'd just leave? By yourself?" - Wolsey
"Yes" - Avatar
"Why?" - Wolsey
"I had to. I want to know where this goes" - Avatar
Wolsey, annoyed now and smarting from the paradox backlash from teleporting them
here, says that that isn't really an answer - and that she should have told someone.
Avatar half-shrugs, still intent on whatever imminent event she's coming to.
"I didn't have a choice" - Avatar
"You always have a... No. I'm done" (throws his hands up) "I'm going back." - Wolsey
Disgusted, he starts to trudge back down the hill.
Damascus and Kali look at one another, and set off after Avatar.
Again a modification. The book has the gang catching up to "Cymbeline" later on, when she gets the item she's here for. I
changed it for reasons of Chronicle and theme, and got a really heartwrenching scene out of Mark for it. He's already posted
about his reasons - Wolsey thinks Avatar's making the mistake Kali made when she first met Seraph, and is angered and
hurt by her complete failure to acknowledge that she should have said something to him.
The Trio walk deeper into the forest, Kali and Damascus slowly drawing Avatar out though she's still a little spacey and focused on what she's doing, she does provide a
little more information. She is sorry about not telling "them" (though they know who
she means), but she's lived with this pressure on her mind her entire life and wants to
see it to it's conclusion. She can't not. She can't stop. She doesn't *want* to stop.
Damascus notices, as they talk, that the birdsong has stopped.
A few minutes later, he also notices that the flowers hereabouts are all red and pink,
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while half a mile the other way and they're in all colours.
"Somehow, I get the feeling we're not in Kansas any more" - Damascus
Kali casts a Mage Sight spell and determines that they are indeed walking towards...
something. Not entirely normal. Damascus finds a particularly hefty-looking rock and
prises it up out of the ground, hoping he's not going to have to bash something
horrible with it.
Later and deeper still, and Kali spots the first truly unsettling thing - a bed of flowers
with human mouths at the centre of the petals, mouthing silently.
Minutes later still, and the trees run with blood instead of sap. The sky turns red and
smoke-filled, with occasional glimpses of stars not of this Earth.
In homage to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
And then they come to a Grove, surrounded on all sides by trees made entirely of
flesh.
"Okay. That's fucking creepy" - Damascus
The object of Damascus' creep-out is the trees, all branching limbs in the human
rather than forestry sense, fingers and hands instead of leaves and fruit and "bark" of
thick rubbery skin, marked with opening and closing eyes and mouths.
"Is it in the centre?" - Kali
Avatar casts Finder again
"Kali. Do you have a knife?" - Avatar
Kali crouches down and retrieves one from her boot, handing it to Avatar.
Breathing shallowly, as though asleep, Avatar advances on one of the trees. She
puts the tip of the knife to it's bark, which twitches and appears to shy away from it.
As she presses, there's a brief moment of pliancy - like she's cutting into flesh - and
then the knife slips in. Blood runs from the wound, and the tree shudders.
This is where the PCs would come in. I've said it before, I think, but the concept of the Flesh Grove? Sheer genius.
It's a Verge, if anyone's wondering as to the mechanical ins and outs, and the Trees are spirits.
--Wolsey hikes down the hill back towards the SUV
Back in the grove, the eerie silence has been shattered. The Trees are now all flailing
about with their branch-arms, gibbering madly from a hundred mouths while Avatar is
shoulder-deep inside the tree she's performing spur-of-the-moment surgery on.
The Tree's speech is Glossolalia, aka 'Speaking in Tongues'. It was previously encountered as a concept in Seraph's House
of Stone.
"I've got it! I've got it! I'VE GOT IT!" - Avatar, triumphant.
Avatar stands up and steps back, bringing something out of the tree in her gore291
soaked hand. Damascus and Kali glance, and aren't particularly reassured by the
sight of a glass heart containing something black and buzzing.
This, then, would be the Heart full of Flies from Avatar's dreams.
And then the Trees attack, bending improbably to reach the group, grasping fingers
hooking around clothes. Kali casts a time spell to accelerate herself to superhuman
speed, and ducks hers instantly retreating to the centre of the grove, but Damascus
and Avatar are both snared. Damascus manages to break the trees' grip on him by
hitting it with his rock and pulls Avatar free, but gets caught again himself. Kali shoots
at the tree holding Damascus, which manifests a big chomping mouth ready to rip
into him, but he manages to get free again and join the girls.
"Any ideas?" - Damascus
The trees continue to howl and gibber.
Concentrating, Damascus projects feelings of utter fear and terror into one of the
Trees, making it recoil in horror. Grabbing the girl's wrists, he charges through the
gap in the wall of flailing branches made by the momentarily-stunned tree.
As they run out, though, the landscape seems to flow around them, drawing them
back. Kali, moving far faster than the others, easily outruns the effect, but Damascus
and Avatar find themselves forced back into the Grove again.
"Any other ideas?" - Damascus
Assets. They need some kind of weapon. They have Kali's knife, and that's about it.
"Could you combine the properties of a knife and a rock?" - Avatar
"We'd get either a very sharp rock or a knife as heavy as stone. Assets. What assets
do we have?" - Damascus
"nothing" - Avatar
"Nothing? No keys? No nothing?" - Damascus
"I didn't exactly plan this" - Avatar
"Alright. Alright" (considers, trying to think against the noise) "If we had some way of
making a spark we could get fire..." - Damascus
"Uh..." - Avatar, offering her Cigarette lighter.
Damascus is not amused at that being left off the asset list.
Avatar's smoking is one of those things that never really made it into the thread - or indeed most sessions - because it was
unimportant. Anyways. The lung cancer roll call of the group is - Wolsey doesn't smoke except for cigars in social situations
where it would be the thing to do. Damascus doesn't smoke. Kali did, like a chimney, but gave up in Story 3 (she complains
at one point that Wolsey is driving her back into it by sheer annoyance) and Avatar likes to think that none of the others know
she smokes, but they all know she does.
Damascus, taking it, casts Jury Rig.
They now have a Knife covered in flames.
"We'll just have to burn them.. with FIRE!" - Damascus
Heading for the wounded tree, Damascus manages to hold it off while Avatar - still
clutching the Heart - makes a break for it, and follows her out. They run from the
warping effect again but this time manage to stay ahead of it, nearly running into Kali.
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There is much jubilation at having made it out alive. Damascus can't seem to quite
believe it.
They do, however, take the time to examine the Heart. It's made of glass, and does
indeed appear to be full of flies. Avatar carefully puts it away in the inside pocket of
her jacket as Kali casts Ring Sight, determining that no-one here seems to be tainted
according to that spell's criteria. At least, tainted out of the ordinary.
"It has the same resonance as the Eyes. Exactly the same" - Avatar
"Cxaxa Querephas?" - Damascus
"It's for the same thing. And the next step is the last. The Heart was real. The Eyes
were real. The *Trees* were real. There's... There's a dark place, somewhere.
There's..." (frowns) "Cricket" (looks at them) "And the Robe. I'm sure of it. And then
I'm done" - Avatar
"They're leading you to Cxaxa's safehouse?" - Damascus
(closes her eyes) "Witchend. One word. That's all. That's where it is." - Avatar
Kali checks, and notes that the connection Avatar was following was to the Heart,
and that now she has yet another - very strong.
"We have to get to England. It's nearly over" - Avatar, with some relief
Kali notes that her passport is back in DC. Damascus thinks, and dimly recalls his
being in the bank. Also in DC.
"Tom can teleport us there, we can get the Robe and then it'll be over. I'll have
fulfilled all of this. Done the thing I was meant to do" - Avatar
Kali stays quiet at that.
But when Avatar fulfils her Destiny, the buck (according to Samuel) passes to Kali
--They arrive back at the SUV, to find Wolsey preparing the spell to return them most
of the way to Vegas. He eyes their gory state, but can't interrupt his spell to ask
what's going on. Once they're on the other side, though;
"Change of plan. How about England?" - Damascus
"Why?" - Wolsey
"It's where the Robe is" - Damascus
"Okay. Hold on a second." - Wolsey
Point the first - they're not going anywhere unprepared. Not with him in charge of the
teleportation. Point the second - he's not going any further on this until they all have a
rational discussion. He brings up their appearances, and confirms that the situation in
the forest was dangerous.
"You could say that" - Kali
"We're okay" - Damascus
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"You might not have been. Amanda here led you all up there. For what?" - Wolsey
The first time Wolsey has called her Amanda while in "Wolsey" mode, that. I am not convinced it wasn't just a slip of the
tongue on Mark's part.
Mark: "It wasn't. Wolsey considers using shadow names a mark of respect - you should only real names if (a) need to for
spells or (b) if you are 200% sure it's in a private situation. In Wolsey's mind, using it in public might mean someone gets hold
of it and might use it to hurt you - so in this case, it's a purely spiteful thing - Wolsey wishing her hurt. He's probably going to
regret it."
Damascus wants to get back to Vegas, and get the flight back to DC. *Then* they
can talk. Avatar, though, isn't having any of it.
"You go back to DC if you want to, but I'm going to England. I'm nearly *there*, Tom.
I've lived my entire life with this, and I'm not waiting. Witch. End." - Avatar
"Sounds a little ominous." (off their looks) "I mean. 'Witchend'. When we're witches." Kali
"How do you know it's in England? Could be Australia." - Wolsey
In one of those mis-attributing prana thingies, Mark isn't sure it was him that said it. I'm 89% sure it was, though, and Rafe
hasn't contradicted me. As Sam says, I'm normally good at telling her lines apart in my notes. It's the boys I get mixed up on.
Avatar points one way.
"It's that way." (turns around) "Australia is THAT way" - Avatar
Fair point. But so is the point that a name and a bearing - which is towards the
ground, as Finder doesn't compensate for the curvature of the Earth - isn't really
enough to go on. They should be forewarned.
Damascus points out that they can look it up on the Internet. The airport has a net
cafe.
--A teleportation and a long, frosty, drive later, they get to the airport in the middle of
the night.
Witchend has a rather hopeless "baby's first HTML" webpage, apparently created by
someone in the village activities committee. It's a tiny place somewhere near
Reading, that boasts one pub and a town hall. Rugby team calendar, cricket team
calendar and a couple of photos make up the site.
"Alright. I'll head to London now and sort out transport to this place. You guys get
equipped in DC and then meet me there" - Avatar
Cue argument.
Wolsey doesn't want to go to England. He doesn't want the Robe and he wants
Avatar to stop blindly walking into Destiny - especially as it seems to be getting
*dangerous*. She informs him that he's not going to stop her doing this. She's sorry
he feels like this, but this is the thing that drove her to Awakening. She can't turn her
back on it because it makes him feel better.
Wolsey stops the conversation dead with the announcement that he's about to loose
his temper and say something stupid. So he'll be downstairs in the waiting area. And
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with that, he leaves.
"I do know, you know. That when this finishes it's supposed to go to you" - Avatar
"I know" - Kali
I've talked about the reasoning behind this up-thread
Damascus and Kali seek Wolsey out.
"This is crazy. You get that this is crazy?" - Wolsey
It's all escalating, he says to them.
"First Gawain, and the Ring drops into our laps. Now this. I'm guessing that the grove
wasn't a walk in the park, and this isn't over. What's it going to be like NEXT time? Or
by the time we get to the Throne? Look, I think having sympathy to the entire world
would be useful, but it isn't worth this. It just isn't" - Wolsey
He continues, saying that they should just forget this entire thing.
"She can't do that" - Kali
"She endangered your lives for the sake of blindly following Fate" - Wolsey
"I.." - Kali
"We've been through this Kali. We've discussed this." - Wolsey
"I don't think she's able to stop until she finds it" - Kali
"And next time?" - Wolsey
"Next time it'll be me" - Kali
That doesn't reassure him.
"These things - these artefacts of the Dethroned Queen. I don't need them and I don't
want them. I feel like I'm on a train, hurtling toward something. I say we stop the train.
I want to get off. I want to put this aside. Get rid of the Ring - and the Robe, if that's
gone too far." - Wolsey
"And give them to who?" - Kali
"We destroy them, then" - Wolsey
Kali frowns.
She has a feeling of inevitability.
Damascus gets a Deja Vu
Suddenly, all the coasters in the bar area arrange themselves to spell "I NEED" and
then go back to normal.
"What?" - Wolsey, who saw nothing.
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They explain, which just winds him up more. He repeats his conclusion. They talk to
him about destiny, and prophecy. He repeats his conclusion, in the terms of an
ultimatum.
"You're not talking about this, you're just stating your opinion over and over" - Kali
"I'm discussing. I've laid down my terms. Now we negotiate" - Wolsey
"But there's nothing you'll bend on" - Kali
"Then you have to accept my terms" - Wolsey
He repeats his mantra.
"After this, we stop. Agreed?" - Wolsey
Somewhere, Kali is fighting a snake. Becoming tired
This, again, is future-Kali stumbling over a particularly significant part of the story,
wishing it went another way. Or trying to reassure herself. Or something.
I will note, though, that her messages to herself - going back in time - read "I need
Help"
"Agreed" - Damascus
"Really?" - Wolsey
"Really. I agree. We stop" - Damascus
Kali looks at Damascus
"We'll go to England with her. If it's not too dangerous, we stay. But if it looks like it's
continuing to escalate, we leave." - Wolsey
Kali looks pained.
"She's going to pass this on to you if this continues, you say. And if I'm right it'll be
worse." - Wolsey
"We'll talk about it" - Kali
"Damn right we will. We ALL will. If it looks like she's just going to pass the buck onto
you and risk all our lives doing it, for the sake of an artefact we don't need, the deal's
off. Agreed?" - Wolsey
(quietly) "Agreed" - Kali
They head out and have Avatar paged - as it happens, just in time before her latenight flight to the UK boards.
Avatar cautiously comes down to see them.
"We'll go to Witchend. Now. I'll take us there - but..." - Wolsey
He says that he's agreed to do it - not mentioning any of the conditions he's set on
the others - if that's what she wants. He does, however, put the emphasis on the hurt
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it might cause Kali, and makes her promise to talk to Kali about it.
Avatar stares at Wolsey, and agrees.
Leaving the airport, finding an out-of-the-way place for Wolsey to do his work, they
do so, appearing in the side-street next to the pub. The sudden time-shift forwards
puts them into the next day, the morning of Saturday 13th August.
"Remember. Be alert. We don't know what's here" - Wolsey
Blinking in the sunshine, they head down the street and emerge onto the village
green.
There's a thunk of wood on ball, a small amount of polite applause, and a shiny red
cricket ball lands at their feet.
"Ah, excuse me" - man
The voice is that of a tall, dark haired gent in cricket whites, jogging toward them.
"Could we have our ball back?" - Man
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Session 6.2
Now then. Where were we? Yeah. All fondness for Trees made of Flesh aside, I prefer this half of the story. I think it's some
of Wood's best work (Promethean excepted) and it fits with the themes of the Chronicle something powerful. It especially
hooks nicely into Reign of the Exarchs III and IV.
I get the impression that there was some disquiet at the emphasis on the power of Destiny in the story, but it was dispelled
(heh) by the realisation that it's *deliberate*. Think of it this way - in the World of Darkness, "Fate" is a Supernal Arcana. All
Fate comes from the Supernal Realms which means that if something is fated to happen it's because someone, somewhere
(or something) wants it to happen. If you have a Destiny, someone gave it to you - maybe centuries before you were born,
but they don't happen by accident.
Which is either an encouraging thought or an utterly horrifying one. Because the people doing most of the giving are the
Exarchs.
Reign III will be the story after next, I hope, with Reign IV (Hi Matt!) integrated into the stories following it the same way Reign
I turned into a subplot of story 3. Reign V can wait until such time in the future as the Chronicle needs to come to an end - but
I'm in no particular hurry to get there.
Damascus picks up the cricket ball, and hands it back to the gentleman. The tall
cricket-player smiles broadly, thanks them most awfully, and jogs back to his game.
The four Americans look around them, jet-lagged by the sudden sunlight and weirded
out by their almost offensively idyllic surroundings.
Remember that point about Jet-Lag - the characters have skipped an evening by teleporting across the Atlantic. They haven't
slept, and by the end of this session when it's all getting emotionally fraught and there are eyeballs on the floor, everyone's
feeling just a little bit like Jack Bauer.
"Where now?" - Wolsey
"It's here. I know it's here." - Avatar, holding the Eyes of Salt as though they comfort
her.
"Can you find it?" - Wolsey
Avatar tries, and frowns
"No. I can't tell where it is." - Avatar
"Why not?" - Damascus
"Maybe it's warded..." (looks around) "We're looking for the entrance to some
antediluvian storehouse, right? How many places could it be?" - Avatar
My half-assed 'explanation' for the Eyes of Salt, designed as a theory spouted at them by Ulysses during "Who Benefits?",
was intended to give them half of a clue and half of a foiler. There is no Atlantean Storehouse, as you can probably guess.
I am perversely fond of using 'Antediluvian' to describe ancient Mages and their artefacts, even if technically Querephas is
postdiluvian, making and losing her kingdom in the post-Atlantis diaspora. In Conan terms she's Hyperborean. Such things fit
perfectly into Mage - ancient landmasses that no longer exist and never existed, but which left behind scraps of knowledge.
That can kill you.
Question for Wood: when they heard her name, the characters commented that it "sounded Aztec". Given her whole heartripping shtick, was it intentional? What sort of culture did you envisage her coming from?
The village green, where cricket is being played in the morning sunshine, describes a
long semi-rectangle. On one long side is the pub ("The Royal Arch") and a small
shop, on the other a Church and a village hall. The short side to their left has a large
flowerbed spelling out "500" in yellow flowers.
"Bet it's under that" - Kali
The short side to their right has a clock tower jutting out of the absolutely traffic-free
roundabout that serves as the hub of the streets. The houses are sleepy, with a few
thatched roofs. The cars are all expensive.
A man wearing a red sweater walks past them, doffing his pipe and issuing them a
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cheery "morning!"
We're all English, so there's a little bit of exaggeration of Little England going on in the session, where all the "American"
characters speak with our normal English accents, and the "English" characters speak like Bertie Wooster. It worked oddly
well. Mark tried to play up Wolsey's American-ness, but accents... are not his forte.
"Alright. This... this is creepy" - Kali
There is the clunk of willow on leather, and polite applause from the spectators of the
cricket match.
"Pub?" - Kali
Everyone ignores her.
"Okay. Well, if it's warded... Are we expecting Locals?" - Wolsey
"Well, the village isn't deserted" - Kali
"No, I mean Locals. With a Capital L. Like we were avoiding in Vegas?" - Wolsey
"He means Mages" - Avatar
"Oh" - Kali
"What do you want to do?" - Damascus
"We've been over this. I want to leave. Didn't want to be here, but it's not up to me." Wolsey
"There are only so many places..." - Avatar
Mark : 'Basically, this is Wolsey establishing that while he’ll help in terms of aid towards the objectives set, he doesn’t want to
be part of deciding how to get there. Charitably, he knows he’s biased, and he’s reminding the others that his judgment
shouldn’t be trusted in this matter.'
Everyone stops as an old lady totters past
"Good morning!" - Old lady
"Morning!" - Everyone, faux-cheerfully
"Under the 500?" - Kali
"Or the church" - Damascus
"Let's do footwork. The pub" - Wolsey
"See, now you're coming around to my way of thinking" - Kali
They advance upon the public house.
"They'll take visa, won't they?" - Wolsey
Ah, youthful optimism. I had not considered the money question.
"You'd better do the talking, Damascus. My Boston accent might not go down well" Wolsey, half joking
He considers, casts First Impressions, and decides to do the talking himself anyway.
Not for any tea-party reasons. In the UK, they're more likely to mistake him for Lloyd Grossman, which is truly a fate worse
than death. Leading on from the notion of the characters going to an Anglican church, we talked about whether Avatar and
Wolsey are Irish or English Bostonians genetically. Tom's probably English-descended while Amanda could be either, I
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believe.
The Royal Arch turns out to be cosy, warm in the August heat and light-years away
from the Vegas bars they were in last (to them) night. The Cabal eye the
indecipherable names on the pumps (Witch's Elbow, Harrier's Stump and so forth)
and the pints of dark-coloured, foamless liquid people are drinking. Well, the men
anyway. The pub seems to be playing host to the women's knitting circle.
Wolsey, feeling brave, approaches the landlord and asks if they take cards.
"I think I have the machine here somewhere, sir..." (looking at them) "Just arrived?" Landlord
"That's right" - Wolsey
"What brings you to Witchend?" - Landlord
"We're... Seeking our roots. Looking into history. Do you have any records anywhere
in the village, or..." - Wolsey
"There's the museum, sure. But it's closed today. Open tomorrow." - Landlord
"Well, great. Thanks" - Wolsey
Four breakfasts are paid for using Wolsey's VISA, which is run up on an ancient
cheque-writing device like a sliding guillotine. When the food arrives, plates heaped
high with unidentified fried goods, Kali pokes at a black, rubbery disk on her plate.
"What IS this?" - Kali
"No idea" - Damascus
"Well, you eat it" - Kali, flicking the black pudding onto Damascus' plate
Aw. They're so cute together. I *like* black pudding, too. Congealed-Blood sausage for the win
They chew, and consider the quest for information and local knowledge. Wolsey eyes
the knitting circle at the other end of the room.
"Kali" - Wolsey
"Yeeeeees?" - Kali
"...This needs a woman" - Wolsey
"You're under the mistaken impression that I'm female" - Kali
"... Back me up here, Damascus?" - Wolsey
"Yeah, she's lying" - Damascus
"Still not doing it" - Kali
In a rambling ooc conversation that resulted about whether the goodwives of Witchend would be more phased by Kali or
Avatar's appearances - Avatar's a punkette, remember - it emerged that Kali has started putting her hair into locks. This
minor piece of characterisation brought to you by the department for exacting minutiae.
So, they try the Landlord again. He seems to know a fair amount. Wolsey opens the
conversation with the trophy sitting on the pub's mantelpiece, which turns out to be
for the village winning best floral display in the county 2006 for their five-centennial
flowerbed.
"So it's 500 years since the village was founded?" - Wolsey
"That's right, sir." - Landlord
Overhearing this, Kali mutters to the other two about how that might be significant.
500 is an awfully round number, and it's bound to have some meaning somewhere.
Damascus asks about the name of the pub, and learns that the Royal Arch is an old
bridge out in the woods.
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From outside, there's another clattering of applause as the cricket match continues.
Wolsey looks up.
"The Reverend. He's our star player" - Landlord, approvingly
"That so?" - Wolsey
"Oh yes. Best since Mr Smith" - Landlord
Wolsey goes back to the others.
Wrong island
"Anyway. There's the museum, but it's not open until tomorrow." - Wolsey
He calls over to the landlord again
"Excuse me? Is there anywhere to stay in the village?" - Wolsey
"Well, if you have a tent, there's the green, I suppose" - Landlord
"Is there anywhere we can buy one without going into Reading?" - Wolsey
"Ah... no. If you need somewhere to stay, you could always go to the church and ask
after services. Someone's bound to have a spare room or two" - Landlord
"Thanks" - Wolsey
He turns back to the others, and immediately suggests that they portal back to DC
and (maybe) come back tomorrow. Avatar just as immediately says that he can leave
if he wants to but that she's staying until she finishes this.
"Well. I think we've exhausted the pub" - Wolsey, not entirely happy at the above.
They head back out into the sunshine, and watch cricket for a while. Something
about the setting and surroundings - the old lady pruning her rosebushes, the deckchairs for the spectators, the arcane rules of the game they're watching, the
quaintness of the surrounding houses or maybe just the fact that none of them have
burglar alarms - puts the Cabal in a slightly out-of-time mood. It's like the 50s never
ended.
The tall man who asked for his ball back makes what the ignorant Americans
interpret as some kind of home run, sending the ball flying past the group. He jogs
over to retrieve it, and smiles broadly at them as he approaches.
"Still here?" - Man
"That's right" - Wolsey
"Tristan Jones" - Man, sticking out his hand.
They shake
"What brings you to Witchend?" - Tristan
"We're seeking our roots" - Wolsey, giving the same explanation as in the pub
Tristan retrieves the ball and says that they're going to take a break for church and
then lunch in a bit. The foursome are welcome to join everyone else.
They watch the cricket
"It's Anglican, right? That's like Episcopalian?" - Damascus
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"Something like that" - Avatar
"Don't they handle snakes? At some point I have to fight a snake" - Kali
"Are there snakes in England?" - Wolsey
"Didn't St Patrick drive them all out?" - Damascus
The cricket match begins to disperse, and the spectators mingle with the players.
Tristan, in the far distance, is talking animatedly to a short, bespectacled man.
Gradually, the crowd begins to move towards the church.
The Cabal look around. People are coming from all over the village, walking leisurely
to church. As they watch, the pub empties of inhabitants - the landlord flipping the
card "closed" sign up on the door as he leaves last. He doesn't lock the door.
It seems that everyone in Witchend is observant. No exceptions.
The Cabal, even more weirded out, trail in everyone's wake.
"This is the point where they turn out to all have white-haired children" - Wolsey
He stops dead, and after a few seconds the other three do as well, looking quizzically
at him.
"No children. Look around. There aren't any children." - Wolsey
They look around,
"Maybe they eat them" - Kali
They approach the church. Posters pinned to it's external noticeboard advertise for
village fêtes and vegetable competitions, the Women's Institute and an Alpha
Course.
They head inside, where they find that Tristan the cricket player turns out to be
Tristan the Vicar
"I don't know much about religion, but you don't think..." - Kali
"Kali. I'm not sure where you think you are, maybe deepest darkest Africa rather than
ENGLAND..." - Wolsey
Baby-eating discarded, though, Wolsey starts observing those around him, looking
for tell-tale signs of cult-like behaviour. The Reverend kissing a woman in the
audience gives a moment of pause, before they realise that she must be his wife.
Church of England, after all.
Damascus takes in the differences between this House and Ulysses' Catholic church
back in DC. It's a lot smaller, for a start, and much less formal. The organ isn't used,
though there's a woman with an unfortunate mane of dirty blond hair that owns an
acoustic guitar and isn't afraid to use it. The Reverend Jones is still wearing his
Cricket trousers while giving the sermon, which is itself rather right-on and touchyfeely. There is bad, m'kay? And good?
All in all, there's a rather Manichean viewpoint being expressed behind all the Jesusloves-you fluffiness. Wolsey notes that the Reverend has a very dualistic view of the
world - more like a Zoroastrian than a Christian - and can't shake the feeling that this
should be reminding him of something.
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The Reverend then starts in on the subject of Witchcraft, and how it's a sin. How it's
practitioners could be forgiven if they repented, but how magic ultimately dooms the
soul of the magician. And, they note, he glances at them while he says it.
Kali casts Ring Sight and wishes she hadn't. The entire village, the church and most
especially the Reverend are bathed in Taint. The Reverend has the strongest taint
she's seen on anyone bar Seraph.
Unfortunately, they all missed him noticing her noticing him.
She starts to try to alert the others to the fact that the Vicar is probably a Seer of the
Throne via the medium of cunning hand signals. Wolsey and Damascus stare at her
uncomprehendingly until she finally whispers the awful truth to them.
At which point, Reverend Jones asks if anyone wishes to receive the Holy Spirit. As a
handful of people get up and kneel at the front of the church, Wolsey's religion/cult-ometer goes into overdrive. When people begin to shake and fall over spouting
Glossolalia, he has it - the Toronto Blessing. He whispers to the others that it started
in Canada, these fusions of Christianity and possession-based religions. Those
having the ecstatic fits often reveal random pieces of wisdom...
An old lady totters to her feet and in a serious, piping little voice proclaims that the
Hour Is At Hand before falling back into her chair.
The use of Glossolalia - speaking in tongues - as a symbolic watchword for Seer of the Throne activity goes back to Seraph's
House of Stone. Really, it goes back to my love for The Invisibles, about which there will be more next story (when I really..
oh, you'll see). I was pleased by it's inclusion twice over in this instalment of Reign of the Exarchs - in many ways, it's the link
between the two halves of this story. The Trees and the Village are both smokescreens built up around the item being
sought, and it's removal sends both of them mad.
Eventually, the service finishes and the population troop back out again. The
Reverend - the Seer - kisses his wife goodbye and goes back out to his Cricket
match.
The Cabal walk towards the clocktower, watching the game. And Reverend Jones
who's trying his best not to watch them, and not be quite so open about being
terrified of them.
"You're sure?" - Damascus
"Sure as I can be" - Kali
"So there's a Seer here. Someone had to cast the Ward." - Avatar
"Capital L" - Damascus
"Yup" - Avatar
Kali's phone rings. She answers it, curious as to who could be phoning her in another
country when she doesn't have roaming on her cell, and hears an Englishman's voice
saying "I think it's time we had a chat" before she promptly hangs up.
"Okay. Now they're just trying to worry us" - Kali
"You say he's scared?" - Avatar
"Terrified" - Kali
"Then they're bluffing" - Avatar
Thinking, Kali casts Augury, trying to divine what would happen if she went for 'a
chat'. She gets a mental image of herself in some kind of small sitting room, and of a
strange little man putting pills in a cup of tea before handing it to her.
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She reports this.
Wolsey has a theory, which fits all the available facts.
"The Robe hides things from the sight of the Exarchs, right? That's why I think this
place is like this. This isn't England, it's some idea of England in the past.
Something's keeping the modern world from intruding on this village, hiding it from
the twenty-first century..." - Wolsey
Good theory. One I liked so much (and couldn't remember off hand from the book whether it's right or not) that I neither
confirm nor deny it, even unto the end.
ETA: Yup. Just found it. He's right.
"The Robe hides things from the Exarchs, not from the world" - Damascus
"Maybe they're using it to power something. Maybe - and I know I'm horribly
mangling the intricacies of magic here - it's the battery they're running their little
Utopia off?" - Wolsey
The same pullover-wearing chap as greeted them earlier walks past
"Oh hello! Still here? What brings you to our village?" - man
Wolsey repeats the "Seeking our roots" line, narrowing his eyes.
Five minutes later, an old lady asks the same question.
"They're trying to *scare* us! They're putting on a show" (rolls the Eyes of Salt
around in her hand) "They want you to leave without a fight. Look how scary they are
- they have pullover man and the little old lady as puppets" - Avatar, contemptuously.
Damascus' phone rings.
"Don't answer it" - Kali
He answers it.
"Hello?" - Damascus
"I think it's time we had a chat, don't you?" – Man
"I entirely agree" - Damascus, looking around the others
"Meet me at the village hall" - Man
The Cabal talk about it for a few minutes, and decide to bait the Lion in it's den. Let's
see where this goes.
They walk back the way they came, towards the village hall on the far side of the
church. As they near it, a thin-faced middle-aged woman with a severe bobbed
haircut steps into their path.
Wolsey sighs, sensing another "why are you here?" oncoming.
"Leave" - Woman
"Excuse me?" - Damascus
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(addressing Kali) "It would be better for everyone if you just *left*. Now." - Woman,
replete with repressed anger.
She gets out of their way and they continue. Wolsey casting a mental shield upon
himself just before they go in. You can never be too careful, after all.
The woman is 'Miss Ryden' - the third of the three Seers in the village (the second and the one on the phone being Mr Evans,
the little bespectacled man they saw from a distance earlier) and the one-woman Hawk faction.
Heading inside the building, they're met by the man they saw Reverend Jones talking
to, who introduces himself as "Mr Evans".
"I'm, uh.. the head of the um.. village council, if you will" - Evans
Kali recognises the man she saw in a possible near future, drugging her.
He leads them through the village hall itself, explaining that it's set up for the amateur
dramatics society
"We're doing the Death of a Salesman this year. Do you know much about the
theatre?" - Evans
"Nothing but Miller" - Wolsey
The Cabal's name is "Crucible". heh. And Death of a Salesman is *by* Miller, same as Crucible is. Note, also, that Wolsey
from the vicinity of Salem himself.
"Last year it was Waiting for Godot. I didn't enjoy that so much. And before that the
Caucasian Chalk Circle. I'm not too fond of Brecht, though" - Evans
Ah, the Caucasian Chalk Circle. I was Shauva, in case you're wondering. Sam accused me of referencing every play she
studied for English classes - not so, I was referencing every play I've ever *been* in. Well, with the exception of a trilogy of
high-school Comeddia Del'Artes I was in where I played Panteloni (the rough precursor to Mr Punch). I didn't think they were
Witchend's cup of tea.
Brecht plays - of which Caucasian Chalk Circle is one - constantly remind the audience that they're not real but only
represent reality, in the hope of getting across to the audience that their own worldviews are just as mutable. Which would be
why a Seer doesn't like it.
As for the parallels between the plots of the three plays and this chronicle.. get ye to Wikipedia. Pay especial attention to
CCC and Death of a Salesman.
Aaaaaaaaaanyway, getting away from theatre studies, Mr Evans is well illustrated in Reign of the Exarchs but for purposes of
this tale (and this is one for a select group of UK readers) I reckon he looks like
[link=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/presenters/1785118.stm]Declan[/link] the business correspondent
from BBC breakfast news. Mark knows who I mean. For the other two players, I fell back on a mutual acquaintance of ours
that looks exactly like the illustration in the book. Seriously, it's uncanny. I half-expect to find out that he's moved to a sleepy
village in Buckinghamshire...
Evans leads them to the far side of the hall and into the back foyer, where they see
the door to the village museum (very closed). He takes them the other way, through a
small meeting room and finally winding up at his "office", which turns out to be the
comfortable little room Kali remembers, with four armchairs, a coffee table,
bookshelves and slightly aging stripy wallpaper.
Evans is polite, earnest and non-threatening throughout. Based on Kali's
precognition they refuse tea while Evans explains calmly and patiently that it would
be better for everyone if they just left the village and never came back. Give up the
quest, for it will only cause them grief.
Avatar looks half-asleep in her chair, and Kali is frowning. Damascus and Wolsey's
mental shields are made of sterner stuff, and they quickly ascertain that the room
they're in is some kind of psychic resonator, an artefact designed for low-grade
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brainwashing.
Rumbled, Evans says that he had not really expected it to work and apologises.
"It's intricately designed" - Damascus
"The work of my predecessor, Mr Smith" - Evans
"He must have been quite a man" - Wolsey
"He was.. but now it's up to me" - Evans
But he reiterates his point - he knows what they're here to do, and if they do it
disaster will strike. He believes that the village deserves to live more than they
deserve to ride in and do what they want.
Wolsey calls for a group meeting and the Cabal go into the next room.
Now the stakes are known.
"If we take it, the protection it gives the village will vanish. This place will be crushed
beneath the modern world" - Wolsey
"Is that such a bad thing?" - Avatar
Well, that depends. On whether you think that this place is real or not. Wolsey is of
the opinion that it's a "crock", a false illusion of an England-gone-by created by the
proximity of the Exarch's vestment. And Wolsey, after all, specialises in shattering
false realities. Countering that, though, is the simple fact that he still doesn't agree
with the mission in the first place. He puts in another bid to give up and go home.
Which, aside from being another reiteration of his position - one which he holds to throughout this session and which will
inform the next half of his character arc, brings us nicely back to the core theme of Mage: The Awakening. It's *all* lies. All of
it.
"Well, these Seers.." - Kali
"They're nothing. Apprentices, trying to maintain what their mentor created. They're
in the shadow of this 'Smith'." - Wolsey
"I meant how do we know they're Seers, anyway? For all we know, they could be a
group of Pentacle Mages that have decided to build a Utopia for themselves. And
how do they know disaster will strike? Oh, and by the way - you can come out from
the doorway" - Kali
"The Lords of the Aeon told us" - Evans, from the doorway
Rumbled!
So, definitely a Seer then.
"How many of you are there? Is it just you and the Reverend?" - Wolsey
"...yes" - Evans
Wolsey listens to the single word, then shakes his head
"Liar" - Wolsey
"All right. One other - I'm sorry. I didn't dissemble to hurt you, I swear. Quite the
reverse. The Lords speak to us in metaphors and visions, the garbled prophecies in
the church and half-remembered dreams. We know that you have come seeking your
roots from far away" (looks at Kali) "and that you bring disaster. The.. ah.. the Lords..
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Well... What I mean to say is... They were more specific than I am saying in regard to
what to do about you. In fact, they intimated.. or at least it was clearly interpreted as
being... Uh... To kill you." (quickly) "But I'm certain there's another way of doing it. A
way of settling things peacefully..." - Evans
The prophecy was literally "one with roots far away". Which ties in nicely with Wolsey's claim to be "seeking their roots" to the
villagers. The Seers know that the doom-bringer is female, and assume that it's Kali.
"And your third colleague does not agree?" - Damascus
"That's right" - Evans, mopping his brow.
"Look. This place is special, I know that. And I think it's worth saving, so..." - Evans
"Prove it" - Wolsey
"Excuse me?" - Evans
"We'll make you a deal. Show us your village. Show us your community. Prove to us
that it's real, and worth leaving alone." - Wolsey
Evans blinks, and considers.
"Done! Yes, certainly. I knew! I knew we could be reasonable about this. No one is
going to have to be hurt" - Evans
They say that they'll need somewhere to stay - preferably together - and Evans
promises to find spare rooms and such. For now, though, he bids them a good
afternoon, as he has to tell his Pylon what the plan is - and persuade them that this is
a good idea.
The Cabal, therefore, go back to the pub. Avatar goes to get the drinks in, and
Wolsey asks the others if they're sure they can't back out now. In any case, he says,
they should leave off any attempts to *find* the Robe until...
At the other end of the bar, Avatar is trying to persuade the landlord to let her see the
beer cellar.
"Oh, for God's sake" - Wolsey
Damascus smoothly provides the reason, expressing an interest in architecture of the
old building. They're gone for just long enough to find no robe whatsoever.
"So we're agreed that..." - Wolsey
"...Once it's dark, we head to the clock tower, right?" - Avatar
They stare one another down across the table.
Doooooooooooomed
"...You're discounting the obvious place of the museum" - Damascus
There's no real argument at that, because she was - simply because that's where it was, and me not wanting the npc to solve
the plot. A case of being caught-out by a player, there.
Wolsey realises that none of the others are going to get through tonight without going
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looking for the Robe, no matter what they've told the Seers and shaken hands on.
Once Avatar gets up again, he looks around the other two
"Can we put this to a vote? The three Cabal members only? To decide if we're going
to honour the spirit of our agreement with these people or go Robe-hunting? I'm
against continuing - you know that." - Wolsey
"..I'm for." - Damascus
"Can I ask why?" - Wolsey
In a 180 from the airport last session
"...See, you're right Wolsey... This place is a crock." - Damascus
They turn to Kali, who tries to abstain but is pressed into coming down on one side or
the other. Eventually, she declares herself "for", which means that while the Seers
think they're making progress persuading them to leave, the Cabal will in fact be
Robe-hunting.
"Doesn't Avatar get a vote, though?" - Kali
"No. Not like we don't know how she'd vote, anyway." - Wolsey
Kali checks his future. The Doom is upon him.
She stares at him as Avatar, oblivious, returns to the table. Kali blinks first.
Evans phones with news of where they're staying - the Grandmother Hills has died,
he says, so there's a spare bedroom in that house, while the family Wilson's twin
teenagers are off at boarding school, giving another two beds. The last will be
provided by Evans himself, as he couldn't get another spare room on no notice.
The Cabal divvy it up. Evans tries to nudge them into having Kali stay with him, but
Wolsey declares that he's going to do it. Damascus and Kali will take the twins' room
while Avatar is sleeping in the old lady's bed.
Avatar makes sure that Damascus and Kali intend on aiding and abetting her
treasure-hunt tonight, and they say that they are. Wolsey says that he'll keep Evans
distracted.
Wolsey is quite enamoured of Evans' plan at this stage. Besides, he gave his word.
...
Later on, and Damascus and Kali are shown to the bedroom by the Wilsons, who
seem fascinated by their exotic appearances
"I always feel like I'm letting them down by not having a bone through my nose" Damascus
Kali isn't listening to him, though - she's examining the room. Star-charts hanging
from the ceiling. Football posters. Star Wars bedding.
"Bagsie Darth Maul" - Kali, referring to the duvet covers
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...
Mr Evans and Wolsey , meanwhile, are taking a stroll around the green on their way
back to Evans' house.
Evans has just finished pointing out some feature of the scenery, when Wolsey drops
the question.
"Why are you a Seer?" - Wolsey
"I... Uh..." - Evans
Wolsey waits.
"I was young when I went... elsewhere... not out of my Teens. It was years - years before I met anyone else with the power. That power was always shameful to me,
something that I shouldn't be proud of. Anyway, while I was at University I met Smith,
and he inducted me. I fell in love with his village while visiting him here, and ended
up staying" - Evans
"I'm sorry. I'm sure you had your reasons" - Wolsey.
"I love this place, do you understand? Love it. And this" (waves hand around) "isn't
magical. It's special, to be sure, and I've spent my life protecting it. But I'm proud justifiably proud - that I don't use the Power most times, and nothing more than a
nudge when I do. Tristan calls the overt use of Power 'Cheating'" - Evans
"That seems the phrase he'd use" - Wolsey
"Miss Ryden, of course, wants me to use the fullest of my abilities, but.. I cannot
shake the feeling that it's because she doesn't have those abilities nearly as
advanced herself. Does that make sense?" - Evans
"Yes, it does." - Wolsey
"If I may say so, you're not all bad for a potential enslaver of mankind." - Evans
"Isn't that my line?" - Wolsey
"I suppose, but you'd be wrong. In anything there are rules, and there is good and
evil, but... Let me try to explain. I think I have the measure of you - you're the sort of
man who enjoys tearing away veils, am I right? You want to shatter the world of
everyone in it and show them the true way, which invariably has you at the top" Evans
"It doesn't necessarily have me at the top" - Wolsey
Evans looks at him
"I believe you. But I wouldn't believe most of your people. Have you considered that
people may be happier in this world than in yours?" - Evans
"I have" - Wolsey
But as he said to the Cabal.. oh, quite a few sessions ago, he's in the business of revealing truth. Not 'making people happy'.
309
Wolsey doesn't give three shits for 'happy'
...
They eventually make it to Evans' living room. Wolsey refuses wine. Politely.
"That would be the philosophical question, then, wouldn't it? You want to tear the
world down and leave anarchy in it's wake. I think that this world is beautiful, and that
the Lords have made a world worth saving rather than ripping apart in pique at
finding that the universe does not revolve around you" - Evans
"I think... that on this score we're going to simply have to agree to disagree" - Wolsey
"Your Indian friend will not stop, I fear, until she has her prize, no matter what the
consequences" - Evans
It's interesting that Evans identifies Kali as being 'Indian' - American characters tend to identify her mixed-race as 'black'.
"My Indian... Ah. No. No. It's the other one you need to worry about. The greenhaired woman." - Wolsey
"Really?" - Evans
"Really" - Wolsey, firmly
They sit back for a while
"...I would honestly like to leave this place to itself, but I can't force my friends. If she
can be persuaded, then she'll drop the quest and the other two will to." - Wolsey
"I.. um... that is.... I... I... I mean We... I mean I... could try to 'persuade' her" - Evans
"Is that persuade with a capital P?" - Wolsey, meaning Magic
"It.. uh.." - Evans
"Because I can’t tell you what to do here - do you understand that? I can't go against
my Cabal" - Wolsey
"Though if we were to... persuade... the young lady..?" - Evans
"Then I wouldn't complain" - Wolsey
This is... something of a betrayal here. Not only has Wolsey identified Avatar as being the one the Seers need to stop, but
he's given his tacit approval - and made sure that Evans knows what he's doing - to having the Seers 'persuade' her to drop
the quest. Desperate times, and all - and I think that given what happens later, Wolsey wishes he'd been able to go further
than this.
They compare philosophies for a while longer, then agree to disagree. Wolsey,
feeling very tired indeed, goes to bed.
A short time later, Wolsey hears the front door. Evans has left the building.
Sighing, Wolsey gets himself back up and prepares to follow the Seer.
Kali and Damascus hear a pebble hit their window, and look out to see Avatar down
below.
"Still coming?" - Avatar
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"Yeah. Hang on" - Kali
They climb out of the window like teenagers slipping out of curfew, and the three of
them head toward the village hall.
They head towards the museum and - casting Incognito Presence - pick the lock,
creeping through the village hall. When they reach the back-foyer, they hear voices
and see a light coming from Mr Evans' clarity room. The voice isn't Evans, though it's a woman. The woman who confronted them earlier.
"You know what to do?" - Ryden
They look around and determine that they've not been spotted yet - although there's
a CCTV camera pointing at them (the first security device they've seen in the village).
Kali opens the door to the museum. It's not even locked.
Mark at this point was heard to utter "Bet it has Roman Coins"...
The museum has a number of old objects... China dinner services, flintlock muskets,
a Tyndale bible... A collection of Roman Coins!
That last said in the style of the Generation Game's Cuddly Toy. Gods, you Americans must be lost this recap. The UK
setting has made me break out the obscure references something rotten.
And a Penny Farthing bicycle.
Damascus looks at the wall behind the bicycle while closing the door to the museum
behind them.
"Have you noticed how hard that door's trying to not be noticed?" - Damascus
Uncrowned Kings Legacy 1, Secret door with Incognito Presence cast on it, Nil.
...
Wolsey, meanwhile, has followed Evans as far as... the village hall, actually! The
Seer goes inside, while Wolsey creeps around the outside, masked with potent mind
magic.
Essentially another use of the ubiquitous Incognito Presence. Good spell, that. Handy.
...
Both Wolsey outside the window and the others inside the museum hear the
shouting-match as Evans finds Ryden using his Clarity Room. From what they can
hear, Ryden does not agree with Evans' tactic of appeasement and peaceful
negotiation with the outsiders. She wants the Pylon to use their powers, take control
and drive the interlopers out. Evans raises his voice right back at her, saying that to
do so would break the principles they've operated under for years...
"I have given MY ENTIRE LIFE TO THIS PLACE! MY ENTIRE LIFE! I HATE IT
HERE! THIS.. JOKE! BUT I WILL NOT SEE THAT SACRIFICE THROWN AWAY
BECAUSE YOU'RE AFRAID!" - Ryden
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"I... THE SCREEN!" - Evans
Clearly, the gang inside the museum have been caught on camera.
Damascus hefts the cabinet containing Witchend's prize collection of Roman Coins
and jams it against the door, while the girls shove the bike out of the way and work
on getting the inner door open.
They retreat / advance into the inner room, the outer door rattling as Evans tries to
open it against the weight of the cabinet, pleading with them to not do "it".
Inside the dark inner gallery (Kali draws a gun and half-closes the secret door)
there's a collection of odd occult items - stuffed remnants of a rain of fish, a crucified
toad, an idol of a three-eyed fish-monster, a rat king and the head of St John the
Baptist among others.
Another question, Wood - is the idol meant to be Dagon or a Sea Devil from Doctor Who?
At the back of the room, though, there's a glass case. Pinned up against a scrap of
sackcloth is the Robe of the Dethroned Queen. More of a cloak than a robe, it's
made of cloth-of-gold with an embossed edging, six metal plates of varying size with
Atlantean runes pressed into them sewn onto the back. The fabric is an endless,
complex amalgamation of thousands of Atlantean runes, as though the Robe
describes a single, incredibly complex Word.
Kali stares at it, not hearing the crunch from the other room as Evans uses
Telekinesis to smash the Cabinet out of the way.
He's desperate enough to use Vulgar magic now.
The Robe is the odd cloak she saw her own Astral Self wearing, just after she was
defeated by her dream-father.
Back in "Not the Same Person". I don't think it's a spoiler now to say that the veil-like thing the same dream-projection was
wearing was the Crown of the Dethroned Queen
"That's it?" - Damascus
"That's it" - Kali and Avatar simultaneously
"Well, that was easy. What exactly did we need the Eyes and the Heart for, again?" Damascus
Kali starts to conjecture about how they were pointers or map markers or something,
while Avatar picks up the head of Saint John the Baptist and hurls it at the case,
shattering it. She grabs the Robe and pulls it out, laughing in exultation.
"NO!" - Evans, from outside
"Stay away!" - Kali, covering the door
"Please! You have to put it BACK!" - Evans
"I'm warning you!" - Kali
Need a door?
312
The last is a mental projection from Wolsey, who's still outside.
Concentrating all his Will on Pandemonium, focusing on his connection to the three
inside, Wolsey does in ten seconds what he'd prefer to do in thirty minutes and tears
Space into a Portal. The Cabal evacuate from the museum, jumping out into the night
air next to him.
I rule - and I'm not aware if this is right or not, but don't really mind either way - that the time per roll for Extended Spells is the
time-gap *between* rolls. That is, you make the first one when you start. The upshot is that if you spend willpower and you
can achieve as many successes as you need for your Imago on the FIRST roll, without using High Speech (which adds half
an hour of preamble) the spell goes off nearly-instantly. Too slowly for combat rounds, but fast enough for this sort of tense
scene.
"NOW can we go home?" - Wolsey, harshly
"Yes" - Avatar
Evans and Ryden come running from one direction. Jones (who's been in the church,
which they're standing next to) from the other.
"Now, that wasn't fair play, was it?" - Jones
Kali points her gun at him, and then at Ryden, warning them off.
Note, though, that she doesn't intend to fire - I don't think, anyway. Not since Seraph.
Sam: 'Exactly right – Kali never intended to actually shoot anyone. She realised it would make a good intimidation tactic,
however, since they were already terrified of them. Note later how much agonising she does over shooting Avatar –
explained below.'
"Please. That Robe brings only disaster. We've guarded it - we're used to it. Leave it
here" - Evans
Kali points the gun at him, and he immediately (and rather tragi-comically) puts his
hands up
"Please" - Evans
"Give it back" - Ryden, dangerously
Wolsey looks into Evans eyes.. and sees something unexpected. The Seer *wants*
them to leave. He wants rid of it - the rod off his back, the responsibility gone. When
he's pleading, he's not entirely pleading for them to return it. Feeling like he's on his
last legs, opens the strongest and safest Portal he can - the one home, to the
Sanctum.
"Go" - Kali
Avatar doesn't look back, jumping through to DC, the Robe bundled up against her
chest. Wolsey and Damascus step through, and Kali last.
The Portal closes as Wolsey dismantles the Imago, cutting Ryden's scream of
frustration and denial off.
.
313
.
Everyone takes a breath.
Wolsey glares daggers at Avatar and the others, and begins to work on Destroy the
Threads, erasing the connection between them and Witchend.
While he's working, Kali's cell phone beeps - while she was in England, she missed a
call. Ichi left a message asking her to give him a call back. She does so, gets his*
voicemail and leaves a similar message.
"..Okay. Done. Now wha.." - Wolsey
Avatar has put the Robe on.
She breathes in, and calmly out.
"It's finished" - Avatar
She takes the robe off and holds it out to Kali
"This belongs to you, now" - Avatar
"I don't want it" - Kali
(amused) "you don't want it?" - Avatar
"I don't want it. Or only half want it." - Kali
"Then you're an idiotic little girl, that needs to decide what she wants" - Avatar
Sam: 'Kali only wants it because it will hide her from the Exarchs, which will somewhat mitigate her being an unwilling Mage
– and really doesn’t want it at all, because it still doesn’t help her not wanting to be a Mage'
Kali hangs the robe roughly on a hatstand, and turns back to Avatar. Avatar herself
closes her eyes, as though listening to something.
"Well?" - Wolsey, harshly
"It's... gone." (smiles) "It's over. It's all... done. No more Train" - Avatar
Her body language shifts, standing more upright as though a weight has been lifted
from her shoulders.
Kali activates a Mage Sight, and watches the pieces of Avatar’s destiny slide around
her pattern, cancelling one another out and resolving themselves. Whatever it was
she was meant to do, she's clearly done it.
"So. Are we done now? Is this going to happen again?" - Wolsey
Avatar smiles coldly and condescendingly at him.
"No, Wolsey. I won't need to do that again" - Avatar
She never calls him 'Wolsey' when they're among friends
314
Damascus casts a Mage Sight of his own, and sees strange things happening to
Avatar’s mind - like it's expanding, or decompressing. She looks languidly around
them, a definite sense of superiority in the room.
"Are you sure? Because this has been an eventful couple of days. If you're sure this
won't ever happen again..." - Wolsey
"I will do as I see fit" - Avatar
"I mean to say" (emphasis) "that if we can trust you not to do this again there's still a
place for you here. Otherwise, I think it'd be better if you found another Cabal. We'll
help you, of course..." - Wolsey
"There's no need for that" - Kali
"No. He's right. If I'm not needed in this Cabal, then I'll be on my way" - Avatar
She walks towards the exit, and puts her hand on the door handle.
.
.
"Avatar" - Damascus, breaking his silence.
She turns to look at him, like he's beneath her.
"The Eyes of Salt. In your pocket." - Damascus
"What about them?" - Avatar, smiling
"They were put into this Cabal's trust. Hand them over" - Damascus
She takes her hand off the door handle, and smiles more coldly
"No" - Avatar
.
.
Wolsey looks from one to the other, horrified as realisation dawns.
Mark: 'Wolsey knew what was going on far before this – I’m sure I’d made a Dice roll on the body language, along with her
calling Wolsey Wolsey. If I had any horrified expression it was due to this kicking off over the eyes of salt rather then anything
else.'
.
.
"The Eyes" - Damascus
"Belong to me. I have nothing but respect for you, Damascus. You have helped me,
and I don't want to fight." - Avatar
315
"I have my Duty" - Damascus
.
.
Wolsey motions frantically at Kali, demanding silently that she give him the gun still
tucked into her belt. She hesitates, looking at him like he's mad, but he eventually
succeeds in getting her to hand it over.
Sam: 'Kali doesn’t want to shoot Avatar – she agonised over both shooting her herself, and giving the gun to Wolsey, forever.
She knows who she is, but to her it’s still Avatar (relatively) – and she can’t shoot Avatar! Also, Kali is getting sick of shooting
people as a way to solve all her problems. A little attack of ‘compassion’ or ‘conscience’ there, then? Kali refused at first to
give Wolsey the gun because it would implicate her in – i.e. stain her with the responsibility of – the potential death of a
friend. Kali, she is learning.)'
.
.
"Well then. Do your Duty, Damascus" - Avatar, once again with that condescending
smile.
.
.
"Give us the Eyes, Cxaxa" - Damascus, dangerously
She does not deny it.
Chills, I tell you! Chills! One of Rafe's standout moments, this. But not as much as this.
Querephas gives Damascus a choice Curse in what is presumably her native
language. Damascus rejoinders with the Atlantean swearword he learnt that one
time. They eye one another like gunfighters at the OK corral.
Wolsey looks at the thing wearing his wife's face.
And shoots it in the head.
Querephas suddenly does not appear to be exactly where she was, and the bullet
impacts into the wall behind her. She's Untouchable.
All pretence dropped, she surveys the trio. Damascus cautious, trying to draw her
attention away from the others almost subconsciously. Wolsey, the gun shaking in
his hand. Kali, looking aghast from Wolsey to her, realising what's happening.
She gestures, and the metal of the gun suddenly becomes red-hot. Wolsey drops it
with a clang, his hands burnt and bleeding. Querephas' Nimbus bursts out, a
howling, freezing wind whipping around them all. At the same time, Damascus gets a
whack in with his hammer, and Querephas looks surprised and angered to actually
be hurt.
Rafe succeeded on a chance die, there.
316
Everyone takes a step back in their various directions.
.
.
Pause
.
.
And reality ripples as the spells start to go off.
Initiative Order! Querephas (which is her name. "Cxaxa" is her title, according to Wood), then Kali and Wolsey together, then
Damascus.
First, the 'buffing'. Querephas casts Ward around herself. Kali casts Exceptional Luck
on herself. Damascus considers his Hammer and casts Armour-Piercing on it.
"KALI! THE OTHER GUN!" - Wolsey, running towards the kitchen
Querephas casts Ban on her own Ward, putting another barrier between herself and
the Cabal. Kali pulls her other gun out of it's holster and opens fire to no effect - the
bullets aren't even getting stopped by Querephas' Mage Armour, but impact on the
Ban, which is clearly versus metal.
Wolsey, in the Kitchen, thinks desperately.
Fortunately, after the Terrible Couscous incident of June 2006, the Cabal keep a
bucket handy. He begins to fill it with water.
He intends to pour it onto the red-hot gun. Which might not be the best course of action, but then he isn't really thinking
straight. The T.C.C.I is a reference to a one-liner by Kali some sessions ago.
Querephas, safe inside her layers of protective spells, takes a deep breath and
plunges her thumbs deep into her own eyes, screaming something unintelligible in
Atlantean as she pulls her own eyes out, jelly and blood running down her cheeks.
Damascus knew what the Eyes of Salt were for. He Knew. Kali pauses in horror.
Wolsey runs back in, bucket half-filled, to the terrible sight of Querephas inserting the
Eyes of Salt into her own ruined sockets. The stone eyes knit to her, staring
unblinking at the Cabal as she hisses in mixed pain and triumph.
"GOD! NO!" - Wolsey
Wolsey's knees give way beneath him and he collapses, falling onto his hands and
staring, horrified, at the scene.
Good bit of roleplaying here, which is an understatement. I can't quite get across the truly horrified, plaintive way Mark
shouted that line.
My name is Thomas Dean. And this is the Worst Day of my Life...
.
317
.
Pause, broken only by Wolsey sobbing.
.
.
Querephas, smiling all the while now with that damnable smile, sinks to her knees as
though mocking Wolsey. She carefully takes the Heart of Flies out of her inner jacket
pocket and puts it on the floor between her knees before tearing her shirt open,
buttons ripping off as she does so. Kali and Damascus, while she's taking her time,
look at one another grimly.
Weapons.
They both cast about themselves, looking for anything - anything - they can use.
Kali's eyes alight on the hatstand. Damascus' on the bucket.
Kali casts Lucky Coin on the Hatstand. Damascus, on the other hand, grabs the
Bucket and transmutes the liquid inside from water to gasoline.
Before throwing it over Querephas.
Wolsey tries to crawl to his feet and fails. He just.. can't.
He's out of Willpower now, completely destroyed.
Kali grabs the Hatstand, the Robe of the Dethroned Queen falling forgotten to the
floor as Kali wields the wooden pole like a spear.
Querephas begins to cut into her chest with her fingernail, a long vertical incision
over her heart.
Damascus raises his Hammer and smacks it into the ground, grabbing the pattern of
the floorboards and twisting one particular aspect of them - his Alter Conductivity
spell turns the floorboard running under Querephas into an electrical conductor,
running straight to the mains line behind the wall.
Say hello to the 21st Century, Querephas.
Querephas' back arches as she screams, muscles spasming as she tries to break
free. Kali swings at her with the hatstand - which goes through the ward but bounces
off the Mage Armour.
The electricity ignites the gasoline, and Querephas has even more problems.
Screaming, she makes an agonised gesture.
The lights go out, bulbs popping as Querephas uses Forces magic to force the
Lightning away from herself.
Querephas, still on fire, shudders horribly as she tries to focus enough to put the
flames out as well.
318
Damascus attempts to find a wooden object he can use as Kali stops trying to attack
Querephas. She smacks the hatstand down on the floor like a hockey stick, and
swipes it sideways.
The Heart Full of Flies skids across the floor like the world's most gruesome puck.
Querephas gets the fire out, breathing raggedly and bleeding from the not-finished
wound on her chest, staring with stone eyes at the Heart as it slides out of her grasp.
.
.
Wolsey finds his feet, dragging himself up by a chair. Face bloodshot, eyes screwed
tight, he hits Querephas in the face with it. Querephas falls to the ground,
unconscious.
Wolsey, sobbing, raises the chair to cave her skull in, but Damascus frantically casts
a Mage Armour on her causing him to miss.
"Call for help!" - Kali
Wolsey hollers something unintelligible at Damascus while making a second swing.
"SHE'S *POSSESSED*, NOT DEAD! CALL SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP!" Damascus
Wolsey staggers backwards, dropping the chair. He falls against the wall, fumbles for
the door handle and stumbles outside.
Damascus and Kali regard the Heart Full of Flies. Damascus casts Analyse Magic
Item on it, determining that - like the Eyes - it's a component of a greater whole,
unfinished and waiting for something. Now that they're in the same room, though, he
also learns what he learnt in the meantime. The other two pieces of the jigsaw are
the Eyes and Avatar herself.
Wolsey staggers back in. He's managed to reach Link on his cellphone and - after a
few tries - make himself understood.
"Throw it out of the window" - Wolsey
"Better idea" - Damascus
He casts Degrade Object on it, watching as tiny cracks appear on his surface.
And then, taking a short run up, he hits it with his (still armour-piercing) hammer, with
all the zeal of a Luddite in a machine shop.
The Heart explodes into splinters of glass, and suddenly there are flies *everywhere*.
The Sanctum is filled by a buzzing black cloud. From the direction of Querephas'
body, there's a noise like something howling as it gets blown away.
Getting a cloud of flies in the face brings Wolsey a bit nearer to sanity, and he shoves
them away from himself with a ward and Ban of his own. He finds the others, and
then Querephas' body - which is now Avatar's body again somehow, without any
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outward sign. The three conscious Cabal members huddle down next to Avatar and
wait.
The flies vanish, as suddenly as they appeared. All that remains of the Heart is a
collection of crushed glass on the floor. Querephas' armour spells vanish, and she
starts to bleed from her chest wound. Wolsey tries to stop the bleeding, and Kali
drops to his side, telling Damascus to fill the bucket again. With cold water this time.
She pulls her outer shirt off (Damascus likewise divests himself of excess clothing)
and they dunk them, trying to deal with the worst of Querephas' burns. Kali notes that
the chest wound is shallower than it looks - she must have been going to reach
inside herself to pull her heart out.
But she's going to make it. They think.
In a scenario with two possible outcomes - Avatar dead or Querephas on the loose, somehow player characters will find a
way to reach option "none of the above". I knew it. I even said as much to Wood before I ran it. For the record - Kali's first aid
roll here was the final roll affected by her Exceptional Luck, and she rolled an Exceptional Success. So.. yeah. Stabilised at
four lethal and six bashing. (Querephas has Stamina 4).
It's a good thing electricity does Bashing damage in the nWoD, that's all I can say.
Wolsey sinks to the floor, resting against the wall, and looks at Avatar - or is it still
Querephas? - lying in a pool of Avatar's blood. A single eyeball, that someone has
trodden on during the fight, stares accusingly up at him.
Time seems to go strange for him, as he sits there in a daze.
At some point, people start arriving. Link and Shore appear, stepping out of a Portal
of Shore's creation to survey the fallout and lend hands to help. Wolsey watches, not
really taking it in, as they and Kali examine Avatar and declare her pattern reverted.
Querephas was destroyed when the Heart was broken.
They can't regrow her eyes, they tell him as gently as they can. Regeneration is
possible, but like all magic costly and not permanent on living beings.
Bit of a shitter, that.
He doesn't move when they take her away, Portal opening at Shore's command. Link
has healed some of her wounds magically, but he wants to get her to someone who's
knowledge of Life isn't based on pressure points and meditation.
Ulysses arrives several hours later.
So does Samuel.
The two Masters apologise for their lateness (Samuel says it with a lot more feeling).
They were with Avatar, extracting the Eyes of Salt (which crumbled to dust) and in
Samuel's case ensuring that Avatar's Fate remains stable.
The Master of the House of Ariadne gently explains what's happened. Ulysses has
told him about the Ring, and the Robe, and together with the hints he saw in Avatar's
future when he Prophecy'd her he's pieced it together. Cxaxa, in the ancient past,
knew that she was going to die and bent her powers to cheating that death. She split
her soul into three Phylacteries, and poured as much of her knowledge as she could
record into them. The Eyes, the Heart and a woman - probably even her own
offspring. Eventually, her female descendent came into contact with the Eyes and
tripped the Fate Querephas had carefully set up.
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"From that point on - almost immediately after you met her again, in fact - she wasn't
fully Avatar. She was driven to reconnect with the other shards, and as she spent
more and more time with them she became Cxaxa more and more." - Samuel
Eventually, the final transformation was triggered by the Conditional spell Cxaxa had
built into her daughter and the two items: When Avatar put the Robe on, the symbol
of Cxaxa's rule, it triggered "her" memories returning.
"Whatever she's done these last few days, they've not been entirely her. You weren't
with the real Avatar" - Samuel
"We never were" - Wolsey, croaking
Wolsey means the fact that Amanda has always - *always* - felt the pull of the other
items. It's shaped her entire life. And now it's gone. He never knew the real her.
"You saved her life." - Ulysses
Wolsey doesn't think so.
"You did. You jumped off the train. Right at the very last second but you got *off* it.
Now what does that tell you about Destiny?" - Ulysses
"No. We stopped the train" - Kali
"The damage is done" - Wolsey
"Listen to me now, Thomas. And I understand that I by vocation am the least
qualified person in the room to say this... She's going to spend the rest of her life
knowing she's a broken part of something greater. Her injury will never go away...
whether that 'Dooms' the two of you or not - that's entirely up to you." - Ulysses
Wolsey nods.
"First thing tomorrow, I'll start on imbuing something to help her" - Ulysses
"Can we see her?" - kali
"Of course. I'll take you" - Samuel
"I... can't. Tell her? Please?" (to Kali and Damascus) "I just can't right now" - Wolsey
They understand
"And the Robe..." - Wolsey
"I understand. If you don't want it, I can..." - Samuel
"No." - Kali
Everyone looks at her.
"We're not giving it to the Mysterium. We're not giving it to you - no offence." (to
Samuel) "But everyone keeps telling me that this thing is mine. Fine, then. It's mine.
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And I'll use it as a fucking dishcloth until I figure out what I'm going to do with it" - Kali
At which point Wolsey snaps. He says, low but clear, that all this? All this is *their*
fault. He doesn't blame himself - he blames Kali and Damascus. They had ample
opportunity, all the way along the road, to stop her - but they didn't.
“Damn her not being strong enough to stop, and damn you two for going along with
it, and most of all Damn me for not being strong enough to stop her myself. - Wolsey
"... You might want to review my job description" - Damascus, coldly.
They leave him sitting alone, staring at the bloodstain.
Wolsey's shock is masking a deep rage - he's too tired and numb to move, but he's furious.
Mark: 'While I reckon Wolsey was smart to fire first, it was linked into his biggest mistake – which is one of the reasons he’s
so angry with himself. He was in such a pessimistic/depressed turn of mind that he didn’t even contemplate that Avatar could
have been saved at this point. If they’d listened to Wolsey at that point, Avatar wouldn’t have come out of that alive at all. Of
course, the gratitude he feels to the others for saving her is drowned out by the Towering rage at if they’d listened to him
earlier, none of this needed to have happened.'
As for Damascus' comment;
Rafe: 'This is deeper than it perhaps sounded. The Arrow is about oaths of service, and Damascus takes it seriously. His job
is not to decide what the cabal does or what its members do - although he is always happy to provide input if asked - his job
is to support and defend them as they do what they do. Given that Avatar could not be dissuaded from going after the Robe,
from the moment she joined the Cabal (Wolsey's idea, wasn't it?) it was certain that Damascus would follow and help her.
Like all the best Greek tragedies. The only way that could have been averted would have been Wolsey and Kali both
agreeing that (a) Avatar was kicked out, or (b) that she should be restrained *for the good of the cabal*.'
...
Not quite done yet!
Hours later - too many hours since he last slept - Damascus finally gets home. He
and Kali sat waiting for Avatar to wake up. They were there when she asked for Tom,
and when she realised she couldn't see. And when she realised 'it' was gone.
Kali stayed with her, not wanting to leave.
And now, Damascus really doesn't want to be Evil any more.
Just as he's making himself a meal to try to relax before bed, there's a knock on his
door.
Damascus drags himself out to answer it, blearily staring out at the imposing, tall
black man standing on his porch.
"Mr Washington?" - Man
"Uh.. Sorry. Yes?" - Damascus
"I'm sorry for showing up like this. I got your address from your agent - I've been
waiting for you to get home" - Man
Damascus frowns
"I want to commission a piece" - Man
"Oh! Right! Yes..." - Damascus
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He has seen a piece of Damascus' work, he explains, and wants to commission
something using the same model. Damascus gets his notebook and asks which
statue his guest is talking about.
The Caryatid column.
Damascus' shell-shocked and weary brain processes that as he finds his book.
"The.. uh.. column?" - Damascus
"It reminds me of someone" - Man
Damascus hasn't met him, and doesn't know who he is, but we the ever-omniscient
audience do.
He's Kali's dad.
End.
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Chapter 7: "Scorpion"
Session 7.1
"Once upon a time, the Fox came upon a Scorpion trying to cross the river.
"'You can ride on my head to the far shore', said the Fox. 'But only on the condition
you promise not to sting me'.
"'But see, that's my nature, said the Scorpion. To sting is my nature...'
"...surprise, surprise, halfway across the river, the Scorpion up and jabbed his stinger
right in the helpful Fox's head.
"'Now we're both gonna die, you dumb old Scorpion', said the Fox. 'What did you
want to go sting me for? I was doing you a good turn'.
"And the Scorpion said. 'I told you from the start.. that's my nature'.
"The Scorpion is Death; We carry him on our backs towards the far shore.
"Somehow, it's always a big shock when he turns around and stings us"
- 'Jim Crow', The Invisibles.
This is the "politics" story, but more than that it's the "personal" story: Scorpion is about the conflicting priorities of our three
player character's home lives with the skulduggery, manoeuvring and plotting involved in the election to replace Malakaii as
Councillor. And there's a lot of skulduggery to go around - alliances are shifting, the Cabals in the city have been shattered
by Mara's actions and Malakaii's death and unlikely bedfellows are hatching their schemes. Everyone, it seems, is going out
on a limb and trusting at least one person that they probably shouldn't.
Only question is - which one of them is the Scorpion?
Tuesday 19th September
7 Days Remaining
It is over a month since we last saw the Cabal, and there have been only a handful of
developments in the meantime. It is as though the Crucible has paused for breath,
much like the weeks following the 4th July bombing but stretching on and on, to the
point that Kali is beginning to wonder if things will ever get back to 'how they were'
ever again.
Amanda stayed in the hospital a few weeks, then a handful of days at the Sanctum,
fielding a steady trickle of Mysterium scholars, Guardian censors and curious Silver
Ladder mages all of whom wanted to interview her about her insights into the ancient
origins of the Ladder. Dredging Querephas' memories up constantly has not helped
Amanda over much, and Kali seems incapable of helping. Kali at first hardly left
Amanda's bedside, but spent more and more time away once she realised that she
wasn't helping any.
Eventually, three weeks ago now, Amanda up and left Washington DC. Eyes still
bandaged, she declared herself to be in need of being alone and got a one-way ticket
to New York from Dulles international airport. Kali, the only of her friends to be
around, could only watch her go.
Wolsey never once visited Amanda in the hospital. He never went to the Sanctum
when she was there (or, in fact, at all since the battle with Querephas). If he
contacted her, Amanda didn't say.
Damascus' own involvement with the Cabal and it's business has also trailed off - not
outright abandonment like Wolsey and Amanda, just the distinct feeling that he has
things to worry about in his own life. If they need him, he'll be there in a heartbeat.
But as they don't...
His period of antinomism is now over, and he's submitted his report on the subject to
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John Dee.
"What most people think is evil... isn't. It's base. It is our animal instincts - lust, rage,
hunger - given priority over society. We call it evil because we like to believe we are
something more than what we are made of. And we are. But we are an alloy mixed
by a blind chemist, with no thought to proportion or result. To return to our base
nature allows us to begin again, to re-alloy our souls. To make of what we are
something far greater than the parts." - Damascus
Rafe: Interestingly, this thesis leaves open the existence of true Evil - and casts it as a mirror image of what Damascus
hopes to become, with the corollary that it would be reached in a similar way.
Mostly, though, Damascus has been a Fresher. He's started at College now Georgetown, to be exact, where he's going through freshman week and trying to
keep everything straight in his head. The sole mark on the Sanctum showing that he
still goes back there (to recast his defence spells using the Hallow so as to avoid
using Mana, mostly) is a wallchart showing the various classes. In the end, he's
taking Art History, Psych and Philosophy, avoiding deciding which of the three he'd
Major in until it matters.
So he's rather too busy to keep Kali company. Ichi is no good - the message she
received from him after she got back from England was a request for her services at
a Buy, making sure the other party wasn't crooked. Ichi has pretty solidly hooked up
with Lisa now, and although he hints he'd throw her to the kerb if Kali came back she
isn't interested. Best, she thinks, to let it die.
No - Kali is now determinedly moving into phase 2 of her life's journey, as she sees
it. She's socialising with Mages her own age, from both the Mysterium and the House
of Ariadne, trying to build up her position in those groups. Which is all well and good,
but doesn't fill up the calendar nearly as much as Mages like Trace make it seem.
The rest of the time she mopes around the Sanctum, watching TV and trying to think
of a time she could entertain herself.
We met Lisa back in "Five Things" and "Who Benefits?"
Not even Seraph's unwanted visitations bother her. The Seer only shows up to try to
convert her once, and spends most of the snatched ten minutes complaining about
Hera and his other fellow Seers, who apparently don't understand him. Kali's heart, it
doth bleed. Really.
The quiet of the Crucible contrasts against the internecine strife and mass falling-outs
going on in the rest of the city's Cabals. Damascus has been informed that he has
been successful in volunteering as a Sentinel, and will receive his marque at the
month-end Consilium. He and Kali hear, through their own discrete friends and
contacts, of what's going on in the wider world of the Pentacle.
The month-end Consilium will see the election to replace Malakaii as Councillor. No
one but Melchior of the Ascendants has stood for the post yet, and Banneker is
backing his fellow Silver Ladder. Most people's minds don't seem to be on the
election, instead focusing on the other ramifications of Malakaii's death.
The Gatekeepers Cabal has now formally sundered into two - the Gatekeepers (Mr
Thursday's Faction) and the Wardens (Mara's Faction). Guardians of the Veil from all
over the city have quit their Cabals in favour of Thursday's, polarising the situation
further. Roriko, one of Mara's former apprentices who until just now was in Dantor's
Cabal, has gone over to Mara's. The Independent Tybalt - often derisively referred to
325
as the "Diet Wolsey" - has joined Thursday's, the Bokor's need for supporters
overwhelming everyone's dislike for the odious little man.
Both new Cabals have been pushed away, alliance-wise, from the Defenders as
headed by Dantor, due to their recruiting of a particularly significant new member. In
the weeks since he was proved innocent of Malakaii's death, Beckett has had the
long-standing charges against him dropped by Banneker in murky circumstances.
The ex-Guardian Master, supposed by many to be left-handed, has joined the
Defenders. Arguably, it's because Shore (whom the Crucible introduced him to and
with whom he gets on well) is in it. Beckett wandering around unmolested is angering
the remaining Guardians in the city and infuriating Mara's followers due to his
involvement in toppling her from power.
All of this, Kali and Damascus have heard from Trace, from Katherine, from
Shepherd, from Ulysses, from Shore, from Link, from Mara and from John. And all of
them have questions for our heroes...
"Where is Wolsey?"
"Who is Wolsey supporting?"
"Why hasn't Wolsey shown himself?"
"Whose side is Wolsey on?"
Kali and Damascus take messages, add them to the stacks of existing messages
and shrug their shoulders.
Kali and Damascus are also failing to meet up and connect with one another. Before the session, I asked the players whether
the nascent relationship they started on in last story went any further, or if Damascus dropped it with the antinomism. They've
haven't gone through anything like a break-up, it's just.. they haven't gone out, or slept with one another, since Querephas.
Damascus considers the thing to.. not be *over* over, just stopped. He hasn't really thought about it. Kali, as revealed later in
the session, doesn't. She just thinks they haven't been on a date since Vegas.
One Saturday afternoon, Kali is watching a marathon of 'Lost' and eating yesterday's
pizza when Amanda comes home. The bandages are off, and she's wearing black
glasses.
"Oh, hey" - Kali
Amanda lugs her suitcase and cocks her head
"Hey. Just you?" - Amanda
"Just me and Dominic Monaghan" - Kali
Amanda joins her, kicking the door shut behind her and feeling her way to the sofa.
"This is a repeat, yeah? A Good one." - Amanda
"We can watch something else..." - Kali, trailing off as her faux pas hits her.
Amanda grimaces thinly and says it's fine.
And they 'watch' Lost.
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Three days later, and the pair have gotten into something of a routine. Amanda
forgets to turn the lights on so Kali thinks she's alone and is then startled, Amanda
rambles about how she had to have a few weeks off to get her head together and
Kali distracts her with the power of minutiae.
Wolsey is never mentioned. Aggressively so.
Finally, on Tuesday morning, Kali rises from her pit around lunchtime, to hear voices
echoing through the too-big and too-empty Sanctum. She wanders into the main
room to find Amanda talking to a rumpled man in late middle age, his hair thinning
and his face lined - almost as creased as his cheap suit. He looks like someone who
sleeps on airplanes.
Mycroft - for this is he - is cast in my mind as Dean Stockwell, though my Dean Stockwell impression is not up to the task of
reinforcing this in play. The same ooc digression led to me confessing that I see Amanda as Emma Caulfield.
"Oh, hello" - Man
Kali, not unreasonably, asks who he is.
"Sorry - yes. Manners. My name is Mycroft. I'm here to.. well.. I'm here for a few
reasons, actually. I'm from the Eleventh Question; I was originally called to this city to
investigate a murder I believe you've already solved." - Mycroft
Mycroft was mentioned, without naming him, in "Who Benefits?". He's the outside investigator Thursday called in over
Banneker's head. The Question are a Guardian of the Veil Legacy, from that Order book, who specialise in solving
investigative enigmas and mysteries. Their first attainment gives them a Sherlock-Holmes like ability to read details of a
person from their appearance. He is, of course, named after Sherlock's smarter, older brother from the original stories. I like
the name. I've used it before.
Kali makes a "it was nothing" shrug, and Mycroft grins.
"Secondly, I'm here to interview Amanda.." (Kali narrows her eyes) "Nothing like that,
I assure you. The other Guardians may not like what I've done to myself, or might be
inconvenienced by my devotion to Truth, but they do see me as being useful for
something. Reading motivations. I'm here because.. Amanda?" - Mycroft
"Go ahead" - Amanda
"I'm here because Amanda has asked to join the Guardians of the Veil" - Mycroft
"So you're giving her the sales pitch?" - Kali
"Exactly the opposite. I'm here to make sure she's not doing it for the wrong reasons.
And, there is one last purpose bringing me to your door..." - Mycroft
He looks over at the entrance to the spare room - Gawain's old room as was - and
kali follows his gaze, to the small, battered and travel-worn suitcase.
She looks back at Mycroft, who's face and body contort in a "what can you do?"
expression and shrug.
"...As a new Mage in the city, and as my fellow Guardians don't seem to want me in
their Cabal.. I'm afraid your Lex Magica is quite specific" - Mycroft
Kali gets his meaning
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It means he's now a member of their Cabal.
"So!" (brightly) "Where are the rest of the famous Crucible, then?" - Mycroft
"I haven't seen them in days" - Kali
"Oh? Busy, are they?" (off her look) "You don't have to answer that, sorry." - Mycroft
At which point, before she can think of anything to say, Damascus knocks on the
door.
"You don't have to knock, Damascus, this is your Sanctum too" - Kali, sarcastic
"Force of habit. Hey! Amanda!" (she waves in his general direction) "And... ah..." Damascus
Introductions are repeated.
"You're joining the Cabal?" - Damascus
"Yes. The mission I came here from Chicago for has been rendered null by your very
own actions, but... well.. I'm afraid that Dresden and I never got on at the best of
times, and I was informed that my stay here in DC would as far as they were
concerned be permanent. This will be my third Cabal and fifth Consilium" - Mycroft
"Dresden?" - Damascus
"The Hierarch there" - Mycroft
I am so, so, sorry
"So why not Thursday's Gatekeepers?" - Damascus
"They didn't want me. Said they were full, which given that they're actively recruiting
every young Guardian on the Eastern Seaboard to move to DC and sign up doesn't
exactly ring true. No, I'm afraid that I believe I serve as a warning to yourselves" Mycroft
"What warning?" - Kali
"New Consilium members without a Cabal are signed up to yours. If you don't do
what Thursday wants, he'll flood you with new members." - Mycroft
Damascus pinches his eyes.
"Great. That's... has anyone seen Wolsey? People keep phoning me asking for him?"
- Damascus
"There's a bunch of messages on your noticeboard for him. And others in this pile by
the TV. And I think some are stuck in the cheese of an old pizza under the sofa." Kali
"Okay." (to Mycroft) "So what's your intention? You don't have to stay in DC" Damascus
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"In truth, I dislike being used as a blatant scare tactic, especially so clumsily. And this
city is as good as any other. There is a lot of..." (considers) "There's room for a little
light to be shed. I see myself as a lens in Plato's cave, illuminating sections of the
wall, if you follow" - Mycroft
"I always thought we were the fire" - Kali
(to the room at large) "Why does everyone want Wolsey?" - Damascus
"Your friend here" (nods towards Kali) "Wolsey is the only medium-sized player to
have not committed himself. Everyone is watching to see which way he votes, and
they expect that where he goes Kali here will follow. And, as she's his favourite,
Samuel will in turn follow, and his large Cabal after him." - Mycroft
"Good to know I'm good for something" - Kali, sarcastic
"They think Wolsey can tell Kali how to vote? They've obviously never met either of
them" - Damascus
Still, they could do with Wolsey here. If the politics are heating up to the point that
they're being obliquely threatened, they need their political advisor.
"You got a car?" - Damascus
"Outside. Assuming it's still there." - Mycroft
"You coming?" - Damascus, to Kali and Amanda
"Nah. You go. Tell him we said hi" - Kali
Amanda shakes her head.
...
Mycroft drives a General Motors that has seen better decades
"very.. Patriotic" - Damascus
This, as Rafe points out, is from the man who drives a Ford pickup truck.
...
Damascus knocks on the door to Wolsey's apartment. There's a brief flash of light
from the spyhole as Wolsey checks who it is, then the door unlocks.
"Good afternoon, Wol..." - Damascus
Wolsey looks like crap.
He hasn't shaved, his suit looks like he's been wearing it for days and his eyes are
bleary.
"Come in" - Wolsey
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The inside of the apartment isn't much better. Last time Damascus was here, it was
conspicuously clean. Now there are papers all over the tables, washing up in the
kitchen and an odd smell.
"Coffee? I have a new machine" - Wolsey
His old one's in the Sanctum, continuity-fans
He sees Damascus looking at the papers
"I've been busy. Working. You know? Real work?" (nods at Mycroft) "Who's your
friend?" - Wolsey
Mycroft introduces himself for the third time, explains how he's being used as a
challenge by Thursday for the second and goes a bit further, pledging that, on his
oath, if he's to be in a Cabal then he'll act like it and make Thursday regret it. And, he
notes, he can't lie.
"Well, I Can Lie. I just don't" - Mycroft
It's a Vow, a special form of Oblation. The 11Q's famous Truthfulness is why the other Guardians don't like them - they're
premier investigators, but their devotion is to the Truth, not to the Labyrinth.
He goes on to tell Wolsey about Amanda joining the Guardians.
"Why?" - Wolsey
"I believe that it's because she doesn't want what happened to her to happen to
anyone else." - Mycroft
Wolsey takes that in
"Could you give us a moment?" - Wolsey
"Of course. Ah, good thick concrete walls..." - Mycroft, leaving
"Alright. What?" - Wolsey
"Don't ask me, I've been at College" - Damascus
"Tell me what's been going on" - Wolsey
So Damascus does, laying out all the changes to the local Cabals, to *their* Cabal,
and how everyone seems to want to know what Wolsey is going to do. He particularly
focuses on the troika of Shore, Beckett and Ulysses, who are a trio of Masters all
theoretically below Dantor.
Wolsey is rather pleased by the revelation that Beckett has been freed.
"That means Dantor's doomed" - Wolsey, blackly humoured
Damascus gives him a look
"You see him following anyone's orders for very long?" - Wolsey
Damascus replies in the non-committal.
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Wolsey closes his eyes and sighs.
"...I'm going to have to shave, aren't I?" - Wolsey
And he's back on his game.
Back at the Sanctum, Trace has come to visit. Greeting Amanda (whose reply
indicates that she visited Trace yesterday - which Kali didn't know), she gets to
business with Kali
"It's Blaise. He's.. Uh.. Well, Samuel's fired him" - Trace
"Seriously?" - Kali
"Yup. Samuel's announced that Blaise has not been making a good enough job of
being Provost or the second of the House, so he's out of both positions - and noone's seen him since." - Trace
Kali frowns, remembering, and thinking that she might know a reason for this.
Kali suspects that Samuel's thrown Blaise out of his positions because she slept with him - in reality, it's more along the lines
of Samuel finally realising what a crap Provost Blaise is (a truth that is self-evident to Wolsey and Damascus). But he has
dumped him relationship-wise as well as professionally, too.
"Samuel's been calling everyone in his Cabal and in the House in for private talks,
one by one. He's got to be picking who's going to take over from Blaise..." - Trace
"You'd be good" - Kali, honestly.
"Thanks. But he's not asked me in, yet. He's seen Mary, and Evelyne, and John.
Sister, Valkerie, Cerberus.. they're all his Cabal, rather than us in the House. I get the
feeling he's going to pick his new Provost from them rather than us" - Trace
"What do you want me to do about it?" - Kali
"I want to know what's going on. Look, Kali - everyone knows that you're Samuel's
favourite." (off Kali's look) "You're the one helping with his search, right? You're the
one he picked for that? That he tells things to?" - Trace
Kali is, I reckon, a bit sick of being told that she's Samuel's favourite.
"All right, all right... I'll see what I can find out" - Kali
"It's like he's moving. Like, since he got back from his last trip he's got a purpose.
We're all used to Samuel being the big, powerful master who doesn't do anything
except hang out with us kids and smoke weed. It's like something's woken him up
now - like he's preparing for something he's decided to do" - Trace
Kali promises she'll go find Samuel the next day and find out what's going on. Trace
gratefully thanks her.
The boys return, Wolsey back on the game
"Right! First things first - messages" - Wolsey
"On the noticeboard and under the sofa" - Kali, without looking around
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Wolsey sees Damascus' timetable
"First order of business - we burn that thing" - Wolsey
"Excuse me?" - Damascus
"Damascus, it gives away your timetable. Basic breach of security. Anyone could get
a connection to you from it" - Wolsey
"It's out of date!" - Damascus
Wolsey is indeed back!
"Trace, good to see you" - Wolsey
"Good to see you too, Wolsey." - Trace
"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse us. We've got cabal business" - Wolsey
Trace was done anyway. Saying goodbye to Amanda - who's trying to be
inconspicuous around Wolsey - she leaves.
And so, the Crucible is convened for the first time in over a month. First, Mycroft asks
if they'll have him. So to speak, and the theory behind why Thursday sent him here is
raised for all.
"We need to think of some kind of humiliating and dangerous initiation ritual to
discourage newcomers" - Damascus
"Er" - Mycroft
"Not for you, obviously. For anyone after you" - Damascus
Wo9lsey asks if there are any objections, and everyone replies in the negative, so
Mycroft is in. He asks which practices they follow, and Damascus tells them.
"Ah, no Emeritus. Aside from the obvious respect as a Caucus head of my Order
deserves, I don't need to obey Thursday then." - Mycroft
(looking around at his fellows) "Five. Five's a good number" - Damascus
"Two Mastigos, Two Moros and an Acanthus" - Mycroft
He's the other Moros
So. Everything comes down to this (Samuel's troubles notwithstanding) - Who do
they want as Councillor? Melchior is the only candidate so far.
Mycroft says that Thursday is likely to stand at the last minute, hoping that the "at
least he's not Melchior" factor will swing it. Wolsey adds that Thursday appears to be
trying to buy votes by importing supporters to the Consilium. He does not sound like
he approves.
"It's clumsy, I know. The thinking of someone who's been an Interfector too long.
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Thursday's not used to the subtleties needed for an Epotet" - Mycroft
"What's his justification?" - Wolsey
"He needs them. It's the Congressional and Senatorial elections next month - and
with Malakaii gone and the Cabal that handled the security for these things
shattered... I think Thursday has nightmares about waking up in December to find
that a Vampire's managed to get itself elected to the Senate or something. He's
dragging in any warm body he can and trying to stabilise his powerbase." - Mycroft
"I predict the Democrats will make great gains" - Wolsey
Heh
Of course, like the mortal politics, this vote is really the first round of "who gets to be
Hierarch". Right now, Banneker is wobbling. Losing Malakaii and - for all intents and
purposes - Mara, combined with Samuel growing increasingly disinterested, means
his list of high-level backers is growing desperately short. Who gets to be Councillor
and to a lesser extent who they then pick to be Provost will help decide Banneker's
fate. Banneker hopes that Melchior, as a Silver Ladder, will shore him up. Thursday
hopes to return Banneker to relying on the Guardians.
Who else?
Shore and Ulysses are both maybe worthwhile candidates, but neither of them are
standing yet. The Cabal's standing plan is to persuade Ulysses to stand.
Why not Melchior?
Well, Melchior is running on a hard-line law and order platform, promising to bring the
Consilium under the Lex Magica properly and enforce the law. In these troubled
times, that's quite a tempting prospect - and Wolsey supposes that if there's a Seer
attack in the offing, then they'd probably even be better off WITH Melchior. But,
ultimately, it comes down to one thing.
"I just don't... like him. What's his reason for standing, anyway? It's a blatant grab for
immediate power." - Wolsey
"Do you think he's got it prophesised in his scroll?" - Amanda
"Aside from his own arrogance, there's the problem that a vote for Melchior isn't
really a vote for Melchior. This is the man who makes all decisions based on what
Balthazar's divinations tell him" - Wolsey
But Wolsey isn't sure about Shore or Ulysses, either.
"What do we know about Shore? About how he'd be any better?" - Wolsey
Damascus reminds him that he wanted Ulysses, back when they formed the
committee to elect the next Hierarch (tm). Wolsey frets that this is too soon - electing
Ulysses now would completely destabilise Banneker, and more to the point declare
that they, the Cabal, *want* to completely destabilise Banneker. As Wolsey points
out, it's not even a sealed vote.
Beckett is considered and discounted. According to Damascus and Mycroft, he isn't
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standing - he knows he'd never win, and would prefer to be a puppetmaster behind
whoever actually did. Wolsey tells Kali his conclusion about Beckett and Dantor.
Mycroft fills in Thursday's opinion - apparently, Thursday has had a major falling out
with Dantor, his old mentor, about Beckett (the former Guardian and opponent of
Malakaii, who Thursday looked up to - even if Thursday looked up to him more in
hindsight than he actually did at the time). He thinks Dantor has called up something
she can't put down.
"Is it too soon?" - Wolsey, wondering to himself
In the end, though, Damascus wins him over. Ulysses it is, then.
"No matter what the rest of you do, I'm probably going to have to vote for Melchior, if
that's what Banneker says" - Wolsey
He should probably make a show of supporting Banneker's choice himself, he says,
and he'll go visit the Hierarch tomorrow to find out what that choice is.
Kali volunteers to spread the word among the younger mages, which they're all for
until they realise she means 'by force, using Magic'. Wolsey reminds her that she
wouldn't want her own vote tampered with, and she finally agrees to do it the old
fashioned way, though she grumbles about it for the rest of the day. She is to push
the idea of Ulysses as a candidate. The People's Choice, as it were.
The tactic, as designed by Wolsey and Damascus, is to get a crowd of people
begging Ulysses to run. If he's convinced that the Consilium want him, his
reservations about doing Banneker a disservice by standing will be overcome.
Damascus is to work on Ulysses himself, while Wolsey sees if Banneker can be
persuaded to support the Adamantine Arrow priest.
"Fine. But It'll have to be tomorrow" - Kali
"That's fine" - Wolsey
"Kali. Remember the appointment" - Damascus
"What day is it?" - Kali
"Tuesday" - Damascus
"And what day were we..?" - Kali
"Thursday" - Damascus
"Right." - Kali
More on the appointment later
Mycroft will get the view of the Guardians of the Veil, he volunteers.
"Uh..." - Amanda
Everyone looks at her. Eventually, one of them realises she can't see them waiting
for her and tells her she has their attention.
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"If Mycroft is talking to the Gatekeepers, I can talk to the Wardens. I'm still on better
terms with Mara than the rest of you" - Amanda
Good point.
"This isn't a serious suggestion, but.. how hard would it be to make a copy of your
friend Ulysses' Sigil?" - Mycroft
"And put him forward without telling him?" - Damascus
"As I say. Not that serious a suggestion" - Mycroft
So. Marching orders.
"Mycroft. Before we go - we may need to contact you, and if you want to be in the
Cabal..." - Wolsey
"Sure. Given that we're now a" (air quotes) "'team', my name's Mark Chef " - Mycroft
It's a hard Ch, like in 'Church', rather than like the other word for cook
The rest of the gang introduce themselves properly, Carl, Thomas, Amanda and...
"Kemi Simone" - Kali
"Interesting. Are you sure?" - Mycroft
"Er. Yes?" - Kali
"It's just, and I apologise, but.. you don't seem entirely convinced of that." - Mycroft
"She's adopted" - Damascus
Mycroft 'oh's silently, smiles warmly and - when Kali isn't looking, frowns. He does
not seem convinced.
...
Wednesday 20th September
While Damascus goes to college...
Kali spends the morning visiting various young Mages of the Mysterium - Hoban
(who's back from New York, and apparently brought Guardians with him when they
tagged along for the return trip), Heinrich, Ebony and Francine - and does her best to
further the "vote for Ulysses" party among her Order-mates. As the clock ticks around
to the afternoon, she decides that she can't put it off any longer and heads North.
She sits on her motorbike outside the Time Machine for a good half hour before
deciding to go inside.
"Kali" - Samuel
He seems distracted, and slightly irritated, like he's being held up from something
he'd rather be doing. He asks her how her following the thread is going.
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"I'm still looking" - Kali
"Make sure that you do. Nothing is more important than this, do you understand? Not
your Cabal's opinions and not this election" - Samuel
"About that..." - Kali
"You want to know who I'm voting for. The answer is 'no one'. In fact, I might not
even turn up." - Samuel
"You have bigger fish" - Kali
"Exactly. And so do you." - Samuel
She asks about Blaise's old position, and he tells her that he's going to split it up picking a second in his Cabal, another for the House and then picking a Provost for
the Consilium. Kali recommends Trace.
"For which one?" - Samuel
"Uh, the.." - Kali
Samuel cuts her off with a wave of his hand
"I'm probably going to declare Mary my Provost. Her own Legacy is just as important
to the Cabal's work as the House, and she's been unfairly kept behind Blaise." Samuel
Mary is the eldest Bearer of the Stone Book. We met her apprentice Francine early on in the Chronicle. They're part of
Samuel's Cabal, which is pretty huge.
Part of this whole turn of affairs is to break the illusion that Samuel's Cabal equal The House of Ariadne - they're two
separate groups, and most House members aren't in the Recorders. As for what he's doing - Samuel is seeking a competent
Provost who will actually handle Consilium business for him (like they're meant to), and understudies for his role in his
Legacy and his Cabal.
He's preparing to leave. He's achieved Gnosis 9 as of his extended time out of the Chronicle - the maximum he can, given
he's made a Demesne, and is preparing himself to become an Archmage.
"The answers are out there if you look, Kali. So go look. Trust DC. She knows what
you need to find. Don't get distracted from the thread." - Samuel
Kali promises to keep looking, and leaves.
...
Wolsey, meanwhile, has gone to see Banneker and has found the Hierarch to be in a
preoccupied mood.
"Good to see you back on the job" - Banneker
"Thank you, I think. Sir... I've been taking stock of the situation and I'm seeing the
possibility of Ulysses standing. That's what you wanted, originally." - Wolsey
Banneker considers, frowning.
"Unfortunately, I have already promised my support to Melchior. My word as a
Théarch. But listen, Thomas... I won't tell you how to steer your own people.
Understood?" - Banneker
"Understood" - Wolsey
Banneker's hedging his bets again, and still thinks Wolsey's on his side.
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...
While Wolsey returns to the Sanctum from Banneker's offices, Kali goes to walk
Ariadne’s thread. Wandering through the city, casting Interconnections and Sybil's
Sight at random intervals and looking for significant things that stand out. After a few
hours of casting these auguries, she comes across a billboard. It's advertising some
kind of music-playing cell phone, with the slogan "the song that makes you want to
call home", but is reacting to her magically-boosted senses like a man who's destined
to be struck by lightning swearing 'may god strike me down'.
After a few minutes consideration, Kali notices that the 'track' the phone is shown
playing is simply "Track G", and then a play time in four digits. A Letter and four
numbers makes for a street address, and she sets off
I've been rather vague so far on the mechanics that the House of Ariadne use - there's a first-dot effect that lets you spot
moments of fated significance, like the oath I just used as an example. You wander until something 'pings' on that, then
follow the Interconnections of Fate and sympathy through the city. The House believe that the accumulated clues and
phenomena hide the city's message to them. What's not in doubt is that it does work - more accomplished members of the
House can be led to things they're looking for by a trail of these sympathetic breadcrumbs. The question is - are they doing it
all themselves? Is it a real external phenomena that they pick up on, or are their minds just seeing patterns where there
aren't any?
I do like the House. Best Legacy in The Sublime.
That address turns out to be a bank, which has already closed. Kali wanders around,
trying to find her next point on the thread, until she sees a poster in the bank's
window advertising personal loans.
"Turn your life around..."
She turns around.
There, on the other side of the street, is the building Damascus was commissioned to
fill the sconce of. Kali looks at the statue of herself, which looks blankly back at her.
What is the city trying to tell her?
...
That evening, once everyone's home, the Cabal share their progress with one
another. Kali tells Wolsey that Samuel isn't planning on voting for anyone, which
Wolsey describes as being "perfect" for their purposes. Mycroft says that Thursday
now has three fresh recruits from outside the Consilium who he's trying to sign up in
order to pad his potential votes, which Wolsey is once again disgusted at.
There's a quick, rapping knock at the door. Damascus goes to check who it is.
It's Beckett.
Looking very pleased with himself.
"Congratulations on your return to society" - Wolsey
"Thank you. I admit, and am not afraid to say so, that I owe this chance to you
people." - Beckett, smirking.
"How's the new Cabal?" - Mycroft
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"I am quite enjoying being a Scorpion, as your new Epotet is fond of saying" - Beckett
They quiz him about Shore and Ulysses - which would he favour? Are they any
closer to deciding which if either of them should stand?
"In my opinion, Ulysses should be the one. He's resisting, though - he knows it will
make Banneker fall, and doesn't want to be the one that kills the old order off. As for
Shore - he'd be good one day, but not now. He's too young, not known enough. I
think he knows intellectually that he should support Ulysses, maybe become his
Provost, but if I am any judge he secretly harbours fantasies of being asked to serve
himself - begged by our peers to be their new leader. Hah." - Beckett
Sounds remarkably similar to Mr Thursday - waiting until everyone's desperate to not
get Melchior, and then look like the Hero.
"He wants the validation. It's the disease of the Guardians of the Veil - everyone has
a Martyr complex. What do you think I was doing sitting in my house for ten years?" Beckett
Wolsey raises his theory that the Seers might take advantage of the Pentacle being
so reoccupied. He mutters something about how, if someone were to want to appear
a Hero, a victory would be good. Or, alternatively, picking up the pieces after a
defeat.
"Have you noticed any increase in Seer activity?" - Wolsey
"I don't tend to talk to them, if that's what you're asking. I understand that's the young
lady's preoccupation" - Beckett, nodding at Kali, who grimaces
Even when attempting to be nice, Beckett's a shit.
"Well, have there been any more of them?" - Wolsey
"No. The reverse, actually. If you're asking if my former apprentice is likely to trigger
some scheme, then I wouldn't put it past him" - Beckett
Wolsey considers. Maybe, just maybe, they could use this - if the Seers *were* to
attack, and Ulysses...
"I'm still not being bait" - Kali
Beckett laughs
"You know, if Seraph was your apprentice, then.." - Damascus
Beckett regards him, waiting
"...you'd know his real name." - Damascus
"Don't... Don't ask me that. Please. I know it would help, but some confidences..." Beckett
"Understood" - Damascus
"Well..." (frowns, troubled, then perks up again) "I'll see you all on Super Tuesday.
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Enjoy!" - Beckett
And he leaves, whistling.
And never actually said what he wanted. Other than to make them aware of his presence and stir
"Remind me. Am I still owed a favour by that man?" - Kali
"I think so" - Damascus
"Good" - Kali
She's knackered.
"Are we done for the day?" - Kali
"Yeah. Oh - remember. Appointment at the coffee bar tomorrow" - Damascus
"Right" - Kali
The rest of the Cabal perk their ears up, at the second mention of the mysterious
appointment. Amanda in particular, who's been lost and ignored by the political talk.
"Who's this meeting with again?" - Wolsey
"A client." - Damascus
Damascus explains. He's been contacted by a potential buyer, who saw the Caryatid
column he made of Kali and wants to commission something on condition that he
meets the Model. What with College and other commissions, Damascus has been a
bit busy, but he's now free and they're meeting the man tomorrow evening.
"So..." (considers her) "Wear something... ...else, okay?" - Damascus
"For you, I'll even have a bath" - Kali
"Whoa, woah. Let's think about this" - Wolsey
"Are we thinking pervert?" - Amanda
"Maybe *trap*" - Wolsey
"I figured it was an ex-customer, myself. He looked military" - Damascus
That makes sense - Kali did a lot of business with the inhabitants of the naval base.
"Really? I thought pervert" - Kali, cheerful
"It could be anyone! It could be a Seer!" - Wolsey
"I didn't pattern-scan him" - Damascus
"Well, that's easily fixed. I'll be in the.. coffee bar, is it? Before you arrive and give him
a once-over." (off Damascus' look) "I did this to myself, I may as well use it. And if it
is a Seer, he won't know who I am." - Mycroft
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It's not that easy to detect a Mage who isn't casting. Prime-based Mage Sight to see any Mana stored in the pattern or active
spells is usually the best bet, which is what both Damascus and Mycroft are referring to.
Kali and Damascus agree to the idea
"And Amanda and Wolsey can be waiting on a different angle of view, just in case" Mycroft
Smooth. This actually slipped Wolsey by - he only realised what Mycroft just did (putting him and Amanda together) when he
was there and thought through whose idea it was.
Y'all can probably guess who the buyer is - in fact, given the ending to last session, the players all flat-out knew it. But this
was a laugh.
We come back to the story at the anonymous coffee house, split level and in the style
of a Starbucks clone. Amanda and Wolsey are sat in the upper area, waiting for
Damascus' buyer to arrive and avoiding talking. Amanda is particularly withdrawn,
disoriented and feeling the loss of her sight particularly hard. She's not cast anything
to give her eyesight back, though, as she's trying to avoid using magic to
compensate too much.
Down on the first floor sits Mycroft, face shielded by a battered fedora and
occasionally peering over his newspaper at the door.
In through the door, crossing with a stride to a free table, comes a tall, black man.
Mycroft presses a button on his cell phone, sending the push-to-talk message "The
Pigeon has come to Roost" to Wolsey, Amanda and (lurking around the block) Kali
and Damascus.
Wolsey, from his elevated viewpoint, saw the whole thing.
"That's not.. When Damascus said 'military', he failed to mention he meant 'officer'" Wolsey
"Why? What's? Oh, fuck it." - Amanda
Reality ripples imperceptibly as she casts a spell, then turns to look down at the
Buyer.
"Do you know him?" - Amanda
"I can guess, but..." (nods towards her) "Space?" - Wolsey
"Unveiling of Forces. Visual light spectrum" - Amanda, distractedly
"Forces..." (pause) "Where'd you learn that?" - Wolsey
"Her" - Amanda
Amanda has some of Querephas' Arcana, adjusted for her much lower Gnosis and certain game-balance issues (i.e., to
make her less powerful than the PCs. To give you an idea of *them*, Kali is the leader of the pack at Gnosis 4, Time 3, Fate
3 and Space 2, with Wolsey bubbling under at Gnosis 3, Mind 3, Space 3 and life 1. Kali's liable to be the first character to hit
Adept - Sam's saving her xp for Time 4 at the moment.
She breaks concentration, and her spell unravels.
Mycroft has been staring at the Buyer's back. He presses another button before
standing up and walking out of the building.
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"The Pigeon is not a hawk. Repeat. The Pigeon is not a hawk" - Mycroft
Mycroft is enjoying himself maybe a little too much.
Outside, Damascus and Kali wait as Mycroft hurries over to them. They're both
dressed much better than normal - Kali has found a dress somewhere and combed
her hair straight.
"Not Awakened, as it turns out. He's moderately well-off, looks like he's retired from a
physical job, so his body's turning to flab slower than most men his age. He's not
wearing a wedding ring, but he's not subconsciously looking at either the men or the
women." - Mycroft
Kali now knows - given what the city told her - who this is. Without a word, she walks
past the two Moros and into the coffee shop.
Damascus flips his phone open
"The Dove has entered the nest!" - Damascus, hurrying to catch up
...
Wolsey flips his phone shut and watches Kali sit down.
"What the hell is she doing?" - Wolsey
...
The Buyer sits back in his chair, watching Kali as she sits down opposite him.
"Hi, dad" – Kali
Kali's dad, while we're on the casting-the-game shtick, resembles Dennis Haysbert from 24 and The Unit in my mind.
They stumble over the reunion. Kevin says he got her message, on the fourth. Kali
says that it was time for her to get back in touch.
Damascus arrives
"Mr Washington. Thank you. For giving me the chance to meet my daughter" - Kevin
Damascus gets on the same page
The narrative will now switch to real-name mode, as I think this is more Kemi and Carl than Kali and Damascus
"You're.. You're very welcome." - Carl
"So" (smiles, a bit too broadly to convincingly cover his shot nerves) "you look...
great. You're a artist's model?" - Kevin
"Just that one time, doing Carl a favour" - Kemi
Upstairs, Wolsey stands down from red alert at the obvious lack of any battle, and
offers Amanda his arm. They leave, off outside to find Mycroft.
Carl asks father and daughter what they're drinking, and gets up to fetch the drinks,
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leaving them alone.
"I looked him up. Friends ran his records. A handful of juvenile crimes, and a year in
prison for attempted GTA." - Kevin
"He's changed. Grown up, turned his life around." - Kemi
"He's your boyfriend?" - Kevin
Kemi chooses her words carefully
"We're... going out. No more than that" - Kali
Not according to Damascus they're not
Carl returns
"How did you meet? What have you been doing with yourself? You're obviously not
in any trouble..." - Kevin
"We, ah.. met in a society. Occult philosophy and alternative religion" - Carl
Kevin 'huh's and takes his drink
"I'm doing all right now. I wanted to start over, to try everything out, to see where…
To see where I belonged in the world. The world has a place for me somewhere – I’m
just trying to find out where it is. I was in a place like Carl came from, trying to destroy
my life, hanging out with a gang, all to see if that was where the world wanted me to
be. Now I'm done with it. I had to... It's like I had to tear my life down in order to
appreciate it. Build one for myself. Learn where I needed to be, and learn that what
matters is not where the world wants you to be – but where you want to be." - Kemi
"Why did you leave? Was it the fight we had? I've gone over it in my head a thousand
times..." - Kevin
"I guess... I just couldn't understand why you didn't tell me I was adopted. I was so
angry, and.." - Kemi
"Kim. You're not adopted" - Kevin
"I'm..?" - Kali, blinking
"You're my daughter. I don't know where you thought... why the card? Why couldn't
you just knock on the door?" - Kevin
Kemi never sent a card, but she's too wrapped up in the emotion to notice
"I tried to - I was right outside. Spent a day on the street corner a few months ago. I
just couldn't. But now I can" - Kemi
"Like a trail. You always did like treasure hunts. A card with an address through my
door - the address of that statue. That then leads to Carl, and then to you" - Kevin
Now she notices
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"I never sent a card" - Kemi
Her dad opens his wallet and fishes it out. A small rectangle of white card, like a
blank business card. On the back, in writing both Kemi and Carl recognise, is the
address of the statue.
He hands it over to Kemi, who hands it to Carl. He frowns and pockets it.
The handwriting is Wolsey's.
Duh-duh-DDDUUUUH!
"So who did.? No - I don't care. If you wanted to be found, then... You did want to be
found?" - Kevin
Kemi smiles.
Carl, excusing himself, gets up. After a brief visit to the gents, he slips out of the
building to find the others.
...
Kali and her dad aren't the only people having a heart to heart. While Mycroft
negotiates with a hot dog seller, Wolsey and Amanda are considering their earths.
"Why didn't you come to see me?" - Amanda
No fuss. Just ask it right off the bat.
"I couldn't" - Wolsey
"Why not?" - Amanda
"I just... couldn't. I'm sorry." - Wolsey
Amanda looks disappointed. Wolsey holds her hand
"I'm Sorry" - Wolsey, heartfelt.
"I..." - Amanda
She's interrupted by Damascus, hustling over
"Guys. All clear, or I think for the moment. It's her dad, who as it turns out actually IS
her dad - not adopted after all" - Damascus
"How'd he find her?" - Amanda
"Someone sent him this. The address is where that Column is installed" - Damascus
He hands the card over, as Mycroft - hotdog in hand - strolls over.
Wolsey turns the card over.
"I didn't write this. I don't give a damn about whether she talks to her father" - Wolsey
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Mycroft nods
"I believe you. Which means we have a forger" - Mycroft
The four of them bombard it with spells, determining only that it's decidedly nonmagical. Whoever wrote it did so the old fashioned way with a pen.
"Do I detect the subtle bwa-har-har of Seraph?" - Damascus
"He'd have signed it with his own name." - Wolsey
"Then it looks like someone is trying to distract Kali" - Mycroft
"I'd better get back" - Damascus
"If it's safe, I think I'll warm myself inside too. I'll leave the reunion to you, though" Mycroft
Amanda and Wolsey stay outside.
...
Back inside, Kemi is absorbing the revelation she's Kevin's biological daughter, as
Damascus slips back into his seat.
"But.. what can you tell me about my mother?" - Kemi
"She died when you were very..." - Kevin
At which point, Kemi gets a feeling of utter helplessness and inevitability, and
Damascus is struck by a sudden onslaught of Deja Vú. Kemi looks around, looking
for any napkins arranged into a message or any such other secondary phenomena.
Kemi's dad, though, is still speaking.
"Kimberley, I didn't tell you because when you came to me, you were very, very
young. I.. I just didn't feel like you were adopted. I'm sorry". - Kevin
Kemi nods, sadly
"It's all right. I should have just asked..." - Kemi
Damascus looks confused as hell, and pinches his eyes.
Deliberate continuity error here - this scene has been rewritten halfway through, and Kemi has gone from being Kevin's
natural child to an adoptee. This will all make sense eventually, I promise - and yes, Mark, there's a reason Damascus is
resistant and Wolsey isn't, even when Wolsey has a mind shield up.
And Kimberley isn't her real name. Kevin *thinks* it is, but she 'answers' Supernally to Kemi.
"And I should have talked to you more" - Kevin
"We've got time. I'll... I'd like to do this again, soon. Okay?" - Kemi
He agrees, and they finally hug.
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Shaking Carl's hand, Kevin leaves. A man who's now found his daughter.
"What just happened?" - Damascus
...
Outside again, the Cabal reconvene and compare notes. Damascus tells Kali that the
card is non-magical, and she agrees that it's not Seraph's style.
Damascus fills everyone in on the odd happening.
"...He switched to saying she was adopted halfway through..." - Damascus
"No - hang on. You told us. You told us she was adopted when you came out and
gave us the card" - Amanda
"No, I really didn't. Someone's edited it." - Damascus
"Or our memory of it" - Mycroft
"Why are you immune? I had a mind shield up, but I remember the false version too"
- Wolsey
"The Spider?" - Kali
"Why would the Spider want to edit *that*, though?" - Amanda
Mycroft clears his throat, deeply troubled.
"Are... Excuse me, but... Are we sure that Malakaii IS dead?" - Mycroft.
Silence
"Well... I was…" - Damascus, worried.
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Session 7.2
Bit of a politics-fest this time around, I'm afraid, as we wrap up the dangling plotline that was started when Malakaii died all
the way back at the end of story 4. There is, I'm afraid, talk of voting blocks, and opinion polls and possible numbers. We get
to see Wolsey at work running a campaign as his marriage continues to fall quietly apart, we move onto another level of the
ongoing plotline surrounding the memory-editing thingamabob and we start (blink and you'll miss it) a new plotline primarily
for Damascus, another for Wolsey and a third for Kali.
And this session is FULL of setup for future stories. Spot the bits from Reign of the Exarchs for extra points!
Before this session, I actually sat down and rewrote my big list of Awakened npcs taking into account all the recent changes.
I went a step beyond my Order-Path-Legacy-Gnosis-Position notes, though, and figured out the rough Arcana level of
everyone plus their Consilium and Order status merits. Why? Because they determine, according to the Byzantine method I'll
get to explaining later on, how many votes each character gets in Consilium elections. The players are now at the level of
knowledge to be able to figure out the power blocks of the city and are aware of roughly who dislikes who. Couple that with
how many points each person is worth, and Mark/Wolsey has what he needs.
We begin, though, with a story from Mycroft, about a Mage in Zurich who had the most terrible Deja Vu...
"I've heard of something like this before" - Mycroft
The Crucible are sat around in the Sanctum, having headed back after the fateful
(and downright confusing) reunion between Kali and her father. Damascus and
Mycroft have sprung for pizza. They have considered the ominous idea that Malakaii
might still be alive and rejected it as being silly - the body was well and truly found,
and Wolsey has his Soul Stone. He's deceased.
Which has led to the consideration of other, even freakier, ideas.
"There was a Mage in... Zurich... I think it was. A highly respected, clever man.
Though not, as it turned out, wise. He was an experienced explorer of the Inner
Realms. Many impressive feats, but he was only remembered for the mistake in the
end. He was obsessed with the idea of memory as an artefact of the Fallen World he thought that the imperfect nature of the mind was caused by the Lie. Anyway - he
tried to grant himself perfect recall of his entire life. Journeyed deep inside his Astral
realm and sort of..." (frowns, waves a slice of pepperoni for emphasis) "... put himself
into a flashback. His entire life rerunning before his eyes." - Mycroft
They eat some more. Wolsey's cell phone rings, and he steps out to answer it.
"This is a story Guardians tell, by the way. So it goes without saying - it went horribly
horribly wrong" - Mycroft, grinning
Mycroft is a bit of a storyteller - he's so used to being a pariah in his chosen Order that he appreciates an audience, and he's
been around the world so much that he has a lot of strange tales to tell. The World of Darkness is full of oddness, and I
imagine most Mages collect quite a backlog of "weird things that happened to me or to someone I heard about".
Kali, Damascus and Amanda wait for it.
"He forgot, ironically enough. Forgot where he was. You see, the spell worked - and
he DID relive his entire life. But he did it so convincingly that to him it seemed like the
first time. He was trapped in his own memories over and over again. He said, after it
was over, that as it went on discrepancies began to creep in. Things 'happened' as
he imagined they did rather than as they actually did. He had the strongest sense of
Deja Vú throughout. And when he came out, well... He didn't know which version was
real." - Mycroft
"How long did it take?" - Kali
"Hours. Seemed like a lifetime to him, though." - Mycroft
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They consider it, as Wolsey comes back in.
"Maybe that's what this is. How can you be sure this is the real world?" - Mycroft,
smiling.
"This is all in Damascus' head?" - Kali
"Or yours" - Damascus
That would seem more likely
"Maybe you've done it to yourself, maybe you're being mentally tortured by
something or other that's forcing you to relive your life. By that logic all of this,
everything you can remember - even me saying this - isn't real. It's part of the
hallucination." - Mycroft
Damascus, oddly enough, quite likes that suggestion. Kali ponders on it. She tells
everyone about the snake, and feeling tired. About the messages that have been
written in beermats and on walls.
"But.. they're never written when I'm there - only when you and Wolsey are" (to
Damascus). "So it can't be me, right? If this is my memory replaying" - Kali
"What did they say? 'HELP' when you were arrested, and 'I NEED' when we were in
the airport." (frowns) "Switch them around" - Damascus
"Alright, maybe it IS me" - Kali
Wolsey is sceptical, and expresses such. Mycroft accepts the scepticism with an
easy shrug - he doesn't really believe it himself.
"Whatever it is.. it just seems *petty*. I mean - what's this thing been rewriting?
Whether or not you're adopted, and forging Wolsey's signature on a card. It makes
no sense." - Damascus
"Maybe it's someone trying to distract me from something more important" - Kali
"Alright. Here's another one for you. This whole thing - this editing thing. Maybe it's
not Mind-based. Maybe - maybe it actually IS Time-based. Maybe the Spider's
Samuel after he becomes an Archmage, changing history? Or" (enthusiastic) "maybe
it's the result of experiencing Time differently. Like Kali presumably would if she ever
Ascended..." - Mycroft
"Okay. That's it - you played the card" - Wolsey
Mycroft does not get his drift.
"You played the 'Ascension' card. At this point, the theories can't get any wilder. We
have to stop" - Wolsey
I like this concept of Mark's - claiming "Well, we could be Ascending" is the Awakened equivalent of comparing someone to
the Nazis on the Internet. No rational discussion can follow.
Which leads to conversation B.
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Melchior (and, although he hasn't formally announced it, Thursday) is still the only
one standing to replace Malakaii - and that's just the first problem, if they want to get
someone they prefer in. The second is that Melchior is by far and away the favourite
to win. They don't know precisely how much by, but Melchior has Suleiman and
Banneker's Cabals on his side while Thursday has his half of the Gatekeepers.
Maybe Pool and the other members of Project Twilight, if they are swayed along
Order lines.
At which point, fortunately, they are interrupted by a caller. Hoban, scribe of the
Consilium, is at their front door.
"Good evening, everyone - my god, you're all actually *here*. That makes things
easier..." - Hoban
The blond man digs through his things, eventually producing a narrow cylinder which
he unscrews, taking out a scroll.
"I'm sorry it's taken so long to get to you, but you're actually one of the more stable
Cabals at the moment. I've had a hell of a time rewriting the electoral roll - I'm *still*
not sure which Cabal Roriko has ended up in." - Hoban
This was a cover-my-ass comment, because I knew I was going to use Roriko later on as being in one particular Cabal, and I
couldn't remember whether I'd said she was in that one or the other previously. So by introducing the doubt here, I'm fine
later on no matter what happens.
I'm normally nowhere near as slick as in this case.
Hoban warns them, officially, that the Electoral Roll (that'd be the scroll) is bound to
his position by various horrible, horrible Fate spells laid down by Banneker's
predecessor as Hierarch many years ago. If stolen, it will both curse the thief with illfortuned and deadly happenstance and home in on it's owner.
"We get it. Don't steal the scroll" - Wolsey
"Though you can, of course, read it" - Hoban
Hoban gets his writing equipment ready, and then proceeds to check that the entire
Cabal are still Disciples, except for Amanda who he has recorded as an Initiate. He
explains he could qualify Amanda as a Disciple himself if she demonstrated a
second-person Shielding practice, for example, but in order to change his records for
any of the others to "Adept" would need a Master to observe and confirm.
Wolsey isn't really listening - he's observing Amanda, who carefully says that
Hoban's records are correct.
Your magical rank determines, in the method I worked out, the bulk of how much weight you have in elections - a pretty
obvious meritocratic principle in the setting. The reason Hoban can't clear people past Disciple is that he's only a Disciple
himself - he doesn't have any Arcana at 4 or 5, so doesn't know what to look for in the abilities they grant.
As for Wolsey's look - if you'll recall, Amanda admitted last session that she has some of Querephas' Arcana. He doesn't
believe that she's still an Initiate. But she isn't admitting anything for the sake of a few votes, and as per the general theme of
their relationship nowadays, he's choosing to ignore it.
"Great. Well... I have to tell you that you *are* one of the lower-scoring Cabals. I take
that record of your magical aptitude away and convert it into a number of votes. You
get more for Consilium positions, if you've been awarded them for services rendered
and so on. Lastly, Banneker has a number he can give out at his discretion. In the
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end, you each have a number. At the Consilium, I'll hand out that number of tokens,
with your Cabal's Sigil on one side and your personal ones on the other. The
candidates stand in front of an amphora each" (to Kali) "That's a big pot" (to
everyone) "And give a speech in descending order of seniority. Then the Cabals are
called in order of Founding. You display your agreement with a speaker by placing
one or more of your tokens in their receptacle..." - Hoban
Kali looks bemused
"You put your chips into their pot" - Hoban
"I did get that part, thanks" - Kali, sarcastic
"The person with the most number of tokens in their amphora wins. In the event of a
tie - which is if the totals are within twenty of one another - then the one with the least
number of personal sigils represented wins" - Hoban
Damascus thinks about it for a second, then nods. Equal votes but fewer Sigils mean
that the candidate with those circumstances was voted for by comparatively more
important people.
Hoban does his working-out and declares that Amanda has two votes, Kali Four,
Wolsey six and Damascus and Mycroft Five each.
And the method - 1 for being an Apprentice, 2 for an Initiate, 4 for a Disciple, 8 for an Adept, 16 for a 1st-degree Master plus
4 for each additional Adept Arcana a Master has and 8 for each additional Degree of Mastery. 1 for each dot in Order Status
after the second and 1 for each dot in Consilium Status after the first - these represent the "services rendered" ones Hoban
spoke of.
This rather complicated method means that although the way the Consilium elects officers is democratic *enough* to be
something Americans in Washington DC would put up with, it's also an out-and-out Plutocracy, with the higher-ups amassing
vast vote counts. Cabals that are smaller than their rivals could be (and are) more "powerful" politically simply by having a
large block of votes and no obvious loyalties
"Well. At least we're not last to vote" - Wolsey
"That's right - the Ascendants and the Wardens come after you. Oh.. and I should
warn you. It's done in public. Everyone, including the candidates, can see who you
vote for. Secret Ballots are for Sleepers who lack the conviction of their opinions,
apparently" - Hoban.
"Twenty Two. How does that compare?" - Damascus
Hoban lets them read the Electoral Roll, now that they're signed off for this election.
Banneker's Cabal have 55 votes between them, Suleiman's 61. Dantor's have an
even 100. The Gatekeepers (those that are left) have 40, while Mara's breakaway
"Wardens" have 52. The Cabal up at the University of Maryland in College Park have
33. The Ascendants have 49 and Project Twilight 42.
Samuel's Cabal have 131. Samuel himself (just by himself) accounts for 47 of them.
Lastly, there are three independent Mages in the Consilium - Fisher King has 36,
Alexander 8 and Bethune - a woman Wolsey's heard of, who lobbies on behalf of
charities and lives on the fringes of Awakened society - has 8.
Wolsey carefully notes everything down, thanks Hoban for his attention to detail and
asks him where he's off to next.
349
"Roriko, if I can find her. Try to find out if she took Thursday or Mara's offer" - Hoban
They bid him farewell, and he leaves.
Wolsey kicks into gear, crunching the numbers.
"Assuming Banneker and Suleiman vote the way we think, they have 107. If the
Gatekeepers and Twilight go for Thursday, he has 82. That's closer than I'd heard it
was - even figuring in the Ascendants, it's 156 to 82. A big cabal like the Defenders
could swing that." - Wolsey
"Fisher King. He'll probably go with Banneker" - Mycroft
"That makes it 192... Yeah. That sounds more like what I've been hearing" - Wolsey
Still, he reckons it's not hopeless. There are enough people undeclared to make the
vote go any number of ways. The gang confer, and try to figure out people's
motivations. Dantor's gang are unlikely to vote for Thursday, given the bad blood
between the two Bokor - especially since Beckett joined the Defenders.
As for the Recorders... Samuel says he's staying out of the whole thing, which means
their voting power is lessened. But still very sizeable, and there's nothing to say
which way they'll vote.
"That's if they do, of course. They might just follow Samuel's example" - Wolsey
Twilight, the Defenders and the Recorders represent the "big fish", the Cabals that
now have the power to decide who becomes Councillor. If the Crucible are to get the
outcome they want, they need to direct those bigger fish.
All of it is, of course, moot unless they can persuade Ulysses to even stand in the
first place.
Shore is raised as a potential candidate again should Ulysses refuse, but Wolsey still
reckons they don't know enough about him.
"Kali, could you cast the bones on that?" - Wolsey
"The what?" - Kali
"You know" (waves hand) "Do your thing" - Wolsey
Kali gives him a look
"Hey - I'm giving you a chance to use your talents. I don't necessarily believe in the
outcome, but it wouldn't hurt to check" - Wolsey
Kali shakes her head, casts her spell and determines the benefit or detriment to the
Cabal of Shore or Ulysses winning the job. Ulysses would be good for the Cabal, but
Shore would not and Melchior would definitely not. She can't get anything more
specific, though.
And so, they have their playing field. The night is yet young, so a few people can be
visited. Wolsey directs the troops - Damascus and Wolsey will head to Shore,
Mycroft and Amanda to Pool to check their assumption that Twilight will vote for
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Thursday.
They consider how best to get Fisher King on side, and bring up his Provost - the
Perfected Adept named Marathon who's in the College Park Cabal. But they don't
know any of those guys, and it might look rather suspicious to go and try to make
friends now of all times.
"Henderson" - Mycroft
"Excuse me?" - Wolsey
Mycroft explains that there's a woman in Marathon's Cabal named Henderson, who
works for the FBI in her Shadow life. That must mean Twilight at the least don't
disapprove of her - so they could use Twilight to get to Henderson to get to Marathon
to get to Fisher King
Wolsey agrees to try it. For Kali, though, there's a very important mission.
"We need to get Samuel to vote. I know he doesn't want to, but he has a *duty*,
damn it. Go remind him of that" - Wolsey
"How?" - Kali
"I don't know. But it's what? Half an hour of his life?" - Wolsey
"I'll go tomorrow" - Kali
But
"I'll go Tomorrow" - Kali, brooking no argument.
Mycroft and Amanda leave. off to see the FBI.
"You know, our new friend does seem rather too knowledgeable about the city. He's
been here for what? A week? And he spouts data about who everyone is" - Wolsey
"Maybe he was briefed. Or read Malakaii's notes" - Damascus
"Which we burned" - Wolsey
"Fair point" - Damascus
"I think.. I think we need to check that Thursday DID send him to us. I'd hate to be
caught out" - Wolsey
Come to think of it, Thursday has never been anything but polite to the Cabal - he
helped Kali when she was framed by the Seers in the Crack Factory's explosion.
They removed Mara from power for him.
Why, then, would he suddenly start being hostile to them and send Mycroft as a
threat?
Wolsey and Damascus decide to go see Mr Thursday before heading onward to
Shore's.
351
...
An hour later, and the pair have arrived at a nondescript consultancy building, in the
area of the city surrounded by lobbies, Congressional offices and funding bodies. In
other words, Wolsey's territory. Well, his and everyone else who moves in the same
circles.
They are met in the elevator by Tybalt, who sniffs when he sees Wolsey and spends
the elevator ride insinuating that Wolsey's hands have been entirely tied by
Banneker. More to the point, given the deals that the Gatekeepers are making,
Thursday is going to be Councillor, and then Tybalt will be the rising star, and Wolsey
will be the one everyone forgets about.
"You're forgetting something" - Wolsey
"And what's that?" - Tybalt
"Kali and Samuel" - Wolsey
Tybalt falls silent. He hadn't thought of that.
From his expression, he manages to compose a witty comeback *just* as the
elevator doors open.
Ah, the spirit of the Staircase. I'm not 100% on what exactly Wolsey said to shut him up - the above is the result of me, Mark
and Rafe going "was it? Nah - I think.." and so on for ten minutes after we'd finished playing session 8.2.
Damn, I'm behind on this thread.
Sam reckons, by the way, that it isn't so much Tybalt being Wolsey's evil twin counterpart as the other way around.
When they're finally out of Tybalt's presence, they enter what could be a very
informal office or a rather businesslike lounge. Trace is here, which is one friendly
face at least - she's lying on a sofa, shoes discarded next to her, leafing through
papers.
Mr Thursday is also here, dressed in full regalia - top hat, walking stick, skulls and all.
When he was Interfector, he mostly wore nondescript suits.
Once the greetings are out of the way, they get to business.
"How is Mycroft?" - Thursday
"Settling in. Ah... We were a bit surprised at his arrival. And that you didn't house him
in your own Cabal" - Wolsey
"He will do more good for us all with you in the Crucible. His presence here was
making some of my cabalmates nervous. I understand that - I make Guardians
nervous too, as Bokor. Not so with you people" - Thursday
This is not quite the picture Mycroft painted.
"If anything unexplained and strange happens..." - Thursday
"It happens to us. I know." - Wolsey
Turns out, Thursday didn't send Mycroft to the Cabal as a warning. He was trying to
do them a favour - though Mycroft didn't take it that way.
"May we ask why you're standing?" - Wolsey
352
"Because we are unguarded, and Melchior will not give the city what it needs.
Malakaii did necessary things - you know this, even with the bad blood that was
between you" (Wolsey nods) "and his last act was to attack the Seers. The 'House of
Steel', yes? We have not heard anything of them since - but Malakaii caught none of
their Mages. They will be back, and we are unprepared, unarmed and seduced by
the scorpions in our midst." - Thursday
He sits down.
"Melchior will bring order to the Pentacle, but at the cost of looking inward. His is the
Lex Magica, the Protocols and the Duel Arcane. He would be so busy correcting
what he sees as our weaknesses that he does not notice the Seers at his door. That
is why I cannot accept this election without a fight" - Thursday
"You know he's winning?" - Wolsey
"We have plans. Trace here is going to Samuel tomorrow - we hope to persuade him
to back us" - Thursday
"Good luck with that" - Damascus
"I know that you cannot vote for me, Wolsey. You are Banneker's creature. I want
you to know I do not hold this against you." - Thursday
Thursday's right - and Wolsey and Damascus can see that he's talking sense. The problem is that he's essentially
unelectable. No matter his good intentions, Thursday's been an Interfector too long and makes blunders like the Mycroft
situation. He just has this knack of offending people, and he's damaged rather than helped build bridges to Dantor and
Mara's Cabals because he isn't willing to compromise on what he sees as the shortcomings of their members.
But he isn't a monster, and he isn't doing this out of a sense of egotism. He honestly believes (rightly) that Melchior would be
disastrous, and sees himself standing as the necessary step to prevent it and stop the Guardians from crumbling.
Wishing Thursday well with his campaign, they head to Shore's office back over in
the East. By now it's late enough that the place is completely shut up. The only light
is coming from Shore's office and from the desk of his PA.
"Good evening Mr Washington. Is Councillor Banks expecting you?" - PA
Damascus greets her back and says that no - he and his friend were hoping Banks
would be working late as usual. She calls through, and tells them they can go in.
Shore's real name is Gareth Banks. There isn't a quote for the reply because we still don't know what Wolsey's "business
name" (the one he gives clients and rents his apartment under rather than 'Wolsey' - because he doesn't use his real name
for either) is. Simply because Mark hasn't decided on what it is, yet. We just accept that Sleepers know Wolsey as something
other than Wolsey that isn't Thomas Dean.
"Wolsey, Damascus! Yes, come in" - Shore
"Hi Shore. Working late?" - Damascus
"Always" - Shore
They shake, and the lads ask him how it's going persuading Ulysses to stand. Shore
grimaces.
"Teeth-grindingly slowly. In truth, I think myself, Beckett and Dantor have said about
as much as it's safe for us to say to him on the subject. Anything more and we risk
making him refuse outright." - Shore
Wolsey nods
353
"I was thinking of standing myself, if it comes to that. Hopefully it won't." - Shore
Wolsey says that he's been analysing the numbers of the thing, and Shore pulls his
own notes on the subject out of his desk.
"Let's see if you reached the same conclusions" - Shore
Wolsey goes over Shore's notes
"You think you can get Suleiman? I thought he was backing Banneker" - Wolsey
"I'm a Claviclarius, and Suleiman's just as Legacy-minded as the rest of us" - Shore
Always pay attention to that Z-axis. It really can complicate things.
"How does Ulysses think of the Claviclarius, if you don't mind me asking? I thought
he disliked the idea of demon-summoning" - Wolsey
"Ulysses dislikes all Legacies, period." - Shore
"How do the two of you get along, then?" - Wolsey, trying to clarify something he's
been wondering about for a while.
"Who do you think pays for his church?" (grins) "Ulysses is like an uncle to me, he
helped raise me - and he knows that I joined this Legacy to understand the things
lurking inside the human mind, not to worship them." - Shore
"Some of your fellow Claviclarius aren't so hostile to demons" - Damascus
"Best, then, that I act as the go-between between them and Ulysses. Seriously,
gentlemen, the man is *Dantor*'s Provost. He has been exposed to philosophies he
vehemently disagrees with and stayed professional before." - Shore
"We can't wait forever for him. He's going to have to decide by Sunday if he's going
to stand or not" - Wolsey
"I can try my best. As we're not relying on just our Cabal and Mara's. Tomorrow
morning, I'm off to see Samuel." - Shore, confident.
Damascus and Wolsey give one another a look and wish Shore a pleasant evening.
--Back at the Sanctum, Kali watches a lot of TV. Eventually, she crawls to her bed and
collapses into a deep sleep disturbed by thoughts of Snakes, of being trapped inside
herself and of losing her identity. Twice in the night, she's woken by the sound of the
Sanctum's front door opening and closing.
Then, late at night, the door goes a third time. If Wolsey was with Damascus, and
Amanda was with Mycroft, then who..?
She gets up, foggy with sleep, and walks down the stairs into the main room, finding
Mycroft and Amanda trying to quietly get to their rooms.
354
Kali frowns, and goes back to bed.
--In the morning, Kali wakes again and heads downstairs to find the other four eating
breakfast.
"Late getting in?" - Kali
Wolsey says that he slept at his own apartment. Damascus likewise spent the night
in his own home. They only just got here.
She goes into the kitchen to get her own food, and notices something odd.
The Robe of the Dethroned Queen - which she's been using as a towel - has moved.
"Someone been playing with the robe?" - Kali
There are denials all round.
(off her look) "What?" - Wolsey
"It's just..." (looks back at the Kitchen and trails off) - Kali
"Kali... Why did you think Wolsey was here?" - Mycroft
Use of Attainment, there.
"...I heard the door go" - Kali
"And you didn't check?" - Wolsey
"I guessed it was you or Damascus" - Kali
"You Guessed?" - Wolsey, eyebrows raising.
He points over at the front door.
"Check!" - Wolsey
Kali casts Postcognition on the door. And watches, quite clearly, as the past-image of
Seraph walks into the Sanctum, heads straight to the Kitchen, puts the Robe on,
casts something, takes it off and - suddenly looking confused and troubled - leaves.
Well, if she will keep leaving it lying around like that...
Knowing what effect this will have before she says it, Kali braces for impact and tells
the others what happened.
Wolsey, true to Kali's stereotype of him, goes ballistic.
You can always rely on Wolsey to go ballistic at something Kali's done. Half our sessions are taken up with arguments,
sometimes. They're always very entertaining, though hard to recap.
"How could you be so stupid?" - Wolsey
355
"Excuse me?" - Kali
Wolsey gets histrionic - they've been burgled, Kali left the artefact lying around, she
didn't bother to guard the Sanctum properly. Kali, for her part, gets defensive and
angry at the unfairness of the argument. After all, as she points out, Wolsey hasn't
exactly been around lately. Or at all.
"Have you been defending your new happy coffee machine from Seer attack?" - Kali
"You were HERE" - Wolsey
Mycroft, trying to defuse the fight (he's new, so he doesn't know how practiced these
two are at having shouting matches) asks who Seraph is, and learns that he's a
Seer.
Wolsey starts laying into Kali leaving the Robe lying around, even though he never
voiced a problem with it before.
"I'll keep it around all the time, then. I'll sleep on it. I'll fuck people on it - will that
make you feel better?" - Kali
"As long as it's not Seraph" - Mycroft, making a second attempt at defusing it
"Don't go there" - Wolsey
They work their way towards 'closing statements'
"I just want you to think" - Wolsey
"Don't expect me to behave like a rational human being. Not now. Not when I don't
know... It's hard, all right? Hard to act rationally when you've discovered your minds
is being fucked with, that you're probably right now in some kind of recap which
makes everything seem inevitable and unchangeable, and that you've just met your
estranged father who seems to be locked in the same damn cell as you and worse
he doesn't know it. And if you want this place guarded, maybe YOU SHOULD BE
HERE!" - Kali
Wolsey gets a pen out and slaps it onto the table.
"RIGHT. Rota. Eight-hour shifts. We haven't been guarding the place properly, so we
start right now." - Wolsey
He seems to mean it, and is drawing up a rough timetable.
"I'll take first shift." - Wolsey
Damascus volunteers to go talk to Ulysses again - it's about time he went to church,
he notes, but he has class later that day anyway. Amanda and Mycroft have errands.
As for Kali - she is to go to Samuel and see what she can do about getting him to
actually turn up and vote.
"And tell him it's his duty. It's only a half hour out of his life, and it'll make the
difference" - Wolsey
Kali seems dubious about her chances, and is still smarting from Wolsey's rebuke of
not half an hour earlier, but says she'll see what she can do. And she takes the Robe
with her, too.
356
Wolsey, as well as drawing up a rota, will spend the next few hours making the
strongest ward he can fashion, triggering an alarm in his mind when crossed by Mind
Magic.
..
Damascus turns up at Ulysses' church - now reopened properly following the attack
of the Irish Seer Cabal months earlier - to find several dozen other people also
waiting for morning mass.
Including, rather embarrassingly, his mother and younger brother.
Carl greets Ricky and their mother (who chides him for avoiding them), and makes
small talk. Ricky has managed to hold down his new job so far, which Carl
congratulates him on. Ricky congratulates Carl on making it into College, which
seems to impress him greatly. It's a whole congratulate-a-thon.
We haven't, IIRC, ever actually met Ricky. He was referred to by Carl's sister way back when in the early stories of the
chronicle. I wanted this scene to remind us, the players and you, the viewer, that Damascus has a brother that he considers
to be a bit of a deadbeat. It will be important next story.
Carl finally - after mass - gets to catch Father Joyce alone just in time to deflect a
question about his girlfriend from his mother. Somehow, Carl doesn't reckon that
Kemi is the take-home-to-meet-the-parents type.
The Awakened in the building go off in private and put their Shadow Personae in
place.
"I know why you're here" - Ulysses
Good. Makes it easier.
Damascus tells Ulysses that there's a lot of support for him - enough to maybe win it
for him without much trouble. All he has to do is stand. Ulysses is still resistant, not
wanting to do Banneker a bad turn. Damascus asks Ulysses if he think Melchior
would be any better. Melchior's new to the city and obsessed with his own doctrine.
Thursday's a blunt instrument that has no feel for politics. Ulysses is different - he's
clever enough to be able to cope with the position, wise enough to be a *good*
Councillor and popular enough to have the mandate. What the city needs is a
politician of his skill.
"You want me to be a politician?" - Ulysses
"I want you to be a leader. Something I've always told Wolsey; Politics is a game.
You might have to play, but you don't have to let it define who you are." - Damascus
Ulysses says that he'll continue to think about it. Damascus accepts that and leaves,
saying goodbye to his family on the way out.
Outside the church, Damascus phones Wolsey while figuring out how best to drive to
College this time of day.
"He's still thinking about it" - Damascus
"Well, let's hope he makes his mind up soon. We can't wait forever" - Wolsey
And with that, Damascus goes to class.
357
...
Having put it off and put it off, Kali finally finds herself sat on her motorbike outside
the Time Machine, fighting her instinct to just drive away. Eventually, she plucks up
the determination to go ring the bell.
When she's allowed inside, and shown through the disused TV transmission station
by a Recorders underling, it's by a different route to usual. She's not taken to the
guest dorm - where she slept while under arrest that one time - or to the Demesne
chamber up in the tower. Instead, she's led through the old offices - now crammed
full of filing cabinets and lockers. Eventually, she reaches an office - Samuel's office,
which she's never been in.
It's vaguely like being called in to see the Principal.
The servant knocks for her then strolls off to whatever it is they're supposed to be
doing. The sound of conversation from the other side of the door stops abruptly, and
then Samuel calls for her to just come in.
Inside, Samuel is sat at his desk - remarkably clutter-free too. Across from him,
looking like they're having a hard time of it, are Beckett and Shore. They both look
around at Kali as she enters.
"Go on, gentlemen. Astound me" - Samuel
The Master waves Kali in and nods behind himself to a free spot near the wall.
Beckett and Shore watch her cross the floor to stand there, then Samuel clears his
throat and they realise they need to get on with it.
Their argument is pretty much the same as Damascus tried to use on Ulysses, and
that Thursday has been hoping to use. Half an hour's longwinded fictions sum up as
"Ulysses isn't Melchior"
Samuel regards them flatly. He informs them that he the reason he's not voting is
that he simply isn't interested. In order to get him to come out, they're going to have
to think of something.
"Why don't you have a think about that?" (nods towards door) "Kali. Stay a while." Samuel
Beckett and Shore leave the room, though their conversation can dimly be heard
even from the office.
Inside the office, there's silence.
"Let me guess why you're here" - Samuel
He's curt with her, though nowhere near as curt as he was with Shore and Ulysses the general impression is that he would be more caring and tutorly, but he's rather
busy right now. She swiftly gives in on the whole getting him to vote thing. Eventually,
Samuel notices the robe, and asks why she's carrying it around.
Kali, figuring that it's costing her nothing, tells him everything.
Samuel is not amused.
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"Shore! Beckett! Get back in here!" - Samuel
The two Mastigos return to the office.
"Congratulations, gentlemen. Kali has just told me something that means I will be
willing to vote for you - for a price. I said that I am more interested in my researches?
Well, an obstacle to them has appeared that I believe you can help me with." Samuel
He puts a blank piece of paper on his desk and slides it - along with a pen - towards
Beckett.
"You want me to vote for your preferred candidate. I want Seraph's real name. Now."
– Samuel
"You can't..." - Shore
"I can do whatever I please, Shore. This is the bargain." (off Beckett's look) "You're
about to ask if I will use my magic to mitigate the karma you'll accrue for breaking
your sworn word. The answer" (leans back in chair) "Is 'No'. I won't. You want me to
throw an election for you so badly, you do this." (taps the paper) "Give me the name"
- Samuel
This is probably the biggest example of Samuel being a bastard so far in the Chronicle. Which itself is an indication of how he has finally
had enough of Seraph dicking about and ruining his plans by stalking Kali. Seraph has broken, in Brit-LARP terms, "Rule 7", which is
defined as "Don't take the piss".
He will get what's coming to him in 9.1. Maybe 9.2
Beckett stares at the paper.
Kali tries to be as quiet as possible.
"The Name" - Samuel
Beckett - no longer nearly as amused or pleased with himself as normal, looks up
ashen-faced at Samuel and Kali
"I..." - Beckett
He swallows whatever he was going to say, grabs the pen and quickly writes a name
down, then folds the paper and gives it to Samuel.
"You can go" - Samuel, dismissive
Shore and Beckett leave, clinging to Samuel's promise to vote however they wish.
Samuel looks at the name on the paper, then up at Kali, who stares back at him.
"D'you want to come with me?" - Samuel
Which is a Doctor Who quote - it's what he says to the audience in the trailers before the new series. The link being that Time Travel is in
the offing.
359
...
Damascus has made it to college, where he's in his History of Art lecture.
"Hi" - woman sat next to him
"Oh, hi" - Carl
"I'm Monica" - Monica
"Carl" - Carl
"You don't mind me sitting here? Only, you're the only other adult here" - Monica
And she's right - he is. Two adult students surrounded by young co-eds.
Carl and Monica get to chatting after the lecture - she's seen him in other classes, she
says, but she's only doing her degree part-time. They talk about Art, and their own
work - Marie is a lapsed painter, while she's suitably impressed by Carl's ironsculpting. The time comes to leave - Wolsey's "shift" back at the Sanctum is coming
to an end, and Damascus will have to be back there to see if the rota went his way and then Monica, hesitantly, asks if he wants to do lunch on Monday.
Thinking of the Consilium on Tuesday night, and how busy he's likely to be as
Damascus, Carl regretfully declines. But he'll meet her for coffee on the Wednesday
before class.
Monica will show up again.
...
Wolsey has taken a break, the first of his spells finished, when Shore phones him.
"Good news!" - Shore
"You managed it?" - Wolsey, not quite believing
"Your girl Kali did. I don't know what she said to Samuel, but it worked. He's agreed
to vote our way" - Shore
Wolsey consults his notes, and his numbers.
"That's it, then. We can have anyone we want elected" - Wolsey
He and Shore are momentarily jubilant at one another.
"What was the price?" - Wolsey
"I... uh... I can't say. Not over the phone. Steep." - Shore, suddenly less Jubilant.
Wolsey waits
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"You'd better ask Kali" - Shore, finally.
...
Kali and Samuel are sat in the Demesne room of the Time Machine, the lava lamp
shedding it's undulating light on the occasion. Samuel has the note with Seraph's real
name on it. Kali has the Robe on her knees.
"You remember how this works?" - Samuel
"I do" - Kali
Samuel casts Quantum Leap and Kali has the sensation of her mind being pulled out
of her body and thrown back in time, where it comes to rest in an ephemeral form.
Details of Samuel's time-travel spells can be found earlier in the thread
Once the scene has stopped resolving itself, Kali can see that she and Samuel's new
Twilight forms are in the Sanctum, watching Seraph's breaking and entering of the
night before.
Once Samuel has seen it, he takes them both out of the past.
"His spell was Mind-based, one of the mid-level practices. But this isn't the first time
he's been there" - Samuel
"He's used the robe before?" - Kali
"I think so. We can go again - we'll take them in reverse order." - Samuel
He recasts the spell, sending them to a week earlier.
Seraph enters the Sanctum as before, with a key. Kali can hear music coming from
upstairs and realises she was actually at home and out of bed when this happened she just didn't hear anything.
"Don't go upstairs." - Samuel
Seraph crosses the Sanctum to the kitchen again and puts the Robe on. His eyes go
wide as though he's suddenly realised something, and he looks around desperately.
Then teleports.
"One moment" - Samuel
Their Twilight forms transfer to where Seraph reappeared - and Kali gets a very bad
feeling. Seraph is running up a street, still wearing the robe, looking over his shoulder
like a man being pursued.
Problem is, the street he's on is the one Blaise gave Kali the Nickel challenge on.
And Seraph is running towards her dad's house.
Seraph runs up to the front door, pauses in the action of knocking, appears to
consider, pulls a card out of his pocket and hastily scrawls an address on it before
posting it through the letterbox.
361
Turns out it *was* Seraph who sent the note.
And here's where I am slightly too subtle. Or maybe I'm not. Because, as should be clear if you read back, this is impossible.
Kevin received the mystery note in Wolsey's handwriting *before* the gang got the Robe - long enough before to find the
caryatid column, track down the artist and wait outside Damascus' house.
So this vision of the past? It's been edited!
He then teleports again. Samuel curses, and the Twilight forms shift back to the
Sanctum, where Seraph is having a confrontation with something Kali and Samuel
can't see.
"What are you?" - Seraph
Nothing answers.
"Well, that's too bad. Because whatever it's all about, it's all over - I've seen to that" Seraph
The Seer is ranting, fearfully, to thin air.
"So go ahead. Do your worst." - Seraph
He pulls the hood of the robe back, and then his face goes blank. He takes the robe
off and - looking like he doesn't know what he's doing there - stumbles and flees the
Sanctum.
All the while, Kali's bad taste in music wafts down from upstairs.
Samuel cancels the spell, and Kali gasps for air. The near-Archmage gives her a few
minutes, then casts his spell for the third time.
This time, it's even longer ago - Kali identifies it as the Lonely period, after Avatar
had left to get her head together, when Wolsey was still incommunicado and
Damascus a rare visitor.
It's late at night. Seraph picks the lock (no key this time) and sneaks into the
Sanctum, being careful to look for defensive spells. He looks around - paying
especial attention to Damascus' timetable, which at this stage is still on the
noticeboard - and then spots the Robe.
Looking like he thinks this is a practical joke, Seraph puts the robe on. He blinks, and
then appears to spot something in the room. Or someone.
"It's YOU" - Seraph, horrified
The Seer backs away from nothing
"But... you... I thought it was..." - Seraph
He pulls the robe off, and like last/next time his face goes blank. Dropping the robe,
he goes back to looking around clandestinely - clearly not remembering what
happened when he put it on.
Just as he finds the Sanctum's spare key, Samuel cancels the spell.
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Kali comes to, to find Samuel staring intently at the Robe. Far worse, though, is her
own reaction.
She's shaking, tears streaming down her face. And she has no idea why.
"Spider" - Samuel
He thinks while she composes herself.
"...And the Robe of the Dethroned Queen" - Samuel
"The Robe hides you from the Exarchs. Or marks you out to them." - Kali
"But how? And... Could I borrow it for a second?" - Samuel
Kali, frowning, hands the Robe over. Samuel takes a deep breath and puts it on.
The room skips, like a record jumping a track. Kali is lying on the floor, trembling
again, and Samuel has taken the Robe off.
Kali has the very strongest sense of Inevitability.
"That's it, then. The Robe hides you from whatever the Spider is - no.. whoever it is.
Same way that they can't reach us when we time-travel, when we wear the Robe we
can..." - Samuel
"Think for ourselves?" - Kali
"Yes! And then, we take it off, or return to the present..." - Samuel
"Blammo" - Kali
"They remove our memory of what we learned. We've probably seen who the spider
is dozens of times - we just can't remember it." - Samuel
I should note that although Kali remains none the wiser, Sam figured out who the Spider is at the end of last session. Kali's
own revelation is on course for three or four session's time, I reckon.
...
Back at the Sanctum, Damascus gets back to find Wolsey has completed both the
ward - set to alert Wolsey when a mind effect crosses the threshold - but also a very
nicely coloured-in rota for the guarding of the place.
Wolsey, though, is in a good mood this evening. He tells Damascus the news that
Samuel and his 47 personal votes are joining their ticket, enough to easily fling
Melchior into a distant second place.
"All right, maybe I was too hard on her" - Wolsey, happy
"You? Hard on Kali? Never." - Damascus, with deep sarcasm.
"I'll make it up to her" - Wolsey
A rare occasion of Wolsey half-admitting he's wrong here. Savour it while you can.
363
...
By the time Kali gets home, weary and head full of implications, Amanda and Mycroft
have also returned.
Kali kicks the front door of the Sanctum closed and dumps her bag - including the
robe, then wearily braces for round whatever of the argument with Wolsey
"You. Wonderful, Wonderful Woman" - Damascus
Damascus gives her a hug. Mycroft is beaming.
"I..." - Kali
"Shore phoned us. He said you got Samuel to vote" - Wolsey
Amanda, sat on the sofa, opens her arms.
"Don't make me find my way across the floor to you" - Amanda
Kali walks over for another congratulatory embrace.
Wolsey does not hug her.
"...It wasn't me. It was Beckett." - Kali
She tells them exactly what Beckett had to do - and what it will likely cost him. He
broke a Geas to give Samuel that name - he's cursed.
"Did you?" - Wolsey
Kali produces the piece of paper with Seraph's name written on it. It's passed around,
Mycroft whispering the name to Amanda so that she can get in on the secret too.
'Simon Painten'
"I think Beckett just discharged the favour he owed you" - Wolsey
Kali shakes her head, emphatically
"No. I don't think so - this is too big. We owe HIM for this" - Kali
"You understand the situation now, right? Beckett's handed us the ability to have
whoever we want elected - or at least, whoever we want as long as Beckett agrees
with it. Now all we need is a candidate" - Wolsey
Damascus shares his opinion - that Ulysses is "thinking" about it, and that any further
prodding from Damascus will do more harm than good.
"Well, if he takes too long... After today, I think Beckett deserves it" - Wolsey
"The consilium will never stand for it" - Mycroft
Wolsey blinks
364
"They won't" - Mycroft
Beckett's an apostate ex-Guardian. Mycroft has issues, and hasn't ever met him to take the edge off those issues.
"Well, it's a dubious idea anyway." (to Kali) "Could you cast the bones for us? Find
out what'd happen?" - Wolsey
Rolling her eyes at "cast the bones", Kali casts .
And gets two successes
She shakes her head
"If Beckett becomes a Councillor... he'll be dead within the year." - Kali
Ulysses it is then. But how to get him to stand? Shore's tried, Damascus has tried,
Beckett's tried. Damascus says that Dantor has tried.
"Mara" - Damascus
"You're sure? After Malakaii?" - Wolsey, dubious
"She may not be a provost any longer, but she is still the head of our Order and
someone he respects. He's supported her since she admitted what she did" Damascus
"To do otherwise would be unchristian" - Mycroft
"Mara's whole thing is that she's the person the Arrow Mages go to with their
problems. And she is a Bearer. She can probably be the final person that persuades
him" - Amanda
"Damascus.. what sort of priest is Ulysses? Does he prefer Resurrection or
Crucifixion doctrine?" - Mycroft
"What does that matter?" - Kali
"It shows how much he believes in redemption" - Damascus
Wolsey - by accident or design - ignores Amanda's input and continues to address
Damascus and Mycroft as he says that it's worth a go. As he tries to phone Mara,
getting her voicemail, Amanda scowls at his back.
Trouble at mill. Wolsey and Amanda's fractured marriage since Querephas is one of the things that gets "handled" by Reign
of the Exarchs III. It's the narrative focus of next session, in fact.
He reached the answerphone of her practice, which was another excuse to break out the fact that her real name's 'Mahduri'.
I'm big with the real names tonight.
Mara phones Wolsey back. He tries to arrange to meet her that night, but she's busy
with something, and will be most of the next day.
"Tell you what, though. Tomorrow night the Wardens are having a party. Roriko's
opening another restaurant, and well, ever since Malakaii our half of the old Cabal
could do with some team-spirit building. The Crucible should come - make a night of
it. We can talk business then" - Mara
365
"Sounds like a plan" - Wolsey
He rings off.
What else? Oh, yes.
He explains the wards he's cast to the gang - Damascus clarifies that Wolsey *really*
intends to recast them every fourth day so that they don't fade, and Wolsey says that
yes, really, he does - and instructs them to call him should they be triggered.
Kali finally confesses that she has more information about what Seraph was doing.
She describes what she and Samuel saw - or remember seeing, rather - and the
nature of Samuel's speculation after the event.
"All of this fits together somehow. We just can't see it." - Damascus
He paces, musing.
"The Spider, editing our memories. Is interested in your Father and you. Seraph,
likewise. Seraph. Seraph's connected to Malakaii - he's a Bearer. Do we know why
he left the Pentacle?" - Damascus
"No" - Kali
Which would be a lie - she does know, as he told her. But one that went unchallenged.
"Maybe he just got religion" - Damascus
"I thought Malakaii invented the Bearers?" - Mycroft
"No - we just assumed that he did" - Wolsey
Wolsey explains about the Indian Cabal that Malakaii learnt his Legacy from
"And we were in their Sanctum" - Kali
"This has to do with that Indian Cabal." (frowns) "Maybe.. maybe Spider's one of
them" - Damascus
"How?" - Amanda
"No - it makes sense. Malakaii could alter memories. Someone else of his calibre
could too." - Mycroft
"Why the Robe? Why the Deja Vu?" - Wolsey
Kali tells them what she and Samuel reckon the Robe's effect is
"While you're wearing it, you can think for yourself, figure out who the Spider is and
even see them. As soon as you take it off, they mind-control you again and you
forget" - Kali
"Which would be why Damascus remains resistant, to the point he can tell that
they've done it. His mind shield is permanent" - Mycroft
366
Mycroft used his Attainment to figure that one out.
That doesn't, Wolsey points out, explain Kali being able to sense it too.
Anyway. Back to the Vote. Wolsey says that he'll go to Banneker tomorrow - if he can
tell the Hierarch that they can swing the vote for Ulysses (subject to Ulysses
standing), then he may be able to get Banneker's support for Melchior removed
entirely, which would make for a true landslide victory.
It is now late enough that everyone is very tired.
"Right." (stands up and stretches) "Damascus, looks like you're on. I, on the other
hand, am going home" - Wolsey
Damascus does not look happy at this.
"Wolsey..." - Amanda
Wolsey leaves.
"I'll swap with you, Damascus" - Amanda
"You sure?" - Damascus
(bitter) "One of us should get some tonight, and my husband just walked out without
saying goodbye" - Amanda
There is an awkward silence
"Go - I said I'll swap. You two have fun... and get some rest" - Amanda
"I'll take the hours after you, and cover for the rest of you when you go to Mara's. I
don't think I'd be welcome" - Mycroft
...
And, Mycroft grabbing as much sleep as he can in the spare room while Amanda
bitterly sits up, fruitlessly guarding the Sanctum, Kali and Damascus retire to Kali's
room.
Where, true to her threat to Wolsey and in some effort to assert that *she* owns *it*,
not the other way around, they use the Robe of the Dethroned Queen as a bedsheet
while they make love.
First time they're together since Vegas
--Late that night, Kali has a dream.
Or maybe, more like a memory. It's late at night (she thinks), and she's very small,
huddled beneath her Darth Vader duvet.
Star Wars bedclothes are a running theme with Kali, for some reason - at Sam's insistence I might add. I don't know what this
says about Kemi's childhood. See, again, next session for this to be subverted.
367
There's the sound of footsteps from outside, in the hall. Little Kemi takes a breath,
apprehensive for some reason.
The footsteps stop. Kemi's heart pounds.
The door opens.
And Kali jolts awake, sweating.
"What?" - Damascus, surprised and now awake.
"...I don't know" – Kali
She's starting to remember - this is when Anurati mind-wiped her and the father and
left.
Saturday.
After taking her turn as Sanctum guard, Kali goes to walk the Thread, but
something's wrong. She's not settled enough, or not rested enough, or something but she can't seem to get the thread.
Wolsey manages to phone Banneker and tell him the news about the vote.
Banneker's already promised his vote to Melchior, and can't break that promise, but
is pleased to be outgunned on this.
Again with the Keeping of your Sworn Word - it's a very Mage thing, the importance on vows.
"I won't forget this Tom. Believe me, I know that it was your hard work that made this
possible" - Banneker.
That does not necessarily make Wolsey feel any better about this - setting Banneker
up for a fall later on.
Banneker says that he'll mollify Melchior by offering him a role as a consultant on the
Lex Magica. Something to make him feel important.
...
That night, with Mycroft on guard back home ("I promise I'll hide and phone for
backup at first sight of a Seer attack"), Damascus, Kali, Wolsey and Amanda find
themselves joining Mara, Proteus, Roriko and Jude at a Greek Restaurant out behind
Central Station.
Roriko has been mentioned but never yet seen - she's a Japanese-American woman, a Bearer of the Eternal Voice, who acts
as a contact hub and networker for the Guardians of the Veil. Proteus is a Thyrsus Sentinel of a shapechanging Legacy
who's occasionally romantically linked to Mara. Jude is the red-haired Acanthus Sentinel who's shown up every now and
again - most notably during Damascus' fight with the renegade spirit and the group who told Wolsey who Beckett was, both
early on in the Chronicle.
With so many Sentinels in the room, Damascus feels right at home. The Eight mages
- plus a handful of staff - are the only people in the place, as Roriko hasn't opened it
properly yet.
Over the meal, Damascus asks Kali what woke her up the night before. She
describes her dream.
368
Amanda and Wolsey, over on their table, are once again aggressively not talking
about their relationship - or about anything beyond the level of minor small talk.
After the meal, Roriko chats with Kali and Damascus;
"Nice place" - Damascus
"Thanks - and it's good to meet you at last. I don't live that far away, it's just that we
were on different sides" - Roriko
"Things change" - Damascus
"For the longest time, I thought you'd named your Cabal 'The Bloody Crucible'" Roriko
Damascus laughs
"Why Greek?" - Damascus
"I got bored of Chinese and Japanese..." - Roriko
Mara, though, sensing that Wolsey wants to get this over with, goes to the bar with
him.
"You look well" - Wolsey
"Thanks. I feel well. Better, anyway." (smiles, tired) "You don't know how much
you've been crushed until the weight's lifted off. I've been saved from an early grave,
and I owe you one, Tom" - Mara
She gets him a drink
"You want to talk to me about Ulysses" - Mara
Wolsey explains - Beckett has managed to get Samuel on-side and where Samuel
goes his Cabal will surely follow. They have the resources to have Ulysses win, if
they can get him to stand.
"You're the last person he respects. Talk to him. Gently." - Wolsey
Mara thinks, and then agrees. She'll do it.
".. Something has been preying on me, ever since Amanda... Well, you know. I've
been thinking about it more in the run up to this election. Melchior gave us the Eyes
of Salt" - Mara
"I have.. been deliberately avoiding thinking about that" - Wolsey
Roriko, as has been mentioned, is based off Rafe's very first Mage: The Ascension character, back in the very old days.
Interesting chronological note - that character started off life as a Euthanatos and then halfway through the second chronicle
she featured in got hit by a convoluted plot macguffin that altered her personal history every couple of days - her entire
character sheet altered as everything that happened to her since the age of 5 got rewritten three times a week from the
ground up, and although she was never conscious of what was happening it took a toll on the others, who once they figured
out how to stop it were in the unhappy position of having to greet each new her with an eye to maybe keeping this one.
In the end, they nearly went with the Nephandi and the Celestial Chorister, but plumped for the Cultist of Ecstasy at the last
moment.
That was, oh, ten years ago? Just goes to show that I've been doing this sort of thing for a very long time. But the
progression from Chinese to Greek restaurants happened in that Chronicle too. Though in that case it was because it got
trashed by a Zigg'Rauglar.
While we're on the subject of odd influences, and given that Mara's in this scene - Mahduri is named after a friend of mine.
My work and my social life don't tend to mix much, which has led to a long line of characters named after Archaeologists and
369
Bankers.
Mind you, next week I name a player character after a villain in Desperate Housewives.
--Sunday, and as the Cabal has lunch, Wolsey receives a call from Shore.
Ulysses is standing for Councillor.
Job done.
--Election day!
The Awakened of DC gather in the Consilium’s central Sanctum at the Masonic hall
downtown, and prepare to go through the elaborate ritual of choosing someone to be
one of their leaders.
Kali is bemused and amazed by Hoban's official hat, which appears to have had
something die and be nailed to the top of it. The Scribe hands out small bags
containing the pewter tokens.
Everyone's here; the room's getting unpleasantly full. Already, Thursday and his
people are glaring openly at Beckett, Shore and Mara.
Samuel arrives, serious-faced. The crowd makes a gap for him.
Hoban calls for the candidates - Thursday, Melchior and Ulysses. In ascending order
of seniority they go through their Hustings, each giving a short speech about why
they'd be best for the job. Thursday focuses on the external threat, how they are
disunited and need to hold together in this time of upheaval for the Sleepers.
Melchior says that the loss of Malakaii was a tragedy that should not have happened
- that would not have happened under properly enforced rules of conduct. He looks
right as Mara as he denounces casual experimentation with matters best left alone.
He and his Cabal know the Way, he says. The Ascendants know how to lead the
Diamond back to the true path.
Many of those present - including Kali - sneak a look at how the Free Council nearlyArchmage takes Melchior constantly referring to "The Diamond". He does not seem
amused.
Ulysses, as most senior, gives the third and final husting. He says that he was
persuaded to stand by people on all sides of what is turning into a dangerous rift.
That Thursday was right in what he said about needing to pull together. The three
Cabals who make up the core of the Consilium's defences are at odds, and this has
to stop now.
"It's time to let the past lie, and to forgive one another. We won't get many more
chances" - Ulysses
Most definitely a Resurrection Catholic.
Hoban calls the Cabals, in order of their Founding, to vote. One by one, mages file
past the three candidates. It soon becomes clear that Ulysses is winning. After
370
Samuel puts his entire bag of tokens into Ulysses' jar, bag and all, it's all but certain.
The Crucible's time comes. Everyone puts their tokens in Ulysses' jar - with the
exception of Mycroft, who looks Thursday in the eye and gives him one single token.
By the time Bethune, as the last person on the roll, votes, Ulysses is looking like a
man shouldering a burden. And Thursday looks about ready for a fight.
Hoban, Dantor and Samuel have a brief discussion, and then Hoban announces that
- with everyone's indulgence - the Council has to meet now before they can let
everyone go. Blaise has ceased to be Samuel's Provost and, for obvious reasons,
Ulysses has just this minute stopped being Dantor's. All three of them need to
appoint someone to do the running around and active Pentacle-wrangling. Together
with Hoban and Banneker, they go into the next chamber.
Out where the Crucible are, Beckett and Thursday look perilously close to coming to
blows. Shore comes over to speak to the Cabal, wincing as Beckett skewers
Thursday with a particularly impressive barbed comment.
"I've got a bad feeling about this." - Shore
"How so?" - Wolsey
"Me and Beckett are the only qualified people left in the Defenders - and they need
two people of our rank to be Provosts. If Beckett gets given a public office, Thursday
will challenge him to a duel. And then Beckett'll kill him" - Shore
Damascus watches Beckett. The Mastigos' smile never *quite* reaches his eyes.
"No. Sorry - I just don't care" - Wolsey
Everyone looks at him, he shrugs.
"I've been thinking about this campaign since Malakaii died. I just don't have the race
for Provost in me. I need sleep - then maybe I'll be able to care" - Wolsey
React to his cursing himself and having nothing further to lose by trying to kill
someone allegedly on the same side? Beckett? With his reputation?
"If it comes to it, I'll square the circle for them" - Damascus
Hoban comes out of the Council's deliberations, sighing.
"How's it going?" - Wolsey
"Well" (takes off the stupid hat and runs a hand through his blond locks) "There's a
slight disagreement. About Trace." - Hoban
Hoban, I don't know if you recall, looks like an American Football player. He's big, strong, blond, square-jawed and
handsome. Put him in a red pullover and he'd look like Flash Gordon. The fact that he's essentially the Consilium's PA is just
one of life's little curveballs.
"She'd be *great*" - Kali, emphatically
"Oh, no question, and she's waited long enough. That isn't the problem. The problem
is that both Samuel AND Ulysses wanted her. Mary turned Samuel down yesterday -
371
rumour has it that she's done him a deal where she gets leadership of the Cabal
when he leaves instead, which means more to her. So he went with the best suited of
the House, but Ulysses wanted a Guardian of the Veil to make good on his speech."
- Hoban
The Councillors and Hierarch all come back in. Hoban briefly confers.
Dantor calls Shore out. The Mastigos downs his drink, takes the handshakes offered
to him by the people around him, and half walks, half-jogs up to the front.
Thursday and Beckett are now watching one another, not the stage.
Ulysses calls Trace out, who was clearly not expecting it. Nor, it seems, was
Thursday. She's happy, though, and passes a congratulatory Kali on her way.
Samuel calls John Dee.
"Go fuck yourself, chief" - John Dee
There is deadly silence. Hoban freezes in the act of marking the appointment on his
records. Melchior is making some kind of choking sound at the back, but Samuel
doesn't seem that surprised by the outburst.
"John..." - Samuel
"Sorry, but no. Not interested. Find someone else." - John Dee
"Er. Just a few minutes, people! No one go anywhere!" - Hoban
Samuel and Ulysses have a quiet conversation. Both of them are gesturing at Trace,
who seems worried.
They break it off, and Samuel goes to talk to Trace.
Hoban announces the slight change - Trace is now *Samuel's* provost, as per his
first choice. Ulysses will announce his appointment shortly.
Ulysses has retreated into the back room, alone.
...
Half an hour later, and the Consilium is getting restless. Banneker has formally asked
Melchior to lend the weight of his learning in matters of trials, and the elder Moros
considered it for all but a second before agreeing. Wolsey can quite clearly hear
Balthazar tell Melchior that it was a very wise decision, and that it was clearly an
action of Fate.
Wolsey worries about Balthazar, and his fortune-telling's hold over Melchior.
"Guys" - Hoban, quietly
The Crucible pay attention
"He's asking for you" - Hoban, to Damascus
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...
The Back room. Ulysses, looking like a sword of Damocles is over him, is sat alone
at the table.
"Mara or Beckett?" - Ulysses
Damascus starts to say something, realises he has no idea what he's going to say
and closes his mouth.
"Come on, this was your idea. I've got two choices - Mara or Beckett. Either one of
them is going to cause a shitstorm" - Ulysses
"Have you seen Mara lately?" - Damascus
Ulysses considers him
".. How much happier she is? She's *free* now. Making her Provost would probably
kill her. How long before she cracks under the pressure again?" - Damascus
Ulysses grimaces
"I know, I know. Trace would have been perfect. An olive branch to the Guardians,
someone from one of the other Cabals." - Ulysses.
"How about I go get Wolsey?" - Damascus
...
Damascus steps out and looks over the crowd.
"Wolsey!" - Damascus
"Dude!" - Kali, to Wolsey
"Oh no." - Wolsey
...
Re-assembled, Wolsey is presented with the dilemma, and has about as many ideas
as Damascus and Ulysses.
Some frantic poring over Wolsey's copy of the Electoral Roll ensues.
"Really, we want someone from Thursday's cabal... for the same reasons you wanted
Trace. Sister?" - Damascus
"How about *Thursday*? He's certainly qualified." - Wolsey
The other two look at him.
...
Outside, Thursday is interrupted in the middle of a good staring contest with Beckett,
his cabal drawn up around him in something resembling battle formation.
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Damascus approaches, waving a white handkerchief.
"Very funny. What?" - Mr Thursday.
"Ulysses would like to offer you the job of Provost." - Damascus
"I've seen you two going in and out of there for half an hour. Just how low down the
list was I?" asked Thursday, preparing to be offended.
"Ulysses wanted a Guardian all along. One of your cabal for preference. It's why he
wanted Trace. To help heal the Consilium. He did not ask you because he did not
think you would accept. We persuaded him that it was at least worth asking if it would
get him the person he wanted." - Damascus
Thursday thinks briefly, nods, and goes in to see Ulysses.
And the fix, finally, is in.
This is going to take some getting used to. Kali's focused on Trace, though, happy for
her friend - and watching Samuel leave without a word.
Damascus and Mycroft are watching Beckett, who is lurking at the back of the room.
One by one, the members of the Consilium leave for other places, their own
concerns and cares. Beckett stays leaning against the wall.
Finally, the Crucible take their leave. Beckett's still there. Brooding.
Fin
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Chapter 8: "The Only Place You Can"
Session 8.1
Spoiler Alert! As with Story 3 and Story 6, this one is from the Reign of the Exarchs Sourcebook. So all credit to Robin Laws,
whose Scenario this is. And really - if you have even the slightest interest in playing RotE, stop reading now.
Not kidding.
There'll be much less obfuscation and hiding of things in my blue notes for this story, as at time of writing we've now
completed it and all the big plot revelations have been revealed.
So. For those still with us, this story begins oddly - the players aren't playing their regular characters, instead portraying
residents of a gated community on the edge of some city or other. As the story goes on, though, it becomes obvious that the
events are a lie - the players *are* playing their regular characters, but those characters have been trapped in an artificial
realm in Astral Space and have had their memories rewritten.
Note that this central conceit of the story was spoiled the instant the gang looked at their new character sheets and realised
the virtues and vices were the same (which in hindsight I really should have thought of). Still, they got into the spirit and
decided to play it as a star trek holodeck story, working through their characters "issues" in the altered reality.
Which, as it happens, is exactly the wrong thing to do. The altered reality is designed to emotionally trap the mages
imprisoned within it, and the more they engage with the world the harder breaking out of it becomes. All the while, their real
bodies are dying of exposure and dehydration while their minds are trapped in the Astral Realm.
How they got to be in this mess is revealed over the course of the story in flashbacks as their memories return and they go
about trying to escape. The important thing to realise from the start is that the Omniium - the layered magical effects that run
this pocket world - has personalised the trap for each of the five Cabal members, creating a shared scenario from their
memories, minds and subconsciousnesses. Therefore, the people that appear closely related story-wise to their characters
represent people and things that are important to the "real" characters. Wolsey's dream-self is struggling with the breakdown
of his marriage after his wife was crippled. Mycroft's dream-self has been assigned to a dead-end posting after making one
too many enemies.
Kali's dream-self has an overbearing and controlling mother, who disapproves of her every action and whom she desperately
wants to please. Charlotte/Kali spends most of the story trying to hold on to the relationship with this mother-figure, even after
she remembers who she really is - Kali sees this as an opportunity to have a bond with someone that she's never had in her
"real" life. We all know, of course (or you do if you've been reading some of the blacked-out bits in the thread), that this
character actually represents the Spider - who behind the obfuscation and memory-wiping actually is Kali's mother.
At story's end, Kali finds out who the Spider is. Next story - 9.1 and onwards - is "There Is Nothing To Say", being Reign of
the Exarchs IV. After that, we've finished with Reign for the foreseeable future - the final Reign Story ends any chronicle it's
in, so we're entering a new phase of the Chronicle. There's a scene in a shower at the end of this one that represents the
turning point in the Chronicle. Think of this as a extra-long season finale.
--We pan down from the twinkling stars to the endless grid of the Sutterton Farms
gated community - rings and rings of identikit roads featuring identikit houses with
identikit lawns.
On Apple Street, near 34th Avenue, there are three houses. All in a row.
On the porch of the Left-hand house, Paul York stands, checking his watch and
looking each way. The Carpentry foreman on the community's construction and
maintenance crew, he lives an ordered life of church, wainscoting and tasteful
furniture. Tonight, though, as a favour to his mother (long since deposited in a Florida
retirement home) he has agreed to take in his brother Peter, who is in need of both a
job and somewhere to live.
Peter is late.
Typical, really.
Introducing... Damascus! "Paul York" being an altered variation of "Carl Washington". The leap from Sculptor to Carpenter
isn't that big, really. Actually, I meant to name him after Paul Young in Desperate housewives, which this first third of The
Only Place You Can owes a lot to. But I got the name wrong due to a brief brainfart.
Paul is a boring, boring man. He's kind of the Ned Flanders of our story - cheerful to his neighbours, helpful, generous, far
too pious. He believes in punctuality and neatness.
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Rafe was terrifyingly convincing.
In the kitchen of the house next door, Charlotte James - 15 years old and new to the
neighbourhood - is hunting for ice-cream in the freezer. Glancing out of the window,
she spots Paul standing there all alone, but her quest for dairy wins out.
Charlotte James... Kemi Simone? Okay, less obvious this one (other than being the female player character). Consider,
though, the contraction of Charlotte "Carly". Sound it out in your head.
"You'll get fat, you know" - Anna
The voice is that of Anna James, Charlotte's mother - 42 and starting to age, with a
wearied gaze that cuts right through her daughter. Charlotte hesitates, decides to
ignore her and keeps eating.
"Why do I bother?" - Anna
She flounces off, leaving Charlotte there.
This was tenser than it reads - there's a lot of undercurrents to Anna and Charlotte's interactions. It doesn't ever get fully
"revealed" per se, as both characters know all about it but don't tell anyone else, but the family James is new to this area due
to what Anna sees as their humiliation - Charlotte "went off the rails" (by which we mean "slept with a college boy and started
drinking") and Anna had her institutionalised.
Charlotte now is home from the mental institute after three months, moved to a new area where they can make a fresh start
and never reveal their shameful secret. And desperate, as said, to gain her mother's approval.
Further down the street, a Nissan pulls into the driveway of the House on Charlotte
and Anna's right. Donald Trask is home after a long day at the office and a few hours
at his Elk Society meeting. Fake-antlered hat on the passenger seat, Donald sits in
his car and regards his house with weary dread for a quarter of an hour before
sighing and getting out of the car.
The house is dark and quiet. There's an unoccupied Wheelchair next to the stairs,
and the chairlift is at the top of the flight. Donald enters the kitchen, and pulls a sticky
note from the table informing him that his dinner is in the oven.
Sighing again, he sits down at the large, empty dining table and begins to eat.
Donald Trask = Thomas Dean. Same number of syllables, and "Don" sounds like "Tom" when you shorten the names. As
with Charlotte and (to a lesser extent) Paul, Donald's tragic background is referred to by characters and informs what's going
on but was never actually said 'on screen' - The Omniium has incorporated Wolsey's mixed guilt and anger over Amanda's
maiming by providing "Donald" with a wife named Marie, who is paralysed from the waist down after a self-inflicted car
accident - she crashed their car while drunk.
He is named, in my perverse fashion, after the father of the scientist who invented Sentinels in X-Men. Or, if you take it as a
reference to Donald Trask III, the son of said Scientist who was duped and killed by Cassandra Nova.
Mark had no idea.
...
Hours later, a beaten-up pickup truck, engine backfiring, growls into view on Apple
road. Paul has a sinking feeling that he knows who this is, and sure enough it pulls
into the drive next to his own car.
The driver waves, and the mongrel dog in the passenger seat barks.
"Hey, bro!" - Pete
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"... Nice truck. Where did you get it, the breakers yard?" - Paul
"Some guy in Minnesota. Came cheap" - Pete
The truck appears to have been repaired with gaffa tape in places. The dog barks
again.
"And you have a dog" - Paul
"Yeah, this is Ricky." - Pete, going to the bed of the truck.
Pete's stuff is in the back, open to the elements and now rather wet and windbashed. There's a tool box containing several tools, a doorbell and what looks like a
burglar alarm. Paul raises his eyebrow, and Pete just shrugs.
The brothers go inside - Paul saying that the dog can stay in the back yard.
"Ricky" is the name of Damascus' real brother. Pete, as should be noted, represents the antisocial, lazy, sexual and beery
parts of Damascus. For Kali, the temptation offered by the Omniium is to have a family and have a relationship with her
mother. For Wolsey, it's to work out his anger and guilt over Amanda's maiming. As We'll see, Mycroft has been put into a
situation where he can get his resentment of the way he's treated by the Guardians out and Amanda has the opportunity to
fight for her marriage in a way she doesn't dare to in the real world. Damascus is confronted by Pete - everything of his own
character that he's ashamed of, or that he thinks is uncivilised. Everything that he brought up when he was being Antinomist.
The pickup is a call to Damascus' own vehicle.
Pay especial attention to Chekhov’s doorbell...
...
Midnight.
Charlotte is in bed, wide awake.
Charlotte has Princess Amidala plastered around her room, which is a reference to Story Six.
Paul is in bed, wide awake. Listening to the dog - which he left out in the yard scrabble up the stairs towards the spare room he installed his brother in.
Donald - who has sat up all night so far - finally goes to bed. Marie is a shape in the
bed, facing away from him.
All three characters close their eyes at the same time.
It was only later on in the story, when I asked, that I realised not one of the players realised what was going on here - the
three characters (actually the five, because Mycroft and Amanda are stuck in here too) always fall asleep at the same time
and wake up simultaneously. They're never actually asleep - the controlling force of the scenario just fast forwards time to the
next morning.
This becomes more obvious in the final third of this story, when Wolsey is horrifyingly injured but much as he might wish to
can't fall unconscious - because the other four characters are still awake.
The next morning, Charlotte is downstairs and having breakfast while fielding a
lecture from her mother on the subject of getting out of the house and not lazing
around all day.
"You need friends your own age - and you're starting school soon. Oh, but when you
meet people, we'll need to say where you've been..." - Anna
Charlotte suggests, into her cornflakes, that "band camp" might not cut it. And then
instantly regrets it when Anna rounds on her.
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"Young lady, I just... I just can't have this conversation with you right now" - Anna
Rarely are my line readings significantly above "flat", but apparently that line sounded particularly realistic. According to Sam
at the time, anyway.
Anna takes deep breaths and calms down, then turns the guilt on - they had to move,
she says, because of Charlotte's "turn".
"But you're better now." - Anna
Charlotte figures it would be best to just not say anything.
...
Later. Paul is on his lunch break at work, wolfing his sandwiches alone while the rest
of the crew chat and joke. He heads for the site supervisor's office and asks his boss
- a large man named Jim - if it's still okay if his brother starts working there. Jim says
that it is, and if Pete is as good a worker as Paul then he's especially happy. They
arrange for Pete to start the next day, installing fences on the new builds' gardens.
Rafe thought Jim was Mr Thursday (that's the Bokor's real name), but he was meant to represent the authority-figure to
Damascus' dreamworld and wasn't anyone specific.
Donald is also at work, handling a really complex pencil order.
Donald, you see, is a Manager at a stationary company.
Donald's job was going to be at a paper merchants, as per Ricky Gervais' "The Office", but we broadened it to general
stationers and office supplies based on a joke about him being a "Pen Pusher".
"Coffee?" - Tracy
Tracy is Donald's secretary - not "PA" - a blonde, bubbly woman who keeps trying to
ply him with caffeine. The other worker in the place is Terrance, an obsequious little
man with ambitions of having Donald's job.
"Yes.. Oh, but only one sugar." - Donald
Tracy frowns disapprovingly, and gets him his drink.
...
Charlotte - not having any friends around here, and bored out of her mind at home is out for a run. She heads through the grid of gently curved avenues and crossroads (Sutterton Farms appears to be vaguely circular) and passes by what passes
for the town centre - a small cluster of shops and offices next to the town hall, the
church, the high school and a tiny "museum". On the far side of the cluster is the
wedge-shaped park, extending like a pizza slice out from the core of the gated
community. Rising from trees in the middle of the park is a cellphone mast, and on
the far side is the country club and the golf course.
Remember the village in "Stop The Train, I Want To Get Off"? This description seems far more blatant here than in play Sam took in the detail of the cellphone mast, but it didn't have the attention drawn to it.
In the schoolyard, there's a maypole that's been painted gold.
378
When she reaches the end of the circuit - back home again - Charlotte sees Pete's
dog lounging in the front yard
"Hey, boy. What's your name?" - Charlotte
Pete comes out of the house and introduces himself, and Ricky. Charlotte is taken
with Ricky. Pete is taken with Charlotte. Eventually, he drags his eyes off her and
asks if she could do him a favour. He needs to go shopping. For which he needs to
find the shops. Charlotte points the direction of the centre, and he asks her if she can
watch the dog for him.
"Well, I should..." - Charlotte
"I'll pay you" - Pete
"Okay!" - Charlotte
...
Five O Clock rolls round, and Paul clocks off. When he gets back to Apple Road, he
finds Charlotte on his front lawn, playing with the dog.
"Hello?" - Paul
"Heya" - Charlotte
"You're the girl from next door, right?" - Paul
"Yeah." - Charlotte
At which point, Pete returns, bearing takeout.
"Been out?" - Paul
"Having a look around. Found a Taco place" - Pete
"..I" - Paul
Both brothers are distracted by Charlotte, who's been playing with the dog. Paul
notices Pete noticing Charlotte and gets a horrible, horrible feeling.
And then the lawn sprinkler goes off.
"Weeell, we should get inside and eat this. Bye now!" - Paul
Pete remembers something and gives Charlotte a bill.
"Thanks for looking after him" - Pete
The brothers go inside. Paul cringes as the wet dog pushes it's way into the house.
"You paid her for?" - Paul
"Looking after Ricky" - Pete, happily
"Pete. She's fifteen." - Paul
379
Pete shrugs.
The part of Damascus that Pete represents, the urges he's trying to control in this personified form? It's also the part that's
attracted to Kali.
The office is dark, but Donald's still here. Avoiding thinking about home.
"How long are you going to stay for?" - Tracy
"A few hours at least. You can go home, though" - Donald
Tracy shrugs.
"You work late, I work late" - Tracy
Around this point, Sam was forced to point out to Mark - who was wondering who Tracy was supposed to be - that she's
plainly Trace, the Guardian of the Veil Herald in the House of Ariadne. And Terrence is Tybalt.
What this says about Wolsey's psyche, I don't know.
...
Smell of Burrito fills the house, and Paul's stomach rumbles
Food, again
"Let's get some plates" - Paul
Over dinner, Paul says that he spoke to his boss and that Pete can join the work
crew the next day. Pete thanks him, repeating what is evidently a long-used line that
it's just until he finds something permanent of his own. He saw a place called "Reach
Experts" advertising when he was in the centre of town, and thinks they might be
worth a go.
Next door, Anne picks at her own evening meal while Charlotte doesn't so much eat
as inhale solid matter.
"I don't know where you put it all" - Anna
"Growing" - Charlotte, between mouthfuls.
"How was your day, dear? Did you leave the house?" - Anna
"Been out nearly all day. Went for a run. Met a dog" - Charlotte
...
Much later, long after the sun has gone down, and Donald gets home. This time,
though, he's not as lucky as the night before. Entering the kitchen, he's confronted by
Marie, her arms crossed.
"Where've you been?" - Marie
"Work. Working late. I told you" - Donald
"No. You didn't" - Marie
She wheels herself around and slaps his meal onto the table angrily.
"I must have..." - Donald
380
He gives up, and they eat in silence. Not even looking at one another.
After the meal, Donald gets the plates to wash up. Marie gets onto her lift to head
upstairs.
"How's Tracy, by the way?" - Marie
Donald winces, and doesn't answer.
...
The next day, both Paul and Donald get the one up on someone at work - Paul
instructs a lackey in the correct use of a lathe, while Donald spends a pleasurable
half hour chewing Terrance out for a mistake the man has made regarding a major
Pencil order.
Once Terrance, ashen-faced, has fled Donald's office, Tracy offers coffee.
"Yes. Thank you" (he considers) "And I'll have sugar this time" - Donald
These scenes, and the one in a minute with Charlotte, are the characters being given an opportunity to gain some measure
of control over the cast of their little melodramas, addicting them in the process.
That night, Donald can't face going home. He drives right past Apple Road and
heads to the centre of Sutterton Farms, to the community's one and only bar. He's
never been in before, and nurses a single beer.
"Do you ever feel trapped?" - Donald
"Sorry?" - Bartender
"I feel trapped. I can't explain.. there just.. there has to be something more than this."
- Donald
His cell phone rings. He ignores it.
...
Meanwhile, at Charlotte's house, Anna has just found the stash of ice cram bowls.
"Oh god, are you bulimic?" - Anna
Charlotte, though, is getting good at defusing her mother's random attacks of worry:
no, she's not. She just gets hungry in the night.
"Hunger pangs? Are you pregnant?" - Anna
No, not that either. Just a teenager.
"So there's no need to worry, okay?" - Charlotte, patiently
Anna, mollified, hugs her daughter.
The doorbell rings.
...
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"Hi" - Paul
Anna peers out at him
"I'm Paul York. From next door. You're Charlotte's mother, aren't you?" - Paul
"Has she been bothering you?" - Anna, against Charlotte's protests from inside.
"No, no. It's just.. My brother and I were wondering if you two wanted to come to
dinner on Saturday at our place. We're inviting the Trasks as well" - Paul
She agrees, and Paul goes on to Donald's house. The door is answered by Marie,
who looks worried.
"You haven't seen Don, have you?" - Marie
"He hasn't come home?" - Paul
"No. And he's not at the office - I've checked. I don't know where he is" - Marie
She seems pretty distressed (Paul doesn't know about the argument of the night
before), so he offers to look out for him while he's in town. He needs to head to the
store for a few things anyway, and it's either that or the country club unless Donald's
driven into the city.
...
An hour later, coming out of the store, Paul runs into Donald coming out of the bar.
"Donald!" - Paul
Donald looks apprehensive
"Marie was looking for you" - Paul
"Oh. Right." - Donald
They stand next to one another, Don not looking at Paul, outside the bar. One of the
community's private police strolls past them and removes a poster from the otherwise
pristine wall. Don doesn't get a good look at it, but it's something about "Search
Experts".
Donald finally goes home, to find Marie already in bed. He climbs in, but she isn't
asleep.
"Don. This was not your fault" - Marie, nearly in tears.
Which is what everyone keeps telling Wolsey about Amanda's injury.
Saturday.
There's no rest for the construction crew, though, and both Paul and Pete are at
work. To Paul's chagrin, Pete is an instant hit with the builders, and while Paul eats
his lunch alone Pete is laughing and joking in the middle of a gathering of workmates.
"I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Charlotte and Anna are at a supermarket just on the outside of Sutterton Farms,
shopping. Charlotte is slouching along after Anna, to a constant tirade of whispers
382
from her mother telling her to stand up straight, smile back at the boys that are
checking her out and otherwise try above else to act normal.
Charlotte meets the eyes of a black boy who grins back at her.
"Don't encourage him." - Anna, whispering, horrified.
Charlotte rolls her eyes, and goes back to slouching.
Sam spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out if Anna's racism here is indicative of Kali's real mother's attitude. Kali's
dad is black, but Sam didn't know at the time why she left them.
It's nothing of the sort.
Anurati is an Untouchable - discriminated against because she has darker skin than most Indians. No, this is representative
of the fact that Anurati disapproves of *Damascus* specifically. Why? If it doesn't come up when they meet her, I'll explain
later.
Charlotte picks up a bag of fries
"No normal boys will want you if you're fat" - Anna
"I won't get fat" - Charlotte
Anna "whatever"s, and Charlotte wins her fries.
"I was thinking about changing job" - Anna, offhandedly
Charlotte makes a querying noise
"Well, I'm not home as much as I'd like. If I could work from home, I could look after
you more" - Anna
Charlotte's expression shows what she thinks of that idea,
"If the wind changes, you'll stay like that. There was an advert in our letterbox this
morning. There's an internet company expanding in the Farms, and they need people
to help out. I could do it from home on our connection." - Anna
"But you're good at the Library. You like it." - Charlotte, trying not to panic
"Oh, I know, but that Mark's a pain to work with." - Anna
That would be Malakaii
"Now, I want you to try to look nice tonight" - Anna
"Yes, mom" - Charlotte, wearily
"And if anyone asks..." - Anna
"... I was at camp" - Charlotte.
...
Donald and Marie awkwardly get ready for the dinner party. Donald watches her
struggling in the mirror before making a decision. She doesn't want to ask for his
help, but he gives it.
...
Paul opens the door, to let Donald and Marie in. There is much smiling, and even
more awkward silence. Pete is in the kitchen, cooking, so Paul, Marie and Don sit
around the table (Paul has removed one chair for Marie) and say nothing.
Anna, Charlotte in tow, arrive, and the party starts. Wine begins to flow (except to
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Marie - she's drinking water), and Paul's alarm is growing as Pete begins to flirt with
Charlotte.
"SO... What is it you do, Don? Some kind of manager isn't it?" - Paul, grabbing any
distraction he can.
Don describes his business, self-effacingly describing himself as a "pen pusher"
(which gets a laugh from Pete), and clarifies that Paul's a Carpenter.
"You don't socialise much together?" - Anna
Paul and Don look at one another
"Honestly, no. This is the first time - you and Charlotte arriving, and Pete, have given
me the excuse" - Paul
Pete is looking at Marie, mouth open and ready to frame the obvious question. At
Don's frown, Paul steps into the breach.
"So.." - Pete
"...Anna. Is Charlotte's father..?" - Paul
"Gone to Hawaii." swigs her wine "With his PA" - Anna
Charlotte looks sad.
"There's a lot of it going around" - Marie, sweetly
Don winces.
Pete has bounced back with The Question, though.
"So, what happened?" - Pete
"PETE" - Paul, sharply
"No, it's all right. Don't worry - if it's not the chair, then people usually ask about the
water. I crashed my car" - Marie
Pete "oh"s, and they all return to eating. Eventually, Pete excuses himself and goes
outside. After half an hour of small talk, listening to Don's thrilling tales of stationary
and Anna cutting Charlotte off whenever the girl tries to say anything, Paul says he'll
be back in a minute and heads off after his brother.
Pete, Paul finds, is out in the back yard, ruffling Ricky's fur and smoking a joint.
"What the hell is THAT?" - Paul
"A joint" - Pete
"Well, put it OUT. For God's sake, Pete, we have guests. And it's illegal! If you were
found out, they could evict me from the farms. I could lose my job." - Paul
jumping as if stung, Pete puts it out.
"Is there any more?" - Paul
"I'll get rid of it. I'm.. I'm sorry, all right?" - Pete
"Where did you get it?" - Paul
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"One of the guys at work.. no, don't ask me who. Because we both know you'll just
get them fired" - Pete
"Yes, I WOULD" - Paul
"Look, I'll shape up" - Pete
He gives Paul the sob story - about how Paul had all the responsible genes in their
family, and how he just wants to get his life on track. Paul is a sucker for a good sob
story, and they go back inside.
"Just get rid of it" - Paul
...
The dinner party winds up. Paul asks if he'll see anyone at church tomorrow. Turns
out he won't.
Half an hour later, and Anna has gone to bed. Charlotte is taking the garbage cans
out, when she spots someone lurking in the space between her yard and Paul's. It
turns out to be Pete, smoking his recovered joint and trying to stay out of sight of the
windows in Paul's house.
Charlotte leans against the face, letting her hair fall down. Pete silently offers her the
joint.
"I shouldn't" - Charlotte, taking it anyway.
They smoke for a while.
"Listen. I need somewhere to keep my stash - somewhere my brother won't find it." Pete
Charlotte listens
"Up for it?" - Pete
"If my mom were to find it, I'd be dead meat" - Charlotte, dubious
"$300" - Pete
"$400" - Charlotte
"$350" - Pete
Charlotte flutters her eyelashes
"$450" - Charlotte
"Hang on" - Pete
"$4.. 60" - Charlotte
"$400" - Pete
"$500" - Charlotte
"All right! All right. Christ. Never haggle with the jailbait" - Pete
"Done" - Charlotte, with much satisfaction.
Sunday
Donald and Marie are at home, and Donald has something to say.
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"We need a vacation. Something. I've been feeling... We have to Go someplace. This
life - it's killing us." - Donald
Marie considers him and quietly agrees. She boots up their PC and calls up a
website featuring a large staring Eye on top of some sort of column
"What's this?" - Donald
"Reach Experts. They're local - support Farms businesses and all that" - Marie
The Eye gives Don a slightly queasy feeling, but he pushes through it and they begin
looking around.
"I guess Disneyland is out" - Marie, dryly
Donald, though, flipping through sites of vacation ideas, has hit one that says
something to him. Though he has no idea why - it just feels *right*, somehow.
"Washington DC?" - Donald
Marie raises her eyebrows.
"I never thought you'd be interested in that sort of thing. Our Nation's Capital and so
on." - Marie
"I... Yeah. DC." (nods to himself) "What do you think" - Don
She shrugs
"As long as we can find a hotel I can get around, sure. How are we going to get
there? You know I hate planes" - Marie
"We'll drive" (off her look) "It'll be fine. And better than flying at any rate" - Don
"Well.. all right." - Marie, dubious
"I'll book it tomorrow, then. There's a travel agent near work" - Don
...
Paul goes to church, taking confession - he says that his brother makes him furious,
but also envious. That he's starting to doubt his place here, as though the Farms are
stifling him. He doesn't get much advice, though. Father Hannigan doesn't like him
very much. Probably because he takes a half-hour confession every week and tries
to monopolise the Father's time.
That would be Ulysses, as interpreted through Damascus' insecurities
When he returns home, though, he finds Anna waiting for him on the porch. Smiling
at nosy old Mrs Crabapple across the street, he asks Anna what's up.
...
Charlotte comes home from a run in the early evening, and instantly knows
something's wrong. It's the way Paul is in the house, and Anna is shaking with fury.
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And there's a rather pathetic in daylight bag of weed, still crusted with dirt from where
she buried it in the flowerbed, on the kitchen table.
Charlotte is so very, very grounded.
"I can only apologise again. Pete.. will be gone by the end of the week" - Paul
He leaves, and Anna goes ballistic. Charlotte shrinks in her seat
"Why can't you be NORMAL? Why can't... We're throwing out this for a start" - Anna,
removing Charlotte's ice cream stash from the freezer
"Can I at least keep the fries?" - Charlotte
Anna just glares at her.
"STAY there" - Anna
And she stamps upstairs. Charlotte hears her rummage about in the bathroom, and
then Anna is back, bearing a bottle of pills.
Charlotte starts to protest, but Anna takes a pill out and puts it in front of her.
"I thought you were better. Obviously not. We can get you a new prescription when
these run out" - Anna
Charlotte stares at the sedative
"Would you prefer to go back there?" - Anna
Charlotte mumbles that she wouldn't, and takes the pill. Rather than swallow it,
though, beneath Anna's eagle eye, she palms it before shuffling upstairs to her room.
...
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?" - Paul
"I..." - Pete
Pete sees the stash, in Paul's hand, just before Paul puts it down the garbage
disposal. The blades grind it up, as Pete makes horrified noises and rushes out into
the yard where the waste gets fed into a composting bin.
Throwing it open, recoiling from the smell, Pete tries to pick the chunks of weed out
with his fingers before Paul slams the lid shut again.
"I'll ask you again" - Paul
"Shit! Shit, bro - that wasn't fucking well MINE" - Pete
Turns out he was just holding it for "the guy at work".
A light shines in both of their faces. They turn, to find one of those Private Cops
shining his torch at them.
387
"Everything all right?" - Cop
"Yes, thank you officer" - Paul
Both brothers smile reassuringly, and the Cop retreats back down the ally. The
moment has been defused, though, and Paul is more worried about his standing in
the community.
"Look. I know that this place is safe, and boring, and drab. Maybe it's not what you
need. Maybe it's not what *I* need" - Paul
"No.. No.. I'm sorry" - Pete
He says that it IS what he needs, to be able to live in Paul's world, and that he'll
change if Paul will only give him a chance and show him how.
Paul rubs his eyes, weary.
"Can we pay back your... source" - Paul (with heavy distaste)
"I gave all my money to the jailbait to hide the fucking thing" - Pete
"I.. How much money did you give her?" - Paul
"Five hundred bucks" - Pete
...
In her bedroom, Charlotte listens to Anna stomp around the house and tries to think
of where she can dispose of her medication, knowing that Anna is likely to search her
room at a moment's notice. She hears a sound at her window, and opens it to find
Paul in his back yard, throwing pebbles at her.
There's a brief negotiation, in which Charlotte agrees to give $400 of the money back
- plus Paul subbing him, that'll let Pete pay his dealer back. Satisfied, the brothers go
inside.
Charlotte considers, and whistles. Ricky - in the Kennel Paul bought him in the back
yard - comes out and whines, looking up at Charlotte.
Charlotte feeds her medication to the dog.
Monday.
Paul gets up to find that Ricky has vomited all over the back step.
"Aw, boy, what've you been eating?" - Paul
As he cleans up the dogsick, he gets a sudden flash of.. something. Like a memory,
or more than a memory. It's the smell, he decides, as he goes to get ready for work.
He's partly right - it's the smell of the vomit doing it in particular.
Work holds no comfort. Pete is joking with their co-workers as before, but Paul's
even more isolated - any one of them could be the dealer, he thinks, and he
suspiciously eyes them all. On one level, he's aware that he'll never be able to trust
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them again, thanks to Pete.
...
Charlotte is grounded, and confined to her room except to go to the bathroom and
mealtimes. Every five hours, Anna gives her another pill, and Charlotte tries to
dispose of it without taking it.
...
Donald is at work.
"Hard weekend?" - Tracy
"You could say that" - Donald
"Coffee?" - Tracy
"No" - Donald
He ignores her for most of the morning.
"Marie okay?" - Tracy
Donald frowns.
"Not particularly" - Don
"I don't know why you stay with her" - Tracy, offhandedly
He rounds on her
"You don't? You really don't? What do you want me to say? That I don't love her any
more? I admit it. People. Change. But she's still my *wife*." - Don
He gets his coat
"I'm going out" - Don
And heads straight for the travel agents.
His first hotel is full. That isn't so bad - switch to their second choice. Once he's
sorted everything out, made sure they have access for Marie's chair and so on, he
hands his plastic over.
His credit card is denied.
"Could you try it again?" - Don
Still denied.
Thanking the smiling assistant, he promises to be back later. Heading back to work,
he spends a terse half-hour on hold before getting through to his bank. There's been
a mistake, they admit, and they're working on getting it fixed ASAP.
After work, he goes back, and this time his card is accepted. Now the place is
booked. Grateful, he phones home and tells Marie that it's on, keeping his trouble
booking it to himself. He also takes as much tourist information on DC as this tiny
local town has.
389
That night, Marie and Donald look through the materials, and Don is getting an
awfully odd feeling. There are all kinds of things in the writings about DC that are
prompting odd memory flashes, sparks of recollection regarding.. something..
something Don knows but can't quite put his finger on.
Tuesday, though, rolls around.
Paul sits in Pete's truck, feeling the steering wheel and trying to figure out where he
knows this from.
...
That lunchtime, Donald is sat in a sandwich bar near his office. It's then that the
travel agents phone him with bad news - the hotel he and Marie thought they'd
booked? It's burned down in a fire.
"Of course it has" - Don, with heavy sarcasm.
He could delay his departure by a couple of weeks, which will allow them to have
their original first choice. Or he could give it up entirely.
Don gets the sense that someone is out to get him, or something. At the very least, it
doesn't seem to want him to go on Vacation.
At which point, Don slips off his stool.
He's floating above a group of bodies - three people lying on the salt-encrusted
stone floor of a cave, with maybe two others lying in the Shadows. Between
them all is a smashed glass case which still has it's contents untouched - a
metal sceptre, built into the shape of a Caduceus, with a serpent wrapped
around a rod.
He floats over the bodies, noting their appearances, before he comes to a rest
floating above a man who has seen better years - soaked with urine, vomit and
excrement, eyes crusted shut by sleep and unusual gritty powder caking his
skin, the man looks a mess.
Don then realises that the man he's looking at, in some way, is him.
And then he remembers that his name is Thomas.
Thomas wakes up on the floor of the sandwich bar, to find that the proprietor has
called for an ambulance. Ignoring the well-wishers and rubber-necked sorts crowding
around him, though, he stumbles outside
He pulls out his cell phone and calls Marie
"Hello?" - Marie
"Get ready" - Thomas
"I'm sorry?" - Marie
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"Just.. get ready" - Thomas
Ignoring his office, he climbs into his car and starts off for home.
A man with a mission.
Finally! The hardest part about this whole thing was how slow or fast to go on the "you're not who you think you are" level. I
tried to introduce as much creeping mundane dread as I could, while introducing story elements for later on (the cell phone
tower, the constant eating, the Search engine start-up). The gang up to this point have been metagaming their socks off,
trying to stay in character (maybe too much for my ease of moving the story on) despite the fact that they ooc knew they
were their usual characters transformed.
Now comes the second phase of the Story, in which Thomas tries to remember just who "Thomas" is, and tries to figure out
who the other bodies in the cave are.
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Session 8.2
And so on to the second phase - the quest to rediscover who they are, and find all the rest of the Cabal. Essentially, what
happens now is as follows; whenever something happens, by accident or design, that would jog a character's memory of who
they really are, they receive a flashback. The flashbacks link up to reveal just how they got into this mess and how they can
possibly hope to get themselves out of it again.
Before that, though, a brief scene with Charlotte...
Anna has kicked Charlotte out of the house for a few hours (and yes, the
contradiction between this and "you're grounded forever" did cross Charlotte's mind),
so she's kicking her heels in the tiny town centre when she spots something unusual.
In the yard outside the town hall, there's a long wooden pole lying sideways across a
set of trestles, which appears to be being painted gold by a group of teenagers.
Figuring they must be serving some kind of community service punishment, Charlotte
wanders over to say hi.
"Heya. What did you do to deserve this?" - Charlotte, by way of introduction
Turns out nothing - a rather preppy girl named Helen explains that the town puts a
maypole up every year, and students paint it for extra credit. It was this or spend two
weeks in summer school. Helen introduces her boyfriend Sy (who seems very
friendly), another girl named Charley and a boy named Dexter. At the far end of the
yard is the black boy Charlotte's mother warned her off at the supermarket - Helen
studiously ignores him and Charlotte never finds out his name.
These kids - minus the black boy, who represents... well, I never really decided if it was Damascus or Virgil from 1.1 - 1.3 represent Seraph (Sy) and his Pylon. Helen is Hera.
Helen is droning on about the cheerleader team, and how she could put in a word for
Charlotte, while Charlotte's more interested in Sy. Eventually, though, she realises
that she's been out enough for Anna to use it as ammunition against her (despite
Anna telling her to get out in the first place - Charlotte's used to this kind of thing by
now) and makes her excuses. Sy gives her his number.
...
Back to Donald - or as we will now call him, Thomas.
Thomas - he knows nothing about himself other than the glimpse he got of his
comatose self and his name, and "Donald"'s life still seems real to him - brushes off
the concerned noises of the people following him out from the sandwich place. A
man eating a hotdog walks past, and the smell makes him salivate.
He runs to his car, and thinks. Washington. This all has something to do with
Washington - the credit card and the fire at the hotel can't be coincidences.
Something doesn't want him to go to Washington.
And now, he reflects, he knows that there are at least two people who are meant to
be going to Washington with him. Because he wasn't alone in the cave.
He walks back to his office, but doesn't go inside. Climbing into his car, he sets out
for home. The radio is giving a weather report. Apparently, there's a storm coming.
The eating thing completely sailed by the players - they can spot that their replacement character's virtue and vice are the
same, but they can't spot that there's food in every other scene at least. Tch.
392
It is one of the creepiest parts of this whole story, that. The idea's vaguely horrific if you stop and think about it too much.
He arrives at home - Paul is sat on his own porch, but it's far enough away that he
doesn't speak - and heads inside to find Marie packing. His arrival causes her to
*stop* packing and ask him what the hell's going on, which just makes him more
nervy.
He gabbles out that they need to get away for their own sake, and throws the
remaining clothes into the suitcase.
"Did something happen at work?" - Marie
He tells her about the hotel burning down.
"So where are we going to stay?" - Marie, not unreasonably
"We'll find one when we get there." - Thomas
He lugs the suitcases to the car while Marie descends on her lift. She isn't going fast
enough for him, and he picks her up, puts her in her wheelchair and wheels her
outside.
"HEY!" - Marie
"We can't stop. If we stop something'll happen." - Thomas
"You're not making any sense" - Marie
He helps her into the car
"We have to go to Washington" - Thomas
He turns the key. The engine whines, and then dies.
"... Shit" - Thomas
He gets out and kicks the car.
"SHIT!!" - Thomas
By now, people are coming out of their houses to see what's going on - old Mrs
Crabapple over the road, Paul and Pete.
"Everything alright?" - Paul
"There's something wrong with the car" - Marie, who's opened the passenger door
and is struggling, unnoticed, to get out.
Pete ambles over as well, and the brothers take a look at the innards. Pete sucks the
air in through his teeth.
"Let me guess. It can't be fixed for a few days?" - Thomas
"I'm afraid not. You need a new one of these" - Pete, pointing.
Marie and Thomas look at one another.
393
"In a hurry to get somewhere?" - Paul
"Vacation." - Thomas
"Well," (looks at Paul) "*we* have two cars" - Pete
...
Charlotte is presented with a stack of textbooks by Anna - school starts soon, as
thanks to her 'being away' she's missed out on several classes.
Charlotte takes them upstairs and reads a celebrity magazine instead.
...
The suitcases and Marie are transferred to Paul's car (the pickup would not last all
the way to the Eastern seaboard, or so Paul thinks), and they're ready to try again.
"You're sure about this?" - Thomas
"Sure. If you run off with my car, I'll sell yours for parts" - Paul, smiling.
"Better get going. It's gonna start raining" - Pete
He is not wrong.
Five minutes after leaving Apple Road, the heavens open. Visibility dramatically
lowers, and Thomas struggles with the unfamiliar car for a minute until getting the
hang of it.
The main road out of town, though, turns out to be blocked with a tanker that's
skidded to block both lanes.
"Oh, for..." - Thomas
Marie holds onto the ceiling handle a little tighter as Thomas guns the engine and
heads in another direction.
Subsidence, apparently, has taken care of this next exit route. Thomas gives forth on
how this is clearly a conspiracy arrayed against him. Marie - terrified by the driving
recklessly and angrily in bad conditions - manages to say that there's one other route
out of town. She doesn't have to say why she doesn't feel good about the idea of
taking it.
It's where she crashed.
"Honey, I..." - Marie
"I mean, the card I could take. But then the hotel? And our car? And the tanker?" Thomas
"LOOK OUT!" - Marie
A car has swerved dangerously close to them. Thomas yanks right on the steering
wheel, and they come off the road, skidding and turning 180 degrees on the soakingwet grass, churning it into mud as they go.
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Marie breathes raggedly, white with fear and shock, while Thomas focuses on why
that car swerved.
This road is blocked too. By fallen trees, no less.
"Can we go home now?" - Marie
"We need to..." - Thomas
"Get to Washington. I know. But it'll be there next week, and we can fly right there" Marie
"You hate planes. Hate being loaded like cargo" - Thomas
"I hate nearly dying on the road more" - Marie
As soon as they reach Apple Road, the rain stops.
...
By now it's night, and Paul is sat up alone, watching the stars. Marie wants to just go
inside to bed, but Thomas/Donald is still too wired and jumpy to sleep. Paul makes
the mistake of asking what happened, and Donald gives forth on his theory - he's
trapped here in Sutterton Farms, and forces are moving against him to try to prevent
him leaving. He's determined to go to Washington.
"There's a... a Cave somewhere" - Thomas
Paul and Marie look at him like he's crazy. He spots Charlotte listening from her
bedroom window.
"What do YOU think?" - Thomas
"Hey, man, whatever" - Charlotte
He slowly realises that none of them believe him.
"I'm sorry" - Thomas, to Marie
"What for?" - Marie
"You're not meant to go to Washington" - Thomas
She stares at him
"What's that supposed to mean?" - Marie
"Nothing. Nothing. Just.. go inside. I'll be there in a bit. I need to calm down" Thomas
He turns and walks away down the street.
As he walks, his stomach rumbles.
Hunger. He's always hungry. He's always eating, or drinking.
Because, as he saw, he's starving to death somewhere in a cave.
And so are the other two people he saw.
He wracks his brain, trying to remember who he's seen that eats as much as him,
and he remembers the Dinner party from the other night - Marie, Anna and Pete
395
barely touched their food, while he, Charlotte and Paul wiped their plates and asked
for more.
He stops, turns and heads back towards Apple Road.
...
Paul sees him coming
"Hi..." - Paul
"Listen to me. You're in a cave. I don't know where. None of this is real, and you're
starving to death..." - Thomas
Paul's eyes widen, as he experiences the same vision Thomas had - only from Paul's
point of view the bodies of an older white man and a young woman with no eyes are
also visible. In-between everyone is a pile of broken glass, lying inside which is some
kind of golden rod carved into the shape of a snake.
"Carl. My name's Carl" - Carl
"I'm Thomas" - Thomas
And then they both remember more...
The wooden door splinters and opens, unblocking the entrance to the Salt
Cave. It's bone-chillingly cold in here.
"I told you this was a bad idea" - Kali
"Why?" - Damascus
"This is the place. This is where I'm fighting the snake" - Kali
"Maybe it's a metaphor. Maybe there isn't an actual... what?" - Amanda
In the centre of the cave is a glass covering, shaped like a bell. Inside, stood on
a wire frame, is a sceptre in the shape of a snake clutching a ruby in it's mouth.
"Guys. I just trod on..." - Amanda
They turn.
It's a corpse - mummified by conditions in the cave, dressed for hiking and
lying peacefully, as though he had just gone to sleep.
"Did he have any origin we know of?" - Kali
"Nothing. There's the Cabal in Britain, but..." - Damascus
"Damascus. Is the sceptre safe?" - Wolsey
"I don't know" - Damascus
At which point Kali picks up a rock and smashes the glass.
Everything goes black...
"Which one are you?" - Thomas
"The black man. I'm black" - Carl, raising his eyebrows.
"I think I call you Damascus" - Thomas
"My name's Carl" - Carl, repeating it, trying it out
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"Maybe it's your Surname? Carl Damascus?" - Thomas
They look at one another
"We have to get out of here" - Carl
"Right. But where's our other friend?" - Thomas
"I count three more" - Carl
"Right." (frowning) "Three." - Thomas
"Your wife?" - Carl
Thomas shakes his head, sadly
"I don't think so. I think..." - Thomas
He looks at Charlotte's now closed window
"You have got to be kidding" - Carl
...
Anna opens her door
"Hi!" - Carl, grinning a little too wide and holding a bunch of flowers
Five minutes previously:
"We have to talk to the girl" - Thomas
"Will that work?" - Carl
"Worked on you" - Thomas
"Point. But what about her mother? How are we going to get past her? Distraction?" Carl
"She seemed very taken with you at Dinner" - Thomas
"Oh no. Oh no no no no..." - Carl
...
Carl manages to talk his way inside, and is just about settling down in the living room,
pouring Anna a large drink, when the first snag in his and Thomas' cunning plan is
hit. While Carl is keeping Anna busy, Thomas has taken the ladder from Carl's shed
and is climbing up to Charlotte's window.
Charlotte, absorbed in the Weekly World News, glances up at the clock and sees a
figure looming outside her window. She screams.
...
Carl winces as Anna runs upstairs. Outside, Thomas throws the ladder over the
fence into Carl's yard, and just barely dives over in time to avoid the gaze of Anna,
who goes to the window and peers out.
"Did you see him? What did he look like?" - Anna
Charlotte explains that it's dark out, so she couldn't really make anything out in the
split-second she had.
397
"Was it that boy? From the supermarket?" - Anna
Even though the Omniium's starting to lose control, it's maintaining the storylines it created for the not-yet-freed characters.
So Kali's wish-fulfilment scenario of making her mother love her and approve of Damascus is still playing out in Charlotte's
"reality".
"It might have been" - Charlotte, unhappily and a little shaken
Anna phones the police.
"I'll go see if he's still around" - Carl, dangerously.
To Anna's obvious adulation, he heads out of the front door and then along the alley,
making a show of checking behind likely hiding places. What Anna doesn't see out of
the kitchen window is Carl - his back to her - talking to Thomas, who is lying down
behind the fence.
Carl and Thomas confer, and Carl reckons that Tom should lie low for a little while.
"I'll get her drunk - shouldn't take long - and talk to the girl. You stay out of sight" Carl
As he returns to the house, the community police arrive. Carl says that he saw a
black man run off, but he couldn't keep up. The cops head off in that direction, and
he returns to Anna's house.
"Don't worry. I'll stay until we know it's safe" - Carl
Heh. This somewhat farcical run-around gets another airing in part three where the gang have slightly better luck climbing
into Charlotte's window. As you'll see.
Two hours and many drinks later (Carl is carefully pacing himself while topping
Anna's glass up constantly) and Anna is holding forth on the stresses of raising
Charlotte.
"I brought her here to be *safe*, you know? Away from our troubles, somewhere we
could start over." (pained expression) "It just doesn't seem to work. She attracts
trouble" - Anna
Carl makes sympathetic noises
"She's ruined my life" - Anna, darkly.
He frowns
"She has. Fifteen - nearly Sixteen years now. I used to be the one men looked at.
Instead I'm half-dead with stress, single and aging. She's a little monster" - Anna
Sam - and after the story, Kali - wonders if this might be an indication of Anurati's motivation and opinion.
It should also be noted - and I don't think Sam has figured this one out yet even after the revelations of this and the next two
sessions - that "fifteen, nearly sixteen" years is the amount of time since Anurati abandoned the infant Kemi.
"You don't mean that" - Carl
"No.. I..." - Anna
Eventually, she dozes off, and Carl creeps upstairs.
398
Knocking on Charlotte's door, he softly asks if she's awake. She is - unable to drift
off, she's lying there wide awake.
Because, as previously noted, all five characters have to go to sleep at the same time so the Omniium can advance time.
"Can I come in?" - Carl
She says so, and draws the covers up over herself as he does so, sitting on the edge
of her bed.
"Listen. Your mom's asleep now, and you're safe. Or as safe as you can be when
you're in a cave, starving to death. Lying on the cold, cold floor, with your four
friends..." - Carl
Charlotte shrinks back from him, instinctively fighting it, shaking her head.
Her reluctance to wake up is significant - contrast it to Amanda and Mycroft's reactions later.
Carl continues, describing the scene he saw. Finally, Kemi wipes tears away and
grimaces.
"Kemi" - Kemi
He introduces himself.
"Thomas - Mr Trask from next door. He's one of us. Is waiting in my house. You
coming?" - Carl
Bitterly, Kemi says she'll get dressed.
"It'll be okay" - Carl
...
The three people with no lives - just the memory of their real names and of an odd
spelunking trip - assemble in Carl's (Paul's) house.
Thomas wants out - finding that other people are sharing the experience has added
fuel to his manic fire, and he's panicked with existentialism. His entire life is a lie, and
he wants to wake up right now. The other two are less gung-ho (though he points
out, increasingly shrilly, that they're starving to death). Kemi voices the opinion that
maybe their lives here aren't so bad, and she and Thomas square off on the subject
of what to do next. Thomas reckons there must be an exit which they should search
for, or something keeping them here. Carl and Kemi think they should find their two
compatriots first.
Kemi and Thomas descend into increasingly obtuse bickering, Thomas pointing out
what a hard time it was to break her out of whatever conditioning they've been put
under.
As they argue, Carl gets an odd feeling of having been here before, many many
times.
The flashbacks are triggered by sense memory - this one, being triggered by the sensation of listening to Kali and Wolsey
fight it out like the worst case of sibling rivalry ever for the five hundredth time, is by way of my little joke.
399
Everyone stops, as something overtakes them. Kemi experiences the same vision
Carl and Thomas had, but they get another one. An Earlier one...
Damascus casts Alter Conductivity on the electric fence to short it out, and
then begins to cut through it with a pair of heavy bolt-cutters. There's a red
warning sign written in German, which the gang all ignore.
They're on the edge of a pine forest, somewhere at night. It's cold, damp and
misty.
They are all bruised and scratched up, running on adrenaline.
They explain what they just remembered to Kemi, and note that while waiting for Carl
to cut the fence, they called her "Kali"
"Maybe it's like Damascus" - Carl
"A surname? Kemi Kali? Who'd be that cruel to a child?" - Thomas
There is a noise from outside.
"BRO! Hey, Bro.. You'll never gu..." - Pete
Pete walks in on the three of them.
"Hi Pete. Don't mind us. We'll keep it down" - Carl, with definite 'fuck off' vibes
"Riiiight" - Pete.
He closes the door again.
"Okay. We need to move, if we're going to find the others or the way out." - Thomas
"If there is a way out" - Carl
They discuss the list of candidates to be the missing two team members - Pete, Anna
and Marie are all rejected as not eating enough, as are Tracy, Terrance and Jim.
They go through what they know of the town. Kemi offers up the tale of the golden
maypole, and that gets them thinking of the sceptre. Carl shows them a flyer for a
golf tournament being held - the prize being a golden club. Could be any of them.
At the subject of flyers, though, Thomas has another idea.
"Have either of you come across 'Reach Experts'?" - Thomas
They have, and the Yellow Pages are consulted. It's an internet start-up and tailored
search company, run out of Sutterton Farms.
"It's a possible lead. Maybe they can help us find our friends. Maybe they're even
there." - Thomas
And so, hurrying out, they set off in Carl's car.
400
'Reach Experts' is a near-anagram of 'Exarch Sceptre'. To add to the list of things they didn't get.
...
Reach Experts turns out to be run out of someone's home - the ground floor of the
premises near the Town Hall (which they break into) is given over to the offices of the
tiny company. As they're looking around, though, there's a light from upstairs.
"Whoever you are, I've already called the cops" - voice
They all look up as a man, looking like he's been woken from bed by the disturbance,
comes down the stairs brandishing a rifle.
"Don't move." - Man
"How much do you eat?" - Thomas, smiling a little madly.
"Is this an audit? Do you people have a warrant? No. Get lost" - Man
"I asked you a question" - Thomas
"I don't have to answer questions from the likes of you" - Man
"Jeff Carson" - Kemi, helpfully reading the name off a printout
"Thank you. Now, Mr Carson, have you ever wanted to go to Washington? Or
Germany?" - Thomas
"Are you the IRS?" - Jeff
Thomas suddenly - and without regard for his own safety - rushes Mr Carson and
grabs the gun by the barrel. They struggle for a few seconds, then Jeff is knocked to
the floor. Thomas cocks the gun, takes the safety off and points it at Jeff's head.
"HOW. MUCH. DO. YOU. EAT!?" - Thomas
Jeff, in tears, babbles about what he had for lunch that day. It sounds tasty, nutritious
and nowhere near enough.
"He's not one of us" - Carl
Thomas looks grim.
And then the windows are full of blue lights.
"PUT DOWN THE GUN" - Police, over loudhailer
Kemi and Carl look out of the blinds at the cop cars - and the SWAT van rolling up
with uncommon haste.
"They got here quick" - Carl
"Too quick." (to Jeff) "What do you know about all this?" - Thomas
Jeff, weeping, continues to exclaim his innocence in all matters.
401
"Gag him" - Thomas
Kemi gives him a sharp look, but complies.
...
Minutes pass.
The calls from the loudhailer become more insistent, as the police spot more than
one person inside.
There's a knock at the door, and the letterbox is pushed open
"Hello? My name is Dr Driver. I'm not a police officer - I just want to talk. How about
you let one of your hostages go and take me instead?" - Driver
"How much do you eat?" - Thomas
"Excuse me?" - Driver
"Then I'm not interested" - Thomas
The letterbox closes again.
Thomas considers their situation.
"Listen. This is about to get ugly. I'll.. You two were my hostages, yeah? I forced you
to come here." - Thomas
Kemi looks over at the gagged Mr Carson, who is listening to this exchange
"Except.. he'll tell them" - Kemi
"Oh. Right." - Thomas
Thomas shoots Mr Carson in the head at point blank range.
Shattering glass.
Smoke.
The sound of running boots.
...
Thomas sits, calmly, in a cell in the basement of the Sutterton Farms police station.
He's still covered in Carson's blood. The cell opposite is occupied by a dead-drunk,
smelling strongly of urine.
An overweight man with a face like Droopy Dog comes down the stairs and is buzzed
through the security door, reading a file and eating a doughnut as he comes.
"Donald Trask" (takes a bite) "Manager of a stationary supply company in Bellevue.
You live on 34th and Apple. Married, no kids. Your wife..." (peers down at his file and
402
takes another bite) "...was in an auto accident last year. DUI." - Detective
Thomas stares at him.
"So. Why'd you do it, Donald? Why'd you take that girl and your neighbour hostage?
Why'd you kill him?" - Detective
Thomas watches as the Detective finishes his food, and narrows his eyes. He leans
forward.
"Tell me something, detective... How much do you eat?" - Thomas
"That matters a lot to you, doesn't it?" - Detective
"Ever been to Washington?" - Thomas
"No" - Detective
Thomas leans back on his chair and says nothing more.
...
Upstairs, Carl is trying to figure out what to do - he's been interviewed by the cops,
who seem to be accepting him as a hostage, but Thomas is still under arrest. Putting
two and two together, the cops have asked him if Thomas was the prowler he chased
off last night and he's said that on reflection he must have been.
Kemi has been having a harder time of it - her mother has turned up, still mostly
drunk, after being driven here by a cop. She's brought Charlotte's medication with
her, which Dr Driver - interviewing her to check her for shock - notices and asks her
about. Anna asks if she's going to be okay.
"Your daughter's being medicated for her condition, Mrs James. Tonight was
obviously traumatic for both of you, but I think I'd wait it out a bit. Youth is resilient"
(ruffles Kemi's hair) "and Charlotte is a tough cookie. If she has problems, come see
me and I'll increase her prescription" - Driver
Kemi is processed and then told she can go home. Carl likewise.
"We'll be in touch" - Detective, eating another doughnut.
...
Down in the cells, Thomas watches the Detective come back in.
"All right. What drives someone like you to do this? Actually - never mind. Doctor
Driver's going to do an assessment of you tomorrow, to see if you're in your right
mind or not. We both know you are, though, don't we? You *decided* to kill Jeff
Carson. You weren't driven to it." - Detective
Thomas says nothing.
"We've had to tell your wife, you know. Can you imagine how she reacted?" Detective
403
He shakes his head, and makes to leave.
"Detective. I have a question" - Thomas
The detective pauses.
"Are you lying in a cave, surrounded by other comatose people, arranged around a
broken glass case containing a sceptre?" - Thomas
.
.
"Oh, shit" - Detective
He turns around, as though seeing the place for the first time.
"Thomas" - Thomas
"Mark" - Mark
Mycroft - whose real name is Mark Cheff
...
Some time later...
"I've already sent the others home" - Mark
"Go after them. Tell them I'm okay, and tell them to keep looking for the last of us.
And to try to figure out a way out of here" - Thomas
"Any other message?" - Mark
Nope.
"Alright. I'll stall the procedure for dealing with you as much as I can." - Mark
"I have a request.. could I swap cells?" - Thomas
Mark looks at the piss-soaked cell opposite.
"You sure?" - Mark
"I have a theory" - Thomas
...
Kemi has, at last, managed to escape from the clutches of her mother (who has
collapsed back into bed, exhausted), and is watching the sky start to turn light in the
East with Carl on his porch. A Car turns up and deposits the Detective that
interviewed them.
"Easy! Easy.. I'm Mark. I'm one of.. well, of us" - Mark
404
"Thomas talked to you?" - Carl
Mark fills them in on what's going on - how based on the evidence, they've asked for
a psych consult on Thomas
They now have three goals - prevent Thomas from going to jail or being committed,
finding the fifth team member and finding out a way out of here.
Carl has been thinking about the visions they've had so far. They seem to be "ActionArchaeologists", sneaking into somewhere and finding an ancient artefact and all.
For now, though, they need to try to sleep.
...
In the cell, Thomas considers the bucket now festering with the drunk's emissions.
He holds his head over it and takes several deep breaths...
The gang are in a van of some kind, being driven at incautious pace through a
forest by a shaven-headed, chain-smoking man who chats away at them in
German without apparently expecting any kind of intelligible answer.
Suddenly, there's an explosion of some sort and the van rolls, impacting into
something ahead of it. The five of them climb, shaken, out of the wreckage and
check the driver - he's quite dead. Retrieving the bolt cutters and some kind of
metal briefcase, they start walking through the forest.
Just as he thought. The smell put him in touch with his real self - currently lying in a
pool of his own waste.
He thinks carefully and climbs down off the tiny bed onto the cold, concrete floor.
Lying there, he tries to arrange himself into the shape he remembered his real self
lying in...
...
Morning, and the three "of those who are going to Washington" that remain at liberty
have met up to try to co-ordinate their search for their missing fifth member. Kemi is
operating under more autonomy - Anna is tearfully grateful to have her daughter
safe, and is indulging Kemi's whims. Mark has taken Pete's statement that 'Paul' and
'Charlotte' were with 'Thomas' peacefully, told him a story about how that must have
been before Thomas snapped and abducted them and filed it away in the garbage
disposal.
They're focusing on the Golden Golf Club. The prize in the Sutterton Farms golf
tournament, it's given away by the president of the country club every year - and said
President, Kemi realises, is also the head teacher of the local high school. The
school, Kemi advises them, keeps coming up in her fake life. The maypole, the
students - even her 'mother' keeps reminding her that school starts soon.
This suggests two angles of attack. Carl will go to the country club to take a look at
said golden golf club, in the hope that it might be the exit or that their missing person
has been drawn to it. Kemi will go to the school and talk to the head teacher - and
she'll ask about that Maypole while she's at it.
405
Mark will go back to the station and see how Thomas is doing.
...
Kemi has no luck with Mr Angler, the Head teacher. He expresses his shock at what
happened the night before - it's been all over the news, and this is a very small town,
so he has of course heard about it. The Maypole, it seems, is just something to keep
some of the students occupied in the lazy weeks before term starts.
He takes her around the school, though it's deserted except for one teacher, an
affable, blond man who shakes her hand and says that he looks forward to teaching
her all about the history of colonial India. His name is Mr Bakula.
And that would be Samuel. Quantum Leap reference at the insistence of Mark
Carl, though, has had much better luck. He's viewed the golden golf club - a perfectly
ordinary 9-iron which has been painted yellow and set on a plaque. More importantly,
while looking around the country club, he's spotted a lady sitting by herself at the bar.
Eating an awful lot of peanuts.
"Hi" - Carl
She glances over at him, then back at her drink.
"Buy you another?" - Carl
"I should warn you, I'm married" - Woman, ruefully
He shrugs. She laughs.
"Alright then" - Woman
"Do you ever get the feeling that there's more to this world?" - Carl
Good opening line, there
"All the time" - Woman
She introduces herself as Patricia Angler - the wife of the country club president /
school headmaster.
"I saw the trophy" - Carl
"And if he cared as much about... I'm sorry. I didn't mean that" - Patricia
"Could I ask you a question?" - Carl
"Sure" - Patricia
"How much do you eat?" - Carl
She laughs
"So very rude so early in the conversation. I like you" - Patricia.
406
"Could we go somewhere more private?" - Carl, looking around at all the people
Her eyes twinkle, as she says she knows just the place.
...
Carl and 'Patricia' stumble backward into the store closet, Patricia clawing at his
clothes and kissing him.
"Hang... on... Whoa... Er..." - Carl
"What?" - Patricia, breaking off the clinch
"There's... Uh.." - Carl
He catches his breath.
"There's a cave..."
She frowns, but crucially, she listens.
This suggestion at a tryst is backed up in the main Chronicle - Damascus doesn't believe in Divorce, but is willing to admit
when being perfectly honest that if things don't work out between Amanda and Wolsey, he doesn't know if he'd then be able
to resist dumping Kali and trying to ask Amanda out. Which is why I hint that such a thing is possible here.
...
A door chimes, as the five enter an antiques shop, piled high with clutter and
junk. She waves them into a back room, muttering to herself in Russian, and
presents them with a metal briefcase and a map of what turns out to be
Northern Germany. She jabs her finger at a particular spot, and they carefully
mark it before thanking her and leaving.
Later.
The five, pull up outside an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere and get
out of their taxi. The driver spins the wheel and drives off with incautious
haste, leaving them alone there.
"Have you noticed how creepy this is?" - Kali
"Yes" - Mycroft
"I mean, it's really quite creepy" - Kali
Then there's the crunch of gravel as the van arrives. The bald man hops out,
and takes the briefcase from Wolsey. Opening it to reveal a human hand,
mummified and painted with runes, he nods in satisfaction and gets back into
his vehicle. The gang open the back door and pile inside.
Thomas wakes up stiff as a board, but with the satisfaction that this is at least
working.
"How are you?" - Mark
They compare notes, Mark telling him where the others have gotten to. Thomas
nods, taking it in, and tells Mark of his own progress. Mark says that he'll try to get
407
the others to recapture their memories too - it can't hurt to go over it again for clues.
"Can I ask a favour? Where the cameras can't see us?" - Thomas
Mark gets up and carefully walks over to the cell bars, blocking the CCTV's view of
Thomas
"I need a cutting implement" - Thomas, deadly serious
Mark frowns, but takes a miniature penknife off his keyring and carefully hands it
over.
"Don't do anything stupid" - Mark
...
Mark returns to Carl's just as a Porsche driven by Amanda (ex-'Patricia') pulls up
outside. Amanda greets Mark and Kemi, and they all go inside to plot. Mark tells
them of Thomas' luck with regaining memories, and they set about doing the same triggering the first catch-up vision with Ricky's bowl and the second with the floor of
Carl's basement.
Alone in his cell, Thomas considers, steels himself and pushes his fingers down his
throat. He begins to gag, and vomits up on himself.
In Carl's basement, Mark passes around the proceeds of raiding the police controlled
substances locker - two squares of blotter paper soaked in LSD. Carefully separating
them into halves, Carl passes them out.
Walking in the streets of a German City, the Cabal are well and truly lost.
"I thought you were good at this" - Wolsey, griping at Kali
"I AM good at this" - Kali
"It doesn't look it" - Wolsey
"This isn't easy, you know. Getting answers from an unfamiliar city" - Kali
"I hate to interrupt, but I believe we're being followed" - Mycroft
"Where?" - Damascus
"The Mimes on the street corner. No, don't look" - Mycroft.
They hurry on, Kali declaring that the shop is definitely *this* way.
.
Earlier
.
The Cabal sit in Ulysses' office, within St Thomas' church. The new Councillor
tells them that he's been making inquiries for months now, after they first came
to him with the Ring of the Dethroned Queen.
"I believe I have located Gawain" - Ulysses
408
The elusive British distributor-of-cursed-artefacts traded with a Mysterium
mage who deals in rare antiquities in Keil, Germany, only two months
previously. Ulysses thinks that Gawain has gone hunting for another item of
the Dethroned Queen.
The gang consider that as Ulysses takes Polaroid photos of them, and writes
their names on with a fountain pen.
"There's apparently some kind of curse on the site Gawain was intending to
disturb. A spell of forgetfulness. My contact advised that I should give you
these" - Ulysses
He passes the photos out.
Wolsey, Kali, Damascus, Mycroft and Amanda wake up, their full memories returned
at last.
"I..." - Mycroft
Amanda and Damascus subtly shift away from one another.
"Progress, right? Now we just need to get out of here" - Damascus
"...I can't feel Pandemonium" - Amanda
They check, and her experience is across the board, at least in their little group.
None of them have their link to the Supernal Realms. They can't use magic. And
they're still in their Sutterton Farms bodies.
Mycroft heads once more for the station, to keep Wolsey updated. When he gets
there, he finds that Wolsey has cut his finger with the blade Mycroft gave him in an
attempt to get more memory back - Wolsey's been concentrating on the drip, drip
drip of blood. No memory has returned, but something has - Wolsey's link to the
Supernal has opened a crack, and he now has the use of the Life Arcanum.
He reports this, as well as the fact that as far as he can tell only he and Mycroft are
alive (and then only very very faintly). Mycroft says he'll act as messenger-boy again
and get the others to start experimenting. He tells him that they've found Amanda.
Now they just need a way to get Wolsey out of jail.
"I'll handle it - I've got plenty of time here. I'll figure out how to get Space back, and
then I'll just teleport out" - Wolsey
Sounds like a plan to Mycroft.
There now begins a series of "training montages" The regaining of one's Arcana uses a system in Reign of the Exarchs, but
the optimum conditions are a ritual appropriate to the Arcana that involves risk of humiliation or physical harm to the
practitioner. The more the self-imposed task shakes the false persona imposed on them to the core, the more effective it is.
Wolsey paces in his cell, trying to think of a means of regaining his powers.
Mycroft explains to the others. He and Damascus have the bright idea of starting with
their Legacies - Mycroft settles in for an epic game of 20 questions with Amanda,
while Damascus goes to a house that 'Carl' built and tries to analyse it in the fashion
of the Uncrowned Kings. Both attempts work, but only barely - it's like they're initiates
409
again.
Experimenting with his regained Arcanum, Damascus casts an Unveiling Practice of
Mind and notices something quite disturbing. Everything here is connected - there's
an underlying field of intelligence behind the entire visible world, and it seems to all
be emanating from some place in the west.
This is the first indication of where the central Omniium lies - where they have to go to escape this trap.
Kali has phoned up Sy and gone round to his place. Finding his entire group of
friends there, she suggests playing cards. Specifically poker, of the 'strip' variety.
After narrowly escaping humiliation, and humiliating her would-be friends, she
escapes with her clothes, Sy's money and the first practices of Fate.
Touching base back at camp, Damascus and Kali consider and reject the idea of
having sex as a sort of sacramental ritual - in her current body, it gives Damascus the
heebie-jeebies. That's why it would probably work, but he's not willing to try it.
So no underage sex for you, thread-fans.
The four cabal members at large are experimenting with their sensory-level effects
when, quite by accident, they realise something quite important. They're not the only
things that are "really" here. Kali can sense Fate magic somewhere nearby, and
Damascus Mind - they track it down to Pete's toolbox, and to the doorbell that's been
sat there since Pete arrived.
This, then, would be the Ring of the Dethroned Queen.
A renewed search turns the Robe up masquerading as a sweater in the back of Kali's
closet.
"Why this sweater?" - Mycroft
"It was her boyfriend's. It's the only reminder she has left of him" - Kali, tying it around
her waist.
So far, so good, but this is taking too long. More extreme measures are needed.
...
"I want you to bury me" - Damascus
"You want what?" - Amanda
"In the garden" - Damascus
"Got a spade?" - Mycroft
"I don't see how you can be so cavalier about this" - Amanda
"We're Moroii" - Damascus, by way of explanation.
They get to digging, as the sun goes down. As they leave the house, they spot Marie
wheeling herself past on her way home. She looks over at them, weary and resentful.
"Is that... Is that what he thinks of me?" - Amanda
410
Marie continues into her own house
"I mean, that's me, right? Or the fake me in Tom's dream anyway" - Amanda
"Don't think about it" - Mycroft
Damascus surveys the preparations.
"I'll need a tube to breath through or something" - Damascus
"Your lung pressure won't be enough if we bury you too deep. You'll be breathing in
your own carbon dioxide" - Amanda
"Two tubes then. One out, one in" - Damascus
"What are you guys doing? Detective?" - Pete, returning unexpectedly.
"Looking for weed. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" - Mycroft
Pete flees.
"Hah" - Mycroft
The distraction over, they have their trench. Damascus lies down, and Mycroft and
Amanda begin to pile the earth back onto him. He closes his eyes as it covers his
face.
Eventually, he's completely buried.
"Now what?" - Amanda
Mycroft frowns.
"This is a good attempt, but it could be better" - Mycroft.
Slowly, looking Amanda in the eye as he does so (she bites her lip, but doesn't try to
stop him), Mycroft squeezes the tubes closed.
"Ten...Twenty...Thirty...." (glances at the ground) "... Forty... Fifty..." - Mycroft
He lets go.
Damascus' hand breaks the surface, reaching up for the air.
And with that homage to Carrie, he has regained the full use of his Death Arcanum
...
Night-time now, and Kali has a plan involving risk of public humiliation, danger AND a
time-based theme, in an attempt to regain her strongest powers.
She's going to break into the town hall, strip naked, climb out onto the clock tower
and set the clock back five hours exactly then return to the others, all without getting
caught.
411
This does not go entirely as planned.
First, Charlotte's young fingers are not quite as nimble or used to picking locks as the
adult Kemi's, and she fumbles with the lock for far too long before managing to get
inside the building. Second, after she's stashed her clothes (including the Robeanalogue) and is padding through the halls, she sees torchlight and realises that the
Town Hall has far more security guards than it probably should.
That - like the mysteriously appearing SWAT team - is the Omniium making an alteration to the setting to resist their attempts
to break out. The alterations so far are only on the level of someone turning up to interrupt them, but will get much more
blatant towards the end.
Running away, darting up a flight of stairs, Kali pauses for breath. And then, in true
horror-movie style, the Guard grabs her from behind. She struggles, but her younger
and smaller body fails her again and she's overpowered, dragged off, surrounded by
security guards.
...
Wolsey, still in his cell, has been informed by an officer that Dr Driver is about to
arrive to assess him. The officer seemed to take great pleasure in this, informing him
that he can sniff piss and throw up as much as he likes, it doesn't prove he's crazy.
Once he's alone, Wolsey begins to contemplate desperate measures. He needs a
sacrifice - something to affirm his connection to Pandemonium and gain his powers.
Thinking over his life, and the events of the last few months, he realises what he has
to do.
He presses his thumb-tips into his eyes, takes a deep breath, steels himself, and
pushes.
Blood gushes down over his hands, as he puts out his own eyes.
Delirious with pain, unable to pass out, He lies on the floor of his cell as alarms go off
and he's lifted up. In the ambulance, he's put on painkillers and his eyes are dressed
- but the shocked paramedic reports to Dr Driver, riding with him, what he did, and
Driver redirects the ambulance to the medical wing of the mental institute.
Understanding of the Arcana unfurls in Wolsey's mind, but not the one he wanted he regained his connection to Pandemonium, all right, but to the Mind Arcanum, not
Space as he wanted. He's still a prisoner.
As they wheel Wolsey through the institute, strapped to a trolley, Dr Driver is given
papers to sign by an orderly.
"It seems this man has ruined another life" - Driver, signing.
...
Anna, upon being told what 'Charlotte' was just found doing by the police, has had
her committed.
End of Part Two! And now it gets *really* strange!
412
Session 8.3
We're in the home stretch now. The characters know who they are now and have started regaining their powers. Now for the
escape, and for the attempts by the Omniium to keep them inside.
"She's late" - Mycroft
He speaks, of course, of Kali
"She'll be back" - Damascus
"Anna left in a hurry while you were showering. I think... No, it's probably nothing" Mycroft
Damascus, as they talk, has had a brainwave - he's rooting through Pete's tools.
"I was thinking, maybe if I had something like my magical tools, then..." - Damascus
He produces a Hammer. It doesn't feel quite right, but it's better than nothing.
They continue their experiments - Amanda sticks wet fingers into an unscrewed light
socket after Damascus rapidly flicks the switch, risking electrocution in an attempt to
regain Forces. Damascus and Mycroft play a game involving a hammer and a
stopwatch - Mycroft puts his hand on a table and Damascus times it. If Mycroft pulls
his hand away before 4 minutes, Damascus hits it. If he leaves it there *longer* than
4 minutes, Damascus hits it.
The first unsuccessful attempt leaves Mycroft swearing like a trooper and nursing a
badly bruised hand. But it focuses the mind, and after several more goes Mycroft
regains a bit of the use of Time. He immediately attempts to use it, but discovers that
Sutterton Farms has no past to speak of other than a misty grey blur - this entire
world came into being when "Paul" was stood on his porch waiting for Pete to arrive.
The trio try to decide if they're now strong enough to rescue Wolsey from the Asylum
(Mycroft reckoned it was a dead cert that he'd be put there - although they haven't
heard about the eye-gouging yet) and reckon that they need at least a few more
Arcana back. Amanda mulls Mind, while Mycroft and Damascus come up with plans
for regaining Matter - that one, at least, they can do together.
"It seems to work best when it hurts, or when it's destructive to this world... We could
try to smash something into something" - Mycroft
Damascus has the *perfect* idea. All those houses 'Paul' built? They could use a
good bulldozing.
"And while you're doing that, I have an idea" - Amanda
She's been thinking about Damascus' whole sensory-deprivation method of regaining
Death, and thinks it's worth a go to regain the Mind Arcana. She needs to be
completely shut off - they don't have an isolation tank here in "Paul's" house, but they
can do the best they can.
"I want you to tie me up, wrap me in something and dump me in the attic" - Amanda,
in all seriousness
413
Mycroft, after a pause, says he'll go get the car started and listen to police radio for a
while.
.
Upstairs, Damascus puts the finishing touches on Amanda.
"Thought it'd take us longer to get around to this" - Damascus, joking
"Don't start, Carl." - Amanda
He gets a portable radio, tunes it to a dead channel and leaves it by her head for
white-noise.
.
In "Mark's" car, Mycroft grunts as Damascus gets in.
"It was just on the radio. They caught Kali streaking in the town hall and her 'mother'
has had her committed." - Mycroft
"Shit" - Damascus
"Looks like we've got *two* people to break out" - Mycroft
And off they drive to the construction site.
--Kali, meanwhile, is unable to sleep, lying in a bed in the institute and staring at the
ceiling.
Time to think has not been good. Not good at all. With Kali's returning memories
have come the realisation that despite everything she was *happier* as Charlotte. In
the dark recess of Kali's mind, she knows that she doesn't actually want to be
Awakened - Charlotte, with a family, with the innocence of youth and with the
uncomplicated desires of suburbia, seems like an unattainable goal for her.
"Charlotte? We met before. I'm Dr Driver" - Driver
She looks up at him blankly
"I want you to know, Charlotte, that we're going to take good care of you. The man
who abducted you is never going to hurt anyone again. And your mother loves you" Driver
"I know" - Charlotte.
He pats her hand and leaves. She closes her eyes and tries to think of when life was
easier.
.
Wolsey - painkillers coursing through him, face heavily bandaged - is lying in a
padded cell, restrained. He hears the locks being opened and then soft footsteps.
414
"Mr Trask?" - Driver
"I'm here. Funny thing - I can't sleep. I guess it's because I am already" - Wolsey
"Do you remember me?" - Driver
Wolsey turns his head in Driver's direction.
"How much do you eat?" - Wolsey
"Excuse me?" - Driver
"How much. Do you. Eat?" - Wolsey, smiling pleasantly
"Enough to be healthy. You're very interested in what people eat, aren't you Donald?
Why is that?" - Driver
"Hungry people are real" - Wolsey
"Everyone's hungry sometime" - Driver
"But not all the time. I am - I'm starving. Literally. While I'm stuck here." - Wolsey
"I don't understand" - Driver
"Of course you don't. You aren't real. Look - I don't feel the need to lie to you. None
of this exists. I'm lying in a cave starving to death, and you're a figment of my
imagination. When did you last eat?" - Wolsey
"A sandwich at around.. one, I think" - Driver
"Definitely not real then" - Wolsey
"So, we're making progress. You feel that your reality is a false construct, yes? And
you're selecting individuals who meet your standards for being 'real'? Now, Donald..
We call that sort of thing 'psychosis'" - Driver
(chuckles) "I'm sure" - Wolsey
"Is that why you kidnapped those people? And shot Mr Carson?" - Driver
He doesn't answer. Wolsey looks directly at Driver, despite having no eyes
Driver flees.
...
Damascus and Mycroft have reached the site, and are joyriding at a magnificent four
miles and hour on a bulldozer. They round the corner and survey the line of
gleaming, brand-new and unoccupied houses.
Damascus puts the machine in gear and aims it at the first house.
As it impacts, wood splintering and beams snapping all around them as the house
goes over, two squad cars arrive sirens blazing.
415
"They got here fast" - Mycroft, muttered
Damascus swings the levers, putting the 'dozer into a sharp turn. It's not exactly a
getaway vehicle though. The two men jump down and make a run for it, dodging
between it and the next house while the rentacops run in pursuit.
They take shelter behind the building while the rentacops struggle to turn the 'dozer
off. Damascus, though, snapped the keys off in the ignition.
There's another almighty crash as it hits the other side of the building they're hiding
next to, and Damascus and Mycroft run forward, *just* clearing the building as it
collapses in a shower of timber and dust, and regaining their use of Matter.
Thanks, in no small part, to the fact they both had armour spells up as well.
While the rentacops shout and stumble about, the two Mages run through back
yards, heading for Mycroft's car.
"Have you seen yourself in a mirror?" - Mycroft
Damascus checks his reflection in the car window
"I'm black!" - Damascus
He is indeed - though it's still Paul's face, his skin colour has darkened until it's nearly
Damascus' own.
"How many Arcana to go?" - Mycroft
"Just the one. Prime." - Damascus
"It must be because we're nearly there. I appear to have lost weight, too" - Mycroft
The police radio crackles into life. Damascus has just been identified. Cops are
heading to his house right now to search it, as they think he might be connected to
Wolsey's killing of the night before.
"Amanda!" - Mycroft and Damascus, simultaneously.
They start driving.
...
Driver returns to Kali's bedside as she eats a lukewarm microwave lasagne that she's
been presented with.
"Charlotte. I'm making my final rounds now, so I'll see you in the morning. David
here" (indicates Orderly) "Is going to give you your medication. We've increased your
dosage, so you should feel a stronger effect, all right?" - Driver
She nods, dully.
"Good girl. Sleep well" - Driver
416
He leaves, and David the Orderly puts a tiny plastic cup on her lap-table, containing
two pills.
Kali, bone-tired, still hungry and wanting this to end, wishes with all her heart that
there were more.
As the orderly does up her restraints, The pill-cup wavers in front of her and briefly
becomes a large glass bottle containing dozens of the pills before changing back. No
one seems to have noticed. When the orderly puts the cup to her mouth she dryswallows them, and lies back with an air of finality.
It changed. It changed because she wanted it to change - because Sutterton Farms
is a dream world, she can control it as though she were lucid dreaming. She recalls
her times in the Astral plane with Samuel, and knows now where she is.
Not that it matters, though. She doesn't *want* to wake up. The dream, for her, is too
comfortable. Not perfect, but several shades better than her real life of squalor and
loneliness.
Kali concentrates, with all her effort, on shaping the dream. One by one, her
memories of her real life fade and slip away. She has a blissful feeling of satisfaction
which itself fades, as she becomes Charlotte in mind as well as body once again.
This attempt to seize control of the dream-world wasn't contested, as she wanted to revert to her false persona. Fortunately
(and maybe with foresight) this is one of the things Robin Laws planned for in case of emergency when he wrote the
scenario, so the system for willing yourself back into the Omniium's clutches was right there.
Poor Kali.
Damascus and Mycroft are having problems. The traffic is terrible - trucks suddenly
appearing to block intersections, police cars prowling in numbers that the
community's size would not allow.
"Ever get the feeling something's trying it's best to interfere?" - Damascus
He, though, has come to the same conclusion as Kali regarding the dream world.
Damascus is an Uncrowned King. He knows his own mind, and how it works.
"Take a left here" - Damascus
"It'll be blocked" - Mycroft
"No, it won't" - Damascus
For a brief instant, it is blocked, but Damascus focuses his will on the matter. The
cop cars melt away into thin air, and they hurtle through the cordon, heading for
"Paul"'s house.
...
"How are you doing there, Mr Trask?" - Driver
"Haven't you gone home yet?" - Wolsey
"I was just about to, in fact. Once I'd checked on you" - Driver
"They haven't fed me yet, you know" - Wolsey
417
"They will do" - Driver
"What time is it?" - Wolsey
"Nearly" (checks watch) "Midnight, actually. We're all running a little behind" - Driver
"Must be lonely, never being at home" - Wolsey
Wolsey casts an Unveiling Practice of Mind, watching Driver's mind pattern and
reading his surface thoughts as he makes conversation. As "Driver" thinks of home,
whole areas of his - or rather, It's - mind pattern change, as the construct updates
with the new information that it has a wife at home who supports his work, but that he
feels guilty being here all the time. Wolsey, though, saw the transition - nearly, but
not quite, instant. He's caught the system behind all this on the hop, and now knows
for certain that Driver isn't