God is Spanish IC: The Machinery of Heaven [Archive]

Thanqol

2017-01-26, 06:40 PM

If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
- Hyman G. Rickover

God is Spanish
A game of Mage: The Awakening

In Spain, there is a town called Salamanca.

In Salamanca, there is a graveyard. Small and crumbling, old stonework crosses and dry weeds waiting to catch fire.

In the graveyard is a crypt. There is no name on the door, just a number and a date: #40328-111111 1/1/1902-27/1/2017.

In the crypt is a man. He wears a suit, is covered in dust and is surrounded by moth-balls and cigarette butts. The man is humming a tune. The tune is not important. Neither are the cigarette butts. These unimportant things have been logged.

In front of the man is an alarm clock. It is big and expensive and clockwork and manufactured in 1898. Next to the alarm clock is a small bottle of lubrication oil and a small clockwork repair kit. There is also a digital watch, which is also unimportant.

In the alarm clock are gears. They are ticking down through their final cycle now. Ten. Nine. Eight. Eight point zero zero zero four - the eight gear is imprecisely calibrated. 7.0004. 6.0004. 5.0004. 4.0004. 3.0004. 2.0004. 1.0004. 0.0004.

The man in the crypt in Salamanca swears.

The alarm clock rings.

The man picks up a shovel. He digs up a coffin. This takes him an hour but time is no longer important. The man uses a key to open all four of the padlocks on the coffin. All four locks use the same key, although one jams a little and requires jiggering. It takes him eighteen minutes to open all the locks. The man opens the coffin. Inside the coffin are forty five cranes, slender and black-feathered, crammed in like sardines. The man produces a plastic bag filled with hair and empties it over the cranes. Then the cranes exit through the open door of the crypt. This takes two minutes and eighteen seconds.

In Salamanca, there is another man. This man works in security for an international firm. He has three dogs and is considering getting a fourth. This is not important. Today the man is being attacked by cranes. It takes them eight minutes forty five seconds to kill him. In the international firm a letter has just arrived on his desk to ask him to conduct a background check on a new hire. As the man has been murdered by cranes he is not positioned to perform this background check. Due to the recent performance based management system that has been implemented in the company the regional manager will not wait for security before engaging the new staff member. This is not important.

What is important is that the security man's spouse has a history of and genetic predisposition towards violent mental illness. Upon learning of the actions of the cranes he fractures, and accordingly, becomes suggestible. He receives a red envelope in the mail addressed from the Inquisition. Inside is a cassette manufactured in 1941 and a typed note promising answers. On the cassette are instructions. The spouse follows these instructions. The operation concludes successfully.

Followup operations will begin shortly.

~

Awakenings are like birthday parties. Some of them are private, intimate experiences, either held in solitary self reflection or close connection with a small group of friends. The Wise hate these ones because it makes new Mages really hard to find. The more popular Awakenings are like more popular birthday parties, with invitations sent out in advance, alcohol purchased by the barrel, and sprawling out across the whole neighbourhood so that by 1am everyone is either at the party or burying their heads under the pillow hating everyone who is.

We are looking at option two.

A new Mage is happening and it's an Event. Magic is spilling out everywhere. It's an Obrimos Awakening, the raw incredible force of the Aether manifesting in freak and wild weather and awesome magical phenomena. Any symbol or icon that contains power visibly glows. Things are bright or black, like the contrast slider is being turned up. The merest caress of a car's accelerator adds 40km/ph to your speed instantly. Things, in a word, are wack.

And you, ladies and gentlemen of the University, have been sent out to make first contact and see if you can get this sh*t under control. Your drive to the suburbs is getting terrifying fast. There's a great dane made out of celestial fire chasing your car and barking furiously. What do you do?

Matthias

2017-01-26, 08:59 PM

"On the contrary," says Luis, as his uncannily alive 2003 Renault careens over a curb, then rapidly turns to blast entirely through a fence, "I am perfectly dressed to serve as a representative of the Salmantin magical community." The next fence is a set of Heavenly pearly gates burning with invisible fire; they politely open. "Not only would putting on something more 'presentable' waste precious time, but it would be dishonest! I am dressed as an entirely accurate and typical member of the One Nation that is the Wise, that is, as someone with far better things to interact with over the next week than sunlight or other human beings!" The car full of wizards whips around a tabernacle-mailbox glowing with draconic runes.

Luis' aforementioned diplomatic uniform consists of a pair of boxer briefs in the Republican tricolor, a tee with the face of Louis Althusser that says "DERRIDA," cannabis ashes scattered liberally over both, and a pair of sneakers. The sneakers are not paired with socks and are furiously employed in experimenting with and recallibrating the Renault's newfound ability to do more than sputter. Some of the cannabis ashes are spontaneously relighting and singing his skin.

"You all, by contrast, look deceptively well-adjusted! Okay if we were plowing through a jungle right now, but I am told that the Obrimos can see through lies!"

Silent_Interim

2017-01-27, 02:29 AM

aetherialDawn

2017-01-27, 03:13 AM

Adan mixes several moments of intense fear - Luis' particular style of driving is somehow made all the more terrifyingly exciting when the car involved is trailing fire, and frankly the pursuing canine shape is nearly calming in comparison - with a few moments of admiration for the sheer spectacle; beams of sunlight pour forth from between the roiling stormclouds, illuminating and then purifying stains on the world as simple as a bit of cracked paint. "The Cabal will surely thank you for setting easily-met expectations," he says, "and watch the stoplight, I think it's unlucky." Said traffic signal shines brightly from every light, concerned more with illumination than with guiding cars.

Adan's own 'diplomatic gear' is his best black shirt and slacks, paired with an actual tie and sunglasses - the entire outfit a contrast in every way to Luis and born of a whim that morning, now tinged with regret for not examining it more closely. He's riding shotgun, hands twitching with every impulse to reach over and take the wheel from his friend. Surely it couldn't be any worse - it's only a matter of time until Luis finds an excuse to ramp off something.

After a couple more cycles of aborted reaching for the wheel, he clasps his hands for a moment and reaches out for strands of probability instead, muttering, "You just like getting me to bless your driving skills, don't you?" Maybe if he can stop worrying about crashing and burning (mostly burning,) he'll have a chance to just admire the scenery. This is the Supernal come down to Earth, after all - chances like this don't come along every day.

[Using Adan's Rote for Exceptional Luck (Ruling of Fate) to attract good luck, because we're going to need it. Gnosis 1, Fate 3, and Occult 3 as a rote Yantra. The primary factor is Potency, and Reaching for Instant Casting (1), Sensory Range (1), Advanced Duration (1), and Advanced Scale (1). Not spending dice to increase any spell factors, so assuming all goes as planned it's a Potency 3 Boon, lasting a scene, affecting Adan, Luis, Irene, and Camille. It grants Charmed, Steadfast for driving, and 9-again for three mundane rolls each. No base Mana cost, no base Paradox, dicepool is probably around 7 dice.
Charmed and Steadfast are both in Mage core.]

The_Snark

2017-01-27, 06:39 AM

"Do not expect me to feel sorry for you if you are smote," Camille informs Luis frostily from the other back seat. "It will be no-one's fault but your own."

As much as she normally enjoys sniping at Luis, her heart isn't really in it right now. If today is a party, then Camille is the irate student next door who has an exam early tomorrow. This is her first true glimpse of the Aether, that high and holy realm which mankind can only touch in dreams and visions. She's always imagined it like the ringing words in her grandmother's church, when she was young and still believed; or like the ardor in the voice of a really good Ladder orator, the kind who can make you feel what they feel even if you hate them.

Now, seeing with it her own eyes, she can't help but think that it's... garish. All light and color and sound, raucous and noisome, like standing amidst a fireworks show. Patterns leap out and impress themselves forcefully upon the senses. Beautiful, maybe, but in a clumsy sort of way; tasteless; almost hostile. It assails the soul and demands awe. She doesn't like it.

She almost wants to close her eyes, ignore the chaos and wonder until the others find who they're looking for. Almost. But while Camille's capacity for petty spite is considerable, it can't quite beat out her curiosity. Besides, maybe this will be less dizzying through Stygian eyes.

[Mage Sight!]

Matthias

2017-01-27, 03:54 PM

"Xena, if you really want me to wear pants, I think we're the same size!'

Luis spins the car the wrong way through a roundabout surrounding a glowing plinth. Decades ago, it had been defaced with graffiti no one (in this neighborhood) disagreed with enough to remove. Years ago, the bronze equine statue of some Nationalist general had been removed from it. Hours ago, some many-eyed things had taken up shop and started singing. The angels are singing hymns of prosecution or defense. The general is rampant on his horse, encouraging the assembled host to stand with God, Spain, and himself. The runic graffiti swirls around him as a prison, hammers and penises and sickles and profane invocations of Higher Law. The 2003 Renault narrowly avoids a headlong collision into an Opel Corsa.

"I am not in fact Jacques Derrida, as the text on this shirt would imply," says Louis Althusser. "I am Louis Althusser, an uxoricide, a crime calling out for vengeance by the laws of gods and..."

"¿SO DO WE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS WIZARD BABY?" asks the other Luis over the supernal Truths being offered by his shirt.

"Irony is lying without taking responsibility for the lying, and men such as myself are not to be glorified," continues the tee. "If Luis were honest about separating my theoretical insights from my person he would not have emblazoned..."

"LIKE DID DIEGO SEND AN INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING OR WHATEVER."

aetherialDawn

2017-01-28, 04:27 AM

"Nothing I was told of! If anyone was tracking them, they're probably as surprised as we are!" Adan half-shouts, volume a little more moderate (and harder to hear for it, but audible above the chorus at least,) grateful for the sunglasses that let him feel like he has some control over this overflowing of light, sound, and truth. Very little can drive home that there is the Supernal and then there is the Supernal like and Obrimos, but he discards that thought for leading to unpleasant memories.
The sunglasses don't help, of course. But the intent behind them is a nice thing to have.

Finishing his spell, Adan ends up peering at the graffiti to try and ignore the oncoming traffic. It's odd to see it being woven - no, not woven, this is a different world. The graffiti being hammered into shapes of Truth is oddly mesmerizing, but as the car pulls away along a road that warps and grindingly shifts towards parallel with a ley line one of the apprentices was ranting about last week - and won't that throw someone's charts to disarray - Adan manages to add as an afterthought, "Maybe not quite as surprised as we are. Hey, I'm going to take a closer Look, if you want to do the same driver has to warn us first this time."

He expects to end up half-blind and probably all-deaf for trying to look deeper into the Aether in flood - it's coming through strong enough as it is, but when will he get another chance like this? Not until next year? Never?

[Going from Peripheral to Active Mage Sight, spending a mana to add Prime in addition to Fate/Time. 9/10 Mana, probably.]

Silent_Interim

2017-01-29, 03:06 PM

The wind whistled by, carrying away most of what Luis said before Irene could hear it. Not all of it, though.

Irene slammed the door shut as she pulled herself back in. "You wish you could wear my size of pants," she muttered. She stopped dead as the realization hit her.

"Are you really trying to hit on me at a time like this? I'd be disgusted if it were anyone else. As it is, I think I'm just annoyed."

She looked out the window. A thought struck her. What were the Shadow and the Gauntlet doing right now? This was a unique opportunity. Spirits must be going wild.

"I'm going to get us a look at the spirits. Brace yourselves."

[Reflexive action to move to Active Mage Sight, Space and Mind only. Then, using Irene's Rote of Exorcist's Eye to look at the spirits around (Practice: Unveiling, Primary Factor: Duration) Gnosis 2, Spirit 1, Yantra of Occult 1 for a dice pool of 4. Reaching for Instant Casting (1), Advanced Duration (2), Advanced Scale (3), Sensory Range (4) and the included spell Reach effect of being able to see across the Gauntlet into the Shadow (5). Adding Mind 1 to apply the effect to any Goetia. Not spending any dice to increase spell factors. All going well, Irene, Adan, Camille and Luis will be able to see any spirits or Goetia in the area, including (If the Gauntlet is weak enough, Potency of 1 Withstood by the Strength of the Gauntlet) any in the Shadow, for the next scene. No Mana costs are incurred, no Paradox is risked, dice pool of 4.]

Thanqol

2017-01-29, 04:26 PM

Irene growled as she tried to lower the window of the back seat door.

"Luis, this is why nobody takes you seriously. I'm not asking you to dress up- I'm just asking you to wear pants," she grunted as she worked at the window, "For the sake of my sanity. There are things no woman or man alive should be exposed to, and I count you in boxers among them." She swore as the window jammed. "Do you want to die while not wearing pants, Luis? Oh, what the hell am I asking, of course you do. Remind me to punch you later."

Giving up, Irene opened the door of the car, letting it swing out dangerously. She leaned out into the wind, hair whipping randomly, and began to focus. Breathing exercises, rapid but controlled, pulled her pulse to a manageable level and her mind to the task at hand.

Hoping she'd be heard, she shouted back into the car. "I'm going to slow down the dog! You guys try and get the car under control!"
She pulled her car antenna from her pocket, extending it with a swift flick of the wrist.
"Bad dog! STAY BACK. STOP MOVING."

[Using the sample spell Ground-Eater in reverse to slow the dog down. Dice pool of Gnosis 2+Space 3=5. Practice: Compelling, Primary Factor: Potency, Withstand: Stamina. Space of 3, one-dot Practice, 3 free reach. Spending one reach to decrease casting time to instant, one to increase Range to Sensory, and one to increase Duration to Advanced. Potency increased by Space-1, so Potency is now at 3. Using the path tool of the antenna for an iron rod for a +1 Yantra. No Mana spending. No Paradox incurred. Dice pool is at 6, Potency is at 3 Standard, Range is Sensory, Duration is one scene.]

[Resistance attribute is 2, potency reduced to 1, speed reduced by 1]

The spell takes effect - but it's so subtle you hardly notice it. For a creature of fire and lightning distance is something to be consumed and putting just a little bit more in its mouth isn't going to choke it. It's still catching up and you've only purchased a couple more seconds.

Therein lies a strange truth about magic: The hardest thing to do is assault another pattern directly. Brute force magical attacks like this are frequently the least effective techniques possible. True power comes from complex control of the environment and the surrounding world - fraying someone's pattern with Death is far less effective than using that same spell to bring down a roof on their head.

After a couple more cycles of aborted reaching for the wheel, he clasps his hands for a moment and reaches out for strands of probability instead, muttering, "You just like getting me to bless your driving skills, don't you?" Maybe if he can stop worrying about crashing and burning (mostly burning,) he'll have a chance to just admire the scenery. This is the Supernal come down to Earth, after all - chances like this don't come along every day.

[Using Adan's Rote for Exceptional Luck (Ruling of Fate) to attract good luck, because we're going to need it. Gnosis 1, Fate 3, and Occult 3 as a rote Yantra. The primary factor is Potency, and Reaching for Instant Casting (1), Sensory Range (1), Advanced Duration (1), and Advanced Scale (1). Not spending dice to increase any spell factors, so assuming all goes as planned it's a Potency 3 Boon, lasting a scene, affecting Adan, Luis, Irene, and Camille. It grants Charmed, Steadfast for driving, and 9-again for three mundane rolls each. No base Mana cost, no base Paradox, dicepool is probably around 7 dice.
Charmed and Steadfast are both in Mage core.]

So, you just cast a spell for good luck - I'm curious as to what, exactly, Athanasius thinks that is? How does he conceptualize good luck? What are desirable endgoals that luck can grant you? Is it something as undefined as 'success' or is there a particular idea of what counts as a positive outcome? Getting there first? Health and safety? What are the biases that go into saying you want to be lucky?

Now, seeing with it her own eyes, she can't help but think that it's... garish. All light and color and sound, raucous and noisome, like standing amidst a fireworks show. Patterns leap out and impress themselves forcefully upon the senses. Beautiful, maybe, but in a clumsy sort of way; tasteless; almost hostile. It assails the soul and demands awe. She doesn't like it.

She almost wants to close her eyes, ignore the chaos and wonder until the others find who they're looking for. Almost. But while Camille's capacity for petty spite is considerable, it can't quite beat out her curiosity. Besides, maybe this will be less dizzying through Stygian eyes.

[Mage Sight!]

Death Sight gives you absolutely nothing. This is a realm where Death does not exist at all - when one form or pattern is pierced or shattered it erupts instantly into a beautiful new form. A hawk swoops down to grasp a rabbit and the rabbit shatters and becomes a constellation around the moon. When the brake is hit the car's speed doesn't die, it sloughs off the car in waves and colases into a man who sprints onwards. Energy without entropy.

Matter Sight remains dull, predictable and useful. That is a car made of steel and plastic with a current market value of $18,000. That is a house made out of Columbian timber with an improper water seal leading to buildup of moisture inside the wall cavity. That celestial firebird is wearing a cargo shirt worth $1.55 of fabric. Just the facts.

Finishing his spell, Adan ends up peering at the graffiti to try and ignore the oncoming traffic. It's odd to see it being woven - no, not woven, this is a different world. The graffiti being hammered into shapes of Truth is oddly mesmerizing, but as the car pulls away along a road that warps and grindingly shifts towards parallel with a ley line one of the apprentices was ranting about last week - and won't that throw someone's charts to disarray - Adan manages to add as an afterthought, "Maybe not quite as surprised as we are. Hey, I'm going to take a closer Look, if you want to do the same driver has to warn us first this time."

He expects to end up half-blind and probably all-deaf for trying to look deeper into the Aether in flood - it's coming through strong enough as it is, but when will he get another chance like this? Not until next year? Never?

[Going from Peripheral to Active Mage Sight, spending a mana to add Prime in addition to Fate/Time. 9/10 Mana, probably.]

Fate is a big one here. There is Destiny involved; big and heavy and deliberate. This doesn't have the narrative beats of a conclusion or even a beginning - it seems like this entire Event is setup for larger actions. As with all Destinies, there is a Ban and you can see this clearly: When you run out of enemies, you will create new ones.

Time, like Matter, is a Gross Arcana. It's strangely unconcerned with matters of the Supernal, it just pays attention to the flow of time. Mostly time is fairly predictable and dull but after a few moments concentration here you come to the conclusion that time is off 0.0004 seconds. All the timing of everything happening everywhere is off by the most subtle of margins. There's a flaw in the perfect machinery of heaven.

Prime, however, is clearly the most useful of Arcanum in this situation; it's the Magic of Magic and this is magic itself. The only problem is that the amount of information is dizzyingly huge; ask more specific questions.

The wind whistled by, carrying away most of what Luis said before Irene could hear it. Not all of it, though.

Irene slammed the door shut as she pulled herself back in. "You wish you could wear my size of pants," she muttered. She stopped dead as the realization hit her.

"Are you really trying to hit on me at a time like this? I'd be disgusted if it were anyone else. As it is, I think I'm just annoyed."

She looked out the window. A thought struck her. What were the Shadow and the Gauntlet doing right now? This was a unique opportunity. Spirits must be going wild.

"I'm going to get us a look at the spirits. Brace yourselves."

[Reflexive action to move to Active Mage Sight, Space and Mind only. Then, using Irene's Rote of Exorcist's Eye to look at the spirits around (Practice: Unveiling, Primary Factor: Duration) Gnosis 2, Spirit 1, Yantra of Occult 1 for a dice pool of 4. Reaching for Instant Casting (1), Advanced Duration (2), Advanced Scale (3), Sensory Range (4) and the included spell Reach effect of being able to see across the Gauntlet into the Shadow (5). Adding Mind 1 to apply the effect to any Goetia. Not spending any dice to increase spell factors. All going well, Irene, Adan, Camille and Luis will be able to see any spirits or Goetia in the area, including (If the Gauntlet is weak enough, Potency of 1 Withstood by the Strength of the Gauntlet) any in the Shadow, for the next scene. No Mana costs are incurred, no Paradox is risked, dice pool of 4.]

So, here's a quick note about the Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is stronger in urban areas and weaker in rural ones, this is a well known fact. This is not, however, because the Spirit world is weaker in urban areas - if anything the opposite is true.

See, Spirits feed on powerful emotions and resonances, and these manifest as Essence which flows 'downhill' from the Material to the Shadow. In a quiet countryside there's hardly any Essence flow so walking up that hill is a simple experience. In a chaotic, vibrant urban environment there's so much Essence flowing that it's like walking into a fire hose. Interestingly, the side effect is that spirits in the countryside tend to be far weaker and less numerous than the monsters that stalk the inner cities.

So in general the Gauntlet strength is going to depend on the intensity of emotions at work in the Sleeper population, which is often strongly influenced by architecture and the strength of local communities. This suburb is relatively spiritually dead, no one really talks to each other or knows their neighbours, the population is mostly old - as a result the Gauntlet Strength is 2.

Matthias

2017-01-30, 10:36 AM

aetherialDawn

2017-01-31, 05:13 AM

Fate is a big one here. There is Destiny involved; big and heavy and deliberate. This doesn't have the narrative beats of a conclusion or even a beginning - it seems like this entire Event is setup for larger actions. As with all Destinies, there is a Ban and you can see this clearly: When you run out of enemies, you will create new ones.

Time, like Matter, is a Gross Arcana. It's strangely unconcerned with matters of the Supernal, it just pays attention to the flow of time. Mostly time is fairly predictable and dull but after a few moments concentration here you come to the conclusion that time is off 0.0004 seconds. All the timing of everything happening everywhere is off by the most subtle of margins. There's a flaw in the perfect machinery of heaven.

Prime, however, is clearly the most useful of Arcanum in this situation; it's the Magic of Magic and this is magic itself. The only problem is that the amount of information is dizzyingly huge; ask more specific questions.

Montesquieu gazes out into the Aether - it's not what he expected, not exactly, and it's better than he expected. He hasn't been smote by the wrath of raging, clashing power, there is just so much going on. Even if the content is ominous, there is a grand destiny written across the sky, across the earth, curling letters of fire spelling out a pattern already in motion just beneath the surface of everything. But 'everything' is just out of synchronicity with itself - time moves along, but something, flaw or action or natural confluence, has unmoored it only enough to be irritating and strange, a grain of sand plucked from the universe's hourglass and into his sock, a terribly mundane intrusion of something so broad that he can't conceive of what it really means yet for there to be this disjoint.

As much as that comes naturally, none of that is what he wants right now; these are things which can wait a few minutes (if only because he has no idea what to do about them yet.)
Adan looks at the hound of heavenly fire behind them, leaning and twisting over his seat to get a better view. He looks at himself, he looks at Luis and Irene and Camille - at Athanasius and Zeno and Lyell - he looks at his mirror, he tries to get a look at the Sun and the stormclouds and at how his friends' spells streak through the Aether instead of through more mundane air. There are surely dozens of things he could be doing, some more practical than others - but Luis is driving, he's already been given the best Boon Adan could think of on the spot, everyone else is handling the holy flame-dog-angel, and there is so much to see. He's just diving deeper into the experience.

But, they are his friends, so he manages to keep some of his attention on them and share what he's seeing. After all, he wouldn't be so comfortable doing this if they weren't handling so many other things. "Time is disjointed from itself... This entire everything is part of a massive Destiny - not starting or ending, but placing pieces - and... there's so much magic. Everything is pouring forth."
... Of course, the wind steals most of his words, because he's not remembering that the wind/music he hears is the mundane, physical kind too.

The_Snark

2017-01-31, 08:27 PM

While the cacophony of the Aether is undimmed, Camille nonetheless finds the view through her third eye somewhat soothing. The air may be afire with cosmic truths and the music of the spheres, but the substrata of the Fallen World is unmoved. Asphalt, steel and concrete simply don't care, and their stubborn banality affords her a chance to ground herself.

It's eerie to see a world without endings, though. She can't help but wonder: what would happen if someone died in the middle of all this? Would they pass on as usual, or would their soul ripple out through the air, transmuting into something else but never ceasing to be? Would it be borne away on the winds of the Aether? Something else she can't even guess at? What of their self, even less tangible than the soul? She can't quite bring herself to hope it happens, that's a bit much, but... she keeps an eye out.

"I'm going to get us a look at the spirits. Brace yourselves."

Camille directs a punch at Irene's shoulder, perhaps a second too late. "Leave Luis out of it, he is driving."

Thanqol

2017-01-31, 09:06 PM

"Be sure to send me the highlights, Monty!"

Luis mentally dogspots their pursuer through the rearview mirror, waits for a moment where the street is a little straighter than before, and tries to stare right into its adorable little ignited canine soul, sending in hooks from his eye cones to its. Imagines being a dog careening down a street on fire. Thinks about how much his butt in the car seat, little flakes of marajuana bursting alive and singing skin that oughtn't be exposed, and tries to transfer it.

Running after this car is so boring, isn't it? I should lick my butt. My butt is practically on fire. Shouldn't I attend to that? Ow, ow, ow, chafing! Just need to insert a little tongue in there and it will be all better.

[Ruling Mind, Gnosis 2 + Mind 3 = dice pool of 5. 2-dot Practice, 3 dots in mind, so 2 free reach; one reach to decrease casting time to instant, one to increase Range to Sensory. Primary Factor: Potency, Resisted with Resolve.]

So in mechanics terms, casting a spell is an Instant action - which translates to 3-5 seconds of dedicated focus. You're also driving a car through a thunderstorm. Your attention is split, it is time for some dice rolls!

The hound is an ephemeral entity with a Resistance stat of 2. Take a +1 bonus from using a sufficiently symbolic yantra in the casting. On the other hand, I would like a composure+drive roll at -3 to keep on the straight and narrow while you do this (though you do get the Exceptional Luck dice on this one).

As much as that comes naturally, none of that is what he wants right now; these are things which can wait a few minutes (if only because he has no idea what to do about them yet.)
Adan looks at the hound of heavenly fire behind them, leaning and twisting over his seat to get a better view. He looks at himself, he looks at Luis and Irene and Camille - at Athanasius and Zeno and Lyell - he looks at his mirror, he tries to get a look at the Sun and the stormclouds and at how his friends' spells streak through the Aether instead of through more mundane air. There are surely dozens of things he could be doing, some more practical than others - but Luis is driving, he's already been given the best Boon Adan could think of on the spot, everyone else is handling the holy flame-dog-angel, and there is so much to see. He's just diving deeper into the experience.

But, they are his friends, so he manages to keep some of his attention on them and share what he's seeing. After all, he wouldn't be so comfortable doing this if they weren't handling so many other things. "Time is disjointed from itself... This entire everything is part of a massive Destiny - not starting or ending, but placing pieces - and... there's so much magic. Everything is pouring forth."
... Of course, the wind steals most of his words, because he's not remembering that the wind/music he hears is the mundane, physical kind too.

Simply absorbing the experience is a valid tack to take. Not every day you get to see something like this. Of course, you know what makes something like this better? Experimentation. Dragging out the experience. Giving up on this political bullsh*t with making contact, parking the car, and just messing around in this new realm. Driving through this place on the way to do something isn't going to give you anything more than powerful imagery; if you really want to get an enlightening encounter out of this you're going to need to sacrifice.

While the cacophony of the Aether is undimmed, Camille nonetheless finds the view through her third eye somewhat soothing. The air may be afire with cosmic truths and the music of the spheres, but the substrata of the Fallen World is unmoved. Asphalt, steel and concrete simply don't care, and their stubborn banality affords her a chance to ground herself.

It's eerie to see a world without endings, though. She can't help but wonder: what would happen if someone died in the middle of all this? Would they pass on as usual, or would their soul ripple out through the air, transmuting into something else but never ceasing to be? Would it be borne away on the winds of the Aether? Something else she can't even guess at? What of their self, even less tangible than the soul? She can't quite bring herself to hope it happens, that's a bit much, but... she keeps an eye out.

This, specifically, seems like a definite avenue of experimentation. The truth is out there, waiting for you to find it. You might never get this opportunity again and you're not going to see it if you're going past at a hundred kilometers an hour.

Silent_Interim

2017-02-01, 01:45 AM

[Resistance attribute is 2, potency reduced to 1, speed reduced by 1]

The spell takes effect - but it's so subtle you hardly notice it. For a creature of fire and lightning distance is something to be consumed and putting just a little bit more in its mouth isn't going to choke it. It's still catching up and you've only purchased a couple more seconds.

Therein lies a strange truth about magic: The hardest thing to do is assault another pattern directly. Brute force magical attacks like this are frequently the least effective techniques possible. True power comes from complex control of the environment and the surrounding world - fraying someone's pattern with Death is far less effective than using that same spell to bring down a roof on their head.

Irene clucks her tongue, considering a better approach.

So, here's a quick note about the Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is stronger in urban areas and weaker in rural ones, this is a well known fact. This is not, however, because the Spirit world is weaker in urban areas - if anything the opposite is true.

See, Spirits feed on powerful emotions and resonances, and these manifest as Essence which flows 'downhill' from the Material to the Shadow. In a quiet countryside there's hardly any Essence flow so walking up that hill is a simple experience. In a chaotic, vibrant urban environment there's so much Essence flowing that it's like walking into a fire hose. Interestingly, the side effect is that spirits in the countryside tend to be far weaker and less numerous than the monsters that stalk the inner cities.

So in general the Gauntlet strength is going to depend on the intensity of emotions at work in the Sleeper population, which is often strongly influenced by architecture and the strength of local communities. This suburb is relatively spiritually dead, no one really talks to each other or knows their neighbours, the population is mostly old - as a result the Gauntlet Strength is 2.
[Success, then, albeit slightly limited- the potency is not enough to allow vision across the Gauntlet.]

Camille directs a punch at Irene's shoulder, perhaps a second too late. "Leave Luis out of it, he is driving."
Irene suddenly goes stiff.
"That is a very good idea. I wish you had said something similar several seconds earlier."
Irene reached for her seatbelt.

Matthias

2017-02-02, 10:58 AM

Luis completes the spell, but hasn't the time to check whether it did any good, because - ¡Joder! - the poor Renault finds itself headed straight towards the walls of an apartment building ready to come toppling like the Walls of Jericho. He Luckily swerves just in time, destroying, instead of the car and its passengers, the assembled idols of an out-of-season nativity display, blasting through them in an orgy of vehicular iconoclasm like a mad Leo III. Bright eyes hiss in retribution from the clouds. The bowling pins topple towards the nearest Meaningful position; Baby Jesus lands in Mary's arms to form a Pietà and the Wise Men fall face down around Him as if in worship.

If Luis hears any other three Wise screaming, he assumes it's to cheer him on.

[Gnosis 2 + Mind 3 + Yantra 1 - increase of Potency by [Mind -1 = 2] = dice pool of 4 with Potency 3, one success by chopping off the last two dice of my original roll.

No successes on the Drive roll, resolve the Steadfast condition to turn it into a success.]

Silent_Interim

2017-02-02, 08:21 PM

Irene resists a strong and sudden urge to clip Luis around the ears.

"...I know that that was probably my fault as much as anyone's for suddenly layering that onto your vision, but you are an ass, Athan."

Thanqol

2017-02-03, 05:17 AM

[Success, then, albeit slightly limited- the potency is not enough to allow vision across the Gauntlet.]

The spirit world is flashing by in a whirlwind of colours and images - just like with Prime sight there's too much too fast to get anything really interesting. However you do find yourself sitting next to the spirit of the car you're in.

He's a fourteen year old boy with heavily lidded eyes, ugly stubble and pimples, a dorky shirt and a CD Walkman. He's currently holding himself rocking back and forth while listening to Evanescence up loud. He's currently holding the handbrake in the locked position with a grip so tight his knuckles are white.

He's probably cutting a quarter off the car's speed and acceleration - and you know, maybe that's what you want him to be doing, but he could also do more useful stuff like help steer so you're not relying on this:

Luis completes the spell, but hasn't the time to check whether it did any good, because - ¡Joder! - the poor Renault finds itself headed straight towards the walls of an apartment building ready to come toppling like the Walls of Jericho. He Luckily swerves just in time, destroying, instead of the car and its passengers, the assembled idols of an out-of-season nativity display, blasting through them in an orgy of vehicular iconoclasm like a mad Leo III. Bright eyes hiss in retribution from the clouds. The bowling pins topple towards the nearest Meaningful position; Baby Jesus lands in Mary's arms to form a Pietà and the Wise Men fall face down around Him as if in worship.

If Luis hears any other three Wise screaming, he assumes it's to cheer him on.

[Gnosis 2 + Mind 3 + Yantra 1 - increase of Potency by [Mind -1 = 2] = dice pool of 4 with Potency 3, one success by chopping off the last two dice of my original roll.

No successes on the Drive roll, resolve the Steadfast condition to turn it into a success.]

The celestial hound vanishes into the distance as your death-defying stunt takes you down half a kilometer of sidewalk.

The main question remains, though: Keep booking it to the center point or pause to take in the sights? The further towards the centre you go the more regimented and controlled this raw surge of magic is going to become.

The_Snark

2017-02-03, 08:16 AM

"Am I the only one who would like to slow down?" Camille asks, mostly rhetorically but not quite entirely, because for all that Irene likes chewing out Luis she has a bit of a crazy streak herself, and Adan is often willing to get swept along in their enthusiasm. "I would like to slow down. You are going to run over some poor person if you keep going like that, and while I would love to see what happens if something tries to die in the middle of this, I do not think I want it that badly. What is the hurry? You are all enjoying the show. A few more minutes to contemplate his revelation alone will not do our new brother any harm."

Maybe a pigeon? Nobody's going to miss one of those, and there's usually a few around. She can probably manage to kill one from a moving car. Just have to wait for the right opportunity. If she can't get a good look at it while it's happening, there's no point...

Matthias

2017-02-03, 10:55 AM

"Well, uh, frankly so would I," admits Luis, (trying for the frat-boy tone of mock confession that one can't help but be such a rascal, but his voicing wavering enough for it to be clear it's the truth,) "but I'm actually going as slow as I can," he says, as the car surpasses the summit of a small hill and goes flying. "Foot's as lightly on the peddle as I can stably put it - I could periodically tap it, but there'd be whiplash like hell, even worse than when I try to use the break, and I'd be hard pressed to calculate how fast we'll crash into things."

Aloft, the car casts a shadow on the ground much like the chariot of Apollo.

"That said, I'm hoping to take a more or less direct route to the eye of this hurricane so we beat the Seer hit squad or whoever else is crashing this wedding. Unless there are any objections?"

The car smashes down into the ground - impossible to say what, of its ailing internal organs, survive; but it continues speeding along regardless.

aetherialDawn

2017-02-05, 06:11 PM

The jolt of the car landing shakes up through Adan, dispersing back to the car and out into the world rather than fading away as it moves from medium to medium.
It also shakes Adan out of his attempts to gaze at the sun - likely better for his eyes, which are seeing afterimages of symbolism wherever he looks - the star where overlapping graffiti meets doesn't want to fade even from his view, the lance of lightning between the stormclouds lingering until he can see the delicate traceries of the grid they are illustrating, marking out a map of the streets below spread out over Time (and displaced, slightly, here and there - is that a Truth he doesn't understand, a more perfect version of what the map is meant to be, or is this the city of 0.0004 seconds difference?)
And everywhere there is the grand destiny that he can see, and read, and still not know the fullness of what it is.

He swallows, and stops letting his jaw hang open, and reluctantly slips out of his deeper Mage Sight for now. The storm is a storm again, the fire is fire again, the thunder is no longer proclaiming court opinions as well as roaring sound.
Starting a sentence a few times without completing a word, he eventually settles on, "Let's keep going. We said we'd get to the center of this and give a hand to whoever our newly magical friend is..." he sounds somewhat pained about missing the chance to just stop and start trying to analyze this missing moment or watch the ripples into the grander Fate here if he just... steps where it says he shouldn't stand. That urges him to add, "And next time, we make sure it's not our job to do that." There might not be a next time, but at least he'll be able to see what happens when he looks back on this out-of-place Time later.

Silent_Interim

2017-02-05, 06:39 PM

"I, too, agree. This is... unsettling. We can work out how we're going to slow down while en route. And, uh. Anybody have any ideas about this fellow?" At that, Irene gestures to the spirit sitting to her right.

The_Snark

2017-02-06, 07:04 AM

Camille gives a put-upon sigh. "Fine. If we wreck the car it will be on you three."

Reluctantly, she turns away from the window to look at... whatever it is that has Irene worried. Huh. Of course the spirit of Luis's car would look like that. "What of him? I do not see a problem. Except perhaps his choice of music."

Matthias

2017-02-06, 10:40 AM

aetherialDawn

2017-02-06, 09:28 PM

Visions of what, exactly, a car-spirit influenced by Luis might do with the wheel rush briefly through Adan's head. After a glance at the normally-invisible spirit, he decides that probably it's more likely that they'll just end up driven out of this storm instead (which will make no-one happy.)

"Whatever we do, I'd like to get to the eye of the storm while there's still enough car left to fix once we can calm all of this down." Or stop somewhere in the edges where they can experiment, but he's already made his decision on that, so he forces the unhelpful regret down for now - if they're very lucky, then they'll get to witness the tail-end of the Awakening itself and that would be well worth it indeed.

Thanqol

2017-02-06, 10:11 PM

"Hey, it's hard being a single father - we can't all raise them on the right musical values! And what thirteen-year-old has that down anyway?" Luis flashes a thumbs-up at his ghost-car-baby. "Hey, Tomás, you want to put on your mixtape? Maybe these fine folks can give you the education and criticism-self-criticism I was not able to, since I was hard at work in the dissertation mines."

The radio has been off so far on the suspicion that all the Aetheric interference might cause something crazy, like the Word Of God coming through the receiver and frying everyone's brains to hell. But whatever the literal garage band made up of the tutelary spirits of Luis' barely functional car, vacuum, and hot plate sounds like, it probably isn't the Word of God - so what could go wrong?

"And if you want to take the wheel for your old man, he certainly wouldn't mind - we're all tripping balls but this is your natural environment, eh? Or close enough?"

"P-promise to take me in for a service after this and it's a deal," said Tomas, shakily putting his hands on the wheel and turning up the radio. WAKE ME UP INSI-IDE! blares through the speakers as somewhat redundant advice. The ride becomes smoother and more directed as the car begins to work with you rather than against you.

The spirit's direct help (assuming you agree to its price, which'll be a resources 2 expense - you can welsh but you'll make an enemy) gives a +3 modifier to your wits+drive roll which offsets the -3 penalty for driving through crazytown. Since no one's interested in getting out and taking in the scenery the main challenge facing you here is speed: can you arrive at the epicenter fast enough to see anything interesting before this all settles down? There's another Wits+Drive roll here which can be further influenced by magic if anyone's got it).

Matthias

2017-02-07, 07:44 AM

CAN'T WAKE UP

"Of course," vows Luis, placing his free hand over his heart and flashing a bit of Prime to convey a general attitude of truthiness; "uncle Adan will spot me if need be, won't he? SAVE ME FROM THE NOOOOOTHING mybankaccount's BECOME."

aetherialDawn

2017-02-07, 06:27 PM

"Luis, if you and your car get us to the center in time to mess about and observe the sights some I will get your car complete service and a new paint job if y- if he wants."
Of course, he's short on money to just pay for that out of pocket, so it will involve more magic - but besides all the Fate he can do, maybe some fellow Councilors will want to take a look at what happens to a car taken on an unexpected Aetherial journey. God knows he wants to a little bit now that he's thought of it, even if it just ends up being a perfectly normal car - still not as good as hanging around, but... oh well.
The fact that he might have the chance to provide some different music options is an extra benefit.

Silent_Interim

2017-02-07, 07:50 PM

"I, personally, would love to help you pay for some of that. But, ah. I can barely afford rent money."

Irene glanced out the back of the car.

"I can speed us up some, if you want. It might make steering a bit harder. Up to you. I could also try to slow us down, if you feel like you're not up to steering. Any preference, from either of you?"

Matthias

2017-02-07, 09:14 PM

Silent_Interim

2017-02-07, 10:08 PM

"...Luis, that's literally the opposite of- never mind. I... no, I'm holding off for the moment."

Thanqol

2017-02-07, 10:49 PM

"Make your best judgment and send your best luck; I forfeit all decisions," says Luis, his hands more guided by the wheel than visa-versa, "I'm just a vehicle for Tomás."

[Wits + Drive, 9-again, 9=>3, 2, 4, 10=>7, ordinary success unless any shenanigans arise.]

The Nimbus has been described by Mages as 'the part of one's soul that doesn't fit in one's body'. It has been hypothesized that one's own Astral Realm is an extension of the Nimbus, or that it is the ongoing breach-scar of a name written on a Watchtower reflecting upon the Fallen World. Some Mages have Nimbuses that a man could drown in.

As the car passes from the uncontrolled energy of the Aether into the bubble of the newly Awakened Nimbus the chaotic symbolism refines and solidifies. The world and all its energies reflect the personal narrative of the man at its core, cloaked in incomprehensible symbolism as that is. The wild effects buffeting the car cease and the world becomes more detailed. As you move the Nimbus is shrinking - this great bubble reality is slowly packing itself up and folding in on itself until it's small enough to cram into the body of the man who made it.

The sun sits aloft in the sky, alongside a billion stars that shine even through brilliant blue daylight. Every few seconds a great flaming meteor drops from the heavens, leaving constant trails of black smoke that seem like densely packed beating wings. The little wooden white-painted church is the centre of this world, surrounded by a little iron fence made out of assault rifles, knives and car batteries. All the houses crouch around the church like dogs. Atop the belltower a decapitated statue holds aloft a cross in each hand. In the grass three tall hounds sit and stare.

There is a great shadow on the side of the church in the shape of a man with a single red eye. The shadow reaches down and opens the door, revealing a hall packed to bursting with at least a hundred people. They're crammed in like sardines, holding sheet music to their faces, mouths tracing the shapes of prayers without sound emerging.

Behind the altar stands a middle age man with a huge brown beard, slightly balding hair and the unbelievably intense eyes of a swamp preacher. He has his hands raised in prayer, looking directly at one of the ceiling spotlights which is blinking at him in morse code. All this power is being drawn directly into him - more power than any of you possess.

What do you do?

Matthias

2017-02-07, 11:32 PM

Thanqol

2017-02-08, 12:09 AM

Luis reaches for his head as if to doff a hat - a childhood practice he'd long since trained himself out of, at least for mere churches and not CHURCHES like this - and to avoid looking silly, holds it above his eyes as a visor against the glare, squinting.

[Mage Sight, Focused. What's the intentionality behind all these utterance-like gestures?

Control. Specifically, control over the impossible - control over Fate, God, Free Will, Inner Demons whatever. This is gesture of raw dominance.

What's this guy's (emotional and intellectual interpretation of his) whole deal?

Desperate triumph that everything finally makes sense. His entire soul is exulting in the fact that now he understands what the meaning of life is.

Who Else is watching?]

The enormous wall shadow will climb around to the interior to continue watching. It has a mind but its emotions are curiosity, patience, satisfaction and barely restrained homicidal rage held in place by fearful obedience.

Silent_Interim

2017-02-08, 12:45 AM

Irene slumps back in contemplative silence.

"You know," she begins. The sentence aborts, leaving another silence in its wake.

"You know, it's moments like these when I begin to question our practice of jumping into things blind with no plan whatsoever."

The_Snark

2017-02-08, 05:04 AM

Camille spends the rest of the trip looking out the window, determined to take in as much as she can while the opportunity lasts. Certainly not sulking because nobody else wanted to stop for a better look. That would be beneath her. Why is it so damned hard to find a pigeon? Just one bird, that's all she needs. It's the middle of the day. This is a city. Just because celestial fire is pouring from the sky, and the air is shaking with the sound of thunder twined with the music of the spheres...

... fine, yes, point made. Moving on. Camille contemplates setting her magic upon an object instead. It won't be quite the same as watching a living thing die, there's no soul and no vital essence that the Aether might try to snatch from Death's jaws, but it would be something. The Imago itself would be an intrusion, in this world of fire and motion and light. What reaction would that earn...?

Unfortunately, by the time she makes her decision they've arrived. No longer is this wild untamed Aether; this place belongs to someone. It seems... unwise, to intrude upon a newly Mage's world with intent to provoke. More importantly, it feels wrong. She would not have wanted some noisy Theurgist to blunder into her Awakening, all sound and fury.

She gives Irene a halfhearted I-told-you-so look, but otherwise remains silent. The priest's dream does not look finished.

Matthias

2017-02-08, 09:23 AM

aetherialDawn

2017-02-09, 03:54 AM

Adan continues to watch the city race by, jerked out of an almost-reverie state by the transition into someone's personal Nimbus. He focuses more now - even if he's going to regret the choice, he decided to be responsible, and that means figuring out what exactly he is here to do.
Even in his own head, that sounds... ill-thought-out. He answers quietly to Irene, "Maybe so. But I think we did get here first."

He stares, cannot help but stare, at the red-eyed shadow. It's not his world - it's not even his Path - but to have a shadow as a guide here feels... odd.

He pulls off his sunglasses and puts them in a pocket - not so much need for them in this bubble of not-calm-but-structured soul - and looks around as close as he dares; intruding with magic that isn't unique to this Awakening feels almost wrong.
Adan files that thought away for later - it feels terribly isolating, if it's really true - and tries to figure out the story that is coming together here.

[Focused Mage Sight. Is that destiny still visible here? Through Fate, what are the intentions behind these gestures - what path is he trying to go down? What is the relation of this guy to the other people in the hall? What's the most important rule in this Nimbus?]

Thanqol

2017-02-09, 09:53 PM

"Hey, no worries," says Luis, still squinting, "I don't think Padre here has much of a plan either, so really it's just playing nice. And let's keep playing nice, too; I think he's in charge of, uh, Sauron or whoever." He gestures vaguely in the direction of the red-eyed shadow.

But what if someone else has plans? That blinking light - feedback from the ominous angel or orders from a sinister archangelic intellect? What kind of control, apprehension, intervention do the Exarchs have into Awakenings? That blinking light could be the winking eye of a false god...

He stands entranced, exhaling just a bit of his own Essence to see how what kind of observer or other effect transmutes it.

[Scrutinizing the Awakening, with his attention first on the light. Gnosis 2 + Prime 2 = 3, 3, 9, 9; two successes, spending 1 Mana for 3 sux total. Transfixed for the time being.]

This is language, that is clear. There are patterns and ciphers in that light but even though they take no words and shapes spoken by man they are intended to communicate nonetheless - and as communication it falls under the sphere of Mind. You might try to decode it with a spell, if you are bold (no Withstand on that, but if there's anything nasty in that code you'll get hit full-force with it so you might consider taking precautions [Or, you know, you might choose not to defend yourself in any way so you've got a better view of the magic involved])

Adan continues to watch the city race by, jerked out of an almost-reverie state by the transition into someone's personal Nimbus. He focuses more now - even if he's going to regret the choice, he decided to be responsible, and that means figuring out what exactly he is here to do.
Even in his own head, that sounds... ill-thought-out. He answers quietly to Irene, "Maybe so. But I think we did get here first."

He stares, cannot help but stare, at the red-eyed shadow. It's not his world - it's not even his Path - but to have a shadow as a guide here feels... odd.

He pulls off his sunglasses and puts them in a pocket - not so much need for them in this bubble of not-calm-but-structured soul - and looks around as close as he dares; intruding with magic that isn't unique to this Awakening feels almost wrong.
Adan files that thought away for later - it feels terribly isolating, if it's really true - and tries to figure out the story that is coming together here.

[Focused Mage Sight. Is that destiny still visible here? Through Fate, what are the intentions behind these gestures - what path is he trying to go down? What is the relation of this guy to the other people in the hall? What's the most important rule in this Nimbus?]

There is indeed a Destiny present here, but it is a clunky and artificial thing being snapped into place as you watch - not by a spell, or by anyone present, but like someone made the Destiny first and left it in this church waiting to attach to someone who met the relevant criteria. Cast a Fate Knowing spell and receive detailed answers equal to potency.

[N.B. The Scrutiny mechanics are a little clunky in a PBP so I generally favour use of the Practice of Knowing instead. Mage Sight gets you a bunch of stuff for free but for really involved details and interpretation use the Knowing practice.]

Matthias

2017-02-10, 11:00 AM

This is language, that is clear. There are patterns and ciphers in that light but even though they take no words and shapes spoken by man they are intended to communicate nonetheless - and as communication it falls under the sphere of Mind. You might try to decode it with a spell, if you are bold (no Withstand on that, but if there's anything nasty in that code you'll get hit full-force with it so you might consider taking precautions [Or, you know, you might choose not to defend yourself in any way so you've got a better view of the magic involved])

Luis breaks out what he and a few other Thèarchs, in spy-thriller fashion, have discussed as the "Basilisk decrypt." Sometimes you encounter an infohazard but still want the info. So you go through some precautions.

First, he prepares his memory to receive a package and preserve it perfectly.he raises his hand to his face, splitting it down the middle so that one eye sees the light and another can find something suitably distracting - the red eye of the shadow, perhaps. And he focuses on each until two Luises - observant Luis and safe Luis - focus on one and the other.

Observant Luis knows his job is just to watch and record - and let safe Luis know when enough has been recorded, by clenching his fist. When he does, safe Luis will lock up everything observant Luis found in a small corner of his brain - and safe Luis will be the only one left.

[If I can use QADS for this: 7, 5, 8, 2, 7 => 1 success.]

aetherialDawn

2017-02-10, 10:39 PM

Adan frowns at the artless destiny he can see the broad impressions of; this doesn't look natural or even personal to him, at least not immediately. He hesitates, but habit urges him to simply start trying to unravel it, especially as he sees Luis working on something else - by his actions, something dangerous - in his peripheral vision (and his Peripheral Vision, although there Luis's magic stands out far more than his mere actions.)
He keeps an eye on the man at the center of all of this, slowly worried that he hasn't noticed someone standing in his Awakening, and decides upon his magic with care. This place probably is (should be? the pessimistic part of him thinks) sacred to the new Awakened, after all.

He formulates the question he wants to ask and pulls his pocketwatch - more importantly, the mirror inside it - from his pocket, letting it smooth and calm his Nimbus. Even so, it is magic and so his Nimbus flares to remind him of all the other possibilities he could have come on here while he works on learning what this possibility actually is.

[Knowing of Fate. Dicepool is probably Gnosis 1+Fate 3+Yantra 1 - if so, the dice in order are 8, 10->1, 2, 1, 8. The question is, "What fates and destinies are acting and/or forming here?"
Using one Reach to exceed Spell Control by one, one Reach for Instant Casting, one Reach for Advanced Scale (since that might matter.) Using his Dedicated Mirror - I don't know if the same close connection that reduces Paradox will help in trying to avoid 'profaning' the Awakening with too-intrusive magic, but that is possibly all in Adan's head anyway. And, well, based on that Destiny he's being a lot more careful than someone else was.]

The_Snark

2017-02-11, 08:40 AM

Silent_Interim

2017-02-11, 08:10 PM

Irene starts looking to more practical issues. This is not a safe place, even if it is deceptively calm. If the door closed, could anyone get out of the church? How? Where? Better safe than sorry.

[Moving from Peripheral to Active Mage Sight, trying to assess the area for dimensions, distances, etc.]

Thanqol

2017-02-12, 05:26 PM

Luis breaks out what he and a few other Thèarchs, in spy-thriller fashion, have discussed as the "Basilisk decrypt." Sometimes you encounter an infohazard but still want the info. So you go through some precautions.

First, he prepares his memory to receive a package and preserve it perfectly.he raises his hand to his face, splitting it down the middle so that one eye sees the light and another can find something suitably distracting - the red eye of the shadow, perhaps. And he focuses on each until two Luises - observant Luis and safe Luis - focus on one and the other.

Observant Luis knows his job is just to watch and record - and let safe Luis know when enough has been recorded, by clenching his fist. When he does, safe Luis will lock up everything observant Luis found in a small corner of his brain - and safe Luis will be the only one left.

So, let's get into a problem with this kind of mind magic: If you conclude the spell and integrate the two halves of your split mind then things are good - but if you end the spell and choose to let one of your sub-minds expire without integration then it dies. A consciousness snuffed out. That's an incredibly hardcore thing to do to yourself - and if you give your sub-mind too much autonomy then it might fight back against its impending death.

So, how exactly do you structure your parallel intellects? Does observant Luis just have no self preservation instinct? Does it have any other adjustments to its personality, i.e. a compulsive need to explore everything? What are the criteria it uses to decide if something is safe or not? Basically if things go wrong and observant Luis becomes totally compromised, what's his programming? "I haven't really thought about it" is a valid answer - these are hardcore psychic warfare questions and it's entirely possible you've never encountered a situation in your life so terrible as to require working out a detailed plan for 'under what situations would I be okay with committing suicide so that an exact clone of myself will be safe'?

Adan frowns at the artless destiny he can see the broad impressions of; this doesn't look natural or even personal to him, at least not immediately. He hesitates, but habit urges him to simply start trying to unravel it, especially as he sees Luis working on something else - by his actions, something dangerous - in his peripheral vision (and his Peripheral Vision, although there Luis's [I]magic stands out far more than his mere actions.)
He keeps an eye on the man at the center of all of this, slowly worried that he hasn't noticed someone standing in his Awakening, and decides upon his magic with care. This place probably is (should be? the pessimistic part of him thinks) sacred to the new Awakened, after all.

He formulates the question he wants to ask and pulls his pocketwatch - more importantly, the mirror inside it - from his pocket, letting it smooth and calm his Nimbus. Even so, it is magic and so his Nimbus flares to remind him of all the other possibilities he could have come on here while he works on learning what this possibility actually is.

[Knowing of Fate. Dicepool is probably Gnosis 1+Fate 3+Yantra 1 - if so, the dice in order are 8, 10->1, 2, 1, 8. The question is, "What fates and destinies are acting and/or forming here?"
Using one Reach to exceed Spell Control by one, one Reach for Instant Casting, one Reach for Advanced Scale (since that might matter.) Using his Dedicated Mirror - I don't know if the same close connection that reduces Paradox will help in trying to avoid 'profaning' the Awakening with too-intrusive magic, but that is possibly all in Adan's head anyway. And, well, based on that Destiny he's being a lot more careful than someone else was.]

The destiny that is being leveraged into place more or less reads, "He shall arise to spread the word of God to those who have forgotten how to hear it, and all shall dread his coming. In the end the madness he begins will consume him."

While her companions study the power converging on this place, Camille examines their surroundings on a more prosaic level. The scene is one of prayer at a church, yet there are no words: no hymns, no chants, no chorus echoing the word of God. The people seem more like props than anything else, a throng of supplicants whose faces blur into one another.

She takes a step closer, peering over one's shoulder to see if she can read anything off the sheet of paper in its hand. Just another set piece, or does the unvoiced song mean something?

Sure, give me an intelligence+academics roll related to religious history. -1 penalty because it's a little obscure but not hugely so.

Irene starts looking to more practical issues. This is not a safe place, even if it is deceptively calm. If the door closed, could anyone get out of the church? How? Where? Better safe than sorry.

[Moving from Peripheral to Active Mage Sight, trying to assess the area for dimensions, distances, etc.]

Interesting: That blinking light does not connect to the higher realms, or any interdimensional entities or anything.

It connects to an office building in Paris. Not through a supernatural effect, it's like looking at an active landline. Roll a Space Knowing spell and you can get the street address.

Most everything else is as you'd expect; ordinary number of doors, windows, etc. Packed too densely to allow for safe emergency evacuation but what are the chances of that coming up.

Matthias

2017-02-12, 09:56 PM

So, let's get into a problem with this kind of mind magic: If you conclude the spell and integrate the two halves of your split mind then things are good - but if you end the spell and choose to let one of your sub-minds expire without integration then it dies. A consciousness snuffed out. That's an incredibly hardcore thing to do to yourself - and if you give your sub-mind too much autonomy then it might fight back against its impending death.

So, how exactly do you structure your parallel intellects? Does observant Luis just have no self preservation instinct? Does it have any other adjustments to its personality, i.e. a compulsive need to explore everything? What are the criteria it uses to decide if something is safe or not? Basically if things go wrong and observant Luis becomes totally compromised, what's his programming? "I haven't really thought about it" is a valid answer - these are hardcore psychic warfare questions and it's entirely possible you've never encountered a situation in your life so terrible as to require working out a detailed plan for 'under what situations would I be okay with committing suicide so that an exact clone of myself will be safe'?

"Okay, so, assume the transporter scenario again, but with a twist," asks the Confessor, "let's say you get beamed in, as before, but there's a delay, such that you see your clone appear next to you before you're dissolved. Change your intuitions?"

Luis thumps his copy of Reasons and Persons. "Still a dogmatist on this one. Everything that makes physically-continuous-future-me me is shared by the clone - my memories get passed on, there's a creature out there with my preferences that will carry them out, and so on."

"Okay, so, memories and preferences 'and so on,' how much continuity do they have to have? If I were to make a modification - "

"Well, that depends on the kind of modification..."

"Okay, well, if we assume away malice or whatever, then how big does the modification have to be to be..."

"Fuzzy boundaries. So, mu. Like, most days, I don't remember anything aside from one or two interesting things. Like, ask me what I had for breakfast this morning."

The Confessor nods, and suggests an experiment to ensure he believes in his gut - or will when the time comes. She'll split Luis' mind up - or he'll do the operation himself - and euthanize a half at the end of each day, for the next month. The Arrow do this all the time, she says, to build fearlessness in the awareness of death.

He spends a lot of days, mostly wondering to himself how to get his minds to sufficiently diverge such that they feel different. How different can he get them to be? (Magical experiments are offered to him, which he takes up, when he knows which one is about to die.) He takes time to savor particular moments, knowing that they will be obliviated, and what the particular qualia of knowing that they will be is like. Like a dream, doomed to be flushed out of the brain as useless for survival. (This reminds him of all his doubts that being Awake is a dream. It is the simplest explanation.) But still the worst thing he can think of is "what if I'm wrong about personal identity?" and the answer to that is "What difference could that even mean, to be wrong about that? What's the further fact or truthmaker that..." His most paranoid behavior is stating aloud or writing down any "interesting ideas" he has, which is funny since he's terrible about recording most of the things he thinks are interesting.

And so observant Luis just focuses on the light - his job is clear. Like the coward he's "died" a thousand times before, even if he doesn't remember a single one. Like someone on the edge of sleep (but much more alert), he doesn't mind that he'll forget this, and can only be roused from it by the shake of a friend's arm - specifically, by a hand signal from safe Luis that he needs to re-merge himself to work some magic.

aetherialDawn

2017-02-13, 08:24 PM

Adan stiffens slightly as he finishes 'reading' the Destiny - his reaction is restrained only out of habit, and his voice is full of sudden venom. Secrets are powerful, but in this case he can only consider them weapons of the enemies.

"Someone is trying to usurp this man," he hisses, "And I want to deal with that now." The idea of restraint, of respecting this Awakening, fades quickly - he could, genuinely, be wrong. Whatever this Destiny is, it could be something important to this Awakening, he could just be misunderstanding the Aether or this person, but with the threat of stealing this moment of enlightenment to replace it with artificial madness, Adan is willing to take a risk.
Hopefully the man will agree with him, and be glad. But even if he complains, Adan doesn't think he'll regret this, not truly.

He starts to think about how he would undo this Destiny, and starts to step forwards. This, he might regret, but he would rather be open than secretive if he is to interfere in this, even if he's not the first to do so.
He takes a breath and speaks, "Welcome to the Wise, sir. I am Montesquieu, here with my friends to welcome you, offer information to you, and speak with you. There is an artificial Destiny being levered into place upon you..." he hesitates for a moment, and comes to the wording he wants, "And, ah, profaning this sacred event. I consider it sacred, at least. I plan to deal with it, as it would try to bait your honest words into madness." His gaze drifts towards the shadow, keeping an eye on it, and he then starts working on the spell. He meets this new Destiny with his own will and knowledge, carefully and perhaps slightly vindictively levering it apart until the thorny bonds fray and the knots of shape that give it specific power come undone.

[Applying Fraying of Fate to this Destiny, to weaken it (hopefully all the way to baseline.) Montesquieu is planning to prevent this layering of Destiny over our name-not-yet-known new Mage friend by taking the destiny apart. Besides, even if he could finesse it with Unveiling (I didn't think of a good, certain way to do that in any reasonable time,) it's rude to leave Destinies of madness laying around. Gnosis 1, Fate 3, Shadow Name 1, Willpower 3 - One reach, which goes to Instant Casting, Primary Factor is Potency for a base of 3, and taking a -4 penalty to increase Scale to a large room. Assuming I get the four remaining dice, in order they are: 9, 7, 9, 1. Thank you, Hamete!
I was mildly tempted by a passing whim to risk Paradox to just get Advanced Scale or Sensory Range but then I remembered that I didn't particularly want to risk Paradox, and then I actually looked at the context and no way am I bringing even one Paradox die into an Awakening. No.]

EDIT: Originally, a fragment of a prior draft was left in. I've removed it - it was a description of the Aimed version of the spell. After realizing how that would look (and how bad my dicepool is for that) I swapped to using Willpower and Scale increases. Also, I didn't want the Destiny to latch on to us, but that thought was post-decision.

Silent_Interim

2017-02-14, 12:44 AM

Interesting: That blinking light does not connect to the higher realms, or any interdimensional entities or anything.

It connects to an office building in Paris. Not through a supernatural effect, it's like looking at an active landline. Roll a Space Knowing spell and you can get the street address.

Most everything else is as you'd expect; ordinary number of doors, windows, etc. Packed too densely to allow for safe emergency evacuation but what are the chances of that coming up.

Irene frowns, and mutters to herself as Adan addresses the newly Awakened- or perhaps more rightly, the not-yet-completely-Awakened. "Okay, what? Paris? ...what? Why Paris? What the hell does Paris have to do with a single damned thing?" She absently pulls her journal from her pocket, then works it into the spell, trying to find knowledge through it.

[Taking you up on the Space Knowing. Gnosis 2, Space 3, using the order tool of the leather journal as a Yantra, dice pool of 6. Three reach total, one for instant casting, one for spell control, one for sensory range. Assuming Primary Factor of Potency, which goes to 3. Results- 3, 5, 7, 8, 10>7, 10>10>8. Five successes, giving an exceptional success. Opting to ignore any Withstand rating and have the spell take effect at full Potency of 3.]

Thanqol

2017-02-14, 03:19 AM

While her companions study the power converging on this place, Camille examines their surroundings on a more prosaic level. The scene is one of prayer at a church, yet there are no words: no hymns, no chants, no chorus echoing the word of God. The people seem more like props than anything else, a throng of supplicants whose faces blur into one another.

She takes a step closer, peering over one's shoulder to see if she can read anything off the sheet of paper in its hand. Just another set piece, or does the unvoiced song mean something?

So the song itself is the famous Officium Defunctorum (https://youtu.be/FzSQfRg1yQo) - a 16th century Spanish requiem for the Empress, deeply associated with loss, mourning - and standardized across all of Catholicism at the Council of Trent, the famous Catholic summit that began the counter-reformation and kicked the Spanish Inquisition into high gear. It's a beautiful song about loss for the beginning of a long and bloody period.

But you got an exceptional success so you're super on point - enough to notice that the Latin on these sheets is wrong. The tune is right but the lyrics are insane, almost incoherent - and distinctive enough to successfully google if you're by any chance not familiar with Clutch (https://youtu.be/6o1pPE6l0Vo).

And so observant Luis just focuses on the light - his job is clear. Like the coward he's "died" a thousand times before, even if he doesn't remember a single one. Like someone on the edge of sleep (but much more alert), he doesn't mind that he'll forget this, and can only be roused from it by the shake of a friend's arm - specifically, by a hand signal from safe Luis that he needs to re-merge himself to work some magic.

Solving problems through raw philosophy, all right. So, a quandary of Observant Luis: you are aware of what is happening. You are rapidly absorbing huge amounts of subliminal psychic programming, all kinds of conditionals, trigger phrases, hidden mental subroutines - to a student of Mind this is legitimately fascinating stuff. Part of it is the light itself which means that all this stuff has a physical component that you don't understand, but it's extremely potent. It's hitting you like a tidal wave. Is this pattern intelligent?

There is no way it's safe to rejoin with Safe Luis, and any sort of action you take might be somehow compromised. You're mostly sure that the complete mind-wipe and personality crash will clear it - but is that the way? Do you want to try and get a message to yourself, knowing that whatever you do right now is inherently risky?

Adan stiffens slightly as he finishes 'reading' the Destiny - his reaction is restrained only out of habit, and his voice is full of sudden venom. Secrets are powerful, but in this case he can only consider them weapons of the enemies.

"Someone is trying to usurp this man," he hisses, "And I want to deal with that now." The idea of restraint, of respecting this Awakening, fades quickly - he could, genuinely, be wrong. Whatever this Destiny is, it could be something important to this Awakening, he could just be misunderstanding the Aether or this person, but with the threat of stealing this moment of enlightenment to replace it with artificial madness, Adan is willing to take a risk.
Hopefully the man will agree with him, and be glad. But even if he complains, Adan doesn't think he'll regret this, not truly.

He starts to think about how he would undo this Destiny, and starts to step forwards. This, he might regret, but he would rather be open than secretive if he is to interfere in this, even if he's not the first to do so.
He takes a breath and speaks, "Welcome to the Wise, sir. I am Montesquieu, here with my friends to welcome you, offer information to you, and speak with you. There is an artificial Destiny being levered into place upon you..." he hesitates for a moment, and comes to the wording he wants, "And, ah, profaning this sacred event. I consider it sacred, at least. I plan to deal with it, as it would try to bait your honest words into madness." His gaze drifts towards the shadow, keeping an eye on it, and he then starts working on the spell. He meets this new Destiny with his own will and knowledge, carefully and perhaps slightly vindictively levering it apart until the thorny bonds fray and the knots of shape that give it specific power come undone.

Okay cool, so you remember that giant shadow with the glowing red eye and the barely held in check homicidal rage? Turns out someone put it there to deal with this exact situation. The second you start talking to the guy and trying to interact with that Destiny it is going to literally disembowel you.

The good news is you can activate a Mage Armour reflexively at the cost of one mana, and you can if you want spend willpower to boost your defense pool. Either way you'll need to roll initiative - and decide if you really want your first action to be casting that fate spell you've got right there. You might rapidly develop different priorities.

I was mildly tempted by a passing whim to risk Paradox to just get Advanced Scale or Sensory Range but then I remembered that I didn't particularly want to risk Paradox, and then I actually looked at the context and no way am I bringing even one Paradox die into an Awakening. No.]

Seems like a really good way to get a Banisher, yeah.

Irene frowns, and mutters to herself as Adan addresses the newly Awakened- or perhaps more rightly, the not-yet-completely-Awakened. "Okay, what? Paris? ...what? Why Paris? What the hell does Paris have to do with a single damned thing?" She absently pulls her journal from her pocket, then works it into the spell, trying to find knowledge through it.

[Taking you up on the Space Knowing. Gnosis 2, Space 3, using the order tool of the leather journal as a Yantra, dice pool of 6. Three reach total, one for instant casting, one for spell control, one for sensory range. Assuming Primary Factor of Potency, which goes to 3. Results- 3, 5, 7, 8, 10>7, 10>10>8. Five successes, giving an exceptional success. Opting to ignore any Withstand rating and have the spell take effect at full Potency of 3.]

So you can trace that link right back to an office building on Mirage Place next to the airport, seventh floor, somewhere near the middle. The why is totally beyond you but Space definitely gives you the where.

Matthias

2017-02-14, 04:24 PM

Solving problems through raw philosophy, all right. So, a quandary of Observant Luis: you are aware of what is happening. You are rapidly absorbing huge amounts of subliminal psychic programming, all kinds of conditionals, trigger phrases, hidden mental subroutines - to a student of Mind this is legitimately fascinating stuff. Part of it is the light itself which means that all this stuff has a physical component that you don't understand, but it's extremely potent. It's hitting you like a tidal wave. Is this pattern intelligent?

There is no way it's safe to rejoin with Safe Luis, and any sort of action you take might be somehow compromised. You're mostly sure that the complete mind-wipe and personality crash will clear it - but is that the way? Do you want to try and get a message to yourself, knowing that whatever you do right now is inherently risky?

You know how people often train in meditation using candles, because a flickering light is really easy to hold your gaze on? Observant Luis has it on easy mode to stick to the plan - but can't help being curious about the content. So speculations are going to bubble up in his brain, impressions are going to come through - all of which will get contained in the compressed .zip file pretty soon, whenever safe Luis wills it.

Which is, safe Luis decides, assessing the situation, right now. The hand dividing his face falls flat over one eye, and he swallows the memory like a condom full of heroin, ensconcing it in a secured undisclosed oneiric location. The only Luis left is "safe" - at least for the next second!

[2, 4, 9, 8, 1; ordinary success.]

aetherialDawn

2017-02-15, 09:30 PM

Okay cool, so you remember that giant shadow with the glowing red eye and the barely held in check homicidal rage? Turns out someone put it there to deal with this exact situation. The second you start talking to the guy and trying to interact with that Destiny it is going to literally disembowel you.

The good news is you can activate a Mage Armour reflexively at the cost of one mana, and you can if you want spend willpower to boost your defense pool. Either way you'll need to roll initiative - and decide if you really want your first action to be casting that fate spell you've got right there. You might rapidly develop different priorities.

Adan aborts his little impromptu speech to faint swearing, and then aborts that to dodging this shadow which was so obviously dangerous he almost thought it might not be. Well, at least he didn't stop being wary of it at all but - adrenaline is running away with his thoughts a bit, now, but he hangs on to his spell, even as he bleeds Mana into himself to ensure that his entrails stay internal, thank you very much.
He'll trust to his friends to start working on the shadow, because he's honestly not sure what to do about it yet, but he does know what he wants to do about this Destiny while he still can.
(A small part of him also wants the spell to work out of plain spite. Someone wants to interfere in this Awakening so badly that they've got Sauron the shadow-monster here to enforce it? Fine, Montesquieu will tear it all back down to interaction between new Mage and the world.)

[Activating Fate Mage Armor for one mana. Current mana is 8/10, willpower is 5/6, defense is 9 and works against attacks which would otherwise be too fast to dodge. And currently I have 7 undamaged health, which I mention mostly because I think they're not likely to stay undamaged for long.
I am keeping the spell I was already casting - not only because I already rolled for it but also because of spite against this destiny/shadow/infohazard nonsense.
Also, as I hadn't mentioned properly before and it's relevant to Spell Control - Adan has dropped the previous Driving-focused Exceptional Luck.]

Thanqol

2017-02-15, 10:58 PM

Adan aborts his little impromptu speech to faint swearing, and then aborts that to dodging this shadow which was so obviously dangerous he almost thought it might not be. Well, at least he didn't stop being wary of it at all but - adrenaline is running away with his thoughts a bit, now, but he hangs on to his spell, even as he bleeds Mana into himself to ensure that his entrails stay internal, thank you very much.
He'll trust to his friends to start working on the shadow, because he's honestly not sure what to do about it yet, but he does know what he wants to do about this Destiny while he still can.
(A small part of him also wants the spell to work out of plain spite. Someone wants to interfere in this Awakening so badly that they've got Sauron the shadow-monster here to enforce it? Fine, Montesquieu will tear it all back down to interaction between new Mage and the world.)

[Activating Fate Mage Armor for one mana. Current mana is 8/10, willpower is 5/6, defense is 9 and works against attacks which would otherwise be too fast to dodge. And currently I have 7 undamaged health, which I mention mostly because I think they're not likely to stay undamaged for long.
I am keeping the spell I was already casting - not only because I already rolled for it but also because of spite against this destiny/shadow/infohazard nonsense.
Also, as I hadn't mentioned properly before and it's relevant to Spell Control - Adan has dropped the previous Driving-focused Exceptional Luck.]

Well, the good news is that you managed to spit in the Devil's face. That Destiny was surely important to something in this plan and you've just slammed it with a Fraying spell. Now, Fraying isn't Unmaking and you can't just make this Destiny go away entirely but you can do a lot to a screw with it. What do you want to do, specifically? Change or remove the Ban? Remove a triggering condition? Prevent the Destiny from latching on to this guy and just leave it hanging around in the church? You can do basically anything to it which could be considered a degradation of it's function.

There is bad news. There is blood everywhere and there is pain like you could not believe. What's the worst pain Adan has ever felt? Is it in any way comparable to this?

[Attack: 18 dice. -9 for defense, 8,4,1,6,10,4,8,7,8 - 4 successes so mark down 4L damage. Also take the Beaten Down Condition - it wants you to flee in terror.

Power 9 Finesse 9 Resistance 6 Rank 3
Corpus (Health) 15
Defense 9

Spirits, man.]

You know how people often train in meditation using candles, because a flickering light is really easy to hold your gaze on? Observant Luis has it on easy mode to stick to the plan - but can't help being curious about the content. So speculations are going to bubble up in his brain, impressions are going to come through - all of which will get contained in the compressed .zip file pretty soon, whenever safe Luis wills it.

Which is, safe Luis decides, assessing the situation, right now. The hand dividing his face falls flat over one eye, and he swallows the memory like a condom full of heroin, ensconcing it in a secured undisclosed oneiric location. The only Luis left is "safe" - at least for the next second!

[2, 4, 9, 8, 1; ordinary success.]

Safe Luis comes back to his senses just in time to see Adan get his guts ripped open by a horrifying shadow monster. Welcome back!

Silent_Interim

2017-02-16, 01:58 AM

Irene blanches as the spirit rips Adan open. Almost without thinking, she braces herself to fight the thing. Brave? Bordering on stupidly so. Foolish? Most certainly. Within moments space is warping around her, hopefully shifting attacks away. She moves forward to interpose herself between it and Adan, fists raised to fight.

[Rolling initiative, with a bonus of +5. Rolled a 7, for initiative of 12.

Activating Space Mage Armor, adding 3 to Defense for a total of 10. Mana- 10/11. Spending a willpower to increase that by a further 2, for 12 defense, 4/5 willpower. Currently at 8 health, undamaged.

For spell control purposes, I think the slow-down on the dog has been dropped.]

The_Snark

2017-02-16, 07:08 AM

So the song itself is the famous Officium Defunctorum (https://youtu.be/FzSQfRg1yQo) - a 16th century Spanish requiem for the Empress, deeply associated with loss, mourning - and standardized across all of Catholicism at the Council of Trent, the famous Catholic summit that began the counter-reformation and kicked the Spanish Inquisition into high gear. It's a beautiful song about loss for the beginning of a long and bloody period.

But you got an exceptional success so you're super on point - enough to notice that the Latin on these sheets is wrong. The tune is right but the lyrics are insane, almost incoherent - and distinctive enough to successfully google if you're by any chance not familiar with Clutch (https://youtu.be/6o1pPE6l0Vo).

Camille's first thought is oh no, it's one of Irene's songs.

But there's no time to lament the newly Awakened's musical tastes, or wonder if the lyrics are his at all. The shadow is moving and oh goodness that's rather a lot of blood. Adan is still standing, at least. That much is good. But a gut wound can kill without ever rendering the victim senseless. She darts back to his side -

- but -

- the shadow monster is still there. Basic first aid: safety first, then treatment. Irene has taken it upon herself to interpose herself, but she looks awfully outmatched, less than half of the thing's height. Basic self-defense: if you're outmatched, don't fight fair. She needs an edge. It feels dangerous to use magic, here, standing almost inside the soul of a freshly-Awakened man - not just an intrusion but a violation. And her strongest spells are also the ones most likely to spark conflict.

If Adan is right, though, this thing is an intruder too. And she does need that edge. Camille narrows her eyes, grips the knife she favors to guide her spells, and Looks at the shadow - not its physical substance (or lack thereof), nor whatever it has that passes for a soul or a spirit, but at losses and wounds yet to come. There is no Death in the Aether, but it is here in potentia nevertheless. It's everywhere. There is nothing that does not carry within it the shadow of its own death, the possibility that one day it could end; not men, not monsters, not gods. She has only to look for that shadow, like the ripples made by a stone cast into the water, but in reverse. Old wounds, points of weakness, signs of fear. Ways she could hurt it.

Ways she could kill it.

[Camille's initiative: [roll0] She's going to use a Knowing of Death to see if it has any weaknesses she could exploit - Ban/Bane, vulnerability to bright light, whatever. Base dice pool is 4, using Concentration as a Yantra for +2, taking -2 to boost Potency from 3 to 4 in case this is withstood (the Spirit spell for figuring out bans/banes is, by Rank). Spending a free Reach for instant casting.

[roll1] 2 successes.]

Matthias

2017-02-17, 03:45 PM

Sometimes, we are wise.

Wisdom cannot really be reduced to an enumerable number of protocols - it is far too attentive to context, to the complex lessons of imperfect people and the inelegant truths won by experience. But there are, if not rules, ruling principles.

Principles like: you should stop and consider the consequences of your actions, especially when your actions are ones of destruction.

Or: certain spaces are in a somewhat spooky but nevertheless (or, to the Awakened, just obviously) real, sacred, and actions within those spaces should respect its rules, rather than work against them.

Or: rules in general that you don't understand are often there for a reason.

Or: if another kid on the schoolyard is a lot bigger than you, you should probably challenge him by some means other than banging your tiny little child fists against his mighty thews.

Sometimes, it is easier to be wise than it might be otherwise. When you have time to prepare. When you create a set of protocols that can be adhered to, so that your only job is "follow this recipe," and yes, there are situations where that is very unwise as well, but let's lead that aside for right now. When a certain amount of sangfroid (not too high, either) is brought to bear. For instance, when you encounter an infohazard, and have discussed with similarly professional friends about the best way to handle things like that, and you crush it like a boss.

And then there are times when you wake up and your best friend is getting eviscerated by some kind of demon or whatever the ****, and maybe you could have done something, hard to say, you were too busy being Wise.

Luis Awakened to and through heroin withdrawal and a dead girlfriend. Like a lot of Mastigos Awakenings, it involved a lot of pain - in Fallen terms, his bloodstream and nervous system making constant queries and responding with negative feedback when something they'd expected wasn't there - but unlike a lot of Mastigos, he doesn't wear it as a badge of pride. It mostly just kind of sucked. And hey! It turns out that coming and seeing the person you care most about writhing in what might be death spasms in a completely different context is remarkably redolent of the first time!

Within three-quarters of a second, Luis feels these things all over his body, decides that he does not want to feel them, and launches them at the monstrous shadow.

[Fraying of Mind. 2 Gnosis + 3 Mind - (2 * 5) potency increase = dice pool of -5. One (free) Reach to cast at Instant speed; one (paradoxical) reach to cast at visible range; one Mana, added by the small responsible part of his mind, to douse the Abyss. One and three-by-five potency = 16 bashing damage. This is, frankly, me dealing with a lot of rules for the first time, but I believe any other modifiers aside it comes to a change die for the spell and a chance die for the Paradox.]

Matthias

2017-02-17, 06:56 PM

[Chance die for casting the spell: 8
Paradox dice (absorbed): 2=>3, 5=>4
Wisdom: 6

a bit anticlimactic for such a terrible idea!]

aetherialDawn

2017-02-19, 01:07 AM

Well, the good news is that you managed to spit in the Devil's face. That Destiny was surely important to something in this plan and you've just slammed it with a Fraying spell. Now, Fraying isn't Unmaking and you can't just make this Destiny go away entirely but you can do a lot to a screw with it. What do you want to do, specifically? Change or remove the Ban? Remove a triggering condition? Prevent the Destiny from latching on to this guy and just leave it hanging around in the church? You can do basically anything to it which could be considered a degradation of it's function.
Adan is trying to degrade the effect's power - filling in the path through fate that the Destiny leaves, and damaging the lowercase-pattern while it's not attached to (or rather, part of) a living, resistant uppercase-Pattern yet. Reducing its Potency or rating, in other words.
If I've misunderstood, then I'll go with preventing it from latching on to anyone currently in the church (So - not us, not the Sleepers, not the new Mage) - it can be disassembled in detail later, when there's time to figure out how to do it right, assuming Adan survives to do so.

There is bad news. There is blood everywhere and there is pain like you could not believe. What's the worst pain Adan has ever felt? Is it in any way comparable to this?
The largest part of Adan's awareness is pain, in the form of a sort of sickly, deep heat. This is the worst physical pain he has ever felt; in the moment it certainly seems like the worst pain of any sort he's ever felt, but the awareness of the pain pushes out most of those sorts of comparisons.
A smaller, slightly detached part is thinking about how this aching burn of deep pain means that he's not seeing things - his torso is wounded deeply and this is, to be honest, probably the closest he's ever come to death. Maybe Camille will see something interesting there... he probably shouldn't have thought that, it's unkind.
A yet smaller part of his awareness - something primal and instinctive - is already prodding his body into backing up, haltingly. Don't taunt the spirit (though if he's going to go out, spiting some Destiny seems fair enough, maybe... No, not really.) Behind him is his friends - safety, support, the people he wants to retreat with... or... maybe, is willing to stick by if they won't retreat. That last thought doesn't really cross his mind just now, though - he's thinking of retreat.

[And finally - Initiative comes out to 7.]

Thanqol

2017-02-19, 08:57 PM

Initiative 8+15 = 23

Irene blanches as the spirit rips Adan open. Almost without thinking, she braces herself to fight the thing. Brave? Bordering on stupidly so. Foolish? Most certainly. Within moments space is warping around her, hopefully shifting attacks away. She moves forward to interpose herself between it and Adan, fists raised to fight.

[Rolling initiative, with a bonus of +5. Rolled a 7, for initiative of 12.

Activating Space Mage Armor, adding 3 to Defense for a total of 10. Mana- 10/11. Spending a willpower to increase that by a further 2, for 12 defense, 4/5 willpower. Currently at 8 health, undamaged.

For spell control purposes, I think the slow-down on the dog has been dropped.]

The creature looks at you and actually seems impressed. It flows back and forth quickly, once, twice, testing your defenses and reflexes. It hesitates, playfully, for just a moment - and then extends a huge spider-limb like a whip cracking and there is an explosion of thunder and light and smoke and you see your death clearly visible and coming right at you in the form of an exploding wall of fire -

You are so incredibly lucky that Space Armour allows you to apply your defense against firearm attacks.

The wall of the church explodes outwards, shattering the stained glass and sending shards of wood spraying all over the carpark. Windows break and car alarms start to wail and the sleepers are panicking, silent song forgotten. The car that caught the brunt of its attack is now a burned out husk, almost torn in two. You are only grazed, blood and burns all along your right side.

If anything the nightmarish creature looks more impressed, rotating around so its burning red eye can look at you from different angles, curiosity tempering its rage.

[Take 3L damage and consider yourself lucky. It's choosing not to apply the Beaten Down condition on you specifically.]

- the shadow monster is still there. Basic first aid: safety first, then treatment. Irene has taken it upon herself to interpose herself, but she looks awfully outmatched, less than half of the thing's height. Basic self-defense: if you're outmatched, don't fight fair. She needs an edge. It feels dangerous to use magic, here, standing almost inside the soul of a freshly-Awakened man - not just an intrusion but a violation. And her strongest spells are also the ones most likely to spark conflict.

If Adan is right, though, this thing is an intruder too. And she does need that edge. Camille narrows her eyes, grips the knife she favors to guide her spells, and Looks at the shadow - not its physical substance (or lack thereof), nor whatever it has that passes for a soul or a spirit, but at losses and wounds yet to come. There is no Death in the Aether, but it is here in potentia nevertheless. It's everywhere. There is nothing that does not carry within it the shadow of its own death, the possibility that one day it could end; not men, not monsters, not gods. She has only to look for that shadow, like the ripples made by a stone cast into the water, but in reverse. Old wounds, points of weakness, signs of fear. Ways she could hurt it.

Ways she could kill it.

[Camille's initiative: [roll0] She's going to use a Knowing of Death to see if it has any weaknesses she could exploit - Ban/Bane, vulnerability to bright light, whatever. Base dice pool is 4, using Concentration as a Yantra for +2, taking -2 to boost Potency from 3 to 4 in case this is withstood (the Spirit spell for figuring out bans/banes is, by Rank). Spending a free Reach for instant casting.

[roll1] 2 successes.]

Sure, even though it's not a ghost I can totally buy a Death spell to lean Banes specifically. And while it's not a ghost it does have a powerful association with both Death and Matter - not in an Awakened sense, but its form is deeply woven through with influence from Stygia. It doesn't have the alien vigor a Moros might associate with a Spirit from the Shadow; it's something stranger.

Its bane is inconveniently specific: rounds from an anti-tank rifle. Heck knows where you're going to find those, they haven't been in use since WW2.

[Chance die for casting the spell: 8
Paradox dice (absorbed): 2=>3, 5=>4
Wisdom: 6

a bit anticlimactic for such a terrible idea!]

Your mind simply isn't capable of articulating the extent of that suffering. It flows forwards and back, too deeply emotional to convert to an imago. To cast a spell you have to be able to clearly, flawlessly visualize the reality you wish to have occur and this memory is just too powerful to callously wish upon another.

Adan is trying to degrade the effect's power - filling in the path through fate that the Destiny leaves, and damaging the lowercase-pattern while it's not attached to (or rather, part of) a living, resistant uppercase-Pattern yet. Reducing its Potency or rating, in other words.
If I've misunderstood, then I'll go with preventing it from latching on to anyone currently in the church (So - not us, not the Sleepers, not the new Mage) - it can be disassembled in detail later, when there's time to figure out how to do it right, assuming Adan survives to do so.

'Reducing potency' isn't really coherent here; removing its ability to connect to things seems more valuable to you. Incidentally this will mean that the Destiny is going to be stuck here in the Church and will likely attach to the structure itself in lieu of the ability to interact with people. What that means is unknown and probably really interesting.

The_Snark

2017-02-19, 11:18 PM

With insight comes a kind of calm. The frantic babble of near-panic and adrenaline running through her mind subsides as she glimpses the Supernal, leaving limpid clarity in its wake. There - barely present beneath Stygian resonance, the violent surges of death-in-potentia being thrown at Irene, and the stains of murders past which suffuse the monster's aura - is the echo of its own ending.

Clarity, however, is not the same as reassurance. She knows how to kill the thing. She also knows that it isn't going to happen today.

Camille releases the spell. As her detachment fades, she wonders what sort of spirit this is, to demand that level of violence. Some monster out of last century's wars? Something born from - no, not the time to speculate. Hello, adrenaline, nice to see you again too. If she gets out of this, she promises herself, she's going to hunt down Bavieca and make him put her through the live-fire exercises again. By punching him in the face, if that's what it takes.

She seizes Adan's shoulder. (He's not actually dying, she notes with a mixture of relief and disappointment. The wound looks bad, but save for the small chance of infection it's not threatening his life.) "Adan, we need luck, now."

Matthias

2017-02-20, 01:18 PM

Luis reels from the pain. He deserves this and knows he deserves it. But Adan doesn't. So the fallout of one stupidly self-destructive action only strengthens his resolve to approach with a different one. He forces his body to move, running through the pews; overturning a torchère, stealing sheet music and throwing it randomly.

"Ey, pendejo! Chingame!," he screams at the shadow. "Look, I'm interrupting!" He turn to the Awakening man. "Ey, Padre! Haven't you heard the Really Good News? God is dead and we will carve Hieraconis from His rotting corpse!" He turns to the shadow again, taking advantage of his lack of pants to make an especially rude gesture at it.

aetherialDawn

2017-02-21, 05:05 AM

'Reducing potency' isn't really coherent here; removing its ability to connect to things seems more valuable to you. Incidentally this will mean that the Destiny is going to be stuck here in the Church and will likely attach to the structure itself in lieu of the ability to interact with people. What that means is unknown and probably really interesting.
Adan severs the hooks and paths which would allow the Destiny to attach to a person here - it will linger, but not in this form, and its path and Doom will not fall upon some unsuspecting person. Not directly, and not now, at least. He would have been able to keep studying and fraying it as he liked - with this shadow-violence-spirit, he'll only get to do that if he's very lucky. (A very, very tiny part of Adan spares a fleeting thought for postcognition, but he might not want to even watch this bit of his life again. It's not a good bit.)

In a much more immediate sense, though, Adan focuses on just breathing in, and breathing out, trying to form some sort of stability for himself through the dull, deep pain that flares all too hot and bright in his awareness with any movement. Even if he's been spared actual death right now, fear is coming in fully, and an edge of real panic; this isn't what he signed up for... Or really, this is what he gets for meddling in secrets and magic. It's that thought, really, that allows him to center himself; in a sense he did sign up for this, invite this wetly-bleeding wound into his life, and that leads his adrenaline-sparking mind back around to focus and to doing something about it.

Camille's words help to channel that further into something useful. He wants to flee, still, but with someone else's words to focus on he can work on doing so usefully. He isn't ready, yet, to find out what his voice will sound like in the state he's in, so he reaches out wordlessly, thinks of pulling strands of safety and luck and empowering them, wrapping them around himself and his friends, giving them the strength to offer opportunities and nudges that wouldn't have otherwise come to fruition. He doesn't dare close his eyes, watching the spirit like he might any unpredictable, lethal predator. In his mind, his hands are swift because otherwise they would be shaking as his physical hands are, and in both reality and his Imago he works through the Rote motions of weaving - sometimes the old images are easiest - and the strands of Fate he pulls from thin air are faint gleams of gold. His Nimbus flares anew, more stable with the long practice of this particular trick, and in the double-vision of it Adan is glad for a the faint disconnection from his current circumstances.

[Ruling of Fate through Adan's Exceptional Luck Rote. Reach goes to Instant Casting, Advanced Scale, Advanced Duration, Sensory Range. Base dice pool is Gnosis 1+Fate 3+Yantra 3, using a Mudra Yantra to add Occult and really I ought to have remembered that Rotes can use Mudras last time. Whoops! Base Potency is 3, the targets are Adan, Camille, Luis, and Irene, and the Boons are the Charmed Condition and two Potency towards an Athletics dice boost - since that's what Adan uses for defense. (That means you can get +2 to an Athletics action, two times. Charmed, as before, can be activated to reduce the damage of an attack to 1 - or to get an unpredictable shift in luck that will tilt things in your favor.) Hamete gives me 2, 10->5, 8, 9, 4, 8, 10->8 in that order.
Does the Athletics boost work on passive Defense, or only on the Defend action? I could see it going either way - in Adan's headspace, he would choose this regardless, especially as it can help with the actual fleeing if we do that.]

The_Snark

2017-02-22, 05:29 AM

Thanqol

2017-02-23, 10:55 PM

Somewhere in the background, Camille hears Luis shouting - probably doing something stupid, although given that he's moving away from the shadow-monster and she's not, perhaps she shouldn't point fingers - but can't spare the attention to watch him, because she's too busy eyeing the creature. Its failure to crush Irene seems to have made it... hesitant isn't the right word, that would imply fear and while its visage is opaque. she can't imagine that simply not dying is enough to scare it. Attentive? Yes, that sounds about right. Good, becase as long as its single eye is fixed on Irene, it isn't watching her -

- and as the shadow's circling takes it closer to Camille, she darts forward, one hand clutching a can of pepperspray, and does her best to spritz the thing in the eye before grabbing Irene. "You're not winning this one, we need to go!"

Then she bolts for the missing wall, leaving a capsaicin-laced haze in her wake to deter pursuit.

[Pepperspray! This is a Dex+Athletics roll, +1 for equipment and +2 from Adan's boon and +3 because I'm spending another point of Willpower; 15 dice - 9 defense = [roll0]
9-again turns up nothing, so looks like 1 success. On a hit, the thing gets the Stunned Tilt, and takes a -5 penalty to all actions; the latter sticks around until it can rinse its eye out somehow. Or magic it out.]

It turns out that supernatural shadow demon monster things are not actually immune to pepper spray. Who knew?

The monster doesn't make any sound but it does recoil, sheltering in behind itself and shaping itself into a defensive ball of razor sharp iron spikes. It begins boiling with veins of red-hot fury all along its surface - and to those of you with any sort of supernatural senses that might give you any hint of impending violence those are going off right now.

You've got about three seconds. Either start running or do something that'll let you live through a combat round with this thing.

Matthias

2017-02-24, 11:43 AM

Luis bolts from the center of the Church like the devil at a baptism, dragging Frau Kottman along for the ride if she hasn't started moving by the time he passes her. He would wonder if he ought have pilfered a whisker from the lector' beard, but terror has a way of concentrating the mind.

aetherialDawn

2017-02-24, 02:03 PM

Adan flees as well; by the time he can spare a thought to wonder if the shadowy, malevolent 'guard' is smart enough not to injure the new Mage, he's already too far away to do anything about it except perhaps wish he'd extended the strands of luck he gathered to them as well...

Silent_Interim

2017-02-28, 02:02 AM

Ringing. That was Irene's world for a few brief, excruciatingly long moments. Searing pain, all down her side. Not as bad as it might have been... but bad, very bad.

Slowly, awareness. Camille, spraying the eye of the spirit. Luis, hand on her shoulder, dragging her along.

Irene mumbles. "Need to keep track of him." Luis apparently doesn't hear her. Fine. She'd do this herself.

[Using Knowing of Space on the fledgling Mage to maintain a lock on his location. Reach for Instant Casting, Sensory Range and Advanced Duration. Dice pool is Gnosis 2+Space 3=5 dice. Two free steps for one week of duration. Rolls are 1,5,4,5,10>7. Normal success, Irene will have awareness of the subject's whereabouts for the next week.]

Thanqol

2017-03-01, 04:42 PM

aetherialDawn

2017-03-02, 03:14 AM

Since you're not making any hostile actions (that it seems capable of perceiving) the monster seems content to let you run. It looms in the door of the church, obscuring sight towards anything inside, staring after you as you pile in to the car.

What do you do, where to next?

Adan - does not relax, his fear and pain aren't gone. But in the car, he'a content to try and brace himself for the coming journey, hopefully a less bumpy one than the ride in was - just thinking about the sharp bursts of pain from doing that again in this state seems to hurt physically.
He's not contributing directly to the decision, except insofar as he's not offering any clever ideas.

Silent_Interim

2017-03-05, 02:09 PM

Regaining some semblance of coherent awareness and thought, Irene shakes herself from her daze. "We should go get help. Talk to somebody. Diego, maybe, or the cabal."

The_Snark

2017-03-06, 06:49 AM

Camille runs. For a few seconds this is pretty much all she does; anything else would be a distraction she doesn't know how close the thing is but looking back is a terrible idea -

She reaches Luis's beat-up old car, and then she looks back; it'd be faster in the long run, but if the thing is right on their heels then no amount of speed in the near future will be worth a few seconds' delay right now. Unless one of them can stall the thing, but if it's shaken off the capsaicin and whatever the others tried to do... But no; it's standing guard in the church's newly made doorway. Okay. That gives them a few seconds, at least.

"Does anyone know what the f*ck is happening in there? All I could tell before that thing tried to kill us was that the singing was wrong."

Silent_Interim

2017-03-06, 06:07 PM

"Somebody in Paris has a vested interest in things here." Irene puts a hand to the burns on the side of her face, hissing and pulling her hand away. "That light on the ceiling. Led to Paris. Wrote down the address in my journal. At a guess, whoever was on the other end set up that connection. Probably put that spirit there, too."

aetherialDawn

2017-03-06, 06:52 PM

Adan takes a careful breath before speaking. He's trying to sort out his own memories properly, but a clear question? He can probably answer.
"Some sort of big Fate - clunky - in the church. Baiting someone - religion and then madness. I-" He takes a moment to not swear, more out of habit than actual respect. The 'it's someone else's Awakening' feeling has worn very thin indeed with a nasty torso wound, "I screwed it up, though. Kind of. Finish smashing things, get to the cabal, hand off?"
Some of the... connecting ideas are maybe a little less careful than the way Adan would normally choose to explain things, but he's pretty sure it all got across.

Adan stares, a little, at the driver's seat. He could drive - the logical part of him says he really could, but that part of him is getting shouted down right now as he just... leans on the car. Just thinking about driving right now makes him recoil. Heck, even being driven conjures the phantom pains of no, bumpy road, Aetherial speeds, just no but having the spirit in his peripheral vision is enough motivation to ignore his foresight there.

Thanqol

2017-03-06, 06:56 PM

Adan stares, a little, at the driver's seat. He could drive - the logical part of him says he really could, but that part of him is getting shouted down right now as he just... leans on the car. Just thinking about driving right now makes him recoil. Heck, even being driven conjures the phantom pains of no, bumpy road, Aetherial speeds, just no but having the spirit in his peripheral vision is enough motivation to ignore his foresight there.

On this topic, at least, a conclusion seems to be occurring - the nimbus is folding in on itself; the magic is draining and condensing and ebbing away from a suburb-wide apocalypse. The structure of the magic here is withdrawing into the church, and then, into the new Mage himself. Normality is staggering out into the street with a hell of a hangover and Quiescence clears the minds of the Sleepers. The road should be mostly safe from here.

Matthias

2017-03-06, 09:01 PM

Thanqol

2017-03-06, 09:14 PM

Luis expertly fumbles through the friendly terrain of the car seats - right beneath a shirt from two weeks ago, shattered bong, and waterlogged copy of On the Dignity of Man - and pulls out a pair of binoculars. Binocular. The left lens works.

[Mage Sight.]

"Should we try saying hi to him again? Assuming he walks away from the security detail and ran out of quarters for the long-distance call, I mean."

Space/Prime: This whole event has badly weakened the dimensional fabric around the church - something that's always in danger of fraying in Salamanca. Give this a day or two and you reckon an Iris will form around here somewhere.

Cross referencing with a colleague's Fatesight will indicate that the destination of the portal will be heavily influenced by the Destiny that's now hanging empty on the church and is now the dominant supernatural effect in the region. If you were to more strongly affix the Destiny to the structure of the church (and thereby widen the Iris so that it causes a clashing dimensional overlap over the entire area) then there's an Arcane XP for observing the effects.

The_Snark

2017-03-06, 09:29 PM

"I could kill the lights," Camille offers. "I do not think I can do anything about a destiny. Maybe if I could see it."

aetherialDawn

2017-03-10, 05:14 AM

Silent_Interim

2017-03-12, 01:01 AM

Irene tentatively puts a hand to one of the larger cuts on the side of her face, hissing and withdrawing her hand immediately. "It hasn't followed us out to the car. That's got to be a good sign, right?"

aetherialDawn

2017-03-12, 03:35 AM

Adan frowns for a moment, thinking...

But really, Montesquieu is the right Name for this - self-control, observation, repercussions... and distant, or as distant as he can manage right now. Distance from this mess sounds good. Distance will let him get a better perspective, and start nudging towards a better path. He reaches out to investigate the threads of the future - looking for common ones, possible ones, ones that might actually start to enter the present - and trying to catch any glimpses of rushing shadows, new wounds, panicked fleeing... He doesn't want anyyone to be blindsided again, and this seems like a good thing to start sorting for.

[Knowing of Time, searching for whether that shadow-spirit-thing will be attacking us within the next ten seconds or so. One Reach for Instant casting, one Reach because that's more spells than I have Gnosis (kind of regret not going for Gnosis 2 now, oh well.) Dicepool before any other modifiers is Gnosis 1 + Time 2 + Persona Yantra 1. I'm a little unhappy with how I integrated the Persona as a Yantra, but I'll keep working on that.
Hamete says: 7, 6, 3, 8]

Thanqol

2017-03-12, 08:05 AM

Adan closes his eyes for a few moments, and says, "Please kill that light for him, then - just, lets get in the car first in case Security gets violent again."

He considers Reaching carefully for something prophetic, but - right now, smashing things and keeping enough good luck wrapped around everyone to get home safe is more important.

Speaking of smashing, though - he is responsible for some of that. Adan opens his eyes to look at the church he let the Destiny sink into, and then really looks at it, at how Destiny is falling into place after he kicked out a leg of it.

[Just Mage Sight, for now. Depending on what that gets me maybe I will have better ideas for what to ask Time about. Can't be all Fate, after all.]

Nothing more than what you already know with those senses. To get more information on the Destiny you'll need to do full on research and experimentation (there's a lot of questions there - who made it? How?) but it's all a bit reliant on having time and uninterrupted access.

Adan frowns for a moment, thinking...

But really, Montesquieu is the right Name for this - self-control, observation, repercussions... and distant, or as distant as he can manage right now. Distance from this mess sounds good. Distance will let him get a better perspective, and start nudging towards a better path. He reaches out to investigate the threads of the future - looking for common ones, possible ones, ones that might actually start to enter the present - and trying to catch any glimpses of rushing shadows, new wounds, panicked fleeing... He doesn't want anyyone to be blindsided again, and this seems like a good thing to start sorting for.

[Knowing of Time, searching for whether that shadow-spirit-thing will be attacking us within the next ten seconds or so. One Reach for Instant casting, one Reach because that's more spells than I have Gnosis (kind of regret not going for Gnosis 2 now, oh well.) Dicepool before any other modifiers is Gnosis 1 + Time 2 + Persona Yantra 1. I'm a little unhappy with how I integrated the Persona as a Yantra, but I'll keep working on that.
Hamete says: 7, 6, 3, 8]

In the short term there's a lot of danger. You think that the communication between the new Mage and the lens thing finishes up in about thirty seconds, after which he's going to come outside. Time doesn't guarantee a bad outcome if you confront him there but there are a lot of branching possibility threads where things go badly wrong. The common theme you're seeing in your visions is that the guy tries a spell and it either goes bad or succeeds way too well.

Not uncommon. Newly Awakened Mages tend to Reach way beyond what's safe. The catch is that most of them don't have murderous shadow monsters haunting them who'll respond violently to an unknown set of triggers - and that's not even getting into what he's being programmed with.

You will be able to try to have a conversation with him if you try the introduction you attempted before again, it's just got a lot more ways to go wrong than right.

"I could kill the lights," Camille offers. "I do not think I can do anything about a destiny. Maybe if I could see it."

You can't kill a destiny with Death, that's a bit of a non sequitur because destinies don't 'die'. However you can make the Destiny accelerate towards its final stage - i.e. the late-stage madness and death bit - with just Death Ruling.

Matthias

2017-03-13, 10:19 AM

Luis pieces through the car dunnage again, picking up a frisbee, flyer for an event he meant to attend two years ago, scotch tape, and lavender sharpie. He starts penning down the number of a burner.

"Any objections to taking this to another channel?" he asks his compañeros. "Xeno, can he blow up my brain or whatever if I toss him this?"

Silent_Interim

2017-03-13, 03:42 PM

"On the off-chance he knows what he's doing? Probably not. A phone number is a weak enough connection that you'll be fine." Irene scowls at the church. "I'm all for getting out of here, if that's what we have in mind."

Matthias

2017-03-13, 08:36 PM

"Yeah, let's vamanos!" He tosses the frisbee, and, only as it careens away from him, does it occur to hope that the great umbral angel doesn't perceive it as a threat. "If I forgot any pressing business we have here, speak now or forever hold your peace!" He jumps in, turns the ignition.

"Because I am going to make this car leave!," he says, attempting to get the car to start.

"A thing that is going to happen extremely soon!" Damn, what he'd give for a bit of heaven down here... A promising rumble! "Got it, I think!"

The_Snark

2017-03-14, 03:02 AM

It's the sight of that shrinking window into another realm that decides Camille. There's an entire world of light and thunder and fury there, deflating - no, not deflating, that implies a lessening; compressed, that's the word she wants - compressing itself into the space of a single man's soul. It's nothing like the Supernal that she remembers glimpsing, it might not be to her aesthetic tastes, but it's... something, and seeing it crushed down like this is sad. For a moment, she can sympathize with those Mages who resent the physical world, see it as nothing but a prison. It makes her want to do something.

(Besides, when is she going to get another chance to poke at the Aether? Opportunities like this don't come every day.)

"I'm going to kill the lights," she says decisively. "Luis, get ready to step on it, if this does mess anything up that spirit might come after us again."

She twists to look back at the church, past the spirit and into the still-lit interior. Envisions the spell in her mind, a sort of intangible snuffing-out visible only by what it leaves behind. Motion stilled; warmth drained away; light faded. Entirely opposite to (what she understands of) the realm of the Golden Key. Then she casts it out into the world, straight into that shrinking bubble of Aether. And watches.

[Using a Ruling of Death to knock out the electricity in the building, hopefully severing the communication-via-blinking-light. One free Reach for instant casting time, one for sensory range, and an extra non-free Reach for advanced scale. Paradox starts at one, might be boosted for witnesses? But is then reduced to a chance die by the use of a dedicated Tool. Paradox roll in the OOC turned up no successes. Spellcasting roll: [roll0]]

Thanqol

2017-03-14, 10:46 PM

The power goes out in the building and the shadow monster surges furiously.

Fortunately for you it doesn't seem to have any idea that you were responsible - it whips around to look at the power cables and does a circuit of the building like oil and murder. But pretty quickly, in absence of other targets, it is going to try and blow up your car just on the off chance that it was you.

I would like a wits+drive roll to get out of the line of fire before that happens, no modifiers.

Matthias

2017-03-15, 09:09 AM

Silent_Interim

2017-03-15, 11:06 PM

Irene sits bolt upright in her seat. "Godsdamn! I am going to hunt down that thing's Bane and murder the **** out of it!"

Thanqol

2017-03-16, 12:07 AM

Luis catches looming beast linger on them for a second before it strikes and - trusting that Adan, only halfway into the car, can manage - floors it.

[Wits (3) + Drive (1) + Willpower (3) = [10=>6][10=>3][1][6][1][2] = 2 successes]

You're off to the races, down the road, free and clear. It doesn't look like you're being pursued so you've got a free path to wherever you're going, traffic cops aside.

aetherialDawn

2017-03-16, 01:32 AM

<Mage Sight>
Nothing more than what you already know with those senses. To get more information on the Destiny you'll need to do full on research and experimentation (there's a lot of questions there - who made it? How?) but it's all a bit reliant on having time and uninterrupted access.

<Knowing of Time>
In the short term there's a lot of danger. You think that the communication between the new Mage and the lens thing finishes up in about thirty seconds, after which he's going to come outside. Time doesn't guarantee a bad outcome if you confront him there but there are a lot of branching possibility threads where things go badly wrong. The common theme you're seeing in your visions is that the guy tries a spell and it either goes bad or succeeds way too well.

Not uncommon. Newly Awakened Mages tend to Reach way beyond what's safe. The catch is that most of them don't have murderous shadow monsters haunting them who'll respond violently to an unknown set of triggers - and that's not even getting into what he's being programmed with.

You will be able to try to have a conversation with him if you try the introduction you attempted before again, it's just got a lot more ways to go wrong than right.

Adan takes a slow breath and starts sharing what he Saw, but things are moving too quickly for he to properly marshal himself. And - that's okay, really, because decisions got made more or less as he would have wanted things anyway; why complain?
He tumbles the rest of the way into the car - 'jostling open wounds' rate underneath 'angry shadow monster has been roused' on what influences his decision-making, and he's far more interested in getting away right now.

After a few seconds of driving and collecting himself, he starts sharing properly, "I didn't see cutting the lights, so take this all as a 'maybe' - but I didn't see the shadow monster coming after the new Mage, I usually saw his first spell fizzling or blowing up, and... there weren't many good outcomes for us staying. Irene, give me a little distance, and a little, heh, Time and - can I help you blast that thing out of our misery?" He pauses, and switches gears a little, so glad that this ride is less bumpy than the last, "Hey, Camille... Anything you can do for me until we're somewhere safe? I like my blood inside." He feels like he's being a little flippant, but since it's making him feel a little better - he ignores that.

The_Snark

2017-03-16, 06:36 PM

"Of course. Hold still - Luis, that means you should try not to hit too many potholes while I'm doing this." Camille reaches forward to put a hand on Adan's shoulder, bringing to mind the words she'll want to use here... oh. Adan himself could help her more than any tool or rite. "Spell me for luck?"

aetherialDawn

2017-03-16, 06:54 PM

Adan nods, adding, "The ride is already smoother at mundane speeds. And, ah... Of course, Camille."
He closes his eyes, his own hands coming up and the same faint gleam of gold-off-invisible-thread rising between them as he starts imagining what he wants to do and directing them around Camille in careful patterns. The spell sinks further into the world than he normally reaches for, past mundane and into magic. Ease the way for Camille's own magic - making a channel to stay away from distractions, smooth away all the little jagged bits of the mundane world that might normally impede her magical focus, the Rote he's weaving wrapping around her own spell to aid it.

[Exceptional Luck Rote; Ruling of Fate. Using the Occult mudra as a Yantra, of course. Four free Reach; two to affect spellcasting, one for Instant casting, one for spell control. Spending two dice to increase the Duration, free Potency is 3 to create a Boon that gives Steadfast, Inspired, and +1 dice for casting spells for the next two turns. Assuming all goes well, the dicepool is Gnosis 1+Fate 3+Yantra 3-Duration 2 for five dice, which Hamete says are 4, 7, 10>2, 7, 6.]

The_Snark

2017-03-16, 07:47 PM

And Camille speaks, a stern injunction to Adan's body delivered in High Speech: not commanding it to knit itself back together, that's beyond her power, but rather instructing it to listen to her will. Heart: beat as she wishes. Blood: flow where she wills. Flesh: move in accord with his every thought. And so on. She doesn't understand quite what Adan's blessing is doing for her, but experience tells her that it works, and so she pushes her limits, building the Imago past what she would ordinarily risk.

It doesn't feel like much of anything, though the signs are there if one pays close attention. His wounds have stopped bleeding entirely. His pulse is slow and steady. He's no longer breathing hard (and won't need to, unless he strains himself well beyond what his body could normally do).

"It is done. You should be recovered by tomorrow - come see me if you aren't." She sits back. "So. What is our next step? I think the shadow spirit will have to wait; I saw its Bane, but I do not how to get my hands on it without robbing a military base."

[Body Control rote, adding High Speech as a second Yantra. 4 free Reach - one for instant casting, one for advanced duration, two to allow the spell to affect lethal damage. Base Gnosis+Life is 3, plus 6 for the mudra Yantra, plus 2 for High Speech = 11. Taking a -10 penalty to boost the spell's Potency to 6. Using Steadfast to succeed on the roll and Inspired to regain a point of Willpower. Duration is one day: during that time, Adan's natural healing rates are one-sixth normal (one point of lethal every 8 hours, one point of bashing every couple minutes), he gets +6 Initiative, and his metabolism is generally faster/more efficient by a factor of 6.]

Thanqol

2017-03-16, 07:51 PM

"It is done. You should be recovered by tomorrow - come see me if you aren't." She sits back. "So. What is our next step? I think the shadow spirit will have to wait; I saw its Bane, but I do not how to get my hands on it without robbing a military base."

More like antiques store. Tank armour evolved to beat out anti-tank rifles in the 50s and they haven't seen use in a warzone since Korea.

Matthias

2017-03-16, 10:34 PM

"It is done. You should be recovered by tomorrow - come see me if you aren't." She sits back. "So. What is our next step? I think the shadow spirit will have to wait; I saw its Bane, but I do not how to get my hands on it without robbing a military base."

"I can think of five things. One, wait for him to contact us, if he so chooses. Two, decrypt the message," he says, tapping his cranium. "Three, do our homework on that French outfit. Four, report to the Department Chair. Five, cervezas y ramen."

Silent_Interim

2017-03-17, 06:36 PM

"The first of those, we have no control over. Two sounds like your job, and three sounds like a job for someone with internet. I'll write down the address somewhere for whoever wants to do that. I am in no state to be talking to anybody- this hurts like a son of a gun, and I want painkillers and bandages before I talk to he-who-shall-be-a-pretentious git." Irene crosses herself while rolling her eyes. "I can get behind getting wasted and finding some food, though."

aetherialDawn

2017-03-18, 08:19 PM

As Adan's breathing slows, he feels a little calmer as well, the last spikes of adrenaline smoothing out - a placebo, surely, since the spell itself feels like barely anything, but a welcome one.

"I will. Thanks, Camille."

He listens to the plans for the future, smiling a little at Luis's calm, comprehensive, slightly-irreverent ideas.

"If he doesn't contact us immediately... I can spend a little time trying to See when he's likely to contact us, and how. Maybe figure out his name. No promises. I'm not really... fit for walking around outside yet either. People would, ah, comment. I'm up for food and drink, if you all can bring some back for me." Probably a lot of food, actually, if he wants to be fixed in a single day.

Matthias

2017-03-19, 09:50 PM

Luis rolls the Renault into an apartment complex not far from campus - the sombre intellectual scents of pizza, booze, and mildewed books announce that this is graduate student housing. A few acquaintances greet Adan and Luis in the hallway, but it's mostly quiet right now.

Luis slides into his apartment - the door wasn't locked; he left in a hurry, and nobody who has a reason to hate or envy him would even be remotely deterred by a padlock - and makes a beeline for the fridge, tosses out cheap beer; grabs some rice and beans from the fridge. "One classic paella, coming right up!," he says, inaccurately, half to annoy the Valencian Luis and half to see if the foreigners object to his description. Whilst the water boils, he grabs and dons some sweatpants from his room, (magically?) scans his friends to see whose mental health would most benefit from conversation, and says to them:

"You know, it's actually a good thing this went so poorly, since I only had four beers in there, wouldn't want to be inhospitable to Padre, and certainly wouldn't want to go thirsty myself. He'd probably have gotten your beer. ¡Salud!" He taps cheers.

The_Snark

2017-03-20, 06:28 PM

"Yes, such a shame that would be." Camille gazes at her (unopened) beer with some distaste. She's no teetotaler, but nor does she drink casually; if she's going to flood her body with intoxicants, she'll do it properly, no half-measures. Moreover, she has standards when it comes to alcohol.

"I have good news and bad news for you, Irene. The good news is that I can do much better for you than any painkillers and bandages. The bad news is that it would amplify your metabolism, and I do not think Luis has enough beer to get you drunk in such a state." Is that a smirk on her face? Yes, yes it is.

aetherialDawn

2017-03-20, 10:17 PM

Adan waves a little in the hallway, mutters, "It's not nearly as bad as it looks, don't worry." and slips into Luis's apartment. On the one hand, he's deeply embarrassed to have been seen by people he doesn't really know that well in this sort of state... On the other hand, at least with Camille's magic and some time he can fake being perfectly fine well enough that people maybe won't question it.
Well, if he gets questions tomorrow then that's his own fault... Or rather, that shadow-monster's fault, really.

Adan has already managed to get a glass of water instead; the spell is already making him thirsty but he tries not to mix alcohol and magic. Still, he holds his glass up and says, "¡Salud! Keep mine in case he does call, Luis. Though, I have to hope he waits until I'm finished recovering from his guard dog."

After making sure he's not going to leave blood anywhere - and he owes Luis's car a thorough washing, even if Camille stopped the worst of it - Adan leans back in his seat, looking ceiling-wards and trying to sort his thoughts.

"Mmm." He pulls out his mirror, checking that the rough handling the shadow-monster gave him hasn't damaged it at all, and starts to almost idly check the future. "Just checking to make sure nobody bothers the police about me coming into your apartment looking halfway-murdered."

[Releasing the Exceptional Luck boons that gave us all an Athletics boost and Charmed, then casting Knowing of Time, searching for whether the police will be paying attention Luis or Adan within the next couple of days. One Reach for Instant casting, one Reach to get additional detail. Dicepool before any other modifiers is Gnosis 1 + Time 2 + Tool Yantra 1. Hamete says 4, 1, 6, 4. How do I handle a failure on a Time divination? Is it possible to just try again?]

Silent_Interim

2017-03-20, 10:44 PM

Thanqol

2017-03-20, 10:56 PM

Irene collapses onto Luis' ratty couch, covering her eyes. "Camille, you can be downright nasty when you put your mind to it, you know that?" She sits in silence for a moment, considering. "Fine. I'd rather be not burning with pain than blind drunk right now."

Irene stretches, then recoils as her body complains that she really shouldn't be exerting herself at all. "After that, I'm going to head home. Here," She pulls out her notebook, grabbing a loose paper from a nearby surface that doesn't look critically important to Luis, copying the address across. "This is the place in Paris- somebody give it a quick google?" She sets the paper down on the same place she grabbed it from.

It's a government building run by the French Department of Veterans Affairs. Ten floors, low-cut cubicles, not open to the public, some security but not Fort Knox or anything - it is, however, very close to a major airport and that is as high security as high security gets. If you're after something specific, like floor plans or network breaches or whatever, that is some kind of investigation or computers roll (or a summon-the-archangel-of-knowledge roll or something I'm not the boss of you).

The_Snark

2017-03-22, 03:46 PM

Irene collapses onto Luis' ratty couch, covering her eyes. "Camille, you can be downright nasty when you put your mind to it, you know that?" She sits in silence for a moment, considering. "Fine. I'd rather be not burning with pain than blind drunk right now."

"Yes, I know," Camille says, sounding a touch smug as she perches on the arm of the couch. "Adan, would you please help again? Probably I ought to have used one spell to cover you both, but done is done."

[Assuming Adan helps, Camille will cast an almost-identical Body Control spell on Irene; the only difference is that she has to spend an extra Reach to go above her spell control limit, meaning there's a Paradox die involved: [roll0] ]

(As she pushes the magic into the world there is a brief shock of vertigo, like taking a step and finding a downward stair where she expected level ground. Stupid, stupid. She should have taken the time to do this properly, instead of stretching herself because she was too lazy to undo her work on Adan. She clamps down hard on the spell, before it has any chance to twist into a new shape. The only outward sign is a moment of clumsiness, as she straightens up just a little too fast.)

"There you go. Now, since I am the only one of us both dressed and not covered in blood, I suppose I will go and speak to the Chair. Unless you want to tag along?" She arches an eyebrow at Luis.

Matthias

2017-03-22, 07:15 PM

"I've put in my hour of work for the week, so I'm good!" declares Luis, taking a swig. "Anybody want to help me decode this message? Codebreaking is play, of course, not work; I don't have the funding to put you down as RAs."

He notices a smart of pain on Camille's face. "You good?"

aetherialDawn

2017-03-22, 11:50 PM

Adan nods to Camille. "Happy to help. It's probably safe to drop the spell for long enough to re-cast it, but if you say so." He holds up his hands, pulling together the same not-quite-visible threads that always accompany the rote, placing a hand on Camille once he completes it.

That done, he turns to Luis - missing Camille's moment of smothered Paradox - and smiles a little bit, "Sure. I'm probably not fit to do anything outside until I look less like a... er, murder victim. Once we have some idea of what our Parisian friends were doing, I want to let the Cabal know early, though - we've got a new Mage running around with a dangerous guard..."
Adan pauses, and then says, "Actually, now that I've said it out loud? Let's tell people first. I don't really want to leave that spirit running around un-watched for longer than we have to. Does anyone have a good idea for how to figure out the new guy's name, and who we should tell first? This doesn't... I think at least the basic details - new Mage, dangerous spirit hanging around them, possibly targetted by someone - should go out tonight, not something left for the next meeting."

[Spell: Exceptional Luck rote. One reach for instant casting, two reach to affect spellcasting, one reach for advanced duration. Rote Mudra as Yantra. The effect is giving Steadfast, Inspired, and +1 die again. Gnosis 1+Fate 3+Yantra 3, which Hamete says is 9, 5, 8, 10>5, 8, 1, 7... Which is an exceptional success, actually! Not very dramatic, but there we are. I believe that gives me a willpower - back at 6/6 - and I'll choose to place a condition on Camille - that seems to fit the spell best.]

The_Snark

2017-03-23, 04:38 AM

He notices a smart of pain on Camille's face. "You good?"

"Yes, yes. I slipped a little, that's all." Camille slides off the couch, moving to the other side of the apartment for a flimsy semblance of privacy, and dials.

"Lyell here. We found the new Mage, but there is a complication."

Matthias

2017-03-25, 01:05 PM

With others doing their thing, Luis sits down, staring into his spoon, twisting it in his fingers towards and then away from it again, flashing light at him. He gets it into a rhythm, a bit of autohypnosis. Then he unspools the memory and starts to translate the flashed-out message from Paris, his hand taking up some automatic writing - like a tape, going from his brain to the flashing spoon to different parts of his brain to his hand to the paper.

[QADS unless you want more. 3 Mind + 2 Gnosis + 1 Yantra barring unforseen complications. Goal is simply to safely get the message out and translated.]

Thanqol

2017-03-25, 04:31 PM

"Yes, yes. I slipped a little, that's all." Camille slides off the couch, moving to the other side of the apartment for a flimsy semblance of privacy, and dials.

"Lyell here. We found the new Mage, but there is a complication."

"Opsec," says Nietzsche, who did not approve of telephones conceptually.

And then there's a time paradox. Anyone with Time or Prime 1 is aware of this, anyone without has no idea anything happened. We roll back a few seconds and just as Camille slides off the couch the doorbell rings. Nietzsche is at the door, enormous and terrifying mustache passing well beyond his ears, eyes intense and sleepless.

He does this whenever anyone tries to call him. If you've wasted his time you'll hear about it.

With others doing their thing, Luis sits down, staring into his spoon, twisting it in his fingers towards and then away from it again, flashing light at him. He gets it into a rhythm, a bit of autohypnosis. Then he unspools the memory and starts to translate the flashed-out message from Paris, his hand taking up some automatic writing - like a tape, going from his brain to the flashing spoon to different parts of his brain to his hand to the paper.

[QADS unless you want more. 3 Mind + 2 Gnosis + 1 Yantra barring unforseen complications. Goal is simply to safely get the message out and translated.]

So this isn't especially difficult - translating from brain-eating mental virus to Spanish is actually the sort of thing that's 100% under the sphere of Mind 3. It is, however, very dangerous because if you miss the roll then you'll have exposed your core Mind to the virus. No penalties or Withstand or anything but you may wish to take precautions.

Silent_Interim

2017-03-25, 06:57 PM

Thanqol

2017-03-25, 08:29 PM

Zeno smiles at Nietzsche. Not, in fact, because she has any positive feeling towards him, or because she gets along well with him, or is pleased to see him, but rather because she knows that she hates it when she does that, and that just warms a little vindictive place in her heart. In German, and in a sickly sweet voice reserved for people that she particularly dislikes, Zeno almost sings "And how is it going with the Übermensch himself?"

"Gegen die Langeweile kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens," says Nietzsche (Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.) "We can skip the part where you waste my time detailing your failure, I already listened to that part of the conversation. Instead tell me what you are going to do about it and what you need from me."

The_Snark

2017-03-26, 12:00 AM

"Failure? I do not recall failing. We left the new Mage an avenue through which to contact us, if he is not already turned against us; we have a trace on his location if he is. We have a lead on whoever was trying to interfere, and Luis is reconstructing what they communicated. Also we are all alive, which I consider an achievement." Camille's tone starts off frosty, but lightens as she recounts what they've gathered: put all together like that, it's more than she'd thought when they fled.

She steps aside from the door and spins around to face the room, forcing Nietzsche to enter if he wants to be one of those addressed. Or he can stay awkwardly in the doorway, his choice. "So! I believe we will wait a short time: Luis will reconstruct the message, Irene will keep track of where our new Mage goes, and the rest of us will be ready in case he contacts us. Once Luis is done, we may try to make contact a second time, if that spirit is gone, or we may investigate on the Parisian end. How does this sound?" This last is directed at her friends, not Nietzsche.

Thanqol

2017-03-26, 12:52 AM

aetherialDawn

2017-03-26, 03:53 AM

Thanqol

2017-03-26, 04:24 AM

Adan - no, Montesquieu right now... He does not groan or cover his face or react very strongly to Nietzsche's habit. After all, it is a habit - and it's not as if he isn't interested in the mechanics. He does sigh a little, though, before the man is actually let in through the door.

He listens to the blunt but at least admirably quick way that Nietzsche likes his conversations to go (or dislikes less? It's hard to say, and like so much of the man it's a mix of irritating and convenient.)

"That would be the disjoint of time?" Montesquieu doesn't bother with excuses for not looking again, and just dives into his Mage Sight, trying to sort the pendulum away from Athanasius's spellwork. He had assumed - foolishly, distractedly - that the problem might depart, but if the pendulum has come out then surely not.
"I don't understand - yet. Ah, before we move on to that - there are two other large things we learned. I saw a large Destiny declaring that when the subject of it runs out of enemies, they will make more... No, I'm sorry, it was... 'Create new ones'. And... there was enormous preparation from outside parties for an Awakening. They... Er, we don't know if it was rapid response, prediction, or causation." His message delivered, clipped a little short, he tries to catch up to what the pendulum is showing - he doesn't even know what disjointed Time will do, and he hasn't experimented yet. He's not even sure, really, where to start.

"Montesquieu," said Nietzsche, and when he speaks he uses a lot of dramatic finger pointing. "I looked forward in time and listened to you give me the extended version of your recounting of events. By repeating your explanation you are trapping me in a time loop and I shall not be held slave to the tyrannical whims of a deterministic timeline. Do you understand?"

He takes a moment to let that sink in, and at exactly the right moment before you start speaking again he cuts you off and returns to doting on his pendulum.

"Yes, the disjoint in time you noticed but failed to notice the importance of. There is something wrong with the second - see how it catches on just the very edge of its swing?" To anyone with Timesight he's right and it's really obvious but anyone without he looks like a nutcase. "Time does not arise from nothing, flawless and Supernal. It is gross, dead matter no different or more worthy of consideration than distance or biology. And, like distance and biology, there exists a great working in the world, a great clock, to generate Time and keep it in check. And now the clock has missed a second - and it is exposed."

He stood up dramatically, knocking the pendulum over as he got deeper into his monologue. "When the clock is out of sync its defenses have failed. It is exposed and vulnerable and as a result lesser people like yourselves have been able to perceive it's workings. In the moment we are slaves to the demands of the moment, but we are no longer of the moment - everything we do now is not part of the plan. We are untimely, as philosophy itself is untimely! And thus do we have power beyond and outside of Time!"

He pauses for a moment, then settles into a dark glower. "Essentially what I am saying is that we currently exist in a timeline that is scheduled for execution. The clockmakers will deploy a scheme to reverse time back to 00:00 on January 27 2017. They will force us back onto their 'correct' timeline and obliterate every choice we have made and all the knowledge we have gained. We must act with enormous urgency because Time is of the essence and Time is itself at stake."

The_Snark

2017-03-26, 05:15 AM

"You are the Time expert here," says Camille, electing to ignore the (many) complaints and questions that Nietzsche's claim conjures up in favor of simple practicality. "What action do you suggest?"

Thanqol

2017-03-26, 03:43 PM

"You are the Time expert here," says Camille, electing to ignore the (many) complaints and questions that Nietzsche's claim conjures up in favor of simple practicality. "What action do you suggest?"

"What? Oh, nothing. Anything. I don't care," said Nietzsche. "We live in a timeline fated for execution. In a very literal sense nothing matters. I am going to be trying to break the clock permanently because spite is the highest calling a human being can aspire to but you probably have far weaker convictions than I."

The_Snark

2017-03-26, 06:10 PM

Thanqol

2017-03-26, 06:43 PM

"Then why bother to inform us in the first place?" Camille snaps, knowing full well that arguing with Nietzsche never gets anywhere but unable to help it. "First you tell us this is urgent, then you say you do not care if we act. You don't want or expect our help with this problem, indeed do not seem to consider it a problem. As far as I can tell, it is entirely unrelated to the matter of this new Mage and there was no point bringing up the subject at all! Am I correct?"

She throws up a hand to forestall any reply. "Don't answer that. One moment." Deep breath. When she continues, her voice is level again. "Two things. First: if this disjoint in time is relevant, please explain from the beginning, using small words so that we may understand. Second: if you have any useful input about this new Mage and his stalkers, share it. If we speak plainly and clearly, you will not have to waste so much of your precious time on us, yes?"

"It is relevant because despite the disjoint happening two months ago you only became aware of it now," said Nietzsche, bluntly disregarding your outburst. "That means whatever you interacted with there is intimately tied into the operation of the clock and its defences. I believe that if Time was functioning correctly you would have arrived too late to perceive the connection to Paris or prevent the fusing of the Destiny. As you are now disruptive everything you do and encounter will throw the timeline further from the clock's grand plan. So, either seek the clock to destroy it and preserve your experiences, or embrace nihilism secure in the knowledge that your hedonistic decline is at least - mostly" he looks at Luis "- out of character and will contribute to the global collapse of society-slash-reality."

Silent_Interim

2017-03-27, 03:14 PM

The_Snark

2017-03-27, 03:46 PM

In every horror movie there comes a point where you want to shout at the protagonist. The heroine hears a strange noise coming from the basement, and goes to investigate. A group of teenagers laughs off the local legends of a monster in the woods. No! you want to shout at them. Don't do it! Listening to Irene ask Nietzsche an ethical question feels a lot like that.

"Yes, what will happen if the clock is destroyed?" she asks, hoping to steer the answer away from the topic of Nietsche's convictions and their lack thereof. "In a practical, tangible sense. I am not interested in a sermon."

Thanqol

2017-03-27, 04:39 PM

Zeno pinches the bridge of her nose. "So. Isn't it going to screw with some grand design if we destroy this clock, or whatever? If this timeline is... doomed, or whatever, is it even "right" for us to try and keep it alive? How the hell does this even work?"

Nietzsche scoffs. "'Right'? That's slave morality talking. Screwing with the grand design of the Exarchs is the Pentacle's mission statement, and the purpose of this whole endeavour."

In every horror movie there comes a point where you want to shout at the protagonist. The heroine hears a strange noise coming from the basement, and goes to investigate. A group of teenagers laughs off the local legends of a monster in the woods. No! you want to shout at them. Don't do it! Listening to Irene ask Nietzsche an ethical question feels a lot like that.

"Yes, what will happen if the clock is destroyed?" she asks, hoping to steer the answer away from the topic of Nietsche's convictions and their lack thereof. "In a practical, tangible sense. I am not interested in a sermon."

"Oh, well, everyone would have effective access to the Time Arcana," said Nietzsche. "Not in the sense that they're Mages casting spells, but in that navigating through time would be as simple, controllable and widely available as chemistry or metallurgy. Humanity as a whole will no longer be bound by the Lie of linear time. It'd be the biggest shift to the fundamental forces of the world since the Metric system gave humanity dominion over Matter."

aetherialDawn

2017-03-28, 04:43 AM

As Irene speaks, Adan closes his eyes. It's to listen to the pendulum, he tells himself for all of perhaps half a second before the lie is too great.

He wants to say, 'We should decide that ourselves.' or perhaps, 'That's not the right question to ask Nietzsche.' or maybe just interrupt with a new question - maybe ask whether the clock is the work of the Exarchs, or something deeper they haven't managed to break until now. But adrenaline is tiring, blood loss is tiring, and healing from it - well, however fast he would recover his energy thanks to Camille's very, very useful spell, those gains are undone by all the healing he has to do.

Socially, as a good human, it would... probably be best for Adan to be disturbed by the changes to the world that breaking open Time would cause. Certainly the Metric system - for all its use as reaching-towards-the-Supernal - seems to be far less... extreme. But there's also something in Montesquieu's soul that thrills at the potential. He's spoken with Apollo about how the mixing of chemistry knowledge into Matter spells allows for subtle spellcrafting which generates effects previously thought to require far deeper practices. To introduce something like that into Time...! To be able to navigate paths, instead of having to imagine forcing them - not that he can force them yet.

"Nietzsche. Whatever we decide, do you know how long we have until time is reversed? Who is reversing it - the Seers, I assume? May I model calling you with more questions even after this?" Honestly, Nietzsche will probably disdain him for having asked the latter question, but Nietzsche's opinions on Time and social interaction are not the same as Montesquieu's. Or Adan's. Either and both, really.

To destroy the Clock, or protect it... Can it be kept open?
... And, oh. If they only noticed the strange preparations around that Awakening because they weren't kept away long enough, how long have the Seers been usurping new Mages?
Reason says that the concerns of universal time are - necessarily! - first, but that last thought is the one that sets Adan to a quiet rage, body tensing instinctively.

Thanqol

2017-03-28, 07:21 PM

"Nietzsche. Whatever we decide, do you know how long we have until time is reversed?

"No," said Nietzsche. "I am not sure the clock itself is aware of the fault yet. You should be able to begin noticing disturbances as it begins to correct, this will be no small working and it will be vulnerable to disruption."

Who is reversing it - the Seers, I assume?

"I assume," said Nietzsche. "It may have its own strange defences and resources."

May I model calling you with more questions even after this?" Honestly, Nietzsche will probably disdain him for having asked the latter question, but Nietzsche's opinions on Time and social interaction are not the same as Montesquieu's. Or Adan's. Either and both, really.

"You may do anything your will allows," said Nietzsche.

Silent_Interim

2017-03-30, 12:41 AM

Irene's nose-pinch converts itself into a full-on splay of her hand across her face. "I am much too tired to pretend like I understand what the hell is happening. Nietzsche, if you've said your piece, then as always, it was awful seeing you, I hope it doesn't happen again any time soon. If not, guys, fill me in when I'm slightly less exhausted, which will probably be tomorrow morning or something." With that, Zeno stumbles outside, and Irene proceeds to stumble on home.

aetherialDawn

2017-03-30, 02:05 AM

Montesquieu waves a hand, as if the motion will somehow dissipate some of the irritation Irene is feeling and Nietzsche is... projecting, at least, it's hard to tell whether he's truly irritated or just being Nietzsche.

"Summary is: A universal mechanism of the Time Arcanum is available to be examined... and possibly altered or damaged. If nobody does anything about it, this timeline will cease. Nietzsche's plan would make the manipulation of Time as mundane as the manipulation of Matter. The Seers probably like things the way they... were."

He takes a deep, slow breath, thinking as Irene is on her way to the door. "We'll figure out more and fill you in, then. Nietzsche... Your plan sounds like a decent one, but I'll investigate more before I take action myself. Good luck, though. Is there anything else immediate?"

Thanqol

2017-03-30, 02:57 AM

The_Snark

2017-03-30, 05:25 AM

"Oh, well, everyone would have effective access to the Time Arcana," said Nietzsche. "Not in the sense that they're Mages casting spells, but in that navigating through time would be as simple, controllable and widely available as chemistry or metallurgy. Humanity as a whole will no longer be bound by the Lie of linear time. It'd be the biggest shift to the fundamental forces of the world since the Metric system gave humanity dominion over Matter."

This revelation actually manages to silence Camille for a minute. This is not some arcane philosophical point about self-determination, or whatever Nietzsche's always going on about; it's a real and tangible change. Well, perhaps not tangible... yet? That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? Time is a mystery to all but a few of the Wise (she is not one of them): invisible and unstoppable, a medium in which things exist rather than a thing in and of itself. She has a hard time imagining what a world with Time tamed and understood would even look like. It's unnerving.

But she can hardly back down, can she? Nietzsche is right when he says this is what the Pentacle exists to do. Maybe she can't imagine that future in the moment, but if they do it, then perhaps a future Camille will. (She's always preferred the more concrete Arcana - things which which can be studied with the hands - to ephemera.) As unsettling as the prospect of such a radical unknowable change is, it's not actually worse than a life utterly reliant on something which she cannot or will not grasp; the only difference is that she's lived with the latter so long that it's come to feel normal. This is not a good enough reason to balk.

"Assume we will agree to do it," she tells Nietzsche as he leaves, her equilibrium recovered. "Kircher and I are in favor, Zeno will dither but in the end cannot bring herself to turn away from an opportunity like this one, Montesquieu will have reservations but will go along if the rest of us are all decided." This delivered in a matter-of-fact tone, like she makes unilateral decisions about metaphysical ethics on her friends' behalf all the time.

Matthias

2017-03-31, 08:15 PM

Luis hasn't been hearing this because he's been concentrating in his room - although the door's open in case he suddenly gets hit by some sort of terrible convulsions, or gets taken over by a grim tank shadow angel, or something.

Also he is not paying attention because Nietzsche.

The microcosm is the macrocosm. The outside is the inside. Consider Chez Kirchner: from a Fallen perspective it might look (and smell) like the triumph of entropy. From an Awakened perspective it is clear that everything is in precisely the position it is for A Reason - because of his status as the demiurge of this particular earthly paradise, Luis knows that when he needs to find the Spring 2007 edition of New Left Review it's right beneath the magic brownies that he'll get back to Bea sometime, and when he needs to find the next clean pair of socks it will show up eventually. Entropy is but a veil for intent, design, and entelechy. So it is with the whole vast Creation, which the original Athanasius Kircher was able to always find some answer in. And so it is with this information.

He takes the thread and decompresses it, from a highly compact skein of information to a slightly less compact series of, well, ones and zeros - a light being on or off for various periods of time. The classical digital encoding makes it easy - even un-fun - to information-theoretically unspool it further, identifying statistically unlikely patterns in the data, cross-referencing them against an implicit Bayesian model of the most likely terms to appear, and then recursing on that once possibilities are raised or eliminated.

He comes to. His hand is on the page, which is apparently full. "Hey, I think I got something - anybody want to double-check that I'm not a demon or whatever?" Never can be too sure, you know. "And how's Freddy, same as ever? I assume I didn't miss anything?" He mimes jerking off.

[2,10=>1,6,8,10=>6,10=>5, 3 successes.]

aetherialDawn

2017-04-02, 04:17 AM

Matthias

2017-04-02, 01:42 PM

"Huh. That's pretty neat," says Luis, with all the chalantery of Camille's making metaethical decisions for him, but his eyes are clearly lit up. He grabs a whiteboard stolen from FILO 506 (Early Modern Theories of Property Rights) and uncaps and scribbles with Expo markers until one works.

"So looking at things B-theoretically, a world-set containing only world-states with the clock in place looks like this:

https://preview.ibb.co/eCzh3v/Untitled.png

"...a linear series of world-states as functions of those causally prior to them. It could also contain multiple independent worldlines, or branching conditions, or even (if I understand Queue Em right, though I doubt that I do!) branching worldlines that reconverge at least on a hyper-local level, but let's ignore those - the important thing is that this is an ordered set and all causal relations, at least ignoring Wizard Shenanigans, are anisotropic. Right? So if I got it right, if in this series the cause-function results in a world, M4, without a Clock, then it's actually part of a bigger world-set...

https://preview.ibb.co/dDHwVa/Untitled2.png

"...containing world-states without Clocks, in which causality relations don't need to be fundamentally ordered, and specifying a total world-set becomes more complex, because you need to simultaneously specify a number of different mutually-causally-entangled states. Not a worldline, but a worldskein.

"So, how much of a risk are we running by deciding to destroy the Clock - for instance, could it be reversible? Well, B-theoretically - which, by the way, is the correct understanding, none of this could be remotely comprehensible with A-theoretic garbage, and I don't care if there are Time archmasters who swear otherwise because they're just analytically wrong - 'making a choice' about this sort of thing means identifying yourself with the kinds of dispositions that exist in some possible world-states and not others. I think the correct thing to do here is, one, duh, research further, and two, see if we can identify ourselves with the dispositions which would result in especially "bad" (from our perspective) world-sets which contain non-Clocked states being more likely to contain no self-consistent solutions - that is, in resolving to self-negate the worldskeins in which we find ourselves through small-p paradoxes if things turn out wrong. Of course it's impossible for us to find ourselves in a worldskein that actually does contain small-p paradoxes, but that is, of course, precisely the mechanism through which we shall reduce the subjective probability of one finding oneself in an especially bad worldskein!"

The TA in Luis is always happy when he can adequately represent strategies for cosmic warfare utilizing a whiteboard, whether or not any of the students are listening. He scribbles a little note at the bottom, screenshots it, and sends it to Nietzsche over signal: "⏰ this what you mean? 🤔"

https://preview.ibb.co/d1MjGF/Untitled3.png

Thanqol

2017-04-02, 06:25 PM

He comes to. His hand is on the page, which is apparently full. "Hey, I think I got something - anybody want to double-check that I'm not a demon or whatever?" Never can be too sure, you know. "And how's Freddy, same as ever? I assume I didn't miss anything?" He mimes jerking off.

[2,10=>1,6,8,10=>6,10=>5, 3 successes.]

You only have a fragment, but a clean and detoxified fragment. It reads thus:

"... prevent the Salamanca Pentacle from investigating the Iris under the General Hospital. Set a number of other Irises off limits at random and make violent examples of trespassers to obscure the true goal. Establish your base of operations in the cathedral belltower and sacrifice a white rabbit at the 11pm bell every evening. This will activate the dormant Hallow there. Find Proximus in the following locations..."

"So, how much of a risk are we running by deciding to destroy the Clock - for instance, could it be reversible? Well, B-theoretically - which, by the way, is the correct understanding, none of this could be remotely comprehensible with A-theoretic garbage, and I don't care if there are Time archmasters who swear otherwise because they're just analytically wrong - 'making a choice' about this sort of thing means identifying yourself with the kinds of dispositions that exist in some possible world-states and not others. I think the correct thing to do here is, one, duh, research further, and two, see if we can identify ourselves with the dispositions which would result in especially "bad" (from our perspective) world-sets which contain non-Clocked states being more likely to contain no self-consistent solutions - that is, in resolving to self-negate the worldskeins in which we find ourselves through small-p paradoxes if things turn out wrong. Of course it's impossible for us to find ourselves in a worldskein that actually does contain small-p paradoxes, but that is, of course, precisely the mechanism through which we shall reduce the subjective probability of one finding oneself in an especially bad worldskein!"

The TA in Luis is always happy when he can adequately represent strategies for cosmic warfare utilizing a whiteboard, whether or not any of the students are listening. He scribbles a little note at the bottom, screenshots it, and sends it to Nietzsche over signal: "⏰ this what you mean? ��"

> Partially.
> You have proposed the idea that without the Clock, Time immediately becomes a disconnected jumble. This is not necessarily the case.
> There exists underlying logic intrinsic to the Time Arcanum beyond which is enforced and filtered by the Clock.
> In terms that you might be familiar with, consider how Space has sympathetic connections that are binding regardless as to physical distance. Time is similar.
> So there will still be an order to things but it will not be based on seconds/minutes/hours/etc. People will be able to interact with it.
> Implications are unknowable.

Matthias

2017-04-03, 10:04 PM

You only have a fragment, but a clean and detoxified fragment. It reads thus:

"... prevent the Salamanca Pentacle from investigating the Iris under the General Hospital. Set a number of other Irises off limits at random and make violent examples of trespassers to obscure the true goal. Establish your base of operations in the cathedral belltower and sacrifice a white rabbit at the 11pm bell every evening. This will activate the dormant Hallow there. Find Proximus in the following locations..."
He holds up the pad. "While significantly less interesting than DESTROYING TIME... Which of you is the one mapping the verges again? Irene?"

> Partially.
> You have proposed the idea that without the Clock, Time immediately becomes a disconnected jumble. This is not necessarily the case.
> There exists underlying logic intrinsic to the Time Arcanum beyond which is enforced and filtered by the Clock.
> In terms that you might be familiar with, consider how Space has sympathetic connections that are binding regardless as to physical distance. Time is similar.
> So there will still be an order to things but it will not be based on seconds/minutes/hours/etc. People will be able to interact with it.
> Implications are unknowable.
> well i didn't mean no order
> each state is still a determinant function of each other state that has a cause relation w/ it
> but
> do you mean that relations are still linear
> but possibly takes place at nonuniform rates
> also this is a literal clock right that ****s with physics and stuff
> not just a metaphor for the capitalist transformation of time culturally/economically/etc
> right?
> also what do you know about the general hospital 🏥

Thanqol

2017-04-03, 10:34 PM

He holds up the pad. "While significantly less interesting than DESTROYING TIME... Which of you is the one mapping the verges again? Irene?"

Irises. A Verge is a place where a Supernal realm directly touches the material realm, like the Awakening you just drove through.

> well i didn't mean no order
> each state is still a determinant function of each other state that has a cause relation w/ it
> but
> do you mean that relations are still linear
> but possibly takes place at nonuniform rates
> also this is a literal clock right that ****s with physics and stuff
> not just a metaphor for the capitalist transformation of time culturally/economically/etc
> right?
> also what do you know about the general hospital ��

> You are not enlightened enough to understand the answer to that question.
> Literal clock.
> Never been.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-05, 04:09 AM

Adan starts to twitch his hands, opening his mouth slightly, as Luis's speech gets into the deep parts. He doesn't interrupt, Luis is a friend, he doesn't interrupt, Luis is a friend...
Once Luis gets caught up in texting with Nietzsche, Adan takes the temporarily vulnerable, discarded marker and starts to make bullet-points in a chart (by erasing Luis's Worldskein Example Model.)
On the 'Practical' side, he starts with: "Is Nietzsche correct about what Clock is/does? How to check?"
On the 'Theory' side, he adds: "Who built Clock, why? Only prevent Sleeper access or also subvert Mage access? (Probably both)" and "Future: Not set* (in Time), Present: Being set, Past: Firmly set *Clock is setting it anyway?"

"There. Now. Nietzsche knows more about uppercase Time than I do, but he is Nietzsche and I am not."
"As far as I know, Time as it is now works like this at a macro, world-level scale: There is only one past. I'm told it can be changed, but doing that replaces the past, it doesn't make any extra timelines. The present is definitely real and made of Patterns-which-exist, but isn't yet 'set' as much as the Past is - I cannot personally modify even something that happened two seconds ago, though, so that's secondhand. The future is maybe-real, maybe-not, but we can assemble Patterns in it more easily - but they generally, ah... melt over time, I think is the best way to say it."
"Actual duration is not sacred; I can stretch your lowercase time-rate that you experience six seconds or four when everyone else experiences five."

"Throwing out theories... If the clock follows the conceptual idea that it's been built around, probably what would happen without it is, at minimum, that time-stretching would become something that can be achieved by Sleepers under the right conditions. Interesting, harmless, and definitely not all the Clock does if Nietzsche is right. I'm... not sure whether the past would still be 'set' and the future 'hard to set'. I don't think that we would end up with looping time in four dimensions - an object traveling repeatedly to the past - but we might end up with a timeline that performs periodic movements - an object travels to the past, creating conditions for a different object to travel to the past, creating the original conditions and it all repeats. Nietzsche seems to think that the Clock reasonably compensates even for some use of the Time Arcanum under normal operation, creating a timeline which favors the Seers in ways too subtle to ensure that some Master can't be evaded and smashes it."
"I am not Enlightened enough to just... know these answers, so if you have ideas, tell me, maybe I have the skills to test them but not the insight to think of them. I think the first thing I would want to test is if there's a way to 'standardize' lowercase time-rate and how that interacts with the disjoint that the Clock is showing."

The_Snark

2017-04-07, 01:18 AM

"To be perfectly honest," Camille says, "if I had any idea what would happen I would be much less interested in doing it. This is very, very far outside my area of expertise. Give me something I can poke at, then maybe I can come up with some ideas; I do not work well with intangibles and," she waves a hand vaguely in Luis's direction, "whiteboard exercises."

Matthias

2017-04-07, 11:44 AM

Silent_Interim

2017-04-09, 10:34 AM

Irene walks back in to Luis' apartment. "Oh good, he's gone." She smiles. "Forgot my keys, and wow, that spell is... really something. I am... just. Ready to go."
She cracks her knuckles, loudly and pointedly. "Someone bring me up to speed on anything I missed?"

The_Snark

2017-04-09, 03:58 PM

Camille passes her the note. "Luis finished decoding that message from Paris. Also there was a great deal of talk about this Clock and what it means, but if you are really interested in that you can ask these two about it later."

"I see three paths forward from here. We can go to Paris and try to figure out what is going on there. We can stay here and investigate the Iris under the hospital - I don't know how this is relevant, but if the Seers or whoever's behind this want us kept away it is probably worthwhile. Or we can continue to pursue this new Mage, who may or may not be hostile to us now. Luis, could you tell how toxic the original message was? Should we expect brainwashing, or did they actually persuade him to work for them?"

Thanqol

2017-04-09, 05:56 PM

> if it's a literal clock does it have a literal location
> in the sense that an unenlightened mind like mine could comprehend
> also is there like
> a big Magic Compass for Space or w/e
> they didnt tell me in Mastigos School

> Every aspect of the Supernal has a physical component. As Above, So Below.
> While your unenlightened mind couldn't comprehend the pure form of the supernal working there will be a purely physical aspect that you can hit with a hammer.
> Depending on how it's structured it may be large, innocuous, have multiple nodes, w/e, but there will be something.
> I suspect given that we are dealing with Time the very first clock ever made may have the most sympathetic weight but that's just a theory at this point.

"Should we expect brainwashing, or did they actually persuade him to work for them?"

Brainwashing. It was some kind of Fallen World hypnotic language - itself a pretty fascinating and uncomfortable concept, like finding out the human brain has a back door.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-10, 03:06 AM

Luis passes her the transcribed note (in a way that makes clear that it's "public property" to be viewed by anyone present.) "I guess a concrete thing would be to scry on the GH Iris - or maybe blow up this bell tower when he's there to feed it rabbits? Either way obviously all this needs to go into the general report. Diego should be able to scry if Xena can't.
Adan starts to open his mouth to ask what the 'GH' Iris is, but then decides to wait for the note to make its way around to him.

"As for your theories, Adan - a 'growing block' theory of time, really? Obviously you know more about Time than I do - it's just disappointing if that's actually how it works, from an aesthetic level, I mean, which seems all the more reason to destroy the Clock." He thinks for a bit. "What's the consensus on how the parallel timelines from the libraries works? Abyssal incursions, ephemeral whimsies, as real as our own timeline, more real? I guess it's time to visit the library. Oh, and - is this disturbance in temporal regularities supposed to be a Salmantin affair or something broader? The clock is global, right?"
Adan shrugs and says, "That's how it was described to me... And it fits what I have myself observed - save that the future may exist, just in a metaphorically 'liquid' rather than 'solid' state. At least, in the Material World - but then, if Nietzsche is correct on all particulars the Clock would cause the Fallen World to conform to a single, reasonably simple theory whether or not Time in general could assume other forms."

He actually brightens noticeably regarding the parallel realities, noting something new to connect in.
"Fleeting worlds don't feature in the theory at all - as far as I know, there's no... rule against a second timeline, except that the Material World is convenient to use because it 'runs itself', is very large, and most other such places have a similar time-progression anyway - but clearly, much of that was a simplification, if this Clock is required."
He adds: 'Clock usually prevents contact with other timelines, Fleeting Worlds? Check new Fleeting Iris durations' to the whiteboard, then realizes it will be erased soon and pulls out his phone to add some notes there while he keeps speaking.
"And I do not know what rules might be possible for such things; probably if we had enough detailed information on such efforts we could start mapping real rules of Time based on what features don't need additional spellwork."

"I see three paths forward from here. We can go to Paris and try to figure out what is going on there. We can stay here and investigate the Iris under the hospital - I don't know how this is relevant, but if the Seers or whoever's behind this want us kept away it is probably worthwhile. Or we can continue to pursue this new Mage, who may or may not be hostile to us now.?"
"Camille, I am confused. If the Clock will reset the timeline... I wish to continue to act as myself even if we are 'reset' away, but none of those three choices seem to be more than vaguely practical concerns... Ah, that's not quite what I mean... Anyway, they seem to matter significantly less than they normally would - except possibly to bother the Seers - unless we can investigate the Clock. Or believe Nietzsche to be incorrect, or believe Nietzsche will definitely succeed, or believe we cannot do anything to influence the Clock."
"Otherwise, I would be all for contacting the new Mage, of course."

The_Snark

2017-04-10, 05:40 AM

Camille shrugs. "I had assumed that our errand had something to do with the clock, else we would not have set things out of joint while doing it. Perhaps I am wrong. I don't claim to understand this clock business. But if they are connected, it makes sense to investigate further. If not..."

She tilts her head. "How would you propose to seek the clock? I cannot think of any other leads. If Nietzsche knew how he would assuredly have regaled us with it, probably while disparaging our willingness or ability to do it."

Silent_Interim

2017-04-11, 08:46 PM

"It seems that our only leads are sweet Paris and Mister Friends-with-angry-war-spirits." Irene stretches, and shuts the door behind her. "I can try and follow the new Mage- unless he works out how to cut off the tracking spell I put on him, in which case..." She shrugs. "Well, in that case, Paris becomes our only lead. If somebody can drive me, or if I can borrow a car, or whatever, I can head off and follow him. For now, I have a good idea of his location."

aetherialDawn

2017-04-13, 04:32 AM

Adan taps a rhythm on his leg for a moment, thinking. "Nietzsche mentioned that the clock was vulnerable right now - that it could be detected or destroyed in a way it normally cannot be. I can perceive the disjoint between..." Adan wobbles his hand, gesturing while he tries to think of how to describe it. "Between the mundane world and the timeline, I suppose? Seeing it clearly does not tell me what I am seeing... If you think that Paris will be a lead on the Clock, then I think we should meet our new friend quickly, take a quick look at the Iris, make our information public within the Cabal, and move on to Paris. It will at least give us a data point as to whether the disjoint varies with location, though I don't expect it to differ. Maybe by... whatever general relativity would indicate as a difference. But I'm guessing right now."
"But... what are we expecting to find in Paris? Some Seer to capture and get notes on the Clock from? I suppose... Hmm, even if we don't find out the details, we can try and figure out how they predicted - or caused - an Awakening and try to get that information to any surviving timeline in case of failure."

Making divinations of probably-Seers of unknown power who definitely seem to have the support of a more powerful object of Time than Montesquieu previously conceived of does not sound like a good idea, at all. But... A few other questions could save significant time.
He flips open his mirror, indicating his readiness to ask questions, and says, "Before I ask the likely result - are we planning to approach our new friend with a greater emphasis on making contact, or our own safety in case of... shadow-monster-things? I think some preparation here could save us a lot of time, and that is probably unusually valuable until the Clock is dealt with one way or another."

Silent_Interim

2017-04-16, 02:08 PM

The_Snark

2017-04-16, 02:08 PM

Camille nods agreement with Irene. "And if you want to spend time theorizing, the trip to Paris will give you time, no? I will steer, so that Luis does not kill us all by trying to drive and plumb the mysteries of the cosmos at the same time."

At Adan's question, she just shrugs. "You're the seer, you tell me. Find out how long that spirit will hang around to start with, we can plan more from there."

Thanqol

2017-04-17, 06:53 PM

This scene's pretty much played out; you know the possibilities and you know the stakes. In the interest of moving things along everyone just state individually where they're going next and we'll set the new scenes accordingly.

Matthias

2017-04-17, 09:29 PM

Silent_Interim

2017-04-19, 12:25 AM

Irene is in Luis' beat up Renault, driving towards the new mage to try and get in touch with him. Her knuckles are white around the steering wheel. Nervously, she taps out a rhythm as she drives, guided only by her own senses from the spell.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-19, 02:29 AM

Before deciding, Adan divines a question - Will the dangerous spirit-thing we encountered meet any of them again within the day?

After getting the answer... even if the answer is 'no', he lacks the courage to go through with it and ends up sitting next to Luis, poring over some of the Time-related texts he had been studying already and occasionally flicking open his mirror, pretending to check his watch and actually checking to make sure that he will meet up with Irene safely. More mundanely, he checks things like whether Luis' train will be late, and whether any other Mages will be on it.

He's cleaned up at home, and between Camille's spellwork, some impromptu bandaging, and new clothes his wound is hidden to cursory inspection.
As far as anyone else can see, he's checking his smartphone when he's not reading or chatting with Luis ("Being made by the Seers doesn't necessarily mean that every part is wrong, it means the whole is wrong and needs to be destroyed - with extreme prejudice, admittedly, because Seers. As a Councilor I suppose I would smash the clock rather than let the Seers keep it running, but setting up something new is probably preferred. ... Probably. What was that about individual time-perception?")

[Spells, spells, spells. If Irene can meet up with Adan, even briefly, he'll share out a Fate spell to her using his rote - Charmed, Inspired, and Steadfast all directed towards getting them both to Paris to meet up with the others, everyone happy and safe. If anyone else is meeting at the same time - so, probably, if they're going to meet the new Mage - they'll get the same treatment. If Luis isn't available, he'll get the spell shortly before he leaves - so, not quite yet.
Meanwhile, since Adan isn't there for Irene in person he'll be there in spirit by checking things out with a few yes/no questions, listed below. Rolls ahoy!
4 Reach on Advanced Scale, Advanced Duration, Instant Casting, and for pure convenience Sensory Range so we don't need to group hug (unless we want to.) Moving the Duration up to a full day for -2 dice, and spending a Willpower for +3. Using the Mudra as a Yantra for occult 3, and taking Gnosis 1 + Fate 3 + Yantra 3 + Willpower 3 - Duration 2 is 8 dice, and Hamete gives 3, 1, 3, 4, 9, 9, 1, 9 = 3 successes.
Default Potency of 2, so two yes/no/irrelevant questions, answered based on the currently most likely future.
Will the dangerous spirit-thing we encountered meet any of them* again within the day?
*EDIT: Clarification - any of Adan, Irene, Camille, and Luis. The friend-group. He's not checking on behalf of Nietzsche, or the new Mage, or etc.
Will we all meet up in Paris unharmed?
1 Reach for Instant Casting, 1 Reach for Spell Control since the Boon is still running. Using his Smartphone to try and look up the answers - he brings up a search engine and types in the questions without sending them, using magic to pull the actual answer from sources more arcane than the Internet. (He would have said less arcane, until this whole business about 'am I just simulating the future, or reading it?' and 'By the way, the current functioning of Time is regulated by an anchor, it's not actually just how things are.' and 'Oh, yeah, Seers can totally predict and/or cause Awakenings.')
Gnosis 1 + Time 2 + Yantra 1 is 4 dice, and Hamete gives 8, 1, 3, 10>6 = 2 successes.
Same circumstances as the above spell
Will Luis' train be on time?
Will there be any other Mages on that train besides us?
Hamete gives 2, 10>7, 6, 3 = 1 success.
EDIT: Eurostar is trains, oops, fixed appropriately.

Thanqol

2017-04-19, 11:23 PM

Luis is sitting at a table seat on the Eurostar - possibly with other mages, most certainly with a number of procurements from the library - to Paris. On the ticket clip above him are inserted receipts to a soccer game from 2011. He's drinking box wine poured into Gatorade bottle and reading un libro efimero, a book on the metaphysics of time that Saul Kripke never wrote in our timeline.

Sounds like you're doing some research. Now, you are a card carrying member of a global wizard conspiracy and it turns out that's pretty good for getting rare and esoteric research material. If you use your Silver Ladder status spend for the session to get access to a dot of Library: Time Metaphysics then you have enough clout to get rare and unique originals of Kripke's works, with Awakened commentary, rather than Sleeper-handled knockoffs. It's the difference between +1 to an Intelligence+Academics roll or a -3.

Then you may ask a number of questions equal to your successes - the answers won't necessarily be objective truth but they will be the best answers of researchers and Mages to date.

Will the dangerous spirit-thing we encountered meet any of them again within the day?

No, unless you approach the new mage again. Its role in Fate seems to be that of a bodyguard.

Will we all meet up in Paris unharmed?
Will Luis' train be on time?
Will there be any other Mages on that train besides us?

There don't seem to be any obstacles between you and Paris, no. You've got a pretty relaxed train ride here - you're currently ahead of the clock and haven't attracted the Opfor's attention.

Irene is in Luis' beat up Renault, driving towards the new mage to try and get in touch with him. Her knuckles are white around the steering wheel. Nervously, she taps out a rhythm as she drives, guided only by her own senses from the spell.

Things are remarkably calm now; in comparison to the screeching devastation of the Aether now this is just a sunny day in Salamanca.

You come around the corner to see the Mage sitting on the front stairs of the cathedral throwing handfuls of breadcrumbs to the pigeons. Behind him looms the shadow construct. Around him stand a dozen men with shaved heads, fascist gang tattoos, large crucifixes in gold and silver, and pistols stuffed into their belts. They stand like the bodyguards of a king, arranged down the stairs like pikemen.

The Mage looks calm, like a humble priest who's enjoying the simplicity of life.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-20, 02:32 AM

Adan has passed on the knowledge that approaching the new Mage seems to go hand-in-hand with running into the shadow-violence-spirit-thingy.
There was a very clear undertone of 'So you should be really, really certain. Maybe call it in to the Cabal or something' but other than a certain twitchiness towards contradictory desires to call Irene or Camille and to not distract them with a call, it's not immediately obvious anymore.
It might have colored his Fate spell slightly, though - after all, it's there to make sure you can meet up in Paris safely, not to make sure you can talk to the new Mage. Not by accident.

In the meantime, he continues to serve as sounding board slash voice of reason to Luis, combing through the books he brought for anything useful and pretending to Luis, poorly, that he has every confidence in Irene and Camille.

[I think I am probably doing Teamwork for Luis' research here. Let me know what I ought to roll once the modifiers are hammered out, if that's right. Not bringing in Free Council status yet, just any shared books (if the Silver Ladder allows that) and whatever an Acanthus has lying around before he knows that, actually, Time is about to jump from 'interesting and enlightening' to 'your timeline is about to be demolished for a hyperspace bypass'.]

Silent_Interim

2017-04-20, 03:12 PM

Things are remarkably calm now; in comparison to the screeching devastation of the Aether now this is just a sunny day in Salamanca.

You come around the corner to see the Mage sitting on the front stairs of the cathedral throwing handfuls of breadcrumbs to the pigeons. Behind him looms the shadow construct. Around him stand a dozen men with shaved heads, fascist gang tattoos, large crucifixes in gold and silver, and pistols stuffed into their belts. They stand like the bodyguards of a king, arranged down the stairs like pikemen.

The Mage looks calm, like a humble priest who's enjoying the simplicity of life.

Irene looks about, trying to find a parking place. She's pointedly ignoring the bodyguards, focusing on the task at hand. Park, and then consider any issues that might arise. There, not too far from here. She pulls in, parking the car, then takes a moment to breathe out. "Let's do this." She opens the car, and steps out into the air.

The_Snark

2017-04-21, 10:05 PM

Camille, on the other hand, examines the tableau with undisguised disapproval. Lovely. So the new Mage - or whoever's pulling his strings - has already dug up some muscle willing to get their hands dirty for the sake of whatever ideological bullsh*t he's feeding them. She's not enthusiastic about their odds of friendly contact, especially with that shadow-spirit still hanging around.

But with Irene's spell as a safeguard, there's no harm in trying. And if the shadow snaps and tries to kill them just for making a persuasive argument, that's a victory of sorts, isn't it? Might break through to the man, assuming he's not a genuine convert. She unbuckles and follows Irene out.

Silent_Interim

2017-04-21, 11:45 PM

Thanqol

2017-04-22, 12:02 AM

Irene walks up to the foot of the stairs. Could be overconfident. No. Don't tip our hand, yet. "Let's play it cool for now, yeah?" she mutters to Camille. Arriving at the foot of the stairs, Irene bows grandiosely. "We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, sir. Now, that wasn't your fault, but you seem to have some friends there who are also quite unfriendly looking. Do I have your word that you do not intend us harm?"

"Praise God," said the priest, smiling joyfully at you. "Every miracle promised has come to pass. You must be the lost souls I was told of, please, sit," he gestures at the ground at the base of the stairs amongst the pigeons, and tosses another crust of bread down. "Sit and eat, and I will tell you of your role in God's plan."

Silent_Interim

2017-04-22, 05:31 PM

"Praise God," said the priest, smiling joyfully at you. "Every miracle promised has come to pass. You must be the lost souls I was told of, please, sit," he gestures at the ground at the base of the stairs amongst the pigeons, and tosses another crust of bread down. "Sit and eat, and I will tell you of your role in God's plan."

Irene forces a smile. "Excuse me if I pass on the bread." She sits, cross-legged. "Do you.... recognize us? We met at the church earlier today. You were rather preoccupied, it's true, but I thought I'd ask."

Matthias

2017-04-23, 08:34 AM

Sounds like you're doing some research. Now, you are a card carrying member of a global wizard conspiracy and it turns out that's pretty good for getting rare and esoteric research material. If you use your Silver Ladder status spend for the session to get access to a dot of Library: Time Metaphysics then you have enough clout to get rare and unique originals of Kripke's works, with Awakened commentary, rather than Sleeper-handled knockoffs. It's the difference between +1 to an Intelligence+Academics roll or a -3.

Then you may ask a number of questions equal to your successes - the answers won't necessarily be objective truth but they will be the best answers of researchers and Mages to date.

Luis and Adan haven't had an entirely uncomplicated friendship - it's not a relationship wracked by anything surprising, just the frictions you'd expect; implicit intellectual rivalries, the occasional explicit romantic one, the daily frictions attending conspirators aiming to kill God and storm heaven with magics august and subtle, that sort of thing - but one thing they know how to do together is study. Luis takes on the Acanthus as his tutor, testing his intuitions and those that he encounters against Adan's experience and expertise. He uses regular consensual mindwipes of him and his partner - with everything recorded in notebooks, of course - to test their reactions to different hypotheses without prejudice; Adan concentrates luck on their cleromantic opening of books to random passages.

And, of course, he didn't hesitate to put himself in a teensie weensie bit of debt for the right books. Hey, that's what grad school's all about, right?

[Int + Academics + 1 = 9d => 5, 2, 5, 1, 0=>4, 6, 9, 5, 2 = 2sux]

So many questions burn in his mind, but two are prioritized:

1) Who created the Clock? Some particular Exarch, the Annunaki, King Solomon, Jeremy Bentham, the naturally emergent rules of a world in the grip of the Lie, the Clock itself in an act of asynchronous autopoesis, nobody because his experience of the last few days has been a deliberately crafted illusion?

2) What happens when you smash it?

Over the years, Luis' intutions have made him skeptical of definitive answers to things like this, and anything that hopes to be accepted as such will need to show its work, which he's also learned to not expect - but the more circumstantial evidence for particular hypotheses can be mustered, and the more theoretical elimination of other hypotheses can be obtained, the better.

The_Snark

2017-04-23, 05:18 PM

"Praise God," said the priest, smiling joyfully at you. "Every miracle promised has come to pass. You must be the lost souls I was told of, please, sit," he gestures at the ground at the base of the stairs amongst the pigeons, and tosses another crust of bread down. "Sit and eat, and I will tell you of your role in God's plan."

Camille does not bow when Irene does, but she does take a seat as indicated, perching primly on the lowest stair. She seems to be paying more attention to the pigeons than the conversation, picking up the crust of bread and tearing bits of it off to make her own offerings.

Thanqol

2017-04-23, 07:01 PM

Irene forces a smile. "Excuse me if I pass on the bread." She sits, cross-legged. "Do you.... recognize us? We met at the church earlier today. You were rather preoccupied, it's true, but I thought I'd ask."

Camille does not bow when Irene does, but she does take a seat as indicated, perching primly on the lowest stair. She seems to be paying more attention to the pigeons than the conversation, picking up the crust of bread and tearing bits of it off to make her own offerings.

"I'm sorry, I was quite busy at the time," said the priest with a gentle smile. "Are you regular churchgoers? Not many people your age are any more."

The shadowy monster does recognize you. It flows rapidly down the steps and begins circling Irene. It seems fascinated by the wound it inflicted on you and how rapidly it's healing, and it circles closely without touching. Even though it is menacing it's definitely not giving the impression of being deliberately threatening, it seems far more curious as to how you survived.

Luis and Adan haven't had an entirely uncomplicated friendship - it's not a relationship wracked by anything surprising, just the frictions you'd expect; implicit intellectual rivalries, the occasional explicit romantic one, the daily frictions attending conspirators aiming to kill God and storm heaven with magics august and subtle, that sort of thing - but one thing they know how to do together is study. Luis takes on the Acanthus as his tutor, testing his intuitions and those that he encounters against Adan's experience and expertise. He uses regular consensual mindwipes of him and his partner - with everything recorded in notebooks, of course - to test their reactions to different hypotheses without prejudice; Adan concentrates luck on their cleromantic opening of books to random passages.

And, of course, he didn't hesitate to put himself in a teensie weensie bit of debt for the right books. Hey, that's what grad school's all about, right?

[Int + Academics + 1 = 9d => 5, 2, 5, 1, 0=>4, 6, 9, 5, 2 = 2sux]

So many questions burn in his mind, but two are prioritized:

1) Who created the Clock? Some particular Exarch, the Annunaki, King Solomon, Jeremy Bentham, the naturally emergent rules of a world in the grip of the Lie, the Clock itself in an act of asynchronous autopoesis, nobody because his experience of the last few days has been a deliberately crafted illusion?

Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great - and Ozymandias.

There is a great deal of information on his life available, but the question you're looking for focuses on a specific sundial constructed in his reign and the oldest clock known to man. It looks like this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Ancient-egyptian-sundial.jpg). It's a small thing, unremarkable to look at in comparison to the great stone monuments of his reign. While the thing was apparently discovered by archaeologists in 2013 there is no information on what happened to it afterwards or where it is now.

There is an immense amount of symbolic weight and power in the first clock ever created.

2) What happens when you smash it?

Over the years, Luis' intutions have made him skeptical of definitive answers to things like this, and anything that hopes to be accepted as such will need to show its work, which he's also learned to not expect - but the more circumstantial evidence for particular hypotheses can be mustered, and the more theoretical elimination of other hypotheses can be obtained, the better.

You'd think that the answer would be 'no one knows because it's never happened', so you were gearing up to get really deep into hypotheticals. It turns out that it's stranger than that. Your research indicates that there was an ongoing crisis in the ancient world at the declining power of the sun. As Ramesses' clock was invented and the god Ra was at his zenith, traditional magical forms relating to and invoking the power of the sun and moon began to decline, and entire magical traditions and ancient Legacies collapsed. You hypothesise that Nietzsche was close but he was way off - the Clock isn't a prison for humans, it's a prison for the heavens.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-23, 08:31 PM

Having to remind the somewhat less Mind-conservative Luis that he would like his memories partitioned temporarily and not blanked keeps Adan from getting too excited about everything; Luis knows his preferences but wisely brings it up as an excellent distraction from thinking about horrible spirit-guard-things fighting Irene and Camille. The familiar back-and-forth helps keep Adan focused on research instead of trying not to call like a worried brother. Keeping a little twist of Fate running to make sure everyone gets through the day safely slows down mixing proper Time magic in to divine what answers are likely to come up, but that might be for the best right now.
Eventually, nearly every book on the table is open to some passage or another - several with little strips of torn-off notebook paper marking yet further passages still providing useful information/arguments/ridiculous archaeological stories and Adan finally throws up his hands, starts to speak, realizes they're in a public place, and so quietly admits that maybe his Pentacle teachers are dogmatic idiots because, yeah, his own observations don't completely agree and these works imply that some things might fall the way they don't say they do.
After that point, things get interesting.

Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great - and Ozymandias.

There is a great deal of information on his life available, but the question you're looking for focuses on a specific sundial constructed in his reign and the oldest clock known to man. It looks like this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Ancient-egyptian-sundial.jpg). It's a small thing, unremarkable to look at in comparison to the great stone monuments of his reign. While the thing was apparently discovered by archaeologists in 2013 there is no information on what happened to it afterwards or where it is now.

There is an immense amount of symbolic weight and power in the first clock ever created.

You'd think that the answer would be 'no one knows because it's never happened', so you were gearing up to get really deep into hypotheticals. It turns out that it's stranger than that. Your research indicates that there was an ongoing crisis in the ancient world at the declining power of the sun. As Ramesses' clock was invented and the god Ra was at his zenith, traditional magical forms relating to and invoking the power of the sun and moon began to decline, and entire magical traditions and ancient Legacies collapsed. You hypothesise that Nietzsche was close but he was way off - the Clock isn't a prison for humans, it's a prison for the heavens.
With the first few questions coming up with interesting answers, Adan gets cheerful in a way which could quite possibly be weird to someone who doesn't know him so well. Delving into mundane history was already quite exciting (to him) before he ever became involved with Magic; finding out that clockmaking may have started as a way to bind the sun and moon just adds a wonderful mix of mythic flair and practical relevance.
He avoids making any jokes about Ozymandias-the-king and Ozymandias-from-Watchmen and his 'I did it thirty-five (or was it twenty-five?) minutes ago' line... by mentioning it completely seriously. Does this look like Seer reinforcement? Does the Clock need reinforcement?

[Academics is an asset skill for Adan, so 9-again is in effect. Int 3 + Academics 3 + History Specialty 1 + Library 1 -> 7, 10>5, 2, 9>5, 8, 1, 6, 4 -> 3 successes becomes 3 dice -> 2, 2, 8 -> one extra question, hurrah!]

In the end, the question Adan focuses on most - for now - is a little different: What was Time like for Sleepers before Ramses II's Clock?

He won't complain if Mage details pop out instead - this is from the Silver Ladder library after all, not the Free Council library - but frankly, the Pentacle can probably hack together whatever personal solutions they want with magic. Sleepers need a little more attention, and are likely to have seen more change.

Thanqol

2017-04-23, 09:36 PM

In the end, the question Adan focuses on most - for now - is a little different: What was Time like for Sleepers before Ramses II's Clock?

He won't complain if Mage details pop out instead - this is from the Silver Ladder library after all, not the Free Council library - but frankly, the Pentacle can probably hack together whatever personal solutions they want with magic. Sleepers need a little more attention, and are likely to have seen more change.

Harsh, difficult. It was a time when the gods were far more powerful and the progression of days and seasons was more a product of divine whim and prayerful negotiation. If the sun came to love a particular city then that city would be blessed with radiant light until their crops withered away. If the moon came to love a particular maiden then that maiden she would pursue and drag all the tides of the world about with her. Great sorcerers and ancient magi knew how to intercede with these divine entities and the strongest kingdoms were the ones guided by powerful god-speakers; the Sleepers did their part with prayer, artwork, and storytelling.

(As far as the perception of time is concerned that is far more difficult to discuss. There certainly aren't any surviving dissertations from that period from a Sleeper about how 'Time' worked. The Supernal principles used by the Time Arcana and referred to by mages seems fairly consistent.)

Life was certainly more stable and prosperous after the Clock first came into being. The Sleeper perception of Ramesses' reign was that it was a golden age, after all, and Egypt was never more powerful.

Silent_Interim

2017-04-24, 12:35 AM

"I'm sorry, I was quite busy at the time," said the priest with a gentle smile. "Are you regular churchgoers? Not many people your age are any more."

The shadowy monster does recognize you. It flows rapidly down the steps and begins circling Irene. It seems fascinated by the wound it inflicted on you and how rapidly it's healing, and it circles closely without touching. Even though it is menacing it's definitely not giving the impression of being deliberately threatening, it seems far more curious as to how you survived.

Irene tenses as the spirit approaches, but does not flinch or move. "Not exactly a regular. Rather, your busyness was rather why we were in attendance. I hope you do not object to my bluntness- who has told you what, and how much of it have they told you?" She flicks a glance to the spirit, but her focus is on the priest.

Matthias

2017-04-24, 11:30 AM

Luis unfurls a sheet of loose leaf paper and starts reviewing their options.

https://preview.ibb.co/iNHnbQ/Untitled.png

"We missing anything obvious?" he asks, his eye wandering to the window, as paisaje makes way for paysage.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-25, 01:51 AM

Luis unfurls a sheet of loose leaf paper and starts reviewing their options.

"We missing anything obvious?" he asks, his eye wandering to the window, as paisaje makes way for paysage.
Adan adds notes to the lines, complaining a little - quietly - about how Luis didn't leave space for proper notes.
http://i68.tinypic.com/2edcppl.jpg
"Well, you forgot to write down why you're not planning to undo a set of memory-blanks. Other than that? Probably, but asking Ramses will give us more info."

Matthias

2017-04-25, 04:43 PM

Luis grabs a pair of sunglasses from Adan's breast pocket, holds them above his head, and starts slowly lowering them.

"Looks like if the sun thinks it can't just be bossed around by humans to take time out of its busy schedule to give an audience with them, it should... check its calendar."

[Mage sight. Anybody to talk to in the sky up there, or do we need more specialized equipment?]

Thanqol

2017-04-25, 06:01 PM

Irene tenses as the spirit approaches, but does not flinch or move. "Not exactly a regular. Rather, your busyness was rather why we were in attendance. I hope you do not object to my bluntness- who has told you what, and how much of it have they told you?" She flicks a glance to the spirit, but her focus is on the priest.

"The Lord spoke," he said with the contentment of a man who had just undergone a religious experience. "And each word was a miracle - and with each miracle he speaks to me still. He cares about you, daughter, and he cares about all of you who have grown so learned while forgetting wisdom. I am here as a guide to bring you back onto the path of the divine."

Luis grabs a pair of sunglasses from Adan's breast pocket, holds them above his head, and starts slowly lowering them.

"Looks like if the sun thinks it can't just be bossed around by humans to take time out of its busy schedule to give an audience with them, it should... check its calendar."

[Mage sight. Anybody to talk to in the sky up there, or do we need more specialized equipment?]

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAA

The session ends, the credits roll, XP is distributed.

Normal XP: 1 base, +1 for life-threatening situations
Arcane XP: 1 for witnessing an Obrimos Awakening

Potential Arcane XP: (not a comprehensive list, this is just some stuff that you're partially on the way to getting)
- Get deeper into that mind control language used by the Clock
- Observe the long term effects of that loose Destiny
- Discover more Clock infrastructure and how it works
- Discover the nature of that bodyguard spirit

(If you've got any other ideas for situations that should have got you Arcane XP post them in the OOC, the criteria for these are basically 'got to the bottom of some significant mystery')

And to answer your question, more specialized equipment. Talking to the physical fire-and-fusion manifestation of the Sun might be possible but you'd need to find or develop some sort of interface.

aetherialDawn

2017-04-27, 05:00 AM

Adan very calmly adds, 'Do calendars count as clocks? Predate/postdate Ramses clock?' to the paper, a corner of his mouth twitching with a laughing smile he can't quite suppress.

"How is the sun feeling, Agent Mind?"

Matthias

2017-04-27, 10:25 AM

"Probably hanging with the Agent Intellect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_intellect)," he says. "We're going to need a bigger pyrheliometer."

aetherialDawn

2017-04-29, 02:09 AM

Silent_Interim

2017-04-30, 12:38 AM

"The Lord spoke," he said with the contentment of a man who had just undergone a religious experience. "And each word was a miracle - and with each miracle he speaks to me still. He cares about you, daughter, and he cares about all of you who have grown so learned while forgetting wisdom. I am here as a guide to bring you back onto the path of the divine."

Irene restrains a laugh. "I see. Let us speak, then. I am Zeno, and this is Lyell. And you would be...?"

Thanqol

2017-04-30, 06:11 PM

Adan nods, adding a small tick mark next to the sun/moon (lit.) idea on the paper, but not crossing it out. "Didn't really expect otherwise, but it only took a few moments to check..."
He trails off, and says, "Actually, in that case-" he reaches out for the sunglasses, and once he has them focuses on his own Mage Sight, looking around the train first - it would be embarrassing to be in a Destined crash that he could have mitigated or even just evaded - and then squinting up towards the Sun himself.
Even through Awakened eyes, it's not the same as the Aether's view of the sun, and he can't help but wonder what they might have been able to see with enough time to do this through that lens instead of fleeing dogs of fire and escaping murder-bodyguard-shadow-spirits.

[Mage Sight, Fate/Time Acanthus]

The Sun's destiny is actually one of decline. More than the Sun's inevitable burn-out and the solar system's frozen death, there exists a grand destiny of increasing irrelevance upon the spiritual significance of the Solar disc. The God of the Sun is near the nadir of this grand Fate path, at the lowest ebb of its power, the Sun rendered a mere ball of flaming gas only really contemplated in mild-mannered discussions of the weather.

The train will pull into the Paris Airport station soon; from there it's a 15-20 minute walk to the office building in question.

Irene restrains a laugh. "I see. Let us speak, then. I am Zeno, and this is Lyell. And you would be...?"

"Henricus Institor," said the priest with a smile. "Consider this: There is an Exalted God, and His will and power is more than a matter of faith - it can be proven directly. There exists in this world a vast Church, a true Church, not run by Sleepers claiming to speak for God but a Church with God Himself at its head. His commandments exist everywhere in the world and His gospel is freely available to all the Exalted who alone are worthy to worship Him. This is fact, total and irresistible, with evidence deeply rooted in the world and in magic itself. And while the Exalted of Salamanca rush hither and fro investigating mysteries and trying to piece them together into a whole they are like the men of Plato's Cave trying to analyse the rush of shadows rather than gazing upon the Sun itself."

aetherialDawn

2017-04-30, 08:18 PM

The Sun's destiny is actually one of decline. More than the Sun's inevitable burn-out and the solar system's frozen death, there exists a grand destiny of increasing irrelevance upon the spiritual significance of the Solar disc. The God of the Sun is near the nadir of this grand Fate path, at the lowest ebb of its power, the Sun rendered a mere ball of flaming gas only really contemplated in mild-mannered discussions of the weather.

The train will pull into the Paris Airport station soon; from there it's a 15-20 minute walk to the office building in question.

Adan gasps quietly, a sharp intake of breath, followed by a bit of coughing. Did he really never- Well. His parents told him when he was young not to look at the sun, it would hurt his eyes; without something to prompt him, like visiting an Awakening or this news about a sundial, maybe he never would have looked at the Sun in detail - just glancing at it, which is in alignment with the Destiny, as cause or effect.

"Not sure how related, but..." He sighs, and just writes it down, sliding the paper over to Luis; 'Sun is Destined for spiritual decline towards 'just a ball of flaming gas'.' His surprise has probably drawn all of the attention it's likely to draw, and he doesn't want to bother trying to deflect attention right now, so he just keeps talking while avoiding anything that goes past 'weird' and into 'crazy-sounding' or 'Definitely A Mage'. "You know, I don't think I ever really looked at the sun like that? We've already got so much to share with the others and we aren't even in Paris yet."

Adan leans back, not focusing on anything in particular as he considers whether this Destiny even changes anything. It seems probably a natural result of the Clock stopping the Sun from constantly demanding intercession, not a means of shunting some individual person onto a specific set of rails. On the other hand, after seeing the Sun of the Aether... It's keeping the God of the Sun from finding another path, too, perhaps.
He starts to add, 'negotiate new myth-plan?' under Sun/Moon (myth), and 'Get access to Nietzsche's research notes' to the list of actions, using an arrow to point just above Ramses II and writing small - it would be nice to have the summary all be on one side of one page, so that it doesn't get lost in the other notes.

Silent_Interim

2017-04-30, 10:06 PM

"Henricus Institor," said the priest with a smile. "Consider this: There is an Exalted God, and His will and power is more than a matter of faith - it can be proven directly. There exists in this world a vast Church, a true Church, not run by Sleepers claiming to speak for God but a Church with God Himself at its head. His commandments exist everywhere in the world and His gospel is freely available to all the Exalted who alone are worthy to worship Him. This is fact, total and irresistible, with evidence deeply rooted in the world and in magic itself. And while the Exalted of Salamanca rush hither and fro investigating mysteries and trying to piece them together into a whole they are like the men of Plato's Cave trying to analyse the rush of shadows rather than gazing upon the Sun itself."

Zeno blanches. The name that Henricus has chosen is... unpleasant, to say the least. Still, it would be tactless, and foolish to boot, to say as much to his face. "And what would you have us "Exalted" do? The Supernal is locked to many of us. It is not a trivial thing to look at the sun. And for those of us who cannot, it becomes necessary to discover the sun by the shadows it casts."

Thanqol

2017-04-30, 10:15 PM

Zeno blanches. The name that Henricus has chosen is... unpleasant, to say the least. Still, it would be tactless, and foolish to boot, to say as much to his face. "And what would you have us "Exalted" do? The Supernal is locked to many of us. It is not a trivial thing to look at the sun. And for those of us who cannot, it becomes necessary to discover the sun by the shadows it casts."

"God, in His potency, has created the Ministry of the Paternoster to guide you," in case you're not aware, the Paternoster Ministry is a branch of the Seers of the Throne dedicated to serving the Exarch of Prime, the Father. "Stay a while and I will teach you to see the true signs and guidance of God, and as you pass through His trials and purifications you will one day be admitted body and soul into the Supernal itself. The path is only barred for those who will not ask for guidance."

The_Snark

2017-05-01, 06:56 AM

Matthias

2017-05-01, 10:34 PM

Thanqol

2017-05-01, 11:19 PM

"You keep strange company for a man of God," Camille remarks, glancing up from the pigeons and gesturing at one of the tattooed gangers standing nearby. Or possibly at the shadow-spirit, it's not completely clear. "Did you know one of your friends tried to kill us this morning? Zeno is apparently too nervous to call you on it, but I was the one who had to patch her up afterwards, and I don't care to ignore that sort of thing. Should we expect an apology?"

"God is sovereign over all creature, and those who lead lives of violence are surely those most in need of His guidance," said the priest, and neither of you are empathic enough to notice the invisible undercurrent of concern that undermines his conviction. "And while God's Angels are capable of profound destruction, they are only dangerous to those who are at odds with the Lord. If an angel has smote you perhaps you should take that as a sign and warning."

Luis has taken Adan to a bench on the Seine where they, too, can feed the local cityfowl. "This Ladder chick, Marianne - yeah, bet you didn't see that cabal theme coming, eh? - said to contact her if we're ever in the city. Best to mind proper custom in these things, right? Mind, I've only seen her in pigeon form; so I'm just assuming this works." The day's take from the boulangerie is spread out before them, spelling out NOUS VENONS EN ATLANTEANRUNEFORPEACE DOT JPG and rapidly entering into the bellies of a flock of the things.

In the resulting mob of pigeons one pigeon-brain stands out as unusually coherent, his feathers are unusually shiny, and his pigeon-dance is unusually splendid. He can both puff and twirl at the same time! (This is a secret technique he learned from a city fairy, and it is his favourite secret, so he shows it to everyone).

"Hello friends!" thinks the pigeon on the correct psychic wavelength for you to pick up. "Do you like my dance? It is a secret technique I learned from a city fairy and it lets me both puff and twirl at the same time, which is very splendid and unusual, much like my feathers. You have very much bread riches so you must be very splendid dancers and you can even make your bread riches tell secret messages which is a very good secret. Because you have good secrets and, presumably, splendid dancing then you must be friends with my other good friend, Marianne, who is also bread-rich and dance-splendid, which means that if you need any help with the city, including the best dancing spots populated by the most pretty of pigeons who do not know city fairy dances (only I know city fairy dances and I am not in those spots, so I can show them to you if you want inferior but still good dances) or any other city facts, like where to find city fairies, I can help you."

aetherialDawn

2017-05-01, 11:41 PM

Luis has taken Adan to a bench on the Seine where they, too, can feed the local cityfowl. "This Ladder chick, Marianne - yeah, bet you didn't see that cabal theme coming, eh? - said to contact her if we're ever in the city. Best to mind proper custom in these things, right? Mind, I've only seen her in pigeon form; so I'm just assuming this works." The day's take from the boulangerie is spread out before them, spelling out NOUS VENONS EN ATLANTEANRUNEFORPEACE DOT JPG and rapidly entering into the bellies of a flock of the things.

Adan simply nods, watching the resulting flock - and the pigeon that is paying attention to Luis instead of paying attention to bread. "You write runes like no-one else, Athanasius." It really is a very fine pigeon, with splendid dances unusual in comparison to the others. He asks, "That's Marianne?" getting it, of course, quite wrong.

Silent_Interim

2017-05-01, 11:57 PM

"God is sovereign over all creature, and those who lead lives of violence are surely those most in need of His guidance," said the priest, and neither of you are empathic enough to notice the invisible undercurrent of concern that undermines his conviction. "And while God's Angels are capable of profound destruction, they are only dangerous to those who are at odds with the Lord. If an angel has smote you perhaps you should take that as a sign and warning."

"This? An angel? I have seen demons, Henricus, both within and without. Not demons of metaphor, either- I speak of literal demons, from that which is closest to Hell as the common conception of it. This spirit- and make no mistake, this is a spirit, I have made a study of such matters- is more akin to them than to any angel. Not that it is at all akin to either. Did you know that this spirit attempted to kill one of my close friends? Do you know why? I'll tell you- he was seeking to save you from a destiny." Zeno has not risen, but her voice has, ever so slightly, and he heart rate, too, though her body is disciplined and it hardly shows.

"Perhaps that is something your God has not told you- one of the great Arcana we have is to do with Fate. My friend is... something of an expert in that field. The Destiny he saw attached to you? It was one of madness and suffering. This spirit sought to interfere with my friend when he sought to remove that destiny from you. Even now, from what he has told me, that destiny hangs upon your church. Not this church you have found, but the one from before. You remember, do you not? If not for the intervention of this "angel," perhaps we could have done more. Perhaps no person nor place would be bound to that destiny right now. Does that sound like the action of an angel?"

Thanqol

2017-05-02, 12:02 AM

"This? An angel? I have seen demons, Henricus, both within and without. Not demons of metaphor, either- I speak of literal demons, from that which is closest to Hell as the common conception of it. This spirit- and make no mistake, this is a spirit, I have made a study of such matters- is more akin to them than to any angel. Not that it is at all akin to either. Did you know that this spirit attempted to kill one of my close friends? Do you know why? I'll tell you- he was seeking to save you from a destiny." Zeno has not risen, but her voice has, ever so slightly, and he heart rate, too, though her body is disciplined and it hardly shows. "Perhaps that is something your God has not told you- one of the great Arcana we have is to do with Fate. My friend is... something of an expert in that field. The Destiny he saw attached to you? It was one of madness and suffering. This spirit sought to interfere with my friend when he sought to remove that destiny from you. Even now, from what he has told me, that destiny hangs upon your church. Not this church you have found, but the one from before. You remember, do you not? If not for the intervention of this "angel," perhaps we could have done more. Perhaps no person nor place would be bound to that destiny right now. Does that sound like the action of an angel?"

"There is a time for faith, child," said Henricus quietly. "For did the Lord not suffer for us?"

[Roll Presence+Persuasion at a -3; add +2 if you can bring up some concrete evidence (that he can perceive) to support your case.]

Silent_Interim

2017-05-02, 01:35 AM

"There is a time for faith, child," said Henricus quietly. "For did the Lord not suffer for us?"

[Roll Presence+Persuasion at a -3; add +2 if you can bring up some concrete evidence (that he can perceive) to support your case.]

Zeno smiles. "You do not need faith. I apologize for my rudeness- I need to call a friend for this." She pulls a mobile phone from her pocket, speed dialing Adan. "I need you to do the numbers thing on the priest. Shadow Name is Henricus Institor. Thanks." She pauses, listening, then rolls her eyes. "Yes, it's safe. The spirit is behaving, and the-" she lowers her voice "failsafe is still going good."

aetherialDawn

2017-05-02, 02:10 AM

Meanwhile, in Paris, Adan picks up his phone when Irene calls him. Something prompts him to give a little wave to the excellent-dancer-pigeon, though. "Hey Zeno- Oh, okay. Yeah, I can do that. Everything is still safe, right? No spirit problems or guns or anything?" He pauses, listening, and then finishes, "Yeah, alright. Talk to him soon."

He turns to Luis, "I'm going to do the numbers thing for the new guy... I'm not sure why, actually? Oh, and he already has a Shadow Name - Henricus Institor."

Returning to his phone, Adan closes his eyes and focuses on reaching out instead of paying attention to what his fingers are actually doing. He's typing rapid-fire while carefully paying that no attention, focusing instead on keeping his mind completely clear and just depositing his guesses down without examining them yet.

After a solid few seconds of typing, Adan opens his eyes without relaxing yet, holding on to the spell in case one of his 'guesses' changes, and calls the first number on the list, much longer than the others.
"Hello, this is Montesquieu, Zeno asked me to call you. Your first number is seven, the second is fifty-two, and then the name Alexander. And you just picked zero-eight-seven-seven." It's not the most enlightening thing to do with the Arts Arcane, but it's an amusing party trick and - when people pick odd answers - good practice for sorting his intuitions.

[Lucky Number! Fate 2. Reaching for Spell Control and Instant Casting, using a Concentration Yantra. Gnosis 1 + Fate 3 + Yantra 2. Hamete gives 3, 7, 2, 1, 4, 8 = one success. I have the Informed condition on my next roll benefiting from the information I 'guessed'... for three turns, so not seeing any use.]

Matthias

2017-05-02, 12:38 PM

Luis would return to treating with the columbid ambassador but is still looking at the first Google result. "Sure this is the kinda guy you want to show magic tricks to?"

https://image.ibb.co/j2q66Q/Capture.png

"Also, the autosuggest for 'henry kramer' is 'henry kramer destiny (https://www.google.com/search?q=henry+kramer+destiny).' Something about a child destroying another child's ritual-space-identity. Ominous signs all around, eh?"

He returns some recognition to the pigeons lest he show any accidental disrespect to his hosts. If you sense any apprehension in us, it is because of something that our friend has just told us about someone else in Salamanca. Please send Marianne et tout ses amis regards for greeting us with such a fine dancer!

Silent_Interim

2017-05-02, 07:30 PM

As soon as Henricus puts down the phone, Zeno leans forward. "You see? Fate. Probability can be manipulated, and an expert can manipulate those strands of probability to create your destiny. Montesquieu, the fellow who just called you? He is such an expert. Henricus, you are right to say that there is a time for faith, but now is not that time. There are things I don't fully understand going on. Please, believe me."

[Making that persuasion roll. 3 Presence+1 Persuasion-3 from you+spending a Willpower for 3+2 from Adan providing him with evidence of Fate gives me a dice pool of 5. [roll0][roll1][roll2][roll3][roll4]

EDIT: So, uh, I goofed that roll up. Whoops. Rolled manually, got 1, 1, 2, 5, 8, for a success.]

Thanqol

2017-05-02, 08:01 PM

He returns some recognition to the pigeons lest he show any accidental disrespect to his hosts. If you sense any apprehension in us, it is because of something that our friend has just told us about someone else in Salamanca. Please send Marianne et tout ses amis regards for greeting us with such a fine dancer!

"Oh triple goodness you must be very busy, much like Marianne who is also super busy," came the pigeon's thoughts. "It is a good thing I am not also busy because otherwise I would not be able to do the things that you say!" He spread his wings and flapped off.

As soon as Henricus puts down the phone, Zeno leans forward. "You see? Fate. Probability can be manipulated, and an expert can manipulate those strands of probability to create your destiny. Montesquieu, the fellow who just called you? He is such an expert. Henricus, you are right to say that there is a time for faith, but now is not that time. There are things I don't fully understand going on. Please, believe me."

[Making that persuasion roll. 3 Presence+1 Persuasion-3 from you+spending a Willpower for 3+2 from Adan providing him with evidence of Fate gives me a dice pool of 5. [roll0][roll1][roll2][roll3][roll4]

EDIT: So, uh, I goofed that roll up. Whoops. Rolled manually, got 1, 1, 2, 5, 8, for a success.]

By itself the trick doesn't prove anything, but an Obrimos has knowledge of Prime so he can see the coils of Fate clearly as they are woven about him. The thought starts to take hold in his mind and - then, bam, it's gone. You're an Initiate of Mind, you can see it clearly - it's like a record player skipping a track. There's some sort of bypass that's preventing him from following the thought to it's conclusion. The idea is still there, though, and you suspect it will start to fester. It hasn't been erased, it's just been suppressed and regulated to the subconscious. That certainly isn't nothing.

This is also the moment when the 'angel' begins to take much closer notice of you, body language shifting from curious to threatening, stance and shape starting to resemble what it did before it launched its attack last time.

"Knowledge of the future is the domain of God," said Heinrich, following the trail of that bypass. "As the shape of the future is His to decide. You are meddling in things you do not understand and I have been sent to regulate such deviant behaviour. I hereby accuse Montesquieu and call him to trial, he must present himself within the week or be deemed an apostate before the Lord."

Silent_Interim

2017-05-02, 10:39 PM

By itself the trick doesn't prove anything, but an Obrimos has knowledge of Prime so he can see the coils of Fate clearly as they are woven about him. The thought starts to take hold in his mind and - then, bam, it's gone. You're an Initiate of Mind, you can see it clearly - it's like a record player skipping a track. There's some sort of bypass that's preventing him from following the thought to it's conclusion. The idea is still there, though, and you suspect it will start to fester. It hasn't been erased, it's just been suppressed and regulated to the subconscious. That certainly isn't nothing.

This is also the moment when the 'angel' begins to take much closer notice of you, body language shifting from curious to threatening, stance and shape starting to resemble what it did before it launched its attack last time.

"Knowledge of the future is the domain of God," said Heinrich, following the trail of that bypass. "As the shape of the future is His to decide. You are meddling in things you do not understand and I have been sent to regulate such deviant behaviour. I hereby accuse Montesquieu and call him to trial, he must present himself within the week or be deemed an apostate before the Lord."

Zeno blinks hard. "You... sorry, you what now? I. Well. Um. I." She blinks again. "Montesquieu knows perfectly well... no. No, I see. Of course." Zeno stands up, hands raised in a seeming gesture of surrender. "Lyell and I are going to walk to our car now. We have errands to run."

Matthias

2017-05-03, 10:02 AM

"Oh triple goodness you must be very busy, much like Marianne who is also super busy," came the pigeon's thoughts. "It is a good thing I am not also busy because otherwise I would not be able to do the things that you say!" He spread his wings and flapped off.

"And they say the French are rude!" Luis remarks, to no one in particular. He looks at his mood ring, the one with a sympathetic connection to Xeno, and blanches to notice it danger-white. Oh, hey, he psychically calls out. Could we set up a meeting in the very near future? With Marianne or anyone else in the Pentacle. It concerns the struggle of eternal republican liberties against the accidental tyrants of history. Should be good for all involved.

He holds the ring and tries to get a sense of Xeno's surface thoughts, making his presence known in her peripheral awareness. Anything we can do?

Silent_Interim

2017-05-03, 08:18 PM

"And they say the French are rude!" Luis remarks, to no one in particular. He looks at his mood ring, the one with a sympathetic connection to Xeno, and blanches to notice it danger-white. Oh, hey, he psychically calls out. Could we set up a meeting in the very near future? With Marianne or anyone else in the Pentacle. It concerns the struggle of eternal republican liberties against the accidental tyrants of history. Should be good for all involved.

He holds the ring and tries to get a sense of Xeno's surface thoughts, making his presence known in her peripheral awareness. Anything we can do?

Er. Not really. The spirit is getting ready to attack, so we're making a tactical retreat. I'd prefer not to make this ploy obvious if I can avoid it, because ugly here might just start attacking us on sight, which is bad whether or not I've got the spell up. Oh, and it'd be good to get your car home safe and sound. Henricus- that's the Shadow Name of the new priest- seems to have some funky Mind stuff going on. Need to get you to meet him in person, see what's making him tick. That seems to be connected to the trigger conditions for the Spirit that's protecting him. Hate to meet whoever's bossing this around. They know their Spirit. Heavy conditional commands based on what appears to be another spell. Speaking of, I'm going to Co-Locate over to you in a few hours. I'll give you a call a few minutes before, so you can get somewhere private. Thinking of, not speaking of. Am I rambling? I'm rambling. Can you ramble in your own semi-internal monologue? I don't even know. Is this getting to you? Balls, I don't know.

Irene thinks this in a rapid, stream-of-consciousness tone, as she slowly retreats to the car.

Matthias

2017-05-03, 09:17 PM

I got you. See you soon! He turns to his phone, pulls up the appropriate app, searches Rooms → <€50/night → sort (by me) - "Adan, what's a lucky number between 1 and 10 inclusive?" - and books the room with that rank on the list.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-04, 01:35 AM

"That wasn't time-magic at all, Henricus." Adan ends the call, frowning, and then shrugs. Irene will tell him more, and then in all likelihood he'll never bother with some Banisher 'trial'.

He is a little confused by Luis's long stretches of silence and comment upon the politeness of the French... pigeons?
"Ah... we're in contact with Marianne, then? What kind of luck do you need?"

Matthias

2017-05-04, 02:09 PM

"No, the girls back home - don't worry about the number, I've already booked it." He starts heading towards a seedy hotel. "We should be able to confer with them in person soon; then, the locals, and we'll see how to attack Dr. Witchhammer's employers." He opens up his Mage Sight - should there be anything more likely lovely than a hellscape view of the Left Bank?

The_Snark

2017-05-05, 07:05 PM

"Perhaps that is something your God has not told you- one of the great Arcana we have is to do with Fate. My friend is... something of an expert in that field. The Destiny he saw attached to you? It was one of madness and suffering. This spirit sought to interfere with my friend when he sought to remove that destiny from you. Even now, from what he has told me, that destiny hangs upon your church. Not this church you have found, but the one from before. You remember, do you not? If not for the intervention of this "angel," perhaps we could have done more. Perhaps no person nor place would be bound to that destiny right now. Does that sound like the action of an angel?"

Camille heroically resists the temptation to ask if Irene has ever read the Old Testament. The priest looks like he might actually be willing to listen, this isn't the time for the Bad Cop to speak up, much less the Sarcastic Cop...

... and then the accusations of heresy start to fly. So much for getting through to him. "They told you exactly what you wanted to hear, didn't they," she remarks with a snort. "You are one of the elect; you have passed through the trials and come to the Truth, and need never fear or doubt again, so long as you obey." She tosses the last of the bread down to the pigeons. "I know little of God, but I know there are things in this world which will falsely claim his name for their own ends. Be careful of those who tell you that faith means you must not think for yourself, monsieur Institor."

Unlike Irene, she doesn't bother looking back as she walks towards the car. (Partly, it must be said, because Irene is the one running their failsafe spell.)

aetherialDawn

2017-05-07, 04:23 AM

"Ah... Alright, Athanasius. So long as everything is moving fine. So meet up with the others, then with the locals, then keep moving on investigations... I really wish I knew how long we have until the Clock resets, but I guess we'll just have to keep going without for now. Maybe Ramses can tell us more - that will be fun for Lyell, I hope."

Thanqol

2017-05-07, 05:48 PM

Zeno blinks hard. "You... sorry, you what now? I. Well. Um. I." She blinks again. "Montesquieu knows perfectly well... no. No, I see. Of course." Zeno stands up, hands raised in a seeming gesture of surrender. "Lyell and I are going to walk to our car now. We have errands to run."

Camille heroically resists the temptation to ask if Irene has ever read the Old Testament. The priest looks like he might actually be willing to listen, this isn't the time for the Bad Cop to speak up, much less the Sarcastic Cop...

... and then the accusations of heresy start to fly. So much for getting through to him. "They told you exactly what you wanted to hear, didn't they," she remarks with a snort. "You are one of the elect; you have passed through the trials and come to the Truth, and need never fear or doubt again, so long as you obey." She tosses the last of the bread down to the pigeons. "I know little of God, but I know there are things in this world which will falsely claim his name for their own ends. Be careful of those who tell you that faith means you must not think for yourself, monsieur Institor."

Unlike Irene, she doesn't bother looking back as she walks towards the car. (Partly, it must be said, because Irene is the one running their failsafe spell.)

"You have a week, my children," said the priest. There's the faintest of flickers as his mind again bypasses the challenge presented to him by Camille. Neither he nor his associates prevent you from leaving, and he returns to a state of conviction best described as the kind of certainty one experiences in dreams.

Then you are away.

"Ah... Alright, Athanasius. So long as everything is moving fine. So meet up with the others, then with the locals, then keep moving on investigations... I really wish I knew how long we have until the Clock resets, but I guess we'll just have to keep going without for now. Maybe Ramses can tell us more - that will be fun for Lyell, I hope."

So something you can tell with a Time Knowing spell is 'how long until something absolutely certain to happen happens'. Like, exactly how long until the Sun goes down? How long until the vote finishes? If you run one of those on the timeline resetting the answer you get is 'the countdown hasn't started yet'. The force responsible for the reset hasn't twigged to the fact that it needs to run the reset yet. Once it does you'll be able to perceive the timer clearly if that's what you're looking for.

Silent_Interim

2017-05-08, 12:41 AM

Once they're in the car, Irene turns to Camille. "What the hell was that? You know what- never mind. I don't want to know." She starts the car, but hesitates before pulling away.

"That guy has some funky capital-M Mind stuff going on. Wish Luis was here to talk to him." Irene shakes her head as she pulls away. "So, dropping the car off, finding somewhere out-of-the-way, hitting the recall button, then I'll co-locate us to the guys in Paris. Sound good?"

The_Snark

2017-05-14, 08:52 PM

"That was diplomacy," Camille says primly. "You were being too nice. We were never going to get anywhere by simpering and pretending everything was fine." She frowns slightly. "Though if his thoughts are not truly his own, perhaps I was too harsh. Slightly."

"And yes, that I believe was the plan."

Matthias

2017-05-15, 07:26 AM

aetherialDawn

2017-05-15, 09:07 PM

Luis shivers, like someone had walked on his grave. "You ever feel like... Hmm. I remember as a child, after my obsessive fear of damnation, I started wondering 'what if time doesn't pass one second per second?' Like if we're all in slow motion but can't notice it, or if the world were put on pause for eons and then run in tiny little bits, like a gl itching computer. Maybe something to do with the Clock; and as a chronomancer ypu'd certainly know more."

Luis is putting up little temporary glyphs in the hotel room, hoping to make it more receptive to Xeno and Lyell, and less so for anyone else. Little bits of Scotch tape line the walls, filled with Atlantean runes and fragments of conversation Xeno and he have had. Other stretches of Scotch tape radiate outward on the floor from the friendship bracelet at the center of the room. And oh, hey, there's a minibar!

Adan immediately delves deep into his Mage Sight; Luis's intuition is well worth trusting, after all. Besides, other than that he's not particularly doing more than sitting where Luis asked him to sit to be part of the setup for receiving Xeno's spell, and the articles he's reading about Ramses II and the 'official' history of clocks are less interesting than the original flurry of research was. Talking about Time is far more exciting.
"It's probably fine, but I'm checking. I was actually thinking that... I don't have a firm grounding for this, but with what we've learned, maybe the Clock enforces a worldwide time-rate; everyone would experience one-second-per-second, but the Clock means that if we're in two different rooms I don't experience that for six hours in Room A while you experience it for two hours in Room B until we meet up in Room C... And a day is always whatever bit less than twenty-four hours it is, instead of the sun deciding how long it stays in the sky. We've got myths about the Sun getting angry or being piloted wrong and burning the world - maybe the Clock was meant to stop that. ... It's also got something to do with Seers, though, and we'll probably want to work with the others to figure out if that's a bug or a feature."

Thanqol

2017-05-15, 09:38 PM

Adan immediately delves deep into his Mage Sight; Luis's intuition is well worth trusting, after all.

Anything weird happening with Time will be picked up by your peripheral mage sight so I'll tell you that kinda stuff unprompted. At the moment all you've got is what you already know; that something's slightly wrong with the second.

In general, while I'm super keen to give out information and while Mages are entitled to a huge amount of data just by asking, the sheer volume of information that's available to you means that my job is way easier if you ask specific questions.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-15, 10:14 PM

Anything weird happening with Time will be picked up by your peripheral mage sight so I'll tell you that kinda stuff unprompted. At the moment all you've got is what you already know; that something's slightly wrong with the second.

In general, while I'm super keen to give out information and while Mages are entitled to a huge amount of data just by asking, the sheer volume of information that's available to you means that my job is way easier if you ask specific questions.

Thank you; mostly what I'm looking for - is it the same 'slightly wrong'? (.00000004, wasn't it?)
I'm looking for whether it's now .000...06, for instance.

Thanqol

2017-05-15, 10:38 PM

Thank you; mostly what I'm looking for - is it the same 'slightly wrong'? (.00000004, wasn't it?)
I'm looking for whether it's now .000...06, for instance.

It's compounding; adding 0.00...04 every eighth second, like a clock that's impossibly slightly out of sync*. It's a regular accumulation of delay, over ten years this will add up to about 1 second's full divergence.

* Apologies if this is a slight retcon.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-18, 05:09 AM

Adan sighs, sinking back out of Mage Sight - closing his merely mundane eyes for good measure - and leaning back in his seat.
"The disjoint is getting greater, but it doesn't seem to have an acceleration or change from Salamanca... But I still don't understand it. Our only reason to think that it means anything about the clock is that Nietzsche said so. Well, it was; that account you pulled up of the sundial bringing Ra into full ascendance as sun-plaguing spirits fell away definitely hints at it existing."
"But, if we're going to doubt Nietzsche's approach to what to do about the Clock, maybe we should doubt the connection he laid out between the disjoint and the Clock in the first place. My spells said that the 'timeline reset' is either not guaranteed yet or was, er, will be never going to happen at all. I mean, obviously the Seers seem to have some way to mess with Awakenings and that is absolutely more-than-one-hundred-percent not okay all on its own, so I suppose we keep on with what we're doing."

He flips open his watch, opening his eyes and gazing into the piece of mirror that he brought back from/connected to Arcadia. How long will it be until his timeline is 'reset' as Nietzsche described?

[Checking again mostly because Adan's current job is to sit in a chair and think really hard about information that has already been gone over - in other words, he wants Irene and Camille to come on over! :smallsmile:
Time 1, one Reach to Instant Casting and one Reach to Spell Control. Gnosis 1 + Time 2 + Yantra 1 = 9, 5, 4, 6 = one success. But the answer is probably (hopefully) still something synonymous with '404 Not Found'.]

Thanqol

2017-05-18, 05:59 AM

He flips open his watch, opening his eyes and gazing into the piece of mirror that he brought back from/connected to Arcadia. How long will it be until his timeline is 'reset' as Nietzsche described?

[Checking again mostly because Adan's current job is to sit in a chair and think really hard about information that has already been gone over - in other words, he wants Irene and Camille to come on over! :smallsmile:
Time 1, one Reach to Instant Casting and one Reach to Spell Control. Gnosis 1 + Time 2 + Yantra 1 = 9, 5, 4, 6 = one success. But the answer is probably (hopefully) still something synonymous with '404 Not Found'.]

So Timesight gives you the same answer but Time is kind of dumb and mechanistic as far as Arcana goes. Fatesight has something more useful for you here: If you move on the Paris facility that you're planning on raiding, something great and portentous will happen.

It's not much a leap of analysis (assuming your intel is all good) to derive from that, if you are detected infiltrating the Paris facility that stands a good chance of giving the OPFOR enough intel to realize it's been compromised and start work on the timeline reset. At the moment nothing has gone off its plan enough for it to twig that there's a problem at all but a direct attack on that facility will certainly prompt a response.

But, like you say - it's really important that you find out what's there.

Silent_Interim

2017-05-18, 03:06 PM

"Like you'd know diplomacy if it danced naked in front of you," Irene mutters darkly, not quite loud enough for Camille to make out the words but definitely loud enough to hear them being said.

It isn't long before the car is dropped off at a workshop where Luis had made arrangements earlier. She talks briefly to the mechanic, before leading Camille into an alleyway, behind a dumpster, and undoes the spell. Once that's done, and they're in Irene's ratty apartment, she texts Luis that she's beginning the ritual, and proceeds to co-locate them to whatever hovel Luis has booked for them.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-21, 01:58 AM

Adan brightens as Irene and Camille magically arrive - safe and un-mauled by murderspirits.
"So how did it go? Our new friend sounded like he's already aiming for Banisher, but a little more mellow than I expected - maybe we can convince him not to kill me before I offend him by not showing up for a kangaroo trial? Oh, we've got research notes you'll want to see around here somewhere, too..."
With its purpose complete, Adan lets the Luck he laid to help everyone to Paris lapse to nothing, not unlike withdrawing his finger from a knot it supports. Pristine and unused, except for peace of mind.

The_Snark

2017-05-21, 09:13 AM

"Banisher? If only." Camille makes a face. "One of the Seer Ministries got to him, and now he is convinced that they are God's voice on Earth. We are not going to get anywhere by talking to him, I think; it is the sort of belief which presupposes that anyone seriously arguing against it is acting in bad faith. Also," she adds as if this is an afterthought, "they may have done something to his mind."

She glances at Irene, inviting her to elaborate on that with a raised eyebrow.

Silent_Interim

2017-05-21, 02:17 PM

"Okay, so, Luis would probably understand this whole... thing... better than I do, but. Essentially, any thought he has that contradicts his "God"-given belief set is shunted off. He can't consciously follow any train of thought opposing it. It gets... redirected... to his sub-conscious. This really isn't my area of expertise. Also, it triggers Happy Murder Spirit. It was... fairly... passive before the shunting off happened, but that put it into tense about-to-murder mode." Irene considers. "Also, he has a posse. Bunch of angry thugs with guns." She turns to Luis. "How about you guys? Find anything of interest?"

Matthias

2017-05-21, 06:45 PM

"Lots." He gives them the rundown, then replays memories for them if there's anything confusing - and is curious to directly access their memories of the encounter with Mr Witchhammer, if they're willing.

"Most important old news: we know their HQ, or at least a local asset. Anybody up for a field trip?"

The_Snark

2017-05-22, 08:52 AM

"Yes. But not right now. These two have convalescing to do" - she nods toward Adan and Irene - "and as long as we are waiting, we may as well use that time, yes? It would be nice to have a plan before diving in for once. If only for a change of pace."

She starts counting off on her fingers. "We can stake out the building, see if that tells us anything. Irene could try looking inside, although that is perhaps risky. Adan can run divinations. We can prepare defensive magic before we go in. And of course we should work out what we are going to do once we're inside, besides 'wander around and see what happens'. Anything else?"

Silent_Interim

2017-05-22, 05:50 PM

"Yep, that's me, convalescing. Doctor Kottman, going to her sick bed, at the orders of Nurse Camille." Irene salutes, than falls backwards onto a bed with a large FLUMPH. "Okay, jokes aside, my side does still hurt, so I am going to lie down for a bit."

Matthias

2017-05-22, 09:07 PM

Luis rigs up a projector he stole from Filosofia 302, fiddling around with the stupid cords and stuff until a PowerPoint is thrown onto the wall and a white noise drone is coming out the speaker.

MY DREAM PRAIS VACATION

1. research lay lines or w/e
2. getting more mundane - who owns the building, etc
3. i've pinged marianne so that she can edit this - hi marianne!
4. talk 2 mummies at the louvre?

"Dunno if she's around now - I was told that the server for the account I pinged her at was hosted in an alternate timeline and therefore secure, which I guess is weird enough to be true, but no idea how to verify that - hope the wifi is good on Earth-2 if so! Anyway, enjoy WikiSlides, the free slides anybody can edit," he says, turning the computer around so as to invite further use.

"Anyway, patient," he says, Platonically flopping onto the bed next to Irene, "mind if we take a look in there for tampering?" He taps her on the forehead, clicking out knocking sounds from the roof of his mouth as Mage Sight goes up. "Just a few standard checks in light of proximity to a contaminated object. You too, Lye, and actually, let's check me and Adan as well."

[burning a mana to add Prime to mage sight, unless I'm misremembering how that works]

Thanqol

2017-05-22, 10:06 PM

"Anyway, patient," he says, Platonically flopping onto the bed next to Irene, "mind if we take a look in there for tampering?" He taps her on the forehead, clicking out knocking sounds from the roof of his mouth as Mage Sight goes up. "Just a few standard checks in light of proximity to a contaminated object. You too, Lye, and actually, let's check me and Adan as well."

[burning a mana to add Prime to mage sight, unless I'm misremembering how that works]

There doesn't seem to be any lingering spell effects there, you're good.

Meanwhile, attracted by the Supernal force of Pedantry:

MY DREAM PARIS VACATION

1. Research ley lines or whatever. - The Silver Ladder has partial maps of the city but for most things we have to go through the Free Council, who are the dominating political force here. Do you need something specific?
2. More mundanely - who owns the building, etc. - You shall have to be more specific.
3. I have pinged Marianne so that she can edit this - hi Marianne! - Good evening Luis, welcome to Paris. All praise to the glorious ladder, may it eat the unbelievers swiftly and unexpectedly.
4. Talk to mummies at the Louvre? - That's a Mysterium fortress and they will charge you out the butt for that.

Matthias

2017-05-22, 10:21 PM

He opens up a new slide.

A Salmantin Awakening was.... hijacked, somehow, remotely from an office building on Mirage Place next to the airport, seventh floor, somewhere near the middle, we believe by Paternoster. [gmaps link] There were specific orders as well as some sort of mind control function.

Thanqol

2017-05-22, 10:32 PM

A few moments, then:

A Salmantin Awakening was.... hijacked, somehow, remotely from an office building on Mirage Place next to the airport, seventh floor, somewhere near the middle, we believe by Paternoster. [gmaps link] There were specific orders as well as some sort of mind control function.

Hmm.

Do you want my help? I can't guarantee I'm not tracked by the local Assembly so if I show up to this thing it's possible it'll turn into a Free Council group event.

The_Snark

2017-05-22, 10:41 PM

Thanqol

2017-05-22, 11:08 PM

"Yes, do. We should be warded against that sort of thing when we go in tomorrow." Camille scribbles this down on a hotel notepad. "I don't mind Free Council help with the Seers. This business with the Clock, I am less sure about. If we bring in too many other people, it will get very political very fast."

You aren't wrong. Montesquieu, the moment the topic of bringing the Free Council in comes up your passive Fatesense goes off the chart - everything is red and coloured with blood, and Mars holds sole dominion over the sky. Putting the Free Council onto this will lead to a violent, bloody war - its shape in the future is so vast and portentous that you wonder how this is how Acanthus magi in 1913 must have felt.

You might still want to do it. You guys are the undefeated world war champions after all.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-23, 12:24 AM

Adan looks a little guilty (well, more than a little guilty) when Camille mentions convalescing. Because, while he hasn't been going back to the Murder Spirit, he has definitely been trying not to pay attention to it. Instead of actually making sure everything is going properly.
Thankfully, he is already seated and that's probably the right thing to be doing at this moment.

Watching the back-and-forth with Marianne and Luis on the projection is amusing, although it is a little weird that she mentions the Free Council. Possibly she just doesn't know? Actually, he doesn't know who else is around on her side of things. Oops, possibly introductions are in order.

You aren't wrong. Montesquieu, the moment the topic of bringing the Free Council in comes up your passive Fatesense goes off the chart - everything is red and coloured with blood, and Mars holds sole dominion over the sky. Putting the Free Council onto this will lead to a violent, bloody war - its shape in the future is so vast and portentous that you wonder how this is how Acanthus magi in 1913 must have felt.

You might still want to do it. You guys are the undefeated world war champions after all.
Montesquieu sucks in a sharp breath - this is big. That's the second time it has happened, so it's time to stop waiting for the right moment and interrupt.
"Luis, mind if I type this in? There are shapes in Fate around the building that I think we should tell Marianne about - and the rest of you, too." Despite the natural fear of violence, there's also the sort of... Maybe a war is the only correct response to trying to hijack Awakenings and decide what people are allowed to think about if this is as global as it sounds. He's always been a little iffy on the idea of open war... but seeing an Awakening strangled in the crib by destinies and mental surgery and exploitation felt so wrong.
But it's still worth planning for peace first.

Without the bit of himself tied up in maintaining a smooth path to Paris (metaphorically,) Adan says, "I have some things to say - there's some... it's like gravity; if we get close enough to some of these things, then other things become inevitable. I just need a moment to check some things. Basically, if we go to the building, then I think it starts the timer on that reset Nietzsche mentioned. And if we involve the Free Council, it means... War, not politics. A massive war, crowding out everything else. And... I think we should tell Marianne. And probably bring in more of the Cabal."

He pulls out his mirror; probably High Speech would be better, but the mirror is more comfortable for this and Montesquieu feels sort of odd to be charting the future like this - surely there must be someone else? He's still learning all of this, will maybe never stop having to carefully learn it instead of finding it just intuitive. But he can give the information they need to his friends... and Marianne too, he supposes. It could be worse - they could be depending wholly upon Nietzsche. Staring into his Mirror, he tries to trace his own actions and perspectives into possible futures, trading what the mirror does show for letting the idea of what it could show rise into his self instead.

[Divination! One Reach for Instant Casting, one Reach for detailed answers. Gnosis 1+Time 2+Yantra 1+Willpower 3 (Putting Adan at 4/6 Willpower.) Hamete says: 6, 10>7, 6, 5, 2, 5, 6 = 1 success. With two Potency, two questions.
Will Seers find out the content of this conversation?
and
What will cause this war?]

Thanqol

2017-05-23, 01:02 AM

He pulls out his mirror; probably High Speech would be better, but the mirror is more comfortable for this and Montesquieu feels sort of odd to be charting the future like this - surely there must be someone else? He's still learning all of this, will maybe never stop having to carefully learn it instead of finding it just intuitive. But he can give the information they need to his friends... and Marianne too, he supposes. It could be worse - they could be depending wholly upon Nietzsche. Staring into his Mirror, he tries to trace his own actions and perspectives into possible futures, trading what the mirror does show for letting the idea of what it could show rise into his self instead.

[Divination! One Reach for Instant Casting, one Reach for detailed answers. Gnosis 1+Time 2+Yantra 1+Willpower 3 (Putting Adan at 4/6 Willpower.) Hamete says: 6, 10>7, 6, 5, 2, 5, 6 = 1 success. With two Potency, two questions.
Will Seers find out the content of this conversation?
and
What will cause this war?]

Yes, the Seers will find out the content of this conversation. Marianne is compromised by the Free Council, and the Free Council here has been compromised by the Seers. You can't see the exact mechanism but the Seers either have a spy, a bug, or a tap on FC operations on Paris and consider this important enough to use that source. She only sees what is typed by the way, there's no scrying link.

This war will be caused by networking and escalation. The Free Council shares information instantly and Paris is their global capital. They will not tolerate any sort of Throne presence here - Destroy the servants of the Lie - and will take Throne presence here as a personal affront. Their retaliation will be huge, and the Throne will respond in kind, and it will escalate, and escalate, and escalate. Note that if the escalation cycle is derailed somehow the war can be contained.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-23, 01:54 AM

"This connection..." He pauses, trying to figure out how to say it. "It's not secure. If the Free Council thinks it's important, they watch Marianne... and if the Seers think it's important enough, someone has... access to how the Free Council does that. Maybe more. Once the Council finds out about the Seers in the heart of Paris, they'll escalate and things will keep escalating - and that won't stay hidden forever. Whatever we do is only one way they could find out."
"We can add, I suppose, another task to our list - Stop this interference with Awakenings. Destroy, reclaim, or replace the foundations of Mundane Time. And get the Seers out of Paris, where they are too close to... well, to the heart of the Free Council."

Montesquieu still isn't sure how to think about it, that his Order is probably going to go to war; proud? Guilty?
There's the uncertain option to cut things off at the start - if the Seers are removed from Paris before the Free Council finds out... that might cut off the escalation before it gets to any grander scale. But he can't See how to check that for certain. Or decide if this is a war to avoid, or what other tools there are to shift how this happens.
He finds himself turning to Luis, and doesn't stop it once he realizes what he's doing.

Matthias

2017-05-24, 03:12 PM

Luis, his third eye still open, looks at the flashing red DANGER! DANGER! signs waltzing around Adan as much as anything his friend is saying. He closes his two Fallen eyes and summons forth the image, or rather Imago, of the Sage. Chrysippus, specifically. Nothing less than cool logic and rationally assented ideological conviction can work on Luis for now.

"It's false humility to say we have no right to escalate this," he says after a pause, his eyes still shut. "Instead, we should ask whether we have any right to do anything else. Everyone in this world, including us, is already dead - the only life that can await any of us is selfishly and individually as Exarchs, or collectively and triumphantly as resurectees in Hieraconis. Morally, the coming of the Republic of Heaven outweighs all other considerations put together. If our conscience revolts against this it's because of scope insensitivity.

"Strategically, we therefore have a duty to escalate because we're the offense and the Seers are playing defense. The Kingdom of Death is wholly theirs and wholly actual, even if it is not real, the Republic of Heaven wholly ours and wholly potential, however real. All else being equal, uncertainty helps us. The contradictions must be heightened.

"Ordinarily, our selfish impulse is to avoid heightening them. Every woman and man who Awakes but refuses to kiss the Throne acknowledges, at least on an intellectual level, that winning this war is more important than any temporal comfort. But temporal comforts are immediate. And the moral intuitions arising from the rhythms of ordinary life say that if two parties come to truces, they can both be better off; that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, &c. Well, the rhythms of ordinary life are a Lie, and when we de-escalate, all of the 'Wise' can live more comfortably, and maybe even many others can live more comfortably, but the Lie wins.

"Tactically, there are questions of timing. If we estimate both that we would lose an immediate confrontation and that in the absence of that confrontation our power would grow, we have a legitimate reason to delay. But let's keep in mind our selfish and short-sighted reasons to invent reasons to do so."

Luis the Sage observes that what he is saying would horrify him in his unemotional moments, considers whether this invalidates any of the logic he has set out so far, notes that it does not, and sets it to the side until further considerations make it relevant again.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-25, 04:29 AM

Adan breathes in more calmly; even in Luis's sight, that mirror-reflection-self-analysis mix that defines a more thoughtful, directed Adan starts to edge inwards again around the edges. He can handle tactics and deciding whether he thinks Luis's latest statements are bull**** or sagely, it's personal responsibility which is scary.

"Alright. I agree with that, and I can add details. Tactically, then - it will be bloody." With a different perspective, he continues, "So that means that - we aren't going to be totally outclassed or cut down by surprise. Or if we are, it's hidden from me anyway, and we-the-Pentacle should use preparation and more <piercing> spells." He doesn't only say 'piercing', slipping in tones of High Speech conveying 'magic-which-defeats-or-evades-Unveiling'. "We should address the Clock, because Nietzsche's claims that it can reset the timeline are not totally unreasonable and it's very powerful regardless." He's not entirely sure if this is his decision to make - a war this big, Sleepers are going to suffer too, as pawns, and at the same time... inside Adan's head is the contest between 'It's for their freedom' and 'It's not including their choices', but Luis has pushed things pretty firmly towards 'It's for their freedom'. Also, there are three other people in the room - Luis has his opinion, Irene and Camille will hardly censor theirs.

"The best way I can put it is... Right now we, personally, are on the border between bloody war for everyone and not. We're just one possible match for the fire, but we know it. I don't know what the time limit is on the Clock, because it hasn't started yet, but that capability means we can't and shouldn't wait too long. I think... No, I suppose we could turn away for a while still. But I want to stop this interference with Awakening, I want to find out more about the Clock - and destroy or replace it. Knowing this, it doesn't prevent the consequences, but we have a chance to prepare for them." He doesn't add, 'If you want to as well' at the end, thinking it but having a full expectation that no-one here wouldn't say so if they disagree.

After a few seconds, he remembers that Marianne is still on the line, so to speak, and types a bit into a Powerpoint slide.

We're working on it, please bear with us. I think we will want help, but we are working out a few details on this end.
-Montesquieu, Arcadian Path, Free Councilor (Salamanca)
It is very tempting to mention that the powerpoint is compromised - only polite, really, since Marianne has been so helpful and any Apprentice of Time could do the same - but that might provide inappropriate warning to someone. Perhaps a little later.

Silent_Interim

2017-05-25, 10:13 PM

Irene pulls herself to a sitting position. "I'm not convinced that, with our current information, we are in a position to start a war. We don't have all the information. We are in a position to fix that. I can scry, Adan can divine... there is no excuse for proceeding without all the facts."

Matthias

2017-05-26, 08:29 AM

"Yes, that's correct - thank you. Additional sources of information we can use?

"Also, tactically, this is an opportunity to seed disinfo to the Seers, though unfortunately any poison we pump into them also goes through the Paris Pentacle. Ideas?"

aetherialDawn

2017-05-28, 02:27 AM

"It looked like however the Seers get information is pretty limited, and I know that I don't have the skills to give useful disinformation anyway - I would rather make sure that we prepare to present our case on the Clock as best we can, so that the Seers are denied what is probably a powerful tool for divination or timeline-control. If we want more divination now, I'd like suggestions for what our goals are - otherwise, I won't know what to Look for."
Much as it might be less than perfect from the perspective of being an ideal Free Councilor, it feels far more important to work on the Clock than to fight for the sake of fighting.

The_Snark

2017-05-28, 08:22 PM

"We could suggest we managed to subvert or compromise the new Mage in Salamanca," Camille suggests. "I don't know what they'd do about that - probably nothing pleasant for him - but it might waste some of their time. Also..."

She leans over and cuffs Luis upside the head. "Get your head out of whatever theologian's ass you're channeling this time, Luis. I do not disagree with your conclusion, but you sound like the f**king Paternoster. Cut it out with the our-end-justifies-any-means crap and get your feet back on the ground. If we're going to kick off a war, let's do it for good reasons, not half-baked religious convictions."

Matthias

2017-05-29, 07:35 AM

Luis calmly accepts the drubbing, weighing his friend's argument. "What kinds of good reasons are you looking for, if not the ones you already accepted when joined the Pentacle? We are, after all, talking about ideas that have sustained millennia of sustained experimental theology - as fully-baked as I am on a Tuesday night. You'll have to get more specific - to start, are you talking about a principled objection to my general grounding itself, or a contingent concern about timing? I'm happy to respond and open to changing my mind, but you'll have to start by hypostatizing your antithesis, as it were."

The_Snark

2017-05-29, 04:49 PM

Camille rolls her eyes. "Fine. Your conception of the Republic of Heaven is overly colored by Christian ideas from your upbringing and your studies, some of which are merely unAwakened and some of which are actively cultivated by the Paternoster. You refer to the Kingdom of Death as in opposition to the Republic of Heaven, and imagine that when the Rapture comes - sorry, Hieraconis - we will all be resurrected and death a thing of the past. Wrong. Death is a part of the Supernal World as much as the Fallen, if not more so. And that's just the most obvious error; more broadly, you are assuming you know more than you really do about what a world without the Lie would be like. You don't. None of us have seen that world. All we have are glimpses and speculation."

"Secondly, you are falling prey to the common mistake that the Fallen World is itself without value, while the Supernal is all-important. Wrong. The Pentacle gets this one wrong a lot, but that doesn't make it any less stupid. It's the philosophical foundation of the classic Paternoster soft sell: this world means nothing, the hereafter is everything, so whatever horrible things we're asking you to do right now don't actually matter."

"Finally, you're claiming that 'the ends justify the means' is a solved philosophical problem, which I rather doubt, but I don't care to argue that one because I'm not sure of the answer either; I only contend that it is solved."

"All that said... it is true that the Seers are using their influence to do terrible things, and will continue to do so until someone stops them. War will also mean terrible things, and they will be far more obvious to us. We will be complicit in some, even. This is less than comfortable, but our discomfort should not be the deciding factor. Will a war stop more suffering than it causes, in the end? This is what is important."

"Also," she adds after a moment, "on a practical level I am not sure averting war is a real option. The Seers are here in Paris; the Free Council will react violently if they discover this. This will not stop being true if we decide to keep what we know to ourselves. Unless we decide to help conceal the Seers' presence, I suppose, but I doubt we could make much difference there, and also, no. The real choice is, do we start a war now, on our terms, or wash our hands of the matter and leave it for someone else?"

Silent_Interim

2017-05-29, 05:52 PM

"Camille raises some good points. The ends might justify the means, but that depends on what the ends are. How can you assert that the ends justify the means when we don't know what means we are justifying for what ends? And you, of all people, Luis, should know the value of each individual. This is not a claim to make lightly." Irene is strangely relaxed even as the room is tense- a habit, from times of pressure, and a defense mechanism. The tension is internalized, not to be externalized until she is alone.

Thanqol

2017-05-29, 06:20 PM

"Also," she adds after a moment, "on a practical level I am not sure averting war is a real option. The Seers are here in Paris; the Free Council will react violently if they discover this. This will not stop being true if we decide to keep what we know to ourselves. Unless we decide to help conceal the Seers' presence, I suppose, but I doubt we could make much difference there, and also, no. The real choice is, do we start a war now, on our terms, or wash our hands of the matter and leave it for someone else?"

Athanasius, Zeno, Montesquieu - you all have enough dots in Politics to think that isn't quite the case. The Free Council is a democracy and it matters a lot how the argument is framed and presented. If they find out what's going on through an espionage channel and that discovery is immediately followed up by a Throne agent activating and leading a pre-emptive strike then the debate is shaped in a very specific way from there. If, conversely, the revelation is more carefully managed then the Council is more than capable of approaching the problem with a clearer plan. There's a huge difference between a controlled, political release of information and everyone hitting their panic buttons simultaneously.

Athanasius in particular has enough Politics to know one person in particular who has the most ability to frame the debate - the Strategos Libertine, the military leader of the Free Council in Paris (and, arguably, of the entire global Free Council). If you want a specific outcome from the Council then her word carries the most amount of weight.

If anyone has more specific questions about Free Council politics or crisis resolution that's an intelligence+politics roll.

aetherialDawn

2017-05-29, 07:52 PM

Montesquieu takes a breath and says, "There is one more point that Luis didn't make. I should have, and I'm sorry. But... If bringing in the Free Council starts a war, then if we ask I suspect that one of the opening moves of that war may be to destroy or change the Clock - whichever is appropriate, given what we now suspect about its original purpose. The idea of predicting Awakenings is supposedly enormously difficult, and we only have one highly-convincing example... Although, actually, if Nietzsche is correct, it may be possible to check that with Divination. I don't know either way, not yet. And I don't believe it's a good idea for me to look alone at that question, or just with the four of us - I would rather not, when I know my skill with divinations are incomplete, not something I was looking into before... all this."

"As for the Free Council - I think that even if war in the abstract is inevitable, we are unlikely to plant misinformation that helps more than harms, alone. I also... I don't think that we should be making this decision without involving the Free Council, not if we've decided that we don't want to try and stop it. Luis was convincing enough, and the Clock is terrifying enough, that... I think I will accept a war at all, and so what I want is to somehow get this information out to the Assembly without it leaking to the Seers, however they can pull it. It would be important enough."

"The Free Council does have representatives to handle this sort of issue, although I don't know the precise person or people to talk to in Paris. We could find out easily, though - Marianne probably knows, and we have Space and Fate to guide us - desiring an honest meeting opens up easier paths that might otherwise be closed."

Matthias

2017-05-29, 10:16 PM

"We should bring this to La Troisième, the Stategos Libertine - she'll be in a much better case to evaluate the particulars, including the crucial one of whether that's a mistake. Monty, can you run some analytics on whether letting her know what we know would be a bad idea relative to other options. Lye and Xena, thoughts on that specifically, rather than war generally? And thank you for your thoughts on that, by the way, I'm only not responding to them because I want to give them proper consideration." Some slivers of emotion - mainly grave concern - are showing on his face as the charm slowly wears off. Luis isn't at all opposed to the role of emotion in reasoning - just aware of the dangers of it in immediate reactions. He concentrates on another Imago, splitting his mind so that he can think of the philosophical issues at stake while also participating in the operational scrambling.

Silent_Interim

2017-05-29, 11:58 PM

Irene taps her chin thoughtfully. "If telling Marianne now leads to bloody war, uncontrolled from our perspective, I'm against it. The political situation is such that it would be better to bring this in through more official channels. I'm reluctant to tell the Council before we make a move- we could get resources and backing, but on the other hand, if they're compromised, we suddenly need resources and backing. If we're going to make a move on the building by the airport, I suggest I do some cursory scrying, we take any actions against it we're planning on taking, and then report things to the relevant authority figures."

The_Snark

2017-05-31, 07:24 AM

"I do not actually know anything about the Free Council in Paris," Camille says matter-of-factly, "nor am I a seer like Adan. All I can offer is common sense. If the Strategos can make a more informed decision than we, it seems sensible to tell her; however, I do not know this woman and cannot speak for her judgment. Can she be trusted? Is she capable of making sure that the war starts with a planned first strike, rather than a mob?"

Matthias

2017-05-31, 09:32 AM

"She's ruthless but extremely level-headed," he says, "unless that's just what she wanted me to think, but anyone who throws off my impressions like that probably is ruthless but level-headed in the first place."

Silent_Interim

2017-05-31, 02:37 PM

"The worst possible combination. If I have to deal with ruthless people, I would rather they be clouded by emotion. And if I have to deal with level-headed people, I prefer they be less than ruthless."

The_Snark

2017-05-31, 04:25 PM

Camille arches an eyebrow. "Oh? It seems to me that is exactly the sort of person one wants prosecuting a war. Would you prefer that they be hotheaded and impulsive? Or merely sentimental?"

Silent_Interim

2017-05-31, 05:20 PM

Irene regards Camille coolly. "It is an admirable set of qualities in an ally. I am uncertain, as of yet, if she is an ally. And even if she is, it is a set of qualities that lends itself to deep personal ambition. That is not a quality I want in any ally."

Thanqol

2017-05-31, 05:30 PM

Knowing personal details of the Strategos Libertine sounds like exactly the sort of thing the Politics skill was made for, so anyone who wants details give a roll. Monty gets +1 for being a Free Councillor, raise that to +2 if you voted for her.

The_Snark

2017-05-31, 05:38 PM

"If you insist that your allies not harbor personal ambition, you will not have any allies in the field of politics," Camille says matter-of-factly. "But your point is taken: you do not trust competent authority, and of course have no use for incompetent authority. I disagree, but it is a position consistent with itself."

Matthias

2017-05-31, 05:49 PM

Luis, munching on a madeleine, looks through the C:\Documents\Memories\Old of his brain to see if he can pick up and review anything of the Strategos.

[Int 4 + Pol 3 => 5,5,1,5,7,8,3 => 1sux]

Thanqol

2017-05-31, 06:33 PM

Luis, munching on a madeleine, looks through the C:\Documents\Memories\Old of his brain to see if he can pick up and review anything of the Strategos.

[Int 4 + Pol 3 => 5,5,1,5,7,8,3 => 1sux]

Politicians are products of their time and environment, and it says a lot about the Free Council's current mindset that they appointed Rooster as Strategos Libertine. If you want a historical figure to compare her to, think Churchill - with dashes of LBJ. Her primary assets are infinite resolve, a sense of self importance, a swaggering, intimidating style, and a willingness to engage in flagrantly corrupt behaviour if it gets results. It's not clear if she's named Rooster after the Alice in Chains song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAE6Il6OTcs) or because she's a huge ****.

She's a schemer, she can keep a secret, she's good at making enemies and she is prepared to be extremely audacious - sometimes unnecessarily. Mastigos by Path. Convincing her to start a fight isn't the hard part, getting her to pick the right battle is. My recommendation is if you go to her, have all the information she needs first.

Matthias

2017-05-31, 07:18 PM

Luis relates all of that, trying not to betray a bias towards informing her or not.

The_Snark

2017-06-01, 07:48 PM

"This does not sound like a person who would help us look at the facts and come to a sensible, level-headed decision right now. This sounds like a person who would take the decision out of our hands and run with it. Yes?" Camille glances around the room for signs of disagreement, not really expecting any.

Silent_Interim

2017-06-01, 07:51 PM

"Mmm. Yes, that's true, Camille. I've not met her personally, but that all sounds correct."

Matthias

2017-06-01, 09:15 PM

"It sounds like someone who would take the decision of whether to attack out of our hands, and then execute the decision of precisely how to with skill," says Luis, "though I'd be concerned about whether she'd be optimizing for her own position relative to war goals in general. Possibly we could indicate that we have valuable information - I could wipe myself of the specifics and make clear that I have True access to them later, in exchange for her oathbinding or something to employ it in good faith."

aetherialDawn

2017-06-02, 01:35 AM

Montesquieu - or 'Monty' - nods as Athanasius asks for help in figuring out the results of contacting the Strategos of Paris. With what he can do, it's a difficult question to determine; trying to sort through if/then questions in the future is clouded, headache-inducing, and so far hasn't been much better than educated guesses.

"Rooster is who the Free Council chose for this position - I am inclined to trust her with the information on that basis even if we think she might not be ideal. As a general statement of principles, I do not wish to hide the Throne's secrets from an honestly elected representative of the Council... Even if I would not personally vote for her."
After a moment, he cautiously continues, "If you would like to moderate that position... then I think perhaps we could ask Marianne, at least, to join us when we speak with her. Moderating positions is, after all, one reason for the Pentacle to be a whole."

"If everyone can accept that, then I can take a look at some of the reactions and we can refine our position, but conditional divination is beyond me; that is part of why I want us to have more support to stop the Great Clock." He is pretty sure within himself, now, that part of the reason he has so easily been willing to accept this war is that it might stop the Clock - it's unpleasant to think that of himself, but... truth is useful even when it hurts.

Coming back to the external world again, Monty adds, "... I thought of one more question. Let me check if the Parisian Strategos will even target the Clock first - maybe I can catch some side-details that will help, too." He then flips open his mirror yet again to look into it; he's reasonably certain that Rooster will find out eventually and have a hand in the decisions, with how the discussion is going - and that means that, hopefully, there will be a clear enough image of that moment of future Time to get more details.

[First, Exceptional Luck... is what I would say if I had bought Gnosis 2 at the start of the game. Or Divination as a Rote. It's on the wishlist.
For the actual Divination: One reach to Instant Casting, one reach to detailed answers. Gnosis 1+Time 2+Yantra 1=7, 8, 3, 9=2 successes. Default potency is 2, so two questions. (I keep forgetting that I get two questions, and picking the second question more or less based on what comes to mind... and yet those have often been the most useful answers. It might be Fate!)
Will Rooster direct the Free Council towards the Great Clock as an opening move of war?
Will Marianne and Rooster agree to a meeting with both of them and all of us to discuss the Clock, the information leak in the Council, and war?]

[Also, that Int 3+Politics 1+Free Council 1 roll - 6, 8, 2, 2, 7=1 success, so probably about the same information as Luis got. Yes, I know voting for her is worth an extra die, but A) It's Paris and Montesquieu is not-new-but-hardly-old so he might not have actually voted in the relevant election at all, I'm not sure and B) She seems like kind of a jerk! Who might happen to be the right jerk for this situation, but Montesquieu was not anticipating bloody war and changing the functions of Time itself during voting. Well, he wasn't last time he voted, at least.]

Thanqol

2017-06-02, 02:25 AM

[First, Exceptional Luck... is what I would say if I had bought Gnosis 2 at the start of the game. Or Divination as a Rote. It's on the wishlist.
For the actual Divination: One reach to Instant Casting, one reach to detailed answers. Gnosis 1+Time 2+Yantra 1=7, 8, 3, 9=2 successes. Default potency is 2, so two questions. (I keep forgetting that I get two questions, and picking the second question more or less based on what comes to mind... and yet those have often been the most useful answers. It might be Fate!)
Will Rooster direct the Free Council towards the Great Clock as an opening move of war?

Absolutely not. Her opening move right now is probably 'instigate a democratic revolution/civil war in Russia'. Reading it through the lens of your successful politics roll below, that's a 'we thought we were safe in Paris, you thought you were safe in Moscow, TURNS OUT EVERYBODY IS WRONG' move. You reckon she'd find the clock pretty incidental to all this (and this is a problem with Mastigos magi - they're really good at dismissing stuff as irrelevant).

The flux-point in that is how much information she gets. If she gets half-baked information she will wage a half-baked war. The more you bring her the more refined and precise her strike becomes and the more she focuses on the Clock itself. You'll need more than you have now, though.

Will Marianne and Rooster agree to a meeting with both of them and all of us to discuss the Clock, the information leak in the Council, and war?]

Yes 100%. Heirarchy strengthens the Lie - Rooster is for her faults a pretty good Free Councilor and doesn't think of herself above a meeting with a bunch of out-of-towners.

[Also, that Int 3+Politics 1+Free Council 1 roll - 6, 8, 2, 2, 7=1 success, so probably about the same information as Luis got. Yes, I know voting for her is worth an extra die, but A) It's Paris and Montesquieu is not-new-but-hardly-old so he might not have actually voted in the relevant election at all, I'm not sure and B) She seems like kind of a jerk! Who might happen to be the right jerk for this situation, but Montesquieu was not anticipating bloody war and changing the functions of Time itself during voting. Well, he wasn't last time he voted, at least.]

Something specific that you'd get as a Free Councilor: While Rooster is totally committed to the tenants of the Free Council, she strongly believes that corruption is an integral part of democracy and that it ceases to function properly if it's removed. She thinks ideological charge leads to partisanship which leads to the breakdown of compromise and discussion. Thus: she's pretty bribeable!

(This is, understandably, a pretty ideologically charged position in and of itself and the core of a pretty big argument.)

aetherialDawn

2017-06-02, 03:23 AM

Montesquieu conveys the information as best he can - no reason to hide it. Even if he were going to be held back by embarrassment, the Seers having a line into the Free Council has already long blown past that point.

"How much information we can bring to Rooster makes a large difference - I think more difference than what arguments we bring. And... This is less certain, but I think the more information we bring, the more she focuses on the Clock but also the more successful... Ah, no. The more precise the early war is for the Council and probably the Diamond. I haven't Seen this, I am extrapolating - but if we want help with the Clock without starting a war, then we might want to bring as much information as possible, so that this can become a surgical strike instead of a war." At least today, but he doesn't say that. The structure of the world-as-it-is invites this sort of potential war, but the structure of the world is also changing over time.

"We can definitely bring Marianne and ourselves both to a meeting with her. I did not actually See how much Marianne might moderate things, but I don't think it would hurt and my own sense says it's more likely to help. Also..." As a matter of fact, it turns out that he can still be embarrassed, but that won't help anyone. "Also, for ideological reasons - it's complicated - Rooster can be bribed, and Marianne would have more pull there. I don't think she would compromise on the actual principles of the Free Council... but she might be swayed from one method to another."

He pauses, gathering his thoughts, and says, "So... investigating this Parisian building will tip off the Clock. Telling everything we know to Marianne or to Rooster now will start a war from a workable position, but maybe not a good enough one to stop the Clock before it becomes moot."
"I think that we should make our plans for the next chunk of our research now. Start with Ramses, as our best lead on an expert - end with the mystery building, since it might set things off early. Then present everything. I'll keep trying to watch if any countdown appears - if it does, we should investigate the building immediately since it's probably very important, and then present everything while being prepared to pay whatever bribe we think our knowledge is worth." After a brief moment of feeling like he has forgotten something - probably a common and odd thing to see in active Mind Sight - he adds, winding down towards smaller details, "And if either of you - Zeno, Lyell - have ideas on how to contact the sun or moon in any form, that would actually also be very helpful. ... Did I already mention that the Sun has a Destiny?"