Broken Diamond

Incorporating material from Reign of the Exarchs

A Mage: The Awakening Actual Play

As originally published on forums.rpg.net

By:

DaveB
Starring:

Mark Thomas Wolsey Dean Sam Kemi Kali Simone Rafe Carl Damascus Washington
Additional Material:

Brian Campbell, Wood Ingham, Robin Laws, Matthew McFarland, Will Hindmarch and Bill Bridges
With thanks to:

ssheftall, Christian A, Cantankerous, BlackHat_Matt, Borogove, iresprite, Ujio, TheBrassMonkey, The 23SidedDie, Wood, JLynn, Zooroos, IronSyndicate, tabrumj, Ravious, Honken, Silver-Fire, Snoopy, Spectrum, Shisumo, Sensorium, ScottL, imrtl, DeusIrae, Aryth, Raphael, Grantanz, Befuddled, BOAZ, DocTheWeasel, LivingDeadGuy, Gnomish American, Strife, markpank, Jeph, mhacdebhandia, Jason Anderson, Mozart, JoshShaw, Shadowchaser, Renchard, Harmast, Ebonheart, kingofblarg, Deflare, Charade, Paradisio, Treborn, moray, Andrew Ellis Troubio, Oakthorne, Ageis, 5monkeys, Kacie, Michael Brazier, Eynowd, Shadowchaser, Earthscorpion, Ravenscroft, Exit, stage left, KakitaKaiten, Dakkareth, lycosidae89, Nalanthi, ramenlord, iLikeSpoons and Azel & others

Collated by:

Rafe J Richards

Table of Contents
Table of Contents...................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 0: Introduction.............................................................................................. 4 Themes ................................................................................................................. 5 Overview of the City............................................................................................... 9 Cabals, Legacies and People Known at the Start ................................................ 11 The Player Characters: A Summary .................................................................... 12 Chapter 1: Through Me, Revelation ...................................................................... 15 Session 1.2.......................................................................................................... 20 Session 1.3.......................................................................................................... 29 Story 1 Recap:..................................................................................................... 36 Interlude: OOC Decisions........................................................................................ 40 Chapter 2: "Instruments of Fate" ............................................................................. 41 2.1 Commentary .................................................................................................. 61 Session 2.2.......................................................................................................... 63 Session 2.3.......................................................................................................... 84 2.3 Commentary: ............................................................................................... 104 Story 2 Recap:................................................................................................... 107 "Not the Same Person" ......................................................................................... 113 Session 3.2........................................................................................................ 133 Interlude: Recap!!.................................................................................................. 159 Session 3.3........................................................................................................ 160 3.3 Commentary ................................................................................................ 185 Story 3 Recap.................................................................................................... 191 Chapter 4: "Five Things"........................................................................................ 198 Chapter 5: "Who Benefits?"................................................................................... 212 Session 5.2........................................................................................................ 233 Chapter 6: "Stop the Train, I want to Get Off" ........................................................ 279 Session 6.2........................................................................................................ 298 Chapter 7: "Scorpion"............................................................................................ 324 Session 7.2........................................................................................................ 346 Chapter 8: "The Only Place You Can" ................................................................... 375 Session 8.2........................................................................................................ 392 Session 8.3........................................................................................................ 413 Story 8: Commentary......................................................................................... 440 Chapter 9: "Nothing To Say" ................................................................................. 441 Session 9.2........................................................................................................ 463 Session 9.4........................................................................................................ 497 Session 9.5........................................................................................................ 524 Chapter 10: "A Polite Society" ............................................................................... 552 Session 10.1...................................................................................................... 552 Chapter 11: "Yours To Throw Away" ..................................................................... 577 Session 11.1...................................................................................................... 577 Session 11.2...................................................................................................... 599 Session 11.3...................................................................................................... 621 Session 11.4...................................................................................................... 639 Session 11.5...................................................................................................... 665 Interlude: A Sad Announcement............................................................................ 687 Chapter 12: In The Air Tonight ............................................................................ 688 Session 12.2...................................................................................................... 705 Chapter 13: Is This a Rescue Attempt?............................................................... 723

Session 13.2: THE FINAL SESSION ................................................................. 755 Appendix 1: The Characters.................................................................................. 808 Wolseys Background ........................................................................................ 808 Carl Damascus Washington: A Background..................................................... 810 Appendix II: Legacies ............................................................................................ 811 Appendix III: The Pentacle (and Independent) Cabals of the Broken Diamond and their Members ....................................................................................................... 814 The Bringers of the Utopian Design ................................................................... 814 The Seekers of One Soul................................................................................... 817 The Defenders of the Forgotten ......................................................................... 819 The Recorders of Living History......................................................................... 822 The Gatekeepers............................................................................................... 826 The Wardens ..................................................................................................... 829 Children of the Book .......................................................................................... 832 The Ascendents................................................................................................. 834 Project: Twilight ................................................................................................. 835 The Crucible ...................................................................................................... 837 Independents..................................................................................................... 839 Appendix 4: Character Stats as at End of Story 9.................................................. 840 Thomas "Wolsey" Dean ..................................................................................... 840 Carl "Damascus" Washington ............................................................................ 841 Kemi "Kali" Simone............................................................................................ 842

Chapter 0: Introduction
Washington DC - The Broken Diamond. Designed by a freemason, riddled with murder and drugs, more concentrated power per square mile than almost anywhere else in the world. Under constant pressure from people and.. things.. that try with varying degrees of success to influence it's decision-making for their own ends. With all the damage one creature of the night with mental influence could do in a lobby, or in the White House, there's a high-stakes game of peace-through-mutually assured destruction, where Mages live under paranoid lines of behaviour. The Dichotomy between the Avenues of Power and the parts of the city that people actually live in, worse in the World of Darkness than it is in the real world, has created two City-father spirits - if two cities exist in the same space, which one is real? The effect the city's plan has on the resonance of it's leys is too strong to be coincidental - should it be encouraged and perfected or broken open like the cage it might be? When the practices of the Pentacle mages - forced by their circumstances to wipe memories, control minds and infiltrate the corridors of power to prevent their use by others approach those of the Seers, is there any difference between the two sides? When you use the tools of the Exarchs, are you any better than a Seer? Order and Chaos. Liberty and Control. The use of Power. The man trying to perfect himself as an example to others, finding enlightenment in serving others. The one-eyed man in the labyrinth of the blind, breaking rules and committing sins in his search for something precious. The woman finding herself by destroying herself, ripping lives apart in a search for something real. -------------------The world needs another Awakening Actual Play, I think - specifically one covering the things that I don't think I've seen addressed anywhere. I'm that small-pressgame-running-guy - I've AP'ed A|State, Everway, Deliria and (still ongoing) Primetime Adventures. None of them are exactly mainstream - so why Mage? I'm a Mage junkie, and have been since the release of Mage: the Ascension. I own every book published for Ascension - two feet of purple, bar a couple of inches of weird sparkly covers for the First and second edition Tradition books. I even have the novels. I was involved in either running or playing the game for six and a bit years up until well after the Time of Judgement. I could explain the metaplot to people, for Christs sake. So why's it taken a year to start my own Awakening Chronicle? I was waiting for optimal conditions. My group contained several Mage-sceptics, and I had the luxury of time. Now that my group consists of people who *are* up for it, now that Awakening is a year old and I have the benefit of seeing how's it's developed in the (excellent) supplements, most importantly now that there's space between me and Ascension, I'm ready. The thing I've not seen addressed in the NWoD actual plays so far is this - how do

you go from running an Old WoD game to running it's successor? Do Forsaken Storytellers have a hard time grasping the feel of the new game, or do they find themselves sliding back to Apocalypse? What makes Awakening *different* to Ascension - what is a good Awakening story as opposed to a good Ascension story, where do they overlap and where do they differ? It's taken me a *year* to get to the point where I'm confident enough to run Awakening - and even then, as we'll see, it took until the second session for Awakening to "click". Fortunately, it clicked hard. My position on the eternal flamewar is thus - look, I loved Ascension too, it served me well - but I *already own it*. If I'm going to run Awakening, I'm going to run it with Atlantis, the Exarchs, the Seers, the Pentacle, the Western symbology and all. I'm going to learn to love it like it's elder cousin, and find something that interests me in it's themes, not try to force the themes I've been playing with for years onto it.
A note on format. Out of character, behind the curtain-type bits are written like this, allowing the reader to choose what they emphasise on.

SPOILER WARNING As it says in the title, There be spoilers for Reign of the Exarchs in here. I bought the book after running the second session of this chronicle, and have decided to incorporate it into Broken Diamond - changing huge chunks of it to make it fit in with the chronicle I already had, but not that much, as the theme of the book was already the main question of my own chronicle. With that in mind, people likely to play RotE at any point would be well to be warned. I'll put spoiler warnings before each story in this thread that's run based on the book as well, but as I'm a plot foreshadowing kind of guy, there will be snippets and bits of run-up throughout the thread.

Themes
These are the parts of Mage: The Awakening that I'm consciously emphasising, because they spoke something to me, because they're maybe different to Ascension and because they fit the setting. Masks and Identity Crisis I like to explore matters of self-identity in my games (see.. pretty much every actual play I've done - especially Malekin's story in Deliria and... the entire of the Everway thread, really) based on a fascination with Phillip K Dick-like "what is real?" stories and a certain amount of Real-life musing on the nature of reality during my growing years. I've had characters have their personalities altered by magic and the other characters have to debate whether the new personality is a person that they'd be killing by restoring their friends. I've had deathlords in Exalted turn out to be the ghosts of the first-age selves of PCs. I've run two successful campaigns based on amnesia (the second of which is my Everway thread here). Mage: The Awakening is as a gift to my sort of GM, and it's for this reason; "What does it mean?" "That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are" "But an Oracle can?" "That's different" "What's your name boy?"

"John" "What's your real name, John?" "Pyro" I'm talking about Shadow names. For me, and in this game, the taking of a Shadow name isn't something you do to make it harder for other people to cast magic on you - though that's a big ancillary benefit. Consider - the entire world is the Gnostic prison of the Exarchs. Your identity - your real identity - is the prison-tag they gave you. Shadow identities are like the rebel's callsigns in the Matrix - based on their own particular subculture, but taken as a badge of rebellion. The false identity you construct for yourself as a mage is who you are, not who they intended you to be. And when that magic's gone - when they call you by your slave name - your ass is theirs. Seers of the Throne in my game tend to do the "Mr Anderson" whenever they can. But it goes further than that. You can't just change your name to "Lord Thraxnor" or something and call yourself Supernal. It requires a big change, a directed alteration of your life. When Banneker, the Hierarch of Washington DC in my setting, goes home to his wife and kids he is not Banneker any more - his Fallen identity is not his Supernal identity, and he keeps them rigorously separate. His body language is different, he speaks differently. If he had enough grasp of the Life Arcana he'd *look* different. For Mages without dependents it's easier - they can live their Supernal lives nearer to 24/7. Even those Mages that require careers and mortgages in my interpretation don't use their real names - they have their Supernal identity, a second false identity that they use for dealing with the Fallen World and then, buried deep somewhere inside, the real life they hide from everyone. The player characters all fit this to a T, as we'll see - Kali and Damascus are both motivated by trying to change themselves into what they consider their supernal selves to be ("good" in Damascus' case, "bad" in Kali's, morally), while Wolsey is both damaged by fallout from his Fallen life *and* a man of many guises and masks, with a different name on every business card and identities like a puzzlebox. Liberty vs. Control "What Truth?" "That you are a slave, Neo. born into bondage in a prison you can neither see nor touch" It's in this matter that I think Awakening is superior to Ascension. Ascension, in it's later years, tried to recast the conflict between the Traditions and the Technocracy as being one of Liberty vs. Control rather than Magic vs. Science, but it was a case of one development too late and still buried beneath the *trappings* of the surface conflict. Awakening has no such considerations - the Exarchs and their willing servants use the same powers as the Oracles and their followers in the Pentacle orders, the Seers of the Throne look awfully like the Guardians of the Veil crossed with the Silver Ladder (as our Silver Ladder character has pointed out) when you really look at them. It really is just down to the fact that the Exarchs control the world. There's no "they use science" crutch to distract from the struggle against the archons of the world. Awakening is a Gnostic game, and for me it's horror comes from that - you are in a world that your enemies run, and everything inside it - including you - can be altered by them on a whim. Mages are ants that know they're in an ant farm.

Fighting Fire with Fire - using the enemy's methods The "Big Four" cabals of Pentacle Mages in my setting are driven by their reactions to two elements of the background, which I'll explain at more length later: DC was designed by a freemason as a very particular grid that somewhat worryingly resembles a Kabbalistic mandala, and as the city's grown it's had more and more.. symbology.. built into it. Symbology that has an effect, resonance-wise - the government areas, the mall and the other parts of this "grid have detectably more orderly resonance than the rest of the city, which is a hellhole exaggerated from the real DC's crime-ridden backstreets. One of the city's "ruling" cabals is dedicated to perfecting the grid, which they think was inspired by the mortal architect's run-in with an Astral vision of Atlantis. Another is dedicated to preventing supernatural influence on American politics wherever they can - watching for and stopping vampires, seers and even pentacle mages wherever they can. Both of them are using the methods of the Exarchs. Controlling a human population by geomantic means? Actively working to prevent supernaturals from changing the world? Their *motives* are good, sure. But what, exactly, separates them from the Seers? Everybody Lies There's a paradox inherent in Awakening's setup - and I love impossible quandaries like this. Mages are driven by their search for Truth. In their Awakening, they see the Exarch's lie for what it is. Pity, then, that Mages seem incapable of being straight with one another. The Orders all lie to one another, and to their members. Elder mages lie to their youngers, who all lie right back at them. Mages - to an individual - live carefully constructed false lives. If you've read Secrets of the Ruined Temple, you know how there are dozens of contradictory Atlantis stories. The Guardians of the Veil painstakingly build recursive dolls-nests of conspiracies and occult "secrets" for the unwary to become lost in. The Silver ladder decides on it's own sweet time when you're enlightened enough to be told what's really going on - and when you progress beyond that, you'll find out that they were lying the second time too. Being a Mage is a quest for truth in a world where everyone - including your own damn self - is constantly practicing the art of misdirection, desperately safeguarding their own secrets. Morals are for Mortals.. or maybe not "We make the Vampires look like boy scouts" - Beckett, session 3 There's a bit at the end of Ascension (the novel, not the game supplement, that finished M:TAsc's metaplot) in which the world ends during the time of judgement and everyone and everything is reduced to it's component spheres. All the mages Ascend, become aware of the full span of the lives of all human beings. The Ascension war stops, and the last thing they all do - Technocrats, Orphans and Traditions alike - is heartfeltly congratulate one another for their efforts to better humanity. It was hopeful, optimistic - it felt appropriate as an ending to a game where everyone is trying to better the lot of humanity, but are fighting over how to do it. Wouldn't happen in Awakening, beyond the obvious reasons. Because Mages in Awakening? They're bastards.

The path to ascension in Awakening (and it's odd that the game that isn't named after the concept has the clearer view of what it means, and seems - to me at least - as being a game in which it could happen more realistically) is a deeply personal one. Mages in Ascension lose their individual hangups as they progress, realising their paradigms don't matter. Mages in Awakening *gain* something akin to a paradigm as their soul evolves along a Legacy. It's the other way around. Because the path is so personal, because they have empirical proof that it's themselves they need to worry about and not anyone else, because they're used to living under the shadow of jealously guarding who they are from friends and coworkers for fear of someone getting an advantage... Awakening Mages are an awful lot more narcissistic. Selfish fucks were the bad apples of Ascension, but they're the operating standard of Awakening - everyone is out for number one. Similarly, it's a lot easier - in a game which has a Morality mechanic - to handle stories about the slide of a Mage's morality. Hubris IS one of the main points of the game, after all. Of the player characters, Kali is deliberately becoming a less "moral" person (and suffering the wisdom loss for it), because she's aiming for a level of society which she believes to be more real. Wolsey lies to and uses anyone that gets in his way, and can countenance selling out just-won allies to their mutual enemies in order to buy a momentary advantage. Atlantis and Alchemy I like Atlantis. There, I said it. I never had a problem with it in the Corebook, simply because it just made me think of Mage as a world in which Graham Hancock was right all along and in which I could, if so inclined, adapt Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. What could be wrong with that? I was *so* glad when I got Secrets of the Ruined Temple. In any case, the lost city looms large - DC is suspected in the chronicle of being a partial copy of Atlantis and the plot threads from Reign of the Exarchs touch on the battle against the false gods of reality. But it's not the only part of the "generic western" trappings of Awakening that have seen use. Because I like the feel of Awakening's magic. I am having great fun putting Masks, Cups, Pentacles, Coins, Wands and Swords into the chronicle in unusual places. DC's geography, with important sites laid out on cardinal directions, helps. I describe the world under Mage sight as having elements of the Supernal Realm of the arcana being investigated - inspired by the movie version of Constantine, Mages using Mage sight have an unsettling time of it. Paranoia "...which means anyone still connected to their system is potentially an agent." Everyone's out to get you. The other four orders, your own superiors, your own inferiors. And then there are the enemy. Mages are undercover in an espionage war they can never win, constantly looking over their shoulders and second-guessing themselves. This is present in the game as presented, but I've kicked it up a notch the Seers in my setting have more than one Profane Urim, and they're not afraid to use them.

When Wolsey, in session two, informs the others they can't use the restaurant they've met at twice again for fear of building up a pattern others can use against them, I knew I'd hit the right note.

Overview of the City

DC does not have the very best of histories - a diamond-shaped (originally, there's a chunk missing of it's border after Virginia took it's portion back, hence "broken diamond") lump of swampland that no-one wanted, set aside so that no one state would have the capital city within it's borders. A grand plan by a French military engineer for the layout of the city was delayed through lack of funds while the city turned into a cesspit - when it *was* put into action, the distance between the grand design and the reality was laughable. What's important for our purposes is the effect that Design - and the parts of the city that follow it - has on the local resonance, both inclining the areas covered by the "Grid" of traced lines towards orderliness and doing the reverse to the spaces in-between. DC in the World of Darkness is worse off than in the real world - the real DC has racial divisions, huge areas of poverty and became the murder capital of the US in the 70s. The World of Darkness' DC still is - the areas off the grid are still suffering the after-effects of riots that went on longer and harder than in our world, the Control Board never gave up power back to a mayor and the residents of the district still don't have the vote (which they only got in the 60s in our world). In contrast, the "grid" areas are under heavy lock and key, with even more armed police surrounding even more lobbyists and bureaucrats. The WoD DC is more ghettoised, more violent, more partisan and much more judgemental - a grid of imposed order on a semi-permanent lawless hellhole. Without the residents being franchised, there's no reason for the WoD's politicians to spend money on them - the overwhelming majority of DC's funding goes into the Grid areas both subconsciously (on the part of sleepers) and, tragically, by the design of one of the city's cabals. The geomantic pressure exerted on the city by the collected power of it's monuments, public buildings and avenues is constant, unyielding and entirely artificial - like a tracery of pins holding it down in an unnatural shape. The pressure "releases" in the areas not covered by the grid - a weak gauntlet is worryingly common, and things creep into the dark corners of the city from the Twilight, the Shadow and the Abyss. The nature of the city - grandiose capital city overlaid on, coexisting within and contemporaneous with a resentful, ignored, almost-imprisoned and poverty-stricken town - has meant that no one City Father has formed "Washington" and "DC" both have their own City Fathers, and the Shadowlands are locked in a frenzy as the two spiritual ecosystems clash. Into this come the Mages, of the Pentacle Orders and the Seers of the Throne, with numerous independents and a worrying number of Banishers lurking on the edges. Mages - and other creatures of the night - come to DC from all over the world, looking to gain power and influence, and those already resident have to work hard to keep their own control. Control of the Capital City of the world's Superpower is a prize worth fighting over - covertly, of course: The two main "sides" both agree that the spiritual chaos of the city's shadow should be contained, and that incautious outsiders should not be allowed to meddle with politics. They disagree on who should be the gatekeeper. The Pentacle mages of the city are faced with a City under unnatural stresses, a larger than normal Seer population (with a Ministry rumoured to be based in the city) looking to exterminate them and the unhappy prospect of preventing any of their fellow Pentacle mages from shifting the delicate balances of

power too far - by any means necessary. Much effort is expended to go nowhere, all the sides in all the debates aware that if they stop struggling as hard as the others they will find the city has no room for them. The dichotomy of the city is interpreted according to Mage's individual prejudices - a sizeable portion of the Awakened believe that Washington DC is clearly in the process of merging with it's own Supernal self, held back by it's Fallen aspect. The difference of opinion among these is over which city is Supernal, and which is Fallen. Others believe that both cities are equally valid, and that the false divisions require healing. Three of the main cabals of the city's consilium are divided up along that axis - the pro-grid, anti-grid and "unification" Cabals. Another is dedicated to the messy business of preventing interference in mortal affairs on a grand scale. The last major Pentacle cabal - and the largest - is based less on DC as a physical or supernal *place*, but as a setting for events - chroniclers of history-in-the-making, students of both populations, they think that the geomantic argument is worthless until the nature of the grid is fully understood. Power-wise, the Hierarch of the city (a Silver Ladder mage) is the least potent, in terms of personal ability, of the City's Masters - he owes his position to careful negotiation, the disinterest of two of his peers and a deal done with the last - the head of the Gatekeeper Cabal and the senior Guardian of the Vale in DC - to allow that individual and his followers great leniency in pursuing their mission. That the Hierarch is in this situation is a result of the deadlock - the Silver Ladder's traditional allies in the Adamantine Arrow are predominantly in the Cabal directly opposed to the Hierarch's, so he's had to seek other friends. The Consilium, painfully aware of the power struggle within itself and the constant cold war against the Seers, issues the following advice to new Mages - adapted from an apocryphal list of advice told to CIA agents about to be sent to Moscow. * Assume nothing. * Murphy is right. * Never go against your gut; it is your operational antenna. * Don't look back; you are never completely alone. * Everyone is potentially under opposition control. * Go with the flow, blend in. * Vary your pattern and stay within your cover. * Any operation can be aborted. If it feels wrong, it is wrong. * Maintain a natural pace. * Lull them into a sense of complacency. * Build in opportunity, but use it sparingly. * Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. * Don't harass the opposition. * There is no limit to a human being's ability to rationalize the truth. * Magic will always let you down. * Pick the time and place for action. * Keep your options open. * Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action. In an effort to build up his powerbase despite his precarious position, the Hierarch has a habit of poaching new apprentices for himself - he declared long ago that the placement of newly awakened mages would be at the discretion of himself, and coincidentally declared his own cabal as the one that fostered all but a few of the

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younger mages in the city. He has been forced to abandon this policy after protest from the other Councillors escalated, but has put a vengeful twist on his giving in the populations of the city's cabals are fixed. New mages will be trained by the city's Prefects, and then formed into a new Cabal, with another Cabal being created every ten years. In this way, those protesting get what they said they wanted, but not what they actually wanted. And he still gets to try to win the new Cabal over to his own point of view, same as everyone else. And it's with the formation of the first of these graduating cabals that the chronicle starts.

Cabals, Legacies and People Known at the Start

The Bringers of the Utopian Design ("Utopians") - Silver Ladder and Mysterium mages who believe that L'Enfant (the sleeper architect who saw DC in a dream) was influenced by the Oracles but that the combination of L'Enfant's mortal memory and interpretation, combined with the city not following the plan exactly enough, has left flaws in the design that create the "sinkhole" areas. The Utopians are dedicated to figuring out what the missing parts of the design are and correcting those mistakes their members are architects, city planners and stockbrokers (for funding) in their day jobs, and experienced geomancers when acting as Mages. Their leader is a Silver Ladder Obrimos named Banneker, an architect and the Hierarch of the city's consilium. Banneker has evolved his soul into a Legacy based around geomancy and the careful design of buildings, blocks and whole cities to channel resonance, which he has taught to a few of his followers. The Seekers of One Soul ("City Souls") - Silver Ladder and Mysterium mages who take the middle ground in the geomantic argument and believe that the two facets of the city must be united and the pressures dispelled by homogenising the society of DC. The majority of the Cabal's members take the tactic of working in the Shadow first - thinking that by halting the war of the spirits, they can cure the wounded soul of the city. Others work socially, breaking down the barriers between the grid and the rest, and seeking to reconcile the destructive energies in most of the city with the more "civilised" regions. The Cabal boasts two members of the Claviclarius Legacy, one of whom - Suleiman, a Mysterium Mastigos, is the Councillor for the Cabal. The Defenders of the Forgotten ("Defenders") - a cabal of Adamantine Arrow and Free Council Mages (with one Guardian of the Veil) based in, and dedicated to, the overwhelming majority of DC's population - the forgotten mass of people who live off the grid, preyed on by predators of an urban and supernatural nature. The Defenders fight off demons, drive out possessions, slay Vampires and argue that the Grid is the cause of their problems to unfeeling ears. Their Councillor is a Free Council Moros (of the Bokor legacy) named Dantor, though they have a Perfected Adept, a Claviclarius and a Bearer of the Eternal Voice. The members of the Cabal our characters have met are Bedlam, a Claviclarius who despite being institutionalised with a mental illness watches out for anything preying on his fellow patients, and Ulysses, a Catholic priest, Dantor's Prefect and the mentor of one of our characters. The Recorders of Living History ("Recorders) are the largest Cabal in the city, mostly Mysterium and Free Council with one Guardian mage and one Silver Ladder mage. They are the main seat of the House of Ariadne Legacy, though that Legacy (from Legacies: the Sublime. Think Walkers in Mists but urban-oriented) has members dotted around the other Cabals too. Their leader - and Councillor - is Samuel, the most powerful Pentacle mage in the city, Acanthus Free Councillor and

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the leader of the House. Samuel is a temporal voyeur - he spends his days establishing temporal sympathy with eyewitnesses to important events in history and then projecting his consciousness backward and riding in that person's senses while the scene plays out. His prefect is an Acanthus Mystagogue named Blaise, who studies the flow of tourists around the important sites of the city's mall like water on a prayer wheel. He's the inconstant mentor of another of our characters. Project Twilight Is the mysterious all-Guardian of the Vale Cabal based in the intelligence community of DC - the CIA, NSA and FBI. The Gatekeepers are the predominantly Guardian of the Vale Cabal dedicated to spotting - and stopping - interference in US politics by supernaturals. They contain a number of Bearers of the Eternal Voice, who use their attainments giving power over people's perception of truth to undo damage and pre-emptively strike against troublemakers. Their leader is the Mastigos Guardian (and Bearer) Malakii, who has gained the ability to alter memory through an attainment - and free of his Order's rules about use of memory-wiping magic and it's vulgarity (because attainments aren't supernal magic), he feels justified in using this ability against anyone he likes. Other members of the Cabal are Mr Thursday, the City's Interfector, and Mara, Malakii's student and Prefect and the third of our characters' mentors. Aside from a number of Cabal-less Mages (one of whom is the fifth Councillor), the last Cabal are the Children of the Book, based in and around the University of Maryland (which is technically not inside DC, being sited in one of it's suburbs outside of the diamond border). Their leader - and the fifth Prefect - is an Adamantine Arrow Thyrsus Perfected Adept named Marathon.

The Player Characters: A Summary

Wolsey The Constant Mastigos Thomas Dean was - and is - a political power broker and deal-fixer, a man who could get people elected - or not arrested - with a handshake, who could negotiate... difficulties.. with ease and who always had the knack of making people believe he was sincere. He was also, along with his wife Amanda, heavily involved in the Occult as a means of furthering his ambitions - if there were a society, a sworn brotherhood or an after-hours social gathering going, he was going to be part of it even if they did wear strange outfits. The cult the couple found themselves most involved in in their native Massachusetts was very liberal and leftist, but had links with other, more serious organisations. Wolsey now thinks of it as being like a gateway drug, that captured Amanda and didn't let go. One day, Thomas' wife disappeared, and Thomas himself Awakened. Caught up in the chaos of his awakening as a Mastigos, he didn't realise that his wife's vanishing had nothing to do with his visit to Pandemonium until she was long gone, and he balanced his initial training with trying to figure out where she went and why. Discovering that one of the cults his had links to involved the shedding of one's old life, he came to the conclusion that Amanda must have joined it and decided to move to DC - where that cult was based - to seek her. Introducing himself to a *third* cult, also DC-based, by taking the role of a guest speaker they were expecting, he is working his way through the Labyrinth of the city, looking for signs of his love.

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Wolsey has named himself after Henry the Eighth's Cardinal and Power broker - a man behind kings, who fell to his own hubris and ceasing to be useful to his monarch. He takes great issue with the Guardians of the Vale, rightly recognising the organisation he awoke in as being part of their Labyrinth, designed to *stop* people from finding the truth. In particular, the Guardians in DC have refused to help in his quest, citing their work as being more important. Wolsey sees occult organisations as a means to enlighten it's members, and has already clashed with the Guardians on his desire to "help up" people in the Labyrinth into true Enlightenment. His keen sense for opportunity has led to him volunteering as a Herald already, and he is poised to join the Bearers of the Eternal Voice legacy - ironically, the one that the chief Guardian is the originator of.
Wolsey is a cross between Jodie Foster's character in Inside Man and Ralph Fiennes' in The Constant Gardner - a slick power-jockeying suit, on a quest to find out what happened to his wife and if necessary take revenge. His views on the Labyrinth put him - and the Cabal - at odds with the Guardians, who disapprove of his trying to use "their" powers to make the impressionable people in the cults he infiltrates more likely to accept magic. He's the nominal leader of the Cabal and is, says Mark, so white it hurts. And in the racially-charged atmosphere of the Cabal's usual haunts, it does.

Damascus Ironmonger and Maker of unusual weapons Damascus does not talk much of his past, bar a few offhand references - born Carl Washington, he was a gang member in the deprived South-East of the city and had a string of petty thefts and assaults to his name before Death caught up with him. The near-death experience and the Awakening in the watchtower of the Leaden Coin gave Carl a new lease of life, and he abandoned his old life in favour of a hidden interest in metalworking and art. Damascus (named for the folded steel) is a moderately famous artist, a sculptor in metal and - to his fellows in the Adamantine Arrow - a supplier of unusual arms and equipment. Damascus makes the silver bullets, prepares the holy water grenades and has a sizeable collection of other oddments from blessed magic 8 balls to the fingerbones of saints. His philosophy is one of self-betterment through using magic to assist others, of enlightenment through giving loyal support to one's leader (the Adamantine Arrow way) and through the forging of oneself into Supernal form through long and proper action, like steel folded over itself. He is a prospective member of the Uncrowned Kings legacy, though his current mentor is not one.
In the group, Damascus is the level-headed one, the most optimistic and the most likely to volunteer to help someone in need. He's a decent human being, given a second chance at his life through near-death.

Kali The Only Self-Improvement is Self-Destruction Kali is a drug dealer and gang leader. She rules a nest of thugs, dealers and whores in the decidedly-warzone like district South-East of the city centre, across the river from the Naval bases. She is wildly promiscuous, has an open-door policy on her rooms which allows anyone to wander in and out, smokes, drinks, takes drugs. Personality-wise, she's foulmouthed and ill-tempered. Kemi was a good middle-class girl, who never got into any trouble. Mixed-race of Afro-American and Pakistani origin (though she points out that she's uncertain of her grandparents, and is probably even more ethnically diverse in background than that), she awoke in unspecified circumstances onto the Acanthus path and was caught up in the House of Ariadne and the Mysterium - lessons which she learnt well. Kali believes that it is the underclass - the gang members and street dwellers - who 13

are closest to the City, and as a nascent House of Ariadne member being close to the City is godly. As a Mysterium mage, she sees her old life as being devoid of any Truth or Meaning, qualities which she sees in abundance in the forbidden (to her old self) world of the criminals. Her persona, then, is the result of a calculated campaign of self-destruction scouring the girl Kemi used to be out of herself in a quest for Enlightenment through devolution, trying to get closer to her nebulous Truth as she goes. In her new life, she is connected to the city on a level that simply wasn't possible before. Without safety, without any limits and with forcing herself to commit immoral acts, Kali is getting at the core of the human condition and evolving. Or that's what she tells herself anyway.
Kind of a female Tyler Durden, is Kali, and focused entirely on the "soft" Arcana like Space, Time and Fate. Kali is exceptionally lucky - the result of her player taking the game system to heart and casting divinations on anything going. Her twisted perception of the world - that this life is something to aspire to - pitches her against Damascus (who is trying to escape the life she's succeeding at forcing her way into) and Wolsey (who she sees as being her opposite, preoccupied with the playtimes of the rich as he is).

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Chapter 1: Through Me, Revelation

Session 1.1
Early May, 2006. Damascus has been informed by his mentor that his apprenticeship is judged to be as complete as necessary, and that the time has come for Damascus to join a cabal. Unfortunately, due to the political fall-out from a controversy involving the Hierarch allegedly stealing apprentices, Damascus doesn't have any choice in the matter, and doesn't get to pick which Cabal he's part of. His new Cabal mates (Damascus' mentor provides the very barest of details - path, order and shadow name) have been given Damascus' address, and he should be expecting them. Accordingly, the Moros is puttering around his house, clearing his tools away and straightening the furniture.
We don't see Damascus' mentor - this is all a given at the start. Ulysses turns up later on in the Prelude, and other than "he's a catholic priest" I didn't want to spoil his entrance. This opening device is a *blatant* shoe-horn to get the characters together, only one step behind "you all meet in a bar". I am deeply shamed.

Earlier, Kali is sat on a low wall somewhere in the Mall, next to a hot-dog stand. Blaise - a dreadlocked white man who evidently didn't get any memos about grunge being dead, wearing an army jacket and a T-shirt with a picture of a rainbow on it - is wolfing a dog while explaining the situation to his now former student. He describes her new cabalmates with a bit more detail - Wolsey is "a near-miss Guardian who the Ladder managed to snag", apparently - and seems cheerfully unaware of how unimpressed Kali is at the thought of working for the rest of her life with a "speechy" Ladder and an artist. He waves her off, reminding her not to be late. As Kali slouches away, she makes a mental note to be as late to Damascus' house as she possibly can.
Blaise does not appear for the rest of the Prelude, despite him being the mentor that had more than one point spent on him. Ah, well. He'll be important when Kali wants to join the House of Ariadne. Kali's eternal attitude problem - which serves mostly to mask her inner thought processes from the rest of the world - is, I think, a reaction of Sam (her player) to her other characters of late. She was Jacqui in Deliria.

Later again, now at night, and we fade back in on Wolsey sitting in the passenger seat of a rather expensive car, looking out at the neighbourhood. The driver is his mentor, a smartly-dressed middle-aged Indian (Indian subcontinent, not Native American) woman named Mara. She's explaining the setup we've had explained twice already, but gives more details still that indicate that she's looked into the backgrounds of his new cabalmates - Damascus is from somewhere around here, and is a weapons supplier for the Adamantine Arrow, while Kali is a barely-socialised drug dealer from deeper into the south-east of the city. Mara's tone expresses disapproval of his new Cabalmates (Kali in particular), but Wolsey is nonplussed, still staring out at the endless procession of increasingly middle-class houses. At length, they arrive, and Wolsey steps out of the air-conditioned bliss of the car into the nasty humidity of an early evening in late May, crunching his way around the car on Damascus' gravel path. He asks Mara if she's coming in, and she says not at first - she'll let them get to know one another, but has something to tell them when they're ready if he wants to call her. Damascus and Wolsey exchange Shadow names and handshakes, and set in to wait for Kali (whom neither of them have met), trading niceties that break down somewhat

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when Wolsey turns out to know nothing about art and Damascus turns out to care very little about Politics. But they're polite. Outside, Kali is slowing ambling her way up the street, peering at house numbers. She and Mara spot one another - Mara's still in the car - and manage to convey their mutual disrespect over seven feet and through a tinted car window. Inside, Damascus is elaborating on his art - he creates statues and installations from iron - when Kali arrives in a cloud of cigarette smoke. After introductions, Wolsey ventures that they should try to get to know each other. You can almost hear the crickets chirping and the churchbell tolling in the background. Kali is prevented from tapping ash onto the floor by provision of an ashtray, and Wolsey manages to drag out of her which Arcana she's been trained in, while he and Damascus volunteer theirs. The information they share is on about the level of what Mara told Wolsey - Damascus does volunteer that he was once in a gang, but a near-death experience cured what prison couldn't. Kali calls this a "shame". Wolsey smoothly asks if they should just get on with it, then, and call Mara in? The other two shrug, so off he goes.
Wolsey, even at this stage, is setting himself up as the Cabal's chairperson - he's trying to take charge just as much as Kali is determined to be annoying - but the bit about Damascus' background really is what she thinks.

In order to give the new Cabal something to do while they sort themselves out, Mara says once she comes into the house, there is a "small matter" that the Consilium would like looked into. It is troubling, but not important enough for anyone else to have dealt with it for the time being - and as the new Cabal in the city, they get to start with the jobs that no-one else wanted.
And the second part of the setup - the given-from-on-high quest! Beginnings are not my best thing... Mara's a Prefect of the City (she's the prefect for the Guardians of the Veil Councilman, no less), which is why she's in a position to hand out missions from the Hierarch.

This quarter of the city has a graffiti problem. There is a pause for raised eyebrows and (in Kali's case) smoke-rings. But seriously - there are four instances so far of someone painting crude images onto surfaces - images of things that a Sleeper shouldn't be able to see. The first three appear to be painted images of the Shadow Realm in those locations, as though the painter was looking through the Gauntlet and tracing what he or see saw. The last is more troubling - by accounts, the Shadow-world diorama is topped off with an Atlantean rune. Their task is to find out who is doing it and why - anything further than that is left to their discretion, though she gives Wolsey a rather significant glance as she says it. After she leaves, and they hear her car driving away, Wolsey points out that they are unlikely to not be being watched throughout this exercise - they're blatantly being sent on a low-risk mission so that the other Cabals can assess the new kids. And they *do* have to work together on this - whether they like it or not, it's this or go independent. After a lengthy silence, Kali says that she knows the area the fourth image is in.

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Damascus says he'll drive. And they're off.

These icebreaking moments are always hard, and I've literally lost campaigns to them; I had a werewolf: the forsaken game that failed because the characters - after ten sessions - never got past the initial uncertainty about one another. By this point of the session, I was seriously afraid of the long-term prospects of the game. The next half of the session mollified me somewhat, and session two cured me of the worry, thank gods. The characters are just so mismatched at first glance that it took an active plot like the one of this prelude to get them to jiggle and rotate so that their angular edges match up and they lock together. In a manner of speaking. Kudos to the players, who pulled off dozens of tiny adjustments as they settled into their characters and their characters got used to one another. By the end of the prelude, they feel like a proper Cabal.

There's a long stretch of scrubby parkland, across the river from the DC naval bases, which has a freeway elevated above it on great concrete struts. The cabal, following the directions on the list Mara left them, walk down the bank into the trash-choked, shadowy space beneath, backlit by the bright white lights of the naval yards and picked out by campfires surrounded by the homeless people living down here in their cardboard village. The symbol is spraypainted onto the bottom of one of the struts - definitely Atlantean, though not in the basic vocabulary any of the three of them have been taught by their Orders. Deep breaths. Time to start being Mages.
Literally. There was about a three-second pause here when they were faced with the rune before the spells started flying

While Wolsey sketches the rune, trying to make sense of it, Damascus casts Dark Matter to gain the Mage sight and Kali - after consulting with the bums to determine that the thing was painted "by some spaced-out guy" three nights ago - casts Postcognition in order to scry backwards in time to when the rune was painted. Damascus peers at the rune, seeing the weight of Stygian energies clinging to the surface, and concludes that there *is* some residual spell energy - a spell that isn't active now that used at least the Death and Mind Arcana, plus some others that he's less familiar with. Kali, meanwhile, struggles with shifting her perceptions backwards but manages to get a few seconds glimpse of the rune being painted by a thin black man in a baseball cap, a heavy coat and worn sneakers.
Kali got but a single success, while Damascus got two. Kali actually uses Postcognition far more than any other spell, but doesn't have it as a rote so has to rely on improvised casting - she is earmarked for the House of Ariadne as soon as her soul is developed enough to join a Legacy, and their first attainment duplicates it's effects so Blaise considers teaching her the power as a rote to be an unnecessary duplication of effort

Back at the car, they discuss the findings. There are three more sites - which don't have runes, according to Mara, and an Atlantean rune to decipher. Wolsey suggests that he go around the city's Heralds, both to introduce the Cabal and to find out if anyone knows what the rune says. Damascus and Kali, after dropping him off somewhere he can get a taxi, will go round the remaining dioramas and see if they have better luck with their divinations. .. The first site on their list is a basketball court. The painting is of a well built into weedchoked flagstones, sprayed onto the court itself. After Damascus casts Dark Matter and Kali joins in with her own Mage Sight spell The Sybil's Sight, they assess the energies as again being from a no-longer active spell cast using Death, Mind and (this time) Space and Fate. Recognising the resonance as being from the same caster as the last one, they proceed to stage two - Kali attempts Postcognition again,

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while Damascus - on a hunch - casts Speak With The Dead. Kali's spell fails, but Damascus' reveals the ghost of a little girl standing in the road. She appears to react to something and flies sideways as though being run over, then reappears where they are and runs back out, chasing a basketball that no longer exists. Damascus attempts to ask her if she saw anything, but there's not enough of a sentience left in her ectoplasmic repeating of her death to have a conversation with, and he is forced to cancel the spell without success. Making a mental note to return once he has progressed in the Death Arcana enough to do something about her fate, they consult their list and head back to the car.
And here's one difference between Awakening and Ascension - Awakening Mages cast spells *all the time*. I recall one of the design goals for the new game was 'encourage mages to cast magic', and it really does. I like the system for Mage sight, and the way that the dozens of information gathering spells are both highly-focused and take account of successes - what would have been a simple "conjunctional rote of as many 1-dot spheres as you have" to figure out any given phenomenon becomes a delicate dance of figuring out which of your forensic spells you should cast in the time you have, which clues to follow up and when to move on. And because they're covert and from the ruling arcana of the characters involved, they can essentially do this all day without fear. I approve.

.. Wolsey is sitting in an expensive restaurant (the sort of place that has a harpist), examining the menu, when he's joined by his dinner companion - the first of the city's Heralds, a Moros Mystagogue named Francine. Francine is curly-haired, brunette and bespectacled, wearing a mildly unfashionable dress that fits the dress code for this well-to-do establishment. Wolsey thanks her for meeting him and she says that it's no bother - after all, he's paying for her to eat above her means for the privilege of meeting her. They make small talk - Francine is a historical biographer by profession, and in her Supernal life is a member of the Recorders of Living History Cabal. Which, given their reputation for studiousness, is why she was first on his list. Francine is visibly distracted throughout their conversation, glancing over Wolsey's shoulder every now and again and fiddling with her cutlery. Eventually, she excuses herself and gets up, walking to the table immediately behind theirs and - demeanour changing in an instant, brightly asking the suited, heavy-set man sat there if she's met him before. After some verbal back and forth (Wolsey gets the pins and needles feeling that marks his Unseen Sight kicking off - she's using magic) he gives her his name, and she returns to Wolsey's table. Entirely straight-faced, she notes that the gentleman will be dead by the end of the night. And then absorbs herself in the wine list. To business - Francine can't read the rune herself, her Atlantean isn't good enough either. Wolsey asks about the other members of her Cabal, and she says that she doesn't think so. Disappointed, he thanks her and they return to small talk, finishing the meal before he calls her a cab and then the next Herald on the list.
Francine is a member of the Stone Book / "Nametakers" Legacy - from Legacies: The Sublime. This whole side-quest about finding someone that can translate the rune comes from my thoughts upon reading the High Speech chapter in Secrets of the Ruined Temple - what happens if your Cabal *doesn't* have Linguistics: Atlantean, but someone in your city does, and they need something translated? There's a major bargaining chip a person can offer to everyone else right there.

.. Damascus and Kali have taken in a fence which has a striking picture of a gallowsyard painted on it (same results as for the spell, though this time Postcognition worked a bit better, offering Kali a few more seconds of their mystery graffiti artist)

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and now stand at the last of their sites, at which an archway to some kind of alley has been painted on the side of an apartment building. Mage sight has revealed - once again - that the spell is no longer active and that it was cast by the same person as before. Damascus is stumped, but Kali has gotten into the mood for investigation - her surly demeanour from before gone, she's now seriously considering the puzzle and trying lateral methods. She casts Postcognition while still keeping Mage Sight up, to try to get a better look at the spell's resonance, and determines that the man in question was acting in a sort of trance - he wasn't possessed, though, it was an external effect not something inside him. Considering, she throws Interconnections at the painting, determining that there is a strong link between the four sites - and that the young man has some degree of a destiny. Working out the timeline in her head, she notes that they've taken the paintings in rough reverse order - they're at the oldest one, which was followed by the well, the gallows and then the rune. She and Damascus talk through the symbology of it in case that's important - Kali rambles for a while about the significance of the archway being first - like something that something has come *in* through. Damascus considers the possibility that it's a ghost mage doing the deed. In any event, they are beginning to attract attention standing in the middle of the neighbourhood at 1am. After flipping a group of men that cat-call her the bird, Kali concedes that they should probably head back before she starts a fight that Damascus will lose. Wolsey, meanwhile, has now pitched up at the bar of a hotel downtown, where he's met by a blonde, elfin lady that looks like he's woken her up. This is "Trace", an Acanthus Mystagogue in the House of Ariadne - and the Herald in the Gatekeepers Cabal.
Wolsey is avoiding the third and final Herald in the city - because he is in the Hierarchs Cabal, and Wolsey doesn't want to involve the boss. Yet.

Trace rather disgruntledly asks Wolsey what was so important that he phoned her and asked to meet at 2 in the morning, and Wolsey checks his watch - it *is* getting rather late. He apologises, and cuts it short - he intends to be a Herald, and des she know what this drawing means? Trace looks at it, gives up after staring at it blearily for a while, and advises Wolsey to speak to her superior, Malakaii, about it. The Master knows more Atlantean than she does. The sinking feeling of "I need a consult from the man who represents my bitterest enemies" setting in, Wolsey goes home to bed.
And that's the end of session 1. Much set up and gathering of information.

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Session 1.2
Oh yeah... the stark disconnect between the opulent areas Wolsey was wandering around in and the urban landscape Damascus and Kali were in was deliberate - it's my "two cities" thing rearing it's head. In any case, as I say I wasn't *entirely* happy with session one - would have liked to do more than just hand out clues depending on how many successes Sam and Rafe got at their magic rolls, for instance. Fortunately, the break seemed to serve, in people's minds, as the demarcation point between reacting and acting. The shape of the problem is (kind of) known. Time to start trying to solve it.

The next morning (well, nearer noon actually), the Cabal reconvene in a food court to share their findings and theories. Damascus has been thinking more about his theory that it's the ghost of a mage doing the deed, while Kali (only turning up slightly late this time) still things there's something to the order of the sites - she plotted them on a map, and they seem to be heading South-East, into the heartland of the poor districts she calls home and Damascus lives on the fringes of.
I *think* that they're in the MCI, but I could be wrong - Rafe seemed very specific about where the mall was, implying it's somewhere he knows of ooc.

Wolsey, thinking hard, says that he thinks they're going to have to consult with Malakaii about the rune's meaning. He's clearly uncomfortable about it, and Damascus volunteers to go with him. Kali says that she's going to go back to the rune site - she's thought of a few more spells she can cast on the location. Wolsey pulls out his cell phone and calls Malakaii. The Master answers before the first ring, asking Wolsey (by name) what he wants. The other two watch Wolsey ask for a consultation, then hang up and announce that Malakaii will meet them "at the Temple of the West". They'll get going now, while Kali goes to the freeway support, and all meet back up here at 4. .. An hour later, Wolsey and Damascus walk up the steps of the Abraham Lincoln memorial. "This feels strange" - Damascus "What does?" - Wolsey "Meeting on our business next to the old guy" - Damascus, glancing up at the Statue "Indeed, we should be respectful. This is the house of the City Father" - Malakaii, moving around a tour group to join them.
The "capital city" City Father - the City Father of D.C., as it were, rather than the City Father of Washington - appears as Abe, as you'd expect really. Oh, yeah - this is the point at which my memory is able to pick out lines of dialogue as well. The quotes start here.

Wolsey thanks Malakaii for meeting them on no notice, and the older mage brushes the comment off with a wave of his hand, appearing slightly wearied by it. Malakaii, despite his fearsome reputation, is a small, balding man of advancing middle years and an unfortunate angular cast of facial features - combined with his wide, round glasses, his thin pointed nose makes him look somewhat like an owl with watery grey eyes and a rumpled suit. Upon examining the note, Malakaii harrumphs for a few minutes, thinking, then looks at it again. Finally, he blinks up at the two younger mages. "'Through me, revelation'. Possibly 'Through this...' - the niceties of the ancients' grammar are one of the things of which we in this denuded modern age are unaware." - Malakaii "Revelation..." - Wolsey 20

"Something like Revelation, yes - the word does not translate exactly. This rune, as a whole, is both meant to convey an enlightening idea and to *be* an enlightening idea. The language of the old ones often has only the very barest of differences between causes and effects, developed as it was to communicate Supernal ideas. The 'through me' is the equivalent.. hmm.. you could also say 'By reading this, you are enlightened'." - Malakaii Damascus and Wolsey thank him very much for his time, both relieved that he was helpful and thoroughly confused by his explanation. "Well, thank you both. Always a pleasure, Wolsey." - Malakaii As he leaves, Wolsey frowns. He's never actually met Malakaii before. Damascus, though, has a more pressing thing to point out - his watch. The entire tenminute conversation appears to have taken an hour. Malakaii has erased five-sixths of what they just spoke about from their memories.
Yikes. And, as I said, this whole conversation? This is the fault of Secrets of the Ruined Temple and it's excellent primer on Atlantean and the difficulties involved in learning a language invented to describe resonance flows. Malakaii's party piece - using his Attainment on the unwary - is rolled ahead of time, and what we actually play is what the characters *remember* doing and saying in his presence. It's extremely morally dubious though, as it's an attainment, it doesn't conflict with the Guardians of the Veil doctrines. Well, if you're a rules-lawyering bastard like Malakaii, anyway. It is intended to add to the general feeling of uncertainty about reality, paranoia and questioning how much you trust your own senses that Mage relies on - Malakaii, abusing his position of authority to alter the perceptions and minds of his fellow revolutionaries, is a microcosm for the Exarchs. Do not do this with a group that isn't up for this sort of thing.

Under the freeway, Kali has thrown Interconnections, Sybil's Sight and Postcognition at the graffiti, getting a better look at the painter in the process and discovering that this site is more important, supernally, than the others. She has a nagging feeling about the painter which she can't quite shake, but she leaves to meet the others back at the food court. "We can't come here again. We risk building a pattern" - Wolsey When she does arrive, she finds Wolsey and Damascus bitching about Malakaii's treatment of them. The men tell her Malakaii's translation of the rune, and they bandy their theories about a bit more - Kali adapts her "something is coming through the Shadow world into this guy" theory to include the new information, rationalising the rune as being an attempt to call across the Gauntlet to someone. The part that's hard to understand is why this last piece - obviously magical in origin (being written in Atlantean) and the most important according to Kali's measurements of Fate - was the *last* one to be drawn. If there was a candidate for "thing likely to give a sleeper visions", a rune meaning "Revelation" would be high, but the painter was under the effects of the spell beforehand. At which point, their train of thought is interrupted by Wolsey's cellphone. Wolsey takes the call, frowning and saying that yes, he will be there. When the others wait patiently enough, he explains - he is a member of several societies, he says. "I suppose you would call it a cult" - Wolsey

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This specific cult is his 'base' - the first one he joined upon arriving in D.C., posing as a guest from another society far away. He's been using their contacts for his own ends, searching through the occult underground of the capital. And there is something that they feel the need to contact him about. "If you are interested, you could come with me tonight. It shouldn't take long" Wolsey The others shrug and agree. The subject returns to the mystery man. They can't figure this out at a distance. They need to find him, somehow. Damascus mulls the physical description, and says that he's likely poor - and the bums said he was on foot, a fact borne up whenever Kali sees him in the past. Kali has a bright idea - they need more resources than they have between them, and need to ask around. What's more - he's spraying his dioramas all around. "Gang tags" - Kali "Excuse me?" - Wolsey Damascus and Kali explain, patiently, that he *must* have sprayed over at least one gang tag in the pursuit of his.. whatever it is. Those gangs will be looking for him. "Hell, my..." - Kali Kali suggests that they go to her place, and she can get her network of dealers and thugs to ask around. He must have offended someone - maybe he's even offended her gang and she just hasn't heard about it yet. Maybe someone *knows* him, and by circulating his description among her people they can cut through all this. "After all, he's poor and he's probably from that part of town. I've probably done him..." - Kali The nagging feeling comes back. Kali frowns, then goes wide eyed. Damascus and Wolsey sense her casting a spell - Postcognition as it happens. "Shit!.. I have done him!" - Kali
Kali's spell afforded her a brief glimpse of herself performing a sexual act on the painter, in the toilet of a club. Pity she can't remember his name.

... Damascus' car pulls up in the parking lot outside a converted warehouse, in a crumbling, partially industrialised are south of the "park" where the rune-tag was. There are several cars arrayed around - some of which have wheels - and there are a lot of people loitering around them. Very loud music is coming from the open door of the building. Kali sees Wolsey looking at the lights of the Naval base across the water, and tells him that most of her business nowadays is with the sailors. She gets out and strolls into her lair. Wolsey and Damascus exchange a dubious look and both cast Mage Armour before following her in.
Hee!

Inside, Kali pushes her way through the crowd, not fazed by the ear-splitting music,

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and indicates to the others that she's going upstairs - she lives in what was the warehouse offices. There's a very large man at the foot of the stairs, who she taps on the shoulder. Upstairs, the doorway has a beaded curtain hanging to one side rather than a door. Kali's boudoir is low-lit in red and orange, flickering with candles. There's a collection of junk, a filthy bed and a crooked poster of her goddess namesake. Wolsey is faintly horrified by the whole place - especially by how many people are lounging around Kali's rooms
Not for salacious reasons - just because it's inherently unsafe for a Mage to have this many sleepers underfoot

"Everyone out - not you Ichi" (to the large man) "Come on - out!" (pulls a stranger out of her bed and pushes him towards the stairs) "leave!" (opens the wardrobe and yanks the handcuffed man knelt inside to his feet) "OUT!" - Kali She pulls the curtain closed, and brushes the worst of the debris off her bed before sitting down. "Ichi. Do you remember a guy I was with at a club, about a year ago?" - Kali Ichi confesses that there have been a lot of.. clubs. Kali describes the phantom painter, and says that he's taken up graffiti. Dispatching Ichi to make the enquiries, she opens her wardrobe again and asks Wolsey what she should wear to this cult he's taking them to. Wolsey confesses that she should probably dress like a man, if she has anything suitable.
Ichi is named after Ichi the Killer.

... Now that the hounds have been released, there's time for Damascus to drive them to Wolsey's apartment - which they don't go inside, waiting while he retrieves something from inside - and then onwards into what Kali dismissively calls the "nice part of town". They're in Adams-Morgan, North-East of Dupont Circle, and park at Wolsey's instruction around the block from their destination. He hands out what he was retrieving - three metal masks, with differing degrees of facial features. One is almost blank, which he keeps. "Now. We ring the bell and - after one minute - go inside and put our masks on. Then we go in through the inner door" - Wolsey "Why the detail?" - Damascus, as regards the masks "The higher in status you are, the less detail your mask has. It's a shedding of one's identity thing." - Wolsey "And why do you have three?" - Damascus "Because as far as they're concerned I'm three different people" - Wolsey
I may have gotten that the wrong way around. Mark?

They enter, and upon going through the inner door are met by a woman in a plain white robe with a emotionless mask covering her face. She invites the three of them to follow her, and leads them into a meeting hall where just over a dozen men are standing around in small groups, talking. They're all masked too - as are the handful of women (all in identical costumes, unlike the men) who are circulating around handing out drinks, cigars and newspapers.

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Kali can barely contain her incandescent rage. The meeting comes to order as they realise Wolsey (who they call "speaker") is here. The leader - with a mask that is completely blank except for his eyes - tells him that they have received feelers from another society who call themselves the "juncture", who wish to have some kind of symbolic exchange in which some members of each society visit the other. However, these persons have been asking about Wolsey specifically (as "the guest speaker you have with you"), and the cult wants to know what he wishes them to do about it. Wolsey tells them to agree to an exchange of three persons each, in the name of friendship, one evening as soon as it can be arranged. He will go as one of the delegation, and see this "Juncture" for himself. Everyone bows to one another, gibberish is recited, and the Cabal leave. Kali pulls her mask off immediately. Damascus is thoughtful. "Why three?" - Damascus "If you are agreeable, I'd like you two to be the other two delegates. You'll have to join this lot for a while, I'm afraid, or it will look suspicious. besides, it gives us an opportunity" - Wolsey He goes on to explain how he sees these people - this sort of person, not just limited to this one society - as being their best chance to find allies - and maybe even awaken some people. That goal is one the Guardians of the Veil are opposed to, and many of the societies and cults are influenced by them, but he believes they can be elevated anyway. These people *want* to believe in magic. Kali is disgusted, asking if she'll have to be one of their handmaidens. Wolsey waves it off, saying that when he's through, he'll be able to bring magic to the people this way. "To rich white men, you mean" - Kali Damascus agrees to do it, good-naturedly, while Wolsey and Kali back away from the argument. Now is not the time.
Good point, though. Although Kali hasn't thought through the lack of outrage - or of any sign that they noticed - due to her manifestly not being male back there. And Damascus' hands were clearly visible.

... Later, and the great run-around of the day (well, the night, now - it's gone 10) plus a call from Ichi leads them back to Kali's warehouse. Her man has got results. The supernatural spray painter is named Virgil Johnson. He's a former customer of one of Kali's dealers - he was arrested shortly after Kali "met" him and spent six months inside, cleaning up while he was in. He's got a job as a menial cleaner in a hotel, that doesn't know about his record. Kali's hunch was right - the "well" tag has seriously pissed off the group whose territory it's in. "Buy them off - say that I've got a longer-standing grudge and we want to deal with him ourselves" - Kali

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He lives in a shitty basement apartment across Anacostia. Kali takes the address. To Virgil's house they go. ... Virgil's building has an outer door with an intercom. Rather than bothering with it, Damascus casts Alter Conductivity on the magnetic strip holding the door shut, and pushes it open.
Ah, alter conductivity. Most broken of the first-level Arcana effects, and I do love it so.

Knocking on Virgil's door, the gang smile when he opens it on the chain and peers out at them. He looks wrecked - like he hasn't slept in a week - and is painfully thin. his 'wha' is interrupted by kali demanding to be let in, and he goes wide-eyed as he recognises her. She threatens his person, and points out the fact that he's been spraying where he oughtnt. Cringing, he opens the door.
Victory for the intimidation roll

Inside, the gang survey the cramped, stale-smelling apartment, lit by the dirty glow of streetlights coming in through the tiny windows set near the ceiling. They get right to business, asking him about his nocturnal activities. Virgil denies all knowledge, clearly terrified. The Cabal get out the Polaroids of his handiwork and show them to him one by one... until they get to the one of the rune. All three of them sense a spell flaring into life, Virgil's eyes roll back in his head and he lurches forwards, throwing the coffee table aside and grabbing a marker pen from the wreckage before falling to his knees and - like a puppet on a bender - begins to gouge thick lines into the floor describing the outline of stone slabs. After a few minutes of this, he lurches to his feet again and stumbles into the next room - his even tinier and more cramped bedroom - where he collapses on his single bed. Feeling the spell wane, Damascus gently shakes him awake. "Oh god.. it happened again..." Virgil And, much to their confusion, he bursts into tears. The Cabal ask how long this has been going on, and he says that it's been since he moved here - he got the place after getting his job at the hotel. Every now and again, he blacks out and wakes up in his bed smelling of paint, feeling like he's walked across the city. Which in a way, he has. The drift in the sits that the Cabal figured out is pointing here - the dioramas were getting closer and closer to Virgil's home. The gang look at one another, and after Wolsey and Damascus cast Mental Shield, all three cast various forms of Mage Sight before turning the rune Polaroid right-side up again.
The fact that Kali doesn't have the Mind Arcana is about to become rather significant.

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With an in-progress spell to work with, rather than it's afterechoes, they get a *much* better feel for the resonance of it. Waking Virgil up (again), they go into a brief huddle. The question of why the spell hasn't failed through disbelief is raised - Virgil must be a Sleepwalker, picked so that the spell could go on as long as it had to. And it's clearly external to him, not anything possessing him - it's impossible to make a spell permanent on a living being, and this has the feel of something set up to be occasionally imposed on him, not a constant presence. They need to find out where it came from, and then maybe they can see about getting it broken. "Hopefully before he sleepwalks his way into annoying someone that will hurt him" Damascus "Well... That *would* be one way to resolve this situation" - Wolsey
Said in all seriousness. It *would* solve the problem if Virgil were killed.

There is no answer to that. It is late, and they've had a very trying day. Kali and Wolsey announce their intention to go home and sleep - they'll be back in the morning. Damascus, though, decides to stay and keep Virgil company. "I'll go to the store on the corner, cook us some food. We'll be fine. Right?" Damascus "R...right." - Virgil ... Later on, and - after eating what Damascus prepares and puts in front of him - Virgil finally falls into a deep sleep. Damascus pokes around the apartment idly, looking for anything that might give a clue as to who's decided to ruin the life of a random hotel cleaner. Deciding to make himself useful and put the coffee table back together, Damascus picks up the pieces - and notices something. Small spots of old, white paint in the carpet, trodden in over time. Slowly, Damascus looks up at the green walls. And up again to the white ceiling.
This was a standard perception check to spot the clue, made when Rafe described Damascus running his eye over the place.

Damascus considers his options, reaches into his jacket and produces his hammer, personalised with tiny runes and thread tied around the handle. He reaches up to the ceiling, boosted by a chair, and strikes the paintwork with the hammer, casting Steel Windows on the paint and making it transparent. Stepping down, with a rising feeling of dread, he looks at the great big honking rune the same rune Malakaii translated - burnt into the concrete of the ceiling. This? Is not good.
The use of the dedicated magical tool negates the paradox for this vulgar spell - the first vulgar spell of the chronicle. I like Steel Windows - it's another low-level Matter spell that has 101 uses.

...

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Kali wakes up in the night to blearily see someone standing in her room, indistinct in the darkness. She growls that she said she didn't want to be disturbed, and whoever it is leaves. Her sleep has been disturbed, though, and after another hour of trying and failing to rest she gives up, gets up and goes wandering outside. Squinting into the wind, looking out across the city, she puts a cigarette in her mouth and pats around her pockets for a lighter before being offered a light by someone that's joined her without her noticing. Sad green eyes peer out from beneath a woolly hat and above a massed, bushy beard with flecks of grey in it. Kali nods to the bum and goes back to her vista. "How are you finding it?" - Bum "Excuse me?" - Kali "The Orders. The whole backstabbing crew." - Bum (carefully) "Not... They're alright." - Kali "They're like the Democrats. Can't agree on how to oppose the people in charge. Full of big ideas, but deep down? They're the same as the other guys. Scratch the surface of Malakaii, or your new friend, and they're not that different." - Bu "And you?" - Kali "Ah. We're the Republicans. See you around, miss Simone. If you decide you're on the wrong side." - Bum And with that he strolls off, Kali watching him go.
My apologies for the analogy.

... The next morning, and the gang have reconvened at Virgil's apartment. Wolsey is well-rested and up for solving the mystery. Kali didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Virgil looking better thanks to Damascus' ministrations - has gone to work. Damascus calls everyone into the room, and casts Steel Windows on the ceiling again. Upon seeing the rune, Kali's eyes roll back and she stumbles over to a wall, grasping for anything she can draw with. Damascus cancels his spell, and he and Wolsey let her finish - the room is now halfdrawn over with what looks like prison cells - before waking her. Kali panics for a split-second, then gets irate that whoever did it to Virgil is now doing it to her, too. Wolsey points out that the rune was not painted by Virgil - he had no knowledge of it when Damascus checked. Someone put it here before or just after he moved in. Kali casts Mage Sight and then Postcognition, gritting her teeth and forcing her perceptions back to when the ceiling was burnt. As she watches, the rune burns itself into the ceiling, enspelled through a Space window. Whoever laid this curse on this apartment did so at sympathetic range. She tells the others this when she wakes up from drawing a rendition of a cell door on one of Virgil's other walls. The Cabal as one decide that - no matter what the benefits or drawbacks of letting Virgil suffer this - they're not going to allow Kali to have a Mind-effecting spell of unknown origin knocking around in her head. Determining that it's beyond either of

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their expertise to counter, Damascus offers the fact that his mentor lives not so very far from here - and is an Adept of prime, able to dispel magics much more efficiently than their own methods. ... A short time later, and the gang have arrived at a small church. Damascus asks for "Father Joyce", and they're allowed in. Father Joyce turns out to be Ulysses - a middle-aged black man who as it turns out *is* a priest as well as being a Prefect in the city's consilium. Ulysses invites Kali to the confessional, and with the sinking feeling of one who is going to be made to work for having her brain cleaned out of supernal influences, she gets in. The confessional is short, painfully so. Ulysses attempts to get Kali to open up, but she won't - he says that even if she doesn't believe, there must be something she wants to get off her chest. "Nothing. I regret nothing." - Kali "Well, all right then." - Ulysses The elder Mage leads her out again and turns his back on them, preparing communion. "Oh you have GOT to be kidding" - Kali (holding out a chalice of wine) "Drink this." - Ulysses While she's slowly drinking, he puts a hand on her forehead, and casts Supernal Dispellation, topping it off with the Communion ritual. Kali - feeling slightly queasy, mildly disgruntled at being made to go along with the religious setting and vaguely empty after the scrubbing bubbles of the prime Arcana have done their work - thanks him roughly and gets up. Pulling her jacket on, she says they need to get back to Virgil's apartment. "You should be grateful that's all he wanted in return" - Wolsey "Oh, I am" - Kali Ulysses calls to them just as they're on the threshold. "Children. The resonance of the one who cast this... I recognise it. I know who did it." - Ulysses They are all ears "It's Beckett" Ulysses

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Session 1.3
A few things that may not have been entirely clear in the previous recap - when Wolsey asked the other two to join his cult, Damascus agreed but Kali didn't. I have been continually using the word "Prefect" to describe a Consilium position in this thread without explaining what I'm talking about - it's a local name for a "Provost", arrived at after I said Prefect by mistake one too many times. I went back to calling them Provosts later on, but Prefect has stuck. Just one of those little details, I guess. In any case, the consilium structure of the city is pretty direct - The Council consists of the Hierarch and Five Councillors. Each one of those five Mages has a Prefect/Provost who handles the day-to-day work and the divvying out of tasks to lower Mages. Such... (Banneker) Suleiman - Promethea Malakaii - Mara Samuel - Blaise Dantor - Ulysses Fisher - Marathon There are three Heralds (plus Wolsey) - Francine and Trace we've met, and there's also a Obrimos named Hoban. There are also three Sentinels, whose names are Link, Proteus and Jude - we're about to meet Jude. The city's Interfector is a Bokor named Thursday. Dantor is responsible for all the Sentinels, while Francine reports to Samuel, Trace reports to Malakaii and Hoban reports to Suleiman. As part of the wholesale compromises on his power Banneker was forced to make for the support he needed to become Hierarch, no Consilium officials report directly to him at present. This will be important.

So. Who's Beckett? "He's a renunciate - an ex-Guardian of the Veil, who hasn't joined another Cabal ever since he left Malakaii's group. I have no idea why he's doing this, but I'm certain. That spell was cast by Beckett." - Ulysses Now this - this raises a whole other set of questions. The Cabal restrain themselves, though, and both thank Ulysses for the tip and ask for his discretion. Once they're out of the church, the debate starts flying. Wolsey by now is in a paranoid circle - they've stumbled into a rather dangerous situation here and need to be very careful about extracting themselves without either mortally offending anyone more important and powerful than they. They need to know the particulars. They have a few hours to decide what they're going to do before Virgil gets home from work. A hardcore planning session at the International House of Pancakes ensues. They knew it was a possibility that a member (however obscure and isolationist Beckett is and none of them have ever heard of him before today) of the Consilium would turn out to be the person causing the disturbances, but it makes it much more difficult than if it were, say, a Ghost Mage or a Seer doing it. Because they need to know *why*. Wolsey brings up the point that their mission was to find out what's causing it a mission that's now been completed - but Kali and Damascus reject the notion of simply reporting their success now, on the grounds that it would leave Virgil to his fate and potentially endanger them depending on what Malakaii does to Beckett. In order to ensure their own safety and Virgil's, they need to have a part in any "what happens now" that's going to go on. So Wolsey calls Mara - she gave them this job, she's Malakaii's Prefect. There's voices in the background on Mara's end, and the IHOP is rather packed on their end, so the conversation is in the half-code of people speaking about a thing without speaking about that thing. Wolsey manages to get across that he's found out the thing that Mara wanted found out, and he'd prefer to have their conversation about it in person. He implies there might be a problem with it, and that Mara probably shouldn't tell her boss about it yet.

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Time is pressing on, and the Cabal decide that Kali should go to Virgil's house to watch him until Wolsey and Damascus return from meeting Mara. ... Mara meets the lads outside Union Station, with two other people in tow - neither of whom Wolsey or Damascus have met. Mara introduces the serious, suited woman in her mid-thirties as "Elizabeth", and the red-haired gangly man as "Jude". Elizabeth is a member of the Hierarchs Cabal, and Jude is a Sentinel.
Jude is named for the saint - he's an Acanthus.

Wolsey and Damascus explain what they have discovered - that Beckett, for reasons known only to himself, has cast a spell on Virgil that grants him Mage Sight and makes him draw whatever he sees. The effect is based around a rune in Virgil's house, and hasn't been dispelled through disbelief because Virgil, they suspect, is a Sleepwalker. Now. Who the hell is Beckett? As Mara tells it, Beckett was Malakaii's friend and colleague when they were younger, but ever since Malakaii became a Bearer of the Eternal Voice they fell out Beckett eventually disagreed with Malakaii to the point of renouncing the Guardians of the Veil and leaving the Cabal, though he hasn't left the Consilium. He lives in the North of the city, near the Maryland border, and discourages visitors. And now Mara wants a favour from them, which comes as no surprise to either Mage. Whether they realise it or not, their being the ones tangled up in this is probably a good thing in the long term - Beckett lives in his Sanctum, and has publicly announced that he denies the Right of Hospitality to any members of the Guardians of the Veil or Malakaii's Cabal. Because of the Consilium laws of the sanctity of a Mage's chosen home, Beckett can use force on any member of either or both groups trespassing. Even if this case went to the Hierarch and the Council, even if they did decide that Beckett had broken protocols, bringing him in for punishment would be a very bloody business. Wolsey and Damascus (and Kali, though Mara adds her as an afterthought) aren't Guardians, and they aren't in Malakaii's Cabal. Mara asks them to go to Beckett, find out his motivation for his frankly random actions and try to persuade him to stop. Defuse this before Malakaii hears about who's doing it, and prevent a magical battle. No pressure.
Beckett was also what Mark was going to call Wolsey in an earlier version of the character, which is my nod to his role in the Chronicle. As we'll see. This was the first mention of the Rights in the chronicle, and the tricky twists of the Lex Magica.

... Kali, meanwhile, is 'guarding' Virgil and getting increasingly bored doing it. The combination of Virgil's self-pity and the thought of the Rune that affected her only being hidden by a thin coat of paint is setting her on edge, and the conversation isn't helping. Virgil has started reminiscing about their past encounter. "It's weird, you being here like this. You were there when I was at my lowest, you know? Back before my arrest. I look back at some of the things I did and.. I'm

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ashamed of myself. But I've turned my life around. I've got a job" - Virgil The pride in his voice at being a menial cleaner makes Kali grit her teeth, while he continues oblivious. "And thank God for it. For my second chance. I've been clean for six months, now, and my life has... I just thank God I was able to escape that life. It's no way to live, how we were. You okay?" - Virgil (through clenched jaw) "Fine" - Kali "So how about you? I tell you, I nearly didn't recognise you when you turned up at my door. God, some of the shit *you* used to do..." - Virgil, puttering about in the kitchen Kali's temper finally snaps, and she casts Evil Eye on him. That'll teach him.
Vice: Wrath, after all. Virgil's next dice pool is in trouble.

Kali answers his questions with an increasing series of grunts and noncommittal phrases, until he returns from the tiny kitchen bearing a bottle of wine. "But the two times I've been at my lowest, you've been there. I can't tell you how grateful I am for that" - Virgil He looks at her. And Kali realises that just when she thought this couldn't get any worse.. here's a worse place.
His next dice pool, sadly, is to attempt to seduce her. Would have failed anyway, but thanks to her hasty cursing is *really* going to fail.

When Damascus arrives to collect them both, he finds Virgil desperately trying to get the wine off his clothes, the glasses smashed on the floor, a burst pipe in the kitchen sink and Kali looking at him like he's the second coming of Jesus. "Er. I can come back later if you'd like?" Damascus "No. No. That's fine" - Kali, breezing past him ... After Damascus explains what their new agenda is, the car ride is extremely uncomfortable - for Damascus and Wolsey and especially for Virgil. Kali - in reaction to Virgil's complete misreading of her signals earlier - is taking a cruel delight in bullying. She smokes in the car, laughs at him when he complains that he doesn't know where they're going and, for her big finish, "accidentally" puts out her cigarette on his hand. Yelping in shock and pain, Virgil - half-crying - demands to know what she's trying to do. The other two Mages just watch as Kali grins at Virgil, who - summoning the tattered remains of dignity and self-respect, demands to be let out of the car. "We're nearly there.." - Wolsey "Let me OUT! I'm not staying with this crazy... this...person" - Virgil

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Wolsey, grimacing, relents and pulls over. Virgil jumps out of the car and - declaring that he never wants to see them again - storms off, nursing his hand. "Well done, Kali. Very well done" - Wolsey. Being sarcastic. Kali angrily says that they don't *need* Virgil to do this. Beckett cast the spell remotely, he can remove it remotely too. Wolsey looks to Damascus for backup. Damascus shrugs helplessly and resumes driving.
Kali was fine until her way of life was described as worthless, then she lashed out both magically and otherwise in a temper tantrum that regained her willpower (Wrath). The other two don't know her well enough to call her on it - this cabal is still only a few days old after all, and both Damascus and Wolsey are being careful around their clearly-volatile colleague. Even as early as next session, they wouldn't have let her go so far. And so, exit Virgil stage left. He does not reappear in our story.

... They finally pull the car up outside the gates of Beckett's house - according to the address that Mara gave them, anyway. The Mage Sight spells the trio all cast reveal various Atlantean glyphs drawn onto the high walls dividing the property from the outside world. The finer meaning is lost with their knowledge of the high speech, but one thing's clear: They're warning signs to keep out. Trespassers will be astrally projected into the Abyss. Wolsey hesitates for a moment, and then presses the intercom on the outside edge of the gates. "Who is it?" - Beckett "I'm... my name's Wolsey. I'm here about Virgil Johnson." - Wolsey "Wolsey? How delightfully ironic. Come in." - Beckett
They're both named after historical English churchmen.

The front door is opened by a man in his 50s, pale from lack of sunlight with squinting eyes and a somewhat off-putting smirk. They all feel him cast some kind of spell on himself. One by one, they introduce themselves and politely ask to come inside. Still smirking, Beckett invites them in and leads them into his living room. Once everyone is seated, and they've all declined a drink, Beckett steeples his fingers. "So. What do you think?" - Beckett Damascus blinks and says that a spell of Beckett's is afflicting a young man with visions of the Shadow Realm. "Yes, yes. My virgin sacrifice." - Beckett "I.. ah.. think you'll find not." - Kali "I think you'll find that doesn't count. Not since Clinton" - Beckett "Fair point" - Kali "Why him?" - Wolsey "Because he was in the right places at the right times - he is a sleepwalker, he had a sympathetic connection to you, no matter how weak, and was released early enough before you were turned loose from your tutors that I could have the whole thing

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waiting for you. That and his name amused me... But what do you think about it?" Beckett
Beckett is pushing the envelope, here, of being an obnoxious storyteller character just for the sake of it. He does have a very punchable face, and it was my fervent hope that they'd twig to the fact that despite his bwu-ha-ha I'm-so-very-clever routine, they'd realise that *they* have the power in this situation. Fortunately, they did.

"Why don't you explain?" - Wolsey It's really very simple, says Beckett. This entire thing is a raised mid digit to Malakaii, intended to teach him - and anyone else like the Cabal that happened to cotton on an object lesson. "Malakaii has become an instrument of the Enemy, my young friends, whether he knows it or not. He has the gift of the Watchtower and what does he do with it? He seeks to establish his own control over the world of men, jealously prevents others from attempting to climb as high as he and denies the existence of the Supernal to the men and women of the world. It is one thing to avoid Vulgar magic for fear of empowering the Abyss, but it is another to do the Exarch's work for them. And that's what Malakaii, with all his abuse of his abilities to alter mind and memory, does. When he turned down that road, we fought. When it became clear that the Guardians of the Veil supported his view, I left." - Beckett He could have gone somewhere "They're all as bad. We make the Vampires look like Boy Scouts. Banneker? Banneker wants to use the geomantic nature of the city - a formation of this Fallen world - to suppress the disorderly, messy nature of mankind." (To Kali) "I don't think I need to lecture you, dear, on why that's a bad thing. Between them, they lead the mages of this poor city into hypocrisy and into their system of Control. Now, I could wrap myself in webs like Pool or turn consciously turncoat like Seraph - he's sent underlings to try to recruit me several times, but this house is now warded such that anyone riding a visitor with a Profane Urim will wish they kept their mind in their own body. For years now, new apprentices have been grabbed by one or both of them, with the scraps sent out to other Cabals. When Banneker was pushed into his decree on training, I had an opportunity to get my point of view across before you were hooked by any of their controls." - Beckett "By abusing Virgil" - Damascus "You want me to dispel the enchantment upon him and his apartment. It is as good as done, and will be by the time you return to report your findings here. But please.. what do you think?" - Beckett "you believe that Banneker and Malakaii are wrong to try to control. But what are you doing to Virgil but that?" - Wolsey "I have only shown Virgil the Truth. His thoughts remain his own, but his sight is enhanced. And he has survived. His mind has not snapped. Bent, yes, but not snapped. You see, Virgil now believes in magic. Perhaps one day he will Awaken. Malakaii's doctrine of Control is based on the 'fact' that people are weak and would not be able to cope with the Truth. Virgil has coped. Banneker's doctrine of Control is based on people like Virgil and your two friends here being somehow worth less than you - and yet here you are championing them. And I believe you will find that I have done nothing against the letter of the Lex Magica in this city - against it's spirit, certainly, but not it's letter. By virtue of Virgils sleepwalking, my magic was not

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vulgar. If they change the Lex to prosecute me, then they make criminals of themselves." - Beckett "We will have to tell Malakaii this" - Damascus "I expect you to. Maybe you're already working for him but don't know it yet. Maybe he erases the memory of your agreement with him every time you meet. Who knows? But I tell you this, Wolsey. We are allies. I can tell that you disagree with what Malakaii does, the same way I do..." - Beckett Wolsey stays silent, Beckett frowns, and sits back. "Before you go, allow me to apologise for making you my instruments in this. Their failings are too obvious in some ways - everyone is used to them, and it requires something special to illustrate how wrong they are. In any case, I owe each of you my gratitude, and a favour to be repaid. Wolsey?" - Beckett "I ask.. that you not use us again in your vendetta." - Wolsey Beckett seems disappointed, but agrees. Damascus and Kali both carefully say that there's nothing they want right now - Kali is open about saving it for a rainy day. And with that, they leave. ... "I say we throw him to the dogs" - Wolsey Back in the car, the gang are debating what they should do about this. "May I ask why?" - Damascus "Look. He's.. he's right that I don't agree with Malakaii, but he's gone the wrong way about this and I'm unconvinced by his rhetoric. I say we give him to Malakaii - keep our enemies closer." - Wolsey "So you'd sacrifice him to get in with your enemies?" - Kali "Frankly, yes. I have my own ways of breaking the Guardian's control" - Wolsey Kali makes disparaging remarks about Wolsey's cults, and offers her opinion that all he's doing with them is creating another means of Control, grabbing power for himself. Wolsey says that's true to an extent of all mages, and Damascus disagrees, pointing out that the Adamantine Arrow and, in fact, the Guardians of the Veil are both based around the principle of serving others. Damascus points out that if what Beckett says is true, then he didn't actually break the Lex Magica. Malakaii will be too afraid of losing face to do anything - especially as Beckett good-naturedly threatened as they were leaving that he'd kill any team the Council sent to apprehend him. Why don't they just tell Malakaii or Banneker exactly what happened? "I don't like it" - Kali Kali is still hung up on abandoning Beckett to his fate, accusing Wolsey of being afraid of Malakaii. Wolsey points out that Malakaii is in a lot better position to take his

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revenge on them than he is to take it on Beckett. Kali suggests saying that there was no case to answer, and Damascus says no - repeating his view that they report everything. Wolsey rejects the idea of telling the entire story to Banneker, saying that Malakaii would be furious that they went over his head. No, he concedes: if they're just going to tell the whole truth, then it has to be to Malakaii. Unsure, Kali casts Momentary Flux to check the plan, and - satisfied that this course of action bodes well for herself, nods "Do it" - Kali "Look, we don't have to decide right now. We can sleep on it..." - Wolsey "The Enchanter says 'Do it'. Do it" - Damascus Wolsey phones Mara and explains what's happened - how the whole thing was Beckett's laying down of a Gauntlet, how Beckett was careful to not break any local laws and how the phenomena should now stop. Mara says they've done a good job, and that she'll pass it on carefully to Malakaii. ... As they pull up to Damascus' house, Malakaii thanks them for their efforts, reassures them that he does not take issue with the way they handled this and gets out of the car, walking off down the road. None of them remember him getting in. "I am beginning to really dislike that man" Wolsey

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Story 1 Recap:
Session 1.1 We are introduced to Mysterium Acanthus gang-leader KALI, Moros Adamantine Arrow Artist DAMASCUS and Mastigos Silver Ladder Cult Leader and Political Fixer WOLSEY, plus their mentors (in order) House of Ariadne Busker BLAISE, Obrimos Catholic Priest and Adamantine Arrow ULYSSES and Jungian Psychologist Mastigos Arrow MARA. The three PCs, now at the end of their apprenticeships, are told that for political reasons stemming from BANNEKER (the Obrimos, Silver Ladder geomancer who is the city's Hierarch) and his habit of stealing all the apprentices they are banned from joining any existing cabals - instead there will be one Cabal created every five years to hold any new Mages that arise. Starting with them After the meet and greet, which is awkward, Mara gives them something to get them started - a job so minor no-one else wanted it. Graffiti depicting the Shadow has appeared dotted around the city, and they are to find out why. They go to the first site (a rune), beneath a freeway support pylon in Anacostia Park. Mage Sight reveals traces of a Death and Mind spell, and Kali's Postcognition shows a rather spaced-out young man doing the painting. Wolsey now goes to find the city's Heralds to introduce himself and find out if anyone has seen the rune before, while Kali and Damascus continue going around the sites. The second site (a well) is in a basketball court. Damascus encounters the ghost of a little girl who was run over chasing a ball. This time, they discern the spell as having been cast with Death, Mind, Fate and Space Wolsey meets with FRANCINE, Stone Scribe and member of the Mysterium. She takes the name of a businessman close to death behind them, but does not know the meaning of the rune. Damascus and Kali have been to the third site (a gallows-yard on a fence) and are now at the fourth (an archway on an apartment building). Their cumulative efforts have revealed that the painter was in some sort of trance, but was not possessed. Also, they know now that they have been taking the paintings in roughly reverse order - archway, well, gallows and rune is the progression. Damascus believes a ghost mage may be responsible. Wolsey meets TRACE, socialite, political secretary, member of the House of Ariadne and Guardian of the Veil. She advises him to speak to MALAKAII, Guardian Councillor and leader of her Legacy, as he is a reputed expert in written Atlantean. Session 1.2 The Cabal reconvene in a food court. Damascus gives his ghost-mage theory, and Kali points out that the sites seem to be drifting steadily SouthEast over time - heading for the districts she and Damascus are from. Wolsey talks it through with them and arranges to meet Malakaii at "The Temple of the West" The Temple is the Pentacle Order's term for the Abraham Lincoln Memorial which is the locus inhabited by one of the two City Father Spirits in the Shadow: the one corresponding to "DC" rather than "Washington" Malakaii translates the rune as "Through me, Revelation" or "Through this, Revelation". He implies that he has met Wolsey before, though Wolsey can't remember it, and what they remember as a ten-minute conversation takes an hour. Malakaii has used his third Attainment (a variant of Psychic Reprogramming) to edit their memories. 36

Kali is casting more and more Knowing and Unveiling spells on the first site, getting a nagging feeling about the painter for her trouble. The Cabal reconvene at the food court again. They discuss theories, and are interrupted by Wolsey being invited over his phone to a meeting of one of his cults - another society has been asking about him. Returning to their investigation, Kali rationalises that the painter must have obscured some gang tags, and therefore should have offended someone. Going through what they know of him, Kali places his appearance as being poor, and possibly from "her" area of the city. At the last, Kali realises where she's seen him before - she performed a sexual act on him a little over a year ago. The Cabal go to Kali's home in a converted warehouse sited in a partially industrialised area of Anacostia, sandwiched between two Naval bases with a river between one base and them. They meet ICHI, the alpha male of the gang and Kali's sometime lover. Ichi doesn't remember the Painter, but will ask around. They now go to Wolsey's Cult - The ORDER OF THE SOLAR DISK, who all wear masks, and are told that another society called the JUNCTURE are asking about Wolsey. Wolsey tells them that he'll meet this Juncture and after the Cabal leave (Kali outraged by the cult's treatment of women) Damascus agrees to Wolsey's suggestion that he join the cult and also come to the meeting. Ichi has by now got results. The painter is named VIRGIL JOHNSON - he has spent six months in prison since kali knew him and is now clean, working in a hotel. Kali orders Ichi to buy off the gang who were outraged by the "well" drawing on their court, and gets Virgil's address. Virgil hasn't slept in days and is scared of the Cabal. When they show him pictures of the paintings, he goes into a trance and draws all over his apartment's floor. When done, he lurches to his bed and collapses. After Damascus wakes him up, he bursts into tears and explains that this keeps happening to him - ever since he moved into this apartment. The Cabal all activate Unveiling spells and trigger the spell effect on Virgil again, getting a much better feel for the resonance and figuring out that Virgil is a Sleepwalker, which is why disbelief hasn't eroded whatever it is. It's impossible to permanently enchant a living being, so the spell must have an anchor somewhere. Kali and Wolsey go to their homes to sleep. Damascus, after Virgil also goes to bed, looks around the apartment. He sees paint drips on the carpet and realises that the ceiling has recently been repainted. Turning the layer of paint transparent with magic, he finds the Rune binding the spell to the space. Kali is woken by someone in her room, even though she told everyone she wasn't to be disturbed. They vanish before she can see them properly, though. She goes for a walk and is approached by a Seer of the Throne (later identified as SERAPH, a Mastigos traitor from the Mysterium who is now in the Panopticon Ministry) inhabiting the body of a bum, who compares his own Order to the Republicans and the Pentacle to the Democrats. He is especially scathing of Malakaii and Wolsey - and calls her "Miss Simone", saying she may realise she's on the wrong side. The next morning, they all meet up at Virgil's again. Damascus reveals the run and both Virgil and Kali go into trances. Kali has been affected by the spell. Angry, kali uses Postcognition to learn that whoever cast the spell did so at sympathetic range - and then has the effect triggered on herself again. They go now to Ulysses' church, where Ulysses casts Supernal Dispellation on Kali to remove the spell. In a brief confessional, Kali says that she regrets

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nothing in her life. Ulysses recognises the spell's resonance as belonging to BECKETT, an ostracised Magus of ill repute. Session 1.3 Ulysses explains that Beckett is an ex-Guardian of the Veil (now Independent), who left Malakaii's Cabal under a dark cloud. The Cabal ask for his discretion and leave the church At the International House of Pancakes, the Cabal try to decide what to do they need to try to avoid offending anyone by their response to the situation, especially both Malakaii and Beckett. Their mission has been completed (they know who's causing the graffiti) but in order to ensure their own safety and Virgil's they have to have an active part in anything that happens as a result. Wolsey calls Mara and arranges to meet along with Damascus, while Kali goes to watch Virgil. Mara meets them along with ELIZABETH, a former student of Banneker's and therefore in the Hierarchs inner circle and JUDE, a Sentinel of the Consilium. Wolsey and Damascus tell them what's going on and ask who Beckett is, learning that he is a former friend of Malakaii's who fell out with him when Malakaii developed his Legacy. He lives near the Maryland border and has seceded from the Consilium - he reserves the right to attack anyone straying onto his territory. Mara asks them to try to resolve the situation without the bloodshed a Guardian response would bring - defuse it before Malakaii hears about it. Virgil's attempts to seduce Kali go disastrously wrong when he expresses his disgust at the life he used to lead - the life that she, as we'll learn later in the chronicle, made a conscious decision to follow. She curses him with bad luck and all hell breaks loose in the apartment before Damascus and Wolsey arrive. Kali spends the car ride to Beckett's house bullying Virgil, until he finally has enough and demands to be let out of the car. He declares he never wants to see them again and storms off. Arriving at Beckett's, they note the Atlantean signs offering to banish intruders to the Abyss. Beckett is amused by Wolsey's Shadow Name (they're both named for English churchmen) and lets them in. Beckett admits what he did, and is quite proud of it - the entire affair is a raised mid-digit to Malakaii, proving that despite Malakaii's beliefs magic can be shown to the unawakened. Beckett expresses his opinion that Malakaii and his allies do the Exarch's work for them, and it was for this reason that he quit Malakaii's cabal. He is disgusted with Mage society, and mentions as examples POOL, the head of Project Twilight who is lost in webs of her own making and Seraph, who he says sent Seers to try to recruit him until he set up hostile wards designed to torture people using Profane Urim in his Sanctum. By the letter of the law, Beckett has done nothing wrong - Virgil was a Sleepwalker - but in order to undo what Beckett did Malakaii will have to be seen to publicly deny the supernal to someone who has shown that it hasn't broken him. He expects the Cabal to tell Malakaii that and offers them each a favour. Wolsey asks that he no longer use them to fight his feud with Malakaii, and the other two sae theirs for later. Safely away from Beckett's lair, Wolsey argues that they should throw him to Malakaii in order to get in good with the Guardians, which the others oppose. They instead decide to do as Beckett asked and tell Malakaii everything Wolsey rejects the idea of going to Banneker instead. Kali checks the future and agrees that this plan is for the best.

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Malakaii arrives, hears their testimony and then erases their memories of the interview. Later, the Cabal go looking for an untapped Hallow to take for their Sanctum. They discover one in a roof garden near to Kali's house, which they buy out with Wolsey's money and put Kali's gang to work guarding. They decide to name their Cabal CRUCIBLE and declare themselves to be following the Rights of Hospitality, Nemesis, Crossing and Sanctuary

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Interlude: OOC Decisions

Last little bit, which was semi-IC at the end of session three - the planning and the setup of the Cabal itself. We had a list of decisions that needed to be made, OOC, and the gang hashed out the arguments IC. First and most important was the Cabal's *name*. After rejecting numerous options (mostly revolving around the number three. Rafe liked "Troika"), the three of them have decided on a common theme of transforming oneself through effort and reaction to one another. So the Cabal has wound up being called The Crucible. Second, the location of the Sanctum. We went out of character here entirely, as the design of the character's base of operations is really a part of character creation. As such, when the characters went Hallow hunting, I had a list of possible Hallows with different resonances, depending on what kind of base they wanted for their Merit dots. In the end, they plumped for a half-abandoned apartment building a block and a half away from Kali's warehouse, the Hallow being a hidden, but lovingly-maintained, roof garden soaked with an almost territorial resonance - the idea of taking whats within your power, even if small, and making everything you can out of it. All three players agreed this fit with their characters, so into the Chronicle it goes. For security, they have Kali's gang. Third (and this part nearly made Mark cry. He hates deciding this sort of thing) was what rights the Cabal intends to follow. Out of the five... Hospitality: No real arguments here, though it depends on where the Cabal's sanctum is. Accepted Emeritus: After much wrangling, it was realised that only Damascus would ever follow it - Wolsey is too much of a maverick and Kalis incapable of being polite. Rejected Crossing: This had the biggest argument, and was based on where the Sanctum would be. Kali and Damascus weren't fussed, but Wolsey said that he wanted it especially if the Sanctum were in Kali's part of town. They went, in the end, for a "safe route" through the gangland, marked on each end by Atlantean sigils drawn inside phone booths. Mages wishing to cross have to call the number and speak a phrase. Accepted. Nemesis: A short discussion led to this being accepted, Damascus offering to stand any challenges to Wizard's Duels that they may be issued with. Sanctuary: Lastly, the idea that none of the trio should endanger their new home away from home, it's Hallow or each other. Damascus and Wolsey insisted on it and the implications for Kali will be evident at the start of next session, when the conflict between this and her activities is pointed out to her. Accepted.

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Chapter 2: "Instruments of Fate"

Session 2.1
Five Weeks Later. Mid June 2006.
One of the hardest decisions when doing an Actual Play is what to call the stories. Deliria and A|State both had pun-fuelled, jokey titles. Everway was just the spheres involved in the sessions. For this thread, though, I've plumped on "a significant line spoken in the story which has more than one meaning". Like the translation of the Rune last time. This one was a toss between "Instruments of Fate" and "At this stage, you'll just have to trust me". The shorter one won. As I say, this is where Reign of the Exarchs begins to rear it's head, and where in the spirit of unorthodox choices I move the story on vastly within the fourth time we sat down together. I could have spun Wolsey's quest for his wife out and out and out, but you know? For a Mastigos with a sympathetic connection to her AND knowledge of her real name, there's really no excuse why he can't find her in one city when he tries hard enough. Better to get it over with straight away, and then have that plotline become the tale of Wolsey realising what he's always pretty much known - that he's not Thomas any more, and Amanda isn't Amanda any more. That way the chronicle keeps "on-message" about Shadow names and Shadow lives and Mark gets a more interesting time than an endless series of investigative dice pools.

The Cabal (and they are a Cabal now) have gotten settled. The Hallow has been tamed, with the Cabal accepting that they can't stop people from squatting in the lower floors of the building with the justification that they'll make the place blend into it's surroundings a bit better. Each of our three Mages have been engaged in their own projects and interests, meeting up every couple of days and getting used to one another The Cabal (and they are a Cabal now) have gotten settled. The Hallow has been tamed, with the Cabal accepting that they can't stop people from squatting in the lower floors of the building with the justification that they'll make the place blend into it's surroundings a bit better. Each of our three Mages have been engaged in their own projects and interests, meeting up every couple of days and getting used to one another. Wolsey's Shadow life has taken off, with him spending most of the intervening month negotiating the merger of two companies and persuading various high-management people to quit in order to smooth the transition. Damascus has been busy - he's had several commissions, and has been locked away in his workshop. Kali, on the third hand, has seen her little empire grow and go deeper - she has started to drift from her usual product into Crack, something which she hasn't told the other two. When we catch up with them, two dates are looming - the emissaries from The Juncture are coming to Wolsey's pet cult tomorrow afternoon, and both Wolsey and Damascus (who joined following last story and will coincidentally be the one that Wolsey picks to go to the meeting with him) are meeting them. Then, the evening of the day after, the City's bi-monthly Caucus is being held. The meeting of most of the Consilium's members and the potential for furthering agendas would have been enough for Wolsey, but this particular meeting is the one that the Cabal will be formally Recognised by the Hierarch, and (Wolsey has heard) the one where Wolsey will be made a Herald. So, at the start of the story, Wolsey is telling Kali that a) she'll attend and b) she'll behave herself. "This is a fat cat thing, right?" - Kali "A what?" - Wolsey "A fat cat thing. Where they fight over the cream" - Kali, disinterested. Wolsey tries desperately to regroup, but Damascus smoothly picks up the slack "It's where the important people are. Wolsey here is getting made Herald" -

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Damascus "Ahhh, so Your Cat's getting cream" - Kali "Cream?" - Wolsey, not so much confused as horrified she's reducing his life's work to this analogy (quietly) "So many jokes I could be making about your pussy" - Damascus
Damascus, as well as being the sanest of the Cabal and the voice of reason in their dealings (because, for all Leadership qualities, Wolsey's just as unhinged as Kali really) is often the comic relief. The Cabal stays together because while Wolsey and Kali have the "brother/sister that I love despite their irritating the hell out of me" vibe, the both of them honestly *like* Damascus.

Betrayed by Damascus, the exasperated Wolsey manages to get Kali to promise to at least turn up in a dress and watch him get.. creamed. He waits until the other two stop grinning at him before asking her the *important* favour he wants from her. "Kali.. I need your help. To find someone." - Wolsey "Sure." (lazy shrug) "I'll get the guys on it" - Kali "No. I need you to do it. Supernally" - Wolsey "Got a name?" - Kali "Amanda" - Wolsey Kali mock-considers "Amanda Fisher? Who?" - Kali
The surname, as Kali is mockingly pointing out, is required for it to count. Amanda Fisher, incidentally, was the character Amanda in this was named after - A verbena in my first Mage: The Ascension Chronicle, who was played by Mark/Wolsey - it was his first Mage character.

"Amanda Nicola Foster" - Wolsey "Married?" - Damascus "Ah.... yes." (cagey) "But that's her maiden name." - Wolsey "Why are you after her? Steal something?" - Kali "I used to... know her" - Wolsey Damascus doesn't know where this is going, but at the sound of that last line sounds a note of caution "Wolsey, I used to know many people. Three are in the Maryland state pen, three are in the cemetery. I don't want to find the others." - Damascus
Damascus' point is that, if his reading of Used To is correct, Wolsey is trying to find someone from his pre-awakened life. Which is dangerous, usually leading to the Mage's awakened life conflicting with his secret real identity leading further to both being compromised unless very carefully managed. Because of Damascus' background, he considers going back to be a mistake.

Kali, suspicious, casts Exceptional Luck on herself, at the same time that Wolsey says.. "I just knew her. Wait.. what was that?" - Wolsey "What?" - Kali "That Spell you just cast!" - Wolsey "You're lying" - Kali
Abusing your powers as an Acanthus for fun and profit! The 8-again spell may be prolonged, but the 9-again version is instant. Kali cast it, and the 9-again rule allowed her to beat Wolsey in a contested subterfuge roll. Sam does this an awful lot - using her character's Fate 3 to get 9 and sometimes 8 again whenever she really wants to achieve something. She sometimes uses Bestow Exceptional Luck to grant 9-again to the other characters, too.

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"You cast a spell to tell that!?" - Wolsey "Unnecessary. Just watch his eyes." (to Wolsey) "You haven't quite gotten the hang of not looking left" - Damascus "Oh, for God's sake. I lied to you pretty much all day yesterday, and you didn't cast any spells then." - Wolsey
Damascus managed to beat Wolsey's subterfuge roll without magical enhancement. The jokey tone defused the situation nigh-immediately. And Wolsey? Might not want to admit that, mate.

Wolsey sighs. "Fine. She's my wife." - Wolsey Kali laughs in his face, and waves him back down when he gets to his feet. "I like this. I'll do it." - Kali Particulars are hashed out - Wolsey provides Kali with an old hairbrush with some of Amanda's hair still on it. "Okay. That's kind of creepy" - Kali "Her name will probably have changed, but the one I told you is the one the Exarchs gave her." - Wolsey Kali centres herself, takes the brush and casts Interconnections "Yup. That's still connected to her" - Kali "...and?" - Wolsey "...And I can't actually scry across space. If you knew somewhere she'd been it'd help" - Kali
Kali does not have Space 2. Which is the slight flaw in this plan

"Oh for... Are you actually qualified? I thought you were earmarked for the House of whatever!?" - Wolsey "I am" - Kali "Why don't you tell us why she left you?" - Damascus Wolsey hasn't seen her since before he awakened. In fact, it was her disappearance that *led* to his journey to Pandemonium. Damascus asks how he knows she's in DC, and Wolsey says that that's why he's here - he's tracked her this far through the cults, but then the trail went cold. "At this stage, you'll just have to trust me" - Wolsey Kali makes a comment to the effect of that *always* working, which Wolsey, frustrated that he's given up one of his secrets for no gain, takes badly. "I won't suffer Kali's taunts forever" - Wolsey "Awww. you don't want to play my game?" - Kali "We are the only people who *shouldn't* be playing one another." - Wolsey "So your lying doesn't count?" - Kali

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Defusing the sudden staredown, Damascus pulls Kali's attention toward him, instead "Kali, I've been meaning to ask you something. I've been commissioned to make a Caryatid Column, and.. would you like to model for me?" - Damascus "A what?" - Kali "It's a column carved into the shape of a woman." - Damascus "Oh. Uh... okay? I guess?" - Kali "Don't you think it's perverse to make Kali a pillar of society?" - Damascus "Well, it is for a Folly" - Damascus "You're sort of a white government building, Wolsey. I'm holding up the ground beneath you" - Kali, smugly "So what you're saying is you're a sewer?" - Wolsey
And we're back to squabbling like children, but Wolsey has managed to use Damascus' attempt to defuse it into a riposte, turning the focus onto Kali instead of himself.

"No. What I'm saying is that people like me, and the things that I do, prop up the world you come from. Without us, your beloved middle classes would fall into the real sewers." - Kali "How does your running a gang prevent the middle classes falling?" - Wolsey "Think of it as.. avoiding the government trap" - Kali Pause "Government Trap!?" - Wolsey
Mere text cannot convey the acres of incredulity Mark put into those two words

"You're all... all Shiny and Clean. If it weren't for me, you'd be sliding into the molasses." - Kali "If it weren't for you, the crime rate would be lower" - Wolsey "Do you really believe that? That I *increase* it? Trust me, if I weren't handling it, it would be a lot worse." - Kali "So you're the friendly face of the criminal element?" - Wolsey Kali tries to explain, that it's *necessary*, but Wolsey just can't believe her. "you're making money on it, aren't you? You're not just doing it for kicks" - Wolsey Kali smiles uncomfortably "You know, I think she is" - Damascus, matter of fact "Why!?" - Wolsey "... At this stage, Wolsey, you'll just have to trust me" - Kali
Ouch. But it's his own fault - he used the line when she got past the region of his life he was comfortable having her in, and now she returns the favour. Difference is, she stopped. Wolsey keeps on digging...

"Have you thought of what would happen if you got arrested?" - Wolsey "Yes" - Kali "And?" - Wolsey "I thought about it, alright?" - Kali Wolsey presses on, demanding she do more than think about it.

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"We'll.. we'll just lie low for a while, until anything blows over. I have it covered." - Kali "You're being a little blas about this" - Wolsey "Well, that's the fun of it" - Kali, annoyed. "Fun!?" - Wolsey "It's.. being on that line. You're too high above it - it's... you're walking on the top of a cone, while I'm lower down." _ Kali "So you're standing on the edge of a cliff" - Wolsey "Yeah. It's like.. abseiling" - Kali "Abseilers only endanger their own lives" - Wolsey Kali says that Wolsey's world is built on patterns of behaviour, that the people in it are locked into set routes which the likes of Wolsey change around to their satisfaction. But there are people outside those routes.
This is the heart of Kali's prejudices - she sees the people outside the grid (metaphorically as well as the geo-magical one) as being worth more than the people inside it, more "real" or at the very least ignored by most Mages

"I'm making life better for the people who you can't" - Kali "No you're not. You're just selling them drugs" - Wolsey "People can't knife one another when they're high" - kali "Rubbish. You're not helping these people, you're just allowing people to wallow." Wolsey "Wolsey, have you ever taken drugs? I'm giving people a choice to wallow in something other than their own misery" - Kali "Weeks ago, you said I was applying another system of control. Well so are you once people are addicted they're addicted. they get one choice." - Wolsey Kali gathers her thoughts, hurt by the prolonged accusation. "... If the point of this is saying that I'm endangering the Cabal, then say it." - Kali Damascus has now had enough. "No-one's saying it." (pointed look at Wolsey) "But they are perhaps saying that you could be doing something else." - Damascus "Why would I?" - Kali "Selling drugs to people is wrong" - Wolsey
Mmm'kay? Seriously, though, for all that he's a like a dog with a chew toy on Kali here, he does have some good points. Damascus could have probably made them better, though, and this whole conversation is not really likely to make her change. It's more likely to make her counterattack...

"And selling them political innuendos isn't? Selling masks and costumes isn't?" (without letting him answer) "I don't think it's different. In my heart, it isn't different. They're playing Peter Pan, your cults" (said with disgust) "their escapism into your world, they can't do anything else. How do you leave that life, when you're in it?" Kali
Which - and Wolsey knows it - is what happened to his wife.

"They leave. It's a lot easier than coming off drugs" - Wolsey "Then you can give up your mage name?" - Kali "That's different. They're not Mages" "It's no different. How many just go deeper, Wolsey? Looking for more and more half-truths and revelations?" - Kali "Kali. No matter how you couch it they are not the same." - Wolsey, now on the defensive 45

"Karl Marx would disagree" - Damascus "Karl Marx said a lot of things" - Wolsey
Opiate of the masses and all.

Damascus, though, has had enough of all this again. "*He's* using Cults to do something else. You're using drugs to do drugs to do drugs. What are you trying to achieve?" - Damascus "I'm trying to give people a choice they don't have" - Kali "The choice to walk into a cage?" - Wolsey Damascus warns him off with a look "If I didn't, they'd complain. The foundation Wolsey's world is built on would crumble. I'm not saying what I do is right, I'm saying it's something someone needs to do." Kali "You say someone would replace you. Do something only you can do." - Damascus After the long pause, Wolsey remembers why he came here today in the first place. If Kali can't help, then he'll try to find Amanda himself. After telling the others what he's doing, he takes the brush back from Kali and concentrates, casting Scrying and failing, though not in the way he was expecting. His spell worked, he's sure of that... but he hit a Ward. Wherever Amanda is is magically protected. A few seconds later, he thinks about what that means and tells the others to get ready, casting Spatial Awareness to gain the Mage sight. Sure enough, a Spatial window opens up in the Sanctum next to him. Wolsey hurriedly recasts Spatial Awareness down the window, hoping to project his senses to wherever whoever cast it is, but finds himself being countered. Seconds later, there's a wave of magic and Damascus disappears, the Spatial window snapping shut. Six seconds later, Damascus reappears, rather shaken "What the hell was that?" - Wolsey "You all just jumped, like a record skipping" - Damascus Kali, though, is uncharacteristically quiet "Kali?" - Damascus That last spell was a vulgar Time-based attack, an attempt to literally kick the target into next week. She recognised the Nimbus (an attack of Deja Vu) as belonging to Samuel. Fourth-Degree Master. Councillor of the city. Acanthus, Free Council leader, Weaver of the House of Ariadne. Head of the Recorders of Living History Cabal. By common recognition, the most powerful Pentacle Mage in the city. Whoops.
This short magical battle was a colossal fuckup for all concerned - Samuel, upon detecting his ward being probed, scried back on Wolsey's location (how he knew to is implied later). Hurriedly countering Wolsey's second Spatial Awareness, he then activated a prepared Temporal Stutter which, despite his mighty dice pool, only got four successes. The Paradox roll for a Gnosis 8 npc, however, *was* successful, causing a Havoc which meant his spell - intended for Wolsey to prevent him from following the link again and give Samuel time to withdraw - hit Damascus instead. Damascus' Gnosis+Composure roll cut it down to two successes, and Damascus was thrown two turns into the future.

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Somehow that makes me feel better about the situation. The first time they meet the highest-statted npc he panics and causes a Paradox manifestation. Not exactly intimidating. Far worse, though, is Wolsey's career prospects. He just had a supernal punch-up with one of the ruling body of Mages in the city. Days before he's supposed to be granted a title by said body.

Wolsey, thinking desperately, tries to head this off at the pass. Francine the Stone Scribe is the Herald within Samuel's Cabal, so he phones her... to find her phone busy. "I know who *she's* talking to." - Wolsey Moments later, Francine calls him back. She tells him that Samuel apologises for the incident, especially to Damascus who happened to be standing in the wrong place. The impression is given that Samuel is highly embarrassed by the whole thing, and will not mention it again if the Cabal don't - the damage to his own reputation if it got out that he hastily attacked Consilium members (who he mistook for Seers of the Throne) and caused a Manifestation would be just as bad as the damage to theirs for their own part in the fight. Wolsey for once isn't thinking about political advantage and agrees that it was a mutual mistake which should go no further. He just wants Amanda "Can I talk to him?" - Wolsey "He's.. he's busy." - Francine, hanging up "SHIT!" - Wolsey, snapping his phone shut. So close, and yet so far. The next day, and while Kali wanders the streets of the city, practising "following Ariadne's Thread" ready for her initiation test by wandering randomly hoping to come across Blaise, Wolsey keeps trying to find someone who can give him Samuel's number "Look, is he available now?" - Wolsey "I'm afraid not. He's in 1890" - Francine Wolsey hangs up, and looks across at Damascus. They're both in the antechamber of the Cult of the Solar Disk, pulling on their robes, gloves and masks. "No joy?" - Damascus "He's in 1890" - Wolsey, disgusted "Have you given any thought as to why she would be with Samuel?" - Damascus "I don't know. I don't know her. She might be Awakened. She might have forgotten me. She might be awakened and have thought she had to leave me behind in her new life." - Wolsey "What was the name of the cult you were both in?" - Damascus "Back in Boston. The Order of Ophidius. Bunch of Hippies." - Wolsey They put their masks on "Let's do this" - Wolsey ... Meanwhile, across town, Kali has wandered for hours. Her mentor - who normally 47

shows up at times like this - remains conspicuously absent. She looks up from following the wispy, ephemeral threads of sympathetic connection she's been tracing to find herself in leafy suburbia, on a street lined on one side with retail units. A cafe. A dress shop. A bookstore. This is not a place she belongs. ... Wolsey and Damascus have been introduced to the "Observational Adjunct" of the Juncture, a small man in deep red robes that nervously fingers the Astrolabe hanging from his belt and murmurs numbers under his breath. After speeches expressing the hope the two societies can learn from one another, he invites Wolsey (as The Speaker) and one other to come with him. Wolsey picks Damascus, and off they go. They're not going far - the three of them are soon ensconced within the back of a limo, the Adjunct sat facing backward towards them. After pleasantries, he starts to explain. The Juncture believe that a Great Change is coming - in this, they're not that different from the pre-millennial cults that sprung up all through the Labyrinth in the last years of last century and still occasionally surface espousing one gehenna or apocalypse or other. Where they *do* differ is their belief as to why, and what they intend to do about it. The Juncture practice Stochastic calculations to try to extrapolate trends in the world - in society, in natural events and in large groups of people. Based on the twin ideas that if the universe is a closed system it must be possible - if one knew, for example, the position of everything in the world - to accurately predict the future and that what appear to be chaotic systems (like the interactions of individual people) become predictable when one takes an overview of many of them (like a social trend), the Juncture have determined that a great change is coming. Civilisations rise and fall, says the Adjunct, and the America of the early 21st century is faced with building pressures that must be released. How those pressures will be released is unknown it could be a war, it could be a social revolution, it could be political reform for good or ill. The important thing is that a change is coming. The Juncture themselves hope that they can create the concept for which they are named - a Great Change of their own design that releases the tensions of society in a safe manner.
Now they're talking Wolsey's language. At this point, Wolsey begins having daydreams of a magical revolution with himself at it's head

They've come to him because they've heard he's travelled far, and like them has seen many of the secretive groups in the occult world. Word has reached them through emissaries to other societies of a quarrel between two of DC's occult groups - or perhaps rival factions of one group. As he explains, as one gets deeper and deeper into the occult world, the societies get smaller and smaller and much more secretive. But because their members are also members of "higher up" groups, their influence is comparatively greater. It's like a pyramid.
Or, as Kali was trying to explain to Wolsey, like a Cone. Different argument, but it's a parallel

"'The House of Stone and the House of Steel are quarrelling, and their quarrel is shaking us all'" - Adjunct

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The Juncture does not know who these groups are, only that their disagreement is affecting other societies, which are affecting other societies and so on. The Juncture's calculations are off, and they fear that a Great Change they cannot foresee is on the way. Wolsey says he's never heard of the two rival factions either, but he will keep his ear actively out and let them know if he does hear anything - which the Adjunct gladly accepts as second best. He expresses interest in the Juncture's calculations, and the Adjunct gives him some literature to go away with. And with that, they pull back up outside the Solar Disk's chapterhouse.
the Juncture are an example of a group that aren't supernatural, but were maybe affected by one early in their development. In their obsession with looking for signs that they interpret, they're maybe grown from an initial group of people who interacted with the Seers of the Throne or other, stranger groups.

... Kali, still wandering, is getting increasingly uncomfortable and getting past it by making everyone around her uncomfortable too. She's loitering outside the stores, looking in through the windows and meeting people's eyes - not quite knowing why. ... "Are they crazy?" - Damascus The boys are disrobing. "I don't know. This makes little sense to me" (flipping through the book they were given) "but I think they're sincere. I'm more interested in the two groups they mentioned - the pentacle and the seers?" - Wolsey Damascus shrugs, and Wolsey's phone rings. He checks the caller id, and notes that it's Mara. First thing he does is ask if she's heard from Samuel, which she denies. After checking he's not around any Sleepers, Mara gets to the point - she's not calling as his Mentor. She's calling as a Provost requiring a Herald for a job. "Then it's official?" - Wolsey "Think of this as your final examination. The Consilium need to see you do the job successfully before I formally recommend you to Banneker." - Mara "Of course" - Wolsey Mara lays it out - there's a Cabal of Silver Ladder mages living in Virginia, close enough to the city for it to be their "local" Consilium. They're quite reclusive and traditional - much more traditional than Banneker, for example - and their physical distance means they aren't proper members of the Consilium. The Consilium does, however, regard them as being under it's protection, which they have agreed to pay for with an artefact, rotes and certain texts. The books were delivered upon their first moving in last year, the rotes have been taught to members of the Consilium and now - after the Consilium has protected them for seven months - the time has come to seal the deal officially. Mara gives Wolsey the address of this cabal - who call themselves the "Ascendants" - and tells him to go get the promised artefact, then return it to her with due speed and security.

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And this task in no way gets Wolsey out of the city and not making trouble looking for Amanda. Oh, no. Not at all.

Wolsey agrees, cuts the call and tells Damascus what's going on. Damascus wasn't doing anything particularly important today either, so he agrees to go. Wolsey phones Kali - who is more than happy to do something interesting - and arranges to pick her up on the way. "... This has got to be more complicated than she said, doesn't it?" - Wolsey
Cynic

Wolsey calls Francine again. "He still isn't available, Wolsey. He'll see you at the Caucus" - Francine He explains that that wasn't what he was calling about - though he *was* going to ask - he actually called to see if she knew anything about the Ascendants. "Oh, they gave you that job! They must have confidence in you - Well done!" Francine She's only met them once - when the deal was brokered. "Traditional" is one way of putting their demeanour. They believe - honestly believe - that Mages have lost their way and that their Cabal is the one to set things right, show everyone else where they're going wrong and so forth. Which is probably why they left Europe and live on the fringes of a relatively permissive Consilium. Wolsey asks her about the thing he's going to collect, and Francine says she's never seen it. But it's actually "them". A pair of twinned artefacts called the Eyes of Salt, which although obviously magical don't actually do anything that anyone can tell (which is why the Ascendants are willing to part with them). They're Atlantean or Hyperborean in origin, due to their permanency and age, but they're apparently parts from a much larger artefact, without which they don't do anything. Still, they're valuable enough as archaeological treasures that Banneker considers them a good price for sheltering a trio of contentious know-alls. Thanking her for being most illuminating, Wolsey rings off. Kali, still looking around and muttering to herself, is broken from her reverie by Damascus' car arriving. "What are you doing out here?" - Damascus "I.. Have no idea. Let's go" - Kali
Ariadne's thread led her to Suburbia, but she is not a Weaver yet. When she gets her attainment, we'll be back.

Once they're on the Freeway, Wolsey explains his worries. Not that the Council is getting him out of the way - that remains unspoken. No, he's worried that this seems like a nice, easy little courier mission. So it's bound to go hideously, hideously wrong. But fear not! For Kali, fate-witch and prognosticator extraordinaire, is here. Kali casts an advanced-level Unveiling of Time on the Cabal.
Kali's spell here is the first spell we've had from outside the standard lists in the Awakening Core, as we gained confidence in

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the magic system. It's effectively the Time-1 spell "Temporal Eddies made longer-reaching and covering more targets than just herself by means of her greater ability in the Arcana. Or, put another way, we altered the Spell Factors.

"All right... this course of action we are undertaking will be.. beneficial... for me... neutral... for Damascus and..." - Kali Kali's eyes open, and she looks at Wolsey "What? What?" - Wolsey "And very, VERY bad for you" - Kali Wolsey doesn't quite know how to take that. "How bad?" - Wolsey "Really bad." - Kali "Well.. we're going to pick up an artefact. What's the worst that could happen?" Wolsey, starting to get worried "You could be transmogrified into a gelded water buffalo with terminal bone cancer?" - Damascus
Granted, that *is* pretty bad, but I don't think it was what Wolsey had in mind...

"Okay. Hold up. I'm thinking ambush. Or it's a trap" - Wolsey "Hm. Are these people in Langley?" - Damascus "No - near Mount Vernon." - Wolsey "Not a CIA hit, then" - Damascus "you could get killed" - Kali, trying to be helpful Wolsey considers "Are you saying that my getting killed will be good for you?" - Wolsey "I don't know! I'm an instrument!" - Kali
And there's the session title.

... A few hours later, and the Cabal arrive at the Sanctum of the Ascendants, deep within picket-fence territory on the far side of Arlington. Kali's bones are itching with the surroundings, and Wolsey is still distracted by the unhappy news of his impending demise. Various forms of Mage Sight reveal the Ascendants markings - they've drawn their glyph on their own front door in Prime energies. Their heraldry follows the very strictest letter of the forms, identifying them as numbering three - one Acanthus, one Obrimos and one Moros. All Silver Ladder. And their Cabal recognises all five Rights, making them true sticklers for form. Wolsey pauses, then knocks on the door. It opens to reveal a man in his middle to elderly years, his hair and short beard white. The two Mages greet one another formally, and the Ascendant (who calls himself "Melchior") invites them into his Sanctum. Trooping in, they're shown into the study. The room is lined with thick leather books on bookshelves, broken up by tapestries depicting supernal patterns and complex cosmologies. There's a particularly impressive ancient scroll locked tight within an atmosphere-controlled case in pride of

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place, unrolled to show three abstracted figures bestowing treasures upon the unseen figures beneath them. Melchior divides his conversation between Damascus (it transpires that he is the Moros), and Wolsey (as the fellow tharch and the Herald tasked with coming here). He's stiff and formal throughout, but polite - he makes it clear that he considers the Silver Ladder in the city to be failing it's duty. "You have come, of course, for the item promised to your Hierarch. We are true to our word as Magi should be. This will only take a moment, and you will have your payment" - Melchior, putting a particularly disapproving stress on 'Payment' Melchior draws one of the tapestries aside to reveal a wall safe, which he opens with an overly-long sequence of numbers. Within is a metal box, which he opens with a five-inch long, jagged key. Inside *that* is a dark wooden lacquered box, which he carefully lifts out and carries over to a desk before pressing his fingers to it's surface in a highly precise pattern. By now, the Cabal expect what's inside to either explode or do something equally impressive The mystery box clicks, and Melchior pulls on gloves before lifting off the lid. He carefully retrieves a drawstring velvet bag from inside, like a large dice bag, and holds it by looping the string around his fingers while he closes the mystery box, sealing away the rest of his Cabal's treasures. "And here they are - the Eyes of Salt. Take them and go with good faith, for I won these after many battles, and I expect them to be treated accordingly now that I buy our security with them" - Melchior "They will be" - Wolsey And with that, without looking in the bag, Wolsey gives Melchior a formal "until we meet again" and they walk - not run - to the car. Once they're IN the car, though, and are out of sight of the house, the curiosity takes over. "Did you SEE that place?" - Kali "Gods. They're everything I'm not, all in one package." (shudders) "Still, I seem to have come out of it alive" - Wolsey Kali recasts her spell ".. That's because it hasn't happened yet. You're.. uh..." - Kali "Still doomed?" - Wolsey ".. yeah." - Kali Damascus, as resident Moros and the member of the Cabal with knowledge of the Prime Arcana, has been given the bag to hold. It's... cold. While Wolsey goes through his options for getting them to Mara's safely, including several complex spell she intends to cast on the car to shield them from prying eyes of would-be ambushers and artefact thieves, Damascus opens the bag and tips it out onto his palm.

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The Eyes of Salt are like two large, grey marbles made of something with the qualities of granite and frosted glass combined. They're freezing cold to the touch, and an involuntary shudder goes through Damascus - these things feel *wrong*, like they're an aberration. "Well" (showing the others before putting them back in the bag, and blowing on his palm to warm it up again) "I think I know what they're for. They're for making *really* cold Halloween punch" - Damascus "I think it's pretty obvious what they're *for*, Damascus. And I know where they're unfinished" - Wolsey "Yeah? Why.. oh" - kali Wolsey shudders.
At this point, Mark started making 'Head of Vecna' jokes. Ah, how innocent he is. Remember - if you've read Reign of the Exarchs, don't spoil my players, okay?

"Right. I've got a plan that should shield us from most forms of interference. It will take about six hours to cast, so we'll need to hole up near a freeway ramp or something." - Wolsey "Or we could drive the two and a half hours to Mara's house right now" - Damascus "... Or that, yes" - Wolsey Kali recasts her spell "Still..." - Kali "I get the idea" Wolsey Two and a half hours later (still doomed, by the way), the Cabal park up back in the city, in a very expensive neighbourhood, all stone columns on white buildings, faketurrets and high stories. Wolsey leads them to one building, looking like the other houses around it but for the small plaque next to the door proclaiming it to be the practice of "Dr Madhuri Dhawan"
That being Mara's real name - or maybe just the name she gives Sleepers rather than 'Mara'

Going inside, they find that what would be a front hall has been converted into a reception area. The receptionist looks up at Kali and asks if she's the eight o clock appointment. Wolsey cuts Kali's bemused reply off to say that they're here to see Dr Dhawan, and the Receptionist correctly guesses that they're "the couriers" Dhawan has been waiting for. On the way up, Kali asks what sort of Doctor Mara is "She's a psychiatrist" - Wolsey "...Huh" - Kali
Specifically, Mara's a Jungian - she's named after the Belarusian and Hindu gods of death, the Buddhist tempter-figure and the Germanic nightmare-spirit. All of them seem appropriate to her - for al that she's Malakaii's former apprentice and current Provost, Mara is actually in the Adamantine Arrow, not the Guardians of the Veil. She interprets people's dreams and assists her Cabal in "cleanup" work - people that Malakaii erases the memories of usually wind up as her patients, so the Cabal can check up on them. Hers is one of the character descriptions that got changed fairly late on in my writing of the setting - she was originally a lawyer, and the current npc is a merging of that one with a Claviclarius mage. In the final setting, Mara flirted with the Solomonists before being drawn back to her mentor's Legacy, which is equally useful for her work. The relationship between the Bearers of the Eternal Voice - as fronted by Malakaii - and the Claviclarius fronted by Suleiman is one of the

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less-obvious axis of the setting. About which Banneker will speak later on.

Mara gets up as they enter her office, and thanks them for the prompt turnaround. Damascus hands over the bag and Mara - after checking the Eyes - puts them into a safe behind a painting. "Thank you. All.. three... of you. I'll see you tomorrow." - Mara Wolsey, hovering in the doorframe, starts to ask about Amanda, but Mara shakes her head. Not now.
Denied! Anyways, this whole elaborate sequence is what I believe is termed Chekhovs Gun. Wave the important plot macguffin around early on, go for several stories without mentioning it and then BAM!

Back outside, Wolsey asks how his destiny is looking. Kali just gives him a wide-eyed look of horror and sympathy. Wolsey turns to Damascus. "She's just shitting me now, isn't she?" - Wolsey Damascus mirrors Kali's expression "Now *you're* just shitting me" - Wolsey Even so, when they drop him off at his apartment, and he fails to get through to Samuel yet again, Wolsey triple-locks his doors and windows, casts various Wards around the place, casts a second Ward around his bed and spends the night not sleeping, sat up in the bed he's pulled into the middle of the room and sealed away from the outside world with every spell he knows. The next day, round about lunchtime, Damascus is feeling restless. He needs to be doing something - Wolsey's troubles are out of his sphere of expertise, apart from a few sage words of advice he could offer regarding mortality and the fear of the unknown. In any case, the Caucus isn't until that evening and he needs something to take his mind off things. he needs to keep his hands busy. Kali wakes up to find a text message from Damascus ("WLD U LKE TO MDL 2DAY?") and Ichi waiting to tell her how the Crack Factory is doing. Listening to Ichi tell her how they've nearly got the process sorted, the argument from the other day maybe resonating somewhere inside, she tells Ichi she'll be back tomorrow. She calls Damascus and agrees to meet him at his workshop. ... "Hi" - kali "Heya" - Damascus Damascus' workshop is an extended lockup close by to his house, with sculpting equipment for metal and stone neatly ordered, half-finished pieces stacked (the occasional spear, sword and rack of silver bullets among them) to one side and an easel set up with a large sketchpad on it. Kali looks around appreciatively, and Damascus busies himself setting his stool up and putting a sheet on the floor. "All right." (strikes a pose) "How do you want me?" - Kali, grinning. "Stand on the sheet, will you? And put your hands above your head like you're holding something up." - Damascus

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Kali obliges, still grinning at him, and he sketches a couple of outlines. "You know..." - Damascus There's a pause "...These things are usually, well..." - Damascus Kali lowers her arms and waits "...Nude." (quickly) "But only if you feel okay with it" - Damascus Kali quirks an eyebrow and strips naked, then goes back into the pose. "Better?" - Kali "Oooookay." - Damascus, concentrating on his sketching. About an hour later, the buzzer attached to the bell outside rings. Kali stretches the feeling back into her arms as Damascus goes to answer the door. Wolsey - looking like he hasn't slept - is leaning on the wall outside. "Are you busy?" - Wolsey "Kali's here. We're working on that column. Hang on." - Damascus He walks back in "Kali, it's Wolsey. Okay if he comes in?" - Damascus Kali shrugs "You should probably get dressed. I've got a good start anyway" - Damascus Kali starts pulling her clothes on, and Damascus gives Wolsey the all-clear. "Safe" - Damascus "Oh good. Maybe that's the doom - I'll be struck blind" - Wolsey "And then you could use the Eyes" - Kali "...OR I could find a Life Master" - Wolsey In any case, the Doom has now gone - it's only readable when he's actively doing something that causes it, and apparently gooseberrying doesn't count. Damascus packs his sketches away. "Still no luck?" - Damascus, sympathetically "None. We'll see tonight, I guess" - Wolsey
And after this quiet little character interlude, we head to the Caucus

That Evening, Wolsey drives around to Damascus' house to pick the other two up now shaved and looking more like himself. Damascus has put a suit on, and Kali - to

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Wolsey's shock, amazement and slight sense of unease - has put on an evening dress and done her hair. The evening's Caucus is being held in the function room of a restaurant / hotel that the Consilium has fully booked for the evening, somewhere in Mt Pleasant. The Cabal breeze past the doormen and walk through the deserted restaurant, between the tables covered in upturned chairs, to a pair of blacked-out doors guarded by a doorman not in hotel uniform. He opens the door and lets them in. Inside, the function room has been bedecked for the Consilium. Tables for each cabal have been set up, and most of the Mages present are already seated. The Sigils of all the city's Cabals are displayed - including Crucible's - along one wall while at the far end, six seats for Banneker and the Councillors have been set up. One has a short wooden carving, like a tiki, sat upon it. Kali glances curiously at the suited, shaded gentleman stood next to the door on the inside, who's just standing their, hands crossed in front of him, like he's waiting for something. Everyone else seems to be avoiding him. Wolsey, though, has spotted Samuel at his Cabal's table, explaining some kind of point to a woman Wolsey doesn't know using a bread roll as a visual aide. He's intercepted on his way over by Mara, who smoothly rises from the Gatekeeper's table. Wolsey turns to face her, and briefly meets eyes with Malakaii, who raises an eyebrow and very calmly shifts to studying the menu. "I have something to tell you" - Mara "Go on" - Wolsey "I won't be your mentor any more after tonight. I've been asked to cease our arrangement in order to concentrate on a new apprentice. Look, I'm sorry - I'll still be your tutor for the Bearers, and help you through the first attainment when you get there, but... You know who it is I've been tasked with teaching, don't you?" - Mara Yeah. He knows. "Talk to Banneker, Wolsey" - Mara Dinner is served. Wolsey troops back to the Crucible's table, right at the back (and opposite a trio of Mages, one of whom is Melchior so who must be the Ascendants). The quiet pleasantries of the evening don't calm Wolsey's unease, and he looks around the assembled Mages. Amanda isn't here. Idly, he eats without really looking at his food. Laughter erupts from the Recorders of Living History's table, as Samuel cracks a joke. Kali, feeling out of place, looks down at the cutlery provided for eating lobster (whispered) "How do I use this?" - Kali (also whispered) "Watch Wolsey and copy what he does" - Damascus Kali, seeing Wolsey's expression, casts her Advanced Unveiling of Time again. Whatever Wolsey is doing now will have a very bad outcome for him. She grimaces, and says nothing.
Wolsey's doom has now stopped being a joke. Even Kali's worried about him.

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Eventually, the dessert plates are taken away and people sit up as Banneker, Suleiman, Malakaii, Samuel and Dantor get up from their Cabals and proceed to the front of the room, where they're seated as Councillors and Hierarch. Banneker stands up again, waiting for silence, and starts in on his speech. It's a very long speech. Banneker's speech covers all the bases - brotherhood, sisterhood, the need to stay vigilant against the Seers, notable accomplishments if the Consilium's mages over the last two months, a bit of philosophy about the Platonic city, the virtues of the Wise, etcetera and so forth. Along the way, he notes that more people have turned up than usual, though Fisher (the fifth Councillor) can't make it, and the majority of the Children of the Book aren't here, there is a representative of Project Twilight making a rare appearance (this, by everyone turning to look, would be the suited gentleman stood by the door). Kali nods off, but is nudged awake by Damascus when Banneker reaches the subject of new Cabals - only to find that Banneker has decided to Recognise the Ascendants first. (listing their names) "...Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar of the Silver Ladder..." Banneker (aside) "They haven't.. They *have*. They've named themselves after the three wise men!" - Damascus Wolsey shakes his head in disbelief.
Rafe called that one all by himself. Font of useless information is Rafe.

"Also, as you all know, the first fruit of our new protocol on apprenticeship has been borne. The Consilium Recognises the Cabal of the Crucible, naming Wolsey of the Silver Ladder, Damascus of the Adamantine Arrow and Kali of the Mysterium as members in good standing. Welcome." (pause) "It is also my pleasure to announce that, given his willingness to serve and proven ability, the Consilium has conferred with it's Provosts and recommended to me that Wolsey of the Crucible be named Herald..." - Banneker (muttered) "This is the part where they kill me, right?" - Wolsey (whispered conspiratorially) "I have a gun in my knickers. I'll shoot you before they get to you" - Kali "...I name you thus. See me later." - Banneker, winking. While Banneker closes his speech, Francine turns around in her seat further up and gives Wolsey the thumbs up. He smiles, unconvincingly. And then Banneker bows, closing the speeches. Time to Mingle. Wolsey gets up and leaves Kali and Damascus behind, heading straight for the Hierarch. Banneker nods in recognition and walks towards a side door "We can talk in here, Herald" - Banneker Once inside the small room on the other side, Banneker closes the door and casts a

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spell. The sound of the Consilium outside buzzes for a brief moment and is then silent.
Banneker has cast a Forces spell proofing the room he and Wolsey are in for sound and much of the electromagnetic spectrum, ensuring privacy

Banneker runs a finger along one wall idly. "We haven't met, have we Thomas?" (off his look) "Isiah" - Banneker
Isiah is Banneker's real name. He named himself after the famous Benjamin Banneker, mathematician, astronomer and inventor - and also, despite being African American, the man hired to conduct the initial survey of what was to be DC. Isiah chose his shadow name as an aspirational story - he himself is an African-American from one of the poorer districts of the city, who became a successful architect even before he Awakened as an Obrimos and formed a Geomantic Legacy.

Wolsey blinks, and realises the Hierarch is holding out his hand "I.. don't think so." - Wolsey, shaking it "I've kept my eye on you, though. And your new position is earned. I have no doubt you'll continue to earn it." (frowns to himself) "The Heralds in this city are assigned to the Provosts, but I have decided to change that with you. You'll be working directly for me, Thomas." - Banneker "... Thank you?" - Wolsey "I normally get the Heralds together once a month to go over things, catch up on news and so forth. I'll be in touch regarding it, but your honour isn't what you have on your mind. Which is why I wanted this chat" - Banneker "My wife is here" - Wolsey "Yes she is." (sighs) "And now you have been very patient, and deserve some answers. First - she is Awakened, though only recently. She arrived in the city having met no other Mages, and stumbled into a situation Samuel was handling. Once he determined she was not a Seer, he took her to his Sanctum and contacted the rest of the Council. This was while you were still an apprentice. She is a Mastigos, and has not yet joined an Order." - Banneker "A Mastigos" - Wolsey "Yes, and.. I am sorry to tell you that her journey through Pandemonium was harder than yours. We have decided to give her time with two mages, both qualified for the task - Mara and Promethea of the Seekers of One Soul. Have you met Promethea?" - Banneker Wolsey shakes his head "She's good - a Claviclarius. Which brings me back to you, and my own selfishness. You see, when you first came to us, there was some discussion regarding whether to place you with Mara or Promethea. We knew that whichever of our two Mastigos Provosts trained you would predispose you towards their Legacy - it's only natural. I hope we made the right choice" - Banneker "You did, sir. I wouldn't have been suited to the alternative" - Wolsey "No?" (sadly) "Maybe not. But I saw an opportunity. I have a problem, Thomas. My position relies on someone who I do not wish it to rely upon. And after many years of seeing new Mages join Malakaii's Legacy who weren't *quite* up to my requirements, you came along." - Banneker "You wanted me to join the Bearers?" - Wolsey

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"I wanted someone in that Legacy who I could trust. Someone of our Order, with the ambition to advance down it's teachings.. and replace Malakaii in usefulness to the city." - Banneker The rest is left unsaid. "But as for Avatar - that's her name now - her destiny is her own." - Banneker "I want to see her" - Wolsey "I'll see what I can do, Thomas. She.. there is a reason, I am afraid, for her being tutored by a Claviclarius and a woman of Mara's profession beyond that of her sympathy with Pandemonium. And Avatar does not know that you are here - in fact, that's how we figured out who she was - once we convinced her she wasn't insane, she asked us to find her husband, who she left behind in some snake-handling cult in Boston. Mara recognised you." - Banneker
Note that Banneker is still calling everyone but Thomas by their Shadow names, even Amanda. He's not calling himself Isiah and Wolsey Thomas for shits and giggles - he's establishing a sympathetic link between them and making sure they know one another's real names. Because Wolsey's going to be his Herald, and they need to be able to target one another magically.

"Thank you" - Wolsey "My card" (gives it to him) "And I've kept you long enough. Talk to Samuel on your way out." - Banneker The Hierarch cancels his spell, and the room is unsealed. ... Back outside, Kali and Damascus are sat at their table still, when the suited gentleman from before approaches them. "Ms Kali, is it?" - Man He gives a very greasy smile, sucks the air through his teeth and sits down. "My name is Nimrod, Ms Kali. We have not met" - Nimrod "Named after the Hunter?" - Damascus "Just so." - Nimrod "And who are you, Nimrod?" - Kali "I represent Twilight. Do you know who we are?" - Nimrod "Nope" - Kali Nimrod licks his lips. "We are a Cabal of Guardians of the Veil, very specialised. We act exclusively within the Intelligence Community" - Nimrod "Which Agent are you? CIA? NSA?" - Damascus "FBI. And your name, Ms Kali, has crossed my desk." - Nimrod Kali waits "I tell you this as a courtesy. I have shifted resources in your favour." - Nimrod "That's very kind of you. I won't let my name cross your desk again." - Kali, flatly "See to it that you don't" - Nimrod He gets up, and leaves.

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Project Twilight, the Guardians of the Veil internal faction that deals with the intelligence community, is from that Order's supplement.

Ulysses, seeing this exchange, comes over "I would have thought it would be the DEA" - Damascus "Do you know who that was?" - Ulysses "Nimrod" - Kali, matter of fact "Young lady, when an Assistant Director of the FBI who's a Moros of a group most people here think is Left-Handed comes to a Consilium to talk to you, there's a problem." - Ulysses "It's all under control" - Kali, not being especially convincing. ... Over the other side of the room, Wolsey emerges from the side door, and looks around. As he passes the Recorder's table, Samuel gets up and catches his arm. "Wolsey. I believe you wanted to see me" - Samuel Wolsey agrees that yes he did, and everyone around him stops as Samuel's nimbus flares. The Consilium is frozen in time - or Wolsey and Samuel have been taken out of it.
The latter. Samuel has cast a pre-prepared Fairy Glade

"I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I was in 1890" - Samuel "I heard" - Wolsey Samuel explains that his life's work revolves around building up Temporal sympathy to bystanders at historical events, then projecting his consciousness back into their minds which he rides as an observer. Back in the future, he then uses the information so gleaned to discern elements of Ariadne's Web his Legacy would not be able to otherwise spot. But Wolsey didn't want to talk about that. Avatar, Samuel says, is currently with Fisher while the Consilium is going on. After that, she'll go to her new mentors. "Now, to our own business. You have been told, I think, that a mishap lies ahead? Kali has told you what she read in your future?" - Samuel "She... has." - Wolsey "Kali's a good girl. Enthusiastic - and willing to do the parts of the work too many of the House take for granted. We all join the House out of a desire to know, to follow the threads of destinies binding everything together and see the hidden causes behind mundane events, but most of us are content with the Upper City. It's all well and good taking the pulse of the city, but sometimes to understand what condition ails it you have to listen to it's guts. And that's what Kali's good at. As I say, a good girl and an able student... but she is not as advanced in the Arcana of Arcadia as she could be. As advanced, as for example, as a Master who is deeply ashamed of his behaviour two days ago." - Samuel Wolsey smiles, weakly. Samuel puts his fingers on Wolsey's temples and concentrates, casting Divination. "Such a person would be able to tell you the specific doom you face, the dark fate

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that Kali can get glimpses of... that your actions, taken in good faith, will at first reunite you with your wife and then cause you to be forever parted after far too short a time." - Samuel Wolsey opens his eyes, breathing steadily. Samuel is solemn. "Such a person would also tell you that this can be averted. That the future, unlike the past, is not set in stone. They would use the powers they misused two days ago to tell you..." (casts Prophecy) "... to pay especial attention to her dreams." - Samuel Samuel steps back, and the world begins to accelerate back into line with Wolsey's perceptions. "Pay attention to her dreams? What does that mean?" - Wolsey Samuel sighs "I don't know, I'm afraid... ...I'm just an instrument" Samuel

2.1 Commentary
As I said at the start, this is less about Wolsey searching for Amanda as figuring out what to do once he's found her, and dealing with the new situation. He's aware, rationally, that Avatar and Wolsey are not Amanda and Thomas, but he's determined to have a part in her new life - not least because if she's as unsettled as the Council are implying, he knows her better than anyone. The council and provosts have taken great pains to hide her presence from Wolsey and vice versa - trying to keep them in isolation for some as yet unrevealed reason. But this can't last forever: not least because as a new mage, under Banneker's new rules, when Avatar "graduates" she'll join the Crucible. As will any other new mages for the next few years. Kali's plotline for the session got an airing, though it's not clear enough for me to talk about here. Similarly, Damascus' hasn't really kicked off. More Damascus next time. Banneker, after the build-up he got of the Cabal refusing to go anywhere near him, turned out to much.. nicer than I initially thought he'd be. It stems from a conversation I had with Mark about how a man who is the third most powerful Mage gets the position he has - Samuel is uninterested, Malakaii is too unpopular. Banneker, for all that his Cabal has a severe Hubris problem (especially from where Kali's standing), is a nice guy. And - importantly - a good manager. In the antithesis of the typical World of Darkness style of leadership (see also the guy from Boston and every Vampire Prince ever), Banneker gets by by building relationships with Mages when they're young, supporting the less established Cabals, seeding the city with his own apprentices and playing a constant juggling act keeping the Councillors and Provosts working together. His position is weaker than a classic Hierarch, stunted by Malakaii and Samuel's presences, but it's made him a better leader. Reign of the Exarchs watch: Amanda / Avatar is Cymbeline Hand. Yes, I *am* a rat bastard.

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I knew, ya see, that my players would be watching out for Reign of the Exarchs plot, which is why I introduced the Ascendants (who are from Story Four - hi Matt!) so early, blending them into the ongoing game and using them as the vector to get the Eyes of Salt (from Story Two) into the chronicle. The advice for Story Two has to try to make the players care about the "Cymbeline" character, or whichever character from one's own chronicle that replaces it, so I figured what the hell? I was intending to bring Amanda back early anyway. And because they correctly "called" the Ascendants as being from the book, they believe the Amanda plot to be part of "my" storyline. Hopefully, once they see how integrated everything is they'll get past that, but I couldn't resist the opportunity for a rollicking twist in a few month's time. And with both her and the Eyes being in Mara's presence, the stage is set. The payoff will be in three stories' time - we have the first Reign of the Exarchs next time, then one or two of my own tales before we finally get to it. Chekhovs gun is loaded.

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Session 2.2
"Instruments of Fate" continues to rumble along, now. This session was short, *very* talky and has a definite "middle of the story" feel to it - not a lot gets introduced or resolved, but quite a bit gets moved along. Our theme of the evening is rising paranoia - the Cabal, by the end, are seeing the designs of their enemies everywhere. Kali especially is paralysed by taking her half-inducted training from Ariadne's House too far, and Wolsey... Well, Wolsey doesn't have a very good time of it. Damascus, though, is starting to come into his own, with his background beginning to be used and his personality getting more defined. Mark, after reading the thread, has a clarification to make. Wolsey wasn't looking so diligently for Amanda and constantly phoning Samuel out of desperate love - he was doing it because she's a threat to him. She knows his real name, and he knows hers. He *does* realise that Wolsey and Avatar aren't Thomas and Amanda, but he's more concerned that she's being used as a weapon against him. Or that he's being used as a weapon against her. As Mark tells it, Wolsey's already *had* the breakdown caused by desperately trying to find her - it was his Awakening, and now he's much colder about it - Wolsey's typified by long stretches of being in control, investigating objectively punctuated by brief periods where he completely loses it. And now that I've said that, he's about to spend this session spiralling into the fraught state I thought he was in last time. And we begin right where we left off.

While Wolsey is having a conversation with Samuel under the aegis of a Fairy Glade, Kali and Damascus are having conversations of their own. Ever since she was an apprentice, Kali has heard about Dantor. Gang Leader, head of the Defenders Cabal, Necromancer - as a Bokor, Dantor is not exactly the most "right-handed" of Mages, in fact she's positively fearsome. Her only direct apprentice joined the Guardians of the Veil rather than her own Free Council, but Mr Thursday learnt his lessons so well he became the city's Interfector. Dantor's gang territory backs onto Kali's and is much larger. Clearly, Dantor must be doing something right. Kali would like to ask her for tips. It doesn't go very well. Dantor all but laughs in Kali's face - and not in a nice way. The older Mage implies that Kali is a day-tripper in the underworld, with an area of influence limited to 40-odd men and a brace of junkies. She points out that Kali buys loyalty by positive reinforcement - people work for her because they want the things she supplies - while people are loyal to Dantor out of respect and fear. Her zombies are literal, not figurative. And what's more... "...Even away from the influence of Banneker's leys, people in our profession draw notice. The police leave you alone because other Mages warn them off" (jerks her head in Nimrod's vague direction) "making you beholden to them in turn. The police leave me alone because I killed the last five. When you have killed men to protect your little empire, girl, come back and talk to me again." - Dantor Mildly humiliated, Kali thanks her for the "advice" through a fake smile and retreats back to their table.
I like Bokor (from Tome of the Watchtowers, though mentioned, I think, in the Mage corebook). They're uncomplicated. Well, nearly uncomplicated. Dantor - named for the loa who is associated with protection - especially of single mothers and women suffering domestic violence. Dantor runs her Cabal as a matriarchy, casting herself in the mother role for her Mages (with Ulysses, the celibate Catholic Priest, as the "Father" role) and, in her mind, for the people under her protection. She has no time for Mages such as Kali, or Mages such as she assumes Kali to be. Naming her after a mother figure of terrifying aspect is a deliberate parallel to Kali herself. Besides which, I felt like using imagery other than Hindu and Freemason for a change.

Damascus, meanwhile, is receiving both a commission and some careers advice from Ulysses. It seems that Ulysses has a pressing need for a magnetised iron dagger that has been blessed by five holy men. "Slashing or Piercing?" - Damascus

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"It has to be able to pierce a ribcage" - Ulysses "Should be do-able." - Damascus And as for the Careers advice, Ulysses tells Damascus that there is a member of the legacy Damascus has expressed interest in joining. As it happens, said Mage isn't here at the Caucus but his roommate and fellow in the Recorders of Living History, a Thyrsus named Cerberus, is. Thanking Ulysses for the tip, Damascus seeks out Cerberus - a somewhat twitchy middle-aged man, thinning on top, wearing somewhat shabby clothes that look several years old. And cheap when new. Damascus introduces himself "You're the guy making us the dagger, aren't you?" - Cerberus Putting that in his mental notebook, Damascus heartily agrees "Good. Because it's really getting out of hand" - Cerberus Cerberus looks over Damascus' shoulder and growls. Damascus looks and sees nothing. "Shaman?" - Damascus "That's right. I'm the... ah.. zookeeper, if you like." - Cerberus Damascus notes that he's unlikely to ever be able to experience such things, being a Moros, and Cerberus shrugs. Damascus asks about the Uncrowned King (whom it turns out is named John Dee) "John's not here. He had term papers to mark" - Cerberus "I heard. He's a.." (thinks through his mental list of mages) "..chemistry professor, isn't he? At Georgetown?" - Damascus "That's right. But I'll tell him you're looking for him. He'll be glad of it, actually. He's the only one in the city, had to go to MIT to learn his Legacy himself. Some guy named.. no, it's gone." - Damascus "Well, at least I don't have to go that far." - Damascus Damascus gives Cerberus his card, and heads back to the table in time to meet the returns of both Kali and Wolsey, who has appeared as Samuel realigns his timeline to the common timestream.
I don't have the Boston book, remember, so the MIT reference isn't from there. John's tutor would have been called "Freeman" in homage to that university's most famous student. Cerberus himself is named for the three-headed dog of Greek Mythology that guards the entrance to the otherworld. He's a security guard for the Smithsonian Institute, and is employed by his Cabal to look after and feed the spirits of the various exhibits. Hence the zookeeper reference.

Wolsey looks like a man with thoughts upon his mind. "So. Went well, did it?" - Damascus "Samuel wanted to apologise in his own inimitable fashion" - Wolsey "A quick hummer under the table?" - Damascus Wolsey explains about how Samuel provided - unasked, as it happens - a prophecy concerning how his dark fate can be averted.

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"We will be joined in a few months by another Mage named Avatar. The fate Kali sensed was that I would somehow drive her away from the Cabal" - Wolsey, being very careful to not mention how he's connected to Avatar "Who's.. Oh, are we talking about your wi.." - Kali "PLEASE! Not here" - Wolsey Wolsey looks around the room, then gives kali his sternest look "... I am curious as to how that is good for Kali and Neutral for me." - Damascus (quietly) "Maybe I've done her, and she leaves him for me..." - Kali Kali gets a far away look ".. hang on... no... wait... no. "Looks back at Wolsey "It's okay. I haven't done her." Kali Hee! "How is this to be averted? Could we buy you a better breath freshener?" Damascus Wolsey does not appear to appreciate the humour. He tries his best to explain what's going on, without giving away anything he doesn't want anyone who happens to be sitting within earshot to hear. In any case, Wolsey is looking across the room where Mara and Promethea are deep in conversation. He tells the others that Avatar is being trained by both of them together for some reason, probably due to her unstable nature. Kali, preoccupied by being dissed by Dantor, is fiddling with the cruet set. "She doesn't seem to have had an easy time of her Awakening. Pandemonium is unsettling" - Wolsey "Pandemonium's real?" - Kali "..Were you listening?" Wolsey "no" - Kali Wolsey explains that it matters that it's Mara who's training Avatar "Because Banneker is wrapped up in this. Has it escaped your attention that Mara's in the Cabal of his enemies?" - Wolsey "...Had it escaped my attention that Mara was in the Cabal of one of Banneker's enemies? No. In fact, it was pinned down in the centre of my attention like a butterfly in a case with a very big pin." - Damascus In any case, Mara gets up and starts walking toward the room Banneker met Wolsey in. Wolsey rapidly gets to his feet. "I intend to find the reason all this is going on" - Wolsey "...Good luck" - Damascus Wolsey intercepts her before she can leave. "Can we talk?" - Wolsey Mara regards him dubiously. "I want to see her" (Mara sighs) "Because she's a danger to me. And me to her - you

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can't expect me to sit here while she's in the city. You wouldn't expect it of any other mage. - Wolsey "Wolsey. She doesn't know you're here. And I don't know what it would do." - Mara He insists. Mara claims to have never actually met Avatar yet - and to need time before she can allow Wolsey to go barging in. Wolsey intimates that he won't wait forever, and Mara becomes more stern. "This is not for any reason you might be thinking. Our lives before are not our lives now - this is about my rights. I can't allow someone who knows who I am to run around without talking to them - she doesn't know I'm a mage, so she doesn't know to keep quiet. And if she's to join the Crucible I should be involved, as a Mastigos and one of her future colleagues." - Wolsey The display of professionalism seems to win Mara over a bit, and she semi-relents "Fine. But not now. I will assess how learning about you would affect her, and give you a reply within two days. And Wolsey - I am not on your side here and that isn't a definite "yes". You aren't my student any more. You're right, about the danger, but it's not the danger to you that I'm preoccupied with. It's the danger you pose to her. If I'm convinced that meeting you will help her, do nothing for her or even hold her back a little but help her in the long run, you'll get what you what. But I am unconcerned about what happens to you. You've been released from your apprenticeship, you've got your own Cabal. You're powerful enough to look after yourself - she isn't." - Mara "I understand. You have to look after your charge, and I commend it. I will be waiting on your call." - Wolsey They shake on it. Damascus, meanwhile, is talking to Dantor. It goes much better than Kali's conversation with her. Dantor checks that Damascus has been asked for the item, and shares that it's intended to bind a Spirit. She also asks Damascus if he is tired of being the back-up guy and would like to come along for the action. Damascus, considering, says that he'd be happy to, which Dantor seems to appreciate. Returning, the gathering now thinning out significantly as the various Cabals pack up and leave, Damascus asks Wolsey how the talk with Mara went. Wolsey looks around some more - not here, speaks his body language - and spies Banneker and Malakaii having a conversation in the distance. "I wonder what they're talking about?" - Damascus "We probably wouldn't be able to hear it anyway" - Wolsey, darkly. Kali - long silent - offers her opinion on the political shenanigans going around. "Look. You're playing cards with these people, yes? You're afraid that she's going to be used in their hand." - Kali Wolsey says that both Banneker and Malakaii are far more powerful than he, and that at the moment they know what's in his hand and he doesn't know the rules of the game. "So at any point they could get four aces out of their sleeve." - kali, producing four aces

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"I.. am unsure what that's supposed to prove." - Wolsey "They're *cheating*. Whatever game you and they are playing, they're cheating. So cheat." - Kali Kali, having reached an impasse, has kicked off her heels and is rubbing her feet. "Can we go, now?" - Kali Wolsey nods "Where to? The Sanctum?" - Damascus "Home, I think" - Wolsey "Uhuh. Because, Wolsey, I don't actually know where you live." - Damascus Wolsey blinks "Well, then. Would you two like to come back to my apartment?" - Wolsey They, it turns out, would. ---------------------------Once they're all in Damascus' van and are on the road, Wolsey clarifies that yes, Avatar IS Amanda, and then doesn't really want to talk about it for a while. Which gives Damascus time to explain his task. "Does anyone know how to magnetise an iron dagger easily?" - Damascus "Couldn't you use your powers?" - Wolsey "Well... it depends. They want it blessed, so it presumably has to be pure in some way." - Damascus He thinks while they wait at a set of red lights "How many holy men do you know?" - Damascus "Do cults count?" - Wolsey "Are any of them especially holy?" - Damascus "Depends on your definition of Holy. More otherworldly" - Wolsey Damascus makes a face. "23" - Kali "And how many of those are Rastas?" - Wolsey "I don't have anything against Rastas" - Damascus "Except that they're a joke" - Wolsey Kali starts in on a rambling explanation of her twenty-three, but as it turns out to be a partial list of her conquests Damascus gracefully rejects them. "Well. There's another way of thinking about this. All we need are an Imam, a Rabbi and a Priest" - Damascus "Let's hit the bars" - Wolsey
A joke! About jokes! Wolsey IS actually human - it's just that a lot of the character's humanity is in his tone of voice and the

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way Mark plays him, rather than the strict meaning of what he says. Mark is concerned that his character comes across in the thread as being played by Chris Barrie rather than Ralph Fiennes, which I can understand. Most of his insults are said with a half-smile, and are taken as such by the others. The dynamic between him and Kali in particular is far gentler than it looks like from a transcript. All in the acting, baby.

"Would a Rabbi or an Imam really bless a Dagger for me?" - Damascus "Good point. Well.. Ulysses probably would" - Wolsey "Hence only needing four holy men rather than five" - Damascus "Sikhs!" - Kali "That's not a bad idea" - Damascus They cross the river "I know. I'll nip out to the airport." - Damascus "Why?" - Wolsey "It's where the Hare Krishnas all hang out" - Damascus "I'm not sure they'd bless a knife either" - Kali "If you gave them money they'd do anything" - Wolsey
Not so big on alternative religion is Wolsey. Partly because he views them as large cults, and he knows how fake cults are, and partly because he's Whiter than Michael Jackson

Reaching Wolsey's building, and noting that Kali is at least dressed like she belongs there for once, the gang ride the elevator up. The Cabal survey Wolsey's apartment. Furniture that came with them place, kitchen appliances still in their boxes. Tasteful wallpaper "You know something, Wolsey? Like most Moros, my house has begun to take on the aspect of Stygia... ...Your apartment's deader." - Damascus
More to come soon, in which Kali expresses a liking for the whipped stuff, the Cabal is compared to a Honda Civic and Damascus gives Wolsey a talking-to about God. back to Wolsey's apartment, and Damascus' critique of his decor

"Decorating's dangerous" - Wolsey "Many are the people maimed by a stray paintbrush" - Damascus "No. It would begin to link the place to me" - Wolsey
The operating standard of Mages in the new World of Darkness is "paranoid". Wolsey is a champion.

After a pause to remember if he bought a machine, Wolsey asks the others if they want coffee. Kali always wants coffee, and seems most impressed by Wolsey's expensive (and still boxed) machine. "Ooo! the whipped stuff! Do you have marshmallows?" - Kali Once everyone is furnished with caffeine, and Damascus has his plan to find some holy men, Wolsey returns to his musing on the nature of the trap he feels he's walking into. His reverie is broken by Kali throwing marshmallows at him. Picking them up, he looks around. Pauses. Looks around again. "I'm *sure* I have a bin..." - Wolsey

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Eventually finding it, he continues, outlining for the others the details of his conversation with Banneker. "Avatar..." - Wolsey "Avatar. Hm. Do you have a dictionary?" - Damascus Wolsey goes and fetches one. Damascus flicks through it, and reads aloud. "avatar \AV-uh-tar\, noun: 1. The incarnation of a deity -- chiefly associated in Hinduism with the incarnations of Vishnu. 2. An embodiment, as of a quality, concept, philosophy, or tradition; an archetype. 3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity. That.. could mean many things. I could be reassured by a Thearch named that, or intrigued by a Shaman. But a Warlock..." - Damascus "They did say she had a hard time adjusting." - Wolsey "What else?" - Damascus "Well. Banneker apparently has big plans for me. It came up, when we were talking about Avatar being placed with both Promethea and Mara. Apparently the choice was there when I was apprenticed, but Banneker had me placed with Mara. He wants someone of my 'talents' to be in Malakaii's Legacy. Banneker sees me as.. I don't know. A replacement for Malakaii - one he can control himself rather than relying upon." - Wolsey "Are you okay with that?" - Damascus Wolsey considers, and admits that it changes nothing. Malakaii is his natural opponent based on many more things than Banneker attempting to use him. Banneker hasn't done anything that Wolsey wouldn't have done himself - and if given the choice, Wolsey would have picked Mara anyway. "You will know how well this works by who inducts you. If it's Mara, it's working. If it's Malakaii, leave the city" - Damascus Wolsey says that he can handle it even if Malakaii does become wise to Banneker's game and try to win him over to his own side. "You will be a Jedi, like your father before you" - Damascus, imitating Palpatine "What about the rest of us?" - Kali "Malakaii will try his damnedest to crush my spirit. He'll be betting that by the time I've progressed in the Legacy, I won't have any fight left in me and he'll stay in charge. Banneker, on the other hand, is hoping that I'll last long enough to oust Malakaii but that *he'll* then be able to crush my spirit and have me as his pawn." Wolsey "..Have you considered that Banneker may just want to work with you?" - Damascus "Don't be ridiculous" - Wolsey "You know, I could just flick marshmallows at you until you answer me. Where do we

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fit into Banneker's plots?" - Kali "I don't know. Banneker just told me about myself and Avatar. Samuel mentioned you, I think - that'd make sense. Banneker gets me and Samuel gets you" - Wolsey "And Damascus?" - kali Damascus makes a joke about being a free agent, and notes that they're probably blowing this up out of all proportion. "Damascus is right. Samuel didn't sound like someone looking to manipulate you, Kali - he sounded like he appreciated what you do." - Wolsey So with Mara due to phone back in 46 hours, there's nothing much they can do but wait. "What now?" - Kali "Well.. I have a lot of reading to do" - Wolsey, indicating the book from the Juncture "You need me to model again?" - Kali "The Caryatid? On purely aesthetic grounds, you should feel free to stand around my workshop naked whenever you like. But it's not strictly necessary." - Damascus
Again, I think Rafe was slipping into his normal speaking voice there.

"... that raises a point. We've decided how we interact with the outside world, the rights and so forth. How about intra-cabal issues? How, for example, do we feel about fraternisation?" - Wolsey "Fraternisation?" - Damascus "Yes. Because with only three of us, I think it could lead to an imbalance. Obviously, when Avatar joins, we could rethink, but..." - Wolsey "...Don't worry. I'm not about to bump uglies with Kali" - Damascus "You can say that again" - Kali
Rafe: "Damascus prefers his pools chlorinated". Thanks for that, Rafe.

But that's gotten the subject on to Avatar again. Kali presses Wolsey on his intentions, and he repeats that it's "just" because she knows his real name. Something not even Mara knows. Something he hasn't told the rest of the Cabal. "Ultimately, I don't trust you enough yet." - Wolsey Wolsey returns to Banneker, and Kali notes that Banneker's effectively gotten around the restrictions he was forced to put on apprenticeships. She says that Wolsey will probably drift towards the hierarch, and Wolsey doesn't correct her - in fact, he notes that it's likely Banneker, Samuel and the others see the Cabal as a neutral holding place for young Mages, that they can then recruit from into their own Cabals. Wolsey suspects that as soon as he's in the Bearers, Banneker will offer him a position in the Utopian Cabal, which politically speaking Wolsey would have to take up.. "So is that it, then? You're using us for the time being, then you'll go off to join Banneker's Cabal as soon as you can? Because I've worked damn hard to think of

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the three of us as a Cabal, and if you're not bothered..." - Kali

This? Is truth. Kali was the least engaged in the Cabal at the start of the Chronicle, now she's probably the most, as she's the one who's changed her behaviour the most to suit the others already.

"For the time being, it suits my purpose to stay here." - Wolsey "So we're just a step on the road?" - kali "It's more... like a Honda Civic" - Wolsey "I'm sorry. I don't follow you." - Damascus "It's the perfect vehicle for the moment" - Wolsey "And you'll ditch us for a Maserati?" - Damascus "As soon as something sexier comes along, yes" - Wolsey "So, Amanda, basically?" - Kali
Wolsey meant "sexier" in metaphor, not literally. Kali took it literally.

"Could you please not? Kali? She has a Shadow name." - Wolsey "Fine. When the woman currently known as Avatar comes along, you'll abandon the Cabal." - Kali "That's not certain. I don't.. I don't even know her. Not any more." - Wolsey "How long has it been since she disappeared?" - Damascus, quietly Wolsey sits down. "Two years ago" - Wolsey "And how long have you been married?" - Damascus "Two... and a half years." - Wolsey "That was quick" - Kali "How long did you know her?" - Damascus "About half a year" - Wolsey "That was really quick" - Kali . Damascus considers. "I'm going to ask you a question that I asked many of my compatriots who moved that quickly..." - Damascus "...Did I make her pregnant?" - Wolsey Damascus mimes cocking a shotgun, complete with 'Chuk-CHUK' noise with his mouth "No" - Wolsey Kali frowns. "What makes you think you can claim her after six months?" - Kali "It's not... It's not claiming her, Kali. I've explained already." - Wolsey "Well, by your own admission you're ready to ditch us for this woman and put yourself further into Banneker's web." - Kali "Why are you so worried?" - Wolsey "Wolsey. I'll tell you something about me. Because *I* trust *you*. Alright? I'm moving into Crack. Have been for a while. And this? This is you moving into Crack." - Kali
He's becoming obsessed, is her point, and in considering abandoning them for Banneker's schemes is going to far into his

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chosen path, away from the guiding influence of her and Damascus. Kali can recognise her own bad traits in someone else.

"Have you ever been in love?" - Wolsey "Yes" - Damascus Kali is thoughtful. "Define 'love'" - Kali "When someone else's happiness means more to you than your own" - Damascus "Does making sure it's your back flat against the flush count?" - Kali "No" - Damascus "Then no." - Kali Wolsey reiterates that he doesn't know what he'll feel. Avatar and Wolsey may have nothing in common. This is a professional interest, made more complex by their both of them being enmeshed in Banneker's web. "Are you religious, Wolsey? Other than the Cults?" - Damascus "As much as anyone in Boston" - Wolsey "The bits about In Sickness and Health, till Death do you part?" - Damascus "yes" - Wolsey "Do you intend to keep them?" - Damascus "I always keep my oaths" - Wolsey
Wolsey is protesting his objectivity - the objectivity he needed to get as far towards seeing Avatar as he has done - while both his Cabal mates are seeing this as a non-objective issue. Kali is mixed up on the matter - she thinks Wolsey is already making Avatar's choices for her, but mostly that he's in denial about his feelings. Damascus, as the above shows, is concerned that Wolsey is missing the part that he's *married*. Damascus is Catholic.

Wolsey rambles about how in a sense both he and Amanda are "dead", having Awakened. Damascus accuses him of playing with words.
Rafe tried desperately to not just say "sophistry", on the grounds that Damascus didn't know the word.

"I am a different man, Damascus. And she's a different woman. We cannot be who we were before the Watchtower." - Wolsey "You're not a different man at all" - Kali "Said with the confidence of one who knew him so well before." - Damascus "I feel different" - Wolsey Damascus sighs "It's between you and God" - Damascus "I won't deny that if there is something there, I can see it, but I don't want to assume anything - either that she'll feel anything or that I will..." - Wolsey "I'm sorry, Wolsey, you're missing my point. You're talking about feelings while I'm speaking of duties" - Damascus Wolsey blinks.
Over to Rafe for a bit for characterisation: "It wasn't just the Christianity thing that made him say that. Still being connected to a mundane life more than quite a few mages, Damascus thinks that the one's who deliberately try and cut themselves off are missing part of the point - they want to change the world but aren't part of it. The one's who isolate themselves naturally (the ivory tower scholar who has no time for anything but his work) or through necessity (on the lam) - fair enough. The ones who seem to be under the impression that it's a necessary part of being a mage or are doing it because they've been told to (as

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Wolsey very much seemed to be) irk him. It's partly a Moros thing - Death is certain *whatever* you do. Should you not live first? And he does appreciate although possibly not really grok that he is endangering both himself and his family. The viewpoint may change if it backfires. Or may not."

"She has to realise that she's not Amanda any more. It sounds as though Promethea and Mara are dissuading her of that, which can only be good" - Wolsey Kali and Damascus do not seem impressed. "Look. I.. I realise that I'm perhaps not as well liked by you as I could be, and that I give the impression that I don't want to be..." - Wolsey Kali shifts "I don't think you're a bad person. I think you've missed a chance. And I think that's sad" - Kali Damascus shrugs "I don't think I can judge" - Damascus "That makes you a wiser person than myself or Kali" - Wolsey Soberly, the Cabal decide to leave it, at least until they know more of what's going on. "After all, what's the worst that could happen when we meet her?" - Wolsey "You could get run over" - Kali "Is that a prophecy?" - Wolsey
Said with just the right amount of suspicion and paranoia there. I get the impression - and I've been wrong spectacularly before, mind - that Wolsey doesn't want to ditch the Cabal. He just can't see a way out of this that doesn't involve it eventually. When push comes to shove, he's certain that there will be more for him to gain by going solo or joining Banneker's cabal. But I think that it already hurts to think of it. The cabal now split up for a couple of days to follow their own individual interests and plotlines for a couple of scenes. This sort of thing's fine for about half an hour ooc - slapped in the middle of the session (and, in fact, the story) like this is, it says that they occasionally need their space from one another. Giving a player character the amount of time they need by themselves to either get a grip or fail to regarding a situation, or the time they need to train, is always a hard thing to judge - I am painfully aware of it in Mage, where a character can't by definition learn their legacy along with another PC unless they're both in the same one. Too much of an Awakened Mage's life is meant to be done in isolation to ignore it. On the other hand, the last nWoD chronicle I ran was Vampire, and in that the characters were never in the same place. So I do appreciate Werewolf and Mage's built in character parties.

First and easiest is Damascus - the Moros goes home and stays away from the others for a while, first working on the knife and then hocking it around the city trying to get it blessed. Damascus eats simply, sleeps better than he has done in days and in his spare moments works on the sketches for the caryatid. On the second day, he is visited by his sister for a couple of hours.
Damascus' downtime, sadly, turned into an extended craft roll while the other two - deciding to be active in a sense of needing the storyteller's time more - got the attention. I must watch out for that.

Wolsey - now that the ball's entirely within Mara's court and he can't do anything more without causing a ruckus - goes back to his other ongoing investigation. The book that the Juncture gave him. Reading through it himself, he gets a third of the way before deciding that the more opinions he can get the better off he'll be. The rantings in the book, describing the

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conflict between two shadowy organisations, may be a metaphor for the Pentacle and the Seers. He needs someone he can trust to not spread it around who may be more knowledgeable about the Seers than he is and able to spot things he can't Wolsey has never really considered the Seers of the Throne to be a credible threat, and holds them in low regard as near-irrelevancies compared to the Guardians of the Veil. It's not that Wolsey doesn't believe in the Exarchs - he just doesn't believe that the Exarchs would care enough about the Seers to send them the omens the Seers are supposed to claim they do. And he *certainly* doesn't believe that the Exarchs would ever accept newcomers, so the Seer's goal of Ascending to join the gods on the Exarchs' side is the wishful thinking of someone who should be powerful but has been well and truly duped. But now he finds himself in need of someone who takes them a little more seriously. And no-one he knows takes them more seriously - and is not liable to go blabbing about his inquiries - than Beckett.
I like Wolsey's take on the Seers - "Even if the Exarchs are real, you're still a sucker".

When Wolsey arrives at Beckett's house, the elder Mastigos makes him wait a moment before letting him in. When He *is* allowed in, Wolsey can smell a distinctive coppery tang in the air in Beckett's Sanctum room. Human blood. You betcha. Without reacting, Wolsey explains about the book, and how he'd like a consultation. Beckett leafs through it, then fetches a blank book from among his paraphernalia which, upon the casting of a spell, begins to fill with a copy of the Juncture's text. Beckett would be happy to give the book a close look to check for any signs that one of the groups described represents the Ministries. Wolsey asks if the Seers are really all that active, and Beckett looks at him oddly. As though he wasn't expecting Wolsey to say that. "Ask Kali. She met one just before you came to me that first time" - Beckett "She..." - Wolsey Wolsey breaks off his sentence. "Oh yes. During the time that she was affected by the spell I made for Virgil. I detected the use of an Urim near to her. You'll have to ask her what they spoke of." Beckett "I'll do that, thank you" - Wolsey And... away!
The conversation with the Seer is in session 1.2, I think. I like Wolsey's complete non-acknowledgement of the blood. It'd be impolite.

With "Seers" covered, Wolsey now seeks out someone likely to cover the other base. "Rantings of madmen". He's off to see Bedlam.

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Who, you ask? Bedlam's a character the PCs have known about since the chronicle started, but who hasn't been seen in uptime yet. He's mentioned in the descriptions of the city right near the start of the thread.

Bedlam is judged by some of the Consilium to be one of the Mad, and by others to be an unfortunate that's a hairsbreadth away from it. He was a Paranoid Psychotic before he Awoke as a Mastigos, and his trip through Pandemonium didn't do him any good. The Adamantine Arrow found him and helped him as much as they could, and by using Mind rotes on himself he can go for periods of lucidity, but a permanent cure is beyond the skill of anyone that cares. He's a member of the Claviclarius in good standing, and watches his fellow patients at the mental home he's a resident of for signs of supernatural affliction - there are too many things preying on the most vulnerable of the World of Darkness, and Bedlam is adept at hunting them right back. Mara's a psychologist, but Wolsey doesn't want to go to her - or Promethea. So Bedlam it is. "You. Do I know you?" - Bedlam "My name's Wolsey" - Wolsey "Yes." (scratches head, and there's a flare of magic) "I thought it was. You've got a fair amount of them on you, but you're pulling in the other direction. Maybe the strings'll snap" - Bedlam "Can I show you something?" - Wolsey "I've seen too much already. Heard too much. Not spoken yet, though. Then I'll be done for." - Bedlam Wolsey puts the book down in front of them, open to the page about the two Houses. He taps it. "What do you think?" - Wolsey Bedlam considers "I think this was written by a crazy person" - Bedlam, casually flicking through the book. "You can understand it? All the equations?" - Wolsey "Parts of it. See - this here? These are stock market fluctuations. This whole chapter's about weather fronts in Minnesota. Here's an equation governing bisexual tendencies in holders of high office." - Bedlam
The book reads rather like Timecube, by common consensus of the group

"Anything else?" - Wolsey "We're not either of these entities you're asking about. It's describing two groups of the same thing separated by common cause, common methods but dissimilar goals. Like two Cabals that are struggling against one another." - Bedlam Wolsey nods "Or maybe the author's just nuts" - Bedlam

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... "Stop making crack" - Kali "'scuse me?" - Ichi "You heard me. Shut down the lab, stockpile everything we've already made somewhere safe" - Kali Ichi looks at his mates, gathered in Kali's warehouse. Kali - just back from Wolsey's has made her pronouncement. Still, the gang has survived this long based almost entirely on Kali's "hunches", and they're credulous enough to take her word for it. So they get to it. Throwing everyone out of her room, Kali crashes into bed. In the morning, she heads downstairs to find Ichi waiting for her. "The stuff. Did you do what I told you?" - Kali "Every last gram" - Ichi "Get rid of it. Sell it cheap if you have to." - Kali And with that, she leaves. Half-asleep still, mulling over how close she is to the edge of her metaphorical cliff - and how seeing Wolsey tilting over the edge of his own made her realise that - she casts Interconnections and sees a faint strand of destiny leading from her Warehouse into the North, and into the past. Not really knowing what she's doing, she follows it. Hours later, and she's in suburbia - around the place she came to her senses the last time this happened, but further along. She looks around at the neat houses and apartment buildings, sees the manicured lawns and the flags flying from houses. Counts house numbers and discerns no numerology in them. Knowing where she is, Kali walks to the next block corner and looks right. Within sight - so close she can feel it - is her father's house. She's home. "Thought I'd find you here" - Blaise Blaise and Kali have a talk about Ariadne's thread - the interconnectedness of all things, or - as Blaise puts it - Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. "You can sense, using your Arcana, the connections between people and objects, right? Take a person. Any person. They can be linked to any other human being on the planet in an average of eight steps. Go looking for common ancestors and you find that we're all of us related when you go back a surprisingly small amount of time. Everything is connected to everything it affects, and the web of those branching connections fills the world. Within cities, the web gets so tangled, so thick, that it becomes partially self-aware. When you learn to listen to what it's saying, when you learn how to follow the threads to find anything you want to, you'll be one of us." Blaise But it's not easy, he explains. The interconnections are so fleeting that it takes great

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concentration and practice to sense them - following Ariadne's thread isn't like walking along a direction line in a hospital. She's here because she followed the easiest trail of all to spot - her own. Time for a Case Study "Take this Nickel" - Blaise Blaise carefully takes a nickel out of his pocket and places it on the sidewalk, then moves with Kali to a bench where they can observe. "In a few hours' time, a young boy will pass this way and pick up that nickel. This will give him the money he needs to buy a certain work of graphic fiction, and he will proceed to the comic-book store. Because his journey home will be thus delayed by five minutes, he will be approaching the main road rather than crossing it when the auto pile up occurs, and escape a slow and painful recovery from his injuries in hospital. However, because they will not have the chance to reconcile over his sick bed, his estranged parents will not get back together and his sister - destined to become a high school teacher - will never be born. Someone who would be in the world won't be, and all for a Nickel" - Blaise Kali studies the Nickel "I just made all that up." - Blaise Kali looks at him "True. I have no idea what's going to happen - you'd have to be as powerful as Samuel to get an idea that accurate, but it's worth bearing in mind that if you live long enough and evolve your soul enough you *will* get that powerful." - Blaise "So what does this prove?" - Kali "Homework assignment. I want to know whose life is most affected by that Nickel being there. Best of luck" - Blaise And with that, he strolls off whistling. Kali observes the Nickel. After a while, she glues it to the sidewalk with chewing gum and settles back into the bench. ... The appointed hour approaches, and Wolsey sits at home, phone next to him. With two minutes to go, it rings. Mara has agreed to his request, and he can come round. Phoning Damascus, he declares it time to gather the Cabal back together again. They call Kali from the road to try to find out where she is. Kali - a day later - is still on the bench, still watching the nickel, watching people pass it by and occasionally try to pick it up. Her sleep deprived thoughts, void of caffeine,

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are getting increasingly wrapped up in her task - what if the bird pecking at it is significant? What if that guy who tried to pick it up really REALLY needs loose change later on that day? What if the person most affected by the Nickel being there is her? "Kali" - Wolsey "Mmmmmhmhmmm" - Kali, intently watching a cat walking past the fateful coin "Kali, where are you?" - Wolsey She gives the street numbers, and the menfolk ask her what she's doing all the way out there. Again. She trails off mid-fobbing off, wide eyed as the cat sniffs at the chewing gum. "Kali?" - Wolsey "I'm watching the cat" - Kali He rings off "Okay. She's high" - Wolsey, to Damascus Damascus makes a face, and they drive.
Kali remains kind of spaced-out for the rest of the session, getting increasingly worked up by the interconnectedness of all things. Make someone truly aware of the butterfly effect, and they'll be paralysed with inaction.

... When they reach her, Kali is standing over the Nickel, which she keeps looking at while they talk to her. Once in the van, she looks around as though seeing the thing for the first time. "Where are we going?" - Kali "We're off to se Avatar" - Damascus, in the tone of someone who has explained this already Kali slaps her knees repeatedly and exaggeratedly. "I'm glad it fills you with such joy" - Wolsey While in the car, and slightly annoyed with her for her weirder than normal mien, Wolsey demands to know when she was going to tell them she'd been contacted by the Seers "I haven't" - Kali "Beckett says you have. When you were affected by his spell" - Wolsey "I can't remember being contacted by the Seers" - Kali "Well think back. Did anyone speak to you that night? Did you stay in?" - Wolsey "No - I mean, I went for a walk" - Kali "Did you SPEAK to anyone?" - Wolsey "A couple of Bums jabbered at me about politics, but I ignored it." - Kali "'A couple of Bums'?" - Wolsey "Okay... Let's consider that if they said anything blatant it went straight over Kali's

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head" - Damascus "Maybe it's you two that are changed by the Nickel" - Kali "What the hell have you been taking?" - Wolsey "Little pieces of Arcadia" - Kali "Shit. You can't come down from that" - Wolsey, said simultaneously with; "Ah. Fairy Snuff" - Damascus Wolsey eventually prevails upon Kali to go back into her own timeline and tell him what the "bum" said. She dutifully repeats it. "Sorry - a beggar asked you to go over to his side? What's his side - the bum's union?" - Wolsey "I didn't think anything of it" - Kali "Gaaah" - Wolsey "Maybe it's happening there right now, now that I'm no longer around" - Kali "What is?" - Wolsey "The Nickel" - Kali "Will you QUIT it with the Nickel?" Wolsey Eventually, they reach Mara's practice. And this time the receptionist knows they are not there for the eight o clock appointment. Mara meets them outside the office and gives them final warning. Avatar might not be what Wolsey was expecting. But she has, at last, been told that her husband is a) alive and b) a Mage. They go in, and sit down across from her. Wolsey just stares at her, while Kali darts concerned looks back and forth. Damascus is left to make the introductions, which he decides to do formally, as a Cabal meeting a prospective new member. Avatar is dressed in sweatpants and a worn sweater. Her hair's been spiked up in places, uncombed in others and dyed green. She's pale, and is picking at the chair.
Of all the things Wolsey is shocked about, I think Amanda being a punk has shocked him the most.

In body language, she reminds Wolsey of Bedlam. He says nothing. When they do eventually speak to one another it's quiet and halting. Wolsey is doing his best to be calm and collected, and Avatar appears to be in shock. "Damascus" - Damascus "You are to join us eventually." - Damascus "I heard... I'm supposed to join your P..Cabal" - Avatar She looks up at Kali "I'm sorry - what was your name?" - Avatar Kali repeats it, and Avatar frowns

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"I misheard the first time. It's all right. Thought you said Rani." - Avatar
Go look it up

Wolsey asks how long it's been since she Awoke, and she concedes that she's not sure - about four months. "That's strange. I awoke first" - Wolsey "Were you..?" - Avatar Wolsey waits "Were you always..?" - Avatar "No. Not when we knew one another" - Wolsey She considers "When they told me, about you. I thought - I thought maybe that's why it happened to me. Because you were already." - Avatar Wolsey admits that it was her disappearing that made *him* Awaken, though he's distracted by dark thoughts. "I'm sorry" (to Kali) "I thought I recognised you. It happens a lot. I get.. I don't know the word for it. A sort of false recognition, like I've already been somewhere and already met someone. It's always happened a little, but ever since It happened it's been coming more and more." - Avatar "Before you Awoke?" - Wolsey "My whole life, though nowhere near this bad. I thought... When I first met you, it happened." - Avatar Wolsey goes pale. The conversation stutters and falls Avatar apologises - she's still reeling, and trying to take everything in. But she's getting better - much better even after the last few weeks - and will be all right eventually. Wolsey stands up, and promises he'll be back in a few days "I am glad you're alive" - Avatar Wolsey returns the sentiment, and leaves. Damascus gets up to follow him, bowing to Avatar "Mara. Could I have a word?" - Kali Mara looks quizzically, but Damascus has just left. She nods, and Avatar goes into the other room, smiling wearily at Kali.

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Kali smiles broadly back at Avatar until the other woman is out of sight, where she starts frowning. "I have a question" - kali "And you want to ask *me*?" - Mara "Who made the rules?" - Kali, fierce "I don't know what you.." - Mara "The rules of the game. All of this. Who did it? We're surrounded by webs - who wove them? Who made the Nickel?" - Kali "If you're meaning the world - well.. The Dragons, and then the Exarchs and the Oracles. According to myth anyway" - Mara
Mara *doesn't* believe in the Exarchs - she thinks "they" are the shadows of the human soul on the supernal, a sort of selfinflicted cosmic cage

"I just.. I want to bash their heads together until they get it - that they're still in love. And I don't know why this is making me angry" - Kali "Perhaps it's your conscience?" off her look "You're seeing the world, and realising it's not as it should be. And perhaps you're realising you've had a part in that, and you don't like it. Hence your conscience." - Mara "Maybe" - Kali, thinking of Crack And with that, Kali leaves. ... Outside, Wolsey has gone to kick a tree. Kali nearly collides with Damascus at the exit of Maras "Do I have a challenge to answer?" - Damascus
He's asking if she started a fight - it's his job in the Cabal to oversee the Right of Nemesis

"My conscience is giving me a blasted hard time. Make it stop" - Kali She sits down on the kerb, sighing. Damascus joins her, and they watch Wolsey kicking the tree before sinking down to sit himself, head in his hands "They're both so... It's like they've been told over and over again that they can't allow anything other than self-control, so they're trapped. I said to Mara, I just want to bash their heads together.." - Kali "It had occurred as a plan" - Damascus Kali looks up, and spots something shiny on the floor. It's a nickel "Oh no" - Kali She hurriedly retrieves some chewing gum and glues this one down too. "I suddenly see where this thing is coming from. Where is the other Nickel?" Damascus

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Kali explains, feeling more foolish as she does so. She prises the Nickel loose and pockets it. "Guess I was right the first time. It IS me that it's most affected" - Kali At which point a passing jogger steps in the gum, stumbles and continues, clutching at the slight sprain in his left leg. Damascus tugs at the shaken Kali to get up. "You didn't do that." - Damascus "Do you really believe that?" - Kali, apprehensive They go over to Wolsey, who seems to have calmed down a bit "Wolsey. Would you agree that it is vital that contemplation of action does not lead to inaction?" - Damascus "...yes. Though that's interesting coming from you" - Wolsey "I think I've just been insulted" - Damascus "Only in comparison to Kali" - Wolsey "I think I've just been insulted" - Kali "Well, then - I'm doing the rounds" - Wolsey, tired and with bleak humour "Come on. Let's at least do this in comfort" - Damascus, offering Wolsey his hand. ... Less than half an hour later, and the Cabal are in a Cafe, drinking odd things Damascus has ordered. Tea, mostly. Wolsey explains his bad feeling about all this. "My whole Awakened Life, I thought she was the reason. It was following her that led me into the Labyrinth, into my Shadow Play, into the Watchtower. But... If she's had these notions all along. If she felt them when I met her... what if our entire life together was nothing but HER Shadow Play? What if all I am to her is the vehicle for her own Awakening?" - Wolsey
Ouch. Wolsey has now hit crisis.

He shakes his head, and asks that they give him time to process these notions before bringing it up again. Kali and Damascus make small talk about Damascus' work until the cafe closes for the night, kicking them out. The Cabal walk along in uncertain silence, Wolsey ahead of the other two. Kali turns to Damascus "...I was just thinking. If he looks at his feet for long enough, he'll see the Nickel" Kali, nodding at Wolsey "Talk about someone else" - Wolsey "Sorry" - Kali Wolsey stops.

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"I think.. I think I'm going to go home. I'll leave you two here" - Wolsey "You sure?" - Damascus "Well, this isn't the best part of town..." - Wolsey "It's reasonably good. You don't get organic chai latte in the barrens" - Damascus "Goodnight, Damascus. Kali" - Wolsey And he walks off, still deep in his thoughts. The other two look at one another and follow him, at a discrete distance. "I'm feeling something. Mara called it a conscience" - Kali They talk about that for a little while. Kali expresses her discomfort with the way things have turned out for Wolsey and Avatar. She speaks of the Nickel, and it's lesson - that the world is a choking web of happenstance. "Kali. you don't create the world. You alter the events within it" - Damascus, patiently "Do you really believe that?" - Kali "I really do" Damascus

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Session 2.3
We begin with three extended scenes intended to show the characters 'at rest' - they've achieved their goals regarding finding Amanda, and Wolsey has pleaded time to think this thing through, which the other two are only too happy to oblige him with. It is a couple of days later - by consensus, a Friday. We continue.

Damascus, taking the opportunity to get away from the other two, is working in his workshop on the dagger, which he's magnetising by repeatedly heating it while facing it Northwards. He's managed to get four of his five necessary blessings, and is considering which faith to approach for the fifth.
I can only remember three of the four, sadly - Bah', Sikh and Catholic in the shape of Ulysses. I know what the fifth and last is, but can't remember the fourth. Rafe may be able to help.

He's hammering away, when the buzzer linked to the doorbell of his workshop sounds. Carefully putting down the ret-hot metal, he answers it to find, rather than Wolsey or Kali, that his younger sister Maree has dropped in. Making quickly sure that there's no obviously magical paraphernalia lying about, he lets her in, curious as to what brings her to see him. It quickly becomes apparent that Maree was passing and - noting that Carl hadn't been to see *her* for a while, decided to impose.
Maree - short for Amariyah - is only part of Carl/Damascus' family. His dad's a trucker named Jerome, his mother Tonya works at a supermarket and his older (by a year) brother Richard (or Ricky) is - as far as Carl knows - unemployed. As unhappy as I was with this scene, which kind of stalled as the first one of the night when I hadn't warmed up to the session yet, I like the fact that Carl still has a casual interest in his Sleeper family. It sets him apart from Kali and Wolsey. Or, rather, from Kemi and Thomas. Note that while Maree's here, I'm calling Damascus "Carl".

While Carl makes the dagger safe, Maree wanders around looking over his piles of junk-cum-art. He asks how her job - she's a hairdresser - is coming, and manages to put the last of Damascus' things away while she talks through a long, complex story involving the love life of one of her co-workers. Maree reaches the sketches of Kali and enquires, with just a tiny amount of fishing, as to who the woman in them is. Carl says - after a moment to think about it - that she's a friend, and flatly denies her being a girlfriend. Maree finally tells him the news she came in here to tell. "Ricky got a job" - Maree "Really." (flatly) "Maybe it'll last more than a month this time" - Carl "That's unfair" - Maree Carl notes that his brother's something of a deadbeat, and asks how long his new career at the burger bar has lasted so far. Upon hearing that it's been a week and a bit now, he asks why noone's told him sooner. "Well, you're not exactly around a lot" - Maree "I see Mom at church every... most... some... Sundays" - Carl Suitably abashed, Carl promises to see his parents more, and then it's time for Maree to leave. Once she's gone, Damascus gets back to work. ---

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Wolsey, meanwhile, has been hired as a consultant on delicate matters and negotiations - not his usual company mergers and buyouts, but a more personal matter this time. The 17-year old daughter of a Colorado Senator has run off with the hired help, who has committed the triple 'sins' of being poor, 26 and black. Wolsey has been paid a large sum of money to split the happy couple up. If the irony of shattering love's young dream reaches him, he doesn't show it. He's spent the last day tracking the elopers down to a hotel up-town: not very hard to do, as the girl has taken several of her father's credit cards, and the Senator would prefer this is kept quiet, so she's free to shop as she likes. Lurking outside until he observes her leaving alone, he heads inside, breezes through the Hotel staff using low-level Mind effects and acting as though he owns the place, knocks on the door and says that he's here to talk. In the end, it doesn't take much Emotional Urging to do the trick. Wolsey patiently points out that he represents the carrot rather than the stick - and that the young man can keep the money they took from the Senator when they embarked on this foolishness. After all, he reasons, it's for the best. "How long do you really think you'll last? At the very least, they'll just send someone to kill you." - Wolsey The young man does indeed seem to have been thinking about this rather more than his girlfriend has - and to be painfully aware that in the World of Darkness, they probably *will* just send someone to kill him. Wolsey hands him a mobile phone and tells him kindly but firmly to phone the girl and tell her it's over. Finger hovering over the "send" button, the lad finds the tiny spark of outrage at the way he's being shafted within himself. "You ever been in love?" - Man "Yeah. I have. And I know that you'd want to help the other person - even if it doesn't look like the thing you want" - Wolsey, identifying. In the end, though, Wolsey doesn't have to release the Imago of the second spell he's preparing. The young man goes through with it, curtly telling his love that they never really had a chance, and that she'll never see him again. He grimaces, and offers Wolsey the phone back. "Keep it." - Wolsey
It was, as Mark pointed out going into this scene, a fresh clone that morning. Wolsey is not in the habit of holding onto items which can be sympathetically linked to him.

The lad gets up, and Wolsey gets up with him - telling him that they're leaving by the back door of the hotel, and that Wolsey will go with him. At the end of their time together, as he's getting into a taxi and now starting to cry, Wolsey does what is necessary; "Last question." - Wolsey "What?" - Man

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"Did you use a condom?" - Wolsey The unfortunate Romeo stares at him, and says that yes, he did. Then the taxi leaves. Wolsey looks up into the rain, sighing. Wolsey is, after all, an excellent judge of when people lie to him. . When the heiress arrives back, far sooner than expected, running into the hotel by the front door, Wolsey is already sat in his own car across the street. After a calculated seven-minute wait, he returns to the suite to find her trashing the place and screeching. "Miss? I'm here on behalf of your father" (looks around, assessing the damage) "you knew this was going to happen, I think." - Wolsey Carefully gauging her level of meltdown, Wolsey says that she doesn't have to go back to her father - but that Wolsey will take care of the room, and sort this out above all else keeping it out of the news. Whenever she seems to dwell on her lost love, Wolsey nudges her mind with Emotional Urging towards feelings of rejecting the weakling who took the money and fled - turning the pain she's feeling at being dumped around. And, as the piece de rsistance... "Let's go somewhere else. You don't want anything he's left behind" - Wolsey As they leave, he smoothly puts a packet of the morning-after pill into her bag. Job done.
This whole sequence is intended to show Wolsey at work, being the professional he can be. The choice of subject matter was deliberate for what happened to him last session and what's going to happen to Kali later on in this one - Wolsey's actions towards the Sleepers here are interesting in parallel with his actions in a few scenes' time, I think. Note that unlike Carl's downtime above, Thomas is "Wolsey" here. The professional cleaner and consultant on delicate matters is as premeditated and calculated as the Mage is. The bit not shown in this narrative is Wolsey researching the age of consent in Colorado and DC. "Romeo" is lucky she was legal - not out of any sense of moral outrage, but because it would have suited Wolsey far more to just have him arrested and take him from custody.

--"We could always start a brewery" - Ichi Kali is in the now-shut down Crack Factory, a five-storey brick building, hollowed out from a tenement and storage space, sited on the East edge of her territory where it abuts with Dantor's. One does not simply say "ok, boys, stop making the rocks" - they now have a large building full of chemistry equipment that is plainly not for legal use. Plus an awful lot of cocaine and crack just sitting there. And it's the question of what to do with all the pipes, trays, burners and so forth that they're trying to answer. Hence - after meth has been discarded - Ichi's sarcastic suggestion of a microbrewery.

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"Why are we doing this?" - Ichi "It's... just messy in my head right now, all right? I'm taking too much flak to be risking this kind of thing right now." - Kali "Has someone been leaning on you?" - Ichi "You could say that" - Kali Ichi tries - unsuccessfully - to get the identity of the person pressuring Kali to shut down out of her. Not surprising, given that the answer is variously a) other Mages b) an AD of the FBI who is also a Mage and c) her own resurgent conscience. "You've never steered us wrong. If you're sure..." - Ichi "I'm sure" - Kali
The Crack Factory is another Chekhovs gun: It will be important later, so it's presence here is a flag to the player and reader to say "hey! remember me! In six stories' time when I turn out to be really important you'll think Dave was the coolest Storyteller ever!" or some such

Damascus, deciding it was time he checked in (and running low on Mana) heads to the Sanctum the next day, to find Wolsey already there leading a small gathering of hippy-life-energy cultists in what they think is a rooftop garden prayer meeting but what to Wolsey is an Oblation. After they're done, the two Mages greet one another. Wolsey says that he took all the Mana out of the Hallow today, but Damascus shrugs - it was Wolsey's turn anyway, he just turned up on spec.
two of their shared Sanctum merit dots are actually in the Hallow, meaning it produces 2 Mana a day, which the characters take on rotation. I completely forgot that being inside a Hallow reduces your mana expenditures for all spells by one point, as will become apparent later on this session when Damascus runs out of Mana while sitting downstairs from the thing. Ah well Mage is a very complicated game, and I am not by inclination a GM of this weight of rules. I try my best.

"I was hoping to run into you anyway. I'd like to ask you something" - Damascus "Ask away" - Wolsey, packing up his props "I was going to ask you if I could go talk to Avatar" - Damascus "You don't need my permission. But why?" - Wolsey "I don't know. I just think it may be a good idea" - Damascus Wolsey frowns as he carries his box of props back down into the Sanctum proper, then shakes his head to clear it - deciding not to rise to Damascus' fairly blatant (to his point of view) prodding. "How's the Dagger going?" - Wolsey "Nearly finished - just the last blessing to go now, and I have an appointment." Damascus "Where?" - Wolsey "Nation of Islam" - Damascus "I thought you didn't want Cults" - Wolsey Damascus and Wolsey argue good-naturedly about the Cult status or not of the Nation of Islam, before Damascus pounces and asks Wolsey how he's doing. Wolsey says that he's better now, this last few days. He's had a chance to think about it, and his current course is the best for all concerned. After all, even if he was part of Avatar's mystery play, then she was surely part of his. Damascus, though, is not satisfied.

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"You are relieved that her shadowplay does not invalidate your awakening. Wolsey.. have you thought about how it might affect her and you?" - Damascus Wolsey repeats his well-trod argument that there *is* no "him and Avatar". Their sleeper lives are long behind them, part of the lie which they've both cast off. "The fact that you were once a man that loved a woman makes no difference?" Damascus "I didn't say that" - Wolsey "But you haven't thought about it?" - Damascus, disappointed "I haven't thought about because if I do, I may do the damage Mara fears. I will meet her like I meet any other person. If there's something there and I'm convinced it's real..." - Wolsey "Wolsey, I would hate to see you give up the chance for something real based on your ideas about keeping your Shadow life separate" - Damascus, just not getting it. Wolsey launches into a speech about how he can't afford a family - how he's intending Great and terrible things, how he's planning on going up against the Guardians of the Veil - maybe even the Exarchs - and winning, using his cult societies and the Attainments he'll learn from his enemies to create a widespread force of Sleepwalkers.
That's Wolsey's plan. He doesn't want to be a Bearer of the Eternal voice for the neat mind-fu. He wants the "lower disbelief" power.

"People have done amazing things while having a family..." - Damascus "They have also done terrible things to their families in the course of doing amazing things" - Wolsey Damascus just cannot understand why Wolsey - and apparently Avatar - are willing to throw away their marriage.
Partly because of his religious background, and partly because Carl is the member of the Cabal that keeps up with his old life and manages perfectly well. Wolsey's reactions are alien to him.

Wolsey, though, is deflated from arguing the same point over and over again, and lets slip something; "I.. will admit that the thing that attracted her to me was that she *believed*" - Wolsey Damascus says nothing "...And that I didn't" - Wolsey "I ask two things. Remember you're a man as well as a Mage. Keep an open mind. No - I don't ask. I suggest" Damascus
Damascus and Wolsey continued their conversation, on and off, in the background while I was running this next bit with Kali. I don't mind people doing this, as it leads to cases like the end of this scene. But it does mean that I didn't catch any of it, so if they said anything deeply important and character building.. tough.

Still discontent, not knowing what to do about it, Kali decides to finish what she started. She doesn't know what she's meant to be doing, so she puts her life in fate's hands, following Ariadne's thread as best she can - though not quite at random. After spending a half hour finding the thread that led her twice to suburbia and once to Blaise and the Nickel incident, she grasps it with her perceptions and turns around.

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She's following the same thread, but in the opposite direction.

Sam isn't quite sure what this represents, but if you read back over Blaise's description of that thread, it should jump out at you.

Eyes half-shut, muttering to herself as she goes, trying to maintain he concentration necessary to perceive the thread, Kali wanders around her "turf" and then further south, walking through more and more deprived, soulless neighbourhoods, barely aware of her surroundings. As she walks, Kali lets herself go almost on autopilot. Sensing the thread is becoming so difficult she doesn't have spare time to think about anything else - which at least is helping her into the Zen state she's trying to achieve, letting Destiny show her where to go. The thread leads to a dilapidated house. There's a note tacked to the door reading "come on in, it's not locked", and the thread goes right through it.
Which is a reference to A Scanner Darkly, which put Sam into the right frame of mind for the scene.

Kali pushes the door open and goes inside. The air is heavy with fumes and smoke of a medicinal nature, and there are human forms lying about the place, halfglimpsed in the gloom of the boarded-up windows. Carefully negotiating around a pool of vomit, she climbs up the stairs, one hand out in front of her tracing the ephemeral thread of interconnection. Upstairs, there's a very male bathroom and a few closed doors, covered in odd graffiti she tries and fails to decipher. the thread goes into one of them. After standing outside for a few minutes, breathing in the fumy air and feeling slightly dizzy, Kali pushes open the door. The tiny thread of destiny suddenly thickens and becomes more obvious - she's done something that's altered her Fate. Inside, there's a large, muscled, bald man with various forms of body art displayed sat on a sofa watching a television while toking on a pipe connected to a large metal and glass cylinder that's occasionally leaking milky smoke. His only reaction to Kali coming in is to slide to one side. Kali loses the thread. Blinking, she sits down. Her new companion leans back and offers her the pipe. "Where am I?" - Kali "The house of stone" - Man "I can see that" - Kali "Why are you here?" - Man (shrugging) "I was following... I just had to be here" - Kali He nods, as though agreeing, and takes the pipe back off her. "Now what?" - Man "I don't know. Are you going to talk about politics to me again?" - Kali "Would you like me to?" - Man "Not really. I get enough of that at home" - Kali "We've pretty much covered all that anyway" - Man

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She takes another long drag. The Seer of the Throne puts his arm behind her, casually, and casts Emotional Urging on her. "What's your name?" - Seer "Kali" - Kali "What's your real name, Kali?" - Seer, casting Emotional Urging again to relax her a tiny bit more. "...Kemi" - Kali "Seraph" - Seer
Note the name - Seraph is the Seer of the Throne Beckett said was "a conscious turncoat" back in 1.3. He is also the Seer who was possessing the bum that compared the Seers and Pentacle to the Republicans and Democrats, which is what Kali references above. And yes, Seraph making Kali compliant through mind magic IS a deliberate parallel to what Wolsey did earlier. She adds her Gnosis to resistance as she's Awakened, so he's only getting bare successes each time he does it - but she's not stopping him from doing it. He casts the spell a total of seven times over the course of the scene, some of which Kali noticed and some of which she didn't. And why 'Seraph'? Because he's the servant of God, of course. This scene reads much better if you can imagine their voices, by the way - both Seraph and Kali are extremely stoned, slurring their speech and talking very slowly, as if they're half asleep. That, too is deliberate.

"So why are you here?" - Kali "I am an instrument of Fate" - Seraph
aw, yeah. Feel the story title. Again.

Kali takes another long drag and rests back on his arm. "That doesn't really help" - Kali "We're all part of something larger, Kemi. We're all doing our part in the world, laid out for us by the Gods" - Seraph "So you're a servant of God" - Kali "You see.. it's all.. when you observe something, you change it, right? Well, the world is observed by things outside - that's what creates our stable world. I serve the AllSeeing Eye" - Seraph "So, you're saying.. God creates the world by looking at it?" - Kali, stoned "That's right" - Seraph "And By looking at it too you can tell what God wants?" - Kali "Right again. I watch them. The people. They get high and speak in tongues. I listen, and pick out Fate from it. That's my role, see? I don't.. I don't see Fate myself. I just serve it. Doing my part in the machine." Kali nods, commiserating. Her role in the universe isn't so fun, either "I feel like a pedal, I think. I'm the one that gets trodden on, but I'm needed." - Kali
That's her issues again - the idea that she may not enjoy her position but thinks the world needs someone like her to do it.

"I'm more the part holding up the pedal, the.." - Seraph "..driveshaft?" - Kali Seraph chuckles, and casts Emotional Urging again "Something like. You're like a Pythia." - Seraph "hrm?" - Kali

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"You communicate the.. plan. The..." (waves his hand around vaguely) "Design to the other parts" - Seraph, admiring.
'Pythia' will get explained later on - but essentially, this whole thing is non-hostile because Seraph doesn't want to hurt her. In fact, he *likes* her and is trying to recruit her to the Seers. Because, as Samuel said in 2.1, Kali is making the mistake of thinking that Fate is immutable - that she's an Instrument of Fate and that what she reads in the Omens is what's meant to happen, regardless of her feelings. Sometimes she personifies Fate as a force, and describes herself as serving it. Which is what the Seers of the Throne believe. Seraph wants her to join his Pylon as an interpreter of the Exarch's will. That this position is flat-out wrong in Mage's metaphysics - where you can and often do change the future - is the central theme of this last three sessions.

Seraph starts to undo the buttons on Kali's shirt. Back at the Sanctum, Damascus and Wolsey are talking about life as a Mage, and the skills needed. Wolsey has a suspicion, and he's about to voice it. "Damascus. Would you say that you've done most of your learning in the last few years?" - Wolsey "And in prison, but yes" - Damascus (Kali, eyes nearly shut, lets Seraph undress her) "And you've come up in the world. You used to live around here?" - Wolsey Damascus nods, knowing where he's going now. "Did you ever get people from elsewhere?" - Wolsey "Sure. You know how it is. Kids from places with slightly more money, hanging out down here because they were looking for something. It usually ends badly" Damascus (Kali and Seraph go off the sofa) "Does Kali give the impression that she paid much attention to lessons in the last few years?" - Wolsey "Not really no" - Damascus "Or that, given the life she has, she ever has?" - Wolsey Damascus frowns "No" - Damascus "I didn't think so either" - Wolsey (Kali and Seraph fade to black)
What Wolsey's getting at is what he voiced to her a while back - Kali's too smart, she's too well-read. She thinks about things too much (too little for his taste, but too much for her "background"). She's a fake.

Hours later, Wolsey's mobile of the week rings, called by one of Kali's gang. The 'banger, (and, as Wolsey remembers, one of the guards that provide their Sanctum with security) says that someone has called "the number in the phonebox".

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The number being the number beneath the Atlantean sigil for "Crossing" that's painted in a phonebooth on the edge of their territory. The Crucible have a visitor. Telling the gang member to hold the newcomer there, Wolsey and Damascus get underway. When they arrive a short distance later, they find their guards standing loosely around a stranger - a youngish man, wearing the sort of overcoat that is inadvisable in DC's July humidity, boots covered in red clay and holding his arm oddly. As Wolsey observes, a trickle of blood runs out of the man's sleeve and down his fingers. "Forgive the intrusion." - Man, in a British accent Damascus nods to the guards to back off, and the stranger waits until they're back a ways. "My name is Gawain..." - Gawain "..and you want Hospitality?" - Damascus Gawain nods. "...To recuperate, yes. I promise to uphold your own Right of Sanctuary" - Gawain "How were you injured?" - Wolsey ".. I was attacked, but I have time. Days - perhaps weeks." - Gawain "We'll get you fixed up. We... ah.. Wolsey, do you know any first aid? Or Life?" Damascus Wolsey casts Healer's Trance "not enough" - Wolsey, calling Kali. ... Kali, meanwhile, woke up - still slightly out of it - to find Seraph gone. She's walking home, feeling dizzy and not sure how much of that was imaginary, when Wolsey's call reaches her mobile. "..yeah?" - Kali "Where are you?" - Wolsey Kali looks around "I have no idea. Nearly home" - Kali "We have a guest. He's injured - bring a Doctor. One that won't report gunshot wounds" - Wolsey "I know a woman" - Kali "I thought you might" - Wolsey, ringing off Wolsey shrugs at Damascus' questioning look. Better than last time they interrupted

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her on the thread. "You're sure you're not being followed?" - Wolsey "it will take them weeks to track me, don't worry. And Ill be long gone by then" Gawain Gawain casts a spell, which both men sense. The situation becomes tenser "What was that?" - Wolsey "Forgive me. I had to make sure you were who you seemed to be" - Gawain Wolsey frowns, but lets it go. The three of them head into the Sanctum, Gawain making appreciative small talk once they clear the abandoned levels and hit the Sanctum proper. Wolsey casts various wards on a room, to prevent anyone scrying for him, and Gawain sits painfully down to await the Doctor. Wolsey then activate Mage Sight via Spatial Awareness in case any scrying windows open in the Sanctum. A short while later, Kali arrives with her back-street doctor. While the medic is treating Gawain behind closed doors, Wolsey and Damascus fill Kali in - and ask her to check Gawain out, as covertly as she can. Just to make sure. Kali agrees, though is still slightly out of it. And there's a faint whiff of resonance on her.. something... "Where have you been?" - Wolsey "A stone house" - Kali, distracted "A what?" - Damascus "What? A house of stoners" - Kali "And what were you doing there?" - Wolsey "No - wait go back *where*?" - Damascus "She said, a drug den" - Wolsey "That's *not* what the Acanthus just said" - Damascus "I'm not going to take everything she says as prophecy unless I know she's doing prophecy..." (to Kali) "...was that Prophecy?"
Heh. But yes - Seraph's Pylon is one of the groups from the Juncture's book.

His suspicions aroused, Wolsey activates Sense Life to check out her odd state. He discovers that she's partially drugged, that she's just had sex, and that there are the remains of several spells on her. "Kali... WHAT did you do?" - Wolsey "I was just talking to some stoners" - Kali "About what?" - Damascus "Weird stuff" - Kali "What kind of stuff?" - Wolsey "weird stuff" - Kali "Weird like Beggars Union weird?" - Damascus, joking. Damascus sees Kali's expression

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"Oh shit" - Damascus "How could you... What were you thinking?" - Wolsey "I was just following the thread! I'm just an instrument!" - Kali "You can't use that excuse all the time - you can't blame Fate for everything!" Wolsey Damascus and Wolsey grill her for details, while she gets increasingly distressed. Her memory of the afternoon is full of holes. "I can't remember everything. I was out of it" - Kali "Then remember, oh Time mage" - Wolsey "...Didn't think of that" - Kali "You didn't last time either" - Wolsey Kali casts Postcognition and witnesses what she did. "...I did him" - Kali, resigned Wolsey and Damascus immediately throw up Mage Sight spells and check her. As far as they can tell, she got off lightly - there IS the remains of what looks like an attempt to use Space magic to strengthen the sympathetic link to her the sex caused, but it looks like it failed or was only partially successful. But as she hasn't washed, and as Wolsey's Life magic detected earlier, she's still got his bodily fluids on her - which would mean he could track her back... "Right. Get in there - now" - Wolsey, hustling her towards the warded room Gawain's in. Gawain and the Doctor look up as Kali enters. She sits down in the corner and smiles weakly. The medic goes back to removing a bullet from Gawain's arm. Kali massages her forehead while Damascus and Wolsey discuss what to do now in urgent tones just loud enough to hear. "Stop WHISPERING about me!" - Kali "Okay - you're a stupid bitch" - Damascus, finally snapping. Gawain looks up at that, and all concerned feel him casting some sort of Unveiling spell. "Don't worry. This is just what happens around here" - Kali, to Gawain ... Eventually, the Doctor finishes her work and leaves. Gawain gets up when Damascus and Wolsey re-enter the room to continue their conversation with Kali. "Excuse me. But you are obviously busy and I don't want to impose. Is there another room, where I can rest out of your way?" - Gawain Wolsey snaps out of trying to fix the latest problem enough to show Gawain across the Sanctum to another bedroom. Gawain, admitting to being an Adept of Space,

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wards it himself this time. He does, however, quietly ask Wolsey if there's anything he can do to help by way of repayment. "Maybe. And you? Do you want us to call the Consilium?" - Wolsey "No, but thank you. I'll be gone long before I get caught up in local affairs" - Gawain ... Back in the warded room, Damascus is apologising for snapping at Kali, who shrugs it off in a way so as to communicate that she's grateful he apologised but wants to appear nonchalant. Wolsey comes back in. "All right. Kali - does he know your name?" - Wolsey She nods "My first name. I don't know if he knows my surname" - Kali "Okay - well let's hope he doesn't." - Wolsey
In contrast to Damascus - who lost it and is now regrouping, Wolsey's reacting in the same calm manner he dealt with the starting scene. This is what he's *good* at, and while Damascus is flipping out, Wolsey very carefully isn't trying to give her the impression that he blames her, or that he's judging her. Which he totally is, but as Mark says upthread he's being kind.

"Kali.. why do you do this? I'm trying to understand. Why do you take risks like this?" - Wolsey "I'm not stupid" - Kali "I know that" - Wolsey, looking at Damascus Kali says that she knows what she looks like to them, but that isn't her - she doesn't want to be treated as she appears "You don't wish to be treated as you appear? What do you wish to appear as?" Wolsey "I... I don't know. That's why I'm following the threads" - Kali "May I suggest Marilyn Monroe?" - Damascus Wolsey describes Damascus as "Self-made", implying that Kali is as well. Kali explains that ever since she Awakened, she's felt like she's not in the right life. That's what the threads are to her - arrows pointing her to her true self. She has to follow them to find out who she really is. "This could have gotten you killed - and it still could" - Wolsey "He didn't hurt me. I don't think he would... and the threads led to him" - Kali "Has it occurred that the threads could have been tampered with if it led to a Seer?" Damascus

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Kali doesn't seem to think that's very likely. Wolsey switches tactic to the danger of it all, asking if the threads are worth risking her life for, if they occasionally turn up Seers of the Throne. "Are you willing to risk your life for what you want?" - Kali "Only if I was on the very cusp" - Wolsey Kali shrugs, helplessly "What will happen will happen" - Kali Wolsey grimaces "Blind fatalism. God help us" - Damascus
Damascus gets it - this has always been Kali's problem.

Kali reiterates her faith in Fate, and her belief that if Ariadne's thread led her to Seraph it was for a reason. "Who do you think weave Fate?" - Damascus "...Fate" - Kali, in a 'duh' voice "The Exarchs" - Wolsey "They can't weave it" - Kali, dismissive "They can and they do" - Wolsey "Kali, they have a plan for everyone. A plan that is forced on us by Fate just as they bind us to the world with Space and control our Minds. Fate is part of the Fallen World" - Damascus "Then what happens if I go against that plan?" - Kali "...You *Awaken*" - Wolsey
Good argument that.

"All right. What are you going to do if he comes around again?" - Wolsey "I don't know" - Kali "You're going to let him do it to you?" - Wolsey "... I don't know how to make it stop" - Kali "You're a *Mage* goddammit" - Wolsey "Kali. He doesn't have puppies in his car, and he doesn't have candy. If you see him, tell a policeman" - Damascus, trying to cheer her up "No! For god's sake don't tell a policeman" - Wolsey She's not convinced - and now looks both abashed (though how much she believes them that her future isn't entirely fated is up to debate) and scared. "You've put the shits up me" - Kali "What was that question I asked you, Wolsey?" - Damascus "If I agreed that the contemplation of Action should not lead to Inaction" - Wolsey It's not as easy as that, she says. If the Seers are after her, then there's nothing she can do about it unless she abandons her own Path. Which she *needs* to move on with
The implication here is that Kali is tired of being at the bottom rung of society. Whatever she was hoping to achieve here, or find out about herself, it hasn't worked to her satisfaction. Her conscience has returned with contact with the others, and

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she's dissatisfied. But now they others tell her if she follows Ariadne's thread looking for an alternative, the Exarchs will get her

"Is taking practical precautions really going to dilute your purpose?" - Wolsey She doesn't look happy.
This is, as Mark has pointed out to me, the crucial difference between the three characters. Damascus doesn't have a vast wide-ranging goal in mind for his Path, while the other two do, but while Wolsey is careful, prudent and above all *patient*: willing to defer his success, to serve Malakaii and Banneker while it gives him what he wants in the long term, Kali accepts no compromises and wants to live her grand goal every day. She's already nearly a year into carrying out her grand plan, while Wolsey hasn't even started his.

In any case, they've come to an impasse - and have hopefully convinced Kali to look before she leaps next time. They decide that Kali will go shower while Damascus and Wolsey clean this room up, and then they'll go talk to their new house guest. They're all curious as to how he got the gunshot, and Wolsey hopes to enlist his help in shredding the last remains of Seraph's sympathetic link to Kali. The night wears on, and Kali - wearing entirely different clothes (as Wolsey intends to burn the ones she was wearing) - has her connection to Seraph magically severed by Gawain, who uses the rote version of Destroy the Threads on her. And, that favour discharged, Gawain offers them his story. Gawain was part of a Mysterium Cabal - a group of Magical Archaeologists specialising in "Atlantean, Lemurian and Hyperborean" traces. Eight months ago, he and two of his Cabal were attacked by persons unknown - definitely Mages. His Cabalmates were killed, and he's been on the run ever since. Every two weeks he wards himself and teleports, then they manage to break through his ward and come after him again forcing him to run again. He daren't go back to the rest of his Cabal for fear that his pursuers would follow him. Wolsey notes that when he had Mage Sight up, there was something in Gawain's satchel. Gawain says it's an artefact from the last place his Cabal investigated, but that he hasn't been able to do any further research on it due to his constantly either fighting, fleeing or preparing for both. The Cabal ask the obvious question, but Gawain says that he found this artefact months before the attack - it's not it they're after, it's him. "Do you have any idea why?" - Wolsey "None, I'm afraid" - Gawain The gang offer to get Gawain more qualified help, but he says it isn't necessary. The chance they've given him to calm down and rest will mean he can get away again much sooner, and if he teleports enough times he hopes to eventually lose his assailants. Nodding, the Cabal leave him to settle down. Once outside, they briefly discuss his story - there's some scepticism, but no-one thinks he's lying per se, just not telling them everything. In any case, the Crucible divide up duties. Gawain - as trustworthy as he *seems* shouldn't be left alone in the Sanctum, especially not at the moment. Kali draws first shift, while Wolsey and Damascus will go home to sleep and then return with supplies for a longer stay at the Sanctum.

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Kali, not wanting to be alone and still having the fear of the Seers put into her by the other two, decides to get herself some food and ask Gawain if she can hang out in his room. When she goes in he's changed, washed and is sat up in bed reading Robin Hobb's "Fool's Errand".
This minor piece of detail from Reign of the Exarchs - Gawain's choice of reading material - won kudos from the gang. For being a book that a player might have actually read, which led to them trying to figure out if it's plot was significant in some way to the story. Good times.

Gawain and Kali, surprisingly, get on quite well. They're both in the Mysterium something which Kali realises not many people understand about her. It's all about the search for Truth, a subject which Gawain can relate to. He correctly guesses the reason for her Shadow name - Kali, the half-black half-Indian, has named herself against the black-skinned goddess of time. "And if I dance backwards the world ends" - Kali There's one other thing in the room, though - a metal object like a handbell, which Gawain says is the artefact Wolsey asked him about. He promises to share what he's found out about it so far with Kali before he leaves, but spends the rest of the evening distracting her from her troubles with tales of high adventure and the exploration of Atlantean Ruins. There was this one time, see, where the Ruin had a cunning system of mirrors set up with Forces-amplification spells that turned the place into a deadly web of laser-like energies. ... Sunday Wolsey wakes in his deader-than-Stygia apartment to find a message from Mara on his answering machine, saying that Avatar is now doing much better and that Mara thinks that contact with the Cabal has turned out to be a good thing. With that bit of good news in his head, Wolsey heads to the Sanctum to relieve Kali and take his shift sitting up next to the Hallow in case of unusual happenstance. Damascus, meanwhile, keeps his appointment with the Nation of Islam and checking that his dagger now meets design specifications - heads to Ulysses' church, where he finds his mentor waiting rather more impatiently than last time. "We lost it" - Ulysses "You lost it?" - Damascus "Gone. We were too late, lad. It's crossed into our world already" - Ulysses The dagger will still be useful, Ulysses says, especially if the spirit is in twilight rather than possessing a human. Ulysses gives Damascus more of a background on the beast - it was once the spirit of a memorial in the middle of a small park, part of the DC spirit ecology and fed from the resonance of an island of peace in the middle of the more energetic resonances around it. Only the city council bulldozed the park, and a few months ago someone was murdered in the car park that resulted. The spirit of pain and despair that resulted swiftly ate up all the surrounding spirits of hopelessness, part of the Washington ecology. The two spirits clashed, and the monument spirit, in desperation, absorbed it's rival.

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The resulting creature, a spirit of finding contemplation in pain and suffering, is made of twisted resonances, a mishmash of the two rival umbrood hierarchies of the city. Rejected by both ecologies, it's been consuming everything around itself in the Shadow, but has finally been pushed out now - pushed out into the physical world, that is.
In Werewolf terms, it's a Magath - a spirit that has fed inappropriately and is now a hybrid of two or more concepts. I just thought it'd be neat to show the two ecologies of umbrood clashing.

Damascus reasons, with his limited grasp of Spirit lore, that the creature is either inside a human that meets it's needs or that it's found a ley nexus or Hallow of the correct resonance... "...I think I might know where it is" - Damascus Rushing to the Sanctum, Damascus says that he suspects they have more than one house guest - and informs Wolsey and the now-returned Kali that he thinks the spirit is lurking in their Hallow, which matches the description of it's initial resonance. That afternoon, while the people Damascus has phoned (Promethea and two of her colleagues - a Perfected Adept Acanthus in the Defenders named Link and a Mysterium Thyrsus in the City Souls named Heinrich) search unsuccessfully for the spirit and - after asking Gawain to return his room to normal space from the pocket realm he's put it in - declare the Sanctum to be in the clear in the Astral, Twilight and Shadow - Kali says that she's going to try to find Blaise to try to get some guidance on her own issues. Blaise is nowhere to be found - even in the spot he gave her the Nickel lecture. And the Nickel is gone. She stays on that street corner, watching one particular house, until after nightfall. Eventually, someone turns on the lights in that house and can be seen looking out, but Kali has gone.
It's not actually said in character - but that's Kemi's father. She grew up in that area.

....... Monday Having failed to find Blaise, Kali has thought long and hard all night and plucked up her courage. She's going back to the House of Stone to confront anything she finds there. Unfortunately, the house has been stripped - the people, and all the furniture, has gone. The mysterious graffiti has been removed, and the place s free of sympathetic connections. The Seers have pulled out. Damascus and Wolsey, meanwhile, are talking about Legacies while lurking in the stairwell of the Sanctum. Damascus still hasn't been rung by the Uncrowned King that works at the university, and he and Kali have been speculating about which Bearer of the Eternal Voice Wolsey is going to petition - Mara or Malakaii? Wolsey refuses to be drawn on the matter, though... ...And then they feel a big spell cast above them, in the Sanctum

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Wolsey's choice is what we're going to start the next session off with. Who do YOU think he's going to try to apprentice to?

Rushing upstairs, they find Gawain gone, with his nimbus fading around where he teleported out. When Kali gets back to share the news that the Seers have gone, she finds the other two sat regarding an object on a table. Gawain has left the handbell - and a letter. The letter is quite long, thanking them for their Hospitality and begging their forgiveness for leaving so abruptly. He hopes that the artefact will be useful to them as repayment, and that they are able to give it the attention and research he cannot. The letter reminds Kali that although Their influence is everywhere they are fought every day, by everyone that uses Supernal Magic, and that she shouldn't think her situation is hopeless. Finally, he signs off with a quotation. "By Her grace She leaves this Ring / So all may find the Truth they seek" - Gawain Damascus picks up the handbell, noting that it's actually more like a Tibetan prayer wheel - it doesn't have a striker inside. Still not much of a ring, though. "It's a trap" - Wolsey "..." - Kali "... Who are you, Admiral Ackbar?" Damascus "Look, it's obviously evil. We can sell it." - Wolsey "For what?" - Damascus "Who cares? A bag of chips!" - Wolsey
Heh

"Maybe something's meant to go in it" - Damascus, musing. "It's a bell of evil, I tell you" - Wolsey Damascus casts Grim Sight, but doesn't glean anything from the artefact other than the fact that it's magical.. and it contains all of the Arcana in it's enchantment. He picks it up and waves it in the air as though ringing it. Nothing. He ties a piece of string around a small metal doohickey ties that to the artefact's handle and waves it again. When the improvised striker hits the bell, Damascus feels Mana being drained out of him and hears a loud, bass tolling as though he was in a cathedral at the hour mark. He looks around at the other two, who it seems didn't hear anything.

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But they *did* sense the bell casting a spell on Damascus.

At which point Damascus had a morality check, which he failed. Wisdom 6 for you, my lad!

Everyone does the examination of Resonance game again and determines that whatever it cast is still there - Kali's Sybil's sight detects the telltale sign of a Fatebased contingency upon him. Whatever the bell did, it's now "hanging", waiting for something to trigger the effect that is now embedded in Damascus' pattern. "Told you so" - Wolsey "Well. Uh. Learning through experimentation and so on, I suppose. Happenstance and action..." - Damascus "You can frame this with all the Mastigos phrases you like, but you're still the one with the contingent effect on you" - Wolsey Damascus rings the bell again, with the same effect. The new contingency cancelling the old one. As far as Kali can tell, anyway. He puts it down again, and has a think. "Okay. What IS this thing?" - Damascus He casts Dark Matter, and Kali through her Mage Sight sees the Contingent effect trigger and alter his pattern. "Whoa.. That's..." - Damascus "That's what?" - Wolsey As Damascus tells it, the Mage Sight spell he just cast is not behaving normally - he's sensing the resonance making up matter as normal, but now everything - even the Cabal - have a sort of "pull" to them, like a gravitational effect. Kali's is strongest, then Damascus' own. Wolsey has hardly any. Looking out of the window, a group of gangers he can see have some, but an old lady hanging out her washing has more. The Bell, though, is like a black hole. He can't look at it without wincing. He cancels the spell, and Kali reports that his pattern is back to normal. "What *was* that?" - Damascus "A Bell of Evil" - Wolsey They argue over it some more - Wolsey wanting rid of it, the other two still fascinated. Eventually, Kali picks it up and - against Wolsey and Damascus' warnings, rings it herself. "Did you hear a big bell when you did it?" - Kali "Yeah. That's it activating" - Damascus She casts a spell at random, but there's no effect other than the Imago's own. "Try a Mage Sight spell" - Damascus Kali casts Sybil's Sight. It too is "weighted", though in this case it's more obviously symbolic. The strands of Fate wafting around everyone are even more numerous than usual - and the new strands extend up into the sky, connecting invisibly to

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people by their wrists, ankles and head. Kali herself has a full set, Damascus has just arm-strings, while Wolsey - to this sight - has lines on the side of his chin, like ventriloquist's dummy. The Bell of Evil, as Wolsey insists on calling it, has a thick rope made of multiple strands of Fate stretching up through the ceiling. She describes this, slightly weirded out. "Try another" - Damascus "YOU try another" - Kali "I'm out of Mana now" - Damascus "Wolsey" - Kali "Oh, no" - Wolsey She rings the Bell again, and casts Temporal Eddies. To her newly-enhanced Mage Sight, Wolsey has a slight shadow behind him. Damascus is somehow himself and also himself as a 'ganger in his youth, and the old lady outside is her sinful younger self. The 'gangers on the street all give the impression of not having much of a future left. Kali herself is simultaneously dressed in rags and wearing a silk Sari, laden with jewellery, like a Queen. She immediately drops the spell. "Okay..." (shaken) "This isn't fun anymore." - Kali "Wolsey, you sure? If it's showing something different for each Arcana" - Damascus "No, thank you. I prefer my perceptions unmuddled by the Bell of Evil" - Wolsey "All right. What's it showing? It's showing us something there, that you can't see with the Arcana. Something that I have more than you, and Kali has more than us. The Bell has loads, the old lady across the street about the same as me. An 11th Arcana?" - Damascus "Sin" - Wolsey "I'm sorry?" - Damascus "Well, what does Kali have that I don't?" - Wolsey "Tits?" - Damascus "Sin. You're an ex-ganger, Kali's a drug dealer. That old lady probably got up to all kinds of things when she was younger." - Wolsey "I object!" - Kali "shh" - Damascus "I'm just saying, comparatively I'm less sinful" - Wolsey "Comparatively's a fine thing" - Damascus "Or maybe Hubris" - Wolsey "Maybe it's honesty - or connection to the world, huh? Or *lack* of Hubris" - Kali "All right. Gawain said it was Atlantean, right?" - Wolsey "Yes.. Some artefact. Who's 'she' - the female in the quotation? Maybe this is from some Atlantean archmage" - Kali They look at the quotation

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"Anyone recognise it?" - Damascus Negative "Well, in absence of academia... let's try Google" - Wolsey
There's always Wikipedia

... Once set up with Wolsey's laptop, they begin their search - though not at a popular Silicon-Valley based search engine. Instead, Kali directs them into a Mysterium web repository of texts, hidden behind ten layers of security including "translate this rune". It somehow isn't enough for Wolsey to not be mildly outraged. "Weren't we supposed to have picked up an occult library by now?" - Kali "Well, I can contribute 'To Ride A Silver Broomstick'" - Damascus
Too much. Information.

The text is matched after half an hour to "Gifts of the Dethroned Queen" By Her grace She leaves this Ring So we might fid the Truth we seek. She leaves this Robe of mystic night So we might dwell beyond Their Sight. This Scepter drawn She leaves for all To brush aside Their distant calls. She leaves to us this Crown of souls To twist Their thralls toward our own goals By Her grace She leaves this last A Throne whose seat will let us pass Kali clicks on the hyperlink in "Dethroned Queen" "...She's an Exarch" - Kali The Queen, says the site, was a woman who appeared in the centuries following the Fall, claiming to be an Exarch that had been cast out by her fellow Gods back onto Earth. She refused to use magic, eventually dying of a plague, but said that the regalia she wore as a Queen in the Supernal Realms fell with her. Treasure-hunters have looked for them for centuries - men like Gawain and his crew. "Well.. An Ex-Exarch" - Kali "Get rid of it. Sell it. Give it to Ulysses or Samuel" - Wolsey "This Crown sounds really useful" - Damascus, thoughtfully "It sounds like a Profane Urim" - Wolsey "Why would an Exarch need something to hide from the other Exarchs?" - Kali, pointing to the robe line

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Maybe she wasn't one. Maybe she was an Oracle. Maybe it doesn't matter. Either way, they now have a hot potato on their hands. And Gawain's story about it being him that his mysterious assailants were after is looking a little less certain. "Perhaps he used this thing. Saw something he shouldn't have." - Wolsey "Or they knew he had the Bell" Damascus

2.3 Commentary:
DaveB: Okay, then. Apocrypha and general witterings on my lunch hour (tm) for Instruments of Fate 1) First off, after promising it, I completely forgot the Pythia scene in the writeup. Fairly short, but offers insight - Kali asked Gawain what the word meant, and found out that it's the title of the Oracle of Delphi, a priestess that would be sat in a tripod over a natural fissure that produced unusual hydrocarbons as gas and would then have her babblings interpreted as prophecy by the priests of Apollo that looked after the shrine. The link between that interpretation of drugged-out people and what Seraph was saying to her clicked, and she realised what the Seers want her for. 2) Wolsey had a moment, when Kali told them about Seraph, of being slightly insulted that it wasn't him the Seers tried to recruit. Then he got over it, realising why Kali meets their requirements and he certainly doesn't. 3) There was a certain amount of exposition of the Atlantean mythology, with Wolsey saying he didn't believe the Dethroned Queen could have been an Oracle that was caught and expelled from the Supernal - simply because he doesn't believe the Oracles *could* be. ------------So yeah. That was Instruments of Fate - three sessions of the cabal labouring under perceived inevitabilities, from Wolsey's doom (still doomed, by the way) to Kali's hangups, to Wolsey's attitude about his marriage, to the young lovers, to Gawain refusing all help because he thinks it's pointless - with the consequences of the attitude building and building. Because that's the way Seers think, not Pentacle mages. Despair is a killer, especially in this universe. Next story should see the gang be more go-getter. They have all now earned *just* enough xp to buy Gnosis 3, so I expect next session to be the Legacy inductions. And there's their Seer problem to sort out: I know Mark has plans in that regard to take defensive action rather than sitting and hoping Seraph will go away. I believe they've decided to go trust Ulysses with the Ring (and they did figure out why it's called the Ring - it's the sound it makes, not the physical object). And now, for the non players...

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So yeah. Reign of the Exarchs then. The last two posts of narrative roughly cover the first scene in the first story, which takes place a couple of weeks before the rest of it (essentially, the time gap is for the people hunting Gawain to realise he's dropped the Ring off) - we'll get back to The Ring as Story 4 in this chronicle. Mark turned to me the other day - before 2.3 was played - and said "I'm sorry, Dave, but I've rumbled you. I know Avatar's the Dethroned Queen" Hardy har har. 8D For those keeping score, characters that have been introduced, replaced by my own npcs or hinted at are as follows: Story One: Gawain and the Ring of the Dethroned Queen are as in the book. What you might not have spotted was the setup regarding the Nickel - Kali is in for a surprise come 4.1 Story Two: Seraph's method of Omen reading is the same as the Seers in this one, as a foreshadowing and so that the players'll understand it when they see it. Amanda/Avatar replaces Cymbeline. Story Three: Nothing yet Story Four: The Ascendants have turned up already, and the characters have even seen their Scroll. Bedlam replaces Remainder. Note the completely coincidental (seriously. It was an accident) match-up between the Indian-born adversary of this story and Kali. I'm not quite sure what to do with this, and the reason I haven't posted Kali's background yet is that I'm adjusting my notes to make this story better, playing off the striking similarity between the two women. Story Five: Seraph isn't in Mammon: He's a Panopticon Seer, as hinted by his rambling about Observation and his frequent use of Space magic (he's a Mastigos). Rafe / Damascus: Actually, the suggestion that it was measuring sin was, unsurprisingly, Damascus. I think it was Wolsey who raised the possibility of an 11th Arcana. Sam / Kali: Hello again. More musings from the female end of the party: Firstly I seem to recall the thread Kali followed into the room with the Seer disappearing as she opened the door. I don't remember it getting stronger ('solidifying' is probably better, becoming more real) but it's entirely possible I completely missed it. The difference between one conclusion of the thread and the other is quite significant and will change Kali's thinking depending on which one it was. Memory-jog anyone I think I know what following your thread backwards means - it's Kali who is experimenting. Sam is having trouble with the easy bits, and getting the harder bits, and this is completely normal for me. For example, the answer to the homework question set her by Blaise is completely eluding the both of us (that's me and Kali). I'm currently on the posit that nothing has changed - but my paranoia often whispers furtively in the back streets of my mind that if nothing has 'changed' (and I'm normally good at word games) some of what Blaise said during that first stage of Nickeldom is invalidated. But he doesn't have to be right all the time... right? 105

Um... yeah. Kali has an important choice coming up, really. She is relegating the Seer for the time being to something Wolsey and Damascus care about more than she does. What she wants is to start reconciling her choices, and this means of course accepting that she can change her fate. Following Ariadne's threads is all well and good, but Kali is coming to realise that she is not Ariadne - and maybe she should start being responsible for her life instead of trusting it to a force that seems to lead her only places that cause her pain. Sam doesn't entirely understand, and again this is a common problem for me. A lot of Kali's frustrations with Mage society are based off Sam's inattentions and misunderstandings - but that's fine. That way we learn together, and the journey becomes a lot more fun. What sort of a journey is it where there's only the silence of your own silence and the words in your own mind (except for a contemplative one)? How do you learn when it's only you and no relativity exists to throw something new and unaccounted for into the gears? And lastly, a small weeping for a moment back that made Sam cry and Kali snigger, and that moment was Mark mentioning 'Wolsey' and 'morals' in the same line. I do not disagree that Wolsey has morals. But I think his morals are more fanatical. His morals are the morals of a middle class, white American boy. I might be wrong - and probably am. But it often seems as if to Wolsey, power is where the kudos goes. Morals are a way of getting people in power what they want, and possibly even deserve. Kali really feels that Wolsey's morals are constrictive and inward-facing. Instead of being freed by his morals as she is, she just sees him as tying himself in more and more knots. And perhaps this is why she was surprised at seeing him through Sybil's Sight - even more reliant on Fate to shape her perceptions. Instead of being wrong because her perception does not tally with Fate, however, she is now beginning to question. DaveB: More corrections, thanks to Mark / Wolsey. Gah. Most importantly, Wolsey went with Kali on her return trip to the seers, showing her how to go in prepared with mind shields and such. It was Damascus who spotted the artefact with Mage Sight, and in the conversation about the Exarchs weaving Fate, the "They have a plan for everyone" was actually Wolsey.

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Story 2 Recap:
"Instruments of Fate" Mid June 2006 Session 2.1
The Hallow has been tamed, the Cabal have settled into their new Sanctum (though none of them live there, and the place is mostly unfurnished). Wolsey has negotiated the merger of two companies, Damascus has several commissions and Kali's gang have started to experiment with producing Crack. The story starts the day before the meeting with the Juncture, and two days before the Bi-Monthly Consilium. Wolsey expects to be made Herald at the Consilium, a job he has been picked for since halfway through his apprenticeship, and asks Kali to behave herself at the meeting. Furthermore, he asks her a favour - there is someone he wants finding. Kali discerns via magic that Wolsey is not being entirely truthful with his patchy description of the person he seeks - one AMANDA FISHER. He admits that Amanda is his wife, and has been missing since before he Awakened. He came to DC from Boston following a lead that said she had come here. Kali admits that she doesn't have the Space Arcana needed to find her and Wolsey realises he's been tricked into revealing personal information. Damascus defuses the impending argument by asking Kali to model for a Caryatid column (a column in the shape of a woman) he's been asked to produce. Wolsey mocks her being a "Pillar of society" and they have the longdelayed fight, Kali saying that people like her prop up the world of people like Wolsey. Wolsey rejects that, and is horrified to learn that not only did Kali choose her lifestyle, but outright enjoys it. They talk about what Kali would do if she ever got arrested (she hasn't really thought about it) and Wolsey says that all Kali does is put people into another trap of Control while she argues that she's setting them free - and that it's *Wolsey* who's just exchanging one Lie for another. Finally, Wolsey decides to find Amanda himself - and discovers that her present location is warded beyond his ability to pierce. He throws up a Mage Sight just in time to see a returning scrying window open. A brief magical struggle results in Damascus being thrown a few seconds into the future, and Kali recognises the resonance of the person on the other side as being SAMUEL, Acanthus Free Councillor and leader of the House of Ariadne. Wolsey, trying to head off a political upset, tries to phone Francine - who he knows to be in Samuel's Cabal. She's on the phone to Samuel, but calls her back and apologises for the incident. When Wolsey tries to ask about Amanda, Francine just says that Samuel is "busy" The next day, Kali practices following ARIADNE'S THREAD, the House of Ariadne's term for the strands of sympathy interconnecting all things. Picking the thread that is clearest and most distinct to her - the one leading back to her personal past - she follows it and realises that it's leading her back into the wealthy suburbs she grew up in. Wolsey still hasn't had any luck finding Samuel - who is in the year 1890 - but he and Damascus have an appointment with the Juncture. The Juncture believe that a Great Change is coming and that by analysing the world via Timecube-like stochastic equations they can figure out what it will be and if necessary mitigate it. Two societies, shrouded in rumour and hearsay, that

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the Juncture emissary calls THE HOUSE OF STONE and THE HOUSE OF STEEL, are quarrelling, and their struggle is having a debilitating effect on the future. He gives Wolsey and Damascus a book f their calculations. Mara phones Wolsey with a task - sort of a job interview for the position of Herald. A Cabal of Silver Ladder mages living in Virginia wish to be brought under the Consiliums protection, and are willing to pay with - among other things - an artefact, which Wolsey is to collect and courier to Mara. Trying and failing - to contact Samuel again, he asks Francine about this Cabal, who he learns are called THE ASCENDENTS. The artefact they're giving to the Consilium is called THE EYES OF SALT. They go to find Kali - who is still in suburbia. Wolsey explains his fears that this nice easy little courier mission will go horribly horribly wrong so Kali looks into the future and discovers that their course of action will be very, very bad for Wolsey. Which doesn't help his mood. Arriving at the Ascendants Sanctum, they meet MELCHIOR, who expresses his belief that the Silver Ladder in the city has lost it's way and that only he and his comrades BALTHAZAR and CASPAR are cleaving to the right path. He gives them the Eyes of Salt, saying he won them after many battles. Outside, Kali informs Wolsey that he's still doomed. The Eyes turn out to be two small stone balls the size of eyeballs, that are freezing cold to the touch. Putting them back in the bag, the Cabal begin to drive to Mara's They arrive at Maras practice and deliver the Eyes. Mara puts them into a wall safe in her office. Still doomed, Wolsey goes home, wards his bedroom as much as he is able and spends a sleepless night waiting to be attacked. The next day, Damascus asks Kali to model for his column. She does so, nude, until Wolsey interrupts them. That evening, the Consilium is held in the back room of a black-tie restaurant. Mara tells Wolsey she can't be his mentor any more - she's been asked to take on a new apprentice. Who he's pretty sure he knows the identity of. She instructs him to talk to Banneker After the meal, Banneker gives a speech recognising the Ascendants and Crucible as having joined the Consilium. He names Wolsey as a Herald, and instructs Wolsey to meet him after the speeches. Wolsey goes to see Banneker - who, calling Wolsey "Thomas" instructs him to call him "Isiah". Banneker reveals that Amanda is indeed in the city, and Awakened as a Mastigos - she's Mara's new student - but warns Wolsey that AVATAR, as his wife is now known, has become slightly unhinged in her journey through Pandemonium. Avatar will be trained by Mara and PROMETHEA, the Provost in the Cabal of SULEIMAN, Mastigos Mysterium Claviclarius and one of the remaining Councillors of the city. Banneker further shares his vision for Wolsey's future - Banneker wants Wolsey to be Banneker's man on the inside of Malakaii's Legacy, and to eventually replace Malakaii in doing the things Banneker needs done for the Consilium to function without the downsides Malakaii's abrasive personality and politics bring. Wolsey agrees to it, and Banneker tells him to talk to Samuel - warning Wolsey that he has no special rights to see Avatar if Mara doesn't deem it necessary. Outside, Kali is approached by NIMROD, a member of Project Twilight, who rather threateningly says that her name has crossed his desk in the FBI. As a gesture of respect to another mage, he's suppressed any operations against her little drugs business so far, but he warns her to not let her name cross his desk again.

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Wolsey, on his way back to the Cabal, gets flagged over by Samuel, who takes them both out of time. Samuel apologises for the misunderstanding the other day. As an effort to apologise, he casts Divination to determine how Wolsey can avoid the doom he is labouring under - and tells him that the dark fate is that Avatar will leave him a second time, permanently. And to avoid this, Wolsey should "pay especial attention to her dreams"

Session 2.2 Kali approaches one of her heroines - a Moros Free Council Bokor named DANTOR who is the chief of the much bigger gang to Kali's East - and asks her for tips. Dantor all but laughs in Kali's face, calls her a day-tripper and tells her to come back when she's killed someone. Damascus is receiving a commission from Ulysses. Ulysses' (and Dantor's) Cabal are looking into a Spirit that is threatening to break through the Gauntlet. They've determined the nature of it's ban, so need Damascus to make them an iron dagger blessed by five holy men. After he takes the particulars, Ulysses tells him that there's also a member of the Uncrowned Kings - a Legacy Damascus has expressed interest in joining - in the city. Damascus meets CERBERUS, a Thyrsus in Samuel's Cabal, who says that he's the Uncrowned King's roommate. The Mage in question is named JOHN DEE, and teaches Chemistry at Georgetown University. Damascus gives Cerberus his card asking the other mage to ask John to get in touch Wolsey returns briefly, telling the others what's going on with Avatar. He spots Mara and asks to see his wife. Mara says that she'll think about it - but only based on what Mara thinks knowing Wolsey's alive, Awakened and here will do to Avatar's fragile state of mind. The Cabal decide to go to Wolsey's apartment - where the other two have never been - to relax after the Consilium. Damascus gets opinions on which faiths to try to get the dagger blessed by. When they arrive, Wolsey explains the utter minimalist deadness of his apartment as being designed to have as few sympathetic connections as possible. They look up the dictionary definition of "Avatar" and are worried about just what concepts - as a Mastigos - she might be declaring herself the embodiment of. Wolsey claims his need to find Avatar is based entirely on her knowing his real name, and therefore being a threat. Kali presses him and he lets slip that he thinks of the Cabal as a step on his road, which hurts Kali's feelings. It comes out that he and Avatar were only married for six months before she vanished, and that they married only a month after meeting. They are dubious, and he asks them if they've ever been in love. Damascus has, Kali hasn't. Damascus attempts to lecture Wolsey on the fact that he's still married, and therefore still subject to the vows he took. The Cabal now split up and go their separate ways for a few days. Damascus works on the Knife and getting it blessed. Wolsey goes back to the book the Juncture gave him. He decides the Two Houses may be a metaphor for the Seers and the Pentacle orders, and elects to get it checked out by someone who knows more of the Seers than he does. Wolsey goes to Visit Beckett, who examines the book and check it for signs one of the houses might be a Ministry or Pylon. Beckett reveals that Kali was visited by Seraph - Beckett felt the presence of the Urim when Seraph talked to Kali (who was under Beckett's spell at the time) during 1.2 Wolsey next goes to see BEDLAM, an Adamantine Arrow Mastigos who is institutionalised. Bedlam identifies some of the variables in the Junctures'

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equations and says that in his opinion it describes two groups of the same thing. Kali - who has been facing a crisis of conscience ever since Wolsey gave her a talking to, she had the run-in with Nimrod and Dantor mocked her - tells Ichi to cease production of Crack, and to just stockpile what they've made so far. The next morning she tells Ichi to get rid of the Crack any way he can, and goes following the threads again. She heads the same way as before, ending up outside her father's house, where she's met by Blaise. Blaise gives her instruction on the interconnectedness of all things and - placing a Nickel on the sidewalk - instructs her to determine who's life is most changed by that coin. Mara calls Wolsey and agrees that he can meet Avatar under her supervision. Wolsey gathers the rest of the Cabal together. Kali by now has overthought her task to the point that she's almost afraid to move, and is constantly distracted. Wolsey grills Kali about the fact that she was contacted by a Seer and didn't say anything. Kali, still spaced, says that she didn't realise he was a Seer. Arriving at Mara's, they meet Avatar - who mishears Kali's name as RANI. Avatar, they learn, suffers from occasional false recognition, like she's already met people before she has. She says that she's always felt like her life was pre-ordained, and that she felt that when she first met Wolsey. Wolsey - aghast that his life with her, including his own Awakening, might have just been part of Avatar[s Mystery Play - excuses himself and leaves. Kali confronts Mara, demanding to know who made the webs of fate Kali can sense all around them. Mara interprets Kali's feeling that the world is not as it should be - this is the first mention of this defining characteristic in the chronicle - as being her conscience. Outside, Kali complains that she can't make Avatar and Wolsey see that they still love one another. Damascus counsels both her and Wolsey - who is despondent after his revelation - that thinking too hard about the consequences of an action should never lead to inaction. Wolsey goes home, broken. Damascus tells Kali that no matter what she may think, she alters the world: she doesn't create it.

Session 2.3 Damascus, working on the dagger, is interrupted by his younger sister MAREE who chides him about never visiting his family and tells him that his brother RICKY has found a job. Damascus is unenthusiastic about Ricky's chances. Wolsey takes money from a Senator from Colorado to split the man's daughter up from the man she's run away with, on the basis that the young man is poor and black. Wolsey does so by means of Emotional Urging and veiled threats of force combined with allowing the youth to leave with the money the couple took. He makes sure the girl isn't pregnant, then reports back to the Senator Kali and Ichi are surveying the shut-down Crack Factory, a building on the edge between her and Dantor's territories. They're trying to decide what to do with all the equipment they now have - Ichi is plainly unhappy at stopping, but trusts her enough to go with her on this one. Damascus heads to the Sanctum to find Wolsey already performing an Oblation at the Hallow. Damascus wants to talk to Avatar - he's not even sure why. Wolsey is feeling better now, but resists Damascus' attempts to get him and Avatar back together.

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Kali decides to follow the thread again, but in the opposite direction (which, although she only figures this out much later, means she is heading metaphorically into her own future). It leads to a drug-den in an even worse part of town, where Seraph is waiting for her - identifying this place as the House of Stone from Wolsey's book. After partaking of Seraph's concoctions, Kali and he talk about the nature of Fate - Kali believing that everything is preordained and that she is destined to be the pedal being crushed but driving the machine of the world onward. Seraph compares her to the Pythia of Ancient Greece, and his own methods of divination as relying on drugging people and listening to the Glossolalia - speaking in tongues - that results. He finds out her first name (and as per 1.2 already knew her second) and they have sex. Wolsey and Damascus are told by Kali's gang that someone has appeared claiming the right of crossing. This turns out to be a British mage named GAWAIN, who has teleported to DC at random after being attacked. He begs Hospitality to lick his wounds and rest, and they agree, phoning Kali to summon a Doctor. Gawain uses a spell of unknown providence to "check" them, and Wolsey wards the room he's staying in against scrying. While the Doctor looks over Gawain's injuries, Kali lets slip that she has been in "a stone house", which is enough for Wolsey. They learn she's been with a Seer again and are aghast - she blames fate and predestination for it, which they do not accept - pointing out that the destinies we're born with are given to us by the Exarchs. Kali uses Time magic to remember sleeping with Seraph and the others are even more angry, forcing her into Gawain's shielded room Wolsey asks Kali why she takes risks like this, and Kali explains that since she awoke she's felt like she's not in the right life. The threads to her are arrows pointing to her true self. Wolsey says this could have gotten her killed. Kali admits that she doesn't know how to make Seraph stop intruding on her life. Gawain tells his story - he was part of a group of magical archaeologists. Eight months ago he and his Cabal were attacked by a pair of unknown mages, who have been chasing him ever since. He gets a week's rest while warded, and then when his ward breaks they find out where he is and come after him again. The Cabal note the artefact he's carrying with him but he says it's from the last place his cabal dug up before he attack - and he found it months before the attack. Gawain and Kali, that night, get on well - he tells her stories of his adventures, and shows her the artefact, a metal handbell without the clapper, inscribed with runes. He tells her one story of a cunning set of mirrors loaded with Forces spells that amplified light into lasers. Wolsey gets a message from Mara saying that Avatar is doing much better. Ulysses tells Damascus that the Spirit has escaped across the Gauntlet - it's a Magath, a hybrid of a spirit of contemplation from the DC hierarchy and a spirit of pain and suffering from the Washington one. Damascus, fearing that it may be attracted to the resonance of the Cabal's node, has the Sanctum searched by Promethea, a Perfected Adept named LINK and a Mysterium Thyrsus named HEINRICH, but they declare it free of infestation. Kali fails to find Blaise. Shaken by events of the last few days, Kali stays watching her father's house too long, and a light comes on - did he see her? Kali and Wolsey return to the House of Stone to see what is there, but find that the place has been stripped.

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On their way back, Gawain teleports away from DC early - leaving them a letter thanking them for their help and the artefact he showed Kali, along with two lines of poetry After much experimentation, they discover that the artefact alters Mage Sight cast by the user, to reveal an additional layer of information keyed to whichever Arcana is being perceived. This information appears to reveal the presence of some kind of taint on some people - Kali and Damascus are both tainted while Wolsey is not, and an old woman living across the street is while Kali's gang aren't. The poetry turns out - after a search on a Mysterium online Lorehouse - to be from a poem about the Dethroned Queen, a legendary figure said to be an Exarch cast out by her fellows back onto Earth. She left five items to guide others into her footsteps - the bell, from the quotation, would be "THE RING OF THE DETHRONED QUEEN" which "finds truth". Wolsey suggests Gawain was being hunted because he saw something using the Ring. Damascus suggests he was being hunted because he *had* the Ring.

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"Not the Same Person"

Session 3.1
The title of Story Three is from a line by Wolsey towards the end of 3.1 that meets up with the themes of the rest of it - this group of sessions are about the gang joining their legacies, an act which changes you a great deal - not as much as Awakening does, but still not anything to be dismissed. You are, after all, deliberately altering your soul in the process. That's all mixed up with Wolsey's firm belief that they are not the same people that they were before their Awakenings, which *itself* is all mixed up with our first proper look at Kali's background. An Alternate title, which was sadly said out of character and thus ineligible, is "The greatest trick the devil pulled". Which I'll try to use later on in the Chronicle.

In the intervening time between stories, the Cabal have considered what to do with the Ring of the Dethroned Queen. Also known as the Bell of Ultimate Evil (tm Wolsey). Wolsey and Damascus both want to let Ulysses - as a much more experienced Prime Mage - take a look at it, and after a few days of resisting the idea Kali relents. After a bit of thought, Damascus opts for full disclosure, and tells Ulysses everything. If they were hoping to have Ulysses take it off their hands, they'll be disappointed he tells Damascus that he wants no truck with the thing, and that Damascus isn't to bring it to the church again. Aside from Ulysses' instinctive interpretation of the thing as a tool of the devil-Exarchs (Ulysses interprets the Exarchs and Oracles into his Catholicism a little more directly than Damascus does), he is worried about the effect the Ring will have on DC's mages should word of it's existence get out - artefacts have a way in even the most understanding of Consilia of trickling up the power structure, and if Malakaii were to hear of a device which shows how tainted a person is he would surely use it to conduct a pogrom. Out of the best of intentions, but still: this must never fall into his hands. Or Banneker's hands for that matter. He *does* tell Damascus, though, that the artefact has more than one effect laid down into it, distinguishable by Prime Mage Sight. The Ring, as well as casting it's conditional spell to modify mage sight, is something similar to a Grimoire. After a few days of resisting, Kali triggers this second effect and learns the "Ring Sight" spell from the Ring.
I'm having fun showing little bits and pieces of how the various npcs interpret the Awakening backstory - Ulysses faith is the counterpart to Mara's firm belief that Atlantis, the Oracles and the Exarchs are all just mental projections of humanity's subconscious, and don't actually exist. Not everyone has to be cookie-cutter. We breezed past this bit on the night, as I had an idea for an opening sequence that wasn't it. So I was denied the chance to have someone say that they would use this Ring out of a desire to do good. Ahem.

Later. It's Thursday the 29th of June, and the city is getting itself ready for the celebrations of the forthcoming week. The crowds are swelled by patriotic tourists, the parts of the city outside the diamond occasionally let off fireworks and the climate has turned the sticky humid that comes before the mother of all thunderstorms. In a hidden nook of the waterfront, shielded from sight by metal containers, Kali is sat quietly and alone, watching the ships come into the Naval base across the river. The city is especially full of the military this year for Independence Day, and Kali's finding it hard to avoid men in uniform. Still not quite over her depression following her encounter with the Seers of the Throne, the 4th July - and all the men in uniform have come at a particularly bad time. She associates them with... someone she used to know.

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... Damascus, meanwhile, is sat in an especially cheap diner. With him are Dantor, Ulysses, Link, Cerberus and a Mage named "Shore" he hasn't met before. They have tracked down the renegade spirit, and are about to go fix the problem. Cerberus' briefing is most instructive for Damascus, who learns of the three stages of possession by creatures of the Shadow World - emotional urging, direct control and then physical mutation. Hopefully, it hasn't gotten to physical mutation yet. The Spirit, seeking something in line with it's odd resonance of "peaceful contemplation of horror and pain", has taken up residence in a Nurse at a nearby Cancer Hospice. Which would seem to fit. The poor unfortunate hasn't left the building - the spirit wouldn't want to leave the resonance of the area where it could feed - so has probably made a nest somewhere on the premises. "It's always the basement" - Damascus, who has seen too many horror movies.
Which is also an in-joke to my aborted Werewolf: The Forsaken chronicle. The possessed human / Host / whatever *always* lurks in the basement.

... Wolsey, meanwhile, is in a bar - and buying a round. Handing out drinks, his fellow drinkers are revealed as Francine, Trace and a blond, square jawed fellow who turns out to be Hoban. The Heralds of the city are catching up before the busy season.
Francine and Trace turned up in person in 1.2. Francine was also fielding Wolsey's attempts to find Samuel in 2.1. We haven't met Hoban before now - he's a very Ivy-League sort who's the Consilium's Scribe. Oh, and Wolsey drinks Cranberry juice. Just so you know. Though Mark protests that that was cause he was driving, rather then any significance

News from the Consilium is "busy". Hoban has been back and forth between Banneker and the Ascendants - who keep sending the Hierarch long missives on where he's going wrong and ought to be going right, while Trace and the rest of Malakaii's Cabal are rushed off their feet with the huge influx of people - and things that are also people - into the city for the celebrations. The 4th July is not only the City's Birthday (an event which apparently means the House of Ariadne are having a sealed ceremony), but the reliable day that the Hallow on the Washington Monument opens, sending a pulse of Mana rippling through the Hallows, Ley lines and Junctures in a spreading wave. The council, as is the tradition in the city's consilium, have picked one Obrimos to be the one who they get inside the pyramid on top of the monument after first having exhausted all of their Mana, ready to absorb as much of the Pulse as possible. The lucky person so feted this year is a member of Samuel's cabal named Marian.
Marian being selected is a sign of Banneker's increasing wielding of real authority rather than being a lame duck Hierarch she's in his Legacy, and is the girlfriend of his own former apprentice. Neutral enough to not be argued about, obvious enough a sign to Malakaii and Suleiman that Banneker is in charge here to suit. Besides, are they going to tell Samuel she can't do it?

... Still sat out on the waterfront, Kali looks down at the mobile in her hand, wondering why she hasn't deleted that number yet. ... Damascus and company have performed a little breaking and entering and are

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brandishing various weapons of an unlikely nature as they descend the stairs into the basement. The air tastes like a battery on the tongue, and it's hot as hell down here. As Link peers through the gloom, there's a cry from behind them as the nurse - wildeyed and crazed with possession - attacks them. At which point Dantor punches her in the middle of the chest and she drops like a stone, unconscious or dead. Cerberus wipes his brow and begins the long process of exorcising the spirit.
Exorcism is an extended spell, and not something to be done in combat. Dantor, therefore, cast Suppress Other's Life to put the victim into a coma for the duration.

... Kali's finger hovers between "Call" and "Delete". The entry on her mobile clearly and simply reads "Dad" ... Wolsey, meanwhile, is checking up on some facts before he puts a plan into action. Still worried about Kali, he's been intending to go to Beckett for advice on defending her against the Seers, but has realised that he doesn't actually know anything *about* the man, other than his enmity for Malakaii. So he asks his fellow Heralds. The story isn't an encouraging one. Beckett, as Wolsey is increasingly incredulous no one told him, is considered to be Left-Handed. He tried to kill Malakaii by summoning an Acamoth - a spirit of the Abyss - and installing it into a body he then left as a trap for Malakaii. The plan went that when Malakaii tried to use his Attainment to modify memories on the Acamoth, it would use the contact to kill him. Or eat his soul. Or both, Trace isn't quite sure. "For God's sake, why?" - Wolsey "The Abyss is the only thing he's sure isn't under the control of the Exarchs" - Trace In any case, Beckett is technically living under a warrant for his arrest and trial for conspiring with the Abyss against a fellow Mage and a member of his own Cabal. The warrant was issued, but has never been carried out, and Beckett has never been brought in because of a lack of will for the bloodshed that would result. Plus, it is speculated, Beckett knows things about Malakaii and perhaps others he would be all too happy to vocalise in a trial. So Beckett remains silent and lives under exile in virtual house arrest, his trial and sentence deferred indefinitely.
Whoops. And he seemed *such* a nice man. Still, he still owes Kali a favour, Nefandi or not. Incidentally - this reaction to the Left-Handed - the way that although everyone knows Beckett consorts with abyssal entities, they're all still very polite about it, on the understanding that he'll kill anyone who tries to arrest him and they'll fireball him the instant he leaves his house. Other than that, it's live and let live.

"Well... At least he's not a baby-eater. ARE there any Baby-Eaters I should worry about?" - Wolsey Well, there's the technically-Guardians Project Twilight, who've all but cut themselves off from everyone else while they do.. whatever it is they do. There's Beckett. There's the Seers... There's a Mastigos named Alexander who believes people learn by adversity, so he spends his days as a lobbyist against anything that improves people's lives and deliberately sabotages relationships between people Even other 115

mages. But no baby eaters that have been identified, no. ... Back in the basement, the exorcism is complete and Damascus - using magic to see into Twilight - watches as the mangled and misshapen spirit rises up out of the comatose nurse, before being stabbed by Link with the Dagger Damascus made. it explodes into shards of Essence, and the group divide up tasks. Cerberus will clean up any offspring it may have been trying to create, Shore will cleanse the resonance of the site, Dantor will check to see if it was prolonging the deaths of any of the patients and put them right if it was, Ulysses will clear up any physical signs and Damascus will phone Mara to get her over here to modify the mind of the poor unfortunate who was possessed. "Right then. I'll be off. And please remember me in future for all your future spiritstabbing needs" - Damascus ... Kali hears a noise behind her and nearly drops her phone before fumbling it away. "Kali" - Samuel She's clearly not happy that the master found her here - she mutters that this is a private place, and he apologises. "A quiet place to think. I understand - could we talk somewhere else, then?" - Samuel She thinks about it for a moment, then agrees. Damascus, in search of a stiff drink, has just by coincidence entered the bar that the other Heralds have recently left, leaving Wolsey deep in his thoughts. Wolsey's rather concerned by the accidental running-into one another, but decides that it must just be one of those things as Damascus relates the tale of victory. Or rather his own standing by and watching as his handiwork is used to achieve victory, which Damascus is taking to be the same thing. ... Samuel asks Kali if she's figured out the answer to the Nickel problem she was posed by Blaise, and she has. After a brainwave, she used Postcognition and found out where Blaise got the thing from - it was put in his busker's hat by a tourist, who Blaise then blessed with Fate magics to have an especially auspicious few days. So the person most affected by the Nickel was that man. Samuel seems satisfied by that, and on the walk explains that he's been worried about her - word has reached him that she's been having trouble and he's been to see Blaise, who in Samuel's opinion isn't doing too great a job with her. The slow and steady path to developing a Mage is all very well, but not when she's having the trouble Kali is. Besides which, there's a big party for the house on the 4th, and Samuel wants he inducted by then. So he's taking over her training for the next couple of days. She

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should tell her friends that she's going to be busy, and he'll pick her up tomorrow. He's got a few errands to fulfil over the coming week, but he'll turn them into instructive demonstrations and field exercises for her, and in the end it runs something like Friday 30th applying themselves once and for all to the questions Kali wanted to join the Legacy to get answers to, Saturday 1st A Field trip to 1953, Sunday 2nd practice for her initiation test, Monday 3rd her actual initiation test. Easy. Agreeing (though a little apprehensive), Kali takes her leave and ducks into the nearest bar. What are the chances? After his bout of paranoia at the three of them coincidentally meeting, Wolsey brings up what he learned about Beckett. In a roundabout way. "Philosophical Question. Is it morally justifiable to take out a Seer by using the power of the Abyss?" - Wolsey Kali says yes, Damascus says no, but Kali changes her mind when it's explained to her what Wolsey's talking about. In fact, she becomes convinced that Wolsey is intending to summon a demon to kill Seraph, and spends a lot of time trying to argue him out of doing something he wasn't going to do. Once that's sorted out, though, and they have a bit of conversation comparing the use of such things to guns (Kali) and grenades (Wolsey), Wolsey becomes concerned that Kali is arguing not from the standpoint of "Abyss bad" but from the standpoint of "Killing Seers bad". Kali points out that they don't actually know what the Seers want, and that they haven't been hurt by them. How bad can they really be? "You're not from Massachusetts are you?" - Wolsey "You're starting to sound like John Bloody Kerry" - Damascus
Of course, the irony here is that Wolsey is from Massachusetts.

Kali protests that, saying that there's a lot they don't know - after all, the Seers could be *right* for all they know. That does not go down well. "How can you be like this? You know the secrets of the universe" - Wolsey "No I don't" - kali While Damascus declares that if they're going down this route he needs a beer (and beer is summoned), Wolsey puts forth his view of the Seers as cosmic chumps "They're serving people who don't need their help" - Wolsey Kali protests that they don't understand the Seers. "I find the way you're thinking disturbing" - Wolsey "I'm playing Devil's Advocate" - kali "You're not the Promotor Fidei" - Damascus "Well, don't. Don't try to understand them" - Wolsey "I'm just saying - have you considered that their point of view is different?" - Kali "I don't care. If you're doing *that* because you think it's the right thing, you're still a

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shmuck" - Wolsey "Somewhere, Wolsey, there is the Judge who knows right from wrong. We are not Him" - Damascus Wolsey thinks about that, and decides that it's a fight he's not willing to have right now - he'll have *this* battle when Kali's on his side and it's two against one.
Wolsey is of the opinion that religion is the tool of the Exarch. And furthermore, if you believe in God you at worst believe what they want you too, and at worst youre directly worshiping one. Yep, Wolsey reckons Gods an Exarch. Family and Religion are two problems that Wolsey reckons Damascus has.

"We... have drifted so ...far. Kali, you're talking dangerously" - Wolsey "And you're just being a Nazi" - kali
Godwin! The argument is over!

"Just.. Stop Asking about them. You're too curious" - Wolsey "I just want to know about them to know how to fight them better" - Kali "Well don't. Leave the Exarch dealing with to me. For now, keep your pretty little head out of it." - Wolsey
Yeurg. Kali's expression here, portrayed through Sam's, spoke volumes. Oh, Wolsey...

"... ... Do you realise how much of a stick you sound like you have up your ass?" Damascus "Can I remove it?" - Kali Wolsey tries to regroup from the sexist slip, trying to make her see how much of a target she's made of herself for them already. "You have too much of an open mind to be dealing with the enemy" - Wolsey "Look. I told you already that I'll shoot him the next time he appears" - Kali "You might have just said that to make me happy" - Wolsey "... ... Think I'm interested in making you happy?" - Kali Damascus, now fuelled with enough beer to try to be the voice of reason here, points out that the war is a cold one for a reason - Pylons and Cabals don't tend to go around blowing one another up because it's bad for business. It's like gang escalation, he says. If people are on your turf, then you don't immediately shoot them. You catch one of the slower ones and work him over a bit, or send him home covered in painted tags. "You release the tension through little things, rather than one big battle that kills everyone" - Damascus "You've read Romeo and Juliet. Like that with a less good ending" - Kali "You've read Romeo and Juliet?" - Wolsey "Yeah. And?" - Kali And Wolsey decides to quit while he's ahead. He's raised his fears, but Kali is in a mood to be belligerent. The Cabal's plans are discussed - Kali tells them that she's going to be with Samuel for the next few days, and Wolsey says that Francine mentioned something about it

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earlier. Kali wants the Cabal to have at least some time together on the 4th, assuming the world doesn't end or anything, which the other two seem to agree to. And with Kali off on an intensive training course with the House of Ariadne, it's maybe time for the other two to start thinking about their own ambitions of joining legacies too. Wolsey has made his decision already, and asked Trace to try to arrange a meeting between himself and Malakaii. Damascus considers that now post-exams, during the holiday - is probably the best time to find John Dee with any spare hours in his day. John is in Samuel's Cabal, so he asks Kali to ask Samuel to contact John on his behalf when she gets picked up tomorrow. She is to tattoo the reminder on her hand if necessary, but she says she'll remember. And that's that.
This next bit took the bulk of the session - three pretty involved sequences of the characters and their Legacy tutors, or not as one case will turn out. Although it was pretty unavoidable, I hate doing this sort of splitting of the party for the bulk of a session (there were one or two Deliria sessions in particular, that I still shudder about - the gory details are in that other thread). We begin with Kali, with a look at the issues that have been bubbling under for a while now. What's that?! Smells like... background!

When Samuel said he'd pick Kali up, she wasn't expecting him to do it in a Green 60s Volkswagen Beetle. Remembering the night before, she tells him about Damascus' search for the elusive alchemist, and Samuel busies himself for a few minutes calling John, before opening the car door for Kali. "Where are we going?" - Kali "To my Time Machine" - Samuel "There's an actual Time Machine?" - Kali "Oh yes. You should see what this baby does when she hits 88 miles per hour" Samuel, patting the dash affectionately.
There's never a reason to not have a Back to the Future joke

Samuel goes into a long, rambling speech about the House of Ariadne, and what Ariadne's web actually is - how the knock-on chains of sympathy and contagion cause the threads that the House sense, and how they collectively make up the soul of the City. The threads can show you why something happened, and even what is likely to happen, but not for certain. Everyone living causes changes to the web, pulling it this way and that - Mages especially. "Always in motion, the future is" - Samuel, in a Yoda voice. Predictions are never certain, is his point, and it is the nature of Fate to evolve and change. That's where she's maybe going wrong - thinking that the future is fixed. "Now, was what you wanted to learn from the City in the future?" - Samuel She says not - rather the opposite. He encouragingly says that the past is much more fixed, and if there are answers to be had they will have them today, so that she can then decide if she wants to go on with the House or not. They arrive at what appears to be a decommissioned TV transmitter station on a hill, somewhere on the Maryland side of the Diamond. Samuel proudly introduces it as his Time Machine, and he doesn't seem to be kidding this time.

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"So what are you looking for?" - Samuel Inside the building, Kali feels strange, and oddly familiar. Time seems to contract and jump as they walk through the corridors, a feeling like she hasn't experienced since her Awakening. Samuel explains that the place is a Demesne, tuned by a piece of his soul into Arcadia to make his Work easier. Along with certain other factors, it makes up an aid to his time travelling, hence Time Machine.
It took this session to convince me of my initial design placing him in the Free Council.

They reach the tower itself, and start to climb the ladder. Kali explains that she feels has felt, ever since she awakened - like she's missing out on another life, as though her destiny was stolen from her at some point, and the past she remembers was fake. They reach a point high up above ground level - in the centre of the Hallow. An eggshaped room, padded on the lower half for reclining, is reached through a small hatch. The upper surface of the ovoid is covered in complex High Speech and ideograms like circuit patterns, and the place is lit by a Lava Lamp glooping merrily to itself in the centre. "This is my meditation chamber. Where we'll go on the voyage. Now - about these feelings of disconnection. Are you certain they are not caused by your Awakening?" Samuel Kali says that she felt it before she Awoke, and that she had a proper mentally-inArcadia Awakening, not a mystery play. The disconnection was there before she awoke. In fact, it was probably why she awoke. "I feel different. I.. *feel* it. I don't know what it is" - Kali "The passage of time makes everyone feel a little like that. We don't notice, normally, as it's so slow and human memory cheats. But it's easy enough to see for ourselves we can go back to before, and compare how you felt then to now" - Samuel Kali's okay with that. nothing she hasn't done before. What IS slightly disconcerting is Samuel casting a spell and speaking first into her mind from a point between her ears, and then shifting so that it sounds like he's speaking from just behind her. When he clearly isn't. "We're linked, and all set. Do you want to drive?" - Samuel Cue Postcognition. They're inside a house, exaggerated-large from childhood and well-kept. Kemi, aged 12, sits reading a bad fantasy novel involving unicorns while Kali and the disembodied Samuel look on. At the other end of the room, exaggerated large from the perspective of Kemi the girl, sits the man Kali's been running from the thought of for four years. Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Simone. Her father.
The mother is never mentioned. Kevin, incidentally, is named after someone Sam had to deal with at work. Apparently.

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Kali murmurs down their telepathic link that she had no idea - she knew it would be different, but.. she can feel the traces of her childhood self's regard for her/their dad, and they're stronger than she thought possible. Whatever changed in her was more of a wrench than she realised. Samuel answers that they could try looking later, and Kali cancels the spell, then recasts it, this time aiming for the age of sixteen. The feelings have changed, but not so much as to be noticeable - just the reactions of a teenager rather than a child. But in the slightly older Kemi, Kali can detect the faint tinges of whatever it is - the feeling that not all is right with her world, that her dad isn't telling her something. Back to the present. "So what happened? Before you Awoke?" - Samuel "I..." - Kali Kali casts Postcognition again. Four years ago, Kemi accuses her father of lying to her her whole life. Kali and Samuel watch as Kemi shouts that she knows the truth - that she's adopted. Her father, hurt and shocked, doesn't deny it. Tears streaming down her face, Kemi storms off out of the house. "That was the last time I saw him. Silhouettes in curtains aside" - Kali "I understand now. Your worldview was shattered." - Samuel And then she Awoke, while wandering, penniless and hurting. While in Arcadia, Kemi saw half-glimpsed images of a child dressed in rags in some hot country. She put two and two together with her father's old posting to Kashmir and figured it out: he took her in, brought her to the US, maybe even claimed she was his daughter. "Why do you hate him?" - Samuel "He stole my life. My destiny. What I should have done, when I was there." - Kali "I said to you before: Fate changes. The future changes, in line with people's actions. What he did - if he even did it - hasn't overridden anything." - Samuel "Why do I feel like this?" - Kali "He didn't deny it. That's true. But he didn't confirm it either. You don't know for sure, and maybe that's what's nagging at you. There's one way for sure of finding out." Samuel Kali is hesitant - she's shied away from doing this, ever since she learned enough Time to technically be able to. Part of her doesn't want to know. She attempts to cast Postcognition again, looking for herself as a baby. And fails. "Nothing" - Kali "Would you like me to drive?" - Samuel (deep breath) "Go ahead" - Kali

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"All right. What's your name, Kali?" - Samuel "Kemi. Kemi Simone" - Kali
Deliberately the same line Seraph used

Samuel casts... and fails. "Hmmm" - Samuel Kali gives a broken half-shrug, sort of a "oh, well", but Samuel isn't about to give up that easily. "There is another way about this. These feelings, they're in your mind. Somewhere, in your subconscious, you knew the truth. That's why your suspicion grew, why you had that argument with him. This is a thing within your mind... So we should look inside your mind." - Samuel Samuel begins to explain Astral Space to her.
The astute would notice something. If she WAS adopted, then it's likely her real name isn't in fact Kemi. Unless she was *very* young.

....
And from that long-overdue exploration of a character's backstory, we head to an extremely tense conversation. So tense, in fact, that I didn't capture any dialogue for it at all, so it will be briefly recounted here.

Trace has come up with the goods, and so Wolsey heads for the French Embassy, outside which Malakaii is lurking. Wolsey notes that this is the first time he's ever seen Malakaii *waiting* - he normally erases the memory of his comings and goings. They greet one another in the manner of cold war spies. "Why do you want to join my legacy?" - Malakaii Excellent question. Wolsey decides, in the face of the man who can probably tell if he's lying anyway, to tell the whole truth. He outright says that he wants to learn Malakaii's powers so that he can use them to lower the disbelief of the people he works with in his cults, in order to Awaken more people. Malakaii, for his part, is vaguely horrified at the idea, and asks how he's supposed to agree to that. Wolsey says that with the Guardian's focus on protecting magic they don't have time to devote to the potential recruitment of making more mages, and acknowledges that that does go against the purpose of the Labyrinth. Malakaii says that the Labyrinth is there for a reason - to trap the unworthy and simultaneously give the worthy a route by which they *can* Awaken. Like, for example, Wolsey himself. Wolsey repeats his belief that the Guardians miss people that he could find, and Malakaii repeats that the safeguards are there for a reason. They break down into a brief conversation about the Silver Ladder vs. the Guardians

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of the Veil. Wolsey confesses that he doesn't really know what the Guardians stand for, and Malakaii gives a speech about sacrifice for the greater good, and protecting magic from the sleepers. Wolsey asks why magic needs to be protected from the sleepers, and Malakaii states his Order's belief - every paradox causes the Abyss to widen, so every sleeper that witnesses magic harms the supernal. Wolsey concedes that, but points out that the technique he wants to learn lowers Disbelief, so mitigates that. Wolseys argument is that disbelief causes paradox. So if you lower it, you can show magic to sleepers safely.
Well, actually, it doesn't. Disbelief has nothing to do with when a Paradox occurs - Sleepers instinctively countermagic spells with their disbelief, but Vulgar magic is still vulgar.

Wolsey takes issue with the idea that only a handful of people deserve to make it out of the Labyrinth, and Malakaii launches into describing it in terms of efficiency - the Labyrinth IS a trap, to allow the unworthy or unsuitable to expend their energies and desire for secrets harmlessly. The worthy advance anyway, and are picked up by Guardians trained in spotting such people. Malakaii then admits something - that he "created" the Legacy out of a need for such elegant efficiency in the Guardian's *other* line of work. He asks Wolsey, rhetorically, how many people the Guardians have executed, or placed under Geas, or branded, or even reprimanded, within the city in the last few years. Wolsey doesn't answer, and Malakaii triumphantly says that the answer is none. Because everyone assumes Malakaii will find out about anything they do, they all behave by and large. All Malakaii has to do is wipe a few random seconds from memories and rewrite a few conversations that weren't significant anyway, and he has the city in such a paranoid mess that they fall into line. Efficiency.
Ha!

Wolsey claims that recruitment is not the Guardian's first priority, and so he would inherently do a better job, which claim Malakaii finds insulting.
Mark: Wolseys argument was purely on the fact that Malakaii, and the guardians, cant do everything. It would be more efficient to let someone else do it, for whom it was a higher priority. And yeah, there is a little of the fact that the side effects of Malakaiis technique are what Wolsey sees as the more profound. How much better would they be if they were the primary?

Malakaii points out that the Guardians and their Labyrinth are responsible for more than half of Awakenings, more than any other Order, but that they are the smallest Order - because despite what Wolsey may think, when they say "suitable" they do not mean "for the Guardians and only the Guardians". The trap of the Labyrinth is for people that for the good of all should not be given the powers of the Supernal, not for people who disagree with Malakaii. Otherwise Wolsey would never have made it out of the Boston Labyrinth.
Mark: This was where Wolsey tuned out. He accepts these as probably true, but beside the point. Hes never accused The GotV of being selfish of awakenings. As far as he was concerned, Malakaii was going off on a tangent here. The wider issue is that Wolsey thinks the GotV are whiny. They do bad things that are necessary, but seem to have some guilt complex that compels them to do other things to make up for it. As far as Wolseys concerned, the bad things that they do are worth it just by themselves. Of course, if Id been on the ball, Id have taken his argument one step further. If the Malakaii can let him awaken, why cant he let him have the gift of the legacy on the same ground.

Wolsey sticks to his guns, and eventually forces Malakaii to admit that there IS in fact a Guardian who's sole job it is to watch the Labyrinth for potential Awakenings and

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shepherd people up when he finds them. Wolsey asks who it is, and Malakaii bluntly refuses to tell him.
Wolsey doesnt believe him. He believes that GotV do do this generally, but he didnt believe Malakaii has one in the city. Cause he doesnt reckon theres anyone spare. Though thinking on this, he might try to find them.

The meeting ends. Wolsey refuses to believe that the Veil does more good than harm - they do a lot of good, but a lot of harm - but asks that he be allowed to remember this conversation. Malakaii - rattled beyond reason - says that he just doesn't trust Wolsey to not Awaken a horde of Banishers or Seers, which mildly insults Wolsey. Malakai says that he has devoted his life to building a model of efficiency such that he and his Guardians do not have to have the sin of dealing more directly with transgressors weighing on the souls - even though the means of doing so mean that Malakaii is hated by everyone. But if Wolsey achieved his aims, then Malakaii *would* have to start killing people. And that's not something he's willing to do. Wolsey is refused membership in the Legacy. He thanks Malakaii for the time, and leaves to have a think about what he's going to do now.
More on this in later sessions - especially what this means for Banneker's master plan, which is now looking more than slightly shaky.

... Damascus, having received Samuel's message earlier in the day, is exploring the corridors of Georgetown University's Chemistry Department, looking for a particular office. Finally locating the correct room, he knocks and enters to find an elderly British man with grey shaggy hair and a deeply wrinkled face irritably marking exam papers. "Irritably", Damascus will learn, is Dr John Dee's standard operating procedure. "You're the one Cerberus was talking about" - John "I am, yes" - Damascus "What do you know about Alchemy?" - John Damascus apologises that his education has holes in it, and starts in on an explanation (straight from Wikipedia) about how it's commonly held to be about the transformation of lead in... "Zzzz. Spare me 'Commonly Held'. What do YOU know about Alchemy? *FAIL*." John, marking an exam with a big fat F "Pretty much the same. Only I'm the lead" - Damascus "Better. Why do you want to join my Legacy?" - John "I have, in my life, done certain things for which I feel guilty..." - Damascus "Oh for fuck's sake. Don't whine to me about your guilt. Guilt is useless. 'Oh woe is me, I must be hated by all for my position'" (mimicking Malakaii) "If you didn't know something was wrong when you did it, but later found out it was, then you shouldn't do it again. If you know something is wrong but choose to do it anyway, you're 124

making a conscious decision. Anything else is a lack of conviction, or worse still knowing what needs to be done but whining about it all the way." - John Damascus processes that. "For most of my life I was a.. what's the word? Something that feeds of something else and doesn't give anything back?" - Damascus "A Parasite" - John "A Parasite. I.. have changed, through my Art. I think that it helps me and, if I may say so, it helps others - if some kid can see what I do and be inspired, then it's worth it" - Damascus, a *tad* self-importantly "I'm sure they do that all the time" - John, dryly "I came here because I was recommended to listen to you, to learn what you did. Why don't you tell me about your Legacy?" - Damascus John, relishing a chance to lecture, gives a summation of the Legacy - internal changes, his theory goes, lead to changes to their environment, so by deliberately changing their environment and studying how they do, the legacy can effect internal changes according to their desires. They are "Uncrowned kings" because they are the masters of their own selves, not for any other reason. "It's hard work. Bloody hard work. We're not flashy, we're not popular. We can't rewrite people's minds, and we can't do funky things with ley lines. This Legacy is about how your toil changes you, not about pulling Goth chicks at the Consilium." John Damascus sits back "I'm sold. If you'll have me" - Damascus John looks him up and down. "Done. We'll meet up tomorrow and perform the necessary rituals. And now, youngster, your first lesson in Hard Work. You didn't know the word Parasite for fuck's sake. Did you even finish High School?" - John "I have a GED" - Damascus "Not good enough. It's June, nearly July. First Semester starts in September. You will be a Freshman at one of the colleges in the city when it starts. You will not us magic, nor social influences. You'll apply, sit the entrance exams, and you'll pass. I don't care *how* late you stay up revising - you, sir, are getting an education" - John Damascus, sensing a lot of cram sessions in his future, agrees.
Back to Kali, now, and Astral Space. If ever there was a scene which hinted at the future of the chronicle, by the way, this is it. I really like the Astral Realms as presented in Awakening and it's supplements, by the way. All the possibilities of the Umbra from the oWoD without ever forgetting that what you're experiencing is not strictly physical. The Abyss and the Supernal Realms are inside all of us, more states of the soul's being than physical places.

Samuel has talked Kali through the various levels of Astral Space - from the world of 125

waking consciousness, through cogent dreaming and meditation, through the Astral barrier into the world of one's own Soul in the Oneiros, into the soul of humanity in the Temenos and then the soul of the world in the Dreamtime. "And beyond that, the Abyss. And then, lost on it's far side, the Supernal Realms" Samuel Kali expresses her hope that they won't go quite that far, and Samuel says the Abyss is very hard to reach deliberately for the Awakened - they should be fine. Throwing a switch that turns the lavalamp from red to green, he tells her to close her eyes and begins talking her through the meditation necessary, aiming for the Temenos. It is a long, slow and difficult process. Kali's never done this before, and Samuel's pushing her quite hard. After a couple of hours, though, she feels her consciousness expanding inwards and the Astral Barrier break, and opens her eyes to find herself within the Temenos. The Astral DC has a sky of Stars and Stripes, burning in places. The buildings loom, rising and falling like ships as they jostle to bock one's view from the burning wasteland behind them - the "two cities" extending even to the soul of humanity. Halfformed, blurry people run around her, effortlessly crossing the surface of reflecting pools like quicksilver. Samuel is nowhere to be seen.
He overshot - accumulating too many successes, and ending up in the Dreamtime.

Considering her actions carefully, not sure of what she should be doing, she concentrates on finding a familiar place and starts walking in the direction that, if this were the real world, would be towards home. What she finds, when she gets there, isn't entirely encouraging. The ceiling of her warehouse stretches up impossibly tall, the stairs to her bedroom have been represented by a spiral iron staircase twisting up and up and up, and above her, hanging from the ceiling, there's.. something. Something dark, with the distinct edge of webbiness about it, and the feeling that she's being observed by something within it. At which point the cracked stone floor says "Eid" in the voice of a dozen choirboys, and Samuel is disgorged with a smell of ancient dust. "Sorry. Overshot." - Samuel, looking around. Samuel says that this is what the City looks like to the people within it, deep down inside their souls where they can't fool themselves. The Temenos, he says, should be thought of as a sort of average of all the thoughts people have about the city. "So this.. *this* is what people think of me?" - Kali "Some people, yes." - Samuel This isn't the point of their journey, he points out, only an educational side trip. If she's going to spend her life serving the soul of the city, she may as well see what at least one version of it looks like. Their goal lies both deeper in some ways and shallower in others - certainly more personal, into her own personal mindscape, but

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actually closer to waking reality. "Just concentrate. I'll help you. Some of this around is you - you contribute your own opinions and stereotypes to this mishmash all around us. Focus on those. Find something that is definitely yours, and concentrate on it, tuning out the influences of other minds. We're going up, now, filtering out just your own projected scenes..." Samuel They successfully shift into Kali's Oneiros, and the scene around them dissolves into a half-glimpsed confusion of broken imagery and memories playing out within one another, shifting around like half-remembered dreams. The private thoughts of her inner mind and soul, projected all around them. "There will be Guardians - elements of your own psyche that don't want you to learn what you seek. I can help, but I can't fight them for you." - Samuel "I understand. I want to find my father" - Kali "There are probably several of him" - Samuel They begin their search, and quickly run into a scene from an exaggerated child's perspective - her father as seen from the very young Kemi's viewpoint. "The Patrician character. Noble, truthful, powerful and protective. If you were a boy it would probably be Jesus or Optimus Prime" - Samuel "Another" - Kali The next Father Figure they find is dressed in combat gear, brandishing a rifle like a spear, guarding a rope bridge across a chasm. On the far side screams a horde of Raksha, but her father has his back to them. Kali, noting that her subconscious seems to have come up with the goods, observes the Raksha, but something's wrong - they're not moving right, not entirely.. convincing. As she watches, the optical illusion resolves itself and she realises that the demonic "Raksha" are flat, two dimensional - they're shadow puppets put up on the far side of the chasm. "They're fake. The enemy he's protecting you from is fake" - Samuel "Maybe it represents what he was keeping from me" - Kali They try another, and this one seems to be much more in line with what she was expecting. The front room of her childhood home, her father sat in a chair blocking the front door, which is slightly ajar. From the tiny gap visible in it, and the shafts of light and half-muffled sounds coming from the heavily draped windows, whatever is outside isn't the leafy DC suburb she grew up in. Smells wafting from the door hint at strange and wonderful things to be found outside. She takes a step forward, and the Father-figure's eyes snap open. "No" - Father "This would be one of those Guardian" - Samuel

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Kali nods and walks forward again, and the father-guardian stands up, looming impossibly tall above them. Kali tries to duck past him, and the Guardian grabs her in the crook of an elbow, lifting her off the ground easily, before freezing solid. Samuel has cast Stop Time "You don't have long!" - Samuel She struggles, and manages to slip back down to the floor just as the Guardian reanimates. Kali lunges for the doorjamb just as the Guardian turns and reaches down again. It grabs her legs and pulls her away from the door, just as her fingers manage to hook around the doorjamb. The door is pulled open, and the Guardian vanishes - forgotten and left behind - as Kali's perceptions accelerate forward, scenery opening up around her like an opening flower. In a field of yellow flowers, Seraph (and although she's never seen this body before, she knows it's Seraph) lies dismembered. Trampling on it, feet moving in an elaborate dance, is Kali herself, dressed in a sari topped with a short cloak with three metal plates sewn on and a grey gauze wrapped around her eyes like a blindfold. She's poking her tongue out, as she dances backwards. "That's me. Me now, I mean" - Kali "Seraph..?" - Samuel Before she can ask him, Samuel prods the scenery, which vibrates with concentric ripples "I thought so." (apologetic expression, which makes Kali's face fall) "Kali.. This isn't what was beyond the door. It's as fake as those demons." - Samuel "This isn't the secret?" - Kali "You didn't beat the Guardian. He caught you. This is what your mind has covered up what it really knows with" - Samuel They concentrate, and bring themselves back to waking reality, Kali blinking and stretching after hours spent immobile. "I didn't learn what he was keeping from me" - Kali "No. But we can try again, another time. Or you can yourself - you know how to reach the Oneiros now" - Samuel Kali nods, and smiles in thanks "Enough answers for today. I don't think the questions will ever run out" - Kali "Enough for today full stop - it's dark. I'll take you home, and tomorrow we'll visit 1953" - Samuel Kali muses that maybe there isn't anything. Maybe this IS just all teenage feelings of

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not belonging mixed up with her Awakening. Maybe there wasn't a life stolen. And then Samuel, rather shamefaced, tells her something important.
What? You'll find out in a bit. Shameless whore that I am, I'm keeping it in stead for the point at the end of the session when Kali tells the others, even though Samuel actually told her here. Reads better this way.

...
This bit played out while the above was going on, so I wasn't listening to it properly.

Damascus and Wolsey, fresh from their own interviews, have somehow wound up in the same (but different) bar again, Wolsey by now too tired to properly get worried by it. They swap progress; "You've been to university, right?" - Damascus While Damascus asks for Wolsey's advice on how to get into college, Wolsey goes through his own failure in his mind, the slight sympathy he had for Malakaii's position vanishing in the slew of bitterness. Where before he was willing to concede that he would have to make some limits on his plans to Awaken people, now he's of the opinion that he's had enough of tiptoeing around the Guardians. Damascus asks him if he's spoken to Avatar lately, and seems slightly concerned when Wolsey says that he hasn't. Damascus voices again his intention to spend time with her, which Wolsey gives an utterly disinterested reaction to. He's more interested in something he's been thinking about for a while now, bubbling under but released with the thoughts of cults and secret societies. "The Houses that the Juncture spoke of. We know from Kali that the House of Stone is the Seers, and I thought the House of Steel might be us. But now I don't think they are. I think they're another.. what do they call them? Pylon?" - Wolsey "Pylon" - Damascus "Right. I think it's the Seers infighting. On my turf." - Wolsey Kali appears, sitting down next to them wearily. "How did you find us?" - Wolsey, paranoid "Magic. Duh." - Kali Wolsey 'oh's and goes back to the conversation, talking about his options now that Malakaii has turned him down. If he's to continue with his plan, then he needs some way to prevent Malakaii from intruding on it - and especially some way to prevent Malakaii from editing his memories. "Banneker must have some way of protecting himself. I could ask him. 'Excuse me Mr Banneker, how do you stop the nasty man from raping me? My Ass hurts'" Wolsey The others ask what caused the derailment, and Wolsey casts it as a conflict between the Guardians and the Silver Ladder - that the Guardians want to prevent people from Awakening, while the Ladder (especially Wolsey) want the reverse.
It's not quite that simple, but Wolsey is bitter and has a few beers in him

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Damascus tries to counsel that maybe Wolsey's plan wasn't all that hot to begin with - he doesn't seem to have thought it through much. "What was that you say about contemplation of action not leading to inaction?" Wolsey "I'm never going to live that quote down, am I? - Damascus "No" - Wolsey Wolsey says that he's thought it through fine. Every soul awakened is another one saved from the Exarchs, from the lie. That the Guardians want to keep some people there is unforgivable. "I want everyone to have the chance to see the real world, to be free" - Wolsey Damascus and Kali try to argue that some people shouldn't be Awoken. Kali brings up the seers, asking how Wolsey knows that the people he wakes up won't join the opposition. Wolsey shrugs it off, claiming that no-one given an informed choice could possibly choose the Seers over the Pentacle. He asks rhetorically if they've heard of anyone ever going over to their side.
Actually, as a couple of people have obliquely mentioned, Seraph is a turncoat.

Damascus uses the example of a particularly fiery preacher they passed outside to ask if everyone is suitable. Wolsey says that people will change. "You can't deny you're not the same person" - Wolsey "I wish I couldn't" - Damascus Kali, quiet in the background, silently agrees with the Moros "I think.. I think you're going to bend and snap people's minds. Look at Virgil" Damascus "I'm not trying to make people happy. I'm trying to show them the truth" - Wolsey Damascus blinks
Whoa, there.

Kali, faced with Wolsey saying that his purpose is offering people a choice, brings up her drug-dealing ways which he has criticised in the past. She admits that that mission got sidetracked, but that she's stopped the Crack being produced and is focusing on less forcibly addictive outlets for people Sometimes, giving people a choice IS too far, and he helped her see that. Wolsey, though, waves it off, saying that they're not parallel situations at all.
Harsh, this. She gave IN to his earlier ranting, and now he's taken over her former position.

"Don't say you're giving them a choice. What you're talking about is ripping their blinders off" - Damascus Wolsey swigs his beer and says that this is all hypothetical anyways - a long way off if at all. A maybe unattainable goal. "Do you know what those big things are made up of? What does a ladder gave?" -

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Kali "Oh, no. Don't give me that" - Wolsey Kali stops. "The problem with me is I have ambition" - Wolsey "Really? I thought you were a meek unassuming guy" - Damascus Wolsey elaborates. His flaw, he says, was admitting his dream to Malakaii. If he had compromised, said he'd follow Guardian recruiting practices, he'd have probably got into the Legacy. But he felt he had to be honest about his ambitions, no matter how lofty. And on that note, they've hit impasse. "We shall see what morning's light brings, and what insights can be gleaned from the hangover" - Wolsey In an effort to get off the conversational impasse, Damascus and Wolsey ask Kali how *her* day went... ... Flash back to the time machine, as Kali and Samuel are leaving. "You're not imagining this, Kali. You can feel there's something wrong in your life, but can't find any proof of it. Even inside your own dream realm it's locked away. You don't have any special Destiny, nor any curses laid on your Fate. I've checked. Your father issues, much as they pain you, are entirely ordinary - but there's something *else*." - Samuel Samuel says he believes that she can tell there's something missing, but not be able to see what it is. He says that he told her before, about how people, and especially mages and other supernaturals, move the threads of Ariadne all the time. "For a while now, I have seen threads moving without cause - or without *seen* cause. Shifted by the actions of something that isn't there, like corks bobbing in rippling water that I can't see. Sometimes - just sometimes - when I come back from the past, I can... I can *tell* that I learned something. I have a great sense of urgency, like I've found out something crucial. But I can never remember what it is. There's something missing, Kali. Another spider in Ariadne's web. So I believe you." - Samuel ... Back in the bar "He said.. He said that he cast a prophecy, to find out how he would discover what this thing was. It said that *I* would lead him to the answer." - Kali "And.. 1953, I would guess, is one of these places from which he returns changed?" Wolsey "That would be my guess" - Kali Fun. And foreboding.

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Fin.

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Session 3.2
Session 3.2 covers two full days in the lives of our characters, during which no one gets much sleep. The characters realise that one cannot simply take time out of the world to work on ones Legacies and expect the world to stay still around them things have been happening while theyve been wrapped up in their own concerns, and they can see the half-glimpsed shapes of larger concerns. And a last note before we start, as I realise that I havent mentioned another element to the chronicle: soundtracks. I have an extensive collection of movie soundtracks, which adds on to Mark and Sams CD collection. This particular session is brought to you by the soundtracks for Miami Vice and Fight Club, along with Evanescences Open Door.

Saturday 1st July In a disused chemistry lab in Georgetown University, Damascus and John Dee are hunched over equipment borrowed from other labs, cooking up an alchemical preparation to assist in the process of inducting Damascus into the Legacy. The creation is some sort of bezoar, coated in a sticky brown substance that may look like but in no way smells like (and, as Damascus is about to find out, definitely doesnt taste like) chocolate. After Damascus ingests the noxious substance, he and John study Damascus resonance in a piece of his own statuary (actually a very early piece) he brought with him. Gradually, John takes away the various Mind and Matter spells allowing him to read his own aura in the art, until Damascus finds that hes doing it without magic.
A bezoar is essentially a hairball. A Magically significant hairball, but a hairball nonetheless. Damascus has now joined his Legacy and gained his first Attainment. Rafe points out that this is technically a trichinobezoar. There are apparently different types.

Kali, theorising that when Samuel said hed pick her up when she got up he meant that hed use his magic to arrive at the proper time, has herself a nice lie-in until early afternoon, sat in bed watching TV. When she does emerge she finds Samuel sat on the bonnet of his car, eating a hot dog. On the drive to the Time Machine, Samuel explains the particulars of time travel. Im sorry we dont have any more time to examine your own questions Samuel Its fine. Gives me something to think of when I join the House Kali Yes, well I hope you find today instructive, even aside from the possibility well learn more about our shared problem. Well be visiting New York in 1953 Samuel He launches into a technical description of the processes involved as they drive.
Samuels method of time travel involves a gonzo-level Time and Mind conjunctional spell to project ones mind and the minds of anyone hes previously set up a telepathic link to back in time into the targets own consciousness, which he then rides the surface thoughts of. This obviously cant be used on Mages, who might sense an interloper from the future scrying on them, so a variant exists using other Arcana to build a construct out of ephemera in a state of Twilight which is then used as the host for his reverse-projected mind. Thats what he and Kali will be doing today. Much of Samuels time is therefore spent building up Temporal Sympathy to people and places made easier by his habitual use of the Time Arcana in a reverse-engineered form of the Space threads spells. Put simply, whenever Samuel finds he doesnt have time to give his attention to more than one thing, or he suspects something important is going on, he casts a spell to give himself artificial temporal sympathy to the present, which he can then use at his leisure to go back and make a more exacting go of things.

As they climb the ladder into the meditation chamber, he tells her the downside. Unfortunately, I cant show you the Imago for the spells involved today, as someone in our present is active in the time and place were going to be visiting, and Ive used him as our target point. It would cause a situation if you were to find out their real name through me. Samuel

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Kali somehow contains her disappointment at not seeing the Imago for a spell she isnt remotely capable of casting yet. For that reason, Ive modified the mind-linking spell for the occasion. Whenever someone says the name, you should just hear a beep Samuel Just a beep? Not a duck quacking? Kali Samuel considers, cancels the pre-prepared spell and starts casting the mind link anew. All right. Done. Okay comfy? Close your eyes and hold onto your lunch. We are about to visit the early career of Malakaii. Or, as I prefer to think of him, quack Samuel
Samuel, and this is crucial to his character, is a dork.

Kali feels a disconnection, a lurch, a huge surge of Supernal Energies and Samuels nimbus washing over her, then shes standing blinking in the sunlight on a New York street. The small details fascinate her eye the lack of neon, the appalling fashions, the lack of many skyscrapers. But mostly the cars. While Kali admires the much cooler automobiles of the period, Samuel looks around, the crowd of passers-by walking through him as if he werent there apparently not bothering him in the least. 1953. Back where we are, Truman has just become president. The Korean War has finished. McCarthyism is in full swing, Teachers and Actors are losing their jobs and sometimes their liberties in their droves. This is a bad time to be different. Samuel They walk, Kali trying not to be walked through. They cant sense us. We are as ghosts in fact, if I could be bothered to modify the spell putting us in Twilight, wed be able to see them all around us Ah. There he is Samuel It takes Kali three tries to trace Samuels outstretched finger to the correct person. The young man is maybe twenty, his expression serious, his arms full of books and his bow-tie crooked. With a squint, though, he is recognisable. Its the haircut. Malakii today has the same haircut. Thats Malakaii!? Kali That is. Hes not yet Awakened, a student at Brooklyn University where his father is a Professor of Anthropology, as it happens, and famously liberal. Samuel They follow Malakaii-to-be to a diner, where the young man orders and sits, opening one of the books in his pile and putting on a pair of seriously retro glasses. quack himself has followed his fathers example the Civil Rights movement hasnt properly started yet, not as youd know it, but hes something of a vocal well enthusiastic alright: committed member of some seriously radical student activist bodies. He believes, would you credit it, that coloured people and women should have rights. Fancy that. His family mix in some odd circles through his fathers friends and his own, Malakaii has developed a keen interest in the Occult. All part of the same liberal mindset, you see? He sees the society of the world as a cage hes

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trying to break out of. If hed been ten years younger hed have been a hippie. Samuel What happened to him? Kali
Cutting right to the heart of the matter there. Both Kali and Samuel see the young Malakaii as someone theyd well... like

Samuel turns very sombre This year, a legal precedent will allow state loyalty review boards to fire teachers they decide are subversive. Within less than a year, his father will be expelled from his job and blacklisted from Academia. And Malakaiis behaviour will be used as evidence against his father. Samuel Kali watches the young man, whos intent on his book. In the background, Samuel goes on to describe how the family leave the country in the end, off to India. How Malakaiis father dies within two years and how Malakaii Awakens through the experience, fleeing into the occultism that damned his family, still trying to escape that cage. How his first Cabal is trapped and killed by the Seers of the Throne and how, in the end, Malakaii comes to blame himself. Then blame everyone else. Then blame freedom for persecution. How when he eventually returns to America in the 60s it is as a vastly different man. And this is the lesson I wanted to teach you. This is not the same person as the Malakaii we know. Look back at anyone this distant and they will be different, but his is such a powerful case it makes an object lesson. Everything is evolving no one is the same person after fifty years, a year even a day. Ariadnes gifts will let you see the past, but it is only ever useful by seeing how it has led to the present. Samuel
Spot the story title again

Kali nods, and turns her back on the young Malakaii But we are not changed by large events alone - they are easier to see, but the true course of evolution is the long slow pressure of small things. We can teach you to look to the past, and the temptation of the historian is to look for revolutions, but if you neglect the understanding of day-to-day life your calculations will be in error, your conclusions half-formed and your life dangerous. Malakaii did not end up the way he is overnight there were large events to be sure, but it was the work of decades that turned his heart sour." Samuel You know I meant to tell you this, but I thought that it might have been him altering your memory Kali Samuel says that the thought had occurred, and that hes checked. He is certain, by various means both magical and mundane, that Malakaii isnt the culprit. Speaking of which. Are you ready to go back now? Samuel Kali agrees that its time to get back to her own body, and asks Samuel what happens does he experience missing time, lose his memory of the entire trip or what? He says that its more of a feeling actually, more like a certainty that hes figured something absolutely vital out that he somehow cant express.
Actually you know whats strange and only apparent when I come to write this? How much more businesslike and serious Kali is when not around the other Cabal members.

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Samuel cancels the spell, and Kali Wakes up in the Time Machine shaking, tears streaming down her face as she gasps for air. Samuel returns to his own body and looks crestfallen as he realises its happened again, then concerned as he sees Kalis far stronger reaction. Kali, for her part, has the oddest feeling of disconnection as her body catches up with her mind and she abruptly stops crying. Well At least Im not imagining it Samuel
Cut for space (and because it doesn't fit into the narrative, and came up retroactively later): Samuel says that he'll pick Kali up in the morning. And that she should try to actually make it the morning this time, as they have a lot to do.

And now, Wolsey. Mark and I work in different departments of the same company, and the couple of days leading up to the session whenever Id see him at work hed remind me to remind him to go see Avatar once we resumed playing. Because he hadnt forgotten, hed just not had time last time.

It is Wolseys turn to watch the Sanctum, and he has taken the opportunity to invite Avatar around. While he takes her on the tour, they talk about.. well avoiding their many and varied issues, mainly. I heard about Malakaii turning you down. Im sorry Avatar Wolsey harrumphs. Avatar says that Malakaii went to see Mara about it, and that afterward Mara was heard to curse Wolseys name Literally Curse? Wolsey Not literally, no. But she was upset Avatar Huh. I guess Ive disrupted her careful plans Wolsey
Which gets him thinking, and will lead to a visit to Banneker later on

Whats in here? Avatar, pointing to the warded room Youd be amazed how quickly a new cabal picks up things of significance that have to be carefully put away. Thats where they go - Wolsey Avatar catches Wolsey looking at her like hes about to say something, and attempts to deflect by asking if he has any plans for the 4th. He offhandedly says that he thinks the Cabal might be planning something, and says that she seems to be doing better than when they were first reunited. I feel better Avatar Good. How are you sleeping? Wolsey Damascus returns to the Sanctum as she says that her sleep is no different to before her Awakening, which Damascus realises is a blatant lie, and subtly signals Wolsey to that effect.
Aside from Magic use, rolls to lie convincingly / perceive people lying are the thing we use the system for most in the Chronicle. When Mark designed a very social character, I promised to actually remember to use the rules for such and so far Ive been true to my word. it is a pity, therefore, that despite his much, much larger dice pool he still manages to do worse at these rolls than Rafe does.

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Avatar tries to deflect attention by asking about Damascus day, but Wolsey is not for turning and asks how her dreams are really. She says that they're more vivid, and that she remembers them now, but that they're essentially the same as before. She always dreamt about the same thing, but she couldn't remember them. Youre sure about that? Damascus I know it sounds stupid, but I just know. Theyre the same. Have been my entire life. Avatar Wolsey frowns she never mentioned any of this when they were living together. What are they of? Wolsey Random images. Objects made up of inappropriate materials, you know what I mean? Like gingerbread houses, or a sofa made of cats or dreaming the people are made of glass. Random Avatar What specifically? Damascus A a heart made of flies. A tree made of flesh. That sort of thing. - Avatar The boys confer, and say that its important that they get as good idea as possible. Would she consent to them reading her surface mind while she thought really hard about the images? With an air of someone whos had a lot of people examining her head over the last few months, she agrees, and they see fuzzy half-formed images of a heart made of flies and a tree made of flesh. They drag the process out a bit too much for her patience, trying to get a good look at the latter, and just before Damascus cuts his mental link he hears come on, Tom. Get on with it from her mind.
That being Wolsey, of course. Damascus doesnt know what Wolseys real name is well, up to now, anyway. Amusingly, this is a case of me really dropping the ball. Neither mage actually has the Arcana necessary to DO this effect, by my reading in the harsh light of day. Whoops! Well, they did it now.

The imagery is Can I ask, is Pandemonium like that? Damascus Not when I was there, though I gather it differs Wolsey Avatar says that yes, actually they are representative of her experiences in the Supernal realms. Because its rather Dantean. Damascus How do you mean? Wolsey Well, the tree especially. It reminds me of the wood of suicides. Uh Avatar, could I ask..? Damascus Did I try to kill myself? (looks at Wolsey and sees that hes waiting on the answer. Firmly: )No.
*Good* call from Rafe (or Mark. We're mostly certain it was Damascus that said that, but not 100%), there. Nice link. Kind of fitting as well - I hadn't made that link between the flesh grove and Avatar/Cymbeline's rebirth before now. Neat.

At which point, just as theyre getting somewhere, Kali returns slightly boozed up, still reeling from what she experienced coming back to the present and raring for a good old-fashioned argument. At first sight of Avatar and Wolsey standing awkwardly next to one another, she barks an order at Wolsey to get on with it and ask her what he was in fact in the process of asking her. At which point, just as theyre getting

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somewhere, Kali returns slightly boozed up, still reeling from what she experienced coming back to the present and raring for a good old-fashioned argument. At first sight of Avatar and Wolsey standing awkwardly next to one another, she barks an order at Wolsey to get on with it and ask her what he was in fact in the process of asking her. "YOU. You're doomed. you're still doomed. Get on with it" (Wolsey tries to say something) Shut it! Doomed! DOOMED! DOOMED! Ive told you. Samuels told you. You know what you have to do to avoid it so DO it. - Kali
Kali's rant was far, far longer, but I failed to record most of it.

Wolsey suggests that Kali may be acting belligerent out of something that's happened to her today rather than because of anything he's done. "Were you reading my mind?" - Kali, suspicious Wolsey sighs, wearily "Yeah, why not?" - Wolsey "Well don't. And do something about your doom - you go on about it, hide under your bed, whatever, but when it comes to taking action, nothing. Get on with it" - Kali I am doing something about it. Ive asked Avatar about her dreams. And that means you owe me a Wolsey Nothing. I owe you nothing. Doomed! Kali "I'm talking. That's what I do" - Wolsey "I refer you to Damascus' comments about inaction that I can't remember all of" Kali Damascus groans ever-so-slightly audibly "Talking is just sitting on your ass. Do." Kali So Youre Doomed? Avatar
Hee!

Wolsey explains that various Fate mages have been sensing that he is, in fact, doomed. And Samuel told you to do something about her dreams Kali, accusatory Wolsey patiently explains that Samuel in fact told him to pay attention to Avatars dreams. Not do something about. Avatar noticeably shifts when Wolsey says Samuels name, and Kali narrows her eyes.
Kali, at this point, remembers that Avatar had a sympathetic connection to her when viewed in Fate sight.

Kali casts Ring Sight: Fate on Avatar, learning that Avatar has more of whatever it is that the spell reveals than Wolsey, but not as much as herself or Damascus. Wolsey, sensing the supernal, grabs Kali's shoulders and shakes her.
Wolsey crosses that line - that line of getting physical with another Cabal member. Like breaking the 4-minute mile, this cannot be undone.

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Which translates as "he shoves her, she's going to punch him by the end of the session. He's just demonstrated it's okay"

What the hell are you DOING!? - Wolsey Casting a spell. I wanted to check something Kali Wolsey goes into a rant about flinging spells at other mages without permission, which Kali doesnt take very well. "So you don't trust me?" - Kali "It's polite to ask first" - Wolsey "So you don't trust me?" - Kali Kali casts Interconnections on Avatar, discerning that she has a strong Destiny of some kind, which is connected to Kali herself Wolsey goes apeshit, while Avatar gradually shrinks into the background. He accuses Kali of reckless behaviour, and asks if she would act like this to Banneker, Malakaii or Samuel.
He means that doing so would be very dangerous, and probably lethal as they defended themselves against the potential attack. I think theres a bit of so why is it okay to do it to Avatar? in there, but Kali hears the wrong lesson. Because

Yes Kali Well Dont Wolsey, horrified Kali shrugs and says that Avatar has a potent Destiny of some kind. Avatar says that that makes sense her entire life, shes had a feeling that shes been meant to do something, which drove her into the cults, drove her to Wolsey and has only gotten stronger since she Awoke. As for the dream thing theyre obviously part of it, and Promethea and Mara have both taken great interest in them and the feeling of preordained significance she lives with most of the time. Wolsey, though, is still with the reckless casting of it. "This is me shifting from telling to begging. Don't" - Wolsey "You're asking me to change my ingrained behaviour" - Kali "I'm telling..." - Wolsey "I thought you were begging" Damascus Wolsey asks Kali if she has ever shot someone without warning, hoping to use it as an analogy for the potential threat other mages might see in her randomly casting on them. The point is somewhat spoiled when she says that yes, actually, she has. "I am not an altruistic person. Your doom is important to me, but there's something I need to find." - Kali "Have you tried religion? - Damascus "Yes, and it gave me the creeps" - Kali "I meant have you tried turning to god?" Damascus Kali reminds him that when she went to Ulysses, apropos of nothing, it was at Damascus and Wolseys insistence and that she didnt enjoy it. Damascus notes that, getting back to the whole dream thing, now that Kali and Wolsey have fought one another to impasse again, that it would help if they could see them better. Wolsey suggests the Oneiros, and Avatar asks if they have a powerful enough Hallow. Wolsey asks Kali if Samuel would let them us the Time

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Machine but Option 2 reading Avatars mind while shes asleep seems much more convenient and gets group approval. I guess Ill be staying over then - Avatar That settled, Wolsey asks the Cabal now that theyre assembled what theyre doing on the 4th. Kali says that she has a House thing but that she wanted to do something with the Cabal. Agreed to a nebulous something, they invite Avatar to whatever it is theyre going to end up doing. Later, the preparations for the examination of Avatars dreams take place. Kali casts Bestow Exceptional Luck on both Wolsey and Damascus and drained after her day and the argument, and not having any skill in the Mind Arcana, bows out of the proceedings. Shes going to go to her thinking place on the waterfront and try to get her shit together. Agreeing to come get her when theyre done, Wolsey and Damascus start their casting.
Again with the you cant do this with Mind 2 of it all ( I believe its Mind 4, IIRC), but fuck it. I didnt remember that on the night. The spell as built in Creative Thaumaturgy was of concentration duration after an extended casting roll that took Wolsey and Damascus a couple of hours to get off no using High Speech when one is trying to cast on a sleeping person.

When they do finally manage to build the necessary Imagos, they find That Avatar is between REM cycles, and so not actually dreaming at the moment. Arse. They manage to hold the spell active for an hour, after which she does finally start dreaming. Avatars dreams are of being somewhere underground, cut clay and loose soil, with what is unmistakably a heart made of living flies floating in the centre of the chamber? Tunnel? Cave? Something. The noise of the buzzing is fearfully strong, but gives way as the dream shifts to the second request the trees made of flesh, dripping ichor, babbling from a thousand mouths in what both Damascus (whos religious) and Wolsey (whos spent a lot of time in fringe religions) recognise as Glossolalia, or Speaking In Tongues. The scene shifts again to be Maras office, viewed in negative colours. The dial of the wall safe spins and clicks, too fast for the eye to see even though they are somehow aware each time it stops on a number for an infinitesimal amount of time. The safe swings open, and Avatars dream cycle ends. Exhausted, and unable to hold on until she starts dreaming again, both men let their spells fade and quietly leave. Wolsey, rubbing his eyes, phones Kali, who for her part has fallen asleep propped up against a container. Whuh? Kali Were done Wolsey What time is it? Kali (checks) Just gone half four. Did you go home? Wolsey No. Still here Kali, pained Well come and pick you up Wolsey When they collect her, the heavens have begun to drizzle. Kali mumbles something

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that may be what took so long? but shes pretty out of it as Wolsey bundles her into his SUV. Back to the Sanctum. And sleep. They can talk in the morning. Sunday 2nd July The Cabal decided, before crashing, that they should probably talk about what they learned before Avatar gets up. Which means that after the bare minimum sleep the three of them are up again, sitting in the Sanctum's living room clutching coffee. But when they do wake up enough to converse, Wolsey has things on his mind other than his wife's dreams.
The coffee, a small detail I know, is from Wolsey's expensive machine. he moved it to the Sanctum figuring it'd get more use than in his sterile apartment.

"I want to bring something up, before we continue" - Wolsey Kali and Damascus regard him with bloodshot eyes Wolsey says that so far they've been getting freebies - he's been treating the both of them like he thinks Cabalmates ought to, by giving them his honest advice and trying to catch them when he thinks they're making mistakes. But apparently (and he looks at Kali as he says this) they don't seem to appreciate it. Essentially, he's had enough of having his advice thrown in his face.
A counter-argument would be that they didn't exactly ask to be lectured in the way he lectures them. Kali gets a lot of grief from him, as the thread has demonstrated - she deserves some of it, for certain, but he has a particular *way* of putting his advice that sounds like condescension to her. And although they're friendlier, I don't think Damascus is under any illusions about what Wolsey thinks of his deeply-held beliefs. (The counter to which is that Damascus is if anything worse for unwanted lectures).

So, he says, he's changing the deal. From now on, he's going to treat them as he treats his clients - and will give them as much or as little respect as they give him. "You get the Wolsey that you pay for" - Wolsey Kali is not impressed. "So what? We pay you when we need you now?" - Kali "You'll get what you want. Something better suited to you." - Wolsey "If I wanted something better I'd ask for Tom Cruise and, sorry, you're not..." - Kali
Urg. Kali apparently has a liking for the Cruisemeister.

Wolsey interrupts, thinks, and waves her on "...no, just carry on" - Wolsey Kali and Damascus both say that the Wolsey they would much prefer to have in the Cabal is the real Wolsey. He says that that's just not possible - such a thing doesn't exist.
Which is a very sad reflection of Wolsey's life, and the root of this - he treats everyone differently, as any born politician does, and is honestly just trying to find a niche in the Cabal that suits them better than the one he's taking so far. That they object so vehemently to the idea is, I think, a reflection on the differing viewpoint the two of them share against him - Kali and Damascus see their Mage lives as being the "real" them, or the them that they'd like ideally to be. Wolsey doesn't, and therein the problem lies.

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Kali attempts to argue that, but Wolsey blocks her. "This conversation's over. Do what you want" - Wolsey, flatly "I want you to not not act like yourself" - Kali Damascus pinches his nose "I've had four hour's sleep. Could we stop with the double negatives?" - Damascus "OK. Let me restate what I meant because you've gotten me confused. What did I mean?" - Wolsey Damascus offers a recap, and Wolsey reiterates his point - he feels that the gang do not want the Wolsey he has been presenting them with, and so wants to change that to give them the Wolsey they seem to need. "I don't want the Wolsey I 'pay for'. I want someone who wants to be our friend" - Kali "We're not friends" - Wolsey
Mark does not watch 'House' (I am obsessed with it) - thus. the parallel to Foreman's 'we're not friends, we're co-workers' speech to Cameron is entirely coincidental. Which if anything makes this harsher. And mildly cooler.

"We're not friends. We're co-workers at best - I've known you for not two months. That's not long enough." Wolsey "It was long enough for us" - Avatar Wolsey turns around. He's not quite sure how long she's been standing there. "Morning" - Avatar While the gang stay silent, caught in the middle of their semi-argument, Avatar doesn't seem to notice. She wanders through the room and out through another door. After a few minutes of silence, they hear the shower start up. Wolsey looks the way she went, then back at the others "That was different. I'm not madly, desperately in love with you. Sorry Damascus." Wolsey "I'll cope" - Damascus
Also interesting that he can only say that when she's not there...

Kali starts rambling again, and Wolsey restates that this is what she *wants* - she plainly isn't happy with him at the moment. This does not seem to help - she gets more and more upset.
Kali's getting worked up because Wolsey has *given up* on her. He has as good as said that he's tired of all her shit, so she should just carry on doing what she wants. He won't bother trying to reach her any more. It's this end-of-patience thing that's important - the way that her behaviour has apparently pushed someone she should be close to away from her. Because it reminds her of what's foremost in her mind right now...

"You're talking like my father used to talk and at the moment" (starts tearing up) "that's not doing me any good" - Kali

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Damascus and Wolsey stare at her. Kali, close to tears, starts laying her own cards out.
Sam's acting here was top-notch - you could hear her choking back the meltdown.

"There's a hole in Avatar. There's something missing in her. I know, because there's something missing in me too. I don't think they're made by the same thing, but it's the same hole." - Kali Kali explains about Samuel's "problem", and how it's linked into her own feeling of disconnection since before she Awoke. There's something missing from her, something important. And Avatar, as she said herself the night before, feels like that too. "But I was thinking about it last night, in my place. Why would Samuel need me? He's far more powerful, he can do everything I can... Maybe it's not a magical thing. Maybe he needs something I *know*" - Kali She looks Wolsey in the eye "Like Avatar's real name" - Kali Wolsey shifts uncomfortably. "Don't worry. I promised I wouldn't use it, and I won't" - Kali At which point the doorbell goes. Damascus, seeing Kali in a state and Wolsey not moving, gets up to answer it. ... "Ah. Hello." - Samuel "... Master." - Damascus "Is my date in?" - Samuel "Quite possibly. If you mean Kali, then yes" - Damascus They stare at one another. "Would you, then, care for our Sanctum's Hospitality, Master?" - Damascus "Thank you, Disciple. I will abide by your right of Sanctuary" - Samuel
Odd little exchange, that.

... Samuel greets Kali, and asks what they're talking about. Damascus explains the topic as being Samuel's memory problems and - thinking that Avatar has been an awfully long time - goes to check on their other guest. Wolsey ventures that the problem might be Malakaii, and Samuel again shoots that one down confidently. Wolsey presses, and Samuel says that he's certain because he has Malakaii under a Geas to not use his attainments on Samuel. Damascus returns with Avatar - who was just finishing getting dressed - and Avatar

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reacts to the Master's presence. Kali tells Avatar that she suspects that Avatar's feeling of having something she's meant to do is linked to the feeling of missing something that Kali herself has. Avatar says that whatever in her case it doesn't feel bad - she's always taken comfort in it, in the sense of inevitability and destiny. "But if it's connected to the Spider..." - Damascus "The Spider?" - Samuel, amused. "Well.. It seems fitting, for what Kali said about it. How about 'The webmaster?'" Damascus "No, no. Spider will do. It's good - to name a thing is to begin to know a thing" Samuel "Or to begin making assumptions" - Wolsey They talk about Avatar's Destiny some more, and Kali tells her that it's definitely connected to Kali herself somehow. If only they knew what her Destiny was. "I am very dense" - Samuel Kali looks at him. Samuel explains that he forgets sometimes, the full extent of his Arcana, and tells Avatar that he can, if she is so inclined, offer more detailed insights into her Destiny using the Prophecy spell. Avatar sighs wearily. "Look. I'm grateful to all of you, but this has got to stop. I have been poked, enspelled, analysed and noted for over a month now, and it's getting past the point that I can stand it. I know you're all trying to help - the four of you, Mara, Promethea..." (off Wolsey's expression) "Alright. This one last time. Do your worst." Avatar Samuel casts Prophecy They all wait. He opens his eyes after having released the spell, and takes a deep breath. "All right. First thing - I managed three questions. One is related to Kali, so I'll tell her. The others.. Not here. In private - when you want to know, ask me." - Samuel Avatar nods. Wolsey and Damascus, feeling themselves be very excluded by all this, look perturbed. "And now, if you'll excuse us, we" (nods at Kali) "need to be going. My thanks for your Hospitality" - Samuel, getting up "See you later" - Kali, also getting up Damascus checks his watch

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"Actually, I should be going too. Church. Are you?" - Damascus "I'll be fine. I need to go see some people" - Wolsey Even Avatar is leaving - back off to Mara's. Samuel offers her a lift, and she accepts. "...but..." (looks at Wolsey, who's the only one still seated) "I should like a few minutes with my husband, if it's all right with everyone" - Avatar "Of course. Kali." - Samuel, leaving, Kali trailing after him. ... Out front, Damascus bids both Kali and Samuel farewell when they reach the street, walking off in the direction of his van. Samuel looks at Kali speculatively. "No. Don't tell me. Not until she's made her decision" - Kali He shrugs. ... "I'm tired of this. Being examined all the time. I need to get away, Tom - somewhere I can be *myself*. God.. last night, when Damascus was in my mind? I nearly slipped and thought of your name." - Amanda Thomas - alone together, they are finally Thomas and Amanda rather than Wolsey and Avatar - agrees that the mood in the city is getting too tense. And they need a chance to catch up - catch up properly, with no magic to get in the way. "Could we go somewhere? Away from the Cabals and the Consilium? For a little while?" - Amanda "Tomorrow night?" - Thomas "Tomorrow night. Where?" - Amanda "I'll book us somewhere quiet." - Thomas "And we'll be ourselves, not Wolsey and Avatar?" - Amanda Thomas nods, exhaling, feeling the mask lift off. "I'll see you then" - Amanda She leaves, and Wolsey breathes, getting back into character. Ready for the day ahead. Time to go see Banneker. ... Downstairs, Samuel and Kali are sat on the bonnet of Samuel's car, Kali smoking, as

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Avatar emerges from the Sanctum's stairwell. "My decision.. is no. Tell her the parts about her, but I.. Don't want to know. I don't care." (smiles happily) "Whatever is meant to happen will happen, and I trust that it will work out for the best in the end. Don't ask me why, but... I don't need what you're offering" - Avatar Samuel crosses his arms, but agrees. . Some time later, as Kali and Samuel watch Avatar enter Mara's house, Samuel tells Kali what he saw "I asked how her Destiny was linked to you. I saw her *give* you something. Physically - she is supposed to turn something over to you which will lead to you discovering your own missing... Of *course!*" (he slaps his own forehead) "It's a causal chain!" - Samuel Kali looks blankly at him. He rambles happily and rather dorkishly about how it's a chain of interlinked Destinies - Avatar will realise her own Destiny which will allow Kali to see what she's missing which will somehow show him himself what *he's* missing. He might not even be the end point of the chain - in fact, he very probably isn't. He slaps his steering wheel and half-laughs happily. Kali, though, does not seem anywhere near as impressed.
I like nMage's gradual but inexorable slide from Humanity as you get more and more powerful - and I think that last bit illustrates it quite well. Malakaii may have done a 180 from everything he believed he'd be when he was a young man, but Samuel isn't exactly normal either. He's a cheerful, helpful sort of guy but he just doesn't get that people may find his sort of help, casually reading the future and telling people their fates, rather creepy. Wolsey in particular hasn't felt comfortable around Samuel since the "pay attention to her dreams" incident. Not because of the content, but because Samuel *didn't ask*. It doesn't occur to him that people might not want to know, so long has he lived without having to take a chance on any decision without being able to see the outcomes. This is what happens when you're too long and too learned an Acanthus, and it troubles Kali to see him like this, because she can see herself easily ending up like that against her better judgement. Having said that, I'm about to completely undermine it by showing how well Banneker holds himself close to Humanity. But then, he has a much higher Wisdom score than Samuel or Malakaii.

Samuel parks on the side of a relatively quiet street, somewhere in the North-East quarter of the Diamond. "Alright. Practice run. Breath.. Focus. Find the thread. Feel the strands of Fate..." Samuel Kali, concentrating, centres herself and begins to see. "Okay. Now - that woman there. She'll do. See her? See the strands she's pulling around her? Let's follow them. Wherever they go" - Samuel Kali takes a deep breath, nods and starts walking.
At this point, my narrative will completely break down, for which I apologise. I am totally unable to remember, after half an hour of trying, the sequence of objects and people that Kali followed in this first Thread incident. I know that she made it somehow to a post office (probably following a parcel someone was carrying) and then jumped to follow the sympathetic connections left by a different letter. I DO know that she was deliberately trying to go "out" of the city, picking threads to follow based entirely on which ones seemed most likely to lead her out to suburbia - after her admission to Wolsey earlier that morning, Kali is aware that she needs to somehow *deal* with her feelings about her dad.

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In the end, several hours later, she and Samuel are stood outside a house in a leafy, quiet avenue, watching the reunion of a student who's been out-of-state at college and his family. Home for the holidays. Kind of what she was looking for, but not exactly. They start heading back towards the city centre. "I will admit, I'm impressed" - Samuel Kali admits that she was trying to recapture whatever it was she was following when she first met Blaise and the Nickel. "I don't think you'll find that again through Magic" (sidelong glance) "After all, you know very well where that thread leads" - Samuel
To her dad's house, and to the reunion she doesn't feel capable of having yet. Yeah. She knows.

"In any case. You've picked this up very quickly. I *am* pleased, Kali. And... Well... I'm wondering why we should wait until tomorrow? I think you're ready - you're as prepared as you can be. Would you like to do your test? Now?" - Samuel Kali thinks for a moment, then agrees. Samuel pulls over, and stops the car. "Okay then. Off you go" - Samuel She looks at him for a few seconds, as he indicates via the medium of eyebrow movements that she should get out of the car. She does so, and he drives off, leaving her stood on the sidewalk. Now what? She considers, taking in the passers-by, the shops, the cars. There is a Nickel on the sidewalk. She has her thread. --Somewhere across town, in the very good part of town, Wolsey rings the doorbell of a rather well-kept house, after checking the number against the contact details Banneker gave him. The door is opened by a ten-year old girl. "Hello?" - Girl "Er... Is Isiah in?" - Wolsey "DAAAAAAD!" - Girl, calling inside Deeper into the hallway, Banneker (wearing *very* normal clothes rather than his ceremonial robes) emerges from a room, wiping his hands on a tea towel. A lady that, from context, would be his wife, also emerges.

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"Ah! Yes - Mary, this is Tom from the office. Tom's our advertising man" - Banneker
Which is one way of putting it. I like having npcs call Wolsey 'Tom'. Which means it's pretty much just Avatar and Banneker that do it, as they're the only two who it's acceptable from.

Mary greets Wolsey, who says hello smoothly, shifting gears internally Banneker - or, at the moment, Isiah - tells his wife he'll be upstairs in his study, and indicates the stairs to Wolsey. When they get upstairs, into Isiah's book-lined study, Isiah closes the door and offers him a drink. Wolsey, examining the architect's drawing table, the various rolls of plans and the map of DC with pins carefully placed into it, accepts. "I heard about your promotion being turned down" - Isiah "Yes. In truth, I'm afraid that I allowed myself to get.. competitive. With others in my circle. It was not the right time to approach Malakaii, and I know that now" - Wolsey "Gideon. Not Malakaii. In this house we refer to the members of our community by their real names, understood? I won't have any codes and obfuscations here." - Isiah "Gideon?" - Wolsey Isiah nods. Wolsey takes that and files it away.
Interesting that Wolsey admits to rushing into his Legacy as some kind of race with Damascus and Kali - and regrets doing it. Banneker's absolute refusal to allow the dealings of the supernal to change the way he lives within his own house is his means of keeping a grip, and coping with the fact that his wife and children are to date all Sleepers and unaware of his other work. Mages from the city are welcome to go to see him, but do so on the understanding that he will rip the veils the Awakened all construct around themselves away, and refuse to deal with anything other than what he believes to be the real person beneath. To Banneker, the Supernal remains separate, and is something that is drawn down and put on *when needed* - He is only "Banneker" at a formal gathering of Mages or when directly dealing with the stuff of magic.

"Right. Well, the strategy is as follows - I'm not giving up on you Tom. You don't get off that easily. Mhaduri and Daniel are working on persuading Gideon to rethink his position, but it will have to be a long, slow process now. We've rushed in and gotten burnt, and we can't deny that. While they do their sweet-talking [b]you[b/] should busy yourself with being impressive. Let's make a case for you that he can't ignore" Isiah Wolsey agrees with that - that's the conclusion he'd come to himself, as it happens. To concentrate on his work as a Herald, being useful and eventually indispensable to the Consilium. Essentially, Wolsey acknowledges that he's going to have to *earn* his advancements, with the grim determination of a man who has his foot on the second rung of the ladder and is surveying the climb to the top.
'Mhaduri' is Mara - which Wolsey already knew. 'Daniel' is Samuel - which he didn't and still, IIRC, doesn't know explicitly. Though it's fairly obvious. The realisation that in all the politicking and fallout from the Legacies, Wolsey hasn't actually been selling himself as a Herald came to Mark a few days before we ran the game. Wolsey, he tells me, is now starting to draw up a chart of the power players in the city and how they interact - he's determined to lay the Consilium game to it's fullest - maybe all the way to Hierarch. The tale of a promising young official denied recognition by the old guard who harbours ambitions of the top job, but has to get there by his own cleverness, reminds me of the life of Cicero.

"Excellent. Well, in that case, I have a job for you. I need you to get one of Gideon's counterparts to contact me - the one your wife's other tutor works for, yes? Not a rush, but once you've made contact I'll need you to ferry a few files back and forth" Isiah

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That would be Suleiman, Mastigos Claviclarius Mysterium Councillor

Wolsey nods, and Isiah asks him if there is anything else going on he should know about. Carefully using mundane language, Wolsey explains the situation with the Houses of Steel and Stone to Isiah, including Wolsey's theory that they are two conflicting Pylons of Seers. "Or Ministries. The opposition are worse than us for infighting, I'm afraid - our Orders manage to work together, but their Ministries don't." - Isiah Wolsey takes that in, and says that there isn't anything else he can think of. "What's that?" - Isiah, pointing at the jacket in which Wolsey has concealed the Ring of the Dethroned Queen "An item my friends and I were given. We are unsure of it's providence, and rather than leave it lying around we take it in turns to carry it around." - Wolsey Isiah nods, considering... then shrugs, accepting his words at face value, and invites him, if this meeting is over, downstairs to have a drink and meet the family. Wolsey stays for a drink.
This sequence reminds Mark of the bits of the Lethal Weapon films dealing with Murtaugh's home life, apparently. Which led me to think and conclude that, actually, Danny Glover nowadays *is* a good actor for Banneker. Which led us on to a bit more discussion. It emerged that Sam thought Samuel was meant to be elderly and bearded, like a stereotypical wizard - he's in fact pretty young, physically in his 30s. I don't know of an actor for him. Malakaii, on the other hand, is played - in my mind - by Joel Grey. Who, I have just learned from IMDB, is *exactly* the right age for the role as well as being a physical fit. He was 21 in 1953.

--Rewind a couple of hours, and Damascus is driving away from the Sanctum. After heading home to get changed he heads to Ulysses' church for mass. The congregation has mostly already gathered when he arrives, greeted by Ulysses as "Carl". Ulysses' sermon of the day is about the ending of things, and about letting one's children grow up and move out of one's shadow. Damascus, realising what his joining of John Dee's Legacy must mean to Ulysses, feels appropriately guilty. After the event, when Ulysses has spoken to the last of his congregation, Damascus and he sit down in the pews. Damascus starts by saying that it was Ulysses that told him about the Uncrowned kings in the first place, and Ulysses apologises for laying it on a bit thick. It was a good sermon, even if the content was dictated by his current thoughts. "Besides, it's not like I have a Legacy of my own" - Ulysses They briefly talk about the reason why that it - Ulysses believes that Souls, as God's design for a person, shouldn't be meddled with by Mages who don't fully understand what they're doing. Carving your own soul for temporal power does not seem wise to him, especially as the powers - Attainments and Demesnes - that result aren't worth 149

the cost. A Soul is a coin that can only be spent once, and what do most Mages spend it on? Wiping memories without paradox, or looking back in time. Nothing they can't accomplish without doing so.
Oh, there's no room for characters that have alternate interpretations of Mage's cosmology in Awakening without them being flat-out wrong, oh no. Bollocks, there isn't.

Damascus says that that's true for some Legacies, but not others - the Uncrowned kings, he contends, focus on the right things. Theirs is a programme of improvement, not twisting oneself into an unnatural shape. "Listen to me. You made a wise choice, and I hope it works out for you." - Ulysses Damascus asks what Ulysses himself is getting up to. He tells him about a bit of leyline readjustment Dantor has asked him to do- a rich vein of Lawlessness is coming out of the Cabal's territory and into Dantor's, and she wants it shifted. Not a problem, especially with his grasp of Prime. The older mage frowns "There's something I need to tell you, lad" - Ulysses Ulysses leans in close, and quietly and quickly begins to speak "I've heard things, lad. Dark things. Dantor has been going around some members of our Cabal and giving them specific instructions for the Fourth. When she gives a signal, they are to abandon the roles the Consilium has picked out for them and follow the orders she's prepared. And it's not just her - Malakaii's lot as well. The Defenders and the Gatekeepers are colluding for some purpose, and I'm being kept out of the loop. I don't know what Dantor and Malakaii are planning, but I do know this - it is something to do with your friends." - Ulysses Damascus doesn't like the sound of that. "Any clue at all?" - Damascus "Nothing. Just that it's connected to the Crucible. Dantor is apparently angry with you" - Ulysses "Who's involved?" - Damascus "That I know of? Dantor, Malakaii, Thursday, Link. Shore. Some others of Malakaii's people I'm not 100% on." - Ulysses Damascus thanks him, promises to look out for himself and for Wolsey and Kali, and bids Ulysses good afternoon. "Going so soon?" - Ulysses "I'm afraid so. Things to do" - Damascus, smiling apologetically Ulysses offers confession, which Damascus turns down. He has brooding to do. ---

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On the trail of the Terrible Nickel, Kali is following Ariadne's thread.

The initiation test of the House of Ariadne is to be able to sense and follow the thread for four-seven hours, something which Kali has been able to do for a long time - which is why Blaise took such a hands-off approach was as far as he was concerned she didn't actually need training. Samuel, though, has been pushing her to consider the House's viewpoint, and whether she really wants to join it. This test, then, is a formality - but crucially Kali doesn't know that. She's had her confidence - in her abilities at least - boosted by the last few days, and is mentally ready for her Attainment

She follows the Nickel with Postcognition and Interconnections to a woman who dropped it on her way from a bakery to work. Following it back to the Bakery, she leaps to following another customer who spent it there the day before, and back further to their place of work. From there, it heads backward to the cash box of a third shop, in which Kali browses for a while deciding which thread to follow and buys some jewellery. The cash was delivered as a small change bag by an employee, she learns with Time magic, and she follows their now-days old trail back to the bank. And then to the National Mint, where she finds... ...Samuel and Blaise waiting for her on the steps. "And so you have found your way here, to the birthplace of all Nickels" - Blaise Samuel regards his Prefect with an expression that could be agreement or could be 'no thanks to YOU, mate'. He does, however, hand Kali a bag full of freshly-minted Nickels. "I thought it appropriate" - Samuel "Thanks, but I think I prefer the worn one" - Kali "Oh, I entirely agree. Think of them as practice tools. When you need to attune to the city, put a Nickel where someone will find it. Sit back, and see where it goes" Samuel Kali has passed her test, and in that moment, gains her Attainment. She is now a member of the House of Ariadne.
Home stretch now, and it's back to Damascus

Damascus, needing something to keep busy with while he has a good hard think about things and try to figure out if he knows anything that could shed light on Ulysses' worries, has driven to his workshop, where he's putting the finishing touches onto the Caryatid Column. The exercise and the sense of producing something helps (and proves what a good fit he is for his Legacy), but after four hours his door-buzzer rings. Sliding the lockup's door open, he discovers Wolsey standing outside, here fresh from Banneker's house "Hi" - Wolsey "Wolsey" - Damascus "Could I come in?" - Wolsey Damascus steps aside.
Again in the spirit of disclosure, this was one of those Damascus and Wolsey conversations - that is, Mark and Rafe adlibbed it in the background while I was running Kali's second following of Ariadne's thread. So the details are hazy - I DO know the topic of what was discussed, though. Consider this scene heavily paraphrased

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Drinks are furnished - Damascus takes a jug of water (ironworking is hot). Wolsey starts off, saying how he regrets how this morning and last night went. 'Not the way he was expecting' about sums it up. The statue of Kali is very much the elephant in the room. "Oh, for.. What do you think she *needs* from me?" - Wolsey, indicating his Cabalmate's likeness. "Spanking?" - Damascus Wolsey gives him A Look. Damascus shrugs and finishes up, saying as he works that Kali is working though something, and that if Wolsey would maybe listen. "Well, my strategy to deal with her doesn't work. This morning proved that" - Wolsey It just upset her more. Reminded her of her existing issues "I think.. I think the carrot rather than the stick." - Wolsey Damascus clarifies if this means Wolsey is seriously considering being *nice* to Kali "Pretty much. Roll with her verbal punches, agree with her. Whatever. Just.. not try to start any more arguments" - Wolsey "Being an authority figure isn't working" - Damascus Speaking of Authority figures, Damascus tells Wolsey what Ulysses told him. They consider the dire possibilities of Dantor - who let's face it has never really liked Kali uniting with Malakaii against them. The fact that they two are the calmer, wiser heads of the Cabal stands them in good stead, though, as they decide that rather than creep around and try to figure out what's going on over there... ...They're going to walk right into Dantor's territory and ASK her. --I now resumed Storytelling for those two, having finished with Kali

As the sun goes down on DC, Wolsey and Damascus cross the rough boundary of Dantor's territory. The area, to the East of their own, is pretty much a continuation of the downward trend of theirs. We're in gangland here, and Wolsey hopes that the Space Armour spell he just cast will save him if anything kicks off. Searching (and trying to not look like they're hanging around) on the periphery of Dantor's dozen or so blocks, they spot the Atlantean glyph of Crossing among the graffiti outside an alley entrance, and begin following the Crossing trail. The route is winding, following more alleys than Wolsey thinks it's possible to fit into those blocks without use of the Space Arcana, the route dotted with Dantor's "soldiers": some of whom are human, some of whom are.. recycled. Eventually, the route leads them through an underpass choked with rubble and out into a patch of yellowing grass. Although the half-block of turf, some ancient recreation ground, is bordered on three sides by a street, it somehow gives the *impression* of being cut off from all access other than the underpass.

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In front of them, lights flickering in the windows, is a deconsecrated church. "Oh, that's just wrong" - Damascus Wrong or not, it's Dantor's Sanctum. Checking their protective spells, they take a deep breath and march right up to the door, telling the soldier on guard that they're here to see Dantor. After a few seconds, they're admitted. The meeting, in what was once the nave, is brief. Damascus asks if they've given any offence, and Dantor says not - should they have (she adds dangerously)? She says that she is troubled by a ley line from their "poorly-managed" territory, but that Ulysses is dealing with it. The lads ask if there's anything else, and she says that as they're here they could answer her a question. It seems that a series of unusual home invasions have been plaguing her western reaches - apparently random, but designed to cause fear and upset. Her gang are accusing Kali's gang of it. Damascus and Wolsey haven't heard of anything like that, and assure Dantor that Kali has nothing to do with it. They promise to find out if it's been happening in their turf too. At that point in the conversation, Wolsey senses a distinctive resonance. Malakaii is here. "Well.. we'll be going, then, and leave you to your guest. Thank you, Councillor" Wolsey Dantor smiles without humour, and bids them goodnight. They exit the Sanctum and walk - not run - to the underpass. While they beat their retreat through the alleys, they run into Mr Thursday - the City's Interfector - heading in the opposite direction. The tall man bows to them as they draw near, and expresses his wish that they have a very safe night. "They're waiting for you" - Wolsey By the time they're out of Dantor's territory, Wolsey's paranoia has hit overdrive Ulysses' suspicions were correct. Dantor and Malakaii are in cahoots. The end is quite clearly nigh. And to cap it all, when they get back to the Sanctum, someone has graffitied Someone is Looking For You in bright yellow paint over the door to their living quarters. Inside the Sanctum, Wolsey and Damascus are having a crisis conference. Wolsey places the Ring of the Dethroned Queen back in it's place - realising after he does so that he just carried it all the way to Dantor's and back. "Dantor's mobilising, and it's probably against us" - Wolsey "But why Malakaii? There's no love lost" - Damascus

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Wolsey doesn't know, but (as he tiredly notes) he's supposed to find Suleiman for Banneker. At which point, Kali gets back fresh from Attuning herself to the city. Wolsey immediately asks about the attacks on Dantor's Turf and about the Graffitied door. Kali, caught off guard, says that *of course* she's attacking the Defenders Cabal in their own territory, and just how stupid does he think she is? "I didn't say you'd done it. I said your GANG might have done it" - Wolsey "Well I haven't spoken to the boys for a while. I've been busy" - Kali "You know what? Screw carrot" - Wolsey "Carrot?" - Kali, confused "You would have liked carrot. You would have loved it. You would have loved it more than a big shiny bag of nickels" - Wolsey "I have one of those already. Carrot?" - Kali, still confused but now a little irritated "Carrot is gone. There is no more Carrot." - Wolsey "Carrot?" - Kali, dangerously Wolsey continues to ignore her, talking (as she perceives) about her failings without giving her a chance to respond. Eventually, she takes a swing at his head, but he still has his Armour spell up and her punch goes wildly off-target. Everyone takes a deep breath and tries to chill the hell out. Kali quietly says she's going to go talk to her people and find OUT if there's anything going on. It doesn't take her very long "Yeah. Bastards from over East - the voodoo lot." - Ichi
That would be Kali's gang believing that it's Dantor's gang doing it, then...

Apparently not, says Kali, as she demands a situation report. Turns out they've been hit as well - three so far, break-ins and brutalisations. Last night a man living two blocks away was woken up by being beaten with baseball bats - he's still in the hospital. And this morning one family, including a young girl Kali says she recognises, had their pet dog nailed to their front door. "Nailed?" - Kali "With a nailgun. No shit" - Ichi "Okay. I'm going to need some chalk. And a chicken" - Kali
Kali's role as mage and priestess / gang leader / communal sex object is a complex one, and relies on a fair amount of showmanship. What she's doing was before today a coincidental, concentration-based spell and now is an Attainment, so would work anyway, but she's trained her gang over the years to just shrug and get on with it. They're still sleepers (and Ichi in particular just puts her scrying down to intuition dressed up in mumbo jumbo), but in her own way she's pushing them towards Sleepwalker status.

Ichi grumbles about 'that magic crap' but fetches the requisite while Kali inspects the door in question - the bloodstain and nail holes still visible. When Ichi returns, she 154

performs the short and entirely unnecessary incantation for his benefit, and then uses her Legacy Attainment to look back in time to the incident. What she sees is.. somewhat surprising. It's the little old lady that lives across the road from the Sanctum. The one that was heavily tainted under ring sight. She drugged the dog and nailed it up. Ichi doesn't believe her when she tells him, but she swears it's true and - never having been told incorrect information by her in three years - he trusts in that. She says that she'll deal with it herself, but he is to do something equally as important: make sure everyone knows it isn't Dantor's gang that are doing this. "And... I've been away too long." - Kali "Four days" - Ichi, dismissively "Still too long. Get them all together - we're going to have a party" - Kali Reporting back to Wolsey and Damascus, Damascus remaining calm while Wolsey frets about the impending doom he can sense somehow is coming down on them from an unexpected angle. They talk about how she was tainted by.. whatever it is they still haven't decided the Ring shows. Kali says that whatever is was, the old lady had as much as Kali, more than Damascus or Avatar - and that Wolsey remains relatively unscathed. Damascus reminds her about their own front door. Kali blinks and scries back a few hours. She goes white, and Wolsey asks her who did it. "Seraph. Seraph wrote it" - Kali
She's getting a lot of mileage out of that Attainment

Wolsey is horrified - and suddenly kind of glad he had the Ring on his person all day, as the Sanctum has doubtless been searched. Damascus is thoughtful "Alright. What is Seraph trying to tell us, and I realise your answer is 'it's a trap'" Damascus "Actually, it wasn't" - Wolsey "Really? One of us is slipping" - Damascus Wolsey is in fighting mood. "'Fuck their shit up.' Is that the term?" - Wolsey "Pop a cap in their ass, yo" - Damascus, with irony Whoever's doing this, Wolsey argues (thinking to himself out loud), is stirring up trouble between them and Dantor - something which was already one of their weak links with the Consilium, thanks to Dantor's disdain for Kali. With Dantor and Malakaii doing.. something on the Fourth that somehow involves all of their combined force of combat mages, the situation is becoming extremely murky. And now Seraph has gotten involved as well... "We need to do something about Seraph" - Wolsey "One day soon. But Independence Day is in two day's time and Malakaii and Dantor are planning something" - Kali

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He accepts that, and continues thinking out loud, working through the problem. Calculating strategies and possible conspiracies against them. "I don't... I don't think we can win this" - Wolsey
gave me chills, that did

"There are too many fingers in the pie" - Kali, agreeing "We need to hunker down. Go to the Sanctums of powerful allies for the Fourth. Kali you should stick around the House gathering with Samuel. I'll go to Banneker. Damascus can go to Ulysses or John. I'll keep scrying on the Sanctum every hour or so and if they do something, we can respond to that from a position of strength. We'll have a legitimate grievance on our side once they've invaded our sanctum, but we need to survive that first." - Wolsey Kali points out that she can't just go running off - she has to keep the gang on side. "You realise that if you'd been away for even three more days, you'd be at war with Dantor's gang by now?" - Wolsey "That's why I need to have this party" - Kali Wolsey thinks, and eventually nods, having made a decision. "This is the important bit. I could really do with knowing your names" - Wolsey Damascus regards him, and then goes to root through some things in his room, eventually returning with an advertisement for an exhibition featuring work by Carl Washington, which he taps. "Well, alright. I *could* have found that out. But I was lazy" - Wolsey Kali stares at him, and then bites off her name as being Kemi Simone. Wolsey thanks them both then - off their expressions - remembers to introduce himself. "Oh!... I'm Thomas Dean. It's.. uh.. nice to meet you." - Wolsey He says that he'll scry on them regularly as well, keeping the Cabal in contact even though they'll be spread out among their allies. Kali ruminates, then asks him to stop a moment "My name might not be my real name" - Kali "How so?" - Damascus Frowning, she finally lays out the parts of her background she'd been keeping from them. The fight she had with her father, the feeling of missing something important, like her life wasn't meant to be her life... When she Awakened, she found out she was adopted. "Or at least I think I did. I'm.. less sure now. But if I was, then what I think is my real name might not be" - Kali Wolsey says it depends how old she was when she was adopted - if she was. It's about the name you have when your identity forms, not what you're baptised with if the two differ.

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"Look. This is easy to test - you go into another room, and I'll try to scry on you. No sense worrying about it." - Wolsey Hide and Scry it is. Kali goes to her bedroom while Wolsey attempts to scry on her using Space... and fails.
Oops. I am staying schtum as to whether the spell failed because Mark had a bad roll or because Kali's name isn't Kemi

On second attempt, though, he succeeds. Just. "That took a while" - kali "Well, we're hardly bosom buddies, and I haven't slept with you. Sorry... Sorry.. Carrot" - Wolsey Aaaaaanyway. They need to deal with their doorstep first of all - these home invasions have to stop. But Wolsey has a foreboding feeling. The old lady was tainted, right? Maybe it was showing her as a Seer's favoured puppet. "We're going to get screwed. I can't shake that feeling" - Wolsey "By Dantor?" - Damascus "I don't know. That's the worst part. It's just.. We're going to get screwed" - Wolsey He's broken out of his reverie by Damascus saying they'd better get a move on. "So, are we going to go beat up an old lady now?" - Wolsey "I prefer the term 'question gently'" - Damascus "No. I want to be one of the 'hoodies" - Wolsey Kali would like to introduce a note of caution, based on the "Seer Puppet" theory just what DOES Seraph have to do with all of this? Wolsey is dismissive of her attempts to understand her quisling semi-stalker, as per form, and she says that Wolsey isn't the font of all knowledge. If Seraph was trying to warn them... well, *why*? Why would he? "I just believe there are things you don't know" - Kali "Impossible" - Wolsey "Hubris much, Wolsey?" - Damascus And on that note, they head outside and to the old lady's house. Knocking at the door receives no answer, so Damascus puts up Grim Sight.. and discovers that there is a dead body inside, and the residue of several spells. "Hells" - Wolsey They analyse what resonance they can, learning that the spells are the remains of Space-based teleportation and of some kind of Mind effect. "They teleported in, then out again. Locked-door killing" - Damascus.

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Damascus slaps the lock, then considers. He retrieves a soda bottle from down the street and runs back to the scene, casting Shape Liquid to manipulate the soda into the lock.. and to turn the tumblers. The lock clicks, and Damascus yanks the door open. Inside, the old lady's corpse is hanging from a noose. "Was she?" - Wolsey Damascus casts Forensic Gaze and shudders. She was alive when they hung her and terrified. "The mind spells.. she was under magically heightened fear when it happened. Someone teleported in, scared her half to death then went all the way." - Damascus Kali looks back through time gradually, noting that the *last* person in here was Seraph - in the body she slept with. He teleported in and out himself, when the old lady was already dead. "So he was her tool. That's why she was tainted - she was Seraph's puppet" Wolsey "Nearby, to keep an eye on us. And someone killed her. He found out, and tried to warn us..." - Kali "Why Graffiti?" - Wolsey Obvious really. He must have known Wolsey wouldn't allow Kali to read any traditional note. He had to do something she'd be certain to see. "Who killed her?" - Wolsey Kali looks back in time again, and describes two men, one greasy and thin, the other muscular. They talk to one another with Irish accents. "It's them" - Wolsey Wolsey's feeling of dread returns, and he remembers the Ring up in the sanctum. The Ring he had on him all day "It's the people who were after Gawain" - Wolsey End

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Interlude: Recap!!

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Session 3.3
Spoiler Warning, yet again - this session contains what of Story One from Reign of the Exarchs wasn't in 2.3. Big chunks of my foreshadowing finally "fire". It also contains the first combat of the Chronicle, which was over *very* quickly. Magic is the killer app, you know? At the end of the session's writeup I'll review "The Ring" from Reign of the Exarchs, now that we've finished it, and provide a spoiler-blacked summation of what the hell is going on for thread-readers that fancy seeing my players walk into my cunning traps. Or Word and BlackHattMatt's cunning traps, at any rate So. The cabal had just learned that the guys who were chasing Gawain around the world had surfaced in DC and been performing Home Invasions on innocent civilians in both their and Dantor's territory, and that (maybe separately, maybe not) Dantor and Malakaii were collaborating on a secret project that somehow involved them. Also - a thing I forgot. Rafe thought, on the reveal of the old lady's hanging, that the two baddies were Fangs of Mara.

Hurrying back to the Sanctum, the Cabal find that the Ring... ...Is, thankfully (or maybe not from Wolsey's point of view) still there. NOW what the hell do they do? Damascus asks who these guys are, and Wolsey reaffirms his belief that they're the very same Irish mystery men who attacked Gawain.. then immediately qualifies that by noting that Gawain was more than slightly dodgy. Damascus nods. "This could all be part of some wider scheme... I've been hanging out with you too long" - Damascus Wolsey raises the possibility that they're maybe working for Dantor - after all, she's been agitating against them for some reason, and the only complaint she's voiced to them has been the activities of these two. Damascus is still musing on shadowy conspiracies. "Gawain could have been working with them" - Damascus "There's a happy thought for late at night" - Wolsey What evidence do they have that they're the same pair, though? Gawain was attacked in Ireland, according to him. But many people have Irish accents. Boston, for instance. Damascus raises the possibility that they're not people from Gawain's past, but instead from Wolseys "I mean come on, you're from Boston, and now we're being terrorised by two Irish guys. Coincidence? I think not" - Damascus, partly in jest "I'm willing to accept Boston as the root of all evil. But not now" - Wolsey In any case, Wolsey points out, this makes their plan of cutting and running all the more important. Except Kali - who's been oddly quiet so far - has now decided that "retreat to powerful allies" is the cowards way out. Seeing the bodies, and knowing that this has been going on under her nose, has deeply pissed her off. She's not going anywhere, and she's certainly not leaving her gang for another three-day jaunt "I'd be doing them a disservice if I ran away again" - Kali

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Wolsey has misgivings about this. Severe misgivings. The lady, however, is not for changing her mind. Wolsey asks what she'll do if they come back. "Kill them" - Kali Wolsey gives her a look "What? Look - we can't be all like you, Wolsey, in your safe, middle-class world, sitting in your metal apartment..." - Kali "Mostly concrete and glass, actually" - Damascus "Sitting in your concrete and glass apartment. We're down *here*, and these fucks are attacking *us*" - Kali
Kali was really affected by the two crime scenes she's seen so far - especially as they're so close to home. The implication is that she's not been paying enough attention to the home front, and she's maybe overcompensating. Mind you, given what happens later on, this is the best decision she could make to avoid a Mage War with Dantor.

Wolsey asks for calm, as the talk has by now gotten a bit tense, and outlays the plan. He'll go to Banneker's while Damascus goes to Ulysses... "You've already said. You're running away" - Kali "I'm setting a trap" - Wolsey While they're in safety, Wolsey will periodically scry on the other two and on the Sanctum. When Dantor and Malakaii move in, they'll gather their own allies and... "Wait. We were talking about the Irish Guys. Not Dantor" - Kali "Well..." - Wolsey They decide that yes - they're all running away with theories and plans here. There are two problems and, speculation to the contrary, they don't know that they're connected. So they'll do this in order. Irish Guys First, Dantor and Malakaii second. So. What do they know about them? Not much. Kali gives physical descriptions, but it doesn't help. The accents are a pointer but by no means definitive. And they don't know what they *are* "They used Arcana. They're Mages" - Kali "Could be demons. Abyssal entities" - Damascus "If they were full abyssal entities, home invasions would be the least of our worries" Wolsey "They could be Banishers that have *really* gone off the deep end" - Damascus "And awoken to the sound of a Bell?" - Wolsey
Oo! good idea!

"Yeah. They could think it's an artefact of a great evil... ...they'd be right." - Damascus Wolsey nods. The suggestion is raised that they could be Seers, working with Seraph.

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I forget which of the men raised it

Kali points out that Seraph tried to warn them about these people, which doesn't make Wolsey any happier. Seraph is not their friend, he says. "He's not our enemy right now either..." - Kali "Look. If you're going to put a cap into the Irish guy's heads, and into Dantor's head, you might as well put a cap into Seraph's head too." - Wolsey There is a pause, caused by Wolsey attempting to speak "street" "Could you do me a favour and just say 'shoot them'? Please?" - Damascus "Sorry" - Wolsey So - problem the second. Dantor. Again, they're working of supposition - they don't *know* that Dantor and Malakaii are going to attack them. Just that they're doing something shady involving them, which is reason enough to be on their guard. And given that Dantor's annoyed about the home invasions too, and has much more resources... Solve two birds with one stone - go tell Dantor about the Irishmen, and watch them fight it out. Kali isn't enamoured of the idea of it, and even less so when Wolsey says that they shouldn't all go - but that Kali definitely should. "Great. Not content with paddling my ass yourself? Want to see me extra humiliated?" - Kali
Prophetic. I know, I know, I'm being a tease. Soon.

"The last time you met, Dantor..." - Wolsey "Called me a child and paddled my ass." - Kali
She very fixated on that terminology. There is no sexual tension betwixt her and Wolsey - none at all. Kali is increasingly, in this three-session story, dwelling on her failure to communicate with her father and seeing Wolsey as a sort of replacement Father/Authority figure who she's instinctively acting out against. Watch (and go back and see) how much she uses childish references, goading him by repeating left-field utterances until they become absurd ("Carrot?" last time) and constantly pushes against his assumed authority. This moment of insight brought to you by Pinot Grigio.

Wolsey tries to persuade her - that they need to show strength, not look needy but still like they respect Dantor, and that it would be insulting if the only member of the Cabal she never saw were Kali. Kali resists, Wolsey tries again. All in all, the paddling reference is used too many times by both sides, until Damascus tells them both to stop it. Or pay him to build them both a playroom. "Kali. It is better to be patronised tonight than raised as a zombie tomorrow" Damascus "That's not what I'm afraid of" - Kali "What is?" - Damascus "Things closer to home" - Kali, pensive
By which she means The Spider, and the implications her trip into the Astral had about her life. Kali has too much on her plate right now to be worrying about random Irish Seers (and yeah, they're Seers. Sorry).

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Kali casts an Unveiling of Time and decides that going to Dantor's won't be detrimental to her. Meeting adjourned. Wolsey - carefully retrieving the Ring from it's hiding place - goes home, while Damascus and Kali head to Dantor's and get as far as the start of the Defender's Right of Crossing, where they are turned away by a Sleeper guard. Kali gets dangerously in his face, telling him to run and tell Dantor that the invasions are being carried out by two Irishmen, giving their descriptions. The guard says, with no small amount of sarcasm, that he'll tell her when he sees her. Eventually, Damascus tugs at Kali enough to get her to come away, and they retreat back into their own turf. This is not a good night so far. Damascus flees to his own home and - after shutting the Sanctum up, Kali heads to her place, where Ichi, true to his word, has gathered the troops together for a party. Kali throws herself into the night, trying to forget all about everything that's going on and failing miserably until she drunkenly makes an announcement around 4am - she tells everyone what the Irishmen look like, and that they were behind the attacks. And need killing. There is much hoisting of weaponry as people vow to do just that, and Kali allows herself to be swallowed up by her people. Sex, drink.. and then oblivion. Monday 3rd July Morning. No-one - but no-one - is an early riser. Unless you count Kali, who hasn't yet gone to bed. The closest to it is Wolsey, who does see single-digit hours in his "mostly concrete and glass" apartment. Remembering what he promised the other day, he successfully applies clout and manages to somehow get a table reservation on this night of all the calendar, and then calls Avatar to tell her where they're going.
Remember that? Avatar and Wolsey decided to go on a "first" date? Was in last session.

"Yeah, that's fine. I'm at Promethea's today..." - Avatar, mid-ramble Wolsey remembers his Heralding duties, and after a brief negotiation with Promethea via Avatar and then Promethea via Avatar's phone, gets the number of a law firm downtown. The senior partner of which likes to call himself "Suleiman" when associating with a particular group of acquaintances that share his interests.
I can't remember the name of the firm - or in fact Suleiman's real name. Because they're the name of one of the credits from the World of Darkness corebook, which I don't have on me at time of writing.

Calling Suleiman (and after pleasantries n which Wolsey makes it clear that this is supernal business and Suleiman does.. something.. to the line), Wolsey passes on the message that Banneker would like to see the Councillor ASAP. Suleiman gives Wolsey a return message, and then rather oddly starts talking about Wolsey. "I heard about Malakaii refusing you. Terrible business. You know, when you first came to us there was some question about who you'd be trained by..." - Suleiman Wolsey listens to the invitation, all-but-spoken, to join Suleiman's Claviclarius instead of Malakaii's Legacy. He thanks the elder mage and hangs up.
Suleiman - like Fisher - would be a more important character but for our cast of PCs. Because when I was designing the chronicle, Rafe was going to play a Claviclarius mage. I quite like the Goetic mages, they're neat - and as I've mentioned I do appreciate Awakening's take on the Inner Realms. He's someone that will become more important as I start to show things

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other than Legacies - He's the senior Mastigos, equal to Malakaii, and he's actually the head of the Mysterium in DC. Which would be the Order Kali's in - Samuel's a Free Council Mage. In any case, the offer was genuine but I knew ooc Wolsey wouldn't take it. He's unsuited to the Claviclarius. They're too inwardly-focused for him, and as Mark puts it - can you imagine Wolsey if he tamed his arrogance and kept it chained up in the cellar?

Before he forgets, he calls Banneker at home "Hello? Yes... No.. No dear, it's not the delivery people. We *have* enough cranberries... No, it's someone from work..." (to Wolsey) "Sorry about that." Banneker "I found the partner you wanted me to find. He'll meet you at your usual place." Wolsey "Ah, thank you. Yes. That's good. And listen... whatever happens tomorrow, don't worry, all right? Just keep your head down and stay out of it." - Banneker "I'll bear that in mind" - Wolsey "Seriously, lad. It's all in hand. *Trust me*" - Banneker ----Damascus is studying at home, idly considering what courses to aim for and if he can get away with doing an Art major. He calls his family, learning that his brother has so far managed to keep his job and that in absence of a reply, his parent's haven't bought enough food to feed him tomorrow along with everyone else. "Ah, it's all right. I'm looking to be busy tomorrow anyway. Look,. I'll come round on Wednesday and eat the leftovers, okay?" - Carl After he hangs up and returns to his work, something... odd... happens. Everything jerks around him, almost imperceptibly - like a disc skipping, or a few frames of a film being repeated. As someone who has experienced missing time at the hands of other mages, he immediately checks his watch - no difference. He casts Supernal Vision, but can't see anything unusual among the mass of Prime-forms all around. Everything seems in order.
More about this later - there is a reason, a very good reason, why Damascus has started to experience these deja-vu incidences. He's the guy who has just gained a *non-magical* permanent Mind shield, thanks to his Legacy attainment from the Uncrowned Kings. The extent to which the perceptions and memories of all or characters are tweaked is rather higher than 'whenever Malakaii's around'. As Damascus says later - a deja vu is a glitch in the Fallen World. It's when the Exarchs change something. But - and this'll bake your noodle - the events of the chronicle are what the characters *remember* happening, not what actually happened. I don't tell them 'and you forget all this', rather the lives of the characters we experience by playing the chronicle are the endresult of all the editing that's going on in the chronicle. If that makes any sense. But there's another couple of layers yet to all this - which will be revealed in time.

----Later Wolsey and Avatar - determinedly Thomas and Amanda for this evening - have met at Thomas' restaurant of choice and are in the awkward phase where they feign a deep and abiding interest in the menu rather than confront the mammoth-sized

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issues between them. Amanda has dyed all of her hair blonde for the occasion so as to avoid too much attention in the restaurant, which gives Thomas his "in" for a conversation-starter - what's the hair all about?
Avatar's got a very odd hairstyle - spiky in places, short in places, dyed a couple of different colours

Amanda says that she's dissatisfied with it, and just trying different things out. Her hair never feels quite *right*. "So. Experimentation. And I suppose a part of it is wanting to.. I don't know... change who I see in the mirror, I suppose." - Amanda "Trying to be different" - Thomas "Trying not to be who I used to be, or feel like I used to be. I'm not the same person." - Amanda "I'm unusual in that, I think. I don't feel much difficulty coping with it - letting go of parents and so on. Though some people don't seem to have a problem separating their day-lives at all" - Thomas
Like Damascus, or Banneker. Wolsey's saying that he's not like - say - Kali or Avatar, who feel so strongly different to their pre-awakened state that they're uncomfortable in themselves.

"Yeah. I'm still feeling it out. Like I said the other day - I can tell there's something I'm supposed to be, and that's reassuring and comforting and all, but... at times it's like I don't know myself. Like with the hair. I must think, on some level, that I might cut it just right and then recognise the woman in the mirror." - Amanda Example. "What was it you used to watch all the time? The sport?" - Amanda Thomas 'oh's in recognition "The playoffs. I always used to watch the playoffs. Though... Um... It was mostly so that I could have something to break the ice in hotel bars" - Thomas
That is very Wolsey. That is the essence of Wolsey right there.

Amanda laughs "I watch Cricket" (off his expression) "No - really. Since I was in.. that other place... I don't know. I honestly have a thing for Cricket. Don't know why. It's Baseball with one base and a break for dinner, but it's fascinating." - Amanda
Wood - if you read this - don't say anything, all right? Consider this your shout-out.

"Do you feel especially English?" - Thomas "Could be Indian. I put it down to Mara. I choose to blame Mara" - Amanda ... "This is good" - Thomas, pointing with a fork at the food that had just arrived. "Yes. Good." - Amanda

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There is some uncomfortable silence "So.. What are we doing..?" - Amanda "Afterward? Well... This is a first date, right? No expectations on a first date." Thomas Yeah. About that. "I've been meaning to ask you. Was there anyone? After I went?" - Amanda Thomas shakes his head "What? No one? No nubile cult-addled maidens?" - Amanda "Not one. And you? Any authoritarian mysterious leader-types?" - Thomas She smiles, pained, and shakes her own head. Then gets serious. "Listen. About that..." - Amanda "You don't have to tell me" - Thomas "I do. You say authoritarian. When I Awoke, I was in a cult dedicated to money, influencing people - they thought of the world as made up of commodities. Very capitalist. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that they... ah.. Batted for the other side." Amanda "Back in Boston?" - Thomas "No - here." - Amanda
She's quite lucky, in a way, that the Seers usually don't consider satellite societies to be recruitment grounds. If they'd kept a closer eye, they'd have spotted her as an Awakening in action and she'd have ended up in a Pylon.

----And now, at the one-third mark, we catch up with Kali.

Meanwhile, across town... Kali, vaguely awake - though the party has moved onto a more chilled phase now that most people have slept - is woken up properly by a young boy bursting in through the warehouse door and shouting that there's another attack going on right now. The dozens of 'gangers arranged in various poses and conditions hear the call to action, weapons are brandished and people begin to hustle. Quickly pulling her boots on and retrieving a pistol, Kali rushes outside at the back of the wave, gang men and women piling into cars and onto bikes. Kali hitches a ride on the back of Ichi's motorbike for the short trip across the two and a half blocks to the apartments the boy named. As they arrive, a young woman - soaked in blood - stumbles out of the door to the building, and is quickly guided away by the 'gangers. Kali orders someone to take care of her, casts Fortune's Protection then leads her men and women in. When they reach the stairwell, Ichi and Kali in the lead, bullets are fired down from a floor high above them. Carefully advancing up the stairs, mind full of vengeance, Kali and Ichi take the last few floors at a run, leaving the rest of the gang behind. One apartment door is ajar, and Kali kicks it open as they run in... ...Just in time to see one of the Irishmen jump through a Portal. Ichi goes very wide-eyed, and Kali feels the Paradox building. She runs at the Portal, hoping to get through before the insurmountable barrier of Ichi's disbelief shuts it down, but the enemy has Keyed it. The Portal shrinks in Ichi's gaze and eventually vanishes with a small rush of displaced air. Ichi blinks, his memory all spongy and

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refusing to accept what he just saw. Kali, though, saw the room on the other side of that Portal. She knows where they are. "They're in the Factory!" - Kali Ichi looks around, then at the window "Jesus... the *drop*" - Ichi
He thinks the Seer jumped out of the window

"Fire Escape. They're heading for the Crack Factory - come ON" - Kali She runs out, half dragging him after her. The first gang members are now at the top of the stairs, and have to turn right around again. Kali and Ichi get back on the bike, and two cars' worth of gangers have made it back down in time to go with them.
Kali's not waiting - rushing around. Her people are getting strung out.

Arriving at their former drugs-lab, Kali assesses the six gang members that made it thus far and splits them up, sending three in each of the main entrances on either side of the building. She and Ichi will head for the back door. Everyone moves rapidly, aping gun sieges they've seen in movies, and Kali is soon within sight of the back door. There, on the sidewalk in front of the building, is a Nickel. Kali blinks, and casts a Mage Sight, reading the object as obviously magical. She waves Ichi to wait even as they hear the doors being kicked in by the other teams, and squats down to look at the coin. It's embedded in the sidewalk, edge-on. Very carefully, she reaches out and tugs it. The Nickel emits a noise, loudspeakerloud, that Kali will later realise is her own voice shouting "Go!".
Not all Nickels are good.

There's a flash of light as conditional spells trigger. The coin focuses the reflection of the sunset into a tight beam of orange light that flashes around for a split second as the coin moves in Kali's hand, then targets dead-on at a traffic mirror, rebounding and shining through an upper-story floor of the "Factory". Which explodes. The orange fireball and clump-whummph sound of a gas explosion rocks the city for several blocks, as an expanding cloud of superheated gas shatters the once-factory to pieces. Burning masonry goes flying, and Ichi and Kali are stood right in the way. Big blocks of redbrick come crashing down, narrowly missing her thanks to the armour spell. Kali doesn't much notice, as the blast sent her flying. When she lands, she's unconscious. --"Did you just hear something?" - Thomas

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Cute.

--Damascus, still at home, flicks the TV on as he goes to fix a meal. The news is plastered all over the local stations - an explosion in Anacostia. There's a crash as he drops his plate and runs out of the house, jabbing the number of Wolsey's cell into his phone while simultaneously trying to find his van's keys in his pocket. --Thomas waves Amanda's taxi off, considering his life. He's interrupted in his musing by the call from Damascus. Wolsey frowns and answers. Damascus tells him the news - which Wolsey had missed - but says that he's stuck in traffic. The police have cordoned off the roads all around the place, for fear of another blast. They quickly establish that they don't know where Kali is. Wolsey scries her location with Space Magic, and tells Damascus that she looks okay - she's in an ambulance somewhere. "Ichi looks pretty bad, though. Where would they be taking her?" - Wolsey "St Jude's, maybe. I can go check." - Damascus "No - we need to know what happened. I'll meet you in the Sanctum" - Wolsey "Or as close to it as we can get" - Damascus Damascus hangs up, pounding his horn and trying to remember back routes. "...SHIT!" - Wolsey, hailing a cab.
Mark wishes to make it clear this is Wolsey driven to frustration at the situation, not in surprise at something new.

--Kali wakes up in the Ambulance, groggy as hell and comfortably numb from the drip which, the Paramedic tells her, has painkillers in it. She's all right, though, the wreckage somehow missed her ("damn lucky").. but Ichi was not so lucky. He's alive, and the Paramedic is working on re-inflating his left lung. As the medic talks, his words turning into a kind of droning buzz, Kali gets a huge, crushing feeling of inevitability and predestination, like all of this is fated to go exactly the way it's going. She realises there's something in her hand, and looks down - it's the Nickel, still clutched in her left hand. Kali, pained, tries to roll over and look away from Ichi. Trying to make the world go away, covering her head with her arm.
Weird little human gesture, that. Kali is in varying degrees of shock and reaction to her trauma for the rest of the session.

--Damascus is the first of the menfolk on the scene, picking his way through the wreckage (it's started to rain, and the fire brigade have managed to get the fires put out) and looking over the scene of utter chaos, with emergency vehicles, onlookers, a TV camera and spectators all crammed around. He carefully casts Incognito before

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crossing the tape, and listens to the lead fireman give an initial verbal report to a cop - the building detonated due to a gas leak meeting a spark, probably electrical. They haven't gone through the wreckage yet, but they have been finding pieces of what looks like chemistry equipment. The implication is clear. At which point, Damascus is joined by Nimrod - the Guardian of the Veil in the FBI, who since we have seen him last has become a Sentinel of the Consilium. Nimrod calmly greets him, and they step aside from the ongoing investigations to have a polite chat. Nimrod explains that Kali will likely be arrested as soon as she leaves the ambulance - both she and Ichi were carrying firearms - and that the Cabal will have to exercise great subtlety and wisdom in what they choose to do about it. Strings will be pulled - it does no one any good to have one of the community behind bars - but the more strings that have to be pulled the greater the chance there is of her being punished for this by the *magical* community. Damascus references the equipment in the rubble and suggests that they try to tell the police it was a Micro-brewery
Which is a referential joke back to the Factory's last appearance. When I said it was important to the chronicle and you'd all realise it soon...

Wolsey arrives, and Damascus and Nimrod fill him in. They need to get to Kali as soon as possible, and learn exactly what happened here - in particular if there was any breach of the Veil - before anyone else does. Nimrod informs them both that six bodies have been recovered from the wreckage so far. He'll stay here to assist with any magical cover-up that may be required, and after a brief consultation Damascus and Wolsey decide that Wolsey will go to the Hospital to find Kali while Damascus stays here and assists Nimrod - the Cabal needs to show anyone who may be watching that they're covering all their bases. After Wolsey leaves, Damascus - scanning the site with Mage Sight spells - learns that there were several small spells that triggered one another like dominos, and that the end result was the blast. He also finds that there was a large amount of crack on the ground floor - it isn't crack now, given that it's been well and truly cooked, rained on and blasted under intense pressure, but the police will still find it unless the two Moros do something. Nimrod starts erasing the traces of drugs, while Damascus works on understanding the spells that brought the building down. --At the hospital, Kali is withdrawn, still clutching the fateful nickel. Wolsey, covered by Inconspicuous, enters, and tells her that it's him. She looks like the thing she wants the most is for Wolsey to go away - pale, covered in tiny wounds and very very tired, feeling that oppressive inevitability again. Wolsey tells her that she's likely to be arrested, and she asks why - she was a bystander, after all. The gun, maybe - but no. For it turns out that it's legal. She doesn't have a concealed carry licence, but it wasn't concealed. "...Ichi's shotgun, however, was definitely NOT legal" - Wolsey Kali asks where Ichi is, and Wolsey says that he's still in surgery. She nods - the last thing she did, when they wheeled him out of the ambulance, was cast Exceptional Luck on him. At which point, Damascus arrives, fresh from his inquiries.

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"The building was blown up by a simple Matter and Fate spell - when the correct conditions were met, produced by another spell, the gas meter's conductivity was reversed - it became electrified, and set off the gas that had been building up in the building" - Damascus Kali clutches the Nickel and doesn't say anything "There's more... Nimrod says that witnesses are claiming you ran up and threw something in through the window. And also that these Witnesses are being influenced magically. He's counter-influencing them, and he's destroyed all trace of the drugs you had in the place, but Malakaii has already brought charges against you for endangering the veil. Mr Thursday is on his way to take you into custody - the police charges have been squashed by Nimrod, but.. well.. It's the magical ones we need to worry about." - Damascus
Not once do the lads ask her if she's okay.

"What happened, Kali?" - Wolsey "Oh, you've finally got around to asking, have you?" - Kali, bitter She tells the story, from the beginning. Wolsey and Damascus listening. All told, not _too_ bad - she did Magic, but it was Covert. The only Vulgar spells were cast by the Seers, and she sent the majority of her gangers away before the final explosion. Wolsey starts theorising (to increasingly angry looks from Kali) that they could claim she was minimising the damage to the veil - showing good character. At which point, Mr Thursday arrives and joins the little party. Bowing politely, softlyspoken, the Bokor ignores the other two and asks Kali directly what damage there was to the veil. He has already had Nimrod's report, he points out to Damascus. Kali explains that only Ichi saw any Vulgar magic, and Thursday nods as if ticking a mental box. "And your man is still in surgery?" - Thursday "Yes" - Kali "Do you wish to keep him?" - Thursday "*yes*" - Kali "Very well. The gentleman is my one area of concern - the accusation against the lady will be heard in due time, but we must deal with the breach. You should decide what to do about the situation among yourselves. I will be outside. When you have decided, the lady will be released and I will take her to a Consilium Sanctum." (to Kali directly, rather than to the whole room) "Look at it this way - if you are being targeted by someone, then it is best to put you under our protection" - Thursday
Thursday has the quiet authority of an executioner at times like this, though since my Invisibles overdose I keep seeing him as Jim Crow.

Thursday goes outside politely, and the lads talk to - but mostly around - Kali as they try to decide what to do with Ichi. Both Damascus and Wolsey skirt close to "kill him", but Kali fiercely opposes even the suggestion of it. Damascus speculates that what Dantor really wants is maybe their turf, or the threat of a rival gang eliminated... "...how many men do you have left?" - Damascus

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Dozens, as it turns out - 'only' six died. Which squashes that idea, but Kali is outraged that he even thought of handing over her hard-fought territory to Dantor as a peace offering.
Damascus *keeps* suggesting that this session - that the gang is a problem that they need to get rid of.

Back to Ichi "Make him a Sleepwalker?" - Kali "It's an idea.. But we have no idea how to do it" - Wolsey "I don't want you to wipe his memory, or remove that experience from him. He deserves the chance" - Kali "There is no way of telling..." - Wolsey "You're failing the test you're setting yourself at the first attempt. If you really believed all the crap you spout you'd be trying to *help* him. Or does he not deserve magic because he's poor?" - Kali "I thought you were against me doing it at all - or is just because Ichi's someone you like?" - Wolsey She has no answer to that. Damascus and Wolsey promise to do what they can - and that they won't kill him. Thursday comes back in, asking if they've talked it through and - when they say they have - saying that he will take Kali now. Wolsey asks how the Consilium handles legal matters - it's a simple argument and counter-argument until the Council decides the verdict, unless the Cabal decide to challenge Malakaii to a duel for the result. --An hour later, Kali and Thursday arrive at Samuel's Sanctum. Thursday and Samuel - who doesn't look at Kali - engage in a very formal exchange of greetings and authorities, as Thursday asks for the Right of Hospitality for himself and his prisoner in accordance with the Lex Magica as enshrined in the Consilium of Washington-DC and by that point Kali isn't listening. Samuel lets them in, and half-smiles sympathetically to her when Thursday is closing the door. He indicates a corridor, and says that they can sleep this way.
This bit passes oddly - and the conversation between Samuel and Thursday was described in imprecise terms ('they're speaking formally about rights' rather than the actual words) as part of Kali being numbed with shock. Also, Samuel's dealing with the 'situation' not with her, just like Wolsey and Damascus. Only when Thursday turns his back does Kali get the first human sympathy since being attacked.

--Damascus and Wolsey lurk in the waiting room of the hospital, hanging on word of Ichi's operation. Damascus says - guiltily - that he has almost wished Ichi doesn't make it in the last few hours. Wolsey knows what he means. The clock ticks around to Midnight. What a day. Tuesday 4th July The sun rises on Independence Day, as Ichi finally wakes up. He came through the

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surgery okay - and thankfully, from Wolsey and Damascus' point of view, Disbelief has done it's work and he can no longer remember the precise details of what happened. As far as Ichi is concerned, the Irishmen escaped from the apartment by the fire escape and - when they tracked them to the Crack Factory - Kali stopped him going inside at the last minute, spotting something Ichi didn't see on the floor. Then the building exploded. Ichi's troubled - and not just because his memory's taking a beating from the Abyss. He asks about Kali, and the guys say she's fine - but that doesn't seem to cheer him up. The two Mages have bigger fish to fry, though, and they leave him to his thoughts.
Ichi's reaction to the whole thing will wait until next story.

Wolsey and Damascus, safely away from Ichi, talk about what their response to what's going on should be. Someone's clearly agitating against them, and given Malakaii's haste in having Kali seized it looks like the person manipulating the witnesses is closer to home. Or that the Irishmen are working for him and Dantor. Wolsey wants to focus on defences for Kali - the charges are that she endangered the Veil. Wolsey talks it through, and points out to himself and Damascus that Kali hasn't actually used Vulgar magic in front of Sleepers. He rhetorically considers whether Malakaii believes Kali's gang-running lifestyle is one huge veil endangerment, but decides that that can't be it - Dantor has zombies walking around, and no one accuses *her*. "And in the end.. If she did get into the position she's in with the gang through magic, then that could be argued in her favour - she felt the need to follow this path, so she moved to a part of the city where it was possible and blended in with the natives. Being obviously *not* from these parts would be endangering the Veil." - Wolsey What they need is a counter-attack against Malakaii. And neither of them is feeling particularly soft-footed right now. "Should I go talk to Beckett? I cannot think of anyone better qualified to screw with Malakaii" - Damascus "And he DOES owe you a favour" - Wolsey They think it through, and reject the idea - going to the left-handed mage to have someone done over would not be sending the correct signals. "Malakaii's a Businessman, as I recall. And a grand Mason." - Wolsey "I say we fuck him up - arrange a little demonstration that this could happen to anyone, and counter-charge HIM with endangering the veil when he moves to cover it up" - Damascus "I don't know - don't you think that's.. No. Fuck it. Let's be ambitious. Let's screw Malakaii over AND make Ichi a Sleepwalker. We can do two impossible things or be damned trying" - Wolsey

Wolsey phones Banneker, hoping to find out the timeframe of it all, and learns that it'll be dealt with at the Consilium that evening before the rites to expend DC's excess energy are performed. Banneker expresses his admiration for the way they're handling this so far, and tells Wolsey in no uncertain terms not to do anything stupid.

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"And Tom? That thing I was talking about staying out of? This isn't it." - Banneker When the Hierarch hangs up, Wolsey informs Damascus that plan 'blow up Malakaii's house' is on temporary hold, and that however bad things are now they're liable to get worse later today.
Mark says Banneker's call and the realisation of how little time they had was what calmed it down

--Samuel is telling Kali much the same thing - trying to ensure she stays calm and telling her not to be afraid of the hearing. Even if she's found guilty the sentence won't be fatal for this. And, "goddess willing", he'll see her at the House of Ariadne party afterwards. Kali, throughout, is plagued by her feeling of inevitability - and eventually asks if she can use the Time Machine to meditate. Samuel checks that the conditions of her house arrest don't apply to Astral travel as long as her body stays here, and lets her up the tower into the meditation chamber. --Wolsey and Damascus have now left the Hospital, driving back into town towards Damascus' house. They stop at an intersection, and Damascus - for just a split second - sees the word "HELP" written on a wall. Then it's gone. "Hn. That's odd" - Damascus, pulling over once it's safe and looking back over his shoulder "What?" - Wolsey To Damascus' perception, the scene jumps forward a fraction of a second again. He can't see any changes. "I.. did you feel that?" - Damascus "Feel what?" - Wolsey Damascus explains that he's been having these odd sensations, like deja vu, and had one yesterday before the blast. They both activate Mage Sight spells but can't see anything try as they might. "Well.. There is the Bell" - Wolsey "Do you have it?" - Damascus
The gang refer to the Ring of the Dethroned Queen as 'The Bell' or 'The Bell of Evil' pretty much exclusively IC.

He does, and hands it to Damascus grimly. They talk about using the Exarch-made artefact and whether it's a good idea, until Damascus strikes the Bell, feels the effect settle into his pattern and then casts Supernal Vision. Under the modified Ring-Sight, both he, Wolsey and in fact a large area around them are tainted with the energies the Ring detects. Whatever they are. Wolsey can't see anything with his own Magic, and Damascus really needs a second set of senses. Grimly, feeling dirty about even considering it, Wolsey uses the Ring for the first time
And passes his Wisdom check, maintaining his morals. For these purposes, I consider Wisdom loss to be when you *don't* feel guilty about doing something - I give bonuses to the roll when the character's already acting guilty about it, and penalties

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when they're justifying their actions to themselves. So for me - and this came up in the game later on - "self defence" as an argument makes you more likely to get a die knocked off your pool for the roll. Morality scales are about what feels like a transgression to you.

Wolsey activates the Ring Sight using Space and notes that yes indeed - both he and Damascus have some kind of other energy on them. Damascus starts talking quietly about the thought he had when they first experimented with the Ring - what if this thing shows the presence of a 6th Arcana pair? The Ring was part of the regalia of an Exarch - but they don't know which Supernal Realm she was Queen of, and according to legend there are hundreds of such realms beyond the five that the Watchtowers were built in. "It's to do with our Minds. Something acting on our minds. 'Help', which then vanished. Help who? 'Help me?'" - Wolsey "What if it shows the Exarchs changing something. What would they change?" Damascus "Covering something up. Covering someONE up. What if someone were being hidden by forces beyond our understanding. What would that feel like?" - Wolsey "Maybe the writing was like a glitch - a momentary affect of whatever They changed..." - Damascus At which point, Damascus receives a phone call. It's Ulysses, and he has something important to say - He's been with two of the people selected for Dantor and Malakaii's special mission all day, and they've just made their excuses and left him. Whatever's going to happen is about to happen. "Where are you? Do you have somewhere to get to?" - Ulysses Damascus explains that they've got places of safety figured out, and hangs up. Wolsey and Damascus have a brief moment of paranoia that this might be connected to the "glitch in the matrix" Damascus just experienced, and Damascus asks Wolsey where the safehouse is. Wolsey never actually asked Banneker for sanctuary, and Damascus calls Ulysses back, arranging for them both to take shelter in Ulysses' church. When they arrive, Ulysses has taped a note to the door apologising to any worshippers that may come around for having to close the church today, but their nearest catholic mass can be found at X address. Inside, Ulysses has locked the main entrance and is sat on a pew, regarding a shotgun with a certain sense of loathing. It's eerily quiet as the three Mages greet one another. The lights are all out, so the interior is lit only by the colours from the stained-glass windows. "Thanks for taking us in" - Wolsey "It is no problem. Better safe than sorry. I heard about Kali" - Ulysses Ulysses and Damascus talk about the hearing that evening as Wolsey phones Avatar, checking she's somewhere safe herself. She's at Mara's - and spent most of the night and this morning hearing about the explosion. Wolsey says that Malakaii is out to get them, and Avatar says that Malakaii was at Mara's when she arrived this morning.

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"You know we were talking last night, about the Cult? Malakaii quizzed me about them this morning. Wanted to know everything." - Avatar "Wait. Back up a second. What was this Cult *called*, Avatar?" - Wolsey "Something about a coin" - Avatar "Did it have 'Steel' or Metal in the name?" - Wolsey "That's it. Some Enochian or something.. Translated as the Order of the Steel Coin" Avatar Wolsey feels a great weight lift from his shoulders. (addressing both the phone and the other two) "That's.. They're going after the SEERS! Malakaii and Dantor's strike force - they're going after the House of Steel. Bastards! They're going to take credit for my Intel... But..." - Wolsey "Are you okay?" - Avatar "I.. Yeah. Yeah. I think.. I think it's all going to be okay." - Wolsey At which point, the window shatters as someone throws a grenade through it. --Kali leaves her body behind in the Time Machine, walking through her own mind. Her Oneiros is full of images of fire and death, shattering and cracking. She spots the door to her father's living room, where the Guardian within her psyche seals.. something.. off from her, and turns away. She concentrates, pushing herself further away from herself, entering the dream of DC. Which is even more Patriotic than before, consumed by Independence Day. Under a stars and stripes sky, Kali sadly contemplates her fate. --In the church, Wolsey drops the phone and - in kung-fu slow-motion, hastily forms an Imago and makes a punching motion towards the grenade. The grenade vanishes through a fold in space, flung yards away from Wolsey onto the other side of the wall. From outside, there's a panicked shout and then an explosion. All the windows shatter, dust rains down from the ceiling and car alarms go off.
Yeah, he doesn't have Matter 2. I disagree with the rulebook on this, and think you should only need the Arcana of whatever you're teleporting if you're drawing it to you. Punting an object away should just be Space, same as you don't need Life to teleport yourself. Besides, it was cool.

Ulysses casts a spell of his own, and the dust-filled sunlight streaming in through the shattered stained glass somehow changes, becoming muted.
He has cast a conjunctional Dead Zone with a Fate component to exclude himself, Wolsey and Damascus - an area of effect anti-magic shield. I note the sunlight as I figure that Sunlight is the Fallen World's purest expression of Mana in the conversion of Prime to Forces as it crosses the Abyss. More minor Mage cosmology, there.

The three Mages look at one another. Wolsey casts Spatial Map and crosses to the side door they came in through, while Damascus retrieves a metal rod from the smashed-up stained glass. Wolsey pushes the door open, seeing one body lying in a pool of blood just outside, and a car with its trunk open, someone shielding themselves behind it. Wolsey relays this to the others, and Ulysses and Damascus leave the church by the main door, heading towards the still-upright assailant. The man at the car, spotting Wolsey, casts some kind of spell and fires a gun. Wolsey ducks back in as the shot 175

hits the wall next to him.

The Seer's spell was a Sharpshooter's Eye. Didn't do much good, though.

Damascus reaches the man, running in from the side, and smacks him in the legs as he runs past. Ulysses unloads a shotgun barrel in his direction to keep him from going after Damascus. In the background, Wolsey has emerged and scooped a gun up off the body, also firing at the assailant - who he realises is one of the Irishmen, the body being the other. Having the Seer pinned down, Ulysses fires the other barrel, dropping him. Wolsey gasps a breath, and asks if he's dead. Damascus casts Grim Sight and says no - neither of them are, though both are injured. The Seer Wolsey's standing over, though, is too far gone to save - his life is pumping out all over the church car park. As Damascus watches, that man passes away. "We need to clear this up. Now" - Ulysses. Wolsey's hands are shaking as Damascus takes the gun from him. Wolsey has never fired a weapon at a person before.
Wolsey's second Morality check of the day, now - he killed the first Seer indirectly using magic. He passed again.

By the time the Police arrive, Ulysses has erased the corpse, converting it into Mana, and they've stashed the still-alive but unconscious Seer in the confessional. Damascus and Wolsey have retrieved all the shotgun shells, bullet casings and other suspicious elements. Ulysses tells the police a story, backed by Damascus and Wolsey both using Mind magic, of vandals throwing fireworks at the church, and how this is a sad reflection of the moral state of today's youth. The cops gone, Ulysses visibly deflates, weeping as he prays for forgiveness for unmaking the pattern of the dead assailant.
It's not so much the converting him to Mana that Ulysses minds, it's the way that that Mana then gets added to Ulysses' own reserves - a form of magical vampirism based on annihilating something.

Damascus returns from outside, where he's searched the assailant's car. It was a hire car, and judging by the sleeping bags and supplies in it they've been living out of it for a couple of weeks. There were more grenades, a rifle and a bunch of plastic ties in the boot. There was also a notebook containing several Polaroids of the Cabal over the last fortnight and notes on their habits - especially Kali's. From context, they were indeed Seers of the Throne, and they've been tracking the Ring. Wolsey spots his phone lying on the floor - the call disconnected. He picks it up. "Who are you calling?" - Damascus "We need to tell Kali we got them.. and we need to get a Sentinel out here to take that one into custody." - Wolsey He *tries* to call Kali "Sorry. She's not on this plane" - Samuel
Which is a joke referencing another joke - the deadpan way people say whatever year Samuel's in when people try to contact him during his time travelling.

Wolsey asks him to get Kali to call once she's back in the Material, and then calls 176

Banneker - who is pleased (VERY pleased) with news of a Seer being captured. Especially so when it turns out Ulysses - a Provost - was a witness to both the attack and the capture. "We can use this. Excellent. Excellent work, Wolsey. I'll send Thursday" - Banneker After the call, Wolsey considers. And then phones Avatar to apologise for the cut-off. He has a very good excuse, though. --Hours later, Kali returns to her body, finding Samuel watching over her. "Your Cabal called..." - Samuel "Not interested." - kali Samuel shrugs and opens the trapdoor. --The Consilium is held that evening at Dusk, in the Grand Masonic Temple on 16th Street.
The Temple's website in the real world is at http://www.scottishrite.org/where/hq.html - in the gameworld, the choice is rather significant, as both Banneker and Malakaii have ties to Freemasonry.

Of the six seats set at the front of the meeting hall, two are unoccupied - Dantor's and Malakaii's. The seat normally left vacant at Banneker's right hand is actually filled for the first time Damascus and Wolsey can remember, by an elderly man, balding, dressed roughly and at the moment deep in conversation with Banneker. "That must be Fisher" - Damascus
Fisher - short for Fisher King - is a Thyrsus of no Order, who practices alone and is the fifth and almost never-seen Councillor. He's a variant of both the House of Ariadne and the Neocologists - his magic style is based on the belief that the City itself, not any Shadow world reflection or technical expression of tangled destiny and fate - is a life form, a vast creature with many sub-ecologies living in it like bacteria in a human's gut. In his role in the chronicle of 'magic hobo', he's most like Tom O'Bedlam in the Invisibles.

Wolsey, who's entered with him, spots Kali sat in the rows and nods to Damascus. They go to sit either side of her. "Did you get our message?" - Wolsey "No" - Kali "Well... we..." - Wolsey He starts to explain, but she isn't listening to him. Annoyed, he stops and focuses on the hearing. "We've been thinking, and we reckon the best argument is to claim that you were trying to preserve the Veil by..." (from her expression) "Why am I bothering? We spent hours trying to find a way out of this for you." - Wolsey "I'm very grateful" - Kali, flatly "You know what? I'll keep on helping you. And on, and on." - Wolsey "Is this a carrot thing?" - Kali At which point a hush falls over the assembly, as Malakaii and Dantor arrive. Dantor

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is inscrutable, Malakaii looks like he's the king of the world. Banneker opens the Consilium by naming Marion - sat at the front in prime position as the Magus who will disperse the Mana when the central Hallow of the city opens. "You will all be glad to know I'm sure that this gives us a deadline for tonight. This meeting must be completed within four hours" - Banneker The Hierarch finishes by noting that there is a judgement of the Lex Magica to be heard. Malakaii gets to his feet and denounces Kali, then starts to say something else but is cut off by Banneker holding up his sceptre. Wolsey watches intently as Banneker thanks Malakaii for his denouncement and says that the judgement will be added to the agenda for the evening as Other Business. As a procedural point, though, the Council speak on one topic each in turn until all reports are finished. "We are pleased to have our dear Colleague Fisher - the eldest of this Council in the Art - here with us today. Master, would you care to address the Consilium?" Banneker Wolsey explains, quietly, that the Councillors are going in order of seniority - and Malakaii is second-to-last, before Dantor. Fisher, getting to his feet and taking the lectern, peers out over the assembled Cabals with brilliant blue eyes before beginning to speak. At length. Extreme length. Fisher's speech is long and wide-ranging, difficult to follow but fascinating - and appears to be for it's first two hours to be on the subject of the supernal implications of the migrations of birds, and how the precise patterns of guano upon the roofs of cars construct a city-wide system of complex four-dimensional writing, the exact shape changing constantly as cars move around the city and bring the overall effect into different configurations. Damascus takes enthusiastic notes, which start to descend into doodles by the end of the first hour. Those Mages that went on Malakaii and Dantor's mission look scandalised - Banneker glares at any members of his Cabal that start to nod off, and puts on a great show of finding the lecture both informative and fascinating. Wolsey recognises a Filibuster when he sees one, and speculates under his breath on what Banneker had to do to get Fisher to do this. He leads the applause as Fisher finally concludes his talk and sits down, smiling happily and sweetly at the adulation he's receiving. Which mostly seems to be coming from Banneker's and the Cabal's allies. Suleiman and Samuel speak for a calculated fifteen minutes each, leaving just a single hour left on the clock. Banneker finally gives way on the lectern to Malakaii, quite graciously, and Malakaii describes the strike. Acting on information gleaned from the newest member of the community, still an apprentice under Mara, members of the Defenders and Gatekeepers moved on a cult based in the North West triangle of the city that they believed to be under the

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influence of the Seers of the Throne. They made several captures, and have three Acolytes imprisoned while the rest of the cult is being deprogrammed - the Seers were using them as puppets. Banneker stands again, thanking Malakaii and - after checking that Dantor doesn't have anything to add - declaring it a great victory for the Consilium, and for Malakaii and Dantor personally. But not the ONLY victory that day. One by one, everyone turns and follows Banneker's look to the back of the hall, where the Cabal are sitting. Damascus stands up and, recognising the way this is going, declares how the Cabal - and Dantor - have been under sporadic attack by a Pair of Seers for the last week, culminating on two attacks on the Crucible in the last two days. The Seers escaped the first time (he looks at Malakaii and holds eye contact) but the second attack, this afternoon, resulted in the death of one Seer. "And the live capture of the other Enemy Mage" - Damascus, underlining that last. Ulysses stands and declares this to be true. Malakaii looks at Thursday - who took the Seer in and apparently didn't tell him, who shrugs slightly.
Bit of a betrayal - Thursday's a Guardian, and in Malakaii's Cabal. There will be fallout from this, too.

Everyone looks at Malakaii, who has returned to staring at Damascus, still holding that Eye-contact - says that this is wonderful news, and asks that the prisoner be interrogated at once. Banneker, clearly relishing it, says that Malakaii as Guardian Epotet should of course be the one to ask the questions... "..but, sadly, there are only fifty minutes left before we must all leave. Under the circumstances - and especially as it was this Seer by all accounts who actually cast the Vulgar effects you denounced the young lady for, would you care to alter the agenda?" - Banneker Malakaii, with all eyes on him, drops his accusation against Kali.
He has bigger fish to fry.

Damascus sits down again and Wolsey frowns, thinking through the politics of this. Banneker used the Seer as a bigger target to get Malakaii to stop going after Kali, with the help of the Filibustering to put Malakaii under pressure for time. But Banneker could only do that after Wolsey and Damascus captured the Seer, yet said that everything would be alright before that. 'Everything' was referring to Malakaii and Dantor's mission, which as it turns out 'concerned' the Crucible in that Avatar is connected to them but wasn't actually against them. "We have had great achievements today. Great achievements. We commend those responsible for this Seer's capture, and we commend those who struck against the servants of the enemy also. I am sure" (to Malakaii) "that you will join us in commending the person whose hard work made your operation successful?" Banneker By now, Malakaii knows that something is going on, but with everyone watching can

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only agree. Banneker looks back at the Cabal. This time at Wolsey, who realises why Banneker didn't tap him last time. "I am pleased, Masters, that my information was put to such good use" - Wolsey Wolsey sits back down, as Malakaii - looking like Banneker has shat in his heart leads the applause for Wolsey. "Damn, he's good" - Wolsey, under his breath, looking with new admiration at the Hierarch. Banneker adjourns the Consilium, and Malakaii - glaring at the Cabal - leaves with Thursday to go question the seer.
I call this sequence "When Banneker got his groove back" - the actions of the Cabal have already started his transition from lame-duck Hierarch towards taking firmer control over the city. And especially over Malakaii.

Damascus breaths a sigh of relief, and looks at Wolsey, who is watching Malakaii leave "We've made an enemy today... Good." - Wolsey Banneker approaches the gathering, Marion and the rest of his Cabal in tow, and addresses Kali. "Young lady. We take such matters very seriously in this Consilium. Therefore I must warn you in no uncertain terms to exercise caution when using vulgar magic in front of Sleepers - which I understand you did not. You should never initiate conflict which you didn't - and always report Enemy activity to your nearest Consilium official" (pause) "...Which you did. So carry on, and consider this to be a stern warning to keep not doing those things I just told you to not do. Clear?" - Banneker Kali, blank-faced, agrees, and Banneker - looking awfully pleased with himself departs. "I just realised. The Seer will tell Malakaii about the Bell. Well... nothing we can really do about it." - Wolsey Samuel wanders over and sits backwards on a chair. "Told you you'd be okay. Party tonight?" - Samuel "Yeah" - Kali, feeling that Inevitability again
Kali hates having things decided for her, which is pretty much what everyone has done this session. She's furious with the other two for the way they acted in the hospital, and these feelings of Fate she's been getting simply aren't helping.

Samuel congratulates the lads on the victory, and everyone speculates what the Seer will tell Malakaii. Halfway through one of Samuel's sentences though, Damascus frowns. "You... This..." - Damascus Damascus looks around, then to Wolsey "It just happened again" - Damascus

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Wolsey and Damascus explain to Kali and Samuel that Damascus has been having odd feelings, like time jumping.
Which is actually what Samuel's Nimbus feels like, which no-one remembered. Still, in the interests of the thread - it isn't him doing it.

Kali casts Ring Sight and finds that all four of them are tainted by whatever it is. Worried, she reveals that she, too, has been having odd sensations - she describes her feelings of predestination, which she was having back when she met Seraph, and which she's been having since the attack.
Shes not the only one, remember? Avatar's been feeling it all her life.

"Maybe it's not just me" - Kali Wolsey asks why She and Damascus can feel these thing but he can't. Kali speculates that it's because she and Damascus are more in tune with whatever it is as the Ring has constantly showed them. "What are you talking about?" - Samuel "We think there's someone changing things. Someone we can't see... Your Spider?" Wolsey Malakaii and Thursday return, arguing. The gang overhear - Thursday is patiently explaining that the Seer was held fast by magic, and definitely alive when he left him. "Well he's not alive now" - Malakaii The Cabal and Samuel look at one another. Curiouser and Curiouser.
What was it Wolsey was saying, about the Seer telling Malakaii about the Ring?

"We can't do any more good here wondering about what might be going on, and I have a Legacy to lead. Kali - are you coming?" - Samuel Not looking at the other two, Kali leaves with her mentor. What a day. Again. That evening, The House of Ariadne holds it's annual gathering in the Octagon House , the emergency White House from the British invasion. There is drink, talk of omens and signs observed over the last few weeks, weed and much relaxing.
The Octagon House was the emergency replacement for the White House when the capital was burned in the war of... 1812, I think. http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc22.htm

The House, for reference, are: Samuel, Shepherd (a stockbroker in Banneker's Cabal apparently), Katherine (a rather snobby woman in an expensive gown who's from Suleiman's Cabal), Blaise, Trace and Kali All those established in the House tell a Thread that they've discovered: Blaise tells everyone how the flow of people around the presidential memorials in the last five days has - if you trace the same shape out - revealed one of the secret names of 181

God. Shepherd has seen certain omens in the share-price boards that revealed the coordinates, if you take DC as a Diamond-shape and plot an XY axis, the X being South to West and the Y being West to North, of the major Hallows. Trace says that the halls of government appear to be waiting for something, and Katherine tells of two rich families fated to intermarry. When the more formal part of the meeting is over, Shepherd departs and Samuel and Blaise go off to smoke weed together, leaving the three women behind. Kali, after the events of the last two days, is determined that she's not going to fuck this up and is at her most ingratiating. She wants to be friends with these people, and is practicing her atrophied social skills. Katherine turns out to be pretty much the antimatter double of Kali. Big money - moves for the House in the affairs of rich parties, debutantes and idle families of politicians. Kali, clearly hating every second, hangs off her like a lost puppy - clearly hating it but doing what the cool kid is doing for the sake of being cool. Eventually, though, Trace manages to get into the conversation and both she and Kali discover - to their mutual relief - that neither is as bad as their Cabal affiliations may indicate. In fact, they've got a personality mesh going on as Trace, once she gets past the fact that her Cabal head just tried to prosecute Kali, proves much easier to get along with. Katherine has an edge of taking everything very seriously indeed and when she talks to Kali it's about the Thread, and how important it is - she acts like the House is it's own reward, like she wants to be Samuel's favourite. Trace treats it more like Kali. The thread is something to be used to find things out, a means by which she can effortlessly keep track of the entire complicated mess that is US politics. And she knows to leave it behind when partying. Kali treats Trace more as an equal.
Sam says it's an "on the pavement" equal rather than an "in the gutter" equal

As the evening wears on, Kali self-consciously slips more and more into the buried "real" her, trying to slip back into how she remembers being before she left home. A little more open, more jovial; not happier, but more free, more trusting.
Sam: She has yet to decide whether more trusting is good or bad. Trust means you get dicked over, but makes you more friends. Lacking in trust means you're forever holding people at arms length - which is how she sees herself now. Always one step beyond the crowd - looking over them, protecting them, but not involving herself for fear of hurting herself under trampling feet. Kali remembers being Free, more than anything - a rather rotten irony considering she ran away to be more free. But deep down, I think she realises that freedom was what she had, once. Freedom to trust, and be hurt, and learn - rather than this endless holding oneself apart from everything that is potentially formative. She is shunning the empirical in order to exemplify herself as a stand-alone complex.

Trace is more open with her the more open Kali is with her in turn, and the pair of them find that they actually like one other. When Katherine goes to the bathroom, Trace offers a disparaging opinion about Katherine - the other woman thinks that being methodically serious-minded about the Threads will get her ahead in the House. Trace points out that Samuel has been getting stoned all this time with Blaise, while Katherine's been preening herself at her and Kali. Kali starts agreeing when Katherine returns. When the gathering descends into one-upmanship and sniping between Trace and Katherine, Samuel - stoned as a skunk - returns and tells Kali he'll take her back to the Time Machine so she can collect what of her things she left. She ends up staying for a nightcap, and Samuel - ruminating over something, says that he is starting to have misgivings about driving her deeper and deeper in pursuit

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of his own... whatever it is. "Some rocks hide creepy crawlies, Kali, and should be lifted lightly. I'm not telling you to stop, though. Just.. advising caution. This is probably not going to be the last time you face strife - after all, you named yourself after the Consort of Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. You can't *do* that and expect an easy life." - Samuel Anyways. Rather than drive home that night, she crashes at the Time Machine. Just before she goes to sleep she receives a text message. "Happy 4th. Wherever you are. Dad" Kali drifts off staring at the cell phone screen. --Damascus goes home after the Consilium, falling back on his studies and his art as he normally does when emotions run too high and Kali and Wolsey need space. Considering what's happened, and being a practical man at heart, he decides to make a peace offering to Kali in the form of a present - a metal bracelet, almost a vambrace, which he idly sketches when taking a break from his SAT revision. --Wednesday 5th July Carl - as promised - goes to see his family, who variously chide him for not making it over sooner and "ooh" over his application to college. Kali finally makes it home, to find the gang looking for vengeance and scouring the neighbourhoods for the Irishmen. Kali - weary to her bones - calls them together and says justice has been served. The instigators have been killed. Over the next few weeks, she gradually starts trying to persuade people to use less deadly weapons, and tries to channel any outrage (and in a place like this, there's always someone to be outraged at) to vandalism and graffiti instead of physical violence.
Sam: Kali learned something from Dantor - just not what was obvious: killing people is not the way for her to make the gang strong. It might be the right way, or the best way, but it's not Kali's way. Yet.

--Damascus goes to see John Dee, who asks him how he's progressing. Waving off talk of exams and applications as uninteresting but necessary steps, John wishes to focus on the Great Work - the alchemical progression of Damascus' Soul into perfection. The process, John says, begins with "Nigredo", in which one must reduce everything to it's basest level. In non-flowery language, Damascus needs to take a hard look at himself and explore the parts of himself that he doesn't like. Some people, John notes, go a bit Antinomist at this stage - though John recommends carrying out any especially antisocial urges in Astral Space so as to not risk conviction. "You're feeling things out with an aim to refine them later. So - homework. For two

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month's time. What don't you like about yourself and why?" - John Damascus feels his hand clench, remembering smacking the iron bar into the Seer's legs. --Wolsey, a few days after the Consilium, attends a get-together of the city's Heralds as the premier gossip-mongers and political barometers of the City take stock. Kali seems to have made a good impression on Trace (who calls her a sweet girl once you get past the piercings and the antisocial tendencies). She does tell everyone that Malakaii and Thursday have had a spat. Malakaii was furious with Thursday's actions. Thursday pointed out, respectfully and repeatedly using Malakaii's title in the Guardians, that his position had to be above reproach - and that Malakaii instructed him years before to be the very pillar of the Consilium. So Malakaii could go fuck himself.
Malakaii's the Guardians Epotet, and Thursday the Interfector - the position of executioner requires the strictest devotion to duty and moral sense, and is one of the positions the Guardians don't make the holder of commit actions against the Consilium's interests - *everyone* has to trust the Interfector to act appropriately, and Thursday was following that to the letter.

Alliances are shifting - people are regarding Banneker as being more and more in charge, and the Gatekeepers are feeling increasingly pushed aside. The general feeling is that with Samuel becoming increasingly interested, Banneker needs Malakaii less and less - and is starting to take revenge for the way the arrangement between the two of them has slid in Malakaii's favour over the last several years. Time was when it was amicable, and Malakaii didn't ask for much. He's been taking more and more liberties, though, ad it seems Banneker has finally had enough of him - and has started to build enough support to get rid of him. Hoban's considered opinion is that the Council will not have the five people it currently has by the end of the year. Though he doesn't hazard any guesses as to who would be out and who would be in. And lastly, the Ascendants are back in town. Balthazar was in the Consilium, and they've asked to meet Banneker.
We'll find out why next story.

--Late at night, sat up in bed nursing her wounds, Kali comes to a decision. She finds her cellphone among her clothes and presses Send. "Happy 4th, Dad. I'm here."

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3.3 Commentary
Sam / Kali: Once again I appear to have fallen a little behind. While I cant promise interesting, I can practically guarantee extensive and rambling. Once more we are granted a fleeting glimpse into Kalis mostly well-hidden mental recesses. Whether they make any sense or not, of course, has nothing to do with me J So here goes. We begin back at the genesis of Session 3.2. An amusing sidenote to Kalis sleeping in prior to being dropped in on by Samuel is that the reason for this was her assumption that Samuel, proficient in manipulating Time and understanding its secrets (how coltish, that opinion, hee), would arrive at precisely the right time. What the right time was (when she got up, when he was ready, when the solar conjunctions were amenable etc.) doesnt matter. She theorised that she could sleep in so long as she wanted, as it certainly wouldnt be the right time if she was still in bed. Thus she was slightly thrown, when he asked her what had kept her. The bizarre incident regarding replacing Malakaiis name with the sound of a duck quacking was purely a random citation on Kalis part. An enemy to tradition, the sworn nemesis of convention, Kali of course objected to the staid and quite frankly boring beep. Not only that, it reminded her of her dads old comedy vids. Eep. Beep is conformist and negligent of imagination. The curious thing, which struck me but swept Kali mostly by, was the fact that Malakaii might well have been able to hear his name past the obnoxious and offensive quack. I am not entirely sure how this would work in Mage, but it occurred that someone was skilled as Malakaii could easily sit that quack out, and be aware of the Name being spoken. This was a more relevant misgiving when Malakaii was a subtle suspect, instead of a direct one. Samuel: to Kali, a brilliant, mad scientist without a shred of common sense. A sort of smocked harridan of a man with large glasses, several bubbling test tubes and a grin framed by wispy beard. Nothing quite like the wondrous fraternisation of imagination with reality. Heh J Kali saw a little of herself in Malakaii, when she perceived him in the endless bleak reaches of the Past; the consequences of which may re-emerge later. His patronisation of freedom from persecution (the strict protection of her father) is what Kali knows she is trying to find somewhere in the gutters paragon. And yet how he has changed a lesson she will do well to learn for herself. Time has almost irrevocably changed Malakaii, and she knows that however much she sympathises with his shady double in history, Kali also realises that now, she would find it almost impossible to understand and feel for him. Physician heal thyself. Daves observation that Kali is a very different person when not with her Cabal is entirely correct; I think the reason for this is how they treat her, relatively; it of course doesnt help that the more the Cabal treat her like a helpless, dangerous idiot, the more helpless and dangerous and idiotic she becomes with them, almost so that she can blame them for the inception of this monstrosity despite having as much, if not more, a hand in her portrayal as they do. Kali believes that other people at least treat her as a student which is how she would like the Cabal to treat her. Of course, the onus is really on her to change: but it is hard to climb out, if you slicked the walls

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yourself. In some ways Kali needs gentle handling and most ironically, the greatest gift one could allow her would be Time. Yes that little beastie. Kali badgers Wolsey to change his life because she knows that the Cabal are discontented with the way she has chosen to live her life, and want her to change even if its only intimation and indirect postulating so far. Kali wants to show Wolsey and Damascus that she has similar misgivings about their lives and cannot see how Wolseys double life is any less different than her own. Hence getting Wolsey to practice what he preaches sort of. The impact was somewhat lessened by Wolsey addressing the issue while Kali was IC offstage but the thought is still there. Kali cares about them and can be frightened for them it doesnt mean she has to like the Cabal, but even in her gruff angry way, she will try to improve their lot by haranguing like a marvellous little harridan. Session 3.3 opens differently. Instead of being proactive, which Kali starts off the session with, she becomes gradually more introspective and thoughtful about her position, leading to some callousness and unfairness but also, Id think, beginning to dig in her nails to stop the downward spiral. As for why bear with me. The crime scenes affected Kali for exactly the reason Dave describes that they are close to home and family, or rather, what these terms mean to her these days i.e. the turf, and the gang. Kali, in extreme hypocrisy, has determined that the gang is her family, and she will protect them and their own much as her father did with her; she forgets conveniently that it was this that drove her away. Seraph: Kali considers it less important that he is not a friend, than that he is not an enemy thus saving him for later or at least having the luxury, relatively speaking, of sitting back and letting him move next, instead of feeling forced to move against him because he is an enemy. She considers Malakaii and Dantor far more important enemies at this stage they must be dealt with now; Seraph can wait. Moreover, while she doesnt trust him, she still feels that killing him would be a last resort more than a shoot on sight solution. The onus on the Cabal is who their enemies are not those whose loyalties are uncertain. These uncertainties still need to be dealt with, but they can be dealt with later. Thats the most important part. Plus, Kalis still not convinced Seraph isnt trying to help them, a little even if he is a Seer. He is an ex-Pentacle Mage, after all. Kali is also beginning to see Wolsey as the authoritarian/father figure that Dave described: Im not yet sure if the rebellion is purely instinctive, or whether there is somewhat of a twisted intelligence at work there: the attractiveness of freedom from persecution, or the malicious twisting of a probably mostly harmless protectiveness Im not entirely clear. The important thing now, is that she sees the parallels between the two, and knowingly or not, is repeating events up to her self-imposed exile. I suppose the question really is, will she notice, before once again, its too late? Closer to home Kali actually meant, in the first instance here, where Home once was, and where Dad remains; an OOC deliberate slip of the tongue, as Kali is not aware she thinks of home as anywhere other than gangland anymore. However, this is a little glimpse IC for the Cabal into the true depths of Kalis mind where she knows that Home will always be There and not Here. The eternal tragedy of the youth: where Home is always where you are Not; where your parents are is only home when youre away, and when youre there, Home is everywhere else. Dave is right she was thinking of the Spider on a shallow mental level but deep down, she knows that she really meant Home, and Dad, and things she thought she had

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forgotten, and relegated to a lost memory. Later, when Kali reacts so astringently and instantly to the intrusion onto her turf, she is doing the same thing: she will protect her people, even if it does mean playing Father. Neither does she realise shes falling back into a stereotype she herself has railed at, cast off and denied. Not so much a tragedy, as a misperceived irony. Her looking after Ichi also mimics this selfsame desire to keep her family protected and safe from things they dont understand she is only just beginning to realise that she is the only one both able to protect them, and bringing Magical notice down on them, all at once. Caught in the vicious circle of protection from a menace she alone is responsible for in many ways, Kali needs to find a way to step out of this mental spiral. It is telling the Cabal dont ask Kali how she is also that she is not included in many of their discussions. Most of this is Kalis own fault. However, in discussing Ichis fate without recourse to her Ichis mother the Cabal lost much of Kalis foetal respect, such as it was. Ichi is hers not theirs. It was Kali who asked Thursday if the Cabal could decide his fate alone and together in private mostly so she could get an opinion in edgeways, and not give Thursday the impression of a fractured and bleeding Cabal the cause of which she is almost convinced is her. So much as her own father did with her, Kali falls back into protector of the weak role. Ichi cannot defend himself against Wolsey and Damascus, if they choose to wipe his memory: she feels that in his place, someone must defend him. Much like in the law courts where everyone is allowed their lawyer. Note however that Kali never considers consulting with Ichi what he wants exactly what she hates the Cabal for not doing with her. The similarities between Kali and Avatar terrify me. Kali is intrigued, and sees the same Spider in both of them. Kali empathises with Avatars dissatisfaction of who she is; they both have a feeling that there is more to both of them, a sort of hidden destiny, or lost fate; and nothing feels quite right for either woman. Sam thinks the Seers have something to do with it: Kali isnt interested in the Who so much as the Why and the What, and is content to plumb the depths for reasons and find out what is going on between them, and if it really is just coincidence which is not really real anyway. Both have string aversions to their pre-Awakened states of being, and while Kali secretly seeks reconciliation, it makes her wonder sometimes if Avatar does not only not want to bridge the gap between past and present, but forge out her own future autonomously, instead and sometimes, she wonders if that wouldnt be a better things for her, also, to be getting on with, instead of wallowing in a sacrilegious past. Its at times like I dont know myself. Amen. The Nickel: Kali has a horrible, nasty, probably blown out of all proportion suspicion that the reason her voice emanates from the Nickel (aside from the obvious answer that someone procured her voice on tape, or Magically replicated it) is because she is behind this event: the future Kali using Time magic to plant this terrifying ordeal into the past sabotaging her own self, or setting her on another path who knows? Kali has progressed beyond thinking whether it was her, responsible for blowing up her own factory and moved on instead to the Why, which again is more important to the new, identity-bereft Kali: why would she sabotage herself? Is she sabotaging herself at all, or trying to change the path she walks? Or is she just playing games with her own memories?

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Kali blames the feelings of inevitability on the Exarchs/Seers, for now but that particular gnawing-bone of thought has certainly only been nibbled at, and she intends to plumb that one more fully later. Turning away from the world, covering her head with one arm, turning over in the hospital bed and in the ambulance all are ways of not only shutting the world out of her, but also of sealing herself outside of the world. Kali is still unsure whether the world is railing on her, or whether she is ruining the world around her. She is uncertain whether to blame herself, or the world. Just like Malakaii in a way. If she can shut herself a self-named catalyst for destruction away from the world, maybe she can save some of it still. I named Kali for a reason: the name felt shallow at first, the chance application of like with like: but as time as gone on, the name has become more and more apt. Samuel makes the comment that with a name like that, Kali should be prepared for the consequences. She is only just beginning to see what he means, and needs to step out of apathy if she wants to change her fate. Just as she has been told, time and again. Kali is frightened that so many people are doing her favours. She is worried that she will eventually owe so many favours to other Mages that she will be forced to tear herself apart meeting them all. There are an awful lot of people trying to ingratiate themselves by making her life easier, and sheltering her from consequences she should face; soon, she knows, will come their reckoning, when she will be forced to repay what she owes. In terms of gratitude, Kali was grateful to Wolsey and Damascus for getting a defence together for her but is tired that she gets nothing similar from them in return. She wishes that sometimes, theyd be grateful to her, too. Just what for currently escapes her, though Sometimes, Kali does feel she is watching a Cabal of two, though. This is unjustified, but there is also a long way for Wolsey and Damascus to go yet before they can claim a morally superior position. At the present, I figure the scales to be fairly even. There's an awful lot still I haven't said, and highlighted in my printout of the synopsis but didn't comment on - which I'm not particularly worried about: they're not important and will turn up again at some stage. It's hard to explain everything - especially in a way that means the character meshes well. But thanks for reading. I hope I've managed some small enlightenments out there, somewhere. I enlightened myself. I'm not scared anymore. DaveB: Right then! Where are we? Yeah. "Not The Same Person" was 'about' the changes and sacrifices of Magely daily life, compared with before the Awakening. So, we get Damascus' family life popping up, we see Banneker's home life, Avatar/Amanda and Wolsey/Thomas start to establish how their relationship has changed and try to figure out how they're going to cope with this, we learn the names of Banneker, Samuel, Malakaii, Trace (unseen - her name's Trudy) and the Cabal get glimpses of the people behind the grandiose Shadow Names that they deal with. 188

Most importantly, we find out about Kali's background and learn what's making her tick. And I managed to finish "The Ring" off, too. And now... Some Spoilers for Reign of the Exarchs, and for the Chronicle. The missing bits of motivation from Reign of the Exarchs for the Seer's seemingly odd behaviour may well end up getting replaced if I like one of the half-assed player theories more. I am especially tickled by Sam's theorising upthread that the Nickel wasn't, say, loaded with a recording of her voice and set to be something the Seers from their observations knew she'd go for, but was instead sent back in time by her own future self. I shall ruminate on it. Anyways - all this talk of "The Spider" and someone being erased from everyone's consciousness may have gotten those that have read, or written, the book thinking "hang on". As might the feelings of Inevitability Kali gets. Because here's the especially cruel joke the universe is playing on Kali: She's NOT adopted. Anurati, the villain of Story Four, is her mother. The vision Kali had when she was in Arcadia was of Anurati's background, not her own. When Samuel divines that Avatar will lead Kali to what she needs to take it on, he's seeing - without properly seeing that events of "The Robe" and "The Scepter" will give Kali the tools she needs especially the latter one, which will let Kali undo the mental blocks Anurati has deeply conditioned into her and her father. The feeling of Inevitability Kali feels is her mother's nimbus. The House of Steel, smashed up off-screen, was an offshoot cult of the Ministry of Mammon from "The Throne". "The Robe" should be Story 5 in this thread. I think "The Scepter" will follow on pretty much straight after, maybe one or two sessions apart. Micro-review time. I have mixed feelings about this first story from Reign. It covers a lot of bases - the instillation of paranoia, an example of how cut throat Mage politics can be. A lot of the motivations and backstory, though, seem to be placed in terms that make it very hard for a player character to find out - just what happened to Gawain in the old country, for example, can only be found out by a rather determined Cabal. I'd be interested to know how it played in playtesting. My gang quickly got the hang of the Ring (though they haven't yet arrived at the final conclusion of what exactly it detects, which I'm quite pleased by), and treat it with appropriate trepidation. Only Kali has learned "Ring Sight" from it, and the Cabal are reluctant to use the Ring except in downright inexplicable circumstances. You may have noticed a metric buttload of foreshadowing of the Nickel. Sam - I'm sorry. Blaise's Nickel test was written with knowledge of what the Seers were going to do, not the other way around. It's a particularly nasty trick, the cascade of tiny spells that ends up destroying a building.

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Oh, yeah. The Crack Factory was only written into the Chronicle to give me something to blow up later. The stop-start nature of the story is notable, with the three-week gap right smack bang in the middle of it that led to it being split among two of my own stories rather than being inserted whole. The next RotE story (which is the one Wood wrote IIRC) is more discrete, and it'll be interesting to see how different that feels. This one blended quite well into my ongoing narrative - looking ahead, the other stories will do differing degrees of the same job. The majority of the story - a two-man Seer Pylon tries to isolate the Cabal from the rest of the Pentacle then strike to steal the Ring while they're cut off - is fine and dandy, and features as I say some quite impressive and downright evil use of Arcana. It's the first part of the story, in which the Cabal are handed this artefact of ultimate evil almost gratis, that doesn't sit particularly well with me - and I regret not trying to blend it into the Chronicle better.

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Story 3 Recap
"Not The Same Person" 29th June - 6th July Session 3.1

The Cabal have taken the Ring of the Dethroned Queen to Ulysses, who bans them from bringing it to his church again and warns them not to let too many people find out about it, but does tell them it contains a variant of a grimoire. Kali learns how to cast Ring Sight from this secondary power. The city is preparing for Independence Day, both the Sleepers and the Mages, who have their own special concerns for the Holiday. There is a celebration of the City's birthday for the House of Ariadne, and the major Hallow in the tip of the George Washington Monument opens at midnight on the 4th. An Obrimos named Marion, the girlfriend of Elizabeth (Banneker's former Apprentice, who we saw briefly in the first story) has been selected from the possible candidates to ascend the monument and absorb the Mana surge with Prime magic. Kali is sat in her Thinking Place, a partially-concealed section of the waterfront in a disused stockyard, thinking about her encounter with the Seers and about her estranged relationship with her Father. Damascus is receiving a briefing on the escaped Magath Spirit, which has been tracked down to a Cancer Hospice. The team are himself, Dantor, Ulysses, Link, Cerberus and a Mastigos Demon-hunter named Shore. Wolsey and his fellow Heralds are comparing notes prior to the celebratory season - Francine, Trace and Hoban, a member of Banneker's Cabal who serves as the Consilium's Scribe. The Ascendants are Banneker are corresponding and Malakaii's Cabal is extremely stretched with the influx of people and supernaturals into the city for the holiday. Damascus and company break into the Hospice and descend into the cellar, where they are attacked by the Magath which has possessed a nurse. Dantor puts it into a coma with Death magic, and they sit about exorcising it from the woman's body. Wolsey asks his fellow Heralds about Beckett's background (he's considering him as an ally against the Seers) and learns that Beckett is a Nefandi, driven by what he saw as Malakaii's evil to summon an Acamoth in an attempt on Malakaii's life. Beckett lives under virtual house arrest as a sort of magical stand-off, his sentence deferred indefinitely. Wolsey asks about other LeftHanded Mages and learns of Project Twilight and a Mastigos named Alexander, who are generally considered unpleasant - though not suspected of allying with the Abyss like Beckett. The nurse is exorcised and Link kills the Spirit by triggering it's ban using the dagger Damascus made. The strike force split up to cover different aspects of the clean up and Damascus finds himself without a role, so leaves to go drink. Kali is found by Samuel who asks her the answer to the riddle problem ("the person who gave it") and explains that Blaise has not been mentoring her to his satisfaction, so Samuel is taking over as Kali's master. He will rectify Blaise's mishandling with an intensive course of practical lessons over the next few days. The Cabal meet, coincidentally, in the same bar and Wolsey rhetorically asks their opinion of using the power of the Abyss to fight the Seers. Kali misinterprets him and an argument starts as he suspects - and calls her on -

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being too curious about Seraph and the other Seers for her own good. The nature of the war between the Pentacle and the Ministries is discussed. The next day, Samuel picks Kali up in his car and - after a tutorial on the shifting nature of the future, and learning that Kali wishes to know something specific about the past - takes her to the Time Machine, Samuel's Sanctum and Demesne, converted from an old TV transmitting station. Kali explains that since just before her Awakening, she has felt disconnected to her life, like she's living a lie. Samuel links their minds and Kali uses Postcognition to see herself at different ages - a girl, a young teenager and then in her late teens, confronting her father (who is revealed to be an air force Lieutenant Colonel named Kevin Simone) about her fears that she is adopted - fears which she took his silence to confirm. She says that she hates her father for stealing her fate, her proper destiny. Samuel says that the vicissitudes of time are included in such things, and that people don't have a set path. He tries to take her to when she was a baby, but fails. Wolsey meets Malakaii, and they argue about why Wolsey should be allowed to join Malakaii's Legacy when his objectives lie entirely counter to Malakaii's own. Wolsey argues that the Guardians are too busy to handle recruitment properly - and takes issue with the guardian's belief that they can tell who deserves the chance to Awaken. Malakaii admits that he deliberately alters people's memories and encourages the paranoia among the Pentacle Mages of DC that it creates so as to keep the Mages in line through fear rather than directly intervening. He refuses Wolsey membership in the Legacy. Damascus has an interview with John Dee, Uncrowned King and lecturer in Chemistry at Georgetown University. John is unforgiving of Damascus' lack of knowledge, and punctures his ego, but they find that they both believe in the same things and John agrees to teach him, on condition that Damascus apply to and be accepted to College without use of magic: he considers Damascus woefully uneducated. Kali and Samuel have projected into Astral Space, into the Temenos of DC where Kali is disturbed to learn that she and her home are represented as a spider-like creature and it's lair. Samuel takes her into her Oneiros, and they begin searching for the various mind-forms of her Father, trying to understand her complex feelings about him. One father-image guards a bridge from a horde of Raksha, but they are revealed to be a mental smoke-screen hiding some memory or understanding that Kali is repressing. They find another father-image and Kali attempts to fight past it to the door it's guarding, but fails in the struggle and is confronted by another smoke-screen, this one of herself as the Goddess Kali (wearing a strange cloak and Veil) dancing on the body of Seraph, who is depicted as the God Shiva. Waking up, Kali has a brief moment of thinking that maybe her feeling of disconnection is imaginary, but Samuel tells her that he has been experiencing something - missing time, and the occasional feeling when he comes back from time-travelling that he learnt something important but cannot remember what. He says that he cast Prophecy to learn how he might uncover this hidden something, which he characterises as a Spider in Ariadne's Thread, and learned that Kali would be the one to resolve the mystery. Damascus and Wolsey compare notes. Wolsey, avoiding his disappointment by focusing on the other things in his life, has come to the conclusion that both the House of Stone and the House of Steel are Seer Pylons. Kali arrives as he continues, disparaging the Guardians of the Veil. They talk about Wolsey's grand plan for Awakening as many people as possible, Wolsey becoming more and more strident in the face of opposition.

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Session 3.2

John Dee and Damascus conduct Damascus' entry into the Uncrowned Kings by use of an alchemically-prepared Trichinobezoar. Samuel picks Kali up again and uses the drive to the Time Machine to brief her on the theoretical underpinnings of Time Travel. He explains that they will be viewing 1953 New York: specifically the youth of Malakaii. Samuel casts a spell so that Kali will not be able to hear Malakaii's real name. Samuel's magic projects their minds back into Twilight constructs created to hold them and allow them to observe events. Samuel tells Kali of the politics of the period, and that Malakaii was a student activist before his father was convicted under McCarthyism and the family fled to India where Malakaii awoke. He shows her how different Malakaii of 53 years ago was, and explains that while historians focus on big events the evolution of a person is made up of daily events - it took decades for Malakaii's heart to turn sour, and the root of Kali's problem with her past is not one night she argued with her father. They return to the present, and experience missing time upon re-entry to their bodies. When they come to, Kali has been sobbing, whatever the missing knowledge is has clearly made her distraught. Wolsey has invited Avatar to the Sanctum. They talk about his failure to join the Legacy and how Mara is disappointed in him. Wolsey takes the opportunity to ask about her dreams as per Samuel's prophecy just as Damascus returns. Avatar says that her dreams are always the same, and have been all her life, though she is only able to remember them after her awakening. She describes a Heart of Flies and a Flesh Tree, Damascus and Wolsey reading her mind to get a look at the image. Damascus puts forth the theory that it's a memory shadow of Pandemonium, the Flesh Trees especially looking like the Wood of Suicides from Dante's Inferno. Kali returns and - reacting to her emotional journey today - accuses Wolsey of not doing enough to avoid his Doom, which lets Avatar know about said doom. Wolsey admits the wording of Samuel's prophecy to Avatar and Kali casts divinatory spells on her including Ring Sight, causing yet another fight with Wolsey who objects to her casting on another Mage without permission. Returning to Avatar's dreams, Damascus and Wolsey ask to read her mind as she sleeps so as to get a live look at them. While Kali spends the night in her Thinking Place, Damascus and Wolsey read Avatar's sleeping mind and see the heart of flies in an underground chamber and the Flesh Grove, which is babbling in Glossolalia. They also see Avatar dream of opening the wall safe in Mara's office. Collecting Kali, who has asleep in the open, they return to the Sanctum and sleep. After the bare minimum rest, Wolsey continues the argument from the night before, distancing himself from the rest of the Cabal. This does not go down well. He asks them who they want him to be - Kali wants a Wolsey that wants to be their friend, and Wolsey says emphatically that they're not friends. Kali this being far too close to the arguments with her dad she's been brooding on - tells them what's going on, and that she thinks Avatar is connected to it. Because Avatar, too, feels like she's missing something. Samuel arrives to get Kali, and they talk about his Spider problem. When Avatar surfaces, and they move on to her problems, Samuel offers to cast Prophecy on her - she agrees, but declares this to be the last test she'll allow herself to be subjected to. He does so, and defers the results until they can be given in private. 193

Avatar and Wolsey decide that they need time together, away from being Mages. When she leaves to accept Samuel's offer of a lift to Mara's, she tells him that she doesn't want to know about her future - what will happen will happen, and she feels comforted by her feeling of destiny. Samuel agrees, but does tell Kali once Avatar has left that Avatar is destined to give something to Kali, something that will trigger Kali's own future. Samuel and Kali practice her finding Ariadne's thread and then - after that successful test run - Kali has her initiation test, tracking a Nickel back to the National Mint. Wolsey visits Banneker at his home, meeting his wife Mary. Banneker talks to Wolsey about Malakaii's rejection, and Wolsey admits to rushing things out of a sense of competition with the others. They agree a strategy - Wolsey will concentrate on making himself impressive, while Banneker thinks of ways to raise his profile. It transpires that Malakaii's real name is "Gideon", and that Samuel's is "Daniel". Wolsey tells Banneker about the Juncture's calculations and the two Houses. Finally, Banneker asks Wolsey to contact Suleiman and arrange a meeting. Damascus goes to church, and they talk about Legacies - and why Ulysses doesn't have one. Ulysses tells him that Dantor and Malakaii have in the last hour or so told certain people to abandon their assigned posts on the 4th and do something. Something connected to the Cabal. Damascus, thinking, goes to his workshop and finishes the statue of Kali. Wolsey drops by and the two discuss their third Cabalmate. Wolsey decides to use the "carrot" rather than the "stick", trying to find a relationship that will work without constant sniping. Damascus tells him about Ulysses' warning, and they decide to ask Dantor directly. They head into Dantor's territory and meet with the elder Bokor. She says that she is troubled of late by a rash of mysterious home invasions, and that the resonance of a major ley line from the Cabal's territory has become tainted, but claims no aggression towards them. They sense Malakaii's nimbus as the Guardian watches them from nearby, and leave for their own Sanctum - on their way out they meet Mr Thursday, the city's interfector. When they get back to the Sanctum they find that someone has grafitti'd the words 'Someone is looking for you' on the door. Kali returns as they go through their paranoid theories, and Wolsey accuses Kali's gang of being responsible for the troubles Dantor told them about. Kali after trying to punch Wolsey - goes to talk to Ichi about it. Ichi accuses Dantor's gang of being responsible, and lists home invasions that have happened in the last few days. Kali uses her new Postcognition attainment to see the culprit, oddly, as being the old lady that lives near the Sanctum - the one she saw as being tainted under Ring Sight. The Cabal discuss these findings. Wolsey - fearing their enemies are about to mobilise against them - comes up with a plan of splitting up and running for the Sanctums of allies, while he occasionally scries back on their own Sanctum to catch any invaders in the act. Kali uses her attainment on the door graffiti and discovers that Seraph wrote the message - the Seer is trying to warn them about something. Going to the old lady's apartment, they discover that she was one of Seraph's favoured puppets. And that she has recently been terrorised and killed by the real culprits of the home invasions, after they themselves used her to commit the one Kali saw. The attackers are identified as the men who were chasing Gawain.

Session 3.3 194

Kali is now incensed, and rejects Wolsey's plan of cutting and running. She's been away from her people for too long worrying about her own problems, and this went on while she wasn't looking. The Cabal - against Kalis protests - decide to go back to Dantor and ask for help, despite the possibility Dantor may be moving against them. Kali is persuaded to go by Damascus, and the pair of them leave. Dantor's guards don't let them in, but they give a message telling Dantor who's been carrying out the attacks. Kali hosts a party at her warehouse for the gang, and tells them to be on the lookout for the attackers. The next day, Wolsey books a restaurant for his date with Avatar and - when he tells her - finds contact details for Suleiman. Carrying out Banneker's request and asking Suleiman to meet the Hierarch, he is offered membership in the Claviclarius but turns it down. He calls Banneker, who tells him to keep his head down over the next few days. Damascus is studying at home and calling his family when he experiences a brief moment of missing time. That evening, Avatar and Wolsey go to dinner and talk about their reactions to Awakening. They establish that they've both stayed faithful, and Avatar tells him about the cult she moved to DC to join - which she's now certain was linked to a Seer Pylon. Kali's party, nearly a day in, is interrupted by another home invasion. The gang go en masse to confront the perpetrators, and Ichi and Kali see one of the attackers jump through a portal to the shut-down Crack Factory. Giving chase, Kali sends six of her men inside while she and Ichi sneak around the back. She spots a Nickel magically attached to the floor and picks it up, triggering a cascade of spells that makes the building explode. Kali is saved by her armour-granting spells, but Ichi is badly injured. Damascus sees a news report of the explosion and hurries on his way, calling Wolsey and agreeing to meet at the scene. Kali wakes up in an ambulance and - consumed by despair and a feeling of inevitability, despite what Samuel told her about the mutability of fate - goes into shock. Damascus uses Magic to get into the crime scene, where he is joined by Nimrod - who has broken from the isolation of the rest of his Cabal to become a Sentinel. Nimrod warns them that all eyes will be on them to see if they have broken the veil - or break it trying to save Kali and Ichi from being arrested. Wolsey arrives and they get up to speed before Wolsey heads to the hospital and Damascus and Nimrod try to clean the site up. Damascus figures out how the building exploded, and Nimrod erases traces of Crack from the site. Wolsey - all business - gets into Kali's hospital room and confronts her. Damascus arrives and tells them that someone has tampered with witnesses, who are claiming Kali threw a bomb into a window. Nimrod is un-tampering them and has squashed police charges, but Malakaii is calling for her to be censured for recklessly endangering the veil. Wolsey asks her what happened, and she tells them. Wolsey immediately starts trying to find ways they can spin what happened to their advantage. Mr Thursday arrives and gives them a short time to discuss what to do with Ichi before taking Kali into custody. Damascus and Wolsey skirt close to killing him, but Kali won't hear of it - she wants to try to make Ichi a Sleepwalker, but Wolsey admits he doesn't know if such a thing is possible. Promising not to kill him, they settle in to wait for Ichi to come out of surgery as Thursday discharges her and takes her to the Time Machine, where she is placed under house arrest.

195

Damascus and Wolsey confirm that Disbelief has modified Ichi's memories of the two Vulgar spells he witnessed sufficiently to maintain the Veil. They leave him to rest and discuss their response to Kali's arrest - deciding to counter-attack Malakaii in retaliation, before they find out via a call to Banneker that the hearing will be at the Consilium. They don't have *time* to properly mount a counter-attack, and must settle for a defence. Banneker says that he will handle the situation and that they should trust him. Samuel tells Kali to be calm, and that hers was not a capital crime even if she's found guilty. She asks if she can use his demesne to meditate. While driving back to the Sanctum, Damascus experiences missing time again - this time seeing a subliminal flash of "HELP" written on a wall. They investigate and - at Wolsey's suggestion - use the Ring of the Dethroned Queen to detect Taint all around, and especially on them. They speculate that these deja vus are the result of Damascus' senses being expanded by use of the Ring, such that he can tell when the Exarchs change something. Or, they theorise, cover something up. Or someone. They are interrupted by a call from Ulysses, who says that Malakaii and Dantor's people are now on the move. They take shelter in Ulysses' church but when Wolsey phones Avatar he learns that Malakaii has been questioning her about the cult she was in, who turn out to be the House of Steel. Wolsey finally realises that Malakaii and Dantor are attacking the Seers based on Mara's interviews with Avatar - which is related to their Cabal. His relief is interrupted by a grenade through the window. A brief magical battle, punctuated by gunshots and an explosion, sees the church damaged and Ulysses, Wolsey and Damascus unhurt, while one of their two opponents - the home invaders who were chasing Gawain - is dead and the other unconscious. Ulysses unravels the pattern of the corpse and they stash the live enemy in the confessional, calling Thursday to come collect him. They tell Banneker (who is delighted) and Avatar what's happened, but have to settle for leaving a message with Samuel for Kali. Kali - within Astral Space - shies away from the father-image-Guardian and meditates into the Temenos, sadly contemplating her fate. When she returns to consciousness, she says she's not interested in hearing the message from the Cabal. At the Consilium, Banneker has arranged a Filibuster to waste the meeting's time before they must all leave to perform the ceremony at the Washington Monument. The Sixth, and rarely seen, Councillor Fisher King gives a long talk on birds before Malakaii finally manages to declare his victory over the House of Steel. Banneker first reveals the Cabal's much more significant victory - Malakaii captured only sleepwalker acolytes, while Wolsey and Damascus have caught a full Seer of the Throne - and then that the final evidence Malakaii needed to turn his suspicions about Avatar's story into a strike on a Seer Pylon had come from Wolsey, and not from Banneker himself as Malakaii had thought. Beaten, Malakaii drops the charges against Kali for time, concentrating on interrogating the Seer. Damascus has another moment of missing time as Samuel is talking to them, and Kali links them to her own feelings of inevitability, which she is periodically plagued by. The Seer has died mysteriously, and Malakaii is furious. Kali - still angry at the way Damascus and Wolsey acted after her injury - leaves with Samuel

Session 3.x (Downtime)

196

The House of Ariadne party takes place at the Octagon House. Kali meets Trace and Katherine, a socialite Silver Ladder mage. Kali and Trace become friends after getting past the politics of being in their respective Orders and Cabals. Samuel, half-stoned and waxing philosophical, tells Kali he regrets using her to try to find out his own mystery, and advises caution about "lifting rocks" in the mind. Kali receives a text message from her father, wishing her a happy 4th. Damascus studies for his entrance exams and plans a present for Kali by way of a peace offering. The next day, Damascus visits his family while Kali goes back to the gang, telling them that the attackers have been killed. She begins working to lower the level of violence in her people's dealings. Damascus goes to see John, who introduces the first step on his alchemical journey - examining everything Damascus considers to be a bad quality in himself, via the medium of external antinomist action and the creation of art as a way of expressing negative emotions. Damascus chooses to concentrate on the gang violence that still lurks inside of himself. Wolsey meets with the other Heralds and hears the gossip. Banneker is becoming more and more in charge of his own city, while Malakaii is being pushed away from the centre of power. Malakaii has had several public arguments with Thursday about Thursday's conduct during the last few days, while is angering the Bokor. Hoban believes the council will not be as it is now within the year, and notes that the Ascendants - after that last Consilium have asked to meet Banneker in person. Kali, having been near-broken physically and emotionally over the last week, has come to terms somewhat with her feelings about how she left home. She returns her father's message, reaching out to him even if only hidden behind a cell phone screen.

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Chapter 4: "Five Things"

Session 4.1
Change of plans. This was *meant* to be the first part, previous form would have it as the first third, of a story called "Green Eyed Monster". As was, the 'punch' point of the story which was meant to come about half an hour in came about four hours in, and we elected to tie it off for the night there rather than attempt to shift narrative gears. If that makes any sense. Best way to think of this is as a teaser of a TV show episode that has been expanded to fill the full hour, because the writers realised they were having too much fun. It just means that when the next story (which was going to be this story - "The Robe" is now story 6) starts it will start with no preamble, no 'what they've been doing' and so on. Thanks to the cliffhanger here. In any case, this session was almost all one long, rambling conversation which had enough structure to it that I hope I can manage to recap it sufficiently. Mark, being his usual helpful self, tells me to think of this as "a broken-down lift": I always express the way I try to run games as aiming towards a campaign when I can trap the player characters in a lift for the entire session and they'll have enough to talk about that they don't notice I'm not actually doing anything. This will be heaven for people who like deep exploration of character, and boring as hell for those who want plot progression. Sorry.

Saturday 22nd July 2006 "We need to talk" - Wolsey, via text message It's something they've not been doing a lot of in the three weeks since the Consilium. In fact, the Crucible seem to have been trying to avoid one another. It's not like Wolsey's been sitting around bored, either. Well, at least he hasn't been unoccupied. Hoban has been sent to New York to conduct business for the DC Consilium with their counterparts there, and Wolsey has been filling the breach by acting as Consilium Scribe. The job's much less interesting than he might have thought, but he's seeing it as an opportunity and carefully taking note of what's going on in the city's magical community. The overall trend is that his fellow Herald's observations after the 4th were correct - Banneker seems to be trying to build a renewed powerbase of more, weaker ties rather than rely on Malakaii, who he's all but shunning. Indeed, tomorrow Banneker meets Balthazar of the Ascendants and Wolsey has been told to make an appearance. But it's not all fun and minute-taking. He's been busy with the Cults - spending more and more time with his societies, trying to figure out who the Guardian of the Veil recruiter Malakaii mentioned might be and also trying to spot any more influences from the Seers of the Throne. His latest, and oddest, encounter has been with the Juncture, who are redrawing their equations and adjusting their stochastic predictions in the wake of the House of Steel's being smashed up by unknown assailants (who Wolsey knows only too well). The Juncture's emissary asks Wolsey what he thought of their book, and when he makes polite noises asks if he wants the second volume.
Something Sam picked up on: the curious similarity between the 'House of the Steel Coin' and the Nickels that follow Kali around

The *second* volume? Oh yes indeed, and it's even larger than the original.
Dare we say that Wolsey is 'educated stupid'? It got Rafe speculating about a spell to suck the knowledge out of books and impart it to yourself. Anyone fancy a go at statting such a thing? We think Mind mostly, Mark wants to add Space so you can see (and absorb) every page in a book without opening it. Rafe thought Prime might be necessary to access the platonic form of the text, but that may be a holdover in his mind from Sorcerer's Crusade.

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Some little light bedtime reading for him, there. The third of his obsessions - his wife - is continuing her studies. In their snatched moments together and sporadic phone calls, Avatar tells him that Promethea and Mara have decided to try to "cure" her peculiarities by understanding, and have been schooling her in Astral travel and the exploration of the Oneiros. --Damascus, meanwhile, has been fighting. Instructed to go out and indulge his worst qualities as a means of understanding them, he has rejected Inner travel (the route of the Claviclarius like Promethea) as being counter to the goals of his Legacy - the Uncrowned Kings understand and control their own minds via the medium of external action, so just thinking bad thoughts isn't really going to cut it.
Well, that and he doesn't have access to a Demesne or a high-powered Hallow

Based on his attack on the Seer, he has decided to start with Wrath - taking part in illegal bare-knuckle fights in order to understand the shape of his own aggression. Which goes swimmingly until the first time he loses a bout, and then it's more like an exploration of his own pain.
Let us hope he doesn't start hallucinating someone named Tyler. Love that book.

He's now sat his SATs and is awaiting the results before he starts applying to colleges. --Kali, on the third hand, has been troubled. Deliberately avoiding the other two, she's been throwing herself into her gang - only to find that it may not be "her" gang any more. It starts small. She spends most of the first week after the Consilium at the hospital, by Ichi's bedside - but although Ichi's recovering he seems.. off. He increasingly wants to know what's going on with the gang, and so Kali divides her time more evenly, telling him what's happening with everyone. Then he starts giving advice. Over the weeks, Ichi becomes more and more of a backstreet driver, until Kali resorts to ferrying gangers to the hospital so that he can give orders in person. There's one moment, about halfway through the three-week period, when she says that his idea's bad. "When did you stop being my girl and start being my boss?" - Ichi When indeed? Kali started out in the Gang, three and a half years ago, as Ichi's girlfriend. Back then the gang was much, much smaller - just a dozen young men and women with too much time on their hands. Over the years, Ichi came to rely on Kali more and more.. but the experience with the Crack Factory seems to have ripped the veils off his eyes.

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Ichi knows - he now knows - that Kali isn't normal, no matter what his memory might tell him. And that she isn't always right. The loss of the gangers killed in the blast weighs on them both, and Ichi is reacting by taking control back. "When did it become your gang?" - Ichi Kali remembers when - with the aid of Postcognition Kali can remember everything that's happened to her. It was a little thing, some year and a half ago. She said "my people" instead of "our", and he didn't correct her. A year before that it went from "your" to "our". Still, she corrects herself in conversation, answers his questions and brings people to see him. On one level, Kali knows what's happening - that her failure has led to her being pushed... if not aside, then certainly downward. Ichi needs to reassert himself, and the only person standing above him is her. So when a gang member named Lisa answers Kali telling her not to do something with "Well, we'll see what Ichi thinks", she knows what's happening. On another level, she's relieved. Relieved that she doesn't have to do this all the time any more. That she's going to be able to try to bring herself back to some kind of equilibrium.
As Sam remarked, Kali's experimenting right now with bringing herself 'up', trying to leaven the persona she's made for herself in the four years since she ran away from home with the young woman she remembers being - or thinks she remembers being.

--So about that message from Wolsey, then... When everyone finally turns up at the Sanctum, he explains that, well, they haven't really been in touch with one another since It happened. Damascus acknowledges that he's been busy. Kali barely acknowledges Wolsey's speech. Wolsey asks what everyone's been doing, saying that he himself has been busy with the Consilium. Damascus matter-of-factly says that he's been following an Antinomist practice of doing evil and reflecting upon it. Kali says nothing. This has gone on far enough. "Alright. What is your problem?" - Wolsey Kali's problem, as she says at length, is them. Specifically the way they talked around her, planned around her - basically denied her any input after her injury. Like they didn't think she had any say in what happened to her, or to Ichi. "We rushed to your bedside" - Wolsey "Not really" - Kali, dismissively "No - really. Look, I'm sorry the traffic was bad..." - Wolsey He and Damascus repudiate her accusation - she never asked how *they* did, either. And they're the ones who actually did the fighting.

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"I'm quite proud of how we didn't get blown up" - Wolsey He goes on to admit that they probably owe their lives to Ulysses, but Kali is not getting any less annoyed. They point out that - as they've told her several times - the life she leads is *dangerous*. She agrees with that, at least, saying that there are two lives: her as gang leader and her as a mage. "What I'm saying is - it's clear that the lives don't mix, and I'm not willing to stop living one" - Kali "You can't keep throwing your gang at Supernal..." - Wolsey "Ok - when we were setting this place up, you were okay with them as mooks, guards..." - Kali Wolsey and Damascus let that (accurate) accusation and slide by. Wolsey - who's doing most of the talking here - says that she led her men into that situation knowing that the Irishmen were Mages. "You knew that was what I was planning" - Kali Wolsey says that she shouldn't have run straight after them. Kali tries to explain "Listen. If someone had nailed your daughter to a door, or beaten your mother, you'd want to..." - Kali "A Dog. They nailed a dog to a door" - Wolsey "I'm speaking metaphorically" - Kali
Her metaphor ran longer, because Wolsey kept interrupting her so she started over again. And again.

Anyway - her point is, the attacks could not be allowed to go on. Even for one more when they turned up, she had to go after them. Wolsey disagrees. "You're just saying that because you're cold and heartless" - Kali "Cold and heartless might get less people killed" - Wolsey
Ouch

The two of them ask if she'd have run after them if they weren't mages - what would she have done, say, if they were human, but had put Claymore Mines in the Factory? "You could have called me" - Wolsey "No" - Kali "You could - or Damascus" - Wolsey "I can't make time." - Kali She starts jabbering - very cut up and confusing - about how not only did she not have time to call them, but that she can't yet revisit the past and rewrite a phone call into it.
Although oddly enough I gather that's one of the new spells in Tome of the Mysteries.

She tries to explain about gang perceptions - how she can't keep visibly stopping and calling for the help of these two outsiders. The gang were moving, and she couldn't get them to stop while she phoned her lawyer. She'd have lost what control she had and the explosion still would have happened.
Rafe points out that, ironically, if she'd let the gang run off and not gone with them the building wouldn't have exploded.

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"You say you couldn't call us. I say you didn't" - Wolsey Kali's about to angrily respond when Damascus cuts both of them off. "The question is this: What do you want out of this Cabal?" - Damascus "I don't know what I want" - Kali "Well decide. And then we can decide if we can give it to you" - Damascus "..You first" - Kali Wolsey launches into how he sees the Cabal as a Vehicle. He says that given the choice none of them would have chosen to be together, but they're stuck with the Cabal that the consilium decree formed so they may as well make the best of it. Kali starts saying how Wolsey gets Sleepers involved in the Supernal, which isn't that different to... "No. Cut this equivalence crap. What you and I do is completely different" - Wolsey Damascus needs to take control of the situation again, and tells them they're neither being helpful. Kali asks what HE wants. "OK. I'll answer your question. This is to both of you: I want to know what your problems are because your problems are our problems. I want to be considered part of the solution or as a solution. I'd like us to be friends, but I don't ask it." (to Kali) "I would also like you to clean your life up, but I do recognise I don't have the right to ask that of anyone." - Damascus
Damascus is also arguing out of his position as the Cabal's Hand, as it's his job to answer any formal challenges, and as the Arrow member (whose ethos revolves around giving support to other Pentacle mages)

They all consider for a while. "I'll go first: My emotional damage is Avatar. What's yours?" - Wolsey
Give him points for self-analysis. Anyway - it's at this point, now that they've started asking each other what's wrong rather than accusing, that we start to see progress. There will be more later thanks to Damascus having a good idea.

Kali half-shrugs, saying that she's got all sorts of problems but not openly saying them.
Even now, they're too big. She hasn't told anyone what's going on with her - Samuel knows some, the Cabal know some and Ichi knows some, but noone's got it all.

"What do you know about Samuel?" - Wolsey "If you're asking if I know if he has a girlfriend, wife, dad, mother.. I don't know." - Kali "Do you know his real name?" - Wolsey No she doesn't. She's never asked. "It seems that you've told Samuel a lot more about yourself than you've told us. And he's not shared anything about himself." - Wolsey "Oh, and you don't tell Banneker things?" - Kali "I respect Banneker. You don't. You give NO respect to Banneker or to Malakaii people that no matter what you might think of them you should. Yet somehow, you act properly around Samuel. Why him? Why is he worthy of your respect?" - Wolsey 202

He continues in this vein, asking why she trusts Samuel with her secrets. "Is it the Legacy? Having people that agree with you? Because if your Legacy is meant to be your work friends, we're meant to be your family" - Wolsey
It's partly that - the House of Ariadne is more tight-knit than some of the other Legacies. The Uncrowned Kings are just Damascus and John Dee, while Wolsey's regarding the Bearers as just being a means to learn a power he was after was the cause of him not being accepted. The House is like a family.

Kali doesn't confirm or deny anything. "We have a theory" - Wolsey "That does not involve bunnies in any way" - Damascus
Buffy jokes for the win!

Wolsey and Damascus think that Samuel is after something from her - that he's playing her in some kind of elaborate scheme. It's fishy. Kali says that it's fine, but the fundamental cause of their worry remains - She's told Samuel what happened to her four years ago, but she hasn't told them. "What happened to you?" - Damascus "You're assuming it was something big" - Kali "Yes... yes I am. I think it was life changing" - Damascus Except of course, Kali know that lives don't change by single epiphanies.
Damascus disagrees - his did.

She finally begins to explain - haltingly, as though figuring it out herself as she goes, she tells them about the disconnection. Wolsey attempts to ease the mood by poking a little fun at her.
Dave, though, can't remember what the joke WAS. I'll edit it in if Mark has a brainwave before the edit limit passes.

"You're making light of it" - Kali, annoyed They apologise, but she's said enough for now. "*everything*'s a game to you. That was the first thing you thought of - that Samuel was manipulating me. Just because your life's being run by Banneker." - Kali Wolsey objects, saying it's not like that. Kali starts quoting Shakespeare at him. "Banneker's spending a lot of time on you to not be manipulating you, by your standards. Much ado about nothing, you think? Or more of a Tempest?" - Kali "Oh no. Don't do that. Don't go from ganger to high school honours student in the same conversation" - Wolsey Kali complains that she's *trying* to explain, but they're not making this any easier. At which point, Wolsey's cell phone rings "Hold that thought" - Wolsey, getting up 203

Taking the opportunity while it's there, Damascus tries something. "Alright. Here's the deal. I won't say *anything* - neither will Wolsey. Until you've said five things. After that, we can talk about them if you want, but we don't have to. Go." Damascus Kali stares at him. He stares back at her. "... One. I'm frightened all the time. Terrified. Scared. Discontent. Alone." - Kali "Two. I don't want to do this... Three... Why do we spend so much effort on politics when there's a clear Enemy to unite against?" - Kali She pauses, thinking. Damascus waits. "Four. I want to know what's through that door. Five. I want to know what's going on" - Kali "See? Not hard." - Damascus "Six. I think the holes in me, the holes in Avatar and the Spider are connected." - Kali "Can I ask about Six?" - Damascus She shrugs, and says that the feelings of destiny Avatar's experiencing are similar, but not exactly the same, as her own sense of inevitability. That she feels that they're tied together, and that Avatar's missing the same thing she's missing - or that, as Samuel says, Avatar finding what she's missing will help Kali find what *she's* missing. If that makes sense. Halfway through, Wolsey returns "Sorry. Business... what are we doing?" - Wolsey Damascus fills him in. The mood of calm remains. "Kali.. can I ask you a personal question? You don't have to answer." - Damascus "You can ask" - Kali "Do you have a, uh... Destiny?" - Kali "No. And that's the weird thing. Why don't I? Maybe that's what I'm missing." - Kali She tells them of how this feeling drove her away from her old life, towards the gang. "But now I'm not sure the gang was right either, because I can still feel it. So maybe what I'm having trouble doing is letting go of the gang - going back to my old life or finding yet another one." - Kali, ruminating. "You might be destined to be a great chef" - Wolsey "Have you seen my couscous?" - Kali "...Is that slang?" - Wolsey
No, Wolsey, it isn't slang. Sounds dirty, though.

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"You spoke of a Door" - Damascus "It's a door inside my mind, guarded by my father." - Kali She tells them about how she tried to trick her way past it and failed, being shown "a puppet show" instead of the invisible truth. Damascus nods. "It stands to reason that you couldn't trick it - remember that it's part of your own mind" - Damascus "And that's why I'm afraid. Afraid that my dad has something to do with this, that I've made the wrong decision..." - Kali "The guardian could be in the shape of your father because that's what you associate him with, not because whatever the secret is is to do with him" - Damascus "And people keep doing me favours. It's starting to worry me." - Kali And with that "Is there anything else on the list we haven't covered? Ah - yes. Politics" - Damascus "Politics?" - Wolsey "Why we have it among ourselves, when there is an Enemy to fight" - Damascus Wolsey is best qualified to take this one. "Politics is the art of the possible..." - Wolsey
Otto Von Bismarck quote there (thanks Rafe!)

"...and it happens when people disagree. Always - even in this group of three, we're constantly pulling and pushing at one another" - Wolsey "Not from where I'm sitting" - Kali, ruefully "You think..? You think Wolsey and I *agree*? On anything?" - Damascus Kali shrugs 'well... yeah' "We don't. We just haven't had a big argument yet. And that's what it is - most agree that there is an enemy to fight, the politics is where people disagree about how best to go about it." - Wolsey And that's that. Kali and Damascus sit back. Wolsey's expression turns from pleased that Kali has calmed down and opened up to realisation. "Okay, then..." - Wolsey
Sam's expression as Kali while Mark was doing this bit was priceless. Kali gives him indulgent, mock-patronising smiles and nods of approval every time he manages to say something. 'twas hilarious.

"One... I think that me and Avatar are doomed. Two. I think Malakaii's going to win..." - Wolsey They wait

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"Three. We haven't heard the last of the Bell. Four. I am never going to be able to rest ever again" - Wolsey He considers. They're patient. "...Five. I hope none of these are true" - Wolsey
Lame! Still, it only gives four to actually respond to - and it does point out that for all his griping and paranoia, Wolsey would LIKE to be an optimist. He's just jaded. Maybe appropriately jaded, but jaded.

They do Wolsey in order. Why Doomed? Wolsey says, sadly but with an air that he's thought this one through, thanks, and reckons that although both of them will try, and both of them will be heartbroken, that the pressures are too great. They're both different enough to their lives preAwakening that their marriage is getting in the way. They don't have the luxury of finding out about each other. One of the others says that at least Avatar is a Mage. True, he says - he's being specific about his problem. He can't actually see how any Mage maintains a relationship at all. It has not gone unnoticed, for example, that Banneker's highlylauded ability to separate his home and shadow life is a hollow boast: Banneker goes home to Mary every day and lies about everything. A Mage can never truly trust anyone other than a Mage, and they know how untrustworthy other Mages are. His story gets worse. "Ultimately, no Sleeper can be trusted. They're all irredeemably tainted by the Exarchs, and the only people free are Awakened. A Sleeper can be a good person, a kind person - even a loving person, but everything they do is still part of the Exarch's plan and for a Mage to just go along with that is..." - Wolsey "Wolsey... There are things older than the Exarchs. They took control of this world, they didn't create it. Good exists independent of the Supernal" - Damascus "Such as?" - Wolsey "Such as God" - Damascus "We're having this conversation, are we? - Wolsey "Things like Love, faith and hope are good, and are given to everyone and can be found in everyone." - Damascus They agree, on this score, to disagree. "Okay. Coffee? I think I have a machine here somewhere..." - Wolsey
In-joke!

"Why's Malakaii going to win?" - Damascus (returning, mugs in hand, which he passes out) "Because he's desperate. More committed, more dedicated. But mostly desperate. His position is... Well, I don't think he has a life outside of this. He's got everything to lose. Also bear in mind number five. But that's it." - Wolsey "Three" - Kali

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"Three was the Bell, right?" - Wolsey He says that the Irish guys were only the beginning. There will be more - and worse things than Seers. The Bell is evil, and it will attract them nothing good. "What should we do, then?" - Damascus "Give it to the Mysterium?" (to Kali) "Aren't there any of your people we can give it to?" - Wolsey It is pointed out that they want to keep it out of the hands and minds of people like Malakaii. Handing it off to Suleiman might not be the best and wisest solution. They can't really DO anything about it - can't give it away, can't destroy it. "We could throw it into mount doom" - Damascus
The suggestions got wilder out of character - including putting a false base on it and pretending it's a ceremonial goblet of the Cabal. Mark could just see the Seers in some kind of pastiche of Indiana Jones, going for the most jewelled one - 'that looks like the cup of God... and it is!'. That led to using Death or Time magic to have the aging-to-death trap, and then finally back to the game. We were in kind of an odd mood when we played this session.

And lastly, Never resting. "I'll be watching out for all of the above for the rest of my days - and apart from them..." - Wolsey He laments how busy Banneker's been keeping him, and bitches about how the Ascendants - for all their isolationist talk - are always popping up to have hours-long talks about the lamentable state of the world. Which he has to minute. And that's Wolsey done. He and Kali look at Damascus "Would this be a good time to take a devotion of silence?" - Damascus "Only if you want your five things to be ow, ow, stop hitting me" - Wolsey "Heh. Alright. I am not entirely sure I believe in the Exarchs... I am not entirely sure why I'm doing what I'm doing - what my long term goals are" - Damascus Wolsey nods
It is Wolsey's major criticism of Damascus - other than the fact that Wolsey thinks the Christian God is an Exarch - that Damascus doesn't have a game-plan. For all he bitches about Kali's means of achieving her goals, at least she has them.

"It is more important to be who you are than what you are" (thinks) "...It is surprisingly easy to be evil" - Damascus, considering He makes his mind up "I am concerned I may endanger those around me" - Damascus In no particular order, then.

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"Like us?" - Kali "My family, mostly. Or someone else." - Damascus "Do you mean around you as a Mage, or around you as a normal person?" - Kali "As a Mage" - Damascus He can see what Wolsey means, about how hard it is, but he's not willing to give up his folks. "This the who you are thing?" - Wolsey "Something like that. WHO you are. Not what your name is, or what your job is. Or your Legacy, your Order, your Path.. just you." - Damascus
This ties into his thoughts about the capacity of Sleepers for 'good'. Damascus thinks it's better to be a good man than 'a Mage'.

They can get behind that, which leads to the next bit of philosophy. "The Exarchs" - Damascus He comes out as a sceptic - he doesn't know if the Exarchs are the shadows of the human psyche's need for control cast upon the Abyss, or if they're the devil or what. But he's not sold on the Atlantean story. It's too pat.
Rafe: This kind of got blurred over in the session, since neither Kali or Wolsey seemed very interested in that statement. Damascus can believe in the Exarchs, but not as the Atlantis myth tends to present them. He can accept the idea of 'ancient, evil mages who influence a lot of things'. He could accept the idea of 'a principle of evil that is venerated by the Seers' - he does believe in the Devil. He does not - at heart - accept the idea of Exarchs sitting in the Supernal potentially controlling all material reality. In a sense, he thinks the Seers are either human (evil, but fundamentally human) *or* a supernatural principle that never was human. It's the middle ground that the Atlantis myth presents that he doesn't like.

Second to last - how he's not certain about what he's doing. He confesses that he's sort of rolling gently along the Path Moros. He still lives near his folks, he doesn't properly maintain his Shadow Identity. He joined a Legacy, altered the very nature of his soul, because it was a goal in itself, not as an end to another. It still seems a good idea, but it wasn't out of any grand scheme. And much as it doesn't look like he does, he worries about it. Mostly because everyone else seems to have a goal, not for any feeling of the lack. He wonders if he should.
He doesn't consider being a Mage to be anywhere near as important as Wolsey apparently does. To Damascus, it's on a par with his ability to create art. It's a talent, a gift, a skill and a tool but it's not as important as what you do with it and the kind of person you are.

And last, that evil thing. He's finding it pretty easy - disturbingly easy. "So John said to explore my worst qualities. But I didn't know which they were, so I'm doing the Seven Deadlies one after another" - Damascus He's done Wrath - that was the fighting. "So.. can I ask... which are you doing now?" - Wolsey "Pride" - Damascus
This entire counselling session, his idea, which has healed over the cracks and spread understanding amongst the Cabal, is Damascus' idea of Antinomist behaviour. That amused the hell out of me. Rafe: And if one considers Pride as the idea that one knows better than others what should be done... Damascus was pretty much dominating the conversation, guiding and directing. With the exception of his 'Five', there wasn't a whole lot of humility going on.

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So endeth the lesson. The next day, the Cabal are going about their various business. Wolsey's been called to sit in on yet another meeting between Balthazar of the Ascendants and Banneker. Kali, for her part, is hanging around the neighbourhood of the Sanctum, sweltering in DC's July heat. Which Damascus appears to be helping. Kali, curious as to what's attracting a small crowd, discovers that Damascus has parked his van and is taking money in exchange for bottles of liquid. "What is this?" - Kali, sniffing one and discovering it's rather potent. "My studies continue" - Damascus, cheerfully counting bills. "You're selling alcohol?" - Kali "Greed" - Damascus He explains, smiling the while, that the alcohol was tap water until a few hours ago when he used magic to transmute the liquid. He has made.. quite a lot of cash, actually, for doing fuck all. "Won't the spell wear off?" - Kali "Nope. But by the time it does, it'll be digested." (shrugs) "They just won't get a hangover" - Damascus
The more traditional lead into gold or stones into diamonds are too hard to do at Damascus' power level. Water into Vodka, though - *that* he can do.

"Right. Well... carry on" - Kali, slightly weirded out. A car goes past that she recognises - it's one of the gang's. And Ichi is in the back seat. "I'll see you later" - Kali, over her shoulder, heading after the car. ... Kali arrives at the warehouse to find Ichi being welcomed home, released from the hospital and all charges dropped (thanks to a rather good lawyer who will swear blind he's doing it bro bono. And doesn't, as for example, work for City Lawyer Suleiman the head of Kali's Order. At all. Honest.) Ichi starts making a speech, sounding like he's been waiting most of the day thinking it up. Brotherhood. A return to the winning ways of the past. "We've lost our way. Time to remember who we used to be" - Ichi Kali, on the edges of the crowd, watches herself be forgotten. ...

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"What the hell is this?" - Lisa "I'm selling booze. Want some?" - Damascus, cheerful Damascus - having made a sizeable sum of money for essentially no work - has been challenged by Lisa, one of "Kali's" gang members.
And the girl who used the "we'll see what Ichi says" line to Kali in the opening.

"Kali said it was fine" - Damascus "Oh, she did?" - Lisa, not impressed. Damascus shrugs - he's made enough money here - and moves on to Dantor's territory to continue gaining his ill-gotten gains. -----Wolsey sits in on the latest meeting of Banneker, Suleiman and the Ascendants - or Ascendant, as only Balthazar (a lanky black man with a very intense air about him) attends. They've finally gotten to the point. The Consilium, Balthazar says, has clearly become corrupted by having to rely on the Guardians of the Veil for it's stability - an oversight which has led to Banneker's law being overshadowed by Malakaii's, in which Cabals dictate the terms of the Consilium not the other way around and in which the Silver Ladder is not respected enough. In particular, they were disgusted by Malakaii's ignoring clear evidence of a Cabal being attacked but instead trying to prosecute the victim for his own ends. Naturally, they propose to dispense the wisdom of their cabal unto the Consilium. They volunteer their services as impartial judges of the lex magica - providing the much-needed oversight that making Malakaii chief prosecutor and policeman does not. When Balthazar leaves, Banneker turns to Wolsey "What do you think?" - Banneker "I think that for such recluses they pop round a lot" - Wolsey "And their offer?" - Banneker "Interesting. Though what they get out of it remains to be seen" - Wolsey "Hmm. Well..." - Banneker The Hierarch is interrupted by Marian - the Obrimos who siphoned the mana burst of the 4th - entering the meeting room and whispering in his ear. Marian looks rattled, and nervous - and to Wolsey's disquiet Banneker goes pale on hearing whatever it is. "Wolsey. We need to find the rest of your Cabal right away - and Mr Thursday too. And, while I think on it, someone needs to make sure Beckett hasn't left his estate. Banneker, gnawing at a knuckle. "What is it?" - Wolsey Banneker looks up, frightened by the implications.

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"We're checking, and this is hearsay, but... Someone just killed Malakaii" Banneker

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Chapter 5: "Who Benefits?"

Session 5.1
This session starts off the story that was meant to be started last time, before it changed in the play to being a talky piece. Before THAT, though, I had it roughly slated as Story Eight, coming after the third Reign of the Exarchs story. So why the change? There's a growing thread in the chronicle of things happening 'before their time' - it's something Sam has picked up on. Kali has realised that her sexual encounter with Seraph in the House of Stone happened because she followed the Ariadne's Thread that leads back to her father in the opposite direction - she's taken this, and the way that the house was completely empty when she and Wolsey went back, to mean that it somehow happened in the future, or that Kali had stumbled into a situation she wasn't ready for yet. In that spirit, I had planned to kill Malakaii off and watch the fallout later in the Chronicle, but the way Wolsey and Banneker's interactions have gone they were in danger of being pre-prepared for it. Banneker has a line, towards the end of this session, about how this has come *too soon* - Malakaii's gone, and they haven't yet got anyone that can really replace him. For those of you that like Consilium politics and murky deals, you're about to get a story that showcases them - Malakaii's death brings two questions that need to be answered: Who did it, and who will fill his shoes? Or, as the title says, Who Benefits?

We pick up almost right where we left off, in the early afternoon of Sunday 23rd July. Wolsey is in the meeting room of the Consilium Sanctum Banneker's meeting was being held at, waiting while Banneker phones, engages in long range telepathy and sends urgent emails to other notables spread out across the city, trying to get an accurate picture of what's going on out there.
We've shown this room a few times, but not the building it's in. I figure the Consilium has a couple of Sanctums held by it's officers rather than individual cabals, for use in official business - large-scale gatherings tend to be in function rooms away from such private bolt-holes and secure storehouses, though - the two Caucuses we've seen were in a restaurant (in story two) and a Masonic hall (in story three).

Closing his phone, Banneker looks deflated as he tells Wolsey that it's now been confirmed - Malakaii is indeed dead, and Jude (the Acanthus Adamantine Arrow Sentinel in Malakaii's Cabal) has recovered the body. "There will be chaos over this - Gideon was... It will..." (takes a breath and gets a hold of himself) "First, we must establish the innocence of our allies. We can't act to mitigate any fallout or steer the Consilium through the darkness of the next few days if the people doing the steering are under suspicion. Thursday, yourself and your Cabal are publicly known to have opposed Malakaii in recent times. And then there's Beckett." - Banneker "About Beckett - I'd like to be the one who goes to him..." - Wolsey "Only once your own Cabal are cleared. Establish their alibis first. And quickly." Banneker Wolsey considers, moving the cursor on his phone contact list from Kali to Damascus to Kali again, before making his decision and phoning Damascus "Hey T-Dog" Damascus
T for Thomas.

Wolsey processes that, and decides to ignore it. "Where are you?" - Wolsey "Dunno. Somewhere roundabout" - Damascus, handing a bottle of magically-created 212

liquor to a customer "Listen. I need to know if anyone can confirm where you've been for the last few hours" - Wolsey "Weeeeell.... Not sure. I saw Kali a while ago" - Damascus Wolsey frowns. Damascus is sounding.. odd. "Are you high?" - Wolsey, suspicious
You'll have to imagine the distracted tone Rafe was using. One of those things that isn't coming across well in text form. Also, a meta-textual reference - Wolsey asked the same question of Kali when she was distracted by the Nickel riddle. Says something - though I'm not sure what - that when someone is acting oddly he doesn't jump to the conclusion that they're experiencing magic, but instead defaults to 'they're on drugs' - and he's always slightly frustrated by it; by people not acting as he thinks they should. Only when I come to write this, some days after running the session, do I realise what this implies about his background. I think Avatar may have been fond of the weed at some point.

"Not really. I'm selling booze in order to indulge my Greed" - Damascus "Just... listen. Can you meet me at the Sanctum? It's important. Malakaii's been killed, and we're going to be suspects unless we can prove we didn't do it. We need a Game Plan" - Wolsey There is a pause. "I've got a 'game plan'. Let's stop off at a 7-11 and buy party hats and streamers" Damascus Wolsey is briefly speechless, but reiterates his desire to meet ASAP, and rings off. He phones Kali Kali has tired of Ichi's return to the neighbourhood, and has slunk off to her thinking place by the river. She's ruminating on approaching thunderclouds when her phone starts vibrating. Wolsey gives her the news and asks if anyone can verify where she's been for the last few hours "No" - Kali His response is silent, though probably polysyllabic. He tells her to get to the Sanctum - he'll be there shortly. He hangs up. Banneker is communicating magically, the strands of resonance twisting away through Space, on the other side of the room. The Hierarch concludes his spell, and regards Wolsey "I'm making sure of where they've been" - Wolsey Banneker nods "The body has been brought in - I have to go. Now. I'll be in touch." - Banneker Pinpoints of light, connected by faint traceries like constellation maps, flare up around Banneker, seemingly hovering an inch or so from his skin. The light grows as he moves his hands in a rote mudra, gripping the fabric of space and pulling it apart. There's a flash of light, and he's gone.

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Wolsey runs for the exit, and his car.

First sighting of Banneker's nimbus here, as he teleports.

--Kali and Damascus have found one another outside the Sanctum and are comparing notes - Damascus at least has the distinction of having been seen by dozens of people in both the Cabal's and Dantor's ranges, but the only person who's seen Kali is him. Still, that might be enough. Neither of them are particularly upset about Malakaii dying. "Heard the news?" - Kali "Ding-dong, the Warlock's dead" - Damascus They walk up the stairs, and unlock the Sanctum door, Kali shuddering at Seraph's graffitied warning "I keep forgetting to do something about that" - Kali, muttering "Hm?" - Damascus "Seraph. I need to deal with it - I know, I know, you and Wolsey want to kill him. But I... I just think he's been useful, and hasn't actually attacked us." (sighs) "What does it matter? You'll kill him. You don't trust me to handle it" - Kali "I have no plans to kill Seraph" - Damascus "...I can't decide if you're being complimentary" - Kali "The only thing I'm aware that he's done to you is had sex. If I were to go after everyone that did that I'd be booked up for two years" - Damascus
And thus starts an in-joke. Whenever Kali has sex and Damascus finds out about it from hereon in (first time next session), he notes the running total of days it'd take him to kill them all.

They are interrupted as Wolsey arrives, abuzz with theories, plans and concerns - he loops over himself several times before noticing that Damascus and Kali seem less than concerned. "I know this is bad of me and I should grieve that a man is dead..." - Damascus "Yes, you should. He didn't deserve to die" - Wolsey "Many who live..." - Damascus "He didn't deserve to die. Plus, it's fucked everything up" - Wolsey "Well, for those of us enmeshed in the Game" - Damascus "THE GAME? Have you gone Apostate Damascus? Are you still a member of the Consilium?" - Wolsey "Forgive me, Wolsey. I am failing to see the ramifications" - Damascus Wolsey stares at him. "Maybe I did it" - Kali, staring at Wolsey There is a long pause, as Wolsey shifts from concerned she's telling the truth to confused. "What?" - Wolsey

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She stares at him "What?" Wolsey "I thought I'd stare at you like you understand me, like you're staring at Damascus. If I'm not making this any better I'll just go sit in the corner" - Kali "Did you?" - Damascus "I don't know. I might be going to have done" - Kali She has a theory, she declares - a conclusion she came to while in her thinking place this lunchtime. What if SHE is the Spider? Or rather, her own future self? She suspects that's why the trap on the Crack Factory was in the form of a Nickel, that she placed it to make her own past self choose or not choose some significant thing that would be life changing. Maybe she killed Malakaii, too. "Did you, who are now standing here, kill Malakaii in your personal past?" Damascus "No" - Kali "Then it doesn't matter" - Damascus Wolsey thinks about it, and shakes his head. It's a... theory... but he doesn't think the Crack Factory was the result of Kali one day coming back to blow up her younger counterpart. "There'd have been a note. Signed 'Kali'" - Wolsey Wolsey lays them out: Malakaii's death will have to be answered in and of itself, but he leaves at least four key positions vacant - all of which have to be filled, but no Mage in the city has the qualities necessary for all of them. Malakaii was a Councillor of the Consilium, the leader of the Gatekeepers Cabal, the Guardian of the Veil Epopt (regional head), the only member of the Bearers of the Eternal Voice to have reached the third attainment (and therefore be capable of teaching the second) and lastly the person most involved in.. well.. guarding the Veil. Smoothing over the many minor infractions of the Wise, guarding against the Seers of the Throne and keeping watch over the Labyrinth. Any one of these will be hotly contested, with the alliances the Consilium is held together with suddenly cracking and shifting as people make their moves for the vacancies. And worse, any one of them - even aside from Malakaii's general demeanour and use of people's paranoia to make them follow the Lex Magica - is a possible motive. The Seers have a grudge, thanks to the House of Steel being broken up by Malakaii and his followers after they got the debriefing of... "Avatar!" - Wolsey He hurriedly phones his wife. Kali and Damascus wait as Wolsey establishes that Avatar is okay, having a rocksolid alibi in the form of Trace, with whom she had gone bowling. It's all gone crazy at Mara's place, though - as Malakaii's Provost, Mara is trying to hold their Cabal together and answer the increasing demands for updates from other interested parties while simultaneously making the first moves in her own bid to succeed him.

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Wolsey tells her to keep her head down, and rings off, telling the others what's happening. Damascus points out that Mara does stand to gain a lot from this, so she should be added to the list already containing Thursday, Beckett, someone trying to frame Beckett, Banneker himself (Wolsey disagrees with that - he doesn't think the Hierarch wanted Malakaii dead, just less powerful politically) and the Seers. "Try to remember the old policeman's rule: Who Benefits?" - Damascus "Can you think about that - because I don't really care who did it" - Wolsey "You don't?" - Damascus Not as such, no. Obviously, it would be good (if Malakaii was killed by a Pentacle Mage) if the culprit were caught, but Wolsey is more worried about the fallout. Mara is likely to seek the position of Councillor, which would see the Guardians lose their council seat. "As opposed to now, when the Arrow don't have one?" - Damascus "Yes" - Wolsey In any case, whoever makes Councillor will vacate any post they currently have, and then elevate someone to be their Provost. It's leadership of the Gatekeepers that is most troubling - they're predominantly Guardian in outlook, and Mara's likely rival in any such race is Mr Thursday - with whom Malakaii just publicly fell out. The Cabal, which performs a vital function to the city, could splinter and go their separate ways under the strain. At which point, Banneker calls Wolsey back. There are voices in the background Wolsey recognises Suleiman and Dantor at least. "Are your Cabal cleared?" - Banneker "yes" - Wolsey "There is much to do. Malakaii touched lives in a dozen Consilia across the world. Hoban has been told to extend his stay in New York and seek out Malakaii's old friends to tell them the news. There will be other such messages to send out, but for now we need you to concentrate here. Link has been assigned to be the Sentinel in charge of the investigation, but you can help." - Banneker "You want me to go to Beckett?" - Wolsey "Yes" - Banneker "I need you to give me the order out loud, sir. So that your guests can hear. Otherwise it looks like we were in on it with Beckett" - Wolsey (slightly louder) "Wolsey. Take your Cabal and make sure that Beckett is still on his estate. Tell that girl... Kali, isn't it?.. To make sure he didn't do it." - Banneker And they're off, discussing further as they go. The race for Epopt is harder to call, as Wolsey isn't that familiar with the internal workings of the Guardians of the Veil. He'd expect it to be Thursday or maybe one of the Mages from Project Twilight, if they use this tragedy to involve themselves more with the rest of the Consilium. As for Councillor, Wolsey's considered analysis is that it's most likely to be Ulysses or Mara - but either option (both Adamantine Arrow) will cause a rift between the Arrow and Guardians in the city. As they approach Beckett's house, speeding up the freeway, they consider if he might have actually done it - he DID, after all, try to kill Malakaii once before by

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summoning an Acamoth in some unspecified manner. It's probably a little too obvious, especially if the hints Wolsey has been picking up about the nature of the death are true (that it was done by a demon). "Protection. Just in case. Shielding spells" - Wolsey Kali questions how much use a Shielding of Fate is likely to be, and after she asks Damascus about changing the material of clothes to make armour, he offers to do so. "For instance, I could swap some properties of your clothes with something metal but flexible - like a chain" - Damascus "Do you have a chain here?" - Kali "no" - Damascus "I've got some in my room if we want to go back" - Kali "Too. Much. Information." - Wolsey, taking the exit ramp They settle for bog-standard Practice of Shielding spells, and arrive in short order at Beckett's house. Pressing the intercom, they wait for Beckett to let them in. There is the sound, over the intercom, of someone eating something crunchy (noises) "husiz?" - Beckett "Beckett?" - Wolsey (swallowing sound) "Who is this?" - Beckett
A minor Fight Club-ism

Wolsey explains that they've been sent to check on him, and asks to come in. Beckett - sounding a little drunk - okays it, and the gates open. "Please let him not be having a celebratory meal" - Wolsey Beckett answers the door wearing a party hat, a streamer hanging from his lips. "Vol-au-vent?" - Beckett, proffering a treat
Heh. Beckett's reaction, of course, is an exaggerated version of Damascus' - Damascus is Antinomist at the moment, and was driven in Story Three to suggest attacking Malakaii anyway, but Beckett is labelled Nefandi by the Consilium. Both men's celebrations offend the hell out of Wolsey, who considers Malakaii to have deserved better no matter what their differences. Too often, I think, this principle is missed in roleplaying games - a person may be an antagonist, and oppose your player character, but they're still a person. If you had a rival at work who disagreed with you, would you loudly celebrate in the workplace when they were murdered? To Wolsey, Malakaii's death removes a powerful Mage from the equation - and no matter what their personal strife, Wolsey regards that as dimming the light of the supernal. DC is a poorer place without Malakaii, and Wolsey knows it. Even if he couldn't stand to be around the man. But then, despite his cold fish image, Wolsey has the highest Wisdom in the room. And now for the Democratic Response. Rafe says: 'I would argue that for Damascus, at least, the analogy is of hearing that a local crime boss had been gunned down. You might have known him, you might have worked with him through necessity, and the fallout might be going to be hell but... you're not going to miss him. And you're probably happy. Damascus considered a lot of what Malakaii did to have been evil (so did Malakaii as I recall). In a good cause, perhaps, but you know what they say about 'ends and means'. It's also why Damascus has more patience with Beckett than he might. Beckett did the same thing - evil with good intentions (removal of an evildoer) but where Malakii (presumably) chose it, Beckett was driven to it... by Malakaii.

"You've heard, then?" - Wolsey "I felt it." - Beckett

How and Why will be explained in a scene coming up in a little while. Malakaii and Beckett still had a faint connection.

Beckett almost collapses, falling backward into an armchair in his living room. The

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table is set with a party buffet, and there's a few sad, faded pieces of decoration stuck up. Beckett looks incredibly lonely. "Could I interest any of you in a drink?" - Beckett "Did you attack Malakaii?" - Wolsey "Yes." - Beckett "What sort of drink?" - Kali "Did you summon a demon to kill Malakaii?" - Wolsey "Again, yes. Brandy" - Beckett "I'd like some, please" - Kali He pours Kali a drink, and smiles wearily at Wolsey "When?" - Wolsey "Ten years ago, now" - Beckett They apologetically say that they need to confirm that "I assumed as much. The young lady is here to rummage through my unutterables, I take it?" - Beckett
A bit of an odd pun - Nefandi meaning "unutterable"

They are politely firm, but say that it's the only real way to clear him "Children, do you really think that if the real killer - the one who has denied me my..." (closes eyes) "Do you think it will make any difference? If someone more important to Banneker than me did it, then believe me - it will be blamed on me" - Beckett It can't hurt though. "We could make it my favour if you want" - Kali "No, no. Go ahead, my dear. Scrutinise away." - Beckett, sighing deeply "Are you all right?" - Damascus "Hm? My boy, I have spent a decade in exile, dreaming of the day I could take my revenge on my former friend. And now someone ELSE has done the deed. With a Demon no less" (nodding at Wolsey) "I spent ten years waiting for today and now that it's here..." (trails off, then sighs in exaggerated self-pity) "Oh, pale fate!" Beckett
For all the amateur dramatics, Beckett is coldly furious - and they can tell. He's harbouring a murderous rage toward whoever did this - simply because Malakaii was HIS, damnit. Sort of a "you didn't invite the Joker" thing.

Kali swirls the brandy around the glass, seeing how it pools. Not as good as coffee

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(caffeine fumes work better than alcohol) but it'll do. She casts her mind back through the day - Beckett got up, puttered around the house, read a book in his study and then, when he was putting it back on the shelf, stumbled as if having a stroke when he sensed Malakaii's death. He crawled to the corner of the room, weeping, and eventually dragged himself upright and drank most of a bottle of whiskey. Then he ordered the party food and broke out the bunting. There are darker things in Beckett's house, though - black and throbbing lines of causality and pools of strong emotion that she can sense. Without thinking, she follows one, to see Beckett catch a burglar sneaking into the property. The stain on history ends with Beckett sacrificing the unfortunate to grant essence to an amassed group of unpleasant spirits.
This is all using Kali's Attainment of the House of Ariadne, which lets you sense the history of a location. The cup of beverage is Kali's personal stand-in for a Chalice: it's a path tool she habitually uses, especially for Time magic.

She comes back to the present. "He..." (she looks at Beckett) "...He didn't kill Malakaii" - Kali Good enough for Damascus and Wolsey, who ask Beckett if he has any idea who might have. "Summoned the Demon, you mean?" - Beckett "Who could have done it?" - Wolsey "Depends what type of Demon you're talking about" - Beckett There follows a brief lecture on Demonology. Beckett explains, with the air of someone who was once a good teacher (before he turned to trying to kill his own colleagues and trucking with dark powers) but hasn't had the chance to lecture in years, that there are five essential groupings of 'Demon'; the term covers any malevolent entity from Pandemonium, the Abyss, the Shadow World, the Underworld or Astral Space. "Pandemonium Demons" (he indicates his head toward Wolsey, calling up the Path Mastigos they share with the gesture) "Are seldom to never seen on Earth, and cannot be directly summoned by Mages" - Beckett "Because of the Abyss" - Kali "Yes, but just as handfuls of people report seeing the Fae of Arcadia or the Angels of the Aethyr, there are stories of Supernal Demons visiting our world. The Abyss might not even exist for them. Next on our list are the creatures of the Underworld - now that has NO Abyss separating us from it. Or there are creatures of the Shadow of unsettling aspect - the spirits of atrocity sites or dark emotional resonances. Then there are Astral Demons, the embodiments of a person's darker psyche made ephemera through Goetic magic. And lastly the Acamoth, spirits of the Abyss" Beckett "Who would be able to use them?" - Wolsey "Supernal Demons - no one. Underworld demons - anyone insane enough to venture there. I would say knowledge of the Patterning Practice of Death or Spirit or both. Spiritual Demons, again you would need an Adept of that Arcana. Goetic ones, anyone can meet, though it takes skill to summon them into the real world. I would note, however, that there is an entire Legacy in this city dedicated to that very practice" - Beckett "The Claviclarius" - Damascus

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"Just so" - Beckett "What about Acamoth?" - Wolsey "Do you know how they work?" - Beckett Everyone shakes their heads. Beckett takes another stiff drink, and - hollow-voiced - describes the Acamoth. Beings of the Abyss that were thrown up and trapped in Astral Space ("Or rarely, the Shadow or this world") by the fall of Atlantis. The Acamoth do deals with any Mage who meets them and agrees - the Mage allows his Astral journey to be taken over by the spirit. "It's like being forced to watch a video... no. More than that. You feel what it shows you - you can't look away. You are surrounded by atrocities and commit them yourself, as the Acamoth tries to degrade and horrify you. They are cut off from the Abyss, you see - they hurt you to remind themselves of what their home feels like. At the end of the hell ride, they give you what you agreed." - Beckett "But not in your case" - Wolsey "No. I made an agreement with the Acamoth I found - I used my magic to.. compress it, I suppose, and insert it into the mind of a Sleeper, where it lay like a coiled snake. The plan was to then manipulate Malakaii into using his Attainment on the body, at which point the Acamoth would strike. Instead, he escaped thanks to Suleiman that's why they hated one another, you know. Malakaii could never forgive him for saving his life, though Suleiman became a Councillor over it. The Acamoth itself was destroyed, ripped apart and it's essence destroyed." - Beckett They thank him, and get up to leave. "Can I ask.. what are your plans now?" - Wolsey Beckett says that leaving has crossed his mind. "I could teleport far away, find a Consilium that doesn't know me and change my Shadow name. I don't know, though. This city was my home for long before. I shall think on it before making any decisions" - Beckett
It has been pointed out that Beckett's house arrest is mostly self-inflicted. He's a powerful enough Mastigos that he could have teleported away - only his need to be around as an open challenge to Malakaii kept him there. Without that purpose in his life, his exile - and his dealing with the Abyss - have been entirely wasted. Lest this get too Sympathy for the Devil - Beckett IS a human-sacrificing, demon-dealing-with monster. He IS Nefandi maybe not a Scelesti, but certainly Left-Handed. No one should forget that, and Kali's vision reinforced it. But as we'll see, troubled times make for interesting compromises. And he's never been anything but nice to the Cabal.

--The Cabal now head to Ulysses' church - where, they have learned on reporting in to Banneker after leaving Beckett's, Link has set up an office.
Link is the Perfected Adept Sentinel who used the Dagger Damascus made to bind the Magath earlier in the Chronicle. He was chosen for this task because he's alone in not having an interest in the outcome - he's an Adamantine Arrow in Dantor's Cabal. The other Sentinels are Mr Thursday (suspect and possible shoe-filler), Jude (in Malakaii's Cabal), Proteus (in Malakaii's Cabal) and Nimrod (Guardian of the Veil).

The afternoon is turning into early evening when they get to the church, the wind

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whistling in through the boarded-up holes where stained glass used to be. The place is still shut after the Seer attack on Damascus and Wolsey. Ulysses greets them and shows them inside, while Link emerges from Ulysses' office. Link thanks them for going to see Beckett for him and fills them in on what's been gleaned in the meantime. "The demon..." - Link "We know it was a demon for definite?" - Damascus "Yeah. Dantor sculpted the last thing he saw in ectoplasm. Looked something like this" - Link He concentrates, breathes, and creates a miniature phantasm of the assailant. In the flickering light, and the monochrome (for Ectoplasm is all grey) it looks sort of like a woman with a distended mouth and fingers, though they can't tell where what it's wearing ends and it's hair - so long it trails along the ground behind it - begins. Damascus, though, recognises a particular detail
For which read: Rafe passed the Occult roll

"The hands are on backwards, see? I don't know if there's any other types like that, but it could be a Raksha. Indian shapeshifter-demon" - Damascus Everyone looks at Kali "What?" - Kali "Any insights into Indian symbology?" - Wolsey "Why would there be?" - Kali "Tell me you didn't get your shadow name off the back of a packet of cereal" Wolsey Not quite. More like a carton of milk While Wolsey despairs, Link gives them the rest of the particulars of the deed - the creature attacked out of nowhere in broad daylight, while Malakaii walked down a street. He was cut down through his Shielding spells and tried to heal himself with Mana, but the creature continued to rip into him. "He didn't fight back. Wouldn't use vulgar magic in front of Sleepers - not even to save himself" - Link "That's a horrible way for a Guardian to go. Using his beliefs against him" - Wolsey "Ironic, certainly" - Damascus "Maybe it was an attempt to force him to go against them that backfired. Or maybe someone has a grudge against the Guardians. The Policeman's rule: Who Benefits?" - Link
Link's use of the line Damascus used - which also replaced 'Green Eyed Monster' as the title of the Story - is a deliberate reinforcement.

Link lists most of the people Wolsey listed earlier.

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"And then there's his Legacy. Malakaii was the only one able to teach the second Attainment - and he used the third regularly in annoying almost everyone. I'm thinking maybe someone who was stymied by his tight control over the Bearers, or someone who didn't want him to *ever* teach his memory power to anyone else" Link "Who are all the bearers?" - Ulysses, breaking his silence. (ticking them off on his fingers) "Roriko, Mara, Tybalt, Beckett" - Link "Tybalt?" - Damascus "Beckett's pet Lobbyist - Mara's last apprentice before Wolsey" - Link Wolsey looks pained
Tybalt is Wolsey, re-cast as a loyal Guardian of the Veil. Inferior to Wolsey in almost every respect, but HE was allowed into the Legacy. Roriko is a spymistress in Dantor's (and Link's and Ulysses') Cabal, and is that Cabal's sole Guardian of the Veil

"Of course, there's always Seraph" - Link, considering "What does Seraph have to do with this?" - Wolsey "He's a Bearer" - Link "He's WHAT?" - Wolsey "Seraph was Beckett's apprentice. It was him going to the Seers that drove Malakaii off the deep end - and it was that that drove Beckett to the Abyss. Malakaii had a bad run of it - his first cabal all went Seer, you know, back in India" - Link Kali is quiet at that - she knew that, in fact, thanks to her trip with Samuel into Malakaii's past. "Why does no one TELL us these things!?" - Wolsey "Because they don't like airing dirty laundry" - Damascus "Anyway, he'd have only learnt the beginning, but he might have added to it since then independently. And if he HAS, well... who knows how many Seers he's taught?" - Link That's it. Wolsey has his prime suspects "We have to deal with Seraph. Immediately. Even if he didn't do this, we can't let him run around. Back me up here, D" - Wolsey "D?" - Damascus "Big D? D-Man?" - Wolsey
Revenge for T-Dog earlier is sweet. Next session it escalates - 'K-Girl' joins the street name club.

Damascus, choosing to rise above Wolsey's attempt to sound 'street', asks just how he intends to trap Seraph "Oh, no. I'm not being bait" - Kali

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Wolsey looks at her "NO. I mean it. No baiting traps with me" - Kali Wolsey tries to think of a persuasive argument. "You're the one he's stalking." "Just because I slept with him..." - Kali There is a pause. Ulysses, you see, knew that. Link didn't. Wolsey puts his hand over his eyes in despair. "You SLEPT with Seraph!?" - Link Kali makes a despairing noise. Link says that he's just going to.. you know... leave them to have this argument themselves, and to come find him if they think of any likely avenues of inquiry. "I have a much better idea. We can dig a big pit, cover it in banana leaves and bait it with cheap rum. Everyone knows Seers can't resist cheap rum" - Damascus, after Link has retreated.
(Hobbes)We're crazy like that(/Hobbes)

They drop the subject Ulysses clears his throat "Now that we're alone, I have something on an entirely unrelated issue that may interest you. I know what the Eyes of Salt do" - Ulysses Three pairs of eyes swing toward him. "Does the name Cxaxa Querephas mean anything to you?" - Ulysses "Sounds Aztec" - Kali Ulysses explains that the rather distinctly-named person was an Archmage in distant prehistory - one of the founders of the Silver Ladder in it's post-Atlantean state. She ruled a kingdom of two million souls in a time when most Awakened were still on the run from the precursors to the Seers and the Exarchs themselves. "The location of her kingdom is lost to time, and there are only scattered references to her - six fragments, all from different works. She was called the Cold Smile, and ruled through blood, fury and belief in her own divinity - she thought she was a Goddess" - Ulysses "Sounds more like a Seer" - Wolsey "Definitely a Silver Ladder, I'm afraid" - Ulysses, apologetically They wait for him to get to the point "She made the Eyes of Salt. I've been researching them for Banneker. And here's

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the interesting thing - the reason I waited to tell you. I used my access to the Consilium libraries to look up that Ring you have, and any references I could find of the others." - Ulysses Kali's hand unconsciously goes into her bag, where the Ring of the Dethroned Queen lies hidden. "Some of the raiment of the Queen have never been seen - like that one you have, or the Crown or Scepter. Others, though, have. The Throne - or something supposed to be it - surfaced in Britain in the 1700s, but was stolen by a group of Seers. A few people are supposed to have owned the Robe, though. And one of them, as coincidence would have it, is our Cxaxa. Querephas believed her godhood to have been signalled by her possession of an artefact, a mantle of divinity cast off by another god" - Ulysses They know where this is going "'In this robe I rule. In this robe I hold Authority. Authority unto Death and Beyond'. That's from one of the fragments. She had the Robe of the Dethroned Queen. "You're sure?" - Wolsey "Not really, but remember the poem. The robe is meant to hide the user from the Exarchs. Cxaxa claimed that was how she ruled - she was concealed from the sight of Heaven, where the other jealous gods ruled. That's how she built a kingdom back then." - Ulysses And the Eyes of Salt? Ulysses asks if they touched them. Damascus admits that he did - that they were terribly cold. "That's her Nimbus." - Ulysses "They're Soul Stones?" - Wolsey "Imagine that you're her - thousands of years ago. Your rule depends on one potent artefact, which your enemies would want to take away from you. You'd build a storehouse, somewhere safe to put it where it would be hidden and defended. And like a modern-day Mage keying a ward to his resonance, you'd make sure only you could get inside alive. But if you wanted a backup, or a way to allow trusted servants or allies in, you'd need a way to get them past the defences. Nowadays we impart an object with our resonance, or set the Ban to not work against people meeting criteria." - Ulysses "They're keys" - Kali "Or lockpicks" - Wolsey "That's my theory, anyway." - Ulysses They are sobered by it, and think deeply. Except Kali, who is frankly panicked by the whole thing. She starts babbling about how this is all interlinked, about how she's trying but failing to break out of the trap she's fallen into - about how she's even given up smoking. She offers to give Wolsey the Ring, but he turns it down.

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"Damascus. You're nearly a monk" - Wolsey "Nearly a what?" - Damascus "Contemplative? Working on inner calm?" - Wolsey "I try" - Damascus "Beat the crap out of her, will you?" - Wolsey "If it's a monk you want, Link's almost one" - Ulysses Remembering Link, they head in to see him, now that Ulysses has filled their heads with tales of blood-soaked Hyperborean ages. Link, they find, has had a brainwave. He wants them to get some other members of the House of Ariadne together and go postcognitise the scene of the crime to get a better picture of what the beast looks like. And more importantly what happened to it after it attacked Malakaii. Kali phones Trace, who agrees to meet her there, and to bring Katherine along "in case of Minority Report". And then they leave, and pile once more into Wolsey's car "Alright. This is getting murky" - Wolsey The Ring is connected to the.. Ascendants? The Eyes of Salt? This long-dead archmage? The Robe? "Queens. Too many queens. Avatar called me 'Rani' - know what that means? Queen. Female version of Raja." - Kali "India again. And Malakaii went to India. And 'Mara'... I looked it up once. Could be a reference to the Tamil ruling caste" - Wolsey "Or could be the demon that tempted Buddha" - Damascus "There is deep symbology here that is pointing to the fact that you and Avatar are a couple... of being..." - Wolsey "...Gay" - Kali She cracks up, giggling with the stress. "You know, I have heard there are Mind mages that can tell a person to go fuck themselves" - Wolsey "Go ahead, but I will do it on the back seat right here" - Kali Kali composes herself "A Dethroned Queen and her Oracle - symbolically speaking, anyway. I don't know which way round you go, though. Still, there is the deep trend of CAN WE GET RID OF THIS THING!?" - Wolsey Kali considers. And feels a crushing sense of Inevitability. Damascus feels certain, somehow, that the last ten minutes of conversation were not what was originally said. "OK - take it. TAKE IT" - Kali, holding the Ring out. Wolsey doesn't want it

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"I meant give it away! There has to be someone more qualified. The Mysterium..." Wolsey Kali says, quite convincingly, that they can't trust anyone to not misuse the Regalia especially if the other items are now circling them, destiny-wise. They can't risk the Ring falling into the wrong hands. But SHE doesn't want it, especially not if it's a roadmarker on her way to becoming her theorised evil future self who will come back in time and mess with their heads. "Us. Destiny. The Regalia. Let's do this!" - Damascus "I like his style" - Kali "That's because his style was your style" - Wolsey Kali says that was before the coincidences started to stack up, and they drive. "Maybe we'll get five and they'll turn into a giant robot" - Damascus
Keep dreaming, you crazy diamond. Keep dreaming.

--Later, the thunderstorm finally breaks. Katherine, Trace and Kali, soaked to the skin, stand arranged around the site of Malakaii's attack, casting their minds backward. Wolsey and Damascus are warm and dry in the car, drinking coffee and watching the three Enchantresses. "Mmm. Starbucks" - Wolsey
Hail, Wolsey - Head of the Crucible! Hail, Wolsey - Consilium Herald! Hail, Wolsey - thou shalt be Hierarch hereafter! Just to get the Macbeth reference out of the way.

Eventually, the women get back into the car. The creature appeared to be made entirely out of shed hair and flakes of skin, she says - and had bright glowing green eyes. After it fatally wounded Malakaii it vanished in a going-Twilight way rather than an explodo-way They ask Trace, conversationally, how her Cabal is holding up. Apparently the battle lines between Mara and Thursday are already being drawn - Thursday is deeply insulted he's being kept out of the investigation, and has declared he'll never accept Mara as Cabal leader. Mara herself is already campaigning - low key - for Councillor as well as Cabal head. As for the Guardians, Thursday looks a shoe-in for Epopt unless Pool or Nimrod challenge it, but to do so would break Project Twilight's famous isolationism. They drop her and Katherine off at her house, and get back on the road. A Green-eyed monster. They have a theory. It involves someone who they know to be resentful of being ignored in favour of Malakaii, and of his authority over them. Someone who strikes them as repressed and who might summon, say, an Envy-Demon in the shape of a Raksha. Someone who Avatar told Wolsey was sitting in on her lessons in Goetic theory with Promethea. Hoping they're wrong, they head for Mara's house.

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They arrive at Mara's house/office - noting the Atlantean glyph denoting "official business only at present" and heading upstairs. When they reach the lobby, they see Avatar watching them from the stairs up to her and Mara's apartment. "Hi! You are not going to believe the day we've..." - Avatar She trails off at the expression on Wolsey's face. He's frowning, not greeting her. Very quietly and calmly, he tells her that it's probably best if she waited outside the building while they talk to Mara.
The rain has stopped by now. I loved Wolsey's 'Game-face' here.

They enter Mara's office, to find her on the phone. "No, listen. You KNOW why they've asked you to sit this out, Jim - you had a public verbal brawl with... No, I'm not trying to get you out of the way... Well, tell BANNEKER that" - Mara, hanging up.
Jim is Mr Thursday.

While she's talking, the Crucible are idly casting their eyes over the paraphernalia on her desk - including a small stack of leaflets that say, according to their limited grasp of the High Speech; "Dream/Tempter, great-Benefit Consilium (emphasis)" Damascus purses his lips
Literally. I never knew what the expression meant until Rafe did it this game.

Mara greets them rather stiffly, saying that she's terribly busy trying to stop the Guardians from throwing their toys out of the pram. Damascus takes the lead in the conversation, asking if she has an Alibi (she does) and what she plans to do. Mara sees them looking at the leaflets and says that everyone knew the time had arrived for her to be a Councillor - and the Adamantine Arrow have lacked one since the last Hierarch. She's simply doing what she has to. They ask her if she knows anything about the murder, and she says in honeyed voice that she doesn't know what they're getting at.
A note on systems here - the first and second Bearers attainments (level 2 lets you do it to groups) adds your Mind Arcana in *Successes* to attempts to persuade or lie to people. Which in Mara's case would be five. Even though they're suspicious, even though they're spending willpower, even though Damascus' own attainment grants him bonus resistance dice, Mara can still convince them of obvious untruths.

"Have you ever practiced Goetic magic?" - Damascus "No" - Mara "Avatar says you took part in her lessons on the Astral plane" - Wolsey "Yes, I did" - Mara "Did you take active part?" - Damascus "Sometimes. Promethea did most of the teaching, especially of Goetic theory - which is why you may have heard that from. I observed" - Mara In the background, Kali casts Ring Sight, shifting uncomfortably as she tries not to

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look at herself. In any event, Mara is as un-tainted as Wolsey is. The interview turns tense. Damascus casts an Unveiling of Prime and Mind and reads her Aura. "Your emotions, Provost, appear to have been altered magically." - Damascus "Alright. I admit it. In my position, I am under pressure. I self-medicate, using Magic. Augmenting my mind, ramping down harmful emotions, that sort of thing. I don't like to tell people because it looks weak" - Mara
Which is, sad to say, actually the truth. And gives you the final piece of the puzzle, along with what Wolsey remembered about Avatar being taught Goetia by Promethea, as to what happened.

She says that she'll remove the spell, and her Resonance flares as she casts a spell. "There. Look again. I've removed the spell" - Mara
At which point Rafe - his dice pool boosted by Damascus' permanent mind shield - beat her subterfuge roll. And then beat her successes on her false-aura spell with his scrutinising roll

He peers at her. "It's a very good false Aura, Mara. Your real one, though, has not even a trace of Envy" - Damascus, dangerously Mara sits back, all dissembling abandoned. "Be careful what allegations you make, Disciple. And as for you" (to Wolsey) "remind Banneker who's side I'm on and THEN ask him what to do. I'm sure this will be found to be the work of Beckett or Alexander in the end" - Mara
Like Beckett said, in fact

"If this thing..." - Damascus "I will *deal* with it. Good evening, Disciples. And be absolutely certain to not spread any slander before speaking to your Hierarch. He needs me - this city needs me. Up to now I have been prevented from giving him assistance. Now I'm not, and I'm willing to fulfil my part. Someone has to take over from Malakaii" (to Wolsey) "But I can't do all of it. Someone will have to watch over the Labyrinth. A Bearer" - Mara The implication is clear and understood by all - ignore this, and she'll teach Wolsey his Legacy. Damascus coldly thanks her for her time, and they troop out. --They leave, Damascus quietly furious - she's going to get away with this, because Banneker 'needs' her. Wolsey tries to mollify him and Kali, reminding them of political realities. They DO need her. "Are you sure you're not being influenced by your desire to join the Legacy?" -

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Damascus "It NEVER crossed my mind until she brought it up. Believe me" - Wolsey
I believe him

"This is a delicate situation, I know..." - Wolsey "You don't know anything" - Kali Wolsey finally snaps. "DO NOT question my competence ever again" - Wolsey "See this? I'd given up" (lights a cigarette) "I'm not talking shit. You're hearing shit" Kali Kali asks what happens to the next person Mara feels envious of? What if it's Avatar? He says they'll think of something and that yes - she probably will get away with this, she may even Benefit. But that's life - and politics. Neither have a sense of fair play, only of what is necessary. He spies Avatar lurking down the road and calls her over. "It's not safe for you to stay at Mara's any more. You're coming with us" - Wolsey He returns to the argument. There are half a dozen Claviclarius - they all practice Goetia. Damascus himself is on an Antinomist practice. "How about it, Damascus? You've done Wrath and Pride. What's next? Envy?" Wolsey Damascus says that he's not quite finished with Greed - he's done stage one, making the money. Stage two... "Las Vegas" - Damascus Kali is right up for that. She points out how useful she'd be. "Unless the LV Consilium have a Gatekeeper equivalent... defending the Casinos from Supernal influence" - Wolsey "Well, we could gamble, drink, visit the Nevada prostitutes..." - Damascus "And do the most exquisite sin of all.. go see Celine Dion." - Wolsey "... ... ...I'm practicing Antinomism, not turning Nefandi" - Damascus Back in the here and now, though, they need to decide what to do about Mara. They need to take this to Banneker - not Link - and get his steer. While they drive, Wolsey speculates on how best to block Mara's ascendancy. They DO need her - but not in all the positions, and they need safeguards in place. If Thursday finds out about all this he'll probably kill her out of hand. But he'd be a good candidate for Epopt - him or Nimrod. As for Councillor, Promethea is too young, and according to Trace earlier would probably be the Provost for Mara should she make

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Councillor, leaving Suleiman to pick a new one. They arrive outside Banneker's architecture firm and get out. "What about Beckett?" - Wolsey He continues - Beckett is a demonologist, he's capable - and he's a powerful Mastigos, which is the *other* void they're left with with Malakaii's death. He's also an Ex-Guardian, so he's at least familiar with the job that needs doing. His reason for being in Exile has now vanished - if they could think of a way to get the standing charges of Nefandism against him dropped...
The charges, I will note, that are TRUE.

"Have him catch the Demon" - Avatar "Excuse me?" - Wolsey "You want Beckett to demonstratively redeem himself, he has a grudge against what killed his personal feud and you have a demon to catch. Have Beckett destroy the demon" - Avatar Wolsey turns to the others. "Isn't she a wonderful Mastigos?" - Wolsey, proud Avatar blushes, and Damascus asks her where she's going to sleep. "You could stay at mine" (off everyone's look) "I have a spare room" - Wolsey "Or, in interests of fairness, so do I" - Damascus "The sanctum will be fine" - Avatar Kali points out that there'll be company - she's been staying there increasingly. Wolsey says that the Sanctum is a bit bare, and Kali defensively says that she's *been* decorating "The spare room has a whole novel in it" - Wolsey "Hey! There's three novels now. Place just needs a woman's touch" - Kali (to Avatar, straight-faced) "So could you help us out with that?" - Wolsey They head inside, the security guard watching them dubiously from his desk.
Kali looks like a gangster, Avatar's a grunge-punk. Damascus just looks poor - despite not really being so any more. Wolsey, for once in the chronicle, looks like he belongs.

Wolsey asks for Banneker by his real name, and says that it's Thomas here to see him. The guard calls the lift. The Elevator music is truly, truly atrocious
And played via the medium of my mobile phone's hideous, hideous, preinstalled ringtones. Oh yes!

Eventually, they find there way through cube farms and drawing stations left unoccupied this Sunday night to Banneker's office. Inside, the Hierarch is peering

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over a large model of some kind of official building. "Everything seems simpler at this scale. Clean, uncluttered... just the lines." (he looks up) "Come in, sit down." - Banneker They explain their findings, and their suspicions. Mara has been experimenting with Goetic magic, and has released - maybe inadvertently, maybe deliberately - a demon made of her own Envy. Which descended on her Mentor and shredded him. "Where's Samuel when you need him?" - Banneker Kali helpfully notes that Samuel is in 1812 and will be for a few weeks. "By which time this will be all resolved one way or another. We have no time, and no options. This has caught us ahead of schedule and we're suffering for it. We are faced with swinging an election in favour of someone we don't want anymore" Banneker Wolsey and Damascus introduce Wolsey and Avatar's cunning plan - to reintroduce Beckett to Consilium society as a means of getting a potent ally and upsetting the dead-cert thinking that's already going on. "It's a possibility. One that rankles almost as much as helping Mara after this. But Beckett would never be elected Councillor. With time, and demonstrated remorse, maybe - in ten year's time or so - he would be fit to be a Herald. But the Consilium wouldn't stand for anything else." - Banneker So it looks like Mara. Which leads to the question of who her Provost will be "Why not Wolsey?" - Kali "Too young. The post traditionally goes to an Adept or a first-degree Master." Banneker "I wouldn't want it anyway" - Wolsey "How about Shore - either for Provost or Councillor? he's a Demon-hunter, he's a Mastigos. Not as learned as Mara, but certainly more stable. And with Beckett supporting him we could make a hero out of him" - Wolsey
Shore was the Mastigos with the battleaxe in Damascus' Magath-hunting sidequest.

"Who would you prefer to be Councillor?" - Kali, to Banneker "Honestly? Ulysses. But he'd turn it down. Doesn't want to do it" - Banneker "I might be able to work on that" - Damascus "Whatever you do, don't tell him it was Mara - or Thursday for that matter. They'd both kill her" - Banneker The plan, then, and the new Conspiracy. Debts must be repaid and promises fulfilled, so they'll not act against Mara's campaign for Councillor - but they *will* try to introduce Shore and maybe Ulysses as potential other candidates, and bring Beckett in from the cold to keep everyone off balance. They need to keep what actually

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happened this morning from Thursday while supporting him for Epopt, and give Mara the impression they're supporting her while keeping watch on her. Avatar should leave Mara and Promethea's care and join the Cabal. Suleiman will be inducted into the conspiracy - as senior Claviclarius, he's best placed to keep an eye on Mara for signs of further instability. Wolsey has the difficult task of persuading Beckett, after ten years of persecution, to do them a favour and eat humble pie in exchange for being forgiven. Damascus will try to persuade Ulysses to stand for election. Fun.
And, with that last meeting, hatched in the dim-lit night-time office, the session ends.

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Session 5.2
And see! The thread is done in timely fashion this week! Go me! In other news, I got Tome of the Mysteries three days before the session, as did Mark. It sees use right off the bat, and a particular plot point is made more complicated by one of the ideas within it - with the major plot twist in this session coming from a *spoiler* about the TotM's content a few weeks ago. The spoiler was the fact that you can learn Legacies from a Soul Stone (for reasons that should be obvious to long-term readers). The thing I hadn't heard and quickly yoinked was the idea of annullities - anti-demesnes. The reason Kali isn't in the story for a couple of long scenes after the initial setup was that Sam was late - some of her stuff was repeated or gone over retroactively. It has been transcribed here in temporal situ, for reasons of clarity. This session was mostly about the characters' first steps in building their anti-Mara conspiracy, and about clarifying their objections to what she's done - as Damascus says, it's not so much that she accidentally killed Malakii, or even that she's covering that up for losing the respect she has, but the fact that she's profiting from the death WHILE covering it up. That, to some of our characters, is as bad as deliberately murdering him. Mara may need help, but as the ten-step programme says, the first step is to admit that you have a problem. Also one thing that I reflected upon after the session - Damascus started out in gangland, worked his way out of it into a "safe" life and is now trying to understand himself by delving into it again. Kali started out in a safe life, worked her way into gangland and is now trying to understand herself by poking her head above the parapet - she's realised that her identity as Kemi isn't the enemy after all. That and our determination to show why Kemi/Kali is in the Mysterium of all Orders is our vector for Sam's character over the next few weeks. The parallel, and the move toward equilibrium, is interesting to me. I don't believe Sam and Rafe have cooperated on it; it's just one of those neat things that has popped up out of the chronicle.

The gang, fresh from their meeting with Banneker, arrive back at the Sanctum in order to drop Avatar and Kali off. Damascus drives home in his CV while Wolsey wonders to himself why - when they were all for him trying to rebuild his relationship with his wife - Damascus and Kali gazumped his attempt to get her to stay at his apartment. In any event, Kali has decided to move out of the warehouse and into the Sanctum, and the girls have procured wine from somewhere to christen the place. Wolsey decides to bow out and heads to his SUV.
Awwww

Kali and Avatar get pretty badly drunk together and Kali - after explaining the whole Seraph thing to Avatar - decides that she's going to paint over the graffiti'd message on the Sanctum's door. While Kali searches for a can of paint (her decorating of the place has reached the level that she's bought sporadic supplies) Avatar decides that she, for one, is far too smashed to do anything else and goes to bed. While Kali is busily throwing blue paint all over the door, she is interrupted by Blaise her elusive ex-mentor and Samuel's Provost, who apologises for the lateness of the hour. Then looks at the door, dripping gently with ducks-egg-blue paint, and asks Kali if she'd like to chill out. Blaise, settling into the Sanctum's slightly collapsed sofa, says that he's here to ask a favour. Well, actually, to pass one along. Samuel asked him to ask her something.
Samuel has been in 1812 for over a week. Blaise is not exactly the most reliable of persons. Samuel and he are almost the wrong way round in activity and contactable-ness - it's meant to be Blaise, as Samuel's Provost, that does all the organising of people, but Samuel tends to do it himself with Francine (the Bearer of the Stone Book and Herald, who we met back in session 1.2) to manage his appointments. Lord knows Blaise can't do it.

Trace, he ramblingly explains, has hit a dead-end in something she's looking into for Samuel, and needs to go look it up in the Athenaeum (the city's Mysterium Lorehouse). But she's a Guardian of the Veil, so isn't allowed in by herself. "Could you, like, go with her and let her use your library ticket?" - Blaise Kali agrees and we fade out on them drinking the rest of Kali's supply of alcohol.

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--Wolsey gets home, flicking the light on and surveying his deader-than-Stygia (tm Damascus) apartment. Police sirens can be dimly head over the hum of the airconditioning. We fade out from Wolsey's weary expression reflected in his window...
Poor Wolsey. I like to do these little wordless moments, even if they don't translate very well to the thread, simply to reinforce how hard his life is. It's very tiring, being Wolsey.

--...and into Damascus, reflected in a turned-off TV screen, as he equally wearily sets himself down in an armchair, flipping through the stack of mail he had to shove his way past on his way into his house. reaching into the plastic bag next to him and retrieving the first of many cans of beer, he watches cable porn until he falls unconscious. --------------------------Monday 24th July Damascus wakes with a snort, blinking in the hazy sunlight penetrating his living room. he shifts the takeaway cartons and beer cans off himself - discovering a human skull that someone (apparently him) has dribbled wax on to in the shape of a rather rude Atlantean ideogram. Staggering to the kitchen, he fills a sink with cold water and holds his head underwater for a minute before standing up, dripping. Much to do. The church is still closed - and there doesn't seem to be anyone in when Damascus knocks. Considering, blinking in the humid sunlight, he leaves his van in the church carpark and walks the short distance to Ulysses' house.
I could have had Ulysses be in the church, but I've done that the last two times running. Plus, it's still pretty early. And I wanted to show the Obrimos in a more intimate setting, better for Damascus to have more of a meaningful conversation. I do this with Banneker a lot too - when I want to show the Hierarchs human failings, I set the conversation in Isiah's house. Awakening is neat this way - the Shadow/Supernal life dichotomy gives a Storyteller this tool, this shorthand for 'the person you're talking to is not dissembling. The conversation you're having is private and heartfelt'. When you really mean it, use the real names.

Damascus knocks on the door, smiling (slightly hung-over) at the people in Ulysses' building passing by in the hall. "Carl... Good morning" - Ulysses "Father Joyce. Could I come in?" - Carl "Of course, lad" - Joyce They close the door, and 'Father Joyce' tells Carl to call him Peter.
Peter Joyce / Ulysses becomes the third npc to have his full name actually said 'on screen'. We know that Mara is Madhuri Dawan, that Banneker's first name is Isiah (the characters know his surname, I've just never said it), that Samuel's first name is Daniel, that Malakaii's first name was Gideon and that Mr Thursday is apparently called Jim. Avatar is Amanda Dean, nee Foster

Peter asks if Carl minds if he finishes his breakfast, and sits back down to his toast without waiting for an answer. Carl says that this isn't exactly a social call - he's here to ask Peter something.

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"You've heard that Mara is standing for election as Councillor?" - Damascus "I had" - Ulysses "Banneker has expressed a preference for other candidates... And, well... I was wondering..." - Damascus "Why don't I stand?" - Ulysses He swallows orange juice. "Lad, I am not the man that Banneker wants as a Councillor. Rather, I believe that HE believes I am. It is my impression of the Hierarch that he regards me slightly unrealistically - he can't see past our shared Path. My own revolutionary tendencies are as a light hidden beneath Dantor's burning bushel. He thinks I'm safe, that I agree with him or even like him. As a Provost my duty is to enact my Councillor's will. As a Councillor, Banneker would find that I am nowhere near the loyal ally he thinks I am - so, in good conscience, I cannot allow him to push me into it." - Ulysses "Could I ask you some advice?" - Damascus, guarded "Of course" - Ulysses "If someone you knew had caused a death and was covering it up, and even stood to gain from it, and you suspected it might not have been an accident, what would you do?" - Damascus "If you are speaking of the thing I suspect you are, I would say that judgement is not for you to dispense. There are laws, and authorities. Take the matter to them" Ulysses "And if I had already? And they had decided to help them conceal their involvement?" - Damascus Ulysses narrows his eyes "Does the person claim it as an accident?" - Ulysses "Yes. but they are covering up their involvement and.. well... they're reaping the rewards of the death as though they had done it deliberately" - Damascus "It does not matter if they did it deliberately, except in the eyes of the law. What matters, Carl, is that they admit what they have done - and that they are helped. If society punishes them, then so be it - but what they deserve is not your province. If earthly authorities have failed, then we must trust that they will be judged by Higher powers. And they will. We can only try to help them to come to terms with what they did - if it WAS an accident, then they will surely be judged innocent." - Ulysses Damascus thanks him, and sits back, considering. "What do you think of Mara?" - Damascus "I'm not a fool, Carl. I believe I have just given you my opinion" - Ulysses "I'm sorry. I promised Banneker I wouldn't tell you directly" - Damascus "I think he may have meant it more literally than that." - Ulysses, dryly. Damascus describes what the Crucible discovered last night, and of their confrontation with Mara and subsequent visit to Banneker.

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"As for Mara.. her biggest flaw is that she is in danger of being forgotten." - Ulysses He gives his opinion on WHY Mara is so driven - Malakaii grew distant when she joined the adamantine arrow, but she was never able to stand free enough of her mentor to be as useful to Banneker as he hoped. Malakaii replaced her with Tybalt and Banneker replaced her with Wolsey - and Mara was forced to train both of them, the future (Malakaii hoped) Guardian Epopt "..And Wolsey, who she knows will be Hierarch one day. Mara will never achieve that office and she knows it - she's not radical enough in some ways and too radical in others. She can see your friend rushing up behind her, and Malakaii stifling her from above. She's trapped - and if she is EVER going to become a Councillor she knows that this is her one and only chance" - Ulysses But he still won't stand for Councillor himself. "I stand by my opinion. If Mara accidentally caused the death of her mentor and teacher - whom she was very close to, at one time, I will add - then it is a tragedy... If she is concealing that, with Banneker's help unwilling or otherwise, in order to profit herself, then is a travesty. She would be lost in her schemes, and we would have a damaged Mage - one wrestling with her own grief and shame - as Councillor..." (waves toast to punctuate his points) "...she must admit it. To someone - anyone. At her level, crimes are heard by the Hierarch and Banneker would surely acquit her regardless, but if this has happened once already through her need to control herself, who knows what it will be like the next time?" - Ulysses He considers "She must admit it. The first step must be to admit that she has a problem. If she will not, and Banneker goes along with it, then I will denounce her and - if she still denies it - duel her. but listen to me, Damascus - be VERY careful who you tell this to. Mara is the head of our Order in this City - if I confront her, I will be declaring myself apostate. Don't destroy your own membership in the Arrow. be very careful before making that choice yourself" - Ulysses "I will be" - Damascus --Meanwhile, across town, Wolsey has been out of bed for a while and has mulled over his rather extensive To-Do list. At some point, he's going to have to go to Mara and try to mollify her following Damascus' rather confrontational tone. A prospect which doesn't make him feel very good, but political realities are what they are. The priority, though, should be to go to Beckett - they don't want their Ace to skip town before finding out that he's their Ace. "Damascus. Where are you?" - Wolsey "R and 24th" - Damascus
If you know DC, then don't worry - the WoD version as seen in this chronicle is somewhat fuzzy. As has been obliquely mentioned, the chronicle is mostly set (that is, the Sanctum is in) Anacostia, in the South-East of the Diamond. But nWoD Anacostia was never properly rebuilt after the riots, which were worse than in the real world. In the real world, the area that Ulysses lives in is okay. In the nWoD, it isn't. Kali's "core turf", including the warehouse and the Sanctum, is actually the southern tip of the National Capitol Park in the real world. In the WoD the park doesn't exist, and the only green area is Anacostia park (which itself has been shittyfied, as 1.1 proved). Kali's thinking place is on the riverbank, overlooking the Washington Navy Yard

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An hour later, Wolsey meets Damascus outside Ulysses' apartment. Damascus gets into the SUV and Wolsey just waits. Damascus admits that he did in fact just tell Ulysses about Mara, which annoys Wolsey slightly, but Ulysses doesn't look like he's going to run off and kill Mara any time soon. He may challenge her to the dual arcane should she be elected, but that's between them. "Alright. Next move. You need to go to Mara and apologise" - Wolsey "Uhuh" - Damascus "Really - or I can try to do it. Are you alright to do this?" - Wolsey Damascus does not seem enthused. "Look... Is your problem with this the demon summoning?" - Wolsey "I admit it's a large part of it" - Damascus "Do you have a problem with Goetia?" - Wolsey Damascus indicates that he doesn't think it's the most responsible of practices "Because you can't just go around SAYING that, Damascus. There are too many Goetic mages here - Suleiman and his lot for a start... I'm just saying that now may be the time for moral relativism" - Wolsey "Wolsey, have you seen me be polite to Dantor? I have been polite to Dantor. And trust me, I have a much bigger problem with the Bokor. I can keep a lid on my prejudices" - Damascus Damascus explains that his problem with this whole situation has been nicely voiced by Ulysses - it's not so much that Mara was irresponsible enough to fail to keep a tight rein on her demon, it's that she's openly profiting from the death. "Morally, it's equivalent to murder" - Damascus "Moral relativism, remember" - Wolsey "I just don't want her to be Councillor" - Damascus Wolsey asks how he doing persuading Ulysses, and Damascus says it is extremely unlikely "He said he won't serve under Banneker. Maybe when you're Hierarch..." Damascus "What?" - Wolsey "Just before I left. he said he'd reconsider when you become Hierarch." - Damascus "That's a pretty big assumption" - Wolsey In any case, Wolsey says, they have to do the trip to Beckett's as a matter of urgency. If Ulysses is refusing to step up, then they must pin their hopes on Shore as an alternative candidate and Beckett himself as a wild card. "He still owes Kali a favour" - Wolsey, turning the SUV in the direction of the Sanctum.

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As they drive, Wolsey asks Damascus the state of the Adamantine Arrow, and just why Mara of all people is in charge. There are several reasons - she's a proponent of the Ars Nova, and is seen as being more in-touch with modernity than Ulysses (who's religious faith makes him seem a little odd to most Mages). She's subtle in her Art and quietly fights and wins battles that the rest of the Arrow isn't capable of fighting. And most importantly of all she's a counsellor and a professional calmer of the spirit. Years spent defending the unwanted members of DC's society from horrors takes it out of a person, and Mara gives the Arrow's mages someone to talk to. Not in Damascus' experience - he has Ulysses for that - but Mara is the trusted confidante of most of the Arrow. And more than half of the Guardians. This does not make for an easy person to scupper in a fair election. Not that it *will* be a fair election - never make the mistake of thinking of Mages as Democratic. While it is true that the position of Councillor is voted upon and that Banneker as Hierarch does not get to vote, each member of the Consilium has a variable number of votes depending on their capabilities, seniority and certain occluded factors that allow, strangely, the "in-crowd" to have more votes each than members in barely-good standing. While Avatar will have one vote, and the Cabal members between three and five depending, Samuel is alleged to have about twenty. In this way, the meritocracy of Mage society is maintained, and the wishes of Masters and Adepts are not overthrown by masses of apprentices. And, chewing on that, they get to the Sanctum. The menfolk tromp up the stairs, and survey the wreckage of the night before especially horrified by Kali's drunken attempts to decorate. Wolsey, pained, asks if there's anything Damascus can do about it. "Hang on" - Damascus Damascus fishes his hammer out of his rucksack and concentrates, drawing down Stygia into the Fallen world. In his mind's eye, he sees the paint liquefy and run away from the door. This should be easy - the Practice of Weaving, no problem. As he releases the power, though, he feels the spell go wrong. The energies have come across the Abyss too strong.
The Vulgar spell got a success on it's paradox roll, resulting in a Havoc

Wolsey and Damascus barely have time to close their eyes and hold their breath before every last drop of paint on the door, walls, ceiling.. the entire corridor, in fact, liquefies and blasts into the air, forming a fine mist of paint globules that rapidly settle over.. well... everything. Especially them. Wolsey, now coloured blue and a kind of beige, opens his eyes, spits out blue gunk and asks Damascus if he could maybe have another go at that. Damascus tries again, and feels it go wrong again. He grits his teeth and absorbs the excess energy into his own pattern, wincing as the paint is repelled away from them and back onto the walls. The colours have all bled into one another leaving the place a rather unappealing colour, but at least the two of them are clean. "Sorry about that" - Damascus

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"Ah, Damascus..." - Wolsey Damascus wipes his nosebleed on his sleeve.

Another havoc, this time converted to damage.

--"KALI! AVATAR! ANYONE HOME?!" - Wolsey "Heya" - Avatar, slightly bleary-eyed, emerging from her room holding Robin Hobb's "Fool's Errand" "You know that was left by a madman, right? Speaking of which - where's Kali?" Wolsey "She's not up yet." (conspiratorial voice) "I think she had a man 'round. There were noises" - Avatar "She could have been entertaining herself..." - Damascus "Not THESE noises..." - Avatar "I hope it's not Seraph... Did we tell you about Seraph?" - Wolsey "Kali did, last night. Just before deciding to paint the front door" - Avatar They say what they're planning on doing, and ask if she wants to come along. Wolsey points out that Avatar adds more stops on their way: they need to clear her being released with Promethea (who they need to talk to about Mara anyway) and then... well... she's still not properly trained. (defensive) "I'm up to Shielding in Mind! And.. uh.. Knowing in Space" - Avatar "Good for two month's work - not good enough, though. And you don't have an Order yet" - Wolsey "It was NEXT on our list. Believe me. We were going to go round everyone, let me hear sales pitches" - Avatar "Not a bad idea" - Damascus "Especially if you need a replacement tutor anyway - though this just makes it more important that we go to Promethea. We don't want to cause any offence by just forgetting about her." - Wolsey Okay, then. Options. Silver Ladder... "The Hierarch?" - Avatar "Oh, no. No no no. Too persuasive by far." - Wolsey "How about the Ascendants?" - Damascus "That'd work. Especially if we found Caspar..." - Wolsey

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"I can't believe you're using my need to find an order as an excuse to spy on the Ascendants" - Avatar Wolsey shrugs. For the Guardians... "Trace" - Avatar They both nod. Free Council. "Samuel?" - Avatar "If Banneker's too persuasive, definitely no." (glances upward in the direction of Kali's room) "He turned Kali's head. One cabal member in love with him is enough." Wolsey "... ... you know he's gay, right?" - Avatar
No, Wolsey did not know that.

"He is?" - Wolsey "Oh sure. Major bum-bandit, is Samuel" (grinning) "In FACT, I believe that.. what's his name? The hippie in the House of Ariadne?" - Avatar "Samuel IS a hippy" - Wolsey "No, the other one. The one with the 'locks... Blaise! yeah. Blaise is Samuel's boyfriend." - Avatar "BLAISE? I.." (thinks) "Suddenly so much is made clear" - Wolsey --Upstairs, Kali wakes in her bedroom. There is a presence next to her in bed. Fearing the worst, she rolls over and opens one eye. Blaise, naked and still sticky, snores gently with his arm around her. Oh. Shit. --Aaaanyway. John Dee might be good for the Free Council, Avatar says. Damascus agrees, and says he'll talk to him about it. On a similar note Ulysses is the best bet for the Adamantine Arrow, and Promethea herself can do the Mysterium sales pitch. "Have you given any thought to a Legacy?" - Wolsey "Not really. The Claviclarius aren't really a good idea - my demon would probably just be a big tree made of flesh" - Avatar

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"Are you still having those?" - Wolsey "... ... yeah." (changes the subject) "Anyway. Dreamspeakers, maybe, if I qualify" Avatar "There aren't any in the city" - Damascus "No, but there's a lovely airport. I don't want the House of Ariadne" - Avatar "Which is good, because you don't qualify for that either" - Damascus Avatar nods. "There's the Thrice-Great - I think that's what the Ascendants are" - Avatar
See Dave prepare for the next supplement. Oh yes.

"Hmmm... KALI!!!" - Wolsey, shouting --Upstairs, Kali has just about extracted her bra from under Blaise's still-sleeping body when she hears Wolsey's shout and freezes. A long moment passes. Blaise does not wake up. veeeeeeery slowly, Kali reaches for her cell phone. --"Besides, I don't want to be a Bearer..." - Avatar Wolsey's cell phone beeps. He has received a text message, reading only "Shh!" "I think Kali is about to grace us with her presence" - Wolsey And she does, sliding down the banister. --There follows a brief recap of the plans for the day before... ".. And incidentally, who's upstairs?" - Wolsey "huh?" - Kali "Kali. Who have you slept with?" - Wolsey "How long do you have?" - Kali

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"Alright. Let me rephrase this.. Who is in our Sanctum?" - Wolsey "Blaise" - Kali, muttering "But.. he's gay" - Wolsey, looking at Avatar, who shrugs "Two years, one day" - Damascus, quietly
And the running count continues. And Blaise, as is obvious, is a tart to both Genders. It's not so much sleeping with Blaise that's Kali's problem. It's sleeping with Blaise-Samuel's-boyfriend. Good thing the boss is in 1812. And yeah - about that. Mark made the mistake of commenting one lunch to me that Samuel was clearly my favourite NPC, given how much I've used him in the Chronicle. To which my reaction was a friendly "right, then. He's not going to turn up for six sessions at least"

"You don't want to know what I had for breakfast" - Kali "I'm sure it was sausage-related" - Wolsey, with the air of one who has suffered Kali's innuendos for too long. Anyway, he says. NOW that they are all gathered, they should be going to Beckett's "We need to get him to agree to help Shore, so that we can get Shore elected Councillor instead of Mara" - Damascus "Or, if Mara gets Councillor, to get Shore made Provost either to her or to Suleiman if she takes Promethea" - Wolsey "To the Campaign Car!" - Kali
I now mentally call Wolsey's SUV that...

Wolsey asks her to please not call it that, and Kali shrugs, saying that it's fitting. They are, after all, in the first moves of Wolsey's eventual rise to Hierarch. "I mean, that IS Banneker's plan for you, right?" - Kali "... Okay. Seriously. I feel like Hilary Clinton here." - Wolsey "Does that make me Bill?" - Avatar "Do you play the Sax?" - Damascus "Oh, all the time." - Avatar "I'm sure you fill your evenings" - Wolsey "We do. You have NO idea what we get up to at night, Tom." (Kali and Avatar link arms, grinning wickedly at Wolsey) "We bathe. Naked and soapy" - Avatar "Oh, yes" - Kali Wolsey stoically ignores the good-natured taunting and trudges out of the Sanctum. "What happened to the corridor?" - Avatar "Damascus" - Wolsey

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"Huh" - Kali --The four of them clamber into the SUV. "Do you think it's too early?" - Avatar "It isn't like he has many visitors anyway" - Wolsey "Not really, no. He tends to sacrifice them" - Kali Everyone looks at Kali Kali looks innocent Wolsey drums his fingers on the steering wheel and stares at her "Oh, all right. When were in his house last I looked through it's history, you know? the sort of the feel of the place and everything that had happened and ANYWAY there was this little occasion on which Beckett caught a burglar and, well.. fed him to a bunch of spirits." - Kali There are a few deep breaths. "But - you know - Burglar!" - Kali "I could understand maybe wiping the man's memory, or... But not killing them. For Mana?" - Damascus
Different to Ulysses and the Seer - the Seer was already dead, and Ulysses even felt guilty about that.

This puts a new spin on things. Theyve been assuming that Beckett's crime was limited to his Acamoth-fuelled attempt on Malakaii's life. But if he hasn't given up his black magic ways, it will be much, much harder to sell his return to society. And he may be unsalvageable. "Maybe he can kick the habit?" - Kali, hopefully. Wolsey presses the intercom button. "Beckett? We'd like to come in" - Wolsey "Solitary confinement has never been so sociable" - Beckett They pull into the drive. Avatar elects to wait in the car, as the trio of more experienced mages steel themselves and make for the front door. Inside, they find Beckett engaged in polite conversation with a roughly humanoid thing made entirely out of skewed perspective, like a human-shaped lens distorting everything behind it. "Atraxis, these are the Crucible. My young friends, this is Count Atraxis of the Shifted Perspective" - Beckett

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Recognising a creature of the Shadow world, they are polite. Beckett looks to the spirit, then back at the gang, conspiratorially. "I've been making enquiries, trying to find your demon. It would help, actually, if you could clarify something with your master. There was never any terms imposed on my informal exile, and I am not sure if Banneker meant for me to be free to roam in the Inner Worlds or not." - Beckett "We'll ask him. And.. we have a proposition" - Wolsey Beckett asks Atraxis to excuse them, and the spirit de-materialises. The gang put it to him that the "terms" of his exile could be made moot over this business. "How would you feel about making a return to the Consilium?" - Wolsey Beckett sits down, considering. "In exchange for catching your new demonologist. I understand..." (looks at Wolsey, angry) "I'll do so. IF Banneker goes to the Consilium and admits everything. Admits that he has no idea how to deal with this, that he's using you as go-betweens and that he NEEDS me. And If he then comes here in person to beg me for my help." Beckett That is unlikely to happen, they concede "I'm willing to make the first step here - I'm willing to work with him after a decade of him propping his rule up with Malakaii's practices. But he has to take that first step. He has to admit that he was *wrong*." - Beckett
Theme of the session again.

"Wrong to pick Malakaii over you?" - Kali "To side with Malakaii, yes" - Beckett Wolsey says that won't be really possible regardless - and that although the death of the demon could go a long way to save Beckett's public image (Wolsey notes that the mages of the city don't hold him in that high regard - and that the crucible are pretty much the only people who give a shit). "What we need is your advice. If it were to come out that you'd assisted someone else in destroying the beast, then it will help your reputation, such that when Banneker then drops the charges against you there won't be an outcry" - Wolsey "So I am to be your pet monster, then? Helping the Hero to defeat the wild monster? You are asking me to trust a lot. you're asking me to trust Banneker, who has long proved he cannot be trusted to not simply go with the allies of expediency. I have my pride." - Banneker "So does he" - Damascus "I'll think about it" - Beckett He considers.

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"What sort of demon is it, in the end? Do you know?" - Beckett "Astral. A creature of Envy" - Damascus Beckett nods to himself. Quietly, seriously and with none of his usual ebullient manner, he starts to educate them. "That narrows it down. The creature will be drawn to the emotions that created it - to it's makers most strongly, but any source of envy or jealousy will allow it to subsist. It will have a basic need, like you breath and eat, to foster those qualitative in others. It is Envy, Jealous Rage and Inadequacy. It will desperately try to cause others to be the same way. It will be able to enter Twilight, perhaps even leap back and forth across the Gauntlet or into the Inner worlds. In manifested form, it will look like an exaggerated form of it's maker, twisted by the emotion that drives it. Once you catch it, it should be simple to trace it back to it's maker even if they have cut it loose." Beckett "You see? This is the sort of thing we wanted to know. You're an expert - and we need you if we're going to solve this" - Wolsey "Flattery will get you everywhere, young man" (sighs) "Very well. I'll act as your Doctor Lecter. Bring your Hero here." - Beckett Thanking him, they get up to leave. "Have you considered that all this - I imagine that out there the frenzy to be the one to replace Malakaii is getting quite fierce - is the result of the demon? You are falling into internecine struggles, conspiracies and secret meetings. Our jealousies of one another are coming to the fore." - Beckett They consider that "And consider this - Malakaii's death hasn't just left a void in your Council. There is the Legacy. The race, I imagine will be on" - Beckett "What race?" - Wolsey "Malakaii made a Soul Stone. He turned his Sanctum into an Annullity - the opposite of a Demesne, where the minor Arcana of the creator is made impossible to cast rather than the Ruling pair reinforced." - Beckett "How very Malakaii. That'd be.. Matter" - Wolsey "Indeed. And do you know what else you can do with Soul Stones, children?" Beckett Wolsey realises "That's right. You can learn Legacies from them. All those people Malakaii wouldn't teach his secret to in life - all the members of his Legacy, in the Pentacle and my own former student's brood in the Seers. They're all going to want to get their hands on it. First one to the Stone wins the prize" - Beckett Wolsey looks to the others. This is serious - if Mara gets the Soul Stone, or Seraph

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"And fair warning, Wolsey. If I find it first.. I Will destroy it. That attainment has caused too much pain already. I would advise you to do the same, but we both know you wouldn't." - Beckett "We do" - Wolsey, stating the fact. "On your marks, then. Get set..." - Beckett, relishing it. They leave. Rapidly.
Having the Soul Stone of a mage and Prime 1 to scrutinise it properly allows you to copy their Legacy for 10xp per attainment rather than paying them 1xp per session, which actually works out okay if you think how long it takes to go up in Gnosis dots even including Arcane XP. Wolsey has the Gnosis for the procedure, and the xp to burn. If he can get the Soul Stone, he will achieve his much-desired Attainment and gain the ability to lower the Disbelief of Sleepers. Of course, if Mara gets it then they have an unstable maybe-Councillor with the power to nonmagically persuade people that their own memories are faulty and something other than what happened happened. If Seraph gets the stone, then the Seers will leapfrog past the Guardians' ability to counter them.

--In the car, driving south, Wolsey imparts how urgent this is onto all of them - they NEED to get that Soul Stone first. They have to be the people to find it. Or rather, Wolsey has to be. "Excuse me? Who here is known to be, oh I don't know... a finder of secret things?" Kali "You volunteering? Because you couldn't find Avatar that time..." - Wolsey "I know more Space than then, Wolsey" - Kali, through gritted teeth
She's got Space 2 and everything.

"Trust me, I know more. but alright - we'll start at the murder site, try to track Malakaii back to his Sanctum" - Wolsey Damascus points out that he - as a Moros - is going to be a liability in Malakaii's Sanctum if it's been made to reject the use of the Matter Arcanum. He, it is decided, will continue with their original number one priority - setting up the 'Shore manoeuvre'. He's to find Shore and convince him to take part, then take him back to Beckett's. "Avatar, can we leave you at Promethea's? We WILL be along to get you later, but you and her need to talk anyway, and, well..." - Wolsey "Understood." - Avatar Wolsey tells Kali that they're going to have to be on the lookout for the demon all the time - from what Beckett's saying, the rush to the Soul Stone that is doubtless building will be like an all-day buffet for the creature, as supposed allies turn on one another in their mutually exclusive desire to be top dog. At which point, Damascus experiences a Deja Vu and Kali feels the crush of Inevitability. "DAMNIT. I am getting sick of this" - Damascus, while Kali winces. "What? Again?" - Wolsey

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They pull up at traffic lights, and Damascus says that he'll make his own way from here. He gets out and crosses to the sidewalk. Trying to shake off the feeling that the world just changed in an infinitesimal but significant way, Damascus walks the distance to a local council office, where Shore works in his "cover identity" as a local politician.
We met Shore in 3.2, I think - he was in the group that went to kill the Magath with Damascus. He's a Mastigos - that incident featured a minor character detail I don't think made it onto the thread, in which Shore walked from the diner to the cancer hospice with a ruddy great battleaxe over his shoulder, using Mind magic to make everyone ignore it.

Damascus likes Shore, based on the few times they've met. The Mastigos demonhunter is especially devoted to the "Washington" side of the dichotomy, which is why he's a local politician in a City government that has no representation and no mayor Shore is a campaigner for inhabitants of the Diamond getting the vote.
Which I think I've mentioned before, they don't have in my World of Darkness. It took them a while to get it in the real world, too. In any case, Shore is played by an older, grizzlier Ben Affleck.

After passing by Shore's secretary, Damascus greets his friend. Shore asks how the investigation is going - he's heard Damascus and his cabal have been deputised and Damascus says that he's actually here to ask for Shore's help. Shore agrees quickly and eagerly - anything they need - and Damascus asks him what he thinks of the various races going on. Shore's top tips, if he were a betting man, would be for Mara to be Councillor and Thursday Epopt (though Shore has heard the Guardians are considering asking neighbouring Consiliums for help reinforcing their beleaguered state), with Malakaii's cabal ripping itself in two based on which new leader they decide to side with. Damascus asks Shore - who's closer to the centre of the Adamantine Arrow than Damascus himself is - just how much do the others rely on Mara? The answer is "a lot". "I know I go to her when all this gets too tough" - Shore In any case, Damascus fills Shore in on the Demon - how it's a creature of Envy and how they're trying to track it. And just who's helping... "A thiefcatcher, eh?" - Shore "That's right. It is.. thought that the time may be right for Beckett to earn points toward his release. And he does have a very personal interest in helping to destroy the thing that cheated him of his revenge" - Damascus "The idea is... I'll do it. I'm your man. I've never met Beckett, but I could learn a lot the man's library alone is legendary in certain circles" - Shore And off they go, Shore telling his PA to cancel any appointments for the day. --Kali and Wolsey are back again at the site of Malakaii's death, as Kali attempts to find the thread of Malakaii's journey. She can't just decide to look for the Soul Stone and then let the thread take her to it - that would be the second Attainment of her Legacy - but she can look back through the history of this place to Malakaii's death, use that to target him with a proper Postcognition Spell and then use magic to follow his path through the city that day n reverse. Or that's the theory, anyway. They've never seen the Soul Stone - Wolsey never even knew Malakaii had made one,

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though now he knows it does sound like the sort of thing that Malakaii would do. Especially the Annullity. They can't just scry for it based on that, and the fact that they don't know Malakaii's full real name. While Kali trances herself back to the murder, Wolsey modifies the Imago for Spatial Awareness on the fly, coupling it to a specialised use of the Unveiling Practice of Mind in order to sense Envy all around him. Just in case the Demon is lurking nearby.
Building the spell (and see how much more confident we are with Tome of the Mysteries?) was pretty easy, but it ended up being of Concentration duration. Which has it's own problems.

Kali, thinking that she has the thread, swaps seats with Wolsey as he tries to hold his spell active in his mind. After some crunching of the gears, they slowly drive off.
Kali's lack of ability with driving is an ongoing minor joke. She's just not very good at it.

Unfortunately, Malakaii's Occultation and own powers of moving unseen get the better of Kali's ability to keep a handle on him in the past, and she stops the car. Wolsey continues trying to maintain his spell, while Kali takes his PDA/phone and calls Banneker. "Hello?" - voice "Er. Hi, Banneker! We're just looking for..." - Kali "DAAAAAAAAAAAD!" - voice Kali shuts up, while Wolsey does his best to look annoyed while keeping his spell going. "Who is this?" - Banneker "Ah! Hi! It's Kali..." - Kali "The girl in Wolsey's Cabal. Yes." - Banneker "...That's right. We're following up a lead, and think that the creature might have gone to Malakaii's Sanctum - to feed off everyone trying to get his Soul Stone. Only, we don't know where..." - Kali Banneker rattles off an address and hangs up. Kali shifts the car into gear again and starts driving. --Back in Beckett's house, Damascus, Beckett and Shore are talking shop. The meeting is going well, and Beckett is giving Shore hints and tips - including the pointer about the Demon being traceable back to it's originator, which Shore (who Damascus has kept in the dark about Mara's involvement) is taking an interest in. --Kali and Wolsey - Wolsey still mumbling as he keeps scanning the area around them for the Demon - are stood outside a perfectly ordinary suburban detached house, shaded by tall trees, somewhere in College Park. This time on a Monday afternoon there is no-one about. Satisfied that they're safe, Wolsey allows his spell to dissipate.
The chief Guardian of the Veil was not going to live in a wizard's tower. I leave that to Banneker, Samuel and Suleiman who all DO have Towers after their fashion

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"Hang on" - Kali Kali casts Augury, trying to determine if what they seek is inside. She sees a brief image of Wolsey stood in front of a portal, running his hand along it's surface. They're in an underground room - a basement. She relays this. "Can you get us inside?" - Wolsey "Sure" - Kali, approaching the front door Glancing around, Wolsey shields them both with inconspicuous appearance just in case while Kali picks the lock. "What's taking so long?" - Wolsey "It's *been* a while, alright? And Yales are harder.." - Kali, And with a click, she gets it open. At which point the beeping starts. "Alarm" (pushing the door open) "Keypad" - Kali The beeping speeds up, counting down to setting off the full house alarm, while Kali uses her Attainment to see Malakaii entering the code. Eyes half-closed, she taps it in and the system - satisfied - shuts down. Wolsey is impressed enough to raise an eyebrow.
High praise

They begin searching the entirely mundane house, looking for the way into the basement - and to the portal leading to the *real* Sanctum. Kali finds the stairs inside what she took to be a cupboard door, and they carefully descend. Downstairs, in the light given off by flashlights taken from Wolsey's car, they see the bare basement wall Kali saw the Portal in. To Wolsey's just-cast Mage Sight, there IS a portal there, held inactive without it's trigger condition. They have it's resonance, but as they never saw Malakaii use Vulgar magic they don't know if it's his or not. Wolsey does not put his hand up to it. Then, from above, they hear the front door opening again. Turning their flashlights off, Kali silently hands Wolsey one of two guns she produces from under her clothes. --Leaving Shore back at his office, Damascus is covering the rest of the bases and spinning the rest of the plates that the Cabal need to keep up in the air. Specifically, he needs to give Link the impression that the Cabal is still participating in his investigation, despite having long since solved it and moved on to the Mara-nobbling campaign. As luck would have it, Shore tells him that Link said he intended to interview Promethea about demonology - Shore assumes that Damascus coming to see him is part of that. Heading to Promethea's, Damascus finds the Sentinel still there, sat outside and smoking.

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"Damascus" - Link, warmly "Hello, Chief" - Damascus "Just had Shore on the phone - *Good* idea, getting Beckett on board. Only you guys could have managed it. If I'd gone, he'd have assumed I was trying to arrest him" - Link "That was the idea." - Damascus "So. Astral entity of Envy. Makes sense - how to bring all the jealousies out..." - Link, thinking. Damascus says he's here to see Promethea himself, about something else entirely. Link mentions that Avatar is still inside, and Damascus nods, heading in. Promethea spends her days within her place of business - an occultist shop that is deliberately tinged towards the darker arts. Jars of unidentifiable things that may be body parts, books of Sleeper-grade magical theory tinged towards practices that if Awakened would be Left-Handed, that sort of thing. The resonance in here is rather murky. Promethea herself is a rather intense woman, hair rigidly corn-rowed and skin pulled oddly taut over her features - she doesn't have any "give" to her.
We've talked about Promethea a lot, and she's been discussed a lot in the Chronicle and in this thread, but this is, I believe, the first time we've actually met her. She's a deliberate delver into unappealing practices and the less pleasant side of human nature - *very* Mastigos, in a different way to Mara or Wolsey

Promethea is sat next to Avatar, who greets Damascus. Promethea neither smiles nor gets up as Damascus comes in. He asks if Avatar has explained the situation and Promethea says yes. "I agree with it. She has reached a certain level of competence, and I do not believe she is a fit for my Legacy. Best that she begin working towards her membership in an Order. Especially now." - Promethea "With Mara expected to be busy?" - Damascus "We will *all* be busy" - Promethea, eyes glinting. Damascus probes slightly, trying to find out if she will, as rumoured, try to become Mara's provost should Mara make Councillor, but Promethea's not having any of it. "I have duties in my Cabal, to Suleiman as his Provost and to my Order. I'm the custodian of the Athenaeum - I am currently awaiting a visit from one of your cabal. The Metropolitan Enchanter? Pretty girl. Needs a wash" - Promethea "Kali" - Damascus "Tell her to get on with it, will you?" - Promethea --Darkness. Wolsey and Kali hide in the basement, listening to whoever it is move around upstairs. Clearly conducting, from what they can tell, some sort of search.

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There's a beam of light from the door, as whoever it is finds it and opens it. "Hera! It's over here!" - Male voice Two people come down the stairs, the portal-site illuminated in the shaft of light from the door. A man and a woman. The man puts his hand out to the portal, running it over the surface in the exact motion Kali foresaw Wolsey making. "Definitely him. The old bastard cast this thing over time, made it permanent then relinquished control of it." - Man "Can you open it?" - Woman "In time" - Man The two strangers have their backs facing the room. Wolsey and Kali emerge from hiding and aim at the backs of the newcomer's heads. "Don't move" - Wolsey The two strangers freeze. "You didn't check for anyone already being here?" - Woman, to her companion, in a slightly irritated tone. Kali covers the woman, Wolsey the man. Everyone takes a deep, deep breath. "We don't have to do this, you know. We just want one thing from what's on the other side of that portal. After we get it, you can have everything else." - Woman "Curious. I was going to say the same thing." - Wolsey "Then we are at impasse" - Man "Don't move or I'll shoot. And don't cast any spells, either. I sense any magic forming, and you're dead" - Wolsey "I don't think so." - Man The man turns around calmly (hands still in the air) and looks Wolsey in the eye "After all, I'm not really here" - Man At first, Wolsey thinks he means he's a projection, or partially in twilight, then he twigs "So you'd be killing an innocent, for no real gain. You can't open this thing, I'll bet and I'll also bet that we can get back here in force faster than you can summon allies of your own" - Seraph (for 'tis he) Wolsey considers, gun still pointed at Seraph's puppet. "Put up or shut up, Tom" - Seraph A shot rings out. Wolsey blinks, and realises that Kali has shot the woman - "Hera",

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he heard this one call her. Wolsey's own gun remains unfired.
Sam says it was Seraph calling Wolsey 'Tom' that made Kali do it - trying to save Wolsey from having his paranoia played with. Also living up, it must be pointed out, to the agreement she made with Wolsey - when she's sure someone is a Seer puppet, she's to just kill them as immediately as possible. But it's easy to SAY that, isn't it Wolsey? Harder to actually pull the trigger - especially since the fight with the Seers in the Church. Kali went through, without thinking, with a murder for the 'cause' while Wolsey, in the end, couldn't.

Seraph takes a slightly shaky breath. "Right now Hera is waking up in my Pylon's Sanctum, safe and sound. She will tell the others where we are and they will VERY soon be on their way." - Seraph "Our people will get here first - and DON'T cast any spells. I'm warning you" - Wolsey "We'll see. Tick. Tock." - Seraph, smiling Wolsey's arm is getting tired. "Tick... Tock." - Seraph And on Wolsey's face, we fade out. End of session.
Wheee! See you next time!

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Session 5.3
So, then. First off - no game session this week, so no recap next week. I'm otherwise engaged. That means we'll start story 6 (which is the second one from Reign of the Exarchs, as written by Wood and adapted for the chronicle by yours truly) on Friday 8th. Now then. Wolsey had a cunning plan, as I recall...

Positions. Mid-afternoon, Monday 24th July Damascus is sat in a Burger King, having lunch with Link and Avatar Wolsey is in the basement of an anonymous suburban house in College Park that, he is told, belonged to Malakaii. He is currently aiming Kali's spare handgun at the face of a man who is possessed by Seraph, the Cabal's Seer of the Throne maybeNemesis. Kali is stood next to Wolsey, also aiming at Seraph having just dispatched the woman possessed by the Seer "Hera" to the great beyond. "Look. You can't get through that thing, and you can't be sure your allies will get here before mine will" - Seraph "Oh, we can. Here's the deal - walk out of here and keep that body. Or we'll kill it." Wolsey "I don't think so." - Seraph Wolsey tires of this. "Knock him out, will you?" - Wolsey Kali shoots Seraph's puppet body in the face. "KNOCK! HIM! OUT!" - Wolsey, aghast "This was taking too long" - Kali
Kali managed to pass the Wisdom checks for the premeditated murder of the unfortunates possessed by Seraph and Hera. The trauma of what she just did shows for the rest of the session, especially towards the end when she has more of a chance to think about it. And blame Wolsey for it.

Wolsey stares at the expanding pool of blood for a few seconds, then snaps into action, ordering Kali to use her professed now-increased abilities with the Space Arcanum to ward the area, while he eliminates any sympathetic connections the bodies have - the idea being that the combination of the two spells will prevent the Seers from getting a sympathetic lock on the area. Wolsey is successful, fervently burning away the threads of Sympathy by exposing them to the energies of Pandemonium, while Kali's first attempt at the ward is far too small. Her second go at the Imago is better - and the ward stronger - but still only covers half the room. Wolsey grudgingly says that it'll have to do. As they work, Wolsey feels a spell attempt - and fail - to connect to the male body.
Wolsey spent Willpower. The incoming spell was Seraph attempting to raise the corpse as a zombie to keep them busy, but Wolsey's spell nerfed his sympathy modifiers and it didn't take. Har!

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Now, for that Portal. Wolsey phones Damascus and tells him that they have something of a situation requiring his expertise and would rather he were there. Damascus asks where they are and Wolsey says that, if Damascus can get somewhere out of sight, Wolsey will open a Portal to him. "Should I come alone?" - Damascus "Don't bring anyone" - Wolsey "Not even Link?" - Damascus "Not even Link" - Wolsey (shrugs) "your life" - Damascus Damascus makes hurried apologies to Link and Avatar and hurries out into the car park, where he hides between two trucks. On cue, Wolsey's spell opens an ovalshaped hole in space in front of him, about four feet high. Damascus ducks and rolls through it... ...lands in the growing pool of blood, brain matter, hair and bits of hair on the basement floor and slides to a rather disgusting halt. "What is this I'm sitting in?... Who is this I'm sitting in?" - Damascus "A pair of Seers, or their puppets. Seraph and a woman named Hera" - Wolsey Wolsey quickly gives Damascus both a hand up and a sitrep.
There's a lot of playing with Portals in this session - Wolsey bought Space 3 a while back, but has now gotten to the point of confidence that he's teleporting himself around to familiar places by spending willpower and coping with the bashing damage from Paradox. And it's highlighted another difference between Ascension and Awakening to me - Space difficulties based on sympathetic connection as opposed to Correspondence ones based on distance really, really alter how PC teleportation works - no matter where you are, your Sanctum or your fellow Cabal members are only a spell away.

Wolsey and Damascus talk shop - as the member of the Cabal who bothered to learn the Prime Arcanum Damascus is their go-to man on matters of dispellation and countermagic. As far as Wolsey can tell, Malakaii first built this permanent portal to somewhere or other, relinquished the spell control and then pinched it closed with a Portal Key tuned to something unknown. Kali reports, using her attainment, that Malakaii never performed any gestures nor appeared to carry anything specific when he went through the portal, which raises the unhappy suggestion that it may have a trigger condition of "me". So. The trick is how to Dispel the Portal Key without Dispelling the Portal itself. Quickly. Damascus muses over the problem. The Compelling Practice of Prime can dismantle spells, but the user needs to be able to Compel each of the Arcanum used in the spell. The Shielding Practice of Prime can counter spells of any Arcanum, but only when they're being cast right in front of you. After the spell's already been cast, you need to be an Adept of Prime, a Master of Death or be able to Compel the correct Arcana. "Can you do it?" - Wolsey "No. I could if I knew Space" - Damascus "And I could If I knew Prime. And if only I had a heart..." Wolsey Kali feels the now-familiar feeling of inevitability caused by the presence of.. whatever it is.. and casts Ring Sight: Space. She gets a glimpse of something rather

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like a scrying connection vanishing, and announces to the others that they were being watched. She doesn't know how long for. Damascus has a brainwave - he uses Mind and Prime magic to alter his own resonance, shifting his aura so that it feels like Malakaii's. To Wolsey and Kali, the effect is uncanny - they can see Damascus in front of them, but he *feels* like Malakaii. Damascus steps up to the portal, which crackles and opens reluctantly, a black disk against the blood-spattered wall of the basement. "Whenever you're ready" - Damascus, straining slightly. Kali and Wolsey steps through, and then Damascus does too. Wherever they are now, it's pitch-black. And echoey. Damascus fishes out a lighter, but the tiny flame doesn't cast enough light to see anything - other than the greyish stone floor they're standing on, gently sloping in one direction. Cell phones have no signal. "Either we're a long way from home or, more likely, we're under a lot of rock." Wolsey Wolsey, realising this is one case where being a Mastigos will come in handy, casts Spatial Map, modified to be of concentration duration. He tells the others that they're in a cave (thanks for that one, Wolsey) and that there are stairs cut into the rock floor in that (with a gesture) direction, leading down the increasingly-sloping floor to some kind of door. They carefully head off as directed, and discover in lighter-light that the door is heavy, made of metal and has a mask welded to it as some form of decoration. Classy. At which point Damascus realises that he is suffering some kind of impairment. His connection to Stygia seems damaged. Damaged like "the Matter Arcanum isn't working properly here"; They would seem to be approaching the Annullity. Pulling the door open, they are quite relieved to be bathed in dim, sodium-tinged light. The door opens onto some kind of hallway stretching in either direction, the wall that isn't bare rock made of red bricks. The light comes from old electric lamps that have been drilled into the ceiling, thick rubbery power cables hanging between them. Looking this way and that, they spot several turnings "into" whatever this is. Wolsey cancels his spell and recasts it, trying to map out wherever they are by feeling past the walls... and discovering that they're at the entrance to a maze. From what he can gather, it's donut-shaped, tightly wrapped around a circular something. He tries to map out the proper route through it and - eventually - announces that he's got the best route to the centre. Kali, though, has cast her mind back and seen Malakaii walking in another direction entirely. Faced with the choice, they decide to follow the Guardian of yesterday. "What IS this?" - Kali, feeling Malakaii's ghostly traces in the web of Time "It's a Labyrinth" - Wolsey, grimly "You okay?" - Damascus "Yeah. And while I appreciate the symbology of actually building a fucking labyrinth... If I EVER get to this level of power, remind me to build something that's practical and not a twisted reflection of my fucking philosophy - it'll be bland, but with security...

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damn"
The damn is because 'bland, with security' is a pretty good reflection of Wolsey's philosophy. And Malakaii didn't build the Labyrinth, though he did renovate it some.

Eventually, though, they reach a door, through which they find a much more brightly lit (and actually decorated, in reds and oranges) circular chamber with an iron spiral staircase stretching up into a hole in the ceiling. There are six equidistant doors, including the one they just opened - each bearing a mask. But here's the thing - the Labyrinth's final stretch wrapped all the way around this central hub. There's no room for any of those doors to go anywhere. "The amount of magic needed... the dimensions of the rooms must be altered" Wolsey, more in awe of the amount of work represented than anything. The place stinks of Malakaii's nimbus - a deep, infectious feeling that the observer has transgressed by observing, that what is happening should be secret. Kali, though has gone wide-eyed at the sight of the staircase and is babbling again "Oh, no. NO. NONONONONONONO" - Kali "What?" - Wolsey "This is in me. This thing.. I've seen this thing inside me" - Kali "Inside you?" - Damascus "In the Astral - my home has this thing in it... Coincidence? I don't think so. There's no such thing as coincidences, remember?" - Kali, shaken
Kali refers to the appearance of her and Ichi's warehouse in the Astral Plane, which contained a rather similar staircase...

The boys manage to calm her enough to function (though she's not happy) and they begin with door number five. Inside, there's a few bookshelves, a bed and several amenities - including a TV and DVD player. Looking at the books, Kali notes that Malakaii appears to be another Robin Hobb fan. You can also tell a lot about a man by his DVD collection; Malakaii had recently watched "Goodnight and Good Luck", for instance. "A Few Good Men. The General's Daughter. Patriot Games. The Insider... Are we detecting a theme here?" - Wolsey "He was into social justice. When he was young." - Kali The feeling of transgressing grows. This is Malakaii - his Sanctum, made safe from the Arcanum he didn't know by a piece of his soul. Hidden away behind a twisting maze lies the real man. Secret and Protected. The next room holds a map of Washington DC, runes and traced lines marking more Supernal elements - leys, Loci, even the Sanctums of individual mages are marked with pins. One wall is lined with shelves, crammed with leather-bound notebooks. Damascus pulls one down and flicks through it. All written in some sort of cipher. "His notes?" - Wolsey "Looks that way. Diaries. Investigations. Dirt." - Damascus Neither Wolsey nor Damascus is practiced enough with Mind to translate the text. Damascus puts the journal back.

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Wolsey is worried about the amount of time they're spending and of the possibility that the Seers have broken through the Portal by now (he keeps checking behind them with magic, but there's no sign yet). They split up to take the last three doors. Wolsey finds what must, judging by the materials within, be Malakaii's occult library. Damascus finds Malakaii's living quarters - a small bathroom and kitchen attached to a surprisingly normal living space. Kali opens her door, and - horrified by what she finds - backs up back into the central chamber. Damascus and Wolsey have a look, and find what appears to be a Hindu shrine. There are three statues (Damascus thinks he identifies them as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) and, among the paraphernalia, a wand and a mask that both register as being Magical - the wand more so than the mask, which Damascus reckons to be Malakaii's dedicated magical casting tool.
India again - hence Kali backing out. Given the staircase 'coincidence', she really didn't need to find a statue of Shiva. I'll spoiler-black my response to the idea after,

All that's left is the staircase, and they still haven't found the Soul Stone. Damascus starts up them, then comes back down, reporting that they've been warped, spatially - they connect to somewhere a long, long way up. More importantly, after he climbed for a while the Annullity's effects faded. "So the Stone has to be down here" - Damascus Wolsey considers the staircase, and the unknown destination it leads to. "... Are we in India?" - Wolsey
As a matter of fact, yes they are - as will be revealed later.

It's as good a theory as any. Searching more closely now with magical senses, Wolsey finds that the floor they're standing on is not the original floor - they're standing on the wide end of a coneshape of packing material. Twelve feet below them there's an opening in the rock the size of a barrel, without any physical means of accessing it. Wolsey's bet is that the Soul Stone is there: Malakaii wouldn't need to have a way of opening the thing up, he'd be able to use his sympathetic connection to his own Soul Stone to pluck it out of it's resting place if he needed to. "Can't you liquefy the rock?" - Kali, to Damascus "Not in the Annullity" - Damascus "I'll do it" - Wolsey Wolsey concentrates all his effort on building the Imago. The Soul Stone, his hand. Easy. Should be easy. Teleporting one object... Sweat pouring off him, Wolsey pulls down Pandemonium and twists reality in his hands. Suddenly, Kali is elsewhere. Kali is stood in a cave - a different cave to the one they were just in - terrified. A metallic grey snake, fangs bared, twists and coils in her hands as she tries to

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wrestle with it, the fangs striking and narrowly missing her. She's very aware that she's losing... And just like that, Wolsey has the prize; a three-inch Tigereye stone, deeply resonant with Malakaii's nimbus even after it's creator's death. Wolsey knees nearly give out as he takes a shuddering breath. That.. was difficult. "...Time to leave" - Wolsey Kali, wide eyed, says nothing.
Wolsey expended his last willpower casting that spell - it took High Speech, the use of magical tools in the casting and willpower to get any dice to roll at all, and he *just barely* managed to succeed at the spell. This, incidentally, is the first time a character in any of my WoD games over the last decade has EVER run out of willpower.

"Kali? Kali, COME ON" - Wolsey "Snake." - Kali "What?" - Wolsey "I was fighting a snake..." - Kali Wolsey grips her arm, shaking her out of it. "Come ON" - Wolsey They grab what they can, piling up the obviously supernal artefacts and as many books from the library as they can carry. Damascus goes into the "DC" room and considering carefully - sets fire to the journals. Once they're merrily blazing, he rejoins the others. Wolsey reaches out to Pandemonium, feeling for his familiar connection to the Sanctum back in DC. His Portal forms, and they begin throwing books through it, finally climbing through and closing the portal behind them. Checking the clock, they find that they've been wherever they've been for two and a half hours - it's now late afternoon. And they don't know what's been going on in their absence. Most importantly, Seraph and Hera *must* by now have gotten back on the trail. Wolsey goes into full Paranoid mode, destroying all of his sympathetic connections while Kali argues that Seraph knew Wolsey's name and has been to the Sanctum before - if he wanted to find them he would. Wolsey is interrupted by a call from Nimrod. The Moros Guardian of the Veil establishes where Wolsey is, and where he was several hours ago. Also that Wolsey has witnesses to his location - which he does, as luck would have it. Nimrod says that Wolsey's car has been found outside a certain address, and Wolsey smoothly mentions that it was stolen. Using very polite half-code (Nimrod's clearly not alone on the other end) Wolsey finds out what's happening. Seraph, his immediate attempt to get revenge foiled, phoned the Police and claimed to have heard gunfire. Malakaii's address set off an alarm for one of Nimrod's colleagues and he attended. Casting Corpse Mask to cover the

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obviously mortal wounds on the bodies, and then Quicken Corpse to animate them as Zombies, he puppeteered them up out of the building and presented them to the Sleeper officers as a "pair of roleplayers". Wolsey promises to come pick his SUV up from the pound, and hangs up. "I know why they hold themselves apart from the rest of the Consilium. They'd never get a moment's peace" - Wolsey "I should probably go retrieve my pickup from..." - Damascus "...Avatar!" - Damascus and Wolsey Avatar, when they phone her, is not impressed. For a start, her sympathetic connection to Wolsey was cut not ten minutes earlier - and she thought it was a sign that he'd died. Nope, not dead. "So am I alright to come home to the Sanctum now, without getting raped and killed on my way through gangland?" - Avatar She rings off with the message that Link wants to see them all tomorrow morning he's getting Bedlam released tonight, in the hope that he can help find the Demon. Wolsey rather ashamedly restores the connection, and - at Kali's rather annoyed urging - the ones to Kali and Damascus too. Kali's has now found her voice - and what she sees as Wolsey just acting yet *again* without regard for what she or Damascus might think sets her off into a big row. She all but calls him a hypocrite - committing the same offences he accused her of back in the day, but feeling like he's better because he keeps his hands clear. The subtext is that she blames him for her killing the two Seer puppets - after all, he DID tell her to just shoot people she knew to be possessed. "You give Orders all the time.." - Kali "I do no.." - Wolsey "JUST... Take your hand off the rudder of my life, okay?" - Kali Kali says, fiercely, that she's trying to get her life on track, to try to recover something of Kemi from within herself. And that she's late for taking Trace to the Athenaeum. And with that, she storms out. "What the fuck was THAT?" - Wolsey "She's having a bad day. Who killed the Seers?" - Damascus "Guess. But she didn't have to KILL them" - Wolsey "... I believe you told her to, remember?" - Damascus Oh, yeah. They head off to retrieve their vehicles - Wolsey taking the artefacts - and Damascus elects to pick Avatar up on his way.
Mark points out that Kali didn't tell them about the snake vision. He'd have a lot more sympathy for Kali if she ever told them about the weirdness she experiences, rather than blaming them for it regardless. Sam, on the other hand, points out that she *did*, almost as soon as it happened, and they just ignored her. This happens a fair amount - witness her trying to tell them about the staircase earlier. She does try to tell them things, but when she does while freaked out they treat her like she's being silly.

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Kali goes to Promethea's, finding Trace waiting outside. "Good timing" - Kali "I cheated. Knew this would be when you turned up" - Trace Going briefly inside, they meet Promethea, who closes her shop up. And then the three of them head North, out of the beltway and into the countryside, heading for the Athenaeum - Promethea in Trace's car with Kali following on her bike.
Don't know if Kali owning a motorbike has made it into the thread before. It's why she can't drive a car.

The Athenaeum - the Mysterium's storehouse of knowledge - is a big house out in the middle of nowhere, an hour into Maryland. Once through security (and Kali's aware that they're being watched the whole while), the interior has been entirely converted to storage for the Order's research materials. Trace explains what she's looking for as Kali helps her find the correct place in the stacks. Samuel, before he left for 1812, asked Trace to look into something for him based on her status as a Guardian of the Veil. Specifically, she's supposed to look for the background of the Bearers of the Eternal Voice. She knows (as does Kali) from Samuel that Malakaii was trained in India after he first Awakened. Trace is trying to track the mages who did the training. While she's reading a stack of very thick books on the lineages of Cabals of the subcontinent, Kali uses the time to look up the Regalia of the Dethroned Queen, judging that every bit of pre-warning helps. As per previous descriptions, the Ring has never been positively sighted (until them) that the Mysterium knows of, nor has the Scepter. The Crown, according to one piece of scholarly conjecture from the 1920s, is clearly a Profane Urim of some sort. The Throne was once held by a Cabal of Silver Ladder mages until it was stolen by Seers some 300 years ago. The patchy records - the Ladder mages didn't exactly want to advertise it's powers or their loss imply that the Throne grants the user a sympathetic connection to the entire Fallen World, much as the Exarchs themselves must have. It lets you scry anywhere, cast spells anywhere... Kali thinks she's figured something out, but is interrupted by Trace. "Here - I think this is it. This Cabal I think were the Bearers, or the original Legacy Malakaii drifted from at any rate. They all vanished, presumed dead, 26 years ago their Sanctum was burned to the ground..." - Trace Trace says that the Cabal's Hallow, hidden somewhere near to their Sanctum, was never found.
Kali knows where it is, though. She's just been in it.

Kali is still reading her own books, disturbed by the thoughts rolling around her head. She looks up the Robe, and follows the trail already blazed by Ulysses to Cxaxa Querephas. Querephas had many appellations, "splintered sight" and "cold smile" among them, and Kali finds a dissenting opinion from a Mysterium scholar during the civil war. He argued that the Robe - which supposedly hides the user from the Exarchs - only served to enrage them. And in fact didn't hide the user at all, only signalled to the secret rulers of the world that someone was *trying* to hide from them.

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Trace has finished, putting her books back and making conversation. The premier topic of conversation in the Consilium - Malakaii - comes up, and Trace tells her how it's going - Mr Thursday has been haranguing Banneker, and has managed to get himself involved again. He's been in touch with The Magister - Malakaii's boss, the guardian who oversees a region of several states. "Thursday's called in an Eleventh Question" - Trace.
Kali has no idea who the Eleventh Question are, and didn't ask. Trace was clearly impressed/intimidated by Thursday's decision, though. The Question are a Legacy from the Guardian Order book (same as the Bearers, in fact) and will be described later on.

Back at the Sanctum, having retrieved their motor vehicles and the still slightly annoyed fourth Cabal member, Wolsey, Damascus and Avatar are figuring out what they can do with the remains of their day. The quest to get her a tutor to induct her into an Order is brought up and Wolsey decides to start the ball rolling, writing the Ascendants a letter requesting an audience. "I don't have any.. Damascus, could you make some ink?" - Wolsey Damascus goes into the bathroom and returns with a glass of ink, freshly transmuted from tap water. He then uses further magic to have it trace out letter-shapes to Wolsey's dictation. "I can't believe I'm bending the powers of Stygia to act as your stenographer" Damascus, wryly Later, long after the sun has gone down, Kali returns to base and interrupts their talk of orders. "Guardians. Thursday? Nimrod?" - Wolsey "I thought we'd gone for Trace" - Avatar (entering) "Trace is cool" - Kali "...She's the only sane we've met, true, Mysterium - Promethea?" - Wolsey "No" - Damascus "Why not?" - Wolsey "Wolsey.. Have you ever been in Promethea's shop?" - Damascus He hasn't "You know how my Antinomism disturbs you? Well she lives her entire life like this. I'm daytripping - she believes it. We do not want her getting involved" - Damascus Kali, after establishing what they're talking about, gets annoyed with Wolsey again and points out that the Cabal appear to be making decisions without her. Again. Wolsey apologises, and they go through the choices for Order pitches again. "Er. Hello? Mysterium person here" - Kali "We'd... ah.. pretty much decided that none of us would do the pitches for our own Orders" - Wolsey "Oh we had, had we?" - Kali "And how was your evening?" - Wolsey
Good change of subject, there

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"I know who the spider is" - Kali She explains her theory (presented as fact) - a Seer of the Throne Tetrarch or Minister or whatever has the Throne of the Dethroned Queen and is using it to spy on everyone. She also tells them that Thursday is back on the Malakaii case (which, they reason, would probably be what Link wants to talk to them about).
A tetrarch is a Seer of the Throne Archmage

If Thursday is conducting his own private investigation into Malakaii's death, separate to Link's, then he must surely figure out that it was Mara before long. At which point, the third pole in Banneker's tripod of power will well and truly shatter. "Poor Link. We're really screwing him over, aren't we?" - Avatar "Yes" - Wolsey, completely unrepentant. They need to catch this demon, sooner rather than later. Time to think outside the box. "There is one plan that presents itself... It's insane, mind" - Wolsey They are willing to listen. "The demon is driven by Mara's jealousy to attack people she feels envious of." (shrugs) "We tell her that Seraph has the Soul Stone" - Wolsey And let them fight it out. Kali vetoes the plan, though - asking if Wolsey really thinks Seraph couldn't handle it. Wolsey points out that Malakaii couldn't handle it and Damascus - musing - agrees with Kali. Malakaii only didn't handle it because he refused to fight back with Vulgar magic. Seraph wouldn't care how much Paradox he caused. Besides, then they wouldn't get the kudos of killing it themselves. There is, however, an alternative. "We could lay an ambush. Get everyone together, and then own up to where we were this afternoon to Mara. When the Demon comes for us, we can be waiting for it. But I don't like that one - I'm not being bait." - Wolsey "I said *I* wasn't being bait for the Seers, and you were okay with that" - Kali, bitterly They argue about the Seers for a while - which leads on to them realising they made different conclusions about Hera's status vs. Seraph's. Wolsey thought she was his underling, Kali characterised her as acting like his mother. "So they've got one driven mind-twisting sort, one woman who argues with him all the time and spots the obvious traps he doesn't. Do they have a Damascus and a me as well?" - Avatar, somewhat sarcastically
Well... as a matter of fact, yes they do. Seraph's Pylon is a Bizzaro-world Cabal. Or, as I like to think of them, "The Linear Guild". Oh, all right. They're probably not - this is a case of my players interpreting Hera bitching at Seraph about not checking for enemies - plus the parallel between her and Kali's Shadow Names - as meaning they're a parallel for their own characters. At the time, I actually just considered it to be a indication of how much more internecine the Seers of the Throne are. A Cabal, as Damascus occasionally points out, are supposed to above all things be able to trust one another. A Seer is always aware that their Pylon could sell them out at any second. This feeds into something that will probably come up later in the chronicle - Seraph's Pylon are just as freaked out by his

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obsession with Kali as her Cabal are.

At which point Banneker phones Wolsey "Thursday. Damned Thursday" - Banneker "Good evening, sir" - Wolsey, mildly The Hierarch complains that Thursday threatened him with the Guardians pulling out of the Consilium, until Banneker was forced to cave and allow Thursday to join in on the investigation. he THOUGHT Thursday wanted to join the Link-Crucible team, but instead Thursday is calling in outside experts. "The Eleventh Question" - Banneker "Oh! Yeah. Forgot to mention. Trace told me that" - Kali The Question, Banneker explains/moans, are a Legacy barely recognised as part of the Guardians. Certain sections of Awakened thought hold that each Arcanum is the answer to a specific question - the Legacy purports to be the answer to the unanswerable ones left behind. "I was going to ask what the other ten were" - Damascus "You know Sherlock Holmes, Wolsey? How in the stories he could look at a person and deduce things about them? The Question can do that - as beginners. A Question of particular skill and age can look at his evidence, look at his suspect list and *know* who did it. Sometimes even why. They're distrusted by the other Guardians because the Order is dedicated to secrets, to hiding the Supernal. The Question are dedicated to the Truth at all costs. They can't even *lie*." - Banneker Wolsey thumps his forehead in the background. "Have you ever seen Columbo?" - Banneker, trying to get this into their terms "Half an episode" - Damascus "Exactly. Exactly that. The Question will interview a few people, talk to some more, examine the body... and then he'll have Mara arrested after making the deduction with his Attainment. We're Fucked" - Banneker Wolsey thinks through this as Banneker rants some more. "Is there any way we can get Samuel back from whenever he is?" - Banneker "1812? Um.. Probably not" - Kali "Not strictly true. I bet he'll have spells to bring him back if his body is disturbed" Damascus "...But given everything else, would you really want Samuel pissed off with us?" Wolsey "No. No." - Banneker, resigned
He is doing it again. Banneker's strengths as a Hierarch are counterbalanced by his pretty whopping weaknesses. Like his need to have someone to tell him he's doing okay and that something is the right decision. Also his tendency to think that the devil you know is better than the angel you don't - Banneker tolerated Malakaii's excesses because he KNEW Malakaii, and it got out of hand and eventually led to this. Even now, as it's all crumbling around his ears, Banneker wants to save Mara's career because the alternative - scrapping all his plans and starting again - is unthinkable.

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This is option one. I'll point out option two later, and what they're about.

Wolsey points out that there's no-one but them. And with the Question coming, they have a deadline. "He asks questions. We need answers before he gets here. This must be resolved to everyone's satisfaction now." - Wolsey What does he have in mind? "We go to Mara's now and talk to her. Her position is now untenable. Maybe this time she'll be willing to see sense" - Wolsey "Specifics?" - Banneker "We go there and poke her until she breaks down or flips out. Then we try to kill the demon when it appears" - Wolsey Banneker reluctantly agrees to it and hangs up.
Sometimes, as Bill Adama tells us, we must roll the hard six. Whatever the hell that means.

It is now, though, just after 11pm. Wolsey doesn't want to wait until morning, though. The plan, hasty as it is; They go to Mara and try to convince her, with this new knowledge and Thursday snapping at her heels, to admit what she's done. "And what if she just kills us?" - Damascus "We'll go in unarmed. I know, I know - but we have to. Especially after last time, we have to show her we're peaceful. Not even a Shielding" - Wolsey Put it this way, he says - it'll determine if the whole thing WAS an accident or not. Though Wolsey (and, oddly, Kali) are pretty certain that it was. She wouldn't have been capable of attacking Malakaii of her own volition. Do they want to bring a Claviclarius? Like Promethea? "No. Anyone we bring would stand to gain, politically. We can't take the risk. Especially not Promethea" - Wolsey "Agreed" - Damascus "I'm coming" - Avatar "What?" - Wolsey "She's even less likely to just kill me" - Avatar "Point" - Wolsey Kali casts a divinationary spell to see if going to Mara's is a good idea. Judging it to be neither as far as she's concerned, she tells the others that the coast is clear. ---

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It's gone midnight when they get to Mara's building. Hoping she's not in bed already, they knock. A dressing gown-clad Mara peers suspiciously out of the door at them. "Oh. It's the Crucible" - Mara, weary "Can we come in?" - Wolsey "Why?" - Mara They have information, they say. And they want to talk. The door closes, and there's the rattle of the chain being taken off. All assemble in Mara's office. She is initially dismissive, asking how the campaign on her behalf is going with a rather superior tone. Not so good, they say - the Guardians of the Veil are rebelling and now Thursday has called in the Eleventh Question. Mara says, coolly, that such things can be dealt with - and that they had best deal with them. The Cabal say that her immediate push to replace Malakaii as Councillor is causing more people to come out as her enemies than as her friends. Mara defensively asks why she *shouldn't* be Councillor. "Why *should* you? Given that you lost control of your Demon. Or was that deliberate?" - Damascus, annoyed. "It was an accident. And I am going to deal with it" - Mara "Well, then, the fact remains. Why should you be councillor when you can't control your own Jealousy?" - Damascus Mara has no answer, just repeating her Mantra - that the time is now for her to be elected. "Why? You're a good Provost. And a good leader of our Caucus. All of the Order rely on you for so many things - and half the Guardians as well. Why councillor? Why now?" - Damascus "If I don't do it now, I never will... Look, I AM sorry - more sorry than you know - about Gideon. I will have to live the rest of my life with the knowledge that..." - Mara "That you killed your Mentor" - Damascus "YES. That!" - Mara "Why did you hate him?" - Damascus "I.. didn't. If I..." - Mara Mara tells her story "When I first came here it was fine.. but then I joined the Arrow. Malakaii all but gave up on me - he tolerated me and found a use for me but he wouldn't treat me like a successor. I was too loyal to Banneker for him and too loyal to him for Banneker. Malakaii had me train Tybalt, so that he'd have someone to replace me with. And then Wolsey came along, and Banneker knew he could get rid of me too. I am sorry about Gideon, but I can't wait until the next time a seat comes free. Maybe one day

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Samuel will get bored and go off to become an Archmage. Maybe Fisher King will retire. But by then the likes of HIM" (points at Wolsey) "Will have caught up with me. It HAS to be now." (to Wolsey) "Be careful of Banneker, Wolsey. Or you might find that after you've burned all your other bridges for his cause he'll forget everything you did for him" (disgusted) "And replace you with someone more convenient as well" Mara
Option Two

"Why did Malakaii keep you as his apprentice?" - Damascus "His own Mentor was my grandfather. My being trained by Malakaii isn't a debt I owe to him - it was him discharging one against my family. I owe.. owed... him nothing" Mara Kali asks her something, and Mara swears at her in Hindi before looking ashamed of herself, like that was beneath her.
Whatever she called her, it was very rude - and a reference to Kali's mixed race. Mara has a problem with Kali - has all chronicle.

Wolsey asks her, once again, why she HAS to be councillor. Mara snaps. "So that I would have one accomplishment that was MINE! NOT BANNEKER GETTING A PUPPET! NOT MALAKAII OWING MY FAMILY! MINE!" - Mara At which point the Demon materialises in the room. Wolsey puts his hands up, refusing to do anything. Kali draws a gun. Damascus, though, has a bright idea - he uses Mind magic to project emotion - specifically contentment - directly onto the demon, trying to drive the creature away. Avatar follows his lead and Mara, screaming at the creature that she accidentally made, tries (and fails) to compel it to obey her.
Damascus and Avatar's spells use Mind magic to effectively deny the spirit the ability to use it's Influence, and do bashing damage to it. Mara attempted to control it with the Spirit Arcanum but failed.

Instead of obeying Mara, the creature rounds on Wolsey - the focus of her Envy in the room, as the person who Banneker has abandoned her for. Wolsey closes his eyes as it lunges in at him, slashing long, bloody wounds with it's sharp fingernailclaws. Damascus keeps up his attack, but Avatar - seeing her husband fall to the floor - screams and throws Mara's desk lamp at the back of the creature's head. Kali, seeing Wolsey drop, drops the arm holding her gun and throws out the other, weaving an Imago to Shield Wolsey. In all the confusion, only Wolsey - lying there and concentrating on his pain - senses an active spell none of them cast. Someone is scrying on the room
Wolsey has taken four lethal damage - which, irony of ironies, fulfils his virtue condition and refreshes his willpower. First time *that's* happened in a nWoD game I've been in too. Kali's spell is a simple and robust Fate-based Shielding spell, cast on another person at the third level of the Arcanum.

The creature continues to attack Wolsey, but it's flurry of claw blows, like a dog digging a hole, somehow never hit and instead tear up the carpet all around him. The demon looks up at Kali with baleful green glowing eyes. Kali - gun back in position -

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opens fire. While it's stumbling under her attack, Damascus - resorting to the direct method - smacks it over the head with one of Mara's chairs. Mara, enraged, renews her own magical attack and this time the creature shrinks away from her, howling. Or maybe it's just the blows from the rather heavy metal chair-legs that are having the desired effect.
The armour provided by Kali's shielding spell, plus the spending of some of his newly refreshed willpower, means Wolsey didn't get hit by the Demon. Damascus has a specialisation in improvised weapon. Mara resorted to ugliness and cracked open the can marked "Fraying Practice of Spirit", inflicting Lethal damage on the Spirit.

At which point, Space rips itself open and Beckett is in the room, surrounded by his buzzing, cutting Nimbus. The Demon is on the defensive now as everyone assaults it. Wolsey takes up the slack left by Damascus and uses Mind Magic to dampen the resonance powering it. Damascus - using a chair like a lion-tamer - tries to lead the Demon to look at him and not anyone else, while Kali shoots it again. Mara - growing more confident Frays it again. The Demon, going toe-to-toe with Damascus, gets a lucky hit in on the Moros and wounds his forearm. Beckett, calmly furious, builds his Imago and releases it. The air rings like a bell as a Ward keyed against Spirits snaps into life around the Demon, which rebounds on an attempt to jump onto Damascus. Mara and Avatar hurry to Wolsey, who by now is bleeding badly. Damascus - stood *right* next to the ward - carefully steps backwards. Kali watches Beckett carefully. Not holstering her weapon. Beckett starts chuckling. Mara snaps her head round to glare at him from her position crouched next to Wolsey "You know.. I promised myself that I'd... 'Kill' is not the word... Violate the person who cheated me. But this" (gestures around) "This is just FUNNY. Gideon's little adopted girl from the mother country. You have to live with killing your mentor. And believe me." (snarls) "I'm going to tell EVERYONE. But if you'll excuse me, I appear to be violating my parole" - Beckett There's an upsetting flash of his nimbus, and he's gone. Vanished. The Demon, trapped in the ward, howls. Mara, not looking him in the eye, focuses and heals Wolsey's wounds - over his protests that he can do it himself with Mana.
Why Beckett, and this on-the-face-of-it hammering of the way the scene was going by the Storyteller? At the time it made sense. I was thinking, mostly, that the cabal had known they didn't have the Spirit Arcanum all along. That they'd spent almost all of last session getting Beckett on side, making the sacrifices necessary to do so, and that an ally turning up isn't a deus ex machina when you've spent four hours of game time priming them to do so. Even so, it was de-protagonising - and even five minutes later I regretted it. Would I do it again? I don't know. But admitting that something's tacky is the first step to avoiding it. Storytelling is a learning process.

Wolsey, flexing his arm and wincing, gets to his feet, helped up by Avatar. They - and Kali - tell Mara to fucking well DEAL with this and walk out, leaving her alone with Damascus and the Demon. Mara goes, shakily, to stand behind her desk.

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The Demon screeches. "We can survive this" (to herself) "We can spin this. Yes" (nods) "Yes, this could work. The creature came here. It came to attack us..." - Mara, shaken "Mara" - Damascus, gently "We can USE this" - Mara, shrugging off his attempt "This looks good. We caught the demon. And by the time we've destroyed it no-one will know where it came from." Mara "Mara. Beckett knows" - Damascus "And who's going to believe him?" (laughs, cracked and raw) "I can survive this." Mara She picks up her phone from among the wreckage and dials a number, tapping her fingers impatiently as the other end rings. "Shore? Yes. Yes, we've caught it! The demon came to my..." (she freezes) "You..." (she stops tapping her fingers) "Well.. could... Yes..." (quietly) "Will you still come?" Mara She puts the phone down and, finally defeated, falls backward into her chair. All hope now destroyed. "He's at Beckett's" - Mara, shell-shocked --Outside, Wolsey, Avatar and Kali are tired, pissed off and furious. Kali is angry at this entire business, raging against the world and everything in it. Wolsey wants to throw Beckett to the wolves. He came out of his house, unasked, and has dealt the final blow to Mara. He's not angry for Banneker, though - there's something else there. Kali, though, has taken more than she can take today. She's furious at Mara, furious at herself. The vision of the snake (one form of the mythological Mara, as she remembers sourly), the mysterious Spider scrying on them... Killing Seraph and Hera. It's all weighing on her and she's close to snapping point.
Option Three

--Damascus and Mara don't say much to each other, as they wait for Shore to teleport to the house. Damascus watches silently as Shore helps Mara to reincorporate the Demon into herself, the awful thing vanishing as it takes it's proper place in Mara's psyche. Mara leaves the room, saying she needs to make a phone call. Sighing, Damascus just waits for her, Shore packing his magical tools away in the background. When she returns, she hands the still-active phone to Damascus and sits, her face in her hands.

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"Damascus?" - Banneker "Sir" - Damascus, weary "Mara has begged the council's indulgence, claimed that she caused Malakaii's death via magical accident. She has resigned from her position as Provost and is no longer an officer of this Consilium. Please take all materials belonging to the Consilium into custody. They will be safe with your Cabal until we can decide their disposition" - Banneker Damascus agrees, and hands the phone back. "It's for the best" - Damascus, sympathetically Mara, destroyed, doesn't answer to agree nor disagree.
It's good that it's Damascus - the member of the Order that is now Mara's only distinction and the person who was hardest on her in the confrontations leading up to this - that's the one with her in these immediate post-battle fallout scenes.

While they assess what needs to be taken, Shore and Damascus talk about the fallout. Including the fact that the Arrow will probably have to add guarding Mara from the Guardians to their duty roster. --Damascus steps out into the humid July night, spotting Wolsey and Avatar standing alone together on the street corner, beneath the tree Wolsey despaired under when he first found Avatar in the city. Avatar tells him that Kali muttered only something about needed to get her head together before she left. Damascus tells them what's happened, and Wolsey breaths a sigh of mixed relief and anticipation of the work ahead. This means that Banneker's plan has failed - and so new plans must be made. They head back inside to collect the materials they're confiscating from Mara. --Back at the Sanctum, Damascus and Wolsey talk about what they're going to do now while Avatar adds Mara's items to the things looted from Malakaii's Sanctum. Books, diagrams, charts... And the Eyes of Salt. "What are you thinking?" - Damascus "That we're going to have a hard time of it from here on in, and that there's something that needs doing" - Wolsey He sighs, swirling his hard-won cup of coffee around. "Because, the thing is, Mara was right about Banneker. She was wrong about many things, but she was right about that." - Wolsey
The Options dotted through the session are easy - they're the possible moments when Wolsey decided that Banneker needed to be taken out. Care to enlighten us, Mark?

"You intend to do something about it?" - Damascus Banneker is a weak ruler, and has caused untold damage already. Wolsey *likes* the

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man, and respects him - but he respected Malakaii, too... "Why would you be better?" - Damascus "I have you. And Kali. And Avatar. I trust and respect someone who is *different* to myself, who I argue with." - Wolsey Damascus considers, and nods. Wolsey smiles, very tired. "Take my hand" - Wolsey They shake on it. "That's it. We just formed the committee to elect the next Hierarch" - Wolsey
West Wing reference, Mark tells me.

"Step one. We get Ulysses elected as Councillor..." - Wolsey

Because he's the one Banneker wants - and the one that will hurt Banneker the most.

--Kali is sat in her thinking place, watching the stars. There's a crunch of gravel next to her. "Are you going to shoot me again?" - Seraph "No" - Kali, sadly They look at the stars "Are your Gods looking down on us? Can you see them from here?" - Kali "I had a big justification speech planned, explaining my point of view. Why I do what I do. You'd have been impressed. Maybe even turned on the spot." (frowns) "But you shot me and I kind of forgot it" - Seraph
Is true. I had a whole thing planned.

He sits down next to her. "Why did you leave?" - Kali "I became aware, in my early years as a Mage of the Guardians of the Veil, that there was more out there than in my teacher's philosophy. They teach you all kinds of things that don't hold up against scrutiny - like how, given that they control this world and we all awaken after growing in this world enough, the Exarchs can't possibly be responsible for your Awakening" - Seraph Kali frowns "Eventually, I became aware that there was something else. Looking down us, observing us. You've felt it, I know, with that Bell thing you took from the Irishmen. That sense of inevitability.. like everything is going to plan. If we can't beat the plan,

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Kemi.. If even the magics we use to alter this world are part of God's design, then why fight? It is useless to fight on this world, when even the act of fighting is an act of submission." - Seraph He leans back, companionable but serious. Trying to explain this. "I know that the Gods exist. I can feel the weight of their plan, and I know that you can too. History teaches us, though, that the Gods can be joined. I have that right. I believe I am worthy. We are elevated above normal humans through our magic - why stop here? Why insist that we know everything? I want to observe the observer. I want to look God in the eye, and in so doing be transformed. I want to Ascend. And that's why I left" - Seraph Kali is silent for a long time. "Was this before or after you burnt down the Cabal's Sanctum?" - Kali
A-HA! Good link. Wrong, but good link.

"Wasn't me. Well before my time. By the time I was trained, Malakaii was all that was left of that group." - Seraph "I'm never going to join you" - Kali, quietly "You don't have to" - Seraph He touches her hair. "You're like me. You can feel the sight of God on you. It's too late for me to be anything other than a persuader, someone that can lie with a smile. But you - you're good at finding things. At following threads and signals back to their source." Seraph He stands up "Good night, Kemi" - Seraph Kali watches him leave. --Later, and Kali returns to the Sanctum, where she hears of Wolseys decision. She doesn't like it much - in fact, she doesn't want him to do it, and is unhappy (though accepting) when he insists, and explains his reasoning. In the morning, the Cabal go to see Link, who thanks them - rather stiffly - for their part in the investigation, which is now concluded. He's understandably hurt that they kept him in the dark for so long, but his sense of betrayal by Mara outweighs that of the Cabal. In the afternoon, they catalogue all the materials they took, and - thanks to Damascus providing Prime-based Mage Sight, Wolsey starts examinations of the Soul Stone, ready to take on Malakaii's Legacy. --Days later, and the contest for Councillor - now left wide open - begins. Malakaii's

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chair in the Consilium sanctum has been left out where everyone can see it. Those that wish to declare themselves candidates place a metal disk showing their personal sigil onto the chair. When the day to vote on it comes - at the Caucus to be held in September - each member of the Consilium in good standing receives a number of tokens determined by an arcane set of rules involving rank, seniority, ability and Legacy. They then place their tokens into urns - one urn for each sigil on the chair. Most tokens wins. The only candidate to put themselves forward so far... Is Melchior, the Ascendant. Wolsey notes that this is not entirely unexpected, given the Ascendants noises about becoming more involved and leading the Awakened back to the 'true path'. The fallout from Mara's admission is felt in large and small ways by all the Pentacle mages in the city. The Gatekeepers Cabal is now, officially, split asunder - Thursday has led his followers to form a new Cabal, comprising of the Guardians of the Veil out of the old one. And - for although he has forgiven the Cabal he is less forgiving of her - Link. The Adamantine Arrow, Damascus reports, are bodyguarding Mara for fear of reprisals.
These little scenes now are the wrap-up, getting things out there and noted before we go off into the second story of Reign of the Exarchs next time.

--Their letter is replied to a week later, and so the Cabal of the Crucible go to visit the Ascendants. Melchior lectures them about the role of the Diamond Orders in both Atlantis and today - he is dismissive of the Free Council - and tells them something of their backstory. Balthazar, the Acanthus, makes all decisions of policy for the group, using Fate and Time magic to read what the proper course of action is. Kali can relate - she does it a lot, too.
I know Kali cast 8-again on herself at *some* point in this session, I just forget when.

Melchior also shows them a Scroll - they glimpsed this when they were last here which he claims is incredibly ancient, depicting three kings leading the Silver Ladder back to greatness. --Once back from the Ascendents, the Cabal know just what they're doing now. Hiding all the non-magical material taken from Malakaii or Mara (in Wolsey's flat, mostly), they take the magical items - Malakaii's tools, the Eyes of Salt, the Soul Stone, and decide it's best they keep their heads down for a while. So they're off to Las Vegas. End

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Story 5 Recap: "Who Benefits?" 23rd July - 4th August 2006 Session 5.1

Wolsey waits while Banneker gets an accurate picture of what's going on. Malakaii is dead, he says, and Jude has recovered the corpse. Banneker says that first he and Wolsey must confirm the innocence of their own allies. Thursday, the Cabal and Beckett are the most obvious suspects. Wolsey wants to go to Beckett, but Banneker forbids it until Damascus and Kali are cleared. Wolsey contacts Damascus, who has moved into Dantor's area with his booze-selling operation. Damascus isn't too upset that Malakaii is dead, but agrees to meet up. Wolsey phones Kali, who admits that she has no alibi. Banneker teleports away, promising to be in touch. Kali and Damascus have met up and are comparing notes as they enter the Sanctum. Kali promises to do something about the graffiti Seraph left. They talk about Seraph, and Damascus assures her he doesn't share Wolsey's opinion about what Kali should or shouldn't do about the Seer. Wolsey arrives and - after discovering that neither of them particularly care about Malakaii - gives a horrified speech about how no-one deserves to be killed, and educates them about the possible political fallout of this - the Guardians and the Gatekeeper Cabal both now need new heads, and the city needs a new councillor. And then there's Malakaii's Legacy, which he kept a tight reign on. Kali expresses her theory that she might have done it - and says that she's having an inkling that maybe the mysterious "Spider" mage is her own future self. Wolsey establishes Avatar's alibi (she's been bowling with Trace) and learns that Mara is both trying to keep her own Cabal (the Gatekeepers) together, answer demands for updates and make the first moves in a bid to succeed Malakaii. Mara is henceforth added to the "suspects" list. Banneker phones and - after Wolsey tells him Kali and Damascus are in the clear - tells them to go to Beckett and establish his innocence or guilt. Beckett - who has sensed Malakaii's death through the connection one has with a Legacy tutor - is having an impromptu celebration fuelled by his misery at having his revenge cheated out of him. Kali uses her Legacy Attainment to prove Beckett's innocence (though does learn that Beckett sacrificed an intruder a while back, feeding his essence to various unsavoury spirits). Beckett says that he expects to be blamed regardless. Following up on the hints Wolsey's been picking up from his discussions with Banneker, they ask about Demons. Beckett gives a brief lecture on Demonology and the five essential groupings of "Demon". Beckett's lecture describes Acamoth, Underworld Demons, Pandemonium Demons, Maeljiin and Goetic Demons, along with the skillset necessary. Which, given how big Suleiman's Goetic Legacy is in the city, isn't much of a help. He also describes the specific method he tried to use to kill Malakaii back in the day. Heading now to Ulysses' church, the Cabal report in to Link, who has been assigned as Sentinel the job of investigating the death. Link tells them what's been learned so far - it was definitely a demon, and Dantor sculpted the last thing Malakaii saw in Ectoplasm. Link reproduces it as a Prime-based Phantasm - a very long haired female form with backward 273

hands. Damascus identifies it's form as a Raksha, an Indian shapeshifter demon. It attacked it broad daylight, and Malakaii was killed because he refused to use vulgar magic in his own defence. Link lists suspects and includes Seraph - the Cabal learning for the first time that Seraph is a Bearer of the Eternal Voice, and in fact Beckett's former apprentice. It was him going to the Seers that made Malakaii hard-line, and drove Beckett in turn to the Abyss. Link says that Malakaii's original Cabal in India all went Seer too. Wolsey tries to think of a plan to trap Seraph, Kali refusing to act as bait, and it comes out that she slept with the Seer, which Link didn't know. Link retreats to update his notes, and Ulysses tells the Cabal he's found out on an unrelated note - what the Eyes of Salt do. The Eyes are the creation of the ancient antediluvian mage Cxaxa Querephas, and reproduce her Nimbus of freezing, draining cold. Ulysses speculates that they're to allow someone entry into a ward she set up, and reveals that said ancient, ancient magus is supposed to have owned the Robe of the Dethroned Queen - the second of the Raiment that the Cabal have the first of. Link has had a brainwave. He wants them to get some other members of the House of Ariadne and postcognitise the scene of the murder. Kali arranges to meet Trace and Katherine. In the car, the Cabal muse over how little they know. Kali mentions that Avatar called her Rani, which means "Queen". India again - like Malakaii's background, and Mara. Kali and Wolsey are disturbed, but Damascus is now riding high on bullish enthusiasm to collect all the artefacts. Maybe they'll turn into a giant robot. Damascus and Wolsey, safe and dry from the thunderstorm now soaking the city inside Wolsey's car, watch Kali Katherine and Trace use their Attainments. The creature appears to be made, they say, of shed hair and flakes of skin. It had glowing green eyes, and seemed to shift to Twilight after killing Malakaii. Trace says the battle between Mara and Thursday for control of the Gatekeepers is heating up. Thursday is insulted he's being left out of the investigation. Mara is already campaigning for Councillor while Thursday looks like a shoe-in for Epopt (head of the Guardians). They have a theory - all the evidence coupled with Avatar saying that she'd been practicing Astral travel with her tutors. They head to Mara's. Avatar greets them, and Wolsey asks her to wait outside. Mara is arguing over the phone with Thursday when they go in to see her. At first she denies it, using her Attainments as a Bearer to cloud their minds, but Damascus' own mental shielding helps him resist and he spots that her Aura has no Envy within it. She tries and fails to cover with a false aura, but the truth comes out - Mara was self-medicating for the stress and pressures of her position by using Goetic magic, and formed her own Jealousy into an external dumping form in Astral space. Somehow the resulting demon got free and attacked the main cause of Mara's envy - Malakaii. Mara, though, refuses to give herself up. Or even acknowledge that it happened. She reminds them that Banneker needs her for his schemes, and says that she will handle matters. She also hints that she'll grant Wolsey the Legacy if he helps cover this up. Wolsey tells Avatar she's coming with them, and they decide to take what they've learnt to Banneker. They DO need Mara, but not in all Malakaii's former positions, and they need safeguards in place. There are several people who would try to kill her if the truth were revealed. Wolsey has the idea of Beckett - they could try to redeem him now that Malakaii is gone.

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Avatar points out how good the PR would be if Beckett helped destroy the demon - which Wolsey very much approves of as an idea. Banneker agrees with their assessment. They'll not act against Mara's campaign for Councillor, but they will try to introduce Shore - as a demonhunter - and Ulysses (Banneker's choice) as candidates, and bring Beckett back into society.

Session 5.2

It's now late at night, and Kali and Avatar are dropped off at the Sanctum. Kali decides to make good on her earlier promise to Damascus and - fuelled by wine - paints (badly) over the graffiti'd door. She is interrupted by Blaise dropping by, who wants her to take Trace to the Athenaeum - the Mysterium's storehouse of knowledge.

Monday 24th July

Damascus has spent the night watching porn and drinking. He goes to see Ulysses, who is at home rather than at the church. Ulysses' name is revealed to be Peter Joyce and over the course of their conversation - in which Ulysses says that he dislikes Banneker and cannot in good conscience allow Banneker to obliviously sponsor him as Councillor - Damascus accidentally lets slip what Mara has done. Ulysses' opinion is that Mara needs help, but that the first step of receiving help is to be able to ask for it and acknowledge what one has done. If Mara does win the position she's after and doesn't come clean, then Ulysses will challenge her to Certamen. And, it is implied, beat her quite soundly. He also diagnoses Mara's problem as being in danger of being forgotten - Banneker has abandoned her in favour of less troublesome pawns like Wolsey, and Malakaii had long since paid only lip service to her being his protge. He also warns Damascus not to get himself thrown out of the Adamantine Arrow, which Mara is highly placed within. Wolsey and Damascus meet up. The next moves, they decide, should be to apologise to Mara for the confrontation of the night before. Ulysses is not enthused - he isn't happy with Mara profiting from Malakaii's death, even if it was an accident. They talk about the Adamantine Arrow and Mara's position. Damascus says that it's Mara's position as a counsellor (in the psychiatric sense) that makes her valuable - most members of the Arrow unburden themselves to her, and she acts as their support. This does not make her an easy person to try to fight an election against. Pained by Kali's paintjob, Damascus tries to rectify it magically and Havocs his first attempt, soaking everything with blue paint. His next try goes better, as he absorbs the paradox into his own pattern as backlash. Avatar is up, Kali isn't. Avatar says Kali had a male visitor last night, and that there were noises of intercourse. They talk about what to do with Avatar - she needs to have her training completed, and to be inducted into an Order. They decide to make a list of possible tutors - and to go to Promethea to make sure she's okay with releasing Avatar in the first place. Kali wakes up in bed next to Blaise, who Avatar is just explaining to Wolsey is Samuel's boyfriend. She sneaks out and joins the others. Now that they're all gathered, they decide to head to Beckett's to make sure he doesn't leave the city and agrees to help with the demon-hunt. Wolsey -

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and his inevitable rise to Hierarch - is discussed along the way. In the car, Kali admits that Beckett has been in the habit of sacrificing would-be burglars. Beckett is entertaining a guest when they get there - a Spirit of the Shadow World name Count Atraxis, some kind of "perspective" spirit. Beckett has been trying to find the demon. The gang put Banneker's offer to Beckett, who agrees as long as Banneker publicly admits he needs Beckett's help and comes in person. Beckett's pride is doing the talking, but the Cabal eventually get him to concede by flattery and getting him talking about Astral demons which they confirm the creature to be to him. Beckett says it will be drawn to Jealousy and Envy, and be compelled to try to create those conditions wherever it is. As a parting shot, Beckett notes that the various races for positions fulfils that quite nicely. Especially the race for Malakaii's Legacy. He says that Malakaii had a Soul Stone, and had transfigured a Hallow into being an Annullity using it. But whoever finds said stone could theoretically learn Malakaii's Legacy from it. At the last, as they're leaving, Beckett says that if he gets the stone he'll destroy it. In the car, Wolsey imparts the urgency. They have to be the first to the soul stone, or Wolsey has to be at least. They decide to split up - Avatar will go to Promethea's, Damascus will enlist Shore in their scheme and Kali and Wolsey will look for the Soul Stone, starting by heading back to the murder site and tracing Malakaii's steps using Kali's attainment. Just before they split up, they experience another flash of deja vu / inevitability, indicating the presence of the "Spider". Damascus goes over the plan to use Beckett with Shore, who is intrigued and agrees readily to do it. Kali and Wolsey try to trace Malakaii back to his Hallow, but fail. Wolsey keeps a magical lookout for the demon. Eventually, they phone Banneker, who tells them where Malakaii's sanctum was. Beckett and Shore, under Damascus' supervision, meet up and go over Demonology Kali and Wolsey arrive at the suburban house Malakaii used as a Sanctum and Kali's spells reveal a portal in the basement. They break in and search the place, but as they reach the basement someone else enters the house as well. They hide. Damascus goes to Promethea's, where he finds both Avatar and Link. Damascus gives Link as much of an update as he can without revealing it was Mara that did it. Promethea agrees to release Avatar, though isn't really drawn on anything else. She asks him to remind Kali about taking Trace to the Athenaeum, which Promethea is the keeper of. At Malakaii's house, Wolsey and Kali surprise Seraph and Hera, another Seer in Seraph's Pylon. The two sides have a face-off for a while, until Seraph reveals that he knows Wolsey's real name. At that, Kali shoots Hera in the face, killing the body she's in instantly.

Session 5.3

Damascus, Avatar and Link are in a burger bar having a late lunch. Seraph tries to threaten Wolsey and Kali with his Pylon, saying that they'll be on their way. Kali shoots Seraph's puppet body, and she and Wolsey take stock. Kali wards the area while Wolsey destroys the sympathetic connections between the Seers and their now-vacated bodies, preventing Seraph from raising them as zombies. Wolsey then phones Damascus and opens a portal, allowing Damascus to join them.

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Damascus considers how to get them through the portal to Malakaii's real Sanctum, which is in the basement with them. Eventually, he disguises his Aura with magic so that it resembles Malakaii's. "Recognising" him, the portal opens, and the Cabal step through. They appear in a cavern in some unknown location, and proceed through to a door which leads to a Labyrinth. Using Kali's powers to follow Malakaii through the maze, they reach the Sanctum proper - a hexagonal structure built in magically-produced spatial dimensions, with a staircase leading to wherever this place is in the real world. The Labyrinth and the Sanctum are both far older than Malakaii - probably an Atlantean or Antediluvian structure Malakaii has moved into. Kali freaks out at the similarity between the Sanctum and the Astral form of her own home. The Cabal search the area, finding a shrine to the Hindu Trimurti, Malakaii's magical tools and mystical library as well as all his notebooks on DC, all sadly written in a cipher. Wolsey finds the Soul Stone, buried beneath the central chamber. He uses magic to retrieve it and Kali has a vision (maybe - maybe not) of herself fighting a metallic snake and losing. Via another Portal Wolsey opens, they return to DC and their own Sanctum. Nimrod has dealt with the bodies of the two Seer puppets, and phones Wolsey to say as such. Wolsey phones Avatar, who is not impressed by his attempts to cut sympathetic connections from himself. Kali, meanwhile, accuses Wolsey of acting without consulting the rest of them. She leaves to take Trace to the Athenaeum. Trace is researching Malakaii's background for Samuel - and tells Kali about the cabal back in India who took Malakaii in and trained him. Their Sanctum was burnt down years ago and the Cabal all killed, though no-one ever found their Hallow. Kali, meanwhile, researches the raiment of the Dethroned Queen, learning that the use of the Robe legendarily enrages the Exarchs. Trace tells Kali that Thursday has called in a member of the Eleventh Question to independently investigate the death of Malakaii. Back at the Sanctum, Wolsey and Damascus have retrieved their vehicles and Avatar. They're back to discussing who to take Avatar to when Kali returns. Kali reckons she now knows who the Spider is - based on her researches, she declares it to be a Seer of the Throne Tetrarch (same thing as an Archmage, only for the bad guys) using the Throne of the Dethroned Queen, which her researches indicate gives the user an intimate sympathetic connection to the entire Fallen World. Kali also tells them that Thursday is back in the game, conducting his own investigation separate to Links. They all take a moment to reflect on how deeply they're screwing Link over. Wolsey has an insane plan - tell Mara that Seraph has the Soul Stone and thereby cause her to be incredibly envious of him. Then let Seraph and the Demon fight it out, and pick off the survivor. Banneker phones with the news of the Eleventh Questions imminent arrival. He describes said Legacy to the Cabal, and bemoans that this has escalated matters. Wolsey says that this is the push they need - and the time has come to confront Mara again. In order to show they're peaceful, they're not to have any defensive spells up, not even a shielding. The confrontation meets with resistance, Mara getting more and more worked up while Damascus attempts to reason with her. She tells her story - how Malakaii took her on out of sufferance and a debt he owed to her grandfather, who was a member of the original Indian Cabal. She shrieks that she wanted

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to be councillor so that she would have an accomplishment that was entirely hers, and the Demon manifests The Cabal fight the Demon, Wolsey being badly injured while refusing to defend himself, until Beckett (whos been scrying on them) teleports in and wards the Demon. After mocking Mara, he departs. Wolsey, Avatar and Kali leave while Damascus stays. Mara still tries to salvage her political aspirations, but chooses to phone Shore to have the Demon destroyed - and Shore reveals he's at Beckett's house. Defeated, Mara calls Banneker and resigns as Provost. Wolsey wants to throw Beckett to the wolves, while Kali is angry at the world and everything in it. Damascus is told to confiscate all consilium materials from Mara. Everyone but Kali heads back to the Sanctum. While Avatar catalogues the confiscated materials plus what the Cabal retrieved from Malakaii, Damascus and Wolsey reflect that Mara was right about Banneker - he uses and drops people for his own expediency, and the entire thing was indirectly his fault. Wolsey embraces what people have been telling him and decides that he will, one day, replace Banneker as Hierarch. Kali is joined in her thinking place by Seraph. She notes that she can't kill him again, and asks him if he destroyed the original Cabal of Bearers back in India. He says it was long before his time, and tells her why he defected to the Seers. Ever since his Awakening, Seraph has felt the "inevitability" Kali can feel, and he figured out that the "Spider" was observing everyone. He thinks it's an Exarch, that the world is created by the Exarch's scrutiny and that if he can observe the observer and look into "the face of God" he can Ascend. Which is why he's in Panopticon. He wants Kali to use her talents to find the Spider for him. In the morning, the Cabal visit Link. He's annoyed at being kept out of the intrigue - they've lost an ally there. Days later, the election for Councillor opens. Melchior of the Ascendants announces his candidacy. The Gatekeepers Cabal splits in two - the Adamantine Arrow and Guardian of the Veil members have gone their separate ways. Mara herself is now reduced, concentrating on her Order who are, in turn, guarding her against any possible Guardian reprisals. The Cabal visit the Ascendants, who explain their philosophy - the three members believe they are fulfilling the roles marked out in an ancient scroll, and they make almost all decisions based on it and the Fate magic of Balthazar. In desperate need of a respite, the Cabal make a decision. They're off to Vegas.

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Chapter 6: "Stop the Train, I want to Get Off"

Session 6.1
Reign of the Exarchs II Just as with Reign Part I, a disclaimer. This session (and next session) are not my own invention. They're taken from chapter two of Reign of the Exarchs, written by RPG.net's "Wood". A very talented man. Some names have been changed, and the precise circumstances of the run-up to this story are specific to this chronicle. Even so, you may consider this a playtest review of that scenario. I will note differences from the published work as I go along in my usual blue text notes, as well as my own burblings about the scenario. I'll do a more formal review of the story at the end of next session's writeup, as per last time. The story wasn't completed in one session, though - our session break happened at roughly the halfway point, so I'm pretty sure we'll finish it next time. As such please - if you're one of the several playing along at home and have read Reign, *please* spoiler-black comments about the bits that haven't happened yet, or save them for next week. I play fast and loose with spoilers at the best of times, judging when to reveal things (Sam, for instance, knows that the chronicle so far is a flashback her character is having, but not the circumstances). But it's for me to decide. You've all been good campers so far. Don't wreck this thing and deprive us all of our fun. And on with the show. Reign II starts with a npc disappearing with a certain magical artefact, but I wanted more of a run-up. The artefact in question, as well as the npc, have accompanied the player characters on vacation in Vegas as per the end of last story. So - especially as we'd had a couple of weeks off in the run-up to Christmas - I thought I'd begin with that vacation, and have the plot kick off when I was up to race speed. The story was originally called just "The Robe" as it is in the book, but I discarded it as not fitting with the rest of the chronicle. "Eyes of Salt" was winning for a while, and then "What Happens In Vegas" (stays in Vegas) but a line from Wolsey won out.

Las Vegas. 10th August 2006 The Cabal are now on the fifth day of their seven-day vacation, trying to relax in their own various ways. Or, in Damascus' case, burn through as many vices as he can before his month of being evil is up. There hasn't been any sign of the local Consilium - the Cabal haven't seen any boundary markings, but then they've been keeping to the Strip or.. other.. tourist attractions of Nevada rather than going poking around. The Casino they're staying in does, however, have a warning in Atlantean inscribed above the door. "Beast(Lion?) Friend Ocean negativeYou".
"You are not Danny Ocean". The Vegas consilium aren't ever seen - though the cabal are aware of their opinion of cheating at the casinos using magic. I had intended to have a couple of appearances, and base the characters off those in the Ascension supplement "Fallen Tower: Las Vegas", but a) I decided it would be a particularly obscure in-joke that none of my players and painfully few of my readers would 'get' and b) I forgot to.

Kali has been on the roulette, but has mostly being enjoying being in a strange city with it's own feel and rhythms. She's been sampling the nightlife, and picking up men. The night before we start, she's graduated (mostly because she thought it was a laugh) to an S&M club. It is her ambition to 'do a Britney' and get married for five minutes. Damascus is continuing our licentious theme by gambling wildly (and losing a lot), drinking into the very small hours and visiting the Nevada brothels. Wolsey and Amanda are being more sensible than their steam-releasing comrades. Avatar's been playing craps (and as she says, is crap at it), while Wolsey's abstaining from gambling entirely. They're both spending more time at the shows - Wolsey in particular has taken in a boxing match and the most deadly sin of all - Celine Dion.
The casino they're staying in has not been named, though it apparently has an Egyptian theme - that appealing to a group of Atlantean-Order Mages. Celine Dion was mentioned in 5.1 as a plan for the Vegas vacation. Mark: "Wolsey has been unwinding hard - hence the lack of activity (Sun in the day, and shows at night cause it gets cold -

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basically, nothing that really requires thought or competition on his part). The boxing match is practice - an awful lot of deals take place by people taking others to boxing matches, so it's good to keep up."

Wolsey and Avatar sit in a casino restaurant, seeing how many complimentary drinks they can get out of the place, when they're joined by Kali and Damascus, both of whom seem to be enjoying their stay more than Wolsey. He makes the mistake of asking Kali whether she's winning, and she says that she has now just about made her start money back, which is an improvement on the day before. She has her hopes on buying a motorbike, which causes a fair amount of good-natured horror from the two men about her (lack of) skill on the road.
As regards Kali's infamous driving ability, I take (I think) Armoury's advice about different modes of transport - you get the ability to drive one (plane/car/tank-type twin joystick/motorbike) as your primary drive skill track, and buy the others with specialities. Kali's primary track is motorbikes, and she doesn't have the speciality needed to convert that into ability with a car. As for the gambling, my system was pretty simple - the characters staked how many Resources dots worth of "disposable income", and the specific game had it's odds converted into die rolls. Roulette, which is (so Rafe tells me) anywhere between 9 in 19 to 1 in 38 chance of winning, was done with a couple of d10s and some mental arithmetic. Poker is a Wits/Subterfuge contested roll with the other players.

The conversation switches from gambling to the other activity the pair of them have been engaging in. Damascus tells them, and Kali cheerfully says what she was doing herself last night. She's a bit excitable about how neat she's finding it here - and wants to find somewhere to go bungee jumping. In all, Kali seems rather wired. Especially about the club last night. "Good thing we didn't go to Disneyland. God knows what would have happened" Avatar "...And now I'm getting images of Kali in leather whipping Goofy in a gimp mask" Damascus "Everyone's getting spanked but me" - Avatar
Not just a Buffy quote out of character, but one in character too - Avatar's a fan.

Damascus and Kali regard Wolsey. Avatar, realising that the joke has put Wolsey well out of his comfort zone, excuses herself, wanting to try to win some money at least all trip.
Could I just point out here that this is a microcosm of the session? Avatar says something that makes Wolsey feel bad and then rather than confront it ignores it and leaves Damascus and Kali to talk to him. Mark: "To be honest, I think this is characterisation of their relationship, rather then a sign of tension now. Wolsey is quite a bit more conventional then Avatar, so while it's 'cool' to jokingly talk about sex like that in company, Wolsey isn't comfortable with it. If you notice, Wolsey tries to change the subject when Kali and Damascus go on about sex, generally."

"Dude" - Kali, to Wolsey "Oh, you two can wipe those grins off. You're the ones who blocked me when she joined the Cabal." (mimics Kali's voice) "Oh, no! Stay at the Sanctum!" (mockgrimaces) "After, I'd add, I offered my apartment. And after you BOTH pushed and pushed for me to try to get back together with her." - Wolsey "We thought you'd *fight*. You can't just give in." - Kali Wolsey gives her a look of exasperation. "I was making my move, MY way" - Wolsey

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"If it isn't working out, you could always go to the club with Kali" - Damascus Wolsey gives him a look of a different kind. "...Or the knocking shops" - Damascus "I didn't read that in the brochure" - Wolsey "Wrong Brochure" - Damascus Wolsey's reply is not printable. Change of subject. "Listen. This place is starting to get expensive. When Avatar comes back, could you stand going to a bar? I mean, a real bar." - Wolsey That seems like a good idea. --Later, and the Cabal are ensconced in a bar on the edge of Vegas, out by the desert. The topic, as Damascus sinks the pints, is his antinomism. Someone asks how long he has to go, and he says not long - he's getting through the vices all right, but it's taking longer than expected. It's not really satisfying. "Well, it's been a bit lame so far, hasn't it? If you want my advice, I mean. The bareknuckle fighting was a good idea, but since then, what? Selling booze? Gambling? Visiting legal prostitutes? Not very evil" - Avatar "Yes, but it contradicts HIS values" - Wolsey
Mark: "That's very important for Wolsey. He doesn't agree with what Damascus is doing, but believes it needs to personally tailored to work."

"But not by much - if you're supposed to trash your life and values to throw the rest of it into sharp relief, then you could take pointers from us" (nods to Wolsey) "I mean, we're the Mastigos. The hookers won't remember you and you won't really remember them, not the way the injuries from the boxing will be remembered. Go for broke. Have an affair." (thinks) "Sleep with Kali." (Kali grins) "She won't mind, but it'll put a massive strain on your friendship once it's over. I guarantee you won't forget it" Avatar Wolsey doesn't think it's such a good idea. "Bad Mastigos" - Wolsey
Wolsey isn't a big fan of Evil for Evil's sake. And he _hates_ being typecast with Mastigos typecasting (unless its to his benefit, which is rare).

Avatar, more than slightly drunk, shrugs. "If you're supposed to be intentionally doing yourself wrong to assess your own values, you're not doing as thorough a job as you could is all." - Avatar Damascus considers.

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"You're values were not always your values, were they? You've done that kind of wrong in the past.." (trying to counter-argue against Avatar) "I mean, you've been to prison. You must have done something wrong to deserve that" - Wolsey
Mark: "The point for Wolsey is that Damascus's biggest 'bugbear' or fear might be what he was before. So if you're going to go for it, go for you're centre - what you really don't want to do."

Damascus, finishing his drink, admits that he was arrested and imprisoned for attempted GTA combined with numerous petty offences. He didn't even get stealing a car right, but prison led to his conversion to Catholicism... "So? The parking lot is right there. If that's what the foundation of your moral system is..." - Avatar Damascus considers the parking lot. "If you'll excuse me" - Damascus, getting up. Damascus proceeds to the bar, where he buys two bottles of liquor. He then heads outside to the parking lot and selects his prey - going for the most expensive car he can find, and the one that reminds him the most of the one he was caught trying to break into as a teen. Back then he was a second-string ganger with more balls than brains. Now, he's a Mage. Stealing a Ferrari is much easier when one has Alter Conductivity at one's disposal.
Modern cars are pretty much open to a Mage with Matter or Forces magic, from the door lock to the alarm, immobiliser and ignition. And with Matter and Death, there's a handy spell in the Guardian of the Veil book to remove all forensic traces of yourself.

The others quietly pay up and leave, heading out before the owner of Damascus' prey realises it's gone. --After driving far too fast out into the desert, and drinking one of his bottles, Damascus considers the beauty of the sunset and the intrinsic beauty of the machine for a good half hour. Before using the second bottle to torch it. Whistling, and reflecting that yes - that felt worse / better than the prostitutes did - he starts the walk back towards the city, shimmering like a mirage on the horizon. --The others, meanwhile, have decamped to wait for him, sat on the edge of an industrial park which is itself on the edge of the city. Kali is still with the hyper, trying to get Wolsey to go bungee-jumping with her. "You'd think you'd never been on vacation before.. wait. You've mentioned your dad a few times. Does he live in DC?" - Wolsey
The link being he's just pegged her as a local girl (to DC) even beyond her faking her own social background, and then realising the implication.

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Kali rattles off a street address "Wait a minute. That's where I picked you up that time. When you were talking about Nickels" - Wolsey "Yup" - Kali "Is.. Er... Is that wise? To be skirting that close to your old life" - Wolsey "Duh. Of course it isn't" - Kali
Mark is often of the opinion that he often just doesn't get what Sam means when she's playing Kali, and from an outside perspective most of the friction between the two is based on miscommunication - both characters are very wrapped up with their own world and way of saying things that they miss what the other means, take offence at things that weren't meant to be taken offence at and talk past one another for hours. Like, in fact, the end sequence of this very session. That said, I would like to note that in this singular case, Wolsey (and therefore Mark) realised that Kali was admitting that no, it probably wasn't a good idea, that she entirely understood his concern and that no further conversation was necessary. To a storyteller that has to try to recap those wide-ranging hour-long rambling arguments, this was like seeing a Saint Bernard after an Avalanche. There is hope.

They watch the mirage-enhanced smoke rising from the desert "Poor Ferrari" Avatar That evening, Damascus joins Kali at the club, and after returning to the hotel in the small hours they decide to go for it.
Kali's the top. In case you were brave enough to wonder. Damascus doesn't so much regard it, AFAICT, as fucking Kali, more a case of letting Kali fuck him. If Kali were of a more self-analysing nature, she'd probably see that Damascus regards this as something disgusting to his normal self. Or maybe she does and doesn't care.

While they're otherwise occupied, though, Avatar and Wolsey have a very nice dinner together, take in an equally nice show and retire after also nice drinks to screw like they're newlyweds again. --11th August 2006 At breakfast, everyone is all smiles. Damascus and Kali are slightly awkward together, but the palpable difference in closeness between Avatar and Wolsey distracts them. Damascus starts to explain, saying that he and Kali... Wolsey cuts him off. "I've made it my business and indeed my career not caring what people do" - Wolsey "Odd attitude for a lobbyist" - Damascus, simultaneous with; "Could have fooled me" - Kali "Look at Abramoff" - Wolsey "But did he ever bungee jump?" - Kali
Mark: "The point is, Wolsey doesn't care about peoples morals if he's working for them. Technically, given the cabal get the real Wolsey this isn't the case here, so Wolsey should have wanted to hear. But, this is another example of not particularly wanting to talk about sex."

Pecking Wolsey on the cheek, Avatar goes to play some more tables.

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Damascus and Kali, practically in one another's lap themselves, grin in a much more congratulatory fashion than yesterday at Wolsey. Wolsey, though, suddenly turns serious. "Okay. She's still having the dreams" - Wolsey He tells them that Avatar's sleep is disturbed, that she kept waking up and in a couple of places muttered in her sleep. Whatever her mysterious and portentous dreams are, she's still having them when she'd led him to believe they were subsiding. Or maybe she just let him assume that they were subsiding. Kali casts her spell once again, and confirms that he's still Doomed. And, if she's any judge, it's much much closer to coming to pass than before. "I keep telling you. DO something about them. Don't just ignore it and hope it'll go away - if you want to fight this then DO something" - Kali Wolsey starts to say something "DO SOMETHING" - Kali "All right" - Wolsey Kali goes to play more roulette - she's pretty sure she's close to winning now - while Damascus and Wolsey wait. --Both Avatar and Kali eventually return, Avatar now being entirely out of money. Kali, on the other hand, is jubilant - she's won a sizeable sum, and can now afford the bike of her dreams upon returning to DC. "And I'll even learn how to ride it properly" - Kali Wolsey checks, just to be sure, that she didn't cheat. She says no and he, a good judge of these things, believes her. "Just to check - has anyone seen anything of the locals?" - Wolsey "I think one of the croupiers cast something the other day, but it seemed just a Mage Sight. Oh - and there was that vampire at the slot machines" - Avatar There is a bit of discussion as to whether being a bit pale qualifies one as a vampire, and then the merits of Vegas' near-24 hour operating to Undead Americans. But other than the warning signs, there's been no actual contact with the local supernatural underground, no. "Maybe we should announce ourselves. get the local gossip" - Wolsey "On the last day we're here, when we've been here a week? Pushing it. Besides, we've crossed no boundary lines and we're going home. They *can't* have a problem with tourists" - Damascus Anyway. Business.

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"Tell us about the dreams" - Wolsey, to Avatar Avatar hedges for a few seconds, then gives in. "All right. They're getting stronger. I can remember more and more of them" - Avatar The feeling that she's supposed to do something, she says, is getting incredibly strong. Wolsey's opinion, as ever, is that such feelings are traps - and that she should try to fight it. Avatar tries to explain. "It's like... Did you see that movie with the demon rabbit? Donnie Darko? There's a bit where he sees his future stretched out in front of him, like a sausage made up of the next frames in the movie of him moving. It's kind of like that. Not far-reaching. I can... It's like I know what I'm going to do NEXT - next instant, not even next second. And it's always there." - Avatar
Deliberate choice of analogy. Mark hates Donnie Darko.

"Can't you do something about it?" - Wolsey "It's so close to now that no... whenever I try to, trying to is included in the feeling. If that makes sense." - Avatar
It doesn't the way she's explaining it, but hopefully my burblings here will make sense - the feeling Avatar's getting is pretty much like Deja Vu rather than an outright "I'm going to do this tomorrow" precognition. It's like she's following a laid-down track.

Avatar is moving something around with her hand, and stops when they look. She's using the Eyes of Salt as a pair of Chinese worry-beads "Sorry. They're comforting." - Avatar, putting the eyes away "Hey, just as long as you don't use them for anything else" - Damascus, winking at Wolsey. In any event, they need to do something about the dreams. "As soon as we get back, we ask Samuel if we can use his Demesne. Right, Kali?" Wolsey "Uh.. He might not be too happy to see me... Oh, alright" - Kali
She's thinking of Blaise.

Agreed. Regarding the Eyes, and the other artefacts they brought "We could have left them in the hotel safe" - Avatar "No, we couldn't. Just because the locals don't like people stealing from the casinos doesn't mean that they don't do it themselves. If anything, I'd say they'd be ideally placed to. Of course, what would outsiders think of us, eh?" - Wolsey "They'd probably think we were a bunch of hopelessly paranoid politicos" -

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Damascus "Or that we're a bunch of politicians in denial about the true state of our city... Which is kind of true, from a certain point of view. Your lot know about this sort of thing, don't they?" (to Kali) "How a city and it's consilium flavour one another, in the Resonance" - Wolsey "Like London being full of Guardians of the Veil, or Boston being a war between Christian and pagan mages with a psychotic in charge" - Avatar (nods) "I think we underestimate how much of an effect Banneker has on our city. How his opinion tinges all of us." - Wolsey
Mark: "There are two points here. The first is that for all his politicking, Banneker has his own projects that have sailed past out notice - he's primarily a politico, but that's not all. And Wolsey is giving him credit for it. The second is, despite everything, he recognises that Kali has areas of excellence, and this was an attempt to go for a common ground discussion."

Avatar rambles briefly about the Nemean, the Hierarch of Boston, about which she has heard from every mage she's told she's from Boston. He does not sound like a reassuring man.
I can't remember where "London is a Guardian-run Consilium" comes from. I don't own Shadows of the UK, so don't know if it's true or not - it's just something I appear to have picked up along the way.

That gets them talking about home. Wolsey talks about the Hierarch and his plans to eventually replace him, speaking of himself disparagingly as Macbeth, with his ascendancy foretold. A brief "cast yourself as characters from the play" ensues, with Kali as the witches, and Avatar as Lady MB. Damascus can't decide who he's most like - Duncan, he reckons, is Banneker. On his good days, he reckons, he's Banquo. On the bad days Seyton.
Rafe: Banquo - "...a foil to Macbeth, showing an alternate reaction to prophecy... retains his morals and allegiances...one of Macbeth's best friends...pledges allegiance to Macbeth as long as his reputation is not lost." Seyton - "Macbeth's lieutenant and servant that obeys every whim and command without question."

Back to the subject of home, and the election. Noone's yet put in a claim for Councillor other than Melchior. The Ascendants ambitions, not only for the council but also in their bid to be put in charge of judging the lex magica as neutral observers, is raised. "They're not neutral. They just think they are, but they're not. They'll be sucked into the politics soon enough" - Wolsey "Who'd you have other than them? Samuel'll probably leave in a few years, off to find his Quintessence." - Avatar
Avatar thinks she means "become an Archmage", which is not what a Quintessence is (they're spell-specific magical tools needed for a "boost" to the sympathetic connection to one's realm needed for level 6+ spells). The default assumption in my setting - especially post-Tome of the Mysteries - is that Wolsey will one day be Hierarch and that Samuel, rather than take the Consilium for himself, will leave to become an Archmage of Time, a direction in which he's already drifting. As portrayed in the present time his leadership of the House of Ariadne, which is organised like a family with him at it's centre, and his council position mean that Samuel doesn't qualify - but he's constantly shown as being bored or disinterested in the latter, and the former might be overcome if he finds a way to the Imperial practices. To walk bodily in the past requires Time 6+, and Samuel might think it's worth it. The resulting power vacuum would make the fallout from Malakaii's death look like a party. Malakaii had many jobs that several people can do. Samuel has only a few, but there's no-one to do them but him.

"What we need is zombie Malakaii" - Damascus

Or DOES he? No-one can quite remember. It's a mystery. The following is one of the few exchanges I actually noted down, so we all know it happened. We just cannot remember HOW it happened. I suspect one of us fudged a paradox roll.

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"Last I checked Dantor had the body" - Avatar There are groans, and denials that she would do such a thing "She'd totally resurrect him for sexual purposes. She's worse than me" - Kali "Kali... and I'm about to say something that I think will help you.. No-one thinks like you do" - Wolsey Kali sticks her tongue out at him. "Right. Enough of this. I'm off to the pool" - Avatar "I'll join you" - Kali "I'm... I'm just going to go and watch them, okay?" - Damascus --The day passes. The last show of the vacation is the Blue Men Group. Both couples make encore performances of their own. --12th August 2006 The sunlight plays over Wolsey, and he wakes up. Avatar is gone. Thinking she's gotten up early to enjoy the casino before they leave this lunchtime, he goes to have a shower. Over breakfast with Damascus and Kali, Wolsey reminds them that the flight is at 1300. Avatar doesn't make an appearance, and Kali hasn't seen her. Slowly but surely, Wolsey becomes concerned. When Avatar hasn't shown up by 1000, he voices it. "Did you cut your sympathetic connection?" - Kali "Yes but, ah, I *think* it may have grown back" - Wolsey, with irony He scries on her, expecting to find her somewhere else on the Strip. Instead, he feels resistance - which he manages to get through - from a ward that she's put up on herself. When the scrying window does form in his mind's eye, Wolsey sees Avatar, eyes half closed as if dozing, sat in the back of a pickup truck. Somewhere definitely non-urban. "The hell?" - Wolsey, confused He describes what he's seeing and clarifies - when Damascus asks - that Avatar isn't tied up or anything. She's just sat there. He phones her, but she doesn't answer - the cellular customer he's calling is not available.

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"Could she be sleepwalking?" - Kali Wolsey frowns "I've heard of sleepwalkers getting into their cars and driving off" - Damascus "We need to find out what's going on" - Kali "Well thank you for that, little miss obvious" - Damascus Kali says that maybe it's connected to what they've all been worried about. "Can you check?" - Wolsey She shrugs, and casts a sympathetic-range Knowing Practice of Fate to determine the state of Avatars Destiny. Her eyes open, and she looks at Wolsey dead-on. "Yeah. It's her Destiny. It's triggered - she's in the process of fulfilling it." - Kali Kali and Wolsey describe Avatar's surroundings - which are pretty distinctively alien to Damascus, who's going over maps. They peg it as being Death Valley - she's on the main road heading West, crossing the Death Valley park. They decide, pretty much without discussing it, to get after her. Bumping their flight to a later one and hiring a SUV, they get their stuff together in a hurry. When he comes to pack his room up and throw Avatar's things back into a suitcase, Wolsey notices that the Eyes of Salt are missing. She's taken them.
In the published scenario, the quest is kicked off by the Eyes being stolen by the Avatar character - who's a young newlyawakened mage of Ghanaian extraction named Cymbeline Hand. The Cabal, by default, are ordered to retrieve the items as they're the ones who 'Cymbeline' is closest to in the consilium. I just thought it neat to flip the Cabal motivation here, though it was a last minute thing. Banneker giving Damascus custody of the Eyes and ordering him to look after them was the start of setting up a "she's gone and so have they" scene that more closely followed the plotted scenario. Ultimately, it came down to which Wolsey would notice first. And for the record, she's on Route 190

--Once driving, Wolsey says he's going to check again. "Want me to do it?" - Kali "Tchyeah." - Wolsey, dismissively "Aw" - Kali, disappointed "I can do this" - Wolsey, trying to make her feel better. But still wanting to do it. "I just wanted to be useful" - Kali "You are useful" - Damascus, reassuring her from the driving seat. "Why, thank you" - Kali Avatar has renewed her ward after Wolsey and Kali broke it down, and is now in a different car. As he watches, she casts some kind of spell, but it's Covert and too quick for him to scrutinise. The surroundings, though, are not Death Valley.

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"Okay... She's hitchhiking." - Wolsey He and Kali check their maps again, and figure she's somewhere in the region of Darwin. Maybe. East of Death Valley anyway, and with enough hours head start to get that far from Las Vegas. Catching her is not going to be easy. So they start driving, and intend to keep scrying. As soon as Avatar stops, they intend to teleport to her location. --Several hours of driving beyond the speed limit later, and they themselves are in Death Valley. Avatar definitely isn't, though - she's now on foot, and hiking through a meadow surrounded by forested hills. (consulting the map) "Can you get a direction?" - Damascus Wolsey casts Finder and reports the rough bearing of Avatar "The Sequoia National Park" - Damascus. Wolsey pulls over (he's driving now) and gets out. They discuss the mechanics of it out here, there's no-one around to witness the vulgar magic, but making a portal large enough to drive a SUV through is going to tax Wolsey. So much so that he's going to have to build the imago using a ritual. "Do you have anything I can burn as a sacrament?" - Wolsey
Which is the first time we've used them in the chronicle - simply because it took this session's scrambled reading of the extended casting rules figuring out Wolsey's spell factors to realise that you're meant to.

Damascus proffers the map. He *nearly* gets it on the first attempt, but the Imago isn't quite satisfactory and he wants to do this properly. Eventually, though, an hour and a half after he started, Space tears itself open in front of them and Wolsey jumps back into the vehicle. It won't stay open for long, he's told them - and Damascus floors it, propelling them through and into the Meadow Avatar was in. In an attempt to catch up more, they drive as far as they can, up to the forest's edge a few miles down the rough path Avatar was following. Abandoning the SUV, they begin to hike themselves. As far as Wolsey and Kali can tell with Space Magic, they're catching up to Avatar pretty successfully. When they get close enough, all three break into a jog - the effort of which uphill causes Wolsey to fall behind.
Go look the Sequoia park up on Google for pictures. Beautiful part of the world.

And then, about a mile uphill, Kali and Damascus catch up with her. "Avatar." - Damascus, huffing slightly. Avatar seems rather preoccupied, casting a spell and then, as though deep in thought, changing direction slightly.

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"Nearly. It's here" - Avatar, to herself Damascus and Kali manage to get her to express herself properly. She proffers the Eyes of Salt, and says that they've started to appear in her dreams. And that there's a connection between her and them. The faint feeling of predestination has become an undertow dragging her along, she says - but it's almost over. A new sympathetic connection has appeared, and she's been following it using Space magic, seeking whatever it is that she's linked to. Which is here, somewhere. "Within a mile" somewhere. Kali casts Mage Sight and verifies Avatar's ramblings - or the part about the connections, anyway. She DOES have an extremely strong one to the Eyes, and to something else, though Kali hasn't added the Space Arcana to her imago so can't tell where that second thing is. But they know what it's likely to be. "The Robe?" - Kali "Maybe. Maybe something else from my dreams" - Avatar, continuing to hike. At which point, Wolsey catches up, wheezing and gasping for breath. Avatar singularly ignores him, continuing to walk away. The others fill him in on developments. "So... What? You thought you'd just leave? By yourself?" - Wolsey "Yes" - Avatar "Why?" - Wolsey "I had to. I want to know where this goes" - Avatar Wolsey, annoyed now and smarting from the paradox backlash from teleporting them here, says that that isn't really an answer - and that she should have told someone. Avatar half-shrugs, still intent on whatever imminent event she's coming to. "I didn't have a choice" - Avatar "You always have a... No. I'm done" (throws his hands up) "I'm going back." - Wolsey Disgusted, he starts to trudge back down the hill. Damascus and Kali look at one another, and set off after Avatar.
Again a modification. The book has the gang catching up to "Cymbeline" later on, when she gets the item she's here for. I changed it for reasons of Chronicle and theme, and got a really heartwrenching scene out of Mark for it. He's already posted about his reasons - Wolsey thinks Avatar's making the mistake Kali made when she first met Seraph, and is angered and hurt by her complete failure to acknowledge that she should have said something to him.

The Trio walk deeper into the forest, Kali and Damascus slowly drawing Avatar out though she's still a little spacey and focused on what she's doing, she does provide a little more information. She is sorry about not telling "them" (though they know who she means), but she's lived with this pressure on her mind her entire life and wants to see it to it's conclusion. She can't not. She can't stop. She doesn't *want* to stop. Damascus notices, as they talk, that the birdsong has stopped. A few minutes later, he also notices that the flowers hereabouts are all red and pink,

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while half a mile the other way and they're in all colours. "Somehow, I get the feeling we're not in Kansas any more" - Damascus Kali casts a Mage Sight spell and determines that they are indeed walking towards... something. Not entirely normal. Damascus finds a particularly hefty-looking rock and prises it up out of the ground, hoping he's not going to have to bash something horrible with it. Later and deeper still, and Kali spots the first truly unsettling thing - a bed of flowers with human mouths at the centre of the petals, mouthing silently. Minutes later still, and the trees run with blood instead of sap. The sky turns red and smoke-filled, with occasional glimpses of stars not of this Earth.
In homage to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

And then they come to a Grove, surrounded on all sides by trees made entirely of flesh. "Okay. That's fucking creepy" - Damascus The object of Damascus' creep-out is the trees, all branching limbs in the human rather than forestry sense, fingers and hands instead of leaves and fruit and "bark" of thick rubbery skin, marked with opening and closing eyes and mouths. "Is it in the centre?" - Kali Avatar casts Finder again "Kali. Do you have a knife?" - Avatar Kali crouches down and retrieves one from her boot, handing it to Avatar. Breathing shallowly, as though asleep, Avatar advances on one of the trees. She puts the tip of the knife to it's bark, which twitches and appears to shy away from it. As she presses, there's a brief moment of pliancy - like she's cutting into flesh - and then the knife slips in. Blood runs from the wound, and the tree shudders.
This is where the PCs would come in. I've said it before, I think, but the concept of the Flesh Grove? Sheer genius. It's a Verge, if anyone's wondering as to the mechanical ins and outs, and the Trees are spirits.

--Wolsey hikes down the hill back towards the SUV Back in the grove, the eerie silence has been shattered. The Trees are now all flailing about with their branch-arms, gibbering madly from a hundred mouths while Avatar is shoulder-deep inside the tree she's performing spur-of-the-moment surgery on.
The Tree's speech is Glossolalia, aka 'Speaking in Tongues'. It was previously encountered as a concept in Seraph's House of Stone.

"I've got it! I've got it! I'VE GOT IT!" - Avatar, triumphant. Avatar stands up and steps back, bringing something out of the tree in her gore291

soaked hand. Damascus and Kali glance, and aren't particularly reassured by the sight of a glass heart containing something black and buzzing. This, then, would be the Heart full of Flies from Avatar's dreams. And then the Trees attack, bending improbably to reach the group, grasping fingers hooking around clothes. Kali casts a time spell to accelerate herself to superhuman speed, and ducks hers instantly retreating to the centre of the grove, but Damascus and Avatar are both snared. Damascus manages to break the trees' grip on him by hitting it with his rock and pulls Avatar free, but gets caught again himself. Kali shoots at the tree holding Damascus, which manifests a big chomping mouth ready to rip into him, but he manages to get free again and join the girls. "Any ideas?" - Damascus The trees continue to howl and gibber. Concentrating, Damascus projects feelings of utter fear and terror into one of the Trees, making it recoil in horror. Grabbing the girl's wrists, he charges through the gap in the wall of flailing branches made by the momentarily-stunned tree. As they run out, though, the landscape seems to flow around them, drawing them back. Kali, moving far faster than the others, easily outruns the effect, but Damascus and Avatar find themselves forced back into the Grove again. "Any other ideas?" - Damascus Assets. They need some kind of weapon. They have Kali's knife, and that's about it. "Could you combine the properties of a knife and a rock?" - Avatar "We'd get either a very sharp rock or a knife as heavy as stone. Assets. What assets do we have?" - Damascus "nothing" - Avatar "Nothing? No keys? No nothing?" - Damascus "I didn't exactly plan this" - Avatar "Alright. Alright" (considers, trying to think against the noise) "If we had some way of making a spark we could get fire..." - Damascus "Uh..." - Avatar, offering her Cigarette lighter. Damascus is not amused at that being left off the asset list.
Avatar's smoking is one of those things that never really made it into the thread - or indeed most sessions - because it was unimportant. Anyways. The lung cancer roll call of the group is - Wolsey doesn't smoke except for cigars in social situations where it would be the thing to do. Damascus doesn't smoke. Kali did, like a chimney, but gave up in Story 3 (she complains at one point that Wolsey is driving her back into it by sheer annoyance) and Avatar likes to think that none of the others know she smokes, but they all know she does.

Damascus, taking it, casts Jury Rig. They now have a Knife covered in flames. "We'll just have to burn them.. with FIRE!" - Damascus Heading for the wounded tree, Damascus manages to hold it off while Avatar - still clutching the Heart - makes a break for it, and follows her out. They run from the warping effect again but this time manage to stay ahead of it, nearly running into Kali.

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There is much jubilation at having made it out alive. Damascus can't seem to quite believe it. They do, however, take the time to examine the Heart. It's made of glass, and does indeed appear to be full of flies. Avatar carefully puts it away in the inside pocket of her jacket as Kali casts Ring Sight, determining that no-one here seems to be tainted according to that spell's criteria. At least, tainted out of the ordinary. "It has the same resonance as the Eyes. Exactly the same" - Avatar "Cxaxa Querephas?" - Damascus "It's for the same thing. And the next step is the last. The Heart was real. The Eyes were real. The *Trees* were real. There's... There's a dark place, somewhere. There's..." (frowns) "Cricket" (looks at them) "And the Robe. I'm sure of it. And then I'm done" - Avatar "They're leading you to Cxaxa's safehouse?" - Damascus (closes her eyes) "Witchend. One word. That's all. That's where it is." - Avatar Kali checks, and notes that the connection Avatar was following was to the Heart, and that now she has yet another - very strong. "We have to get to England. It's nearly over" - Avatar, with some relief Kali notes that her passport is back in DC. Damascus thinks, and dimly recalls his being in the bank. Also in DC. "Tom can teleport us there, we can get the Robe and then it'll be over. I'll have fulfilled all of this. Done the thing I was meant to do" - Avatar Kali stays quiet at that.
But when Avatar fulfils her Destiny, the buck (according to Samuel) passes to Kali

--They arrive back at the SUV, to find Wolsey preparing the spell to return them most of the way to Vegas. He eyes their gory state, but can't interrupt his spell to ask what's going on. Once they're on the other side, though; "Change of plan. How about England?" - Damascus "Why?" - Wolsey "It's where the Robe is" - Damascus "Okay. Hold on a second." - Wolsey Point the first - they're not going anywhere unprepared. Not with him in charge of the teleportation. Point the second - he's not going any further on this until they all have a rational discussion. He brings up their appearances, and confirms that the situation in the forest was dangerous. "You could say that" - Kali "We're okay" - Damascus

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"You might not have been. Amanda here led you all up there. For what?" - Wolsey
The first time Wolsey has called her Amanda while in "Wolsey" mode, that. I am not convinced it wasn't just a slip of the tongue on Mark's part. Mark: "It wasn't. Wolsey considers using shadow names a mark of respect - you should only real names if (a) need to for spells or (b) if you are 200% sure it's in a private situation. In Wolsey's mind, using it in public might mean someone gets hold of it and might use it to hurt you - so in this case, it's a purely spiteful thing - Wolsey wishing her hurt. He's probably going to regret it."

Damascus wants to get back to Vegas, and get the flight back to DC. *Then* they can talk. Avatar, though, isn't having any of it. "You go back to DC if you want to, but I'm going to England. I'm nearly *there*, Tom. I've lived my entire life with this, and I'm not waiting. Witch. End." - Avatar "Sounds a little ominous." (off their looks) "I mean. 'Witchend'. When we're witches." Kali "How do you know it's in England? Could be Australia." - Wolsey
In one of those mis-attributing prana thingies, Mark isn't sure it was him that said it. I'm 89% sure it was, though, and Rafe hasn't contradicted me. As Sam says, I'm normally good at telling her lines apart in my notes. It's the boys I get mixed up on.

Avatar points one way. "It's that way." (turns around) "Australia is THAT way" - Avatar Fair point. But so is the point that a name and a bearing - which is towards the ground, as Finder doesn't compensate for the curvature of the Earth - isn't really enough to go on. They should be forewarned. Damascus points out that they can look it up on the Internet. The airport has a net cafe. --A teleportation and a long, frosty, drive later, they get to the airport in the middle of the night. Witchend has a rather hopeless "baby's first HTML" webpage, apparently created by someone in the village activities committee. It's a tiny place somewhere near Reading, that boasts one pub and a town hall. Rugby team calendar, cricket team calendar and a couple of photos make up the site. "Alright. I'll head to London now and sort out transport to this place. You guys get equipped in DC and then meet me there" - Avatar Cue argument. Wolsey doesn't want to go to England. He doesn't want the Robe and he wants Avatar to stop blindly walking into Destiny - especially as it seems to be getting *dangerous*. She informs him that he's not going to stop her doing this. She's sorry he feels like this, but this is the thing that drove her to Awakening. She can't turn her back on it because it makes him feel better. Wolsey stops the conversation dead with the announcement that he's about to loose his temper and say something stupid. So he'll be downstairs in the waiting area. And 294

with that, he leaves. "I do know, you know. That when this finishes it's supposed to go to you" - Avatar "I know" - Kali
I've talked about the reasoning behind this up-thread

Damascus and Kali seek Wolsey out. "This is crazy. You get that this is crazy?" - Wolsey It's all escalating, he says to them. "First Gawain, and the Ring drops into our laps. Now this. I'm guessing that the grove wasn't a walk in the park, and this isn't over. What's it going to be like NEXT time? Or by the time we get to the Throne? Look, I think having sympathy to the entire world would be useful, but it isn't worth this. It just isn't" - Wolsey He continues, saying that they should just forget this entire thing. "She can't do that" - Kali "She endangered your lives for the sake of blindly following Fate" - Wolsey "I.." - Kali "We've been through this Kali. We've discussed this." - Wolsey "I don't think she's able to stop until she finds it" - Kali "And next time?" - Wolsey "Next time it'll be me" - Kali That doesn't reassure him. "These things - these artefacts of the Dethroned Queen. I don't need them and I don't want them. I feel like I'm on a train, hurtling toward something. I say we stop the train. I want to get off. I want to put this aside. Get rid of the Ring - and the Robe, if that's gone too far." - Wolsey "And give them to who?" - Kali "We destroy them, then" - Wolsey Kali frowns. She has a feeling of inevitability. Damascus gets a Deja Vu Suddenly, all the coasters in the bar area arrange themselves to spell "I NEED" and then go back to normal. "What?" - Wolsey, who saw nothing.

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They explain, which just winds him up more. He repeats his conclusion. They talk to him about destiny, and prophecy. He repeats his conclusion, in the terms of an ultimatum. "You're not talking about this, you're just stating your opinion over and over" - Kali "I'm discussing. I've laid down my terms. Now we negotiate" - Wolsey "But there's nothing you'll bend on" - Kali "Then you have to accept my terms" - Wolsey He repeats his mantra. "After this, we stop. Agreed?" - Wolsey Somewhere, Kali is fighting a snake. Becoming tired This, again, is future-Kali stumbling over a particularly significant part of the story, wishing it went another way. Or trying to reassure herself. Or something. I will note, though, that her messages to herself - going back in time - read "I need Help" "Agreed" - Damascus "Really?" - Wolsey "Really. I agree. We stop" - Damascus Kali looks at Damascus "We'll go to England with her. If it's not too dangerous, we stay. But if it looks like it's continuing to escalate, we leave." - Wolsey Kali looks pained. "She's going to pass this on to you if this continues, you say. And if I'm right it'll be worse." - Wolsey "We'll talk about it" - Kali "Damn right we will. We ALL will. If it looks like she's just going to pass the buck onto you and risk all our lives doing it, for the sake of an artefact we don't need, the deal's off. Agreed?" - Wolsey (quietly) "Agreed" - Kali They head out and have Avatar paged - as it happens, just in time before her latenight flight to the UK boards. Avatar cautiously comes down to see them. "We'll go to Witchend. Now. I'll take us there - but..." - Wolsey He says that he's agreed to do it - not mentioning any of the conditions he's set on the others - if that's what she wants. He does, however, put the emphasis on the hurt

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it might cause Kali, and makes her promise to talk to Kali about it. Avatar stares at Wolsey, and agrees. Leaving the airport, finding an out-of-the-way place for Wolsey to do his work, they do so, appearing in the side-street next to the pub. The sudden time-shift forwards puts them into the next day, the morning of Saturday 13th August. "Remember. Be alert. We don't know what's here" - Wolsey Blinking in the sunshine, they head down the street and emerge onto the village green. There's a thunk of wood on ball, a small amount of polite applause, and a shiny red cricket ball lands at their feet. "Ah, excuse me" - man The voice is that of a tall, dark haired gent in cricket whites, jogging toward them. "Could we have our ball back?" - Man

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Session 6.2
Now then. Where were we? Yeah. All fondness for Trees made of Flesh aside, I prefer this half of the story. I think it's some of Wood's best work (Promethean excepted) and it fits with the themes of the Chronicle something powerful. It especially hooks nicely into Reign of the Exarchs III and IV. I get the impression that there was some disquiet at the emphasis on the power of Destiny in the story, but it was dispelled (heh) by the realisation that it's *deliberate*. Think of it this way - in the World of Darkness, "Fate" is a Supernal Arcana. All Fate comes from the Supernal Realms which means that if something is fated to happen it's because someone, somewhere (or something) wants it to happen. If you have a Destiny, someone gave it to you - maybe centuries before you were born, but they don't happen by accident. Which is either an encouraging thought or an utterly horrifying one. Because the people doing most of the giving are the Exarchs. Reign III will be the story after next, I hope, with Reign IV (Hi Matt!) integrated into the stories following it the same way Reign I turned into a subplot of story 3. Reign V can wait until such time in the future as the Chronicle needs to come to an end - but I'm in no particular hurry to get there.

Damascus picks up the cricket ball, and hands it back to the gentleman. The tall cricket-player smiles broadly, thanks them most awfully, and jogs back to his game. The four Americans look around them, jet-lagged by the sudden sunlight and weirded out by their almost offensively idyllic surroundings.
Remember that point about Jet-Lag - the characters have skipped an evening by teleporting across the Atlantic. They haven't slept, and by the end of this session when it's all getting emotionally fraught and there are eyeballs on the floor, everyone's feeling just a little bit like Jack Bauer.

"Where now?" - Wolsey "It's here. I know it's here." - Avatar, holding the Eyes of Salt as though they comfort her. "Can you find it?" - Wolsey Avatar tries, and frowns "No. I can't tell where it is." - Avatar "Why not?" - Damascus "Maybe it's warded..." (looks around) "We're looking for the entrance to some antediluvian storehouse, right? How many places could it be?" - Avatar
My half-assed 'explanation' for the Eyes of Salt, designed as a theory spouted at them by Ulysses during "Who Benefits?", was intended to give them half of a clue and half of a foiler. There is no Atlantean Storehouse, as you can probably guess. I am perversely fond of using 'Antediluvian' to describe ancient Mages and their artefacts, even if technically Querephas is postdiluvian, making and losing her kingdom in the post-Atlantis diaspora. In Conan terms she's Hyperborean. Such things fit perfectly into Mage - ancient landmasses that no longer exist and never existed, but which left behind scraps of knowledge. That can kill you. Question for Wood: when they heard her name, the characters commented that it "sounded Aztec". Given her whole heartripping shtick, was it intentional? What sort of culture did you envisage her coming from?

The village green, where cricket is being played in the morning sunshine, describes a long semi-rectangle. On one long side is the pub ("The Royal Arch") and a small shop, on the other a Church and a village hall. The short side to their left has a large flowerbed spelling out "500" in yellow flowers. "Bet it's under that" - Kali The short side to their right has a clock tower jutting out of the absolutely traffic-free roundabout that serves as the hub of the streets. The houses are sleepy, with a few thatched roofs. The cars are all expensive. A man wearing a red sweater walks past them, doffing his pipe and issuing them a

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cheery "morning!"
We're all English, so there's a little bit of exaggeration of Little England going on in the session, where all the "American" characters speak with our normal English accents, and the "English" characters speak like Bertie Wooster. It worked oddly well. Mark tried to play up Wolsey's American-ness, but accents... are not his forte.

"Alright. This... this is creepy" - Kali There is the clunk of willow on leather, and polite applause from the spectators of the cricket match. "Pub?" - Kali Everyone ignores her. "Okay. Well, if it's warded... Are we expecting Locals?" - Wolsey "Well, the village isn't deserted" - Kali "No, I mean Locals. With a Capital L. Like we were avoiding in Vegas?" - Wolsey "He means Mages" - Avatar "Oh" - Kali "What do you want to do?" - Damascus "We've been over this. I want to leave. Didn't want to be here, but it's not up to me." Wolsey "There are only so many places..." - Avatar
Mark : 'Basically, this is Wolsey establishing that while hell help in terms of aid towards the objectives set, he doesnt want to be part of deciding how to get there. Charitably, he knows hes biased, and hes reminding the others that his judgment shouldnt be trusted in this matter.'

Everyone stops as an old lady totters past "Good morning!" - Old lady "Morning!" - Everyone, faux-cheerfully "Under the 500?" - Kali "Or the church" - Damascus "Let's do footwork. The pub" - Wolsey "See, now you're coming around to my way of thinking" - Kali They advance upon the public house. "They'll take visa, won't they?" - Wolsey
Ah, youthful optimism. I had not considered the money question.

"You'd better do the talking, Damascus. My Boston accent might not go down well" Wolsey, half joking He considers, casts First Impressions, and decides to do the talking himself anyway.
Not for any tea-party reasons. In the UK, they're more likely to mistake him for Lloyd Grossman, which is truly a fate worse than death. Leading on from the notion of the characters going to an Anglican church, we talked about whether Avatar and Wolsey are Irish or English Bostonians genetically. Tom's probably English-descended while Amanda could be either, I

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believe.

The Royal Arch turns out to be cosy, warm in the August heat and light-years away from the Vegas bars they were in last (to them) night. The Cabal eye the indecipherable names on the pumps (Witch's Elbow, Harrier's Stump and so forth) and the pints of dark-coloured, foamless liquid people are drinking. Well, the men anyway. The pub seems to be playing host to the women's knitting circle. Wolsey, feeling brave, approaches the landlord and asks if they take cards. "I think I have the machine here somewhere, sir..." (looking at them) "Just arrived?" Landlord "That's right" - Wolsey "What brings you to Witchend?" - Landlord "We're... Seeking our roots. Looking into history. Do you have any records anywhere in the village, or..." - Wolsey "There's the museum, sure. But it's closed today. Open tomorrow." - Landlord "Well, great. Thanks" - Wolsey Four breakfasts are paid for using Wolsey's VISA, which is run up on an ancient cheque-writing device like a sliding guillotine. When the food arrives, plates heaped high with unidentified fried goods, Kali pokes at a black, rubbery disk on her plate. "What IS this?" - Kali "No idea" - Damascus "Well, you eat it" - Kali, flicking the black pudding onto Damascus' plate
Aw. They're so cute together. I *like* black pudding, too. Congealed-Blood sausage for the win

They chew, and consider the quest for information and local knowledge. Wolsey eyes the knitting circle at the other end of the room. "Kali" - Wolsey "Yeeeeees?" - Kali "...This needs a woman" - Wolsey "You're under the mistaken impression that I'm female" - Kali "... Back me up here, Damascus?" - Wolsey "Yeah, she's lying" - Damascus "Still not doing it" - Kali
In a rambling ooc conversation that resulted about whether the goodwives of Witchend would be more phased by Kali or Avatar's appearances - Avatar's a punkette, remember - it emerged that Kali has started putting her hair into locks. This minor piece of characterisation brought to you by the department for exacting minutiae.

So, they try the Landlord again. He seems to know a fair amount. Wolsey opens the conversation with the trophy sitting on the pub's mantelpiece, which turns out to be for the village winning best floral display in the county 2006 for their five-centennial flowerbed. "So it's 500 years since the village was founded?" - Wolsey "That's right, sir." - Landlord Overhearing this, Kali mutters to the other two about how that might be significant. 500 is an awfully round number, and it's bound to have some meaning somewhere. Damascus asks about the name of the pub, and learns that the Royal Arch is an old bridge out in the woods.

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From outside, there's another clattering of applause as the cricket match continues. Wolsey looks up. "The Reverend. He's our star player" - Landlord, approvingly "That so?" - Wolsey "Oh yes. Best since Mr Smith" - Landlord Wolsey goes back to the others.
Wrong island

"Anyway. There's the museum, but it's not open until tomorrow." - Wolsey He calls over to the landlord again "Excuse me? Is there anywhere to stay in the village?" - Wolsey "Well, if you have a tent, there's the green, I suppose" - Landlord "Is there anywhere we can buy one without going into Reading?" - Wolsey "Ah... no. If you need somewhere to stay, you could always go to the church and ask after services. Someone's bound to have a spare room or two" - Landlord "Thanks" - Wolsey He turns back to the others, and immediately suggests that they portal back to DC and (maybe) come back tomorrow. Avatar just as immediately says that he can leave if he wants to but that she's staying until she finishes this. "Well. I think we've exhausted the pub" - Wolsey, not entirely happy at the above. They head back out into the sunshine, and watch cricket for a while. Something about the setting and surroundings - the old lady pruning her rosebushes, the deckchairs for the spectators, the arcane rules of the game they're watching, the quaintness of the surrounding houses or maybe just the fact that none of them have burglar alarms - puts the Cabal in a slightly out-of-time mood. It's like the 50s never ended. The tall man who asked for his ball back makes what the ignorant Americans interpret as some kind of home run, sending the ball flying past the group. He jogs over to retrieve it, and smiles broadly at them as he approaches. "Still here?" - Man "That's right" - Wolsey "Tristan Jones" - Man, sticking out his hand. They shake "What brings you to Witchend?" - Tristan "We're seeking our roots" - Wolsey, giving the same explanation as in the pub Tristan retrieves the ball and says that they're going to take a break for church and then lunch in a bit. The foursome are welcome to join everyone else. They watch the cricket "It's Anglican, right? That's like Episcopalian?" - Damascus

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"Something like that" - Avatar "Don't they handle snakes? At some point I have to fight a snake" - Kali "Are there snakes in England?" - Wolsey "Didn't St Patrick drive them all out?" - Damascus The cricket match begins to disperse, and the spectators mingle with the players. Tristan, in the far distance, is talking animatedly to a short, bespectacled man. Gradually, the crowd begins to move towards the church. The Cabal look around. People are coming from all over the village, walking leisurely to church. As they watch, the pub empties of inhabitants - the landlord flipping the card "closed" sign up on the door as he leaves last. He doesn't lock the door. It seems that everyone in Witchend is observant. No exceptions. The Cabal, even more weirded out, trail in everyone's wake. "This is the point where they turn out to all have white-haired children" - Wolsey He stops dead, and after a few seconds the other three do as well, looking quizzically at him. "No children. Look around. There aren't any children." - Wolsey They look around, "Maybe they eat them" - Kali They approach the church. Posters pinned to it's external noticeboard advertise for village ftes and vegetable competitions, the Women's Institute and an Alpha Course. They head inside, where they find that Tristan the cricket player turns out to be Tristan the Vicar "I don't know much about religion, but you don't think..." - Kali "Kali. I'm not sure where you think you are, maybe deepest darkest Africa rather than ENGLAND..." - Wolsey Baby-eating discarded, though, Wolsey starts observing those around him, looking for tell-tale signs of cult-like behaviour. The Reverend kissing a woman in the audience gives a moment of pause, before they realise that she must be his wife. Church of England, after all. Damascus takes in the differences between this House and Ulysses' Catholic church back in DC. It's a lot smaller, for a start, and much less formal. The organ isn't used, though there's a woman with an unfortunate mane of dirty blond hair that owns an acoustic guitar and isn't afraid to use it. The Reverend Jones is still wearing his Cricket trousers while giving the sermon, which is itself rather right-on and touchyfeely. There is bad, m'kay? And good? All in all, there's a rather Manichean viewpoint being expressed behind all the Jesusloves-you fluffiness. Wolsey notes that the Reverend has a very dualistic view of the world - more like a Zoroastrian than a Christian - and can't shake the feeling that this should be reminding him of something.

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The Reverend then starts in on the subject of Witchcraft, and how it's a sin. How it's practitioners could be forgiven if they repented, but how magic ultimately dooms the soul of the magician. And, they note, he glances at them while he says it. Kali casts Ring Sight and wishes she hadn't. The entire village, the church and most especially the Reverend are bathed in Taint. The Reverend has the strongest taint she's seen on anyone bar Seraph.
Unfortunately, they all missed him noticing her noticing him.

She starts to try to alert the others to the fact that the Vicar is probably a Seer of the Throne via the medium of cunning hand signals. Wolsey and Damascus stare at her uncomprehendingly until she finally whispers the awful truth to them. At which point, Reverend Jones asks if anyone wishes to receive the Holy Spirit. As a handful of people get up and kneel at the front of the church, Wolsey's religion/cult-ometer goes into overdrive. When people begin to shake and fall over spouting Glossolalia, he has it - the Toronto Blessing. He whispers to the others that it started in Canada, these fusions of Christianity and possession-based religions. Those having the ecstatic fits often reveal random pieces of wisdom... An old lady totters to her feet and in a serious, piping little voice proclaims that the Hour Is At Hand before falling back into her chair.
The use of Glossolalia - speaking in tongues - as a symbolic watchword for Seer of the Throne activity goes back to Seraph's House of Stone. Really, it goes back to my love for The Invisibles, about which there will be more next story (when I really.. oh, you'll see). I was pleased by it's inclusion twice over in this instalment of Reign of the Exarchs - in many ways, it's the link between the two halves of this story. The Trees and the Village are both smokescreens built up around the item being sought, and it's removal sends both of them mad.

Eventually, the service finishes and the population troop back out again. The Reverend - the Seer - kisses his wife goodbye and goes back out to his Cricket match. The Cabal walk towards the clocktower, watching the game. And Reverend Jones who's trying his best not to watch them, and not be quite so open about being terrified of them. "You're sure?" - Damascus "Sure as I can be" - Kali "So there's a Seer here. Someone had to cast the Ward." - Avatar "Capital L" - Damascus "Yup" - Avatar Kali's phone rings. She answers it, curious as to who could be phoning her in another country when she doesn't have roaming on her cell, and hears an Englishman's voice saying "I think it's time we had a chat" before she promptly hangs up. "Okay. Now they're just trying to worry us" - Kali "You say he's scared?" - Avatar "Terrified" - Kali "Then they're bluffing" - Avatar Thinking, Kali casts Augury, trying to divine what would happen if she went for 'a chat'. She gets a mental image of herself in some kind of small sitting room, and of a strange little man putting pills in a cup of tea before handing it to her. 303

She reports this. Wolsey has a theory, which fits all the available facts. "The Robe hides things from the sight of the Exarchs, right? That's why I think this place is like this. This isn't England, it's some idea of England in the past. Something's keeping the modern world from intruding on this village, hiding it from the twenty-first century..." - Wolsey
Good theory. One I liked so much (and couldn't remember off hand from the book whether it's right or not) that I neither confirm nor deny it, even unto the end. ETA: Yup. Just found it. He's right.

"The Robe hides things from the Exarchs, not from the world" - Damascus "Maybe they're using it to power something. Maybe - and I know I'm horribly mangling the intricacies of magic here - it's the battery they're running their little Utopia off?" - Wolsey The same pullover-wearing chap as greeted them earlier walks past "Oh hello! Still here? What brings you to our village?" - man Wolsey repeats the "Seeking our roots" line, narrowing his eyes. Five minutes later, an old lady asks the same question. "They're trying to *scare* us! They're putting on a show" (rolls the Eyes of Salt around in her hand) "They want you to leave without a fight. Look how scary they are - they have pullover man and the little old lady as puppets" - Avatar, contemptuously. Damascus' phone rings. "Don't answer it" - Kali He answers it. "Hello?" - Damascus "I think it's time we had a chat, don't you?" Man

"I entirely agree" - Damascus, looking around the others "Meet me at the village hall" - Man The Cabal talk about it for a few minutes, and decide to bait the Lion in it's den. Let's see where this goes. They walk back the way they came, towards the village hall on the far side of the church. As they near it, a thin-faced middle-aged woman with a severe bobbed haircut steps into their path. Wolsey sighs, sensing another "why are you here?" oncoming. "Leave" - Woman "Excuse me?" - Damascus

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(addressing Kali) "It would be better for everyone if you just *left*. Now." - Woman, replete with repressed anger. She gets out of their way and they continue. Wolsey casting a mental shield upon himself just before they go in. You can never be too careful, after all.
The woman is 'Miss Ryden' - the third of the three Seers in the village (the second and the one on the phone being Mr Evans, the little bespectacled man they saw from a distance earlier) and the one-woman Hawk faction.

Heading inside the building, they're met by the man they saw Reverend Jones talking to, who introduces himself as "Mr Evans". "I'm, uh.. the head of the um.. village council, if you will" - Evans Kali recognises the man she saw in a possible near future, drugging her. He leads them through the village hall itself, explaining that it's set up for the amateur dramatics society "We're doing the Death of a Salesman this year. Do you know much about the theatre?" - Evans "Nothing but Miller" - Wolsey
The Cabal's name is "Crucible". heh. And Death of a Salesman is *by* Miller, same as Crucible is. Note, also, that Wolsey from the vicinity of Salem himself.

"Last year it was Waiting for Godot. I didn't enjoy that so much. And before that the Caucasian Chalk Circle. I'm not too fond of Brecht, though" - Evans
Ah, the Caucasian Chalk Circle. I was Shauva, in case you're wondering. Sam accused me of referencing every play she studied for English classes - not so, I was referencing every play I've ever *been* in. Well, with the exception of a trilogy of high-school Comeddia Del'Artes I was in where I played Panteloni (the rough precursor to Mr Punch). I didn't think they were Witchend's cup of tea. Brecht plays - of which Caucasian Chalk Circle is one - constantly remind the audience that they're not real but only represent reality, in the hope of getting across to the audience that their own worldviews are just as mutable. Which would be why a Seer doesn't like it. As for the parallels between the plots of the three plays and this chronicle.. get ye to Wikipedia. Pay especial attention to CCC and Death of a Salesman. Aaaaaaaaaanyway, getting away from theatre studies, Mr Evans is well illustrated in Reign of the Exarchs but for purposes of this tale (and this is one for a select group of UK readers) I reckon he looks like [link=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/presenters/1785118.stm]Declan[/link] the business correspondent from BBC breakfast news. Mark knows who I mean. For the other two players, I fell back on a mutual acquaintance of ours that looks exactly like the illustration in the book. Seriously, it's uncanny. I half-expect to find out that he's moved to a sleepy village in Buckinghamshire...

Evans leads them to the far side of the hall and into the back foyer, where they see the door to the village museum (very closed). He takes them the other way, through a small meeting room and finally winding up at his "office", which turns out to be the comfortable little room Kali remembers, with four armchairs, a coffee table, bookshelves and slightly aging stripy wallpaper. Evans is polite, earnest and non-threatening throughout. Based on Kali's precognition they refuse tea while Evans explains calmly and patiently that it would be better for everyone if they just left the village and never came back. Give up the quest, for it will only cause them grief. Avatar looks half-asleep in her chair, and Kali is frowning. Damascus and Wolsey's mental shields are made of sterner stuff, and they quickly ascertain that the room they're in is some kind of psychic resonator, an artefact designed for low-grade

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brainwashing. Rumbled, Evans says that he had not really expected it to work and apologises. "It's intricately designed" - Damascus "The work of my predecessor, Mr Smith" - Evans "He must have been quite a man" - Wolsey "He was.. but now it's up to me" - Evans But he reiterates his point - he knows what they're here to do, and if they do it disaster will strike. He believes that the village deserves to live more than they deserve to ride in and do what they want. Wolsey calls for a group meeting and the Cabal go into the next room. Now the stakes are known. "If we take it, the protection it gives the village will vanish. This place will be crushed beneath the modern world" - Wolsey "Is that such a bad thing?" - Avatar Well, that depends. On whether you think that this place is real or not. Wolsey is of the opinion that it's a "crock", a false illusion of an England-gone-by created by the proximity of the Exarch's vestment. And Wolsey, after all, specialises in shattering false realities. Countering that, though, is the simple fact that he still doesn't agree with the mission in the first place. He puts in another bid to give up and go home.
Which, aside from being another reiteration of his position - one which he holds to throughout this session and which will inform the next half of his character arc, brings us nicely back to the core theme of Mage: The Awakening. It's *all* lies. All of it.

"Well, these Seers.." - Kali "They're nothing. Apprentices, trying to maintain what their mentor created. They're in the shadow of this 'Smith'." - Wolsey "I meant how do we know they're Seers, anyway? For all we know, they could be a group of Pentacle Mages that have decided to build a Utopia for themselves. And how do they know disaster will strike? Oh, and by the way - you can come out from the doorway" - Kali "The Lords of the Aeon told us" - Evans, from the doorway
Rumbled!

So, definitely a Seer then. "How many of you are there? Is it just you and the Reverend?" - Wolsey "...yes" - Evans Wolsey listens to the single word, then shakes his head "Liar" - Wolsey "All right. One other - I'm sorry. I didn't dissemble to hurt you, I swear. Quite the reverse. The Lords speak to us in metaphors and visions, the garbled prophecies in the church and half-remembered dreams. We know that you have come seeking your roots from far away" (looks at Kali) "and that you bring disaster. The.. ah.. the Lords..

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Well... What I mean to say is... They were more specific than I am saying in regard to what to do about you. In fact, they intimated.. or at least it was clearly interpreted as being... Uh... To kill you." (quickly) "But I'm certain there's another way of doing it. A way of settling things peacefully..." - Evans
The prophecy was literally "one with roots far away". Which ties in nicely with Wolsey's claim to be "seeking their roots" to the villagers. The Seers know that the doom-bringer is female, and assume that it's Kali.

"And your third colleague does not agree?" - Damascus "That's right" - Evans, mopping his brow. "Look. This place is special, I know that. And I think it's worth saving, so..." - Evans "Prove it" - Wolsey "Excuse me?" - Evans "We'll make you a deal. Show us your village. Show us your community. Prove to us that it's real, and worth leaving alone." - Wolsey Evans blinks, and considers. "Done! Yes, certainly. I knew! I knew we could be reasonable about this. No one is going to have to be hurt" - Evans They say that they'll need somewhere to stay - preferably together - and Evans promises to find spare rooms and such. For now, though, he bids them a good afternoon, as he has to tell his Pylon what the plan is - and persuade them that this is a good idea. The Cabal, therefore, go back to the pub. Avatar goes to get the drinks in, and Wolsey asks the others if they're sure they can't back out now. In any case, he says, they should leave off any attempts to *find* the Robe until... At the other end of the bar, Avatar is trying to persuade the landlord to let her see the beer cellar. "Oh, for God's sake" - Wolsey Damascus smoothly provides the reason, expressing an interest in architecture of the old building. They're gone for just long enough to find no robe whatsoever. "So we're agreed that..." - Wolsey "...Once it's dark, we head to the clock tower, right?" - Avatar They stare one another down across the table.
Doooooooooooomed

"...You're discounting the obvious place of the museum" - Damascus

There's no real argument at that, because she was - simply because that's where it was, and me not wanting the npc to solve the plot. A case of being caught-out by a player, there.

Wolsey realises that none of the others are going to get through tonight without going

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looking for the Robe, no matter what they've told the Seers and shaken hands on. Once Avatar gets up again, he looks around the other two "Can we put this to a vote? The three Cabal members only? To decide if we're going to honour the spirit of our agreement with these people or go Robe-hunting? I'm against continuing - you know that." - Wolsey "..I'm for." - Damascus "Can I ask why?" - Wolsey
In a 180 from the airport last session

"...See, you're right Wolsey... This place is a crock." - Damascus They turn to Kali, who tries to abstain but is pressed into coming down on one side or the other. Eventually, she declares herself "for", which means that while the Seers think they're making progress persuading them to leave, the Cabal will in fact be Robe-hunting. "Doesn't Avatar get a vote, though?" - Kali "No. Not like we don't know how she'd vote, anyway." - Wolsey Kali checks his future. The Doom is upon him. She stares at him as Avatar, oblivious, returns to the table. Kali blinks first. Evans phones with news of where they're staying - the Grandmother Hills has died, he says, so there's a spare bedroom in that house, while the family Wilson's twin teenagers are off at boarding school, giving another two beds. The last will be provided by Evans himself, as he couldn't get another spare room on no notice. The Cabal divvy it up. Evans tries to nudge them into having Kali stay with him, but Wolsey declares that he's going to do it. Damascus and Kali will take the twins' room while Avatar is sleeping in the old lady's bed. Avatar makes sure that Damascus and Kali intend on aiding and abetting her treasure-hunt tonight, and they say that they are. Wolsey says that he'll keep Evans distracted.
Wolsey is quite enamoured of Evans' plan at this stage. Besides, he gave his word.

... Later on, and Damascus and Kali are shown to the bedroom by the Wilsons, who seem fascinated by their exotic appearances "I always feel like I'm letting them down by not having a bone through my nose" Damascus Kali isn't listening to him, though - she's examining the room. Star-charts hanging from the ceiling. Football posters. Star Wars bedding. "Bagsie Darth Maul" - Kali, referring to the duvet covers

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... Mr Evans and Wolsey , meanwhile, are taking a stroll around the green on their way back to Evans' house. Evans has just finished pointing out some feature of the scenery, when Wolsey drops the question. "Why are you a Seer?" - Wolsey "I... Uh..." - Evans Wolsey waits. "I was young when I went... elsewhere... not out of my Teens. It was years - years before I met anyone else with the power. That power was always shameful to me, something that I shouldn't be proud of. Anyway, while I was at University I met Smith, and he inducted me. I fell in love with his village while visiting him here, and ended up staying" - Evans "I'm sorry. I'm sure you had your reasons" - Wolsey. "I love this place, do you understand? Love it. And this" (waves hand around) "isn't magical. It's special, to be sure, and I've spent my life protecting it. But I'm proud justifiably proud - that I don't use the Power most times, and nothing more than a nudge when I do. Tristan calls the overt use of Power 'Cheating'" - Evans "That seems the phrase he'd use" - Wolsey "Miss Ryden, of course, wants me to use the fullest of my abilities, but.. I cannot shake the feeling that it's because she doesn't have those abilities nearly as advanced herself. Does that make sense?" - Evans "Yes, it does." - Wolsey "If I may say so, you're not all bad for a potential enslaver of mankind." - Evans "Isn't that my line?" - Wolsey "I suppose, but you'd be wrong. In anything there are rules, and there is good and evil, but... Let me try to explain. I think I have the measure of you - you're the sort of man who enjoys tearing away veils, am I right? You want to shatter the world of everyone in it and show them the true way, which invariably has you at the top" Evans "It doesn't necessarily have me at the top" - Wolsey Evans looks at him "I believe you. But I wouldn't believe most of your people. Have you considered that people may be happier in this world than in yours?" - Evans "I have" - Wolsey
But as he said to the Cabal.. oh, quite a few sessions ago, he's in the business of revealing truth. Not 'making people happy'.

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Wolsey doesn't give three shits for 'happy'

... They eventually make it to Evans' living room. Wolsey refuses wine. Politely. "That would be the philosophical question, then, wouldn't it? You want to tear the world down and leave anarchy in it's wake. I think that this world is beautiful, and that the Lords have made a world worth saving rather than ripping apart in pique at finding that the universe does not revolve around you" - Evans "I think... that on this score we're going to simply have to agree to disagree" - Wolsey "Your Indian friend will not stop, I fear, until she has her prize, no matter what the consequences" - Evans
It's interesting that Evans identifies Kali as being 'Indian' - American characters tend to identify her mixed-race as 'black'.

"My Indian... Ah. No. No. It's the other one you need to worry about. The greenhaired woman." - Wolsey "Really?" - Evans "Really" - Wolsey, firmly They sit back for a while "...I would honestly like to leave this place to itself, but I can't force my friends. If she can be persuaded, then she'll drop the quest and the other two will to." - Wolsey "I.. um... that is.... I... I... I mean We... I mean I... could try to 'persuade' her" - Evans "Is that persuade with a capital P?" - Wolsey, meaning Magic "It.. uh.." - Evans "Because I cant tell you what to do here - do you understand that? I can't go against my Cabal" - Wolsey "Though if we were to... persuade... the young lady..?" - Evans "Then I wouldn't complain" - Wolsey
This is... something of a betrayal here. Not only has Wolsey identified Avatar as being the one the Seers need to stop, but he's given his tacit approval - and made sure that Evans knows what he's doing - to having the Seers 'persuade' her to drop the quest. Desperate times, and all - and I think that given what happens later, Wolsey wishes he'd been able to go further than this.

They compare philosophies for a while longer, then agree to disagree. Wolsey, feeling very tired indeed, goes to bed. A short time later, Wolsey hears the front door. Evans has left the building. Sighing, Wolsey gets himself back up and prepares to follow the Seer. Kali and Damascus hear a pebble hit their window, and look out to see Avatar down below. "Still coming?" - Avatar 310

"Yeah. Hang on" - Kali They climb out of the window like teenagers slipping out of curfew, and the three of them head toward the village hall. They head towards the museum and - casting Incognito Presence - pick the lock, creeping through the village hall. When they reach the back-foyer, they hear voices and see a light coming from Mr Evans' clarity room. The voice isn't Evans, though it's a woman. The woman who confronted them earlier. "You know what to do?" - Ryden They look around and determine that they've not been spotted yet - although there's a CCTV camera pointing at them (the first security device they've seen in the village). Kali opens the door to the museum. It's not even locked.
Mark at this point was heard to utter "Bet it has Roman Coins"...

The museum has a number of old objects... China dinner services, flintlock muskets, a Tyndale bible... A collection of Roman Coins!
That last said in the style of the Generation Game's Cuddly Toy. Gods, you Americans must be lost this recap. The UK setting has made me break out the obscure references something rotten.

And a Penny Farthing bicycle. Damascus looks at the wall behind the bicycle while closing the door to the museum behind them. "Have you noticed how hard that door's trying to not be noticed?" - Damascus
Uncrowned Kings Legacy 1, Secret door with Incognito Presence cast on it, Nil.

... Wolsey, meanwhile, has followed Evans as far as... the village hall, actually! The Seer goes inside, while Wolsey creeps around the outside, masked with potent mind magic.
Essentially another use of the ubiquitous Incognito Presence. Good spell, that. Handy.

... Both Wolsey outside the window and the others inside the museum hear the shouting-match as Evans finds Ryden using his Clarity Room. From what they can hear, Ryden does not agree with Evans' tactic of appeasement and peaceful negotiation with the outsiders. She wants the Pylon to use their powers, take control and drive the interlopers out. Evans raises his voice right back at her, saying that to do so would break the principles they've operated under for years... "I have given MY ENTIRE LIFE TO THIS PLACE! MY ENTIRE LIFE! I HATE IT HERE! THIS.. JOKE! BUT I WILL NOT SEE THAT SACRIFICE THROWN AWAY BECAUSE YOU'RE AFRAID!" - Ryden

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"I... THE SCREEN!" - Evans Clearly, the gang inside the museum have been caught on camera. Damascus hefts the cabinet containing Witchend's prize collection of Roman Coins and jams it against the door, while the girls shove the bike out of the way and work on getting the inner door open. They retreat / advance into the inner room, the outer door rattling as Evans tries to open it against the weight of the cabinet, pleading with them to not do "it". Inside the dark inner gallery (Kali draws a gun and half-closes the secret door) there's a collection of odd occult items - stuffed remnants of a rain of fish, a crucified toad, an idol of a three-eyed fish-monster, a rat king and the head of St John the Baptist among others.
Another question, Wood - is the idol meant to be Dagon or a Sea Devil from Doctor Who?

At the back of the room, though, there's a glass case. Pinned up against a scrap of sackcloth is the Robe of the Dethroned Queen. More of a cloak than a robe, it's made of cloth-of-gold with an embossed edging, six metal plates of varying size with Atlantean runes pressed into them sewn onto the back. The fabric is an endless, complex amalgamation of thousands of Atlantean runes, as though the Robe describes a single, incredibly complex Word. Kali stares at it, not hearing the crunch from the other room as Evans uses Telekinesis to smash the Cabinet out of the way.
He's desperate enough to use Vulgar magic now.

The Robe is the odd cloak she saw her own Astral Self wearing, just after she was defeated by her dream-father.
Back in "Not the Same Person". I don't think it's a spoiler now to say that the veil-like thing the same dream-projection was wearing was the Crown of the Dethroned Queen

"That's it?" - Damascus "That's it" - Kali and Avatar simultaneously "Well, that was easy. What exactly did we need the Eyes and the Heart for, again?" Damascus Kali starts to conjecture about how they were pointers or map markers or something, while Avatar picks up the head of Saint John the Baptist and hurls it at the case, shattering it. She grabs the Robe and pulls it out, laughing in exultation. "NO!" - Evans, from outside "Stay away!" - Kali, covering the door "Please! You have to put it BACK!" - Evans "I'm warning you!" - Kali Need a door?

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The last is a mental projection from Wolsey, who's still outside. Concentrating all his Will on Pandemonium, focusing on his connection to the three inside, Wolsey does in ten seconds what he'd prefer to do in thirty minutes and tears Space into a Portal. The Cabal evacuate from the museum, jumping out into the night air next to him.
I rule - and I'm not aware if this is right or not, but don't really mind either way - that the time per roll for Extended Spells is the time-gap *between* rolls. That is, you make the first one when you start. The upshot is that if you spend willpower and you can achieve as many successes as you need for your Imago on the FIRST roll, without using High Speech (which adds half an hour of preamble) the spell goes off nearly-instantly. Too slowly for combat rounds, but fast enough for this sort of tense scene.

"NOW can we go home?" - Wolsey, harshly "Yes" - Avatar Evans and Ryden come running from one direction. Jones (who's been in the church, which they're standing next to) from the other. "Now, that wasn't fair play, was it?" - Jones Kali points her gun at him, and then at Ryden, warning them off.
Note, though, that she doesn't intend to fire - I don't think, anyway. Not since Seraph. Sam: 'Exactly right Kali never intended to actually shoot anyone. She realised it would make a good intimidation tactic, however, since they were already terrified of them. Note later how much agonising she does over shooting Avatar explained below.'

"Please. That Robe brings only disaster. We've guarded it - we're used to it. Leave it here" - Evans Kali points the gun at him, and he immediately (and rather tragi-comically) puts his hands up "Please" - Evans "Give it back" - Ryden, dangerously Wolsey looks into Evans eyes.. and sees something unexpected. The Seer *wants* them to leave. He wants rid of it - the rod off his back, the responsibility gone. When he's pleading, he's not entirely pleading for them to return it. Feeling like he's on his last legs, opens the strongest and safest Portal he can - the one home, to the Sanctum. "Go" - Kali Avatar doesn't look back, jumping through to DC, the Robe bundled up against her chest. Wolsey and Damascus step through, and Kali last. The Portal closes as Wolsey dismantles the Imago, cutting Ryden's scream of frustration and denial off. .

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Everyone takes a breath. Wolsey glares daggers at Avatar and the others, and begins to work on Destroy the Threads, erasing the connection between them and Witchend. While he's working, Kali's cell phone beeps - while she was in England, she missed a call. Ichi left a message asking her to give him a call back. She does so, gets his* voicemail and leaves a similar message. "..Okay. Done. Now wha.." - Wolsey Avatar has put the Robe on. She breathes in, and calmly out. "It's finished" - Avatar She takes the robe off and holds it out to Kali "This belongs to you, now" - Avatar "I don't want it" - Kali (amused) "you don't want it?" - Avatar "I don't want it. Or only half want it." - Kali "Then you're an idiotic little girl, that needs to decide what she wants" - Avatar
Sam: 'Kali only wants it because it will hide her from the Exarchs, which will somewhat mitigate her being an unwilling Mage and really doesnt want it at all, because it still doesnt help her not wanting to be a Mage'

Kali hangs the robe roughly on a hatstand, and turns back to Avatar. Avatar herself closes her eyes, as though listening to something. "Well?" - Wolsey, harshly "It's... gone." (smiles) "It's over. It's all... done. No more Train" - Avatar Her body language shifts, standing more upright as though a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. Kali activates a Mage Sight, and watches the pieces of Avatars destiny slide around her pattern, cancelling one another out and resolving themselves. Whatever it was she was meant to do, she's clearly done it. "So. Are we done now? Is this going to happen again?" - Wolsey Avatar smiles coldly and condescendingly at him. "No, Wolsey. I won't need to do that again" - Avatar
She never calls him 'Wolsey' when they're among friends

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Damascus casts a Mage Sight of his own, and sees strange things happening to Avatars mind - like it's expanding, or decompressing. She looks languidly around them, a definite sense of superiority in the room. "Are you sure? Because this has been an eventful couple of days. If you're sure this won't ever happen again..." - Wolsey "I will do as I see fit" - Avatar "I mean to say" (emphasis) "that if we can trust you not to do this again there's still a place for you here. Otherwise, I think it'd be better if you found another Cabal. We'll help you, of course..." - Wolsey "There's no need for that" - Kali "No. He's right. If I'm not needed in this Cabal, then I'll be on my way" - Avatar She walks towards the exit, and puts her hand on the door handle. . . "Avatar" - Damascus, breaking his silence. She turns to look at him, like he's beneath her. "The Eyes of Salt. In your pocket." - Damascus "What about them?" - Avatar, smiling "They were put into this Cabal's trust. Hand them over" - Damascus She takes her hand off the door handle, and smiles more coldly "No" - Avatar . . Wolsey looks from one to the other, horrified as realisation dawns.
Mark: 'Wolsey knew what was going on far before this Im sure Id made a Dice roll on the body language, along with her calling Wolsey Wolsey. If I had any horrified expression it was due to this kicking off over the eyes of salt rather then anything else.'

. . "The Eyes" - Damascus "Belong to me. I have nothing but respect for you, Damascus. You have helped me, and I don't want to fight." - Avatar

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"I have my Duty" - Damascus . . Wolsey motions frantically at Kali, demanding silently that she give him the gun still tucked into her belt. She hesitates, looking at him like he's mad, but he eventually succeeds in getting her to hand it over.
Sam: 'Kali doesnt want to shoot Avatar she agonised over both shooting her herself, and giving the gun to Wolsey, forever. She knows who she is, but to her its still Avatar (relatively) and she cant shoot Avatar! Also, Kali is getting sick of shooting people as a way to solve all her problems. A little attack of compassion or conscience there, then? Kali refused at first to give Wolsey the gun because it would implicate her in i.e. stain her with the responsibility of the potential death of a friend. Kali, she is learning.)'

. . "Well then. Do your Duty, Damascus" - Avatar, once again with that condescending smile. . . "Give us the Eyes, Cxaxa" - Damascus, dangerously She does not deny it.
Chills, I tell you! Chills! One of Rafe's standout moments, this. But not as much as this.

Querephas gives Damascus a choice Curse in what is presumably her native language. Damascus rejoinders with the Atlantean swearword he learnt that one time. They eye one another like gunfighters at the OK corral. Wolsey looks at the thing wearing his wife's face. And shoots it in the head. Querephas suddenly does not appear to be exactly where she was, and the bullet impacts into the wall behind her. She's Untouchable. All pretence dropped, she surveys the trio. Damascus cautious, trying to draw her attention away from the others almost subconsciously. Wolsey, the gun shaking in his hand. Kali, looking aghast from Wolsey to her, realising what's happening. She gestures, and the metal of the gun suddenly becomes red-hot. Wolsey drops it with a clang, his hands burnt and bleeding. Querephas' Nimbus bursts out, a howling, freezing wind whipping around them all. At the same time, Damascus gets a whack in with his hammer, and Querephas looks surprised and angered to actually be hurt.
Rafe succeeded on a chance die, there.

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Everyone takes a step back in their various directions. . . Pause . . And reality ripples as the spells start to go off.
Initiative Order! Querephas (which is her name. "Cxaxa" is her title, according to Wood), then Kali and Wolsey together, then Damascus.

First, the 'buffing'. Querephas casts Ward around herself. Kali casts Exceptional Luck on herself. Damascus considers his Hammer and casts Armour-Piercing on it. "KALI! THE OTHER GUN!" - Wolsey, running towards the kitchen Querephas casts Ban on her own Ward, putting another barrier between herself and the Cabal. Kali pulls her other gun out of it's holster and opens fire to no effect - the bullets aren't even getting stopped by Querephas' Mage Armour, but impact on the Ban, which is clearly versus metal. Wolsey, in the Kitchen, thinks desperately. Fortunately, after the Terrible Couscous incident of June 2006, the Cabal keep a bucket handy. He begins to fill it with water.
He intends to pour it onto the red-hot gun. Which might not be the best course of action, but then he isn't really thinking straight. The T.C.C.I is a reference to a one-liner by Kali some sessions ago.

Querephas, safe inside her layers of protective spells, takes a deep breath and plunges her thumbs deep into her own eyes, screaming something unintelligible in Atlantean as she pulls her own eyes out, jelly and blood running down her cheeks. Damascus knew what the Eyes of Salt were for. He Knew. Kali pauses in horror. Wolsey runs back in, bucket half-filled, to the terrible sight of Querephas inserting the Eyes of Salt into her own ruined sockets. The stone eyes knit to her, staring unblinking at the Cabal as she hisses in mixed pain and triumph. "GOD! NO!" - Wolsey Wolsey's knees give way beneath him and he collapses, falling onto his hands and staring, horrified, at the scene.
Good bit of roleplaying here, which is an understatement. I can't quite get across the truly horrified, plaintive way Mark shouted that line. My name is Thomas Dean. And this is the Worst Day of my Life...

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. Pause, broken only by Wolsey sobbing. . . Querephas, smiling all the while now with that damnable smile, sinks to her knees as though mocking Wolsey. She carefully takes the Heart of Flies out of her inner jacket pocket and puts it on the floor between her knees before tearing her shirt open, buttons ripping off as she does so. Kali and Damascus, while she's taking her time, look at one another grimly. Weapons. They both cast about themselves, looking for anything - anything - they can use. Kali's eyes alight on the hatstand. Damascus' on the bucket. Kali casts Lucky Coin on the Hatstand. Damascus, on the other hand, grabs the Bucket and transmutes the liquid inside from water to gasoline. Before throwing it over Querephas. Wolsey tries to crawl to his feet and fails. He just.. can't.
He's out of Willpower now, completely destroyed.

Kali grabs the Hatstand, the Robe of the Dethroned Queen falling forgotten to the floor as Kali wields the wooden pole like a spear. Querephas begins to cut into her chest with her fingernail, a long vertical incision over her heart. Damascus raises his Hammer and smacks it into the ground, grabbing the pattern of the floorboards and twisting one particular aspect of them - his Alter Conductivity spell turns the floorboard running under Querephas into an electrical conductor, running straight to the mains line behind the wall. Say hello to the 21st Century, Querephas. Querephas' back arches as she screams, muscles spasming as she tries to break free. Kali swings at her with the hatstand - which goes through the ward but bounces off the Mage Armour. The electricity ignites the gasoline, and Querephas has even more problems. Screaming, she makes an agonised gesture. The lights go out, bulbs popping as Querephas uses Forces magic to force the Lightning away from herself. Querephas, still on fire, shudders horribly as she tries to focus enough to put the flames out as well.

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Damascus attempts to find a wooden object he can use as Kali stops trying to attack Querephas. She smacks the hatstand down on the floor like a hockey stick, and swipes it sideways. The Heart Full of Flies skids across the floor like the world's most gruesome puck. Querephas gets the fire out, breathing raggedly and bleeding from the not-finished wound on her chest, staring with stone eyes at the Heart as it slides out of her grasp. . . Wolsey finds his feet, dragging himself up by a chair. Face bloodshot, eyes screwed tight, he hits Querephas in the face with it. Querephas falls to the ground, unconscious. Wolsey, sobbing, raises the chair to cave her skull in, but Damascus frantically casts a Mage Armour on her causing him to miss. "Call for help!" - Kali Wolsey hollers something unintelligible at Damascus while making a second swing. "SHE'S *POSSESSED*, NOT DEAD! CALL SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP!" Damascus Wolsey staggers backwards, dropping the chair. He falls against the wall, fumbles for the door handle and stumbles outside. Damascus and Kali regard the Heart Full of Flies. Damascus casts Analyse Magic Item on it, determining that - like the Eyes - it's a component of a greater whole, unfinished and waiting for something. Now that they're in the same room, though, he also learns what he learnt in the meantime. The other two pieces of the jigsaw are the Eyes and Avatar herself. Wolsey staggers back in. He's managed to reach Link on his cellphone and - after a few tries - make himself understood. "Throw it out of the window" - Wolsey "Better idea" - Damascus He casts Degrade Object on it, watching as tiny cracks appear on his surface. And then, taking a short run up, he hits it with his (still armour-piercing) hammer, with all the zeal of a Luddite in a machine shop. The Heart explodes into splinters of glass, and suddenly there are flies *everywhere*. The Sanctum is filled by a buzzing black cloud. From the direction of Querephas' body, there's a noise like something howling as it gets blown away. Getting a cloud of flies in the face brings Wolsey a bit nearer to sanity, and he shoves them away from himself with a ward and Ban of his own. He finds the others, and then Querephas' body - which is now Avatar's body again somehow, without any

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outward sign. The three conscious Cabal members huddle down next to Avatar and wait. The flies vanish, as suddenly as they appeared. All that remains of the Heart is a collection of crushed glass on the floor. Querephas' armour spells vanish, and she starts to bleed from her chest wound. Wolsey tries to stop the bleeding, and Kali drops to his side, telling Damascus to fill the bucket again. With cold water this time. She pulls her outer shirt off (Damascus likewise divests himself of excess clothing) and they dunk them, trying to deal with the worst of Querephas' burns. Kali notes that the chest wound is shallower than it looks - she must have been going to reach inside herself to pull her heart out. But she's going to make it. They think.
In a scenario with two possible outcomes - Avatar dead or Querephas on the loose, somehow player characters will find a way to reach option "none of the above". I knew it. I even said as much to Wood before I ran it. For the record - Kali's first aid roll here was the final roll affected by her Exceptional Luck, and she rolled an Exceptional Success. So.. yeah. Stabilised at four lethal and six bashing. (Querephas has Stamina 4). It's a good thing electricity does Bashing damage in the nWoD, that's all I can say.

Wolsey sinks to the floor, resting against the wall, and looks at Avatar - or is it still Querephas? - lying in a pool of Avatar's blood. A single eyeball, that someone has trodden on during the fight, stares accusingly up at him. Time seems to go strange for him, as he sits there in a daze. At some point, people start arriving. Link and Shore appear, stepping out of a Portal of Shore's creation to survey the fallout and lend hands to help. Wolsey watches, not really taking it in, as they and Kali examine Avatar and declare her pattern reverted. Querephas was destroyed when the Heart was broken. They can't regrow her eyes, they tell him as gently as they can. Regeneration is possible, but like all magic costly and not permanent on living beings.
Bit of a shitter, that.

He doesn't move when they take her away, Portal opening at Shore's command. Link has healed some of her wounds magically, but he wants to get her to someone who's knowledge of Life isn't based on pressure points and meditation. Ulysses arrives several hours later. So does Samuel. The two Masters apologise for their lateness (Samuel says it with a lot more feeling). They were with Avatar, extracting the Eyes of Salt (which crumbled to dust) and in Samuel's case ensuring that Avatar's Fate remains stable. The Master of the House of Ariadne gently explains what's happened. Ulysses has told him about the Ring, and the Robe, and together with the hints he saw in Avatar's future when he Prophecy'd her he's pieced it together. Cxaxa, in the ancient past, knew that she was going to die and bent her powers to cheating that death. She split her soul into three Phylacteries, and poured as much of her knowledge as she could record into them. The Eyes, the Heart and a woman - probably even her own offspring. Eventually, her female descendent came into contact with the Eyes and tripped the Fate Querephas had carefully set up.

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"From that point on - almost immediately after you met her again, in fact - she wasn't fully Avatar. She was driven to reconnect with the other shards, and as she spent more and more time with them she became Cxaxa more and more." - Samuel Eventually, the final transformation was triggered by the Conditional spell Cxaxa had built into her daughter and the two items: When Avatar put the Robe on, the symbol of Cxaxa's rule, it triggered "her" memories returning. "Whatever she's done these last few days, they've not been entirely her. You weren't with the real Avatar" - Samuel "We never were" - Wolsey, croaking Wolsey means the fact that Amanda has always - *always* - felt the pull of the other items. It's shaped her entire life. And now it's gone. He never knew the real her. "You saved her life." - Ulysses Wolsey doesn't think so. "You did. You jumped off the train. Right at the very last second but you got *off* it. Now what does that tell you about Destiny?" - Ulysses "No. We stopped the train" - Kali "The damage is done" - Wolsey "Listen to me now, Thomas. And I understand that I by vocation am the least qualified person in the room to say this... She's going to spend the rest of her life knowing she's a broken part of something greater. Her injury will never go away... whether that 'Dooms' the two of you or not - that's entirely up to you." - Ulysses Wolsey nods. "First thing tomorrow, I'll start on imbuing something to help her" - Ulysses "Can we see her?" - kali "Of course. I'll take you" - Samuel "I... can't. Tell her? Please?" (to Kali and Damascus) "I just can't right now" - Wolsey They understand "And the Robe..." - Wolsey "I understand. If you don't want it, I can..." - Samuel "No." - Kali Everyone looks at her. "We're not giving it to the Mysterium. We're not giving it to you - no offence." (to Samuel) "But everyone keeps telling me that this thing is mine. Fine, then. It's mine.

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And I'll use it as a fucking dishcloth until I figure out what I'm going to do with it" - Kali At which point Wolsey snaps. He says, low but clear, that all this? All this is *their* fault. He doesn't blame himself - he blames Kali and Damascus. They had ample opportunity, all the way along the road, to stop her - but they didn't. Damn her not being strong enough to stop, and damn you two for going along with it, and most of all Damn me for not being strong enough to stop her myself. - Wolsey "... You might want to review my job description" - Damascus, coldly. They leave him sitting alone, staring at the bloodstain.
Wolsey's shock is masking a deep rage - he's too tired and numb to move, but he's furious. Mark: 'While I reckon Wolsey was smart to fire first, it was linked into his biggest mistake which is one of the reasons hes so angry with himself. He was in such a pessimistic/depressed turn of mind that he didnt even contemplate that Avatar could have been saved at this point. If theyd listened to Wolsey at that point, Avatar wouldnt have come out of that alive at all. Of course, the gratitude he feels to the others for saving her is drowned out by the Towering rage at if theyd listened to him earlier, none of this needed to have happened.' As for Damascus' comment; Rafe: 'This is deeper than it perhaps sounded. The Arrow is about oaths of service, and Damascus takes it seriously. His job is not to decide what the cabal does or what its members do - although he is always happy to provide input if asked - his job is to support and defend them as they do what they do. Given that Avatar could not be dissuaded from going after the Robe, from the moment she joined the Cabal (Wolsey's idea, wasn't it?) it was certain that Damascus would follow and help her. Like all the best Greek tragedies. The only way that could have been averted would have been Wolsey and Kali both agreeing that (a) Avatar was kicked out, or (b) that she should be restrained *for the good of the cabal*.'

...
Not quite done yet!

Hours later - too many hours since he last slept - Damascus finally gets home. He and Kali sat waiting for Avatar to wake up. They were there when she asked for Tom, and when she realised she couldn't see. And when she realised 'it' was gone. Kali stayed with her, not wanting to leave. And now, Damascus really doesn't want to be Evil any more. Just as he's making himself a meal to try to relax before bed, there's a knock on his door. Damascus drags himself out to answer it, blearily staring out at the imposing, tall black man standing on his porch. "Mr Washington?" - Man "Uh.. Sorry. Yes?" - Damascus "I'm sorry for showing up like this. I got your address from your agent - I've been waiting for you to get home" - Man Damascus frowns "I want to commission a piece" - Man "Oh! Right! Yes..." - Damascus

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He has seen a piece of Damascus' work, he explains, and wants to commission something using the same model. Damascus gets his notebook and asks which statue his guest is talking about. The Caryatid column. Damascus' shell-shocked and weary brain processes that as he finds his book. "The.. uh.. column?" - Damascus "It reminds me of someone" - Man Damascus hasn't met him, and doesn't know who he is, but we the ever-omniscient audience do. He's Kali's dad. End.

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Chapter 7: "Scorpion"
Session 7.1
"Once upon a time, the Fox came upon a Scorpion trying to cross the river. "'You can ride on my head to the far shore', said the Fox. 'But only on the condition you promise not to sting me'. "'But see, that's my nature, said the Scorpion. To sting is my nature...' "...surprise, surprise, halfway across the river, the Scorpion up and jabbed his stinger right in the helpful Fox's head. "'Now we're both gonna die, you dumb old Scorpion', said the Fox. 'What did you want to go sting me for? I was doing you a good turn'. "And the Scorpion said. 'I told you from the start.. that's my nature'. "The Scorpion is Death; We carry him on our backs towards the far shore. "Somehow, it's always a big shock when he turns around and stings us" - 'Jim Crow', The Invisibles.
This is the "politics" story, but more than that it's the "personal" story: Scorpion is about the conflicting priorities of our three player character's home lives with the skulduggery, manoeuvring and plotting involved in the election to replace Malakaii as Councillor. And there's a lot of skulduggery to go around - alliances are shifting, the Cabals in the city have been shattered by Mara's actions and Malakaii's death and unlikely bedfellows are hatching their schemes. Everyone, it seems, is going out on a limb and trusting at least one person that they probably shouldn't. Only question is - which one of them is the Scorpion?

Tuesday 19th September 7 Days Remaining It is over a month since we last saw the Cabal, and there have been only a handful of developments in the meantime. It is as though the Crucible has paused for breath, much like the weeks following the 4th July bombing but stretching on and on, to the point that Kali is beginning to wonder if things will ever get back to 'how they were' ever again. Amanda stayed in the hospital a few weeks, then a handful of days at the Sanctum, fielding a steady trickle of Mysterium scholars, Guardian censors and curious Silver Ladder mages all of whom wanted to interview her about her insights into the ancient origins of the Ladder. Dredging Querephas' memories up constantly has not helped Amanda over much, and Kali seems incapable of helping. Kali at first hardly left Amanda's bedside, but spent more and more time away once she realised that she wasn't helping any. Eventually, three weeks ago now, Amanda up and left Washington DC. Eyes still bandaged, she declared herself to be in need of being alone and got a one-way ticket to New York from Dulles international airport. Kali, the only of her friends to be around, could only watch her go. Wolsey never once visited Amanda in the hospital. He never went to the Sanctum when she was there (or, in fact, at all since the battle with Querephas). If he contacted her, Amanda didn't say. Damascus' own involvement with the Cabal and it's business has also trailed off - not outright abandonment like Wolsey and Amanda, just the distinct feeling that he has things to worry about in his own life. If they need him, he'll be there in a heartbeat. But as they don't... His period of antinomism is now over, and he's submitted his report on the subject to

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John Dee. "What most people think is evil... isn't. It's base. It is our animal instincts - lust, rage, hunger - given priority over society. We call it evil because we like to believe we are something more than what we are made of. And we are. But we are an alloy mixed by a blind chemist, with no thought to proportion or result. To return to our base nature allows us to begin again, to re-alloy our souls. To make of what we are something far greater than the parts." - Damascus
Rafe: Interestingly, this thesis leaves open the existence of true Evil - and casts it as a mirror image of what Damascus hopes to become, with the corollary that it would be reached in a similar way.

Mostly, though, Damascus has been a Fresher. He's started at College now Georgetown, to be exact, where he's going through freshman week and trying to keep everything straight in his head. The sole mark on the Sanctum showing that he still goes back there (to recast his defence spells using the Hallow so as to avoid using Mana, mostly) is a wallchart showing the various classes. In the end, he's taking Art History, Psych and Philosophy, avoiding deciding which of the three he'd Major in until it matters. So he's rather too busy to keep Kali company. Ichi is no good - the message she received from him after she got back from England was a request for her services at a Buy, making sure the other party wasn't crooked. Ichi has pretty solidly hooked up with Lisa now, and although he hints he'd throw her to the kerb if Kali came back she isn't interested. Best, she thinks, to let it die. No - Kali is now determinedly moving into phase 2 of her life's journey, as she sees it. She's socialising with Mages her own age, from both the Mysterium and the House of Ariadne, trying to build up her position in those groups. Which is all well and good, but doesn't fill up the calendar nearly as much as Mages like Trace make it seem. The rest of the time she mopes around the Sanctum, watching TV and trying to think of a time she could entertain herself.
We met Lisa back in "Five Things" and "Who Benefits?"

Not even Seraph's unwanted visitations bother her. The Seer only shows up to try to convert her once, and spends most of the snatched ten minutes complaining about Hera and his other fellow Seers, who apparently don't understand him. Kali's heart, it doth bleed. Really. The quiet of the Crucible contrasts against the internecine strife and mass falling-outs going on in the rest of the city's Cabals. Damascus has been informed that he has been successful in volunteering as a Sentinel, and will receive his marque at the month-end Consilium. He and Kali hear, through their own discrete friends and contacts, of what's going on in the wider world of the Pentacle. The month-end Consilium will see the election to replace Malakaii as Councillor. No one but Melchior of the Ascendants has stood for the post yet, and Banneker is backing his fellow Silver Ladder. Most people's minds don't seem to be on the election, instead focusing on the other ramifications of Malakaii's death. The Gatekeepers Cabal has now formally sundered into two - the Gatekeepers (Mr Thursday's Faction) and the Wardens (Mara's Faction). Guardians of the Veil from all over the city have quit their Cabals in favour of Thursday's, polarising the situation further. Roriko, one of Mara's former apprentices who until just now was in Dantor's Cabal, has gone over to Mara's. The Independent Tybalt - often derisively referred to

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as the "Diet Wolsey" - has joined Thursday's, the Bokor's need for supporters overwhelming everyone's dislike for the odious little man. Both new Cabals have been pushed away, alliance-wise, from the Defenders as headed by Dantor, due to their recruiting of a particularly significant new member. In the weeks since he was proved innocent of Malakaii's death, Beckett has had the long-standing charges against him dropped by Banneker in murky circumstances. The ex-Guardian Master, supposed by many to be left-handed, has joined the Defenders. Arguably, it's because Shore (whom the Crucible introduced him to and with whom he gets on well) is in it. Beckett wandering around unmolested is angering the remaining Guardians in the city and infuriating Mara's followers due to his involvement in toppling her from power. All of this, Kali and Damascus have heard from Trace, from Katherine, from Shepherd, from Ulysses, from Shore, from Link, from Mara and from John. And all of them have questions for our heroes... "Where is Wolsey?" "Who is Wolsey supporting?" "Why hasn't Wolsey shown himself?" "Whose side is Wolsey on?" Kali and Damascus take messages, add them to the stacks of existing messages and shrug their shoulders.
Kali and Damascus are also failing to meet up and connect with one another. Before the session, I asked the players whether the nascent relationship they started on in last story went any further, or if Damascus dropped it with the antinomism. They've haven't gone through anything like a break-up, it's just.. they haven't gone out, or slept with one another, since Querephas. Damascus considers the thing to.. not be *over* over, just stopped. He hasn't really thought about it. Kali, as revealed later in the session, doesn't. She just thinks they haven't been on a date since Vegas.

One Saturday afternoon, Kali is watching a marathon of 'Lost' and eating yesterday's pizza when Amanda comes home. The bandages are off, and she's wearing black glasses. "Oh, hey" - Kali Amanda lugs her suitcase and cocks her head "Hey. Just you?" - Amanda "Just me and Dominic Monaghan" - Kali Amanda joins her, kicking the door shut behind her and feeling her way to the sofa. "This is a repeat, yeah? A Good one." - Amanda "We can watch something else..." - Kali, trailing off as her faux pas hits her. Amanda grimaces thinly and says it's fine. And they 'watch' Lost.

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Three days later, and the pair have gotten into something of a routine. Amanda forgets to turn the lights on so Kali thinks she's alone and is then startled, Amanda rambles about how she had to have a few weeks off to get her head together and Kali distracts her with the power of minutiae. Wolsey is never mentioned. Aggressively so. Finally, on Tuesday morning, Kali rises from her pit around lunchtime, to hear voices echoing through the too-big and too-empty Sanctum. She wanders into the main room to find Amanda talking to a rumpled man in late middle age, his hair thinning and his face lined - almost as creased as his cheap suit. He looks like someone who sleeps on airplanes.
Mycroft - for this is he - is cast in my mind as Dean Stockwell, though my Dean Stockwell impression is not up to the task of reinforcing this in play. The same ooc digression led to me confessing that I see Amanda as Emma Caulfield.

"Oh, hello" - Man Kali, not unreasonably, asks who he is. "Sorry - yes. Manners. My name is Mycroft. I'm here to.. well.. I'm here for a few reasons, actually. I'm from the Eleventh Question; I was originally called to this city to investigate a murder I believe you've already solved." - Mycroft
Mycroft was mentioned, without naming him, in "Who Benefits?". He's the outside investigator Thursday called in over Banneker's head. The Question are a Guardian of the Veil Legacy, from that Order book, who specialise in solving investigative enigmas and mysteries. Their first attainment gives them a Sherlock-Holmes like ability to read details of a person from their appearance. He is, of course, named after Sherlock's smarter, older brother from the original stories. I like the name. I've used it before.

Kali makes a "it was nothing" shrug, and Mycroft grins. "Secondly, I'm here to interview Amanda.." (Kali narrows her eyes) "Nothing like that, I assure you. The other Guardians may not like what I've done to myself, or might be inconvenienced by my devotion to Truth, but they do see me as being useful for something. Reading motivations. I'm here because.. Amanda?" - Mycroft "Go ahead" - Amanda "I'm here because Amanda has asked to join the Guardians of the Veil" - Mycroft "So you're giving her the sales pitch?" - Kali "Exactly the opposite. I'm here to make sure she's not doing it for the wrong reasons. And, there is one last purpose bringing me to your door..." - Mycroft He looks over at the entrance to the spare room - Gawain's old room as was - and kali follows his gaze, to the small, battered and travel-worn suitcase. She looks back at Mycroft, who's face and body contort in a "what can you do?" expression and shrug. "...As a new Mage in the city, and as my fellow Guardians don't seem to want me in their Cabal.. I'm afraid your Lex Magica is quite specific" - Mycroft Kali gets his meaning

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It means he's now a member of their Cabal.

"So!" (brightly) "Where are the rest of the famous Crucible, then?" - Mycroft "I haven't seen them in days" - Kali "Oh? Busy, are they?" (off her look) "You don't have to answer that, sorry." - Mycroft

At which point, before she can think of anything to say, Damascus knocks on the door. "You don't have to knock, Damascus, this is your Sanctum too" - Kali, sarcastic "Force of habit. Hey! Amanda!" (she waves in his general direction) "And... ah..." Damascus Introductions are repeated. "You're joining the Cabal?" - Damascus "Yes. The mission I came here from Chicago for has been rendered null by your very own actions, but... well.. I'm afraid that Dresden and I never got on at the best of times, and I was informed that my stay here in DC would as far as they were concerned be permanent. This will be my third Cabal and fifth Consilium" - Mycroft "Dresden?" - Damascus "The Hierarch there" - Mycroft
I am so, so, sorry

"So why not Thursday's Gatekeepers?" - Damascus "They didn't want me. Said they were full, which given that they're actively recruiting every young Guardian on the Eastern Seaboard to move to DC and sign up doesn't exactly ring true. No, I'm afraid that I believe I serve as a warning to yourselves" Mycroft "What warning?" - Kali "New Consilium members without a Cabal are signed up to yours. If you don't do what Thursday wants, he'll flood you with new members." - Mycroft Damascus pinches his eyes. "Great. That's... has anyone seen Wolsey? People keep phoning me asking for him?" - Damascus "There's a bunch of messages on your noticeboard for him. And others in this pile by the TV. And I think some are stuck in the cheese of an old pizza under the sofa." Kali "Okay." (to Mycroft) "So what's your intention? You don't have to stay in DC" Damascus

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"In truth, I dislike being used as a blatant scare tactic, especially so clumsily. And this city is as good as any other. There is a lot of..." (considers) "There's room for a little light to be shed. I see myself as a lens in Plato's cave, illuminating sections of the wall, if you follow" - Mycroft "I always thought we were the fire" - Kali (to the room at large) "Why does everyone want Wolsey?" - Damascus "Your friend here" (nods towards Kali) "Wolsey is the only medium-sized player to have not committed himself. Everyone is watching to see which way he votes, and they expect that where he goes Kali here will follow. And, as she's his favourite, Samuel will in turn follow, and his large Cabal after him." - Mycroft "Good to know I'm good for something" - Kali, sarcastic "They think Wolsey can tell Kali how to vote? They've obviously never met either of them" - Damascus Still, they could do with Wolsey here. If the politics are heating up to the point that they're being obliquely threatened, they need their political advisor. "You got a car?" - Damascus "Outside. Assuming it's still there." - Mycroft "You coming?" - Damascus, to Kali and Amanda "Nah. You go. Tell him we said hi" - Kali Amanda shakes her head. ... Mycroft drives a General Motors that has seen better decades "very.. Patriotic" - Damascus
This, as Rafe points out, is from the man who drives a Ford pickup truck.

... Damascus knocks on the door to Wolsey's apartment. There's a brief flash of light from the spyhole as Wolsey checks who it is, then the door unlocks. "Good afternoon, Wol..." - Damascus Wolsey looks like crap. He hasn't shaved, his suit looks like he's been wearing it for days and his eyes are bleary. "Come in" - Wolsey

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The inside of the apartment isn't much better. Last time Damascus was here, it was conspicuously clean. Now there are papers all over the tables, washing up in the kitchen and an odd smell. "Coffee? I have a new machine" - Wolsey
His old one's in the Sanctum, continuity-fans

He sees Damascus looking at the papers "I've been busy. Working. You know? Real work?" (nods at Mycroft) "Who's your friend?" - Wolsey Mycroft introduces himself for the third time, explains how he's being used as a challenge by Thursday for the second and goes a bit further, pledging that, on his oath, if he's to be in a Cabal then he'll act like it and make Thursday regret it. And, he notes, he can't lie. "Well, I Can Lie. I just don't" - Mycroft
It's a Vow, a special form of Oblation. The 11Q's famous Truthfulness is why the other Guardians don't like them - they're premier investigators, but their devotion is to the Truth, not to the Labyrinth.

He goes on to tell Wolsey about Amanda joining the Guardians. "Why?" - Wolsey "I believe that it's because she doesn't want what happened to her to happen to anyone else." - Mycroft Wolsey takes that in "Could you give us a moment?" - Wolsey "Of course. Ah, good thick concrete walls..." - Mycroft, leaving "Alright. What?" - Wolsey "Don't ask me, I've been at College" - Damascus "Tell me what's been going on" - Wolsey So Damascus does, laying out all the changes to the local Cabals, to *their* Cabal, and how everyone seems to want to know what Wolsey is going to do. He particularly focuses on the troika of Shore, Beckett and Ulysses, who are a trio of Masters all theoretically below Dantor. Wolsey is rather pleased by the revelation that Beckett has been freed. "That means Dantor's doomed" - Wolsey, blackly humoured Damascus gives him a look "You see him following anyone's orders for very long?" - Wolsey Damascus replies in the non-committal.

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Wolsey closes his eyes and sighs. "...I'm going to have to shave, aren't I?" - Wolsey
And he's back on his game.

Back at the Sanctum, Trace has come to visit. Greeting Amanda (whose reply indicates that she visited Trace yesterday - which Kali didn't know), she gets to business with Kali "It's Blaise. He's.. Uh.. Well, Samuel's fired him" - Trace "Seriously?" - Kali "Yup. Samuel's announced that Blaise has not been making a good enough job of being Provost or the second of the House, so he's out of both positions - and noone's seen him since." - Trace Kali frowns, remembering, and thinking that she might know a reason for this.
Kali suspects that Samuel's thrown Blaise out of his positions because she slept with him - in reality, it's more along the lines of Samuel finally realising what a crap Provost Blaise is (a truth that is self-evident to Wolsey and Damascus). But he has dumped him relationship-wise as well as professionally, too.

"Samuel's been calling everyone in his Cabal and in the House in for private talks, one by one. He's got to be picking who's going to take over from Blaise..." - Trace "You'd be good" - Kali, honestly. "Thanks. But he's not asked me in, yet. He's seen Mary, and Evelyne, and John. Sister, Valkerie, Cerberus.. they're all his Cabal, rather than us in the House. I get the feeling he's going to pick his new Provost from them rather than us" - Trace "What do you want me to do about it?" - Kali "I want to know what's going on. Look, Kali - everyone knows that you're Samuel's favourite." (off Kali's look) "You're the one helping with his search, right? You're the one he picked for that? That he tells things to?" - Trace
Kali is, I reckon, a bit sick of being told that she's Samuel's favourite.

"All right, all right... I'll see what I can find out" - Kali "It's like he's moving. Like, since he got back from his last trip he's got a purpose. We're all used to Samuel being the big, powerful master who doesn't do anything except hang out with us kids and smoke weed. It's like something's woken him up now - like he's preparing for something he's decided to do" - Trace Kali promises she'll go find Samuel the next day and find out what's going on. Trace gratefully thanks her. The boys return, Wolsey back on the game "Right! First things first - messages" - Wolsey "On the noticeboard and under the sofa" - Kali, without looking around 331

Wolsey sees Damascus' timetable "First order of business - we burn that thing" - Wolsey "Excuse me?" - Damascus "Damascus, it gives away your timetable. Basic breach of security. Anyone could get a connection to you from it" - Wolsey "It's out of date!" - Damascus
Wolsey is indeed back!

"Trace, good to see you" - Wolsey "Good to see you too, Wolsey." - Trace "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse us. We've got cabal business" - Wolsey Trace was done anyway. Saying goodbye to Amanda - who's trying to be inconspicuous around Wolsey - she leaves. And so, the Crucible is convened for the first time in over a month. First, Mycroft asks if they'll have him. So to speak, and the theory behind why Thursday sent him here is raised for all. "We need to think of some kind of humiliating and dangerous initiation ritual to discourage newcomers" - Damascus "Er" - Mycroft "Not for you, obviously. For anyone after you" - Damascus Wo9lsey asks if there are any objections, and everyone replies in the negative, so Mycroft is in. He asks which practices they follow, and Damascus tells them. "Ah, no Emeritus. Aside from the obvious respect as a Caucus head of my Order deserves, I don't need to obey Thursday then." - Mycroft (looking around at his fellows) "Five. Five's a good number" - Damascus "Two Mastigos, Two Moros and an Acanthus" - Mycroft
He's the other Moros

So. Everything comes down to this (Samuel's troubles notwithstanding) - Who do they want as Councillor? Melchior is the only candidate so far. Mycroft says that Thursday is likely to stand at the last minute, hoping that the "at least he's not Melchior" factor will swing it. Wolsey adds that Thursday appears to be trying to buy votes by importing supporters to the Consilium. He does not sound like he approves. "It's clumsy, I know. The thinking of someone who's been an Interfector too long.

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Thursday's not used to the subtleties needed for an Epotet" - Mycroft "What's his justification?" - Wolsey "He needs them. It's the Congressional and Senatorial elections next month - and with Malakaii gone and the Cabal that handled the security for these things shattered... I think Thursday has nightmares about waking up in December to find that a Vampire's managed to get itself elected to the Senate or something. He's dragging in any warm body he can and trying to stabilise his powerbase." - Mycroft "I predict the Democrats will make great gains" - Wolsey
Heh

Of course, like the mortal politics, this vote is really the first round of "who gets to be Hierarch". Right now, Banneker is wobbling. Losing Malakaii and - for all intents and purposes - Mara, combined with Samuel growing increasingly disinterested, means his list of high-level backers is growing desperately short. Who gets to be Councillor and to a lesser extent who they then pick to be Provost will help decide Banneker's fate. Banneker hopes that Melchior, as a Silver Ladder, will shore him up. Thursday hopes to return Banneker to relying on the Guardians. Who else? Shore and Ulysses are both maybe worthwhile candidates, but neither of them are standing yet. The Cabal's standing plan is to persuade Ulysses to stand. Why not Melchior? Well, Melchior is running on a hard-line law and order platform, promising to bring the Consilium under the Lex Magica properly and enforce the law. In these troubled times, that's quite a tempting prospect - and Wolsey supposes that if there's a Seer attack in the offing, then they'd probably even be better off WITH Melchior. But, ultimately, it comes down to one thing. "I just don't... like him. What's his reason for standing, anyway? It's a blatant grab for immediate power." - Wolsey "Do you think he's got it prophesised in his scroll?" - Amanda "Aside from his own arrogance, there's the problem that a vote for Melchior isn't really a vote for Melchior. This is the man who makes all decisions based on what Balthazar's divinations tell him" - Wolsey But Wolsey isn't sure about Shore or Ulysses, either. "What do we know about Shore? About how he'd be any better?" - Wolsey Damascus reminds him that he wanted Ulysses, back when they formed the committee to elect the next Hierarch (tm). Wolsey frets that this is too soon - electing Ulysses now would completely destabilise Banneker, and more to the point declare that they, the Cabal, *want* to completely destabilise Banneker. As Wolsey points out, it's not even a sealed vote. Beckett is considered and discounted. According to Damascus and Mycroft, he isn't

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standing - he knows he'd never win, and would prefer to be a puppetmaster behind whoever actually did. Wolsey tells Kali his conclusion about Beckett and Dantor. Mycroft fills in Thursday's opinion - apparently, Thursday has had a major falling out with Dantor, his old mentor, about Beckett (the former Guardian and opponent of Malakaii, who Thursday looked up to - even if Thursday looked up to him more in hindsight than he actually did at the time). He thinks Dantor has called up something she can't put down. "Is it too soon?" - Wolsey, wondering to himself In the end, though, Damascus wins him over. Ulysses it is, then. "No matter what the rest of you do, I'm probably going to have to vote for Melchior, if that's what Banneker says" - Wolsey He should probably make a show of supporting Banneker's choice himself, he says, and he'll go visit the Hierarch tomorrow to find out what that choice is. Kali volunteers to spread the word among the younger mages, which they're all for until they realise she means 'by force, using Magic'. Wolsey reminds her that she wouldn't want her own vote tampered with, and she finally agrees to do it the old fashioned way, though she grumbles about it for the rest of the day. She is to push the idea of Ulysses as a candidate. The People's Choice, as it were. The tactic, as designed by Wolsey and Damascus, is to get a crowd of people begging Ulysses to run. If he's convinced that the Consilium want him, his reservations about doing Banneker a disservice by standing will be overcome. Damascus is to work on Ulysses himself, while Wolsey sees if Banneker can be persuaded to support the Adamantine Arrow priest. "Fine. But It'll have to be tomorrow" - Kali "That's fine" - Wolsey "Kali. Remember the appointment" - Damascus "What day is it?" - Kali "Tuesday" - Damascus "And what day were we..?" - Kali "Thursday" - Damascus "Right." - Kali
More on the appointment later

Mycroft will get the view of the Guardians of the Veil, he volunteers. "Uh..." - Amanda Everyone looks at her. Eventually, one of them realises she can't see them waiting for her and tells her she has their attention.

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"If Mycroft is talking to the Gatekeepers, I can talk to the Wardens. I'm still on better terms with Mara than the rest of you" - Amanda Good point. "This isn't a serious suggestion, but.. how hard would it be to make a copy of your friend Ulysses' Sigil?" - Mycroft "And put him forward without telling him?" - Damascus "As I say. Not that serious a suggestion" - Mycroft So. Marching orders. "Mycroft. Before we go - we may need to contact you, and if you want to be in the Cabal..." - Wolsey "Sure. Given that we're now a" (air quotes) "'team', my name's Mark Chef " - Mycroft
It's a hard Ch, like in 'Church', rather than like the other word for cook

The rest of the gang introduce themselves properly, Carl, Thomas, Amanda and... "Kemi Simone" - Kali "Interesting. Are you sure?" - Mycroft "Er. Yes?" - Kali "It's just, and I apologise, but.. you don't seem entirely convinced of that." - Mycroft "She's adopted" - Damascus Mycroft 'oh's silently, smiles warmly and - when Kali isn't looking, frowns. He does not seem convinced. ... Wednesday 20th September While Damascus goes to college... Kali spends the morning visiting various young Mages of the Mysterium - Hoban (who's back from New York, and apparently brought Guardians with him when they tagged along for the return trip), Heinrich, Ebony and Francine - and does her best to further the "vote for Ulysses" party among her Order-mates. As the clock ticks around to the afternoon, she decides that she can't put it off any longer and heads North. She sits on her motorbike outside the Time Machine for a good half hour before deciding to go inside. "Kali" - Samuel He seems distracted, and slightly irritated, like he's being held up from something he'd rather be doing. He asks her how her following the thread is going.

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"I'm still looking" - Kali "Make sure that you do. Nothing is more important than this, do you understand? Not your Cabal's opinions and not this election" - Samuel "About that..." - Kali "You want to know who I'm voting for. The answer is 'no one'. In fact, I might not even turn up." - Samuel "You have bigger fish" - Kali "Exactly. And so do you." - Samuel She asks about Blaise's old position, and he tells her that he's going to split it up picking a second in his Cabal, another for the House and then picking a Provost for the Consilium. Kali recommends Trace. "For which one?" - Samuel "Uh, the.." - Kali Samuel cuts her off with a wave of his hand "I'm probably going to declare Mary my Provost. Her own Legacy is just as important to the Cabal's work as the House, and she's been unfairly kept behind Blaise." Samuel
Mary is the eldest Bearer of the Stone Book. We met her apprentice Francine early on in the Chronicle. They're part of Samuel's Cabal, which is pretty huge. Part of this whole turn of affairs is to break the illusion that Samuel's Cabal equal The House of Ariadne - they're two separate groups, and most House members aren't in the Recorders. As for what he's doing - Samuel is seeking a competent Provost who will actually handle Consilium business for him (like they're meant to), and understudies for his role in his Legacy and his Cabal. He's preparing to leave. He's achieved Gnosis 9 as of his extended time out of the Chronicle - the maximum he can, given he's made a Demesne, and is preparing himself to become an Archmage.

"The answers are out there if you look, Kali. So go look. Trust DC. She knows what you need to find. Don't get distracted from the thread." - Samuel Kali promises to keep looking, and leaves. ... Wolsey, meanwhile, has gone to see Banneker and has found the Hierarch to be in a preoccupied mood. "Good to see you back on the job" - Banneker "Thank you, I think. Sir... I've been taking stock of the situation and I'm seeing the possibility of Ulysses standing. That's what you wanted, originally." - Wolsey Banneker considers, frowning. "Unfortunately, I have already promised my support to Melchior. My word as a Tharch. But listen, Thomas... I won't tell you how to steer your own people. Understood?" - Banneker "Understood" - Wolsey
Banneker's hedging his bets again, and still thinks Wolsey's on his side.

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... While Wolsey returns to the Sanctum from Banneker's offices, Kali goes to walk Ariadnes thread. Wandering through the city, casting Interconnections and Sybil's Sight at random intervals and looking for significant things that stand out. After a few hours of casting these auguries, she comes across a billboard. It's advertising some kind of music-playing cell phone, with the slogan "the song that makes you want to call home", but is reacting to her magically-boosted senses like a man who's destined to be struck by lightning swearing 'may god strike me down'. After a few minutes consideration, Kali notices that the 'track' the phone is shown playing is simply "Track G", and then a play time in four digits. A Letter and four numbers makes for a street address, and she sets off
I've been rather vague so far on the mechanics that the House of Ariadne use - there's a first-dot effect that lets you spot moments of fated significance, like the oath I just used as an example. You wander until something 'pings' on that, then follow the Interconnections of Fate and sympathy through the city. The House believe that the accumulated clues and phenomena hide the city's message to them. What's not in doubt is that it does work - more accomplished members of the House can be led to things they're looking for by a trail of these sympathetic breadcrumbs. The question is - are they doing it all themselves? Is it a real external phenomena that they pick up on, or are their minds just seeing patterns where there aren't any? I do like the House. Best Legacy in The Sublime.

That address turns out to be a bank, which has already closed. Kali wanders around, trying to find her next point on the thread, until she sees a poster in the bank's window advertising personal loans. "Turn your life around..." She turns around. There, on the other side of the street, is the building Damascus was commissioned to fill the sconce of. Kali looks at the statue of herself, which looks blankly back at her. What is the city trying to tell her? ... That evening, once everyone's home, the Cabal share their progress with one another. Kali tells Wolsey that Samuel isn't planning on voting for anyone, which Wolsey describes as being "perfect" for their purposes. Mycroft says that Thursday now has three fresh recruits from outside the Consilium who he's trying to sign up in order to pad his potential votes, which Wolsey is once again disgusted at. There's a quick, rapping knock at the door. Damascus goes to check who it is. It's Beckett. Looking very pleased with himself. "Congratulations on your return to society" - Wolsey "Thank you. I admit, and am not afraid to say so, that I owe this chance to you people." - Beckett, smirking. "How's the new Cabal?" - Mycroft

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"I am quite enjoying being a Scorpion, as your new Epotet is fond of saying" - Beckett They quiz him about Shore and Ulysses - which would he favour? Are they any closer to deciding which if either of them should stand? "In my opinion, Ulysses should be the one. He's resisting, though - he knows it will make Banneker fall, and doesn't want to be the one that kills the old order off. As for Shore - he'd be good one day, but not now. He's too young, not known enough. I think he knows intellectually that he should support Ulysses, maybe become his Provost, but if I am any judge he secretly harbours fantasies of being asked to serve himself - begged by our peers to be their new leader. Hah." - Beckett Sounds remarkably similar to Mr Thursday - waiting until everyone's desperate to not get Melchior, and then look like the Hero. "He wants the validation. It's the disease of the Guardians of the Veil - everyone has a Martyr complex. What do you think I was doing sitting in my house for ten years?" Beckett Wolsey raises his theory that the Seers might take advantage of the Pentacle being so reoccupied. He mutters something about how, if someone were to want to appear a Hero, a victory would be good. Or, alternatively, picking up the pieces after a defeat. "Have you noticed any increase in Seer activity?" - Wolsey "I don't tend to talk to them, if that's what you're asking. I understand that's the young lady's preoccupation" - Beckett, nodding at Kali, who grimaces
Even when attempting to be nice, Beckett's a shit.

"Well, have there been any more of them?" - Wolsey "No. The reverse, actually. If you're asking if my former apprentice is likely to trigger some scheme, then I wouldn't put it past him" - Beckett Wolsey considers. Maybe, just maybe, they could use this - if the Seers *were* to attack, and Ulysses... "I'm still not being bait" - Kali Beckett laughs "You know, if Seraph was your apprentice, then.." - Damascus Beckett regards him, waiting "...you'd know his real name." - Damascus "Don't... Don't ask me that. Please. I know it would help, but some confidences..." Beckett "Understood" - Damascus "Well..." (frowns, troubled, then perks up again) "I'll see you all on Super Tuesday.

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Enjoy!" - Beckett And he leaves, whistling.

And never actually said what he wanted. Other than to make them aware of his presence and stir

"Remind me. Am I still owed a favour by that man?" - Kali "I think so" - Damascus "Good" - Kali She's knackered. "Are we done for the day?" - Kali "Yeah. Oh - remember. Appointment at the coffee bar tomorrow" - Damascus "Right" - Kali The rest of the Cabal perk their ears up, at the second mention of the mysterious appointment. Amanda in particular, who's been lost and ignored by the political talk. "Who's this meeting with again?" - Wolsey "A client." - Damascus Damascus explains. He's been contacted by a potential buyer, who saw the Caryatid column he made of Kali and wants to commission something on condition that he meets the Model. What with College and other commissions, Damascus has been a bit busy, but he's now free and they're meeting the man tomorrow evening. "So..." (considers her) "Wear something... ...else, okay?" - Damascus "For you, I'll even have a bath" - Kali "Whoa, woah. Let's think about this" - Wolsey "Are we thinking pervert?" - Amanda "Maybe *trap*" - Wolsey "I figured it was an ex-customer, myself. He looked military" - Damascus That makes sense - Kali did a lot of business with the inhabitants of the naval base. "Really? I thought pervert" - Kali, cheerful "It could be anyone! It could be a Seer!" - Wolsey "I didn't pattern-scan him" - Damascus "Well, that's easily fixed. I'll be in the.. coffee bar, is it? Before you arrive and give him a once-over." (off Damascus' look) "I did this to myself, I may as well use it. And if it is a Seer, he won't know who I am." - Mycroft

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It's not that easy to detect a Mage who isn't casting. Prime-based Mage Sight to see any Mana stored in the pattern or active spells is usually the best bet, which is what both Damascus and Mycroft are referring to.

Kali and Damascus agree to the idea "And Amanda and Wolsey can be waiting on a different angle of view, just in case" Mycroft
Smooth. This actually slipped Wolsey by - he only realised what Mycroft just did (putting him and Amanda together) when he was there and thought through whose idea it was. Y'all can probably guess who the buyer is - in fact, given the ending to last session, the players all flat-out knew it. But this was a laugh.

We come back to the story at the anonymous coffee house, split level and in the style of a Starbucks clone. Amanda and Wolsey are sat in the upper area, waiting for Damascus' buyer to arrive and avoiding talking. Amanda is particularly withdrawn, disoriented and feeling the loss of her sight particularly hard. She's not cast anything to give her eyesight back, though, as she's trying to avoid using magic to compensate too much. Down on the first floor sits Mycroft, face shielded by a battered fedora and occasionally peering over his newspaper at the door. In through the door, crossing with a stride to a free table, comes a tall, black man. Mycroft presses a button on his cell phone, sending the push-to-talk message "The Pigeon has come to Roost" to Wolsey, Amanda and (lurking around the block) Kali and Damascus. Wolsey, from his elevated viewpoint, saw the whole thing. "That's not.. When Damascus said 'military', he failed to mention he meant 'officer'" Wolsey "Why? What's? Oh, fuck it." - Amanda Reality ripples imperceptibly as she casts a spell, then turns to look down at the Buyer. "Do you know him?" - Amanda "I can guess, but..." (nods towards her) "Space?" - Wolsey "Unveiling of Forces. Visual light spectrum" - Amanda, distractedly "Forces..." (pause) "Where'd you learn that?" - Wolsey "Her" - Amanda
Amanda has some of Querephas' Arcana, adjusted for her much lower Gnosis and certain game-balance issues (i.e., to make her less powerful than the PCs. To give you an idea of *them*, Kali is the leader of the pack at Gnosis 4, Time 3, Fate 3 and Space 2, with Wolsey bubbling under at Gnosis 3, Mind 3, Space 3 and life 1. Kali's liable to be the first character to hit Adept - Sam's saving her xp for Time 4 at the moment.

She breaks concentration, and her spell unravels. Mycroft has been staring at the Buyer's back. He presses another button before standing up and walking out of the building.

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"The Pigeon is not a hawk. Repeat. The Pigeon is not a hawk" - Mycroft
Mycroft is enjoying himself maybe a little too much.

Outside, Damascus and Kali wait as Mycroft hurries over to them. They're both dressed much better than normal - Kali has found a dress somewhere and combed her hair straight. "Not Awakened, as it turns out. He's moderately well-off, looks like he's retired from a physical job, so his body's turning to flab slower than most men his age. He's not wearing a wedding ring, but he's not subconsciously looking at either the men or the women." - Mycroft Kali now knows - given what the city told her - who this is. Without a word, she walks past the two Moros and into the coffee shop. Damascus flips his phone open "The Dove has entered the nest!" - Damascus, hurrying to catch up ... Wolsey flips his phone shut and watches Kali sit down. "What the hell is she doing?" - Wolsey ... The Buyer sits back in his chair, watching Kali as she sits down opposite him. "Hi, dad" Kali
Kali's dad, while we're on the casting-the-game shtick, resembles Dennis Haysbert from 24 and The Unit in my mind.

They stumble over the reunion. Kevin says he got her message, on the fourth. Kali says that it was time for her to get back in touch. Damascus arrives "Mr Washington. Thank you. For giving me the chance to meet my daughter" - Kevin Damascus gets on the same page
The narrative will now switch to real-name mode, as I think this is more Kemi and Carl than Kali and Damascus

"You're.. You're very welcome." - Carl "So" (smiles, a bit too broadly to convincingly cover his shot nerves) "you look... great. You're a artist's model?" - Kevin "Just that one time, doing Carl a favour" - Kemi Upstairs, Wolsey stands down from red alert at the obvious lack of any battle, and offers Amanda his arm. They leave, off outside to find Mycroft. Carl asks father and daughter what they're drinking, and gets up to fetch the drinks,

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leaving them alone. "I looked him up. Friends ran his records. A handful of juvenile crimes, and a year in prison for attempted GTA." - Kevin "He's changed. Grown up, turned his life around." - Kemi "He's your boyfriend?" - Kevin Kemi chooses her words carefully "We're... going out. No more than that" - Kali
Not according to Damascus they're not

Carl returns "How did you meet? What have you been doing with yourself? You're obviously not in any trouble..." - Kevin "We, ah.. met in a society. Occult philosophy and alternative religion" - Carl Kevin 'huh's and takes his drink "I'm doing all right now. I wanted to start over, to try everything out, to see where To see where I belonged in the world. The world has a place for me somewhere Im just trying to find out where it is. I was in a place like Carl came from, trying to destroy my life, hanging out with a gang, all to see if that was where the world wanted me to be. Now I'm done with it. I had to... It's like I had to tear my life down in order to appreciate it. Build one for myself. Learn where I needed to be, and learn that what matters is not where the world wants you to be but where you want to be." - Kemi "Why did you leave? Was it the fight we had? I've gone over it in my head a thousand times..." - Kevin "I guess... I just couldn't understand why you didn't tell me I was adopted. I was so angry, and.." - Kemi "Kim. You're not adopted" - Kevin "I'm..?" - Kali, blinking "You're my daughter. I don't know where you thought... why the card? Why couldn't you just knock on the door?" - Kevin Kemi never sent a card, but she's too wrapped up in the emotion to notice "I tried to - I was right outside. Spent a day on the street corner a few months ago. I just couldn't. But now I can" - Kemi "Like a trail. You always did like treasure hunts. A card with an address through my door - the address of that statue. That then leads to Carl, and then to you" - Kevin Now she notices

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"I never sent a card" - Kemi Her dad opens his wallet and fishes it out. A small rectangle of white card, like a blank business card. On the back, in writing both Kemi and Carl recognise, is the address of the statue. He hands it over to Kemi, who hands it to Carl. He frowns and pockets it. The handwriting is Wolsey's.
Duh-duh-DDDUUUUH!

"So who did.? No - I don't care. If you wanted to be found, then... You did want to be found?" - Kevin Kemi smiles. Carl, excusing himself, gets up. After a brief visit to the gents, he slips out of the building to find the others. ... Kali and her dad aren't the only people having a heart to heart. While Mycroft negotiates with a hot dog seller, Wolsey and Amanda are considering their earths. "Why didn't you come to see me?" - Amanda
No fuss. Just ask it right off the bat.

"I couldn't" - Wolsey "Why not?" - Amanda "I just... couldn't. I'm sorry." - Wolsey Amanda looks disappointed. Wolsey holds her hand "I'm Sorry" - Wolsey, heartfelt. "I..." - Amanda She's interrupted by Damascus, hustling over "Guys. All clear, or I think for the moment. It's her dad, who as it turns out actually IS her dad - not adopted after all" - Damascus "How'd he find her?" - Amanda "Someone sent him this. The address is where that Column is installed" - Damascus He hands the card over, as Mycroft - hotdog in hand - strolls over. Wolsey turns the card over. "I didn't write this. I don't give a damn about whether she talks to her father" - Wolsey

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Mycroft nods "I believe you. Which means we have a forger" - Mycroft The four of them bombard it with spells, determining only that it's decidedly nonmagical. Whoever wrote it did so the old fashioned way with a pen. "Do I detect the subtle bwa-har-har of Seraph?" - Damascus "He'd have signed it with his own name." - Wolsey "Then it looks like someone is trying to distract Kali" - Mycroft "I'd better get back" - Damascus "If it's safe, I think I'll warm myself inside too. I'll leave the reunion to you, though" Mycroft Amanda and Wolsey stay outside. ... Back inside, Kemi is absorbing the revelation she's Kevin's biological daughter, as Damascus slips back into his seat. "But.. what can you tell me about my mother?" - Kemi "She died when you were very..." - Kevin At which point, Kemi gets a feeling of utter helplessness and inevitability, and Damascus is struck by a sudden onslaught of Deja V. Kemi looks around, looking for any napkins arranged into a message or any such other secondary phenomena. Kemi's dad, though, is still speaking. "Kimberley, I didn't tell you because when you came to me, you were very, very young. I.. I just didn't feel like you were adopted. I'm sorry". - Kevin Kemi nods, sadly "It's all right. I should have just asked..." - Kemi Damascus looks confused as hell, and pinches his eyes.
Deliberate continuity error here - this scene has been rewritten halfway through, and Kemi has gone from being Kevin's natural child to an adoptee. This will all make sense eventually, I promise - and yes, Mark, there's a reason Damascus is resistant and Wolsey isn't, even when Wolsey has a mind shield up. And Kimberley isn't her real name. Kevin *thinks* it is, but she 'answers' Supernally to Kemi.

"And I should have talked to you more" - Kevin "We've got time. I'll... I'd like to do this again, soon. Okay?" - Kemi He agrees, and they finally hug.

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Shaking Carl's hand, Kevin leaves. A man who's now found his daughter. "What just happened?" - Damascus ... Outside again, the Cabal reconvene and compare notes. Damascus tells Kali that the card is non-magical, and she agrees that it's not Seraph's style. Damascus fills everyone in on the odd happening. "...He switched to saying she was adopted halfway through..." - Damascus "No - hang on. You told us. You told us she was adopted when you came out and gave us the card" - Amanda "No, I really didn't. Someone's edited it." - Damascus "Or our memory of it" - Mycroft "Why are you immune? I had a mind shield up, but I remember the false version too" - Wolsey "The Spider?" - Kali "Why would the Spider want to edit *that*, though?" - Amanda Mycroft clears his throat, deeply troubled. "Are... Excuse me, but... Are we sure that Malakaii IS dead?" - Mycroft. Silence "Well... I was" - Damascus, worried.

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Session 7.2
Bit of a politics-fest this time around, I'm afraid, as we wrap up the dangling plotline that was started when Malakaii died all the way back at the end of story 4. There is, I'm afraid, talk of voting blocks, and opinion polls and possible numbers. We get to see Wolsey at work running a campaign as his marriage continues to fall quietly apart, we move onto another level of the ongoing plotline surrounding the memory-editing thingamabob and we start (blink and you'll miss it) a new plotline primarily for Damascus, another for Wolsey and a third for Kali. And this session is FULL of setup for future stories. Spot the bits from Reign of the Exarchs for extra points! Before this session, I actually sat down and rewrote my big list of Awakened npcs taking into account all the recent changes. I went a step beyond my Order-Path-Legacy-Gnosis-Position notes, though, and figured out the rough Arcana level of everyone plus their Consilium and Order status merits. Why? Because they determine, according to the Byzantine method I'll get to explaining later on, how many votes each character gets in Consilium elections. The players are now at the level of knowledge to be able to figure out the power blocks of the city and are aware of roughly who dislikes who. Couple that with how many points each person is worth, and Mark/Wolsey has what he needs. We begin, though, with a story from Mycroft, about a Mage in Zurich who had the most terrible Deja Vu...

"I've heard of something like this before" - Mycroft The Crucible are sat around in the Sanctum, having headed back after the fateful (and downright confusing) reunion between Kali and her father. Damascus and Mycroft have sprung for pizza. They have considered the ominous idea that Malakaii might still be alive and rejected it as being silly - the body was well and truly found, and Wolsey has his Soul Stone. He's deceased. Which has led to the consideration of other, even freakier, ideas. "There was a Mage in... Zurich... I think it was. A highly respected, clever man. Though not, as it turned out, wise. He was an experienced explorer of the Inner Realms. Many impressive feats, but he was only remembered for the mistake in the end. He was obsessed with the idea of memory as an artefact of the Fallen World he thought that the imperfect nature of the mind was caused by the Lie. Anyway - he tried to grant himself perfect recall of his entire life. Journeyed deep inside his Astral realm and sort of..." (frowns, waves a slice of pepperoni for emphasis) "... put himself into a flashback. His entire life rerunning before his eyes." - Mycroft They eat some more. Wolsey's cell phone rings, and he steps out to answer it. "This is a story Guardians tell, by the way. So it goes without saying - it went horribly horribly wrong" - Mycroft, grinning
Mycroft is a bit of a storyteller - he's so used to being a pariah in his chosen Order that he appreciates an audience, and he's been around the world so much that he has a lot of strange tales to tell. The World of Darkness is full of oddness, and I imagine most Mages collect quite a backlog of "weird things that happened to me or to someone I heard about".

Kali, Damascus and Amanda wait for it. "He forgot, ironically enough. Forgot where he was. You see, the spell worked - and he DID relive his entire life. But he did it so convincingly that to him it seemed like the first time. He was trapped in his own memories over and over again. He said, after it was over, that as it went on discrepancies began to creep in. Things 'happened' as he imagined they did rather than as they actually did. He had the strongest sense of Deja V throughout. And when he came out, well... He didn't know which version was real." - Mycroft "How long did it take?" - Kali "Hours. Seemed like a lifetime to him, though." - Mycroft

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They consider it, as Wolsey comes back in. "Maybe that's what this is. How can you be sure this is the real world?" - Mycroft, smiling. "This is all in Damascus' head?" - Kali "Or yours" - Damascus That would seem more likely "Maybe you've done it to yourself, maybe you're being mentally tortured by something or other that's forcing you to relive your life. By that logic all of this, everything you can remember - even me saying this - isn't real. It's part of the hallucination." - Mycroft Damascus, oddly enough, quite likes that suggestion. Kali ponders on it. She tells everyone about the snake, and feeling tired. About the messages that have been written in beermats and on walls. "But.. they're never written when I'm there - only when you and Wolsey are" (to Damascus). "So it can't be me, right? If this is my memory replaying" - Kali "What did they say? 'HELP' when you were arrested, and 'I NEED' when we were in the airport." (frowns) "Switch them around" - Damascus "Alright, maybe it IS me" - Kali Wolsey is sceptical, and expresses such. Mycroft accepts the scepticism with an easy shrug - he doesn't really believe it himself. "Whatever it is.. it just seems *petty*. I mean - what's this thing been rewriting? Whether or not you're adopted, and forging Wolsey's signature on a card. It makes no sense." - Damascus "Maybe it's someone trying to distract me from something more important" - Kali "Alright. Here's another one for you. This whole thing - this editing thing. Maybe it's not Mind-based. Maybe - maybe it actually IS Time-based. Maybe the Spider's Samuel after he becomes an Archmage, changing history? Or" (enthusiastic) "maybe it's the result of experiencing Time differently. Like Kali presumably would if she ever Ascended..." - Mycroft "Okay. That's it - you played the card" - Wolsey Mycroft does not get his drift. "You played the 'Ascension' card. At this point, the theories can't get any wilder. We have to stop" - Wolsey
I like this concept of Mark's - claiming "Well, we could be Ascending" is the Awakened equivalent of comparing someone to the Nazis on the Internet. No rational discussion can follow.

Which leads to conversation B.

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Melchior (and, although he hasn't formally announced it, Thursday) is still the only one standing to replace Malakaii - and that's just the first problem, if they want to get someone they prefer in. The second is that Melchior is by far and away the favourite to win. They don't know precisely how much by, but Melchior has Suleiman and Banneker's Cabals on his side while Thursday has his half of the Gatekeepers. Maybe Pool and the other members of Project Twilight, if they are swayed along Order lines. At which point, fortunately, they are interrupted by a caller. Hoban, scribe of the Consilium, is at their front door. "Good evening, everyone - my god, you're all actually *here*. That makes things easier..." - Hoban The blond man digs through his things, eventually producing a narrow cylinder which he unscrews, taking out a scroll. "I'm sorry it's taken so long to get to you, but you're actually one of the more stable Cabals at the moment. I've had a hell of a time rewriting the electoral roll - I'm *still* not sure which Cabal Roriko has ended up in." - Hoban
This was a cover-my-ass comment, because I knew I was going to use Roriko later on as being in one particular Cabal, and I couldn't remember whether I'd said she was in that one or the other previously. So by introducing the doubt here, I'm fine later on no matter what happens. I'm normally nowhere near as slick as in this case.

Hoban warns them, officially, that the Electoral Roll (that'd be the scroll) is bound to his position by various horrible, horrible Fate spells laid down by Banneker's predecessor as Hierarch many years ago. If stolen, it will both curse the thief with illfortuned and deadly happenstance and home in on it's owner. "We get it. Don't steal the scroll" - Wolsey "Though you can, of course, read it" - Hoban Hoban gets his writing equipment ready, and then proceeds to check that the entire Cabal are still Disciples, except for Amanda who he has recorded as an Initiate. He explains he could qualify Amanda as a Disciple himself if she demonstrated a second-person Shielding practice, for example, but in order to change his records for any of the others to "Adept" would need a Master to observe and confirm. Wolsey isn't really listening - he's observing Amanda, who carefully says that Hoban's records are correct.
Your magical rank determines, in the method I worked out, the bulk of how much weight you have in elections - a pretty obvious meritocratic principle in the setting. The reason Hoban can't clear people past Disciple is that he's only a Disciple himself - he doesn't have any Arcana at 4 or 5, so doesn't know what to look for in the abilities they grant. As for Wolsey's look - if you'll recall, Amanda admitted last session that she has some of Querephas' Arcana. He doesn't believe that she's still an Initiate. But she isn't admitting anything for the sake of a few votes, and as per the general theme of their relationship nowadays, he's choosing to ignore it.

"Great. Well... I have to tell you that you *are* one of the lower-scoring Cabals. I take that record of your magical aptitude away and convert it into a number of votes. You get more for Consilium positions, if you've been awarded them for services rendered and so on. Lastly, Banneker has a number he can give out at his discretion. In the

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end, you each have a number. At the Consilium, I'll hand out that number of tokens, with your Cabal's Sigil on one side and your personal ones on the other. The candidates stand in front of an amphora each" (to Kali) "That's a big pot" (to everyone) "And give a speech in descending order of seniority. Then the Cabals are called in order of Founding. You display your agreement with a speaker by placing one or more of your tokens in their receptacle..." - Hoban Kali looks bemused "You put your chips into their pot" - Hoban "I did get that part, thanks" - Kali, sarcastic "The person with the most number of tokens in their amphora wins. In the event of a tie - which is if the totals are within twenty of one another - then the one with the least number of personal sigils represented wins" - Hoban Damascus thinks about it for a second, then nods. Equal votes but fewer Sigils mean that the candidate with those circumstances was voted for by comparatively more important people. Hoban does his working-out and declares that Amanda has two votes, Kali Four, Wolsey six and Damascus and Mycroft Five each.
And the method - 1 for being an Apprentice, 2 for an Initiate, 4 for a Disciple, 8 for an Adept, 16 for a 1st-degree Master plus 4 for each additional Adept Arcana a Master has and 8 for each additional Degree of Mastery. 1 for each dot in Order Status after the second and 1 for each dot in Consilium Status after the first - these represent the "services rendered" ones Hoban spoke of. This rather complicated method means that although the way the Consilium elects officers is democratic *enough* to be something Americans in Washington DC would put up with, it's also an out-and-out Plutocracy, with the higher-ups amassing vast vote counts. Cabals that are smaller than their rivals could be (and are) more "powerful" politically simply by having a large block of votes and no obvious loyalties

"Well. At least we're not last to vote" - Wolsey "That's right - the Ascendants and the Wardens come after you. Oh.. and I should warn you. It's done in public. Everyone, including the candidates, can see who you vote for. Secret Ballots are for Sleepers who lack the conviction of their opinions, apparently" - Hoban. "Twenty Two. How does that compare?" - Damascus Hoban lets them read the Electoral Roll, now that they're signed off for this election. Banneker's Cabal have 55 votes between them, Suleiman's 61. Dantor's have an even 100. The Gatekeepers (those that are left) have 40, while Mara's breakaway "Wardens" have 52. The Cabal up at the University of Maryland in College Park have 33. The Ascendants have 49 and Project Twilight 42. Samuel's Cabal have 131. Samuel himself (just by himself) accounts for 47 of them. Lastly, there are three independent Mages in the Consilium - Fisher King has 36, Alexander 8 and Bethune - a woman Wolsey's heard of, who lobbies on behalf of charities and lives on the fringes of Awakened society - has 8. Wolsey carefully notes everything down, thanks Hoban for his attention to detail and asks him where he's off to next.

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"Roriko, if I can find her. Try to find out if she took Thursday or Mara's offer" - Hoban They bid him farewell, and he leaves. Wolsey kicks into gear, crunching the numbers. "Assuming Banneker and Suleiman vote the way we think, they have 107. If the Gatekeepers and Twilight go for Thursday, he has 82. That's closer than I'd heard it was - even figuring in the Ascendants, it's 156 to 82. A big cabal like the Defenders could swing that." - Wolsey "Fisher King. He'll probably go with Banneker" - Mycroft "That makes it 192... Yeah. That sounds more like what I've been hearing" - Wolsey Still, he reckons it's not hopeless. There are enough people undeclared to make the vote go any number of ways. The gang confer, and try to figure out people's motivations. Dantor's gang are unlikely to vote for Thursday, given the bad blood between the two Bokor - especially since Beckett joined the Defenders. As for the Recorders... Samuel says he's staying out of the whole thing, which means their voting power is lessened. But still very sizeable, and there's nothing to say which way they'll vote. "That's if they do, of course. They might just follow Samuel's example" - Wolsey Twilight, the Defenders and the Recorders represent the "big fish", the Cabals that now have the power to decide who becomes Councillor. If the Crucible are to get the outcome they want, they need to direct those bigger fish. All of it is, of course, moot unless they can persuade Ulysses to even stand in the first place. Shore is raised as a potential candidate again should Ulysses refuse, but Wolsey still reckons they don't know enough about him. "Kali, could you cast the bones on that?" - Wolsey "The what?" - Kali "You know" (waves hand) "Do your thing" - Wolsey Kali gives him a look "Hey - I'm giving you a chance to use your talents. I don't necessarily believe in the outcome, but it wouldn't hurt to check" - Wolsey Kali shakes her head, casts her spell and determines the benefit or detriment to the Cabal of Shore or Ulysses winning the job. Ulysses would be good for the Cabal, but Shore would not and Melchior would definitely not. She can't get anything more specific, though. And so, they have their playing field. The night is yet young, so a few people can be visited. Wolsey directs the troops - Damascus and Wolsey will head to Shore, Mycroft and Amanda to Pool to check their assumption that Twilight will vote for

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Thursday. They consider how best to get Fisher King on side, and bring up his Provost - the Perfected Adept named Marathon who's in the College Park Cabal. But they don't know any of those guys, and it might look rather suspicious to go and try to make friends now of all times. "Henderson" - Mycroft "Excuse me?" - Wolsey Mycroft explains that there's a woman in Marathon's Cabal named Henderson, who works for the FBI in her Shadow life. That must mean Twilight at the least don't disapprove of her - so they could use Twilight to get to Henderson to get to Marathon to get to Fisher King Wolsey agrees to try it. For Kali, though, there's a very important mission. "We need to get Samuel to vote. I know he doesn't want to, but he has a *duty*, damn it. Go remind him of that" - Wolsey "How?" - Kali "I don't know. But it's what? Half an hour of his life?" - Wolsey "I'll go tomorrow" - Kali But "I'll go Tomorrow" - Kali, brooking no argument. Mycroft and Amanda leave. off to see the FBI.

"You know, our new friend does seem rather too knowledgeable about the city. He's been here for what? A week? And he spouts data about who everyone is" - Wolsey "Maybe he was briefed. Or read Malakaii's notes" - Damascus "Which we burned" - Wolsey "Fair point" - Damascus "I think.. I think we need to check that Thursday DID send him to us. I'd hate to be caught out" - Wolsey Come to think of it, Thursday has never been anything but polite to the Cabal - he helped Kali when she was framed by the Seers in the Crack Factory's explosion. They removed Mara from power for him. Why, then, would he suddenly start being hostile to them and send Mycroft as a threat? Wolsey and Damascus decide to go see Mr Thursday before heading onward to Shore's.

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... An hour later, and the pair have arrived at a nondescript consultancy building, in the area of the city surrounded by lobbies, Congressional offices and funding bodies. In other words, Wolsey's territory. Well, his and everyone else who moves in the same circles. They are met in the elevator by Tybalt, who sniffs when he sees Wolsey and spends the elevator ride insinuating that Wolsey's hands have been entirely tied by Banneker. More to the point, given the deals that the Gatekeepers are making, Thursday is going to be Councillor, and then Tybalt will be the rising star, and Wolsey will be the one everyone forgets about. "You're forgetting something" - Wolsey "And what's that?" - Tybalt "Kali and Samuel" - Wolsey Tybalt falls silent. He hadn't thought of that. From his expression, he manages to compose a witty comeback *just* as the elevator doors open.
Ah, the spirit of the Staircase. I'm not 100% on what exactly Wolsey said to shut him up - the above is the result of me, Mark and Rafe going "was it? Nah - I think.." and so on for ten minutes after we'd finished playing session 8.2. Damn, I'm behind on this thread. Sam reckons, by the way, that it isn't so much Tybalt being Wolsey's evil twin counterpart as the other way around.

When they're finally out of Tybalt's presence, they enter what could be a very informal office or a rather businesslike lounge. Trace is here, which is one friendly face at least - she's lying on a sofa, shoes discarded next to her, leafing through papers. Mr Thursday is also here, dressed in full regalia - top hat, walking stick, skulls and all. When he was Interfector, he mostly wore nondescript suits. Once the greetings are out of the way, they get to business. "How is Mycroft?" - Thursday "Settling in. Ah... We were a bit surprised at his arrival. And that you didn't house him in your own Cabal" - Wolsey "He will do more good for us all with you in the Crucible. His presence here was making some of my cabalmates nervous. I understand that - I make Guardians nervous too, as Bokor. Not so with you people" - Thursday This is not quite the picture Mycroft painted. "If anything unexplained and strange happens..." - Thursday "It happens to us. I know." - Wolsey Turns out, Thursday didn't send Mycroft to the Cabal as a warning. He was trying to do them a favour - though Mycroft didn't take it that way. "May we ask why you're standing?" - Wolsey 352

"Because we are unguarded, and Melchior will not give the city what it needs. Malakaii did necessary things - you know this, even with the bad blood that was between you" (Wolsey nods) "and his last act was to attack the Seers. The 'House of Steel', yes? We have not heard anything of them since - but Malakaii caught none of their Mages. They will be back, and we are unprepared, unarmed and seduced by the scorpions in our midst." - Thursday He sits down. "Melchior will bring order to the Pentacle, but at the cost of looking inward. His is the Lex Magica, the Protocols and the Duel Arcane. He would be so busy correcting what he sees as our weaknesses that he does not notice the Seers at his door. That is why I cannot accept this election without a fight" - Thursday "You know he's winning?" - Wolsey "We have plans. Trace here is going to Samuel tomorrow - we hope to persuade him to back us" - Thursday "Good luck with that" - Damascus "I know that you cannot vote for me, Wolsey. You are Banneker's creature. I want you to know I do not hold this against you." - Thursday
Thursday's right - and Wolsey and Damascus can see that he's talking sense. The problem is that he's essentially unelectable. No matter his good intentions, Thursday's been an Interfector too long and makes blunders like the Mycroft situation. He just has this knack of offending people, and he's damaged rather than helped build bridges to Dantor and Mara's Cabals because he isn't willing to compromise on what he sees as the shortcomings of their members. But he isn't a monster, and he isn't doing this out of a sense of egotism. He honestly believes (rightly) that Melchior would be disastrous, and sees himself standing as the necessary step to prevent it and stop the Guardians from crumbling.

Wishing Thursday well with his campaign, they head to Shore's office back over in the East. By now it's late enough that the place is completely shut up. The only light is coming from Shore's office and from the desk of his PA. "Good evening Mr Washington. Is Councillor Banks expecting you?" - PA Damascus greets her back and says that no - he and his friend were hoping Banks would be working late as usual. She calls through, and tells them they can go in.
Shore's real name is Gareth Banks. There isn't a quote for the reply because we still don't know what Wolsey's "business name" (the one he gives clients and rents his apartment under rather than 'Wolsey' - because he doesn't use his real name for either) is. Simply because Mark hasn't decided on what it is, yet. We just accept that Sleepers know Wolsey as something other than Wolsey that isn't Thomas Dean.

"Wolsey, Damascus! Yes, come in" - Shore "Hi Shore. Working late?" - Damascus "Always" - Shore They shake, and the lads ask him how it's going persuading Ulysses to stand. Shore grimaces. "Teeth-grindingly slowly. In truth, I think myself, Beckett and Dantor have said about as much as it's safe for us to say to him on the subject. Anything more and we risk making him refuse outright." - Shore Wolsey nods

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"I was thinking of standing myself, if it comes to that. Hopefully it won't." - Shore Wolsey says that he's been analysing the numbers of the thing, and Shore pulls his own notes on the subject out of his desk. "Let's see if you reached the same conclusions" - Shore Wolsey goes over Shore's notes "You think you can get Suleiman? I thought he was backing Banneker" - Wolsey "I'm a Claviclarius, and Suleiman's just as Legacy-minded as the rest of us" - Shore
Always pay attention to that Z-axis. It really can complicate things.

"How does Ulysses think of the Claviclarius, if you don't mind me asking? I thought he disliked the idea of demon-summoning" - Wolsey "Ulysses dislikes all Legacies, period." - Shore "How do the two of you get along, then?" - Wolsey, trying to clarify something he's been wondering about for a while. "Who do you think pays for his church?" (grins) "Ulysses is like an uncle to me, he helped raise me - and he knows that I joined this Legacy to understand the things lurking inside the human mind, not to worship them." - Shore "Some of your fellow Claviclarius aren't so hostile to demons" - Damascus "Best, then, that I act as the go-between between them and Ulysses. Seriously, gentlemen, the man is *Dantor*'s Provost. He has been exposed to philosophies he vehemently disagrees with and stayed professional before." - Shore "We can't wait forever for him. He's going to have to decide by Sunday if he's going to stand or not" - Wolsey "I can try my best. As we're not relying on just our Cabal and Mara's. Tomorrow morning, I'm off to see Samuel." - Shore, confident. Damascus and Wolsey give one another a look and wish Shore a pleasant evening. --Back at the Sanctum, Kali watches a lot of TV. Eventually, she crawls to her bed and collapses into a deep sleep disturbed by thoughts of Snakes, of being trapped inside herself and of losing her identity. Twice in the night, she's woken by the sound of the Sanctum's front door opening and closing. Then, late at night, the door goes a third time. If Wolsey was with Damascus, and Amanda was with Mycroft, then who..? She gets up, foggy with sleep, and walks down the stairs into the main room, finding Mycroft and Amanda trying to quietly get to their rooms.

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Kali frowns, and goes back to bed. --In the morning, Kali wakes again and heads downstairs to find the other four eating breakfast. "Late getting in?" - Kali Wolsey says that he slept at his own apartment. Damascus likewise spent the night in his own home. They only just got here. She goes into the kitchen to get her own food, and notices something odd. The Robe of the Dethroned Queen - which she's been using as a towel - has moved. "Someone been playing with the robe?" - Kali There are denials all round. (off her look) "What?" - Wolsey "It's just..." (looks back at the Kitchen and trails off) - Kali "Kali... Why did you think Wolsey was here?" - Mycroft
Use of Attainment, there.

"...I heard the door go" - Kali "And you didn't check?" - Wolsey "I guessed it was you or Damascus" - Kali "You Guessed?" - Wolsey, eyebrows raising. He points over at the front door. "Check!" - Wolsey Kali casts Postcognition on the door. And watches, quite clearly, as the past-image of Seraph walks into the Sanctum, heads straight to the Kitchen, puts the Robe on, casts something, takes it off and - suddenly looking confused and troubled - leaves.
Well, if she will keep leaving it lying around like that...

Knowing what effect this will have before she says it, Kali braces for impact and tells the others what happened. Wolsey, true to Kali's stereotype of him, goes ballistic.
You can always rely on Wolsey to go ballistic at something Kali's done. Half our sessions are taken up with arguments, sometimes. They're always very entertaining, though hard to recap.

"How could you be so stupid?" - Wolsey

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"Excuse me?" - Kali Wolsey gets histrionic - they've been burgled, Kali left the artefact lying around, she didn't bother to guard the Sanctum properly. Kali, for her part, gets defensive and angry at the unfairness of the argument. After all, as she points out, Wolsey hasn't exactly been around lately. Or at all. "Have you been defending your new happy coffee machine from Seer attack?" - Kali "You were HERE" - Wolsey Mycroft, trying to defuse the fight (he's new, so he doesn't know how practiced these two are at having shouting matches) asks who Seraph is, and learns that he's a Seer. Wolsey starts laying into Kali leaving the Robe lying around, even though he never voiced a problem with it before. "I'll keep it around all the time, then. I'll sleep on it. I'll fuck people on it - will that make you feel better?" - Kali "As long as it's not Seraph" - Mycroft, making a second attempt at defusing it "Don't go there" - Wolsey They work their way towards 'closing statements' "I just want you to think" - Wolsey "Don't expect me to behave like a rational human being. Not now. Not when I don't know... It's hard, all right? Hard to act rationally when you've discovered your minds is being fucked with, that you're probably right now in some kind of recap which makes everything seem inevitable and unchangeable, and that you've just met your estranged father who seems to be locked in the same damn cell as you and worse he doesn't know it. And if you want this place guarded, maybe YOU SHOULD BE HERE!" - Kali Wolsey gets a pen out and slaps it onto the table. "RIGHT. Rota. Eight-hour shifts. We haven't been guarding the place properly, so we start right now." - Wolsey He seems to mean it, and is drawing up a rough timetable. "I'll take first shift." - Wolsey Damascus volunteers to go talk to Ulysses again - it's about time he went to church, he notes, but he has class later that day anyway. Amanda and Mycroft have errands. As for Kali - she is to go to Samuel and see what she can do about getting him to actually turn up and vote. "And tell him it's his duty. It's only a half hour out of his life, and it'll make the difference" - Wolsey Kali seems dubious about her chances, and is still smarting from Wolsey's rebuke of not half an hour earlier, but says she'll see what she can do. And she takes the Robe with her, too.

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Wolsey, as well as drawing up a rota, will spend the next few hours making the strongest ward he can fashion, triggering an alarm in his mind when crossed by Mind Magic. .. Damascus turns up at Ulysses' church - now reopened properly following the attack of the Irish Seer Cabal months earlier - to find several dozen other people also waiting for morning mass. Including, rather embarrassingly, his mother and younger brother. Carl greets Ricky and their mother (who chides him for avoiding them), and makes small talk. Ricky has managed to hold down his new job so far, which Carl congratulates him on. Ricky congratulates Carl on making it into College, which seems to impress him greatly. It's a whole congratulate-a-thon.
We haven't, IIRC, ever actually met Ricky. He was referred to by Carl's sister way back when in the early stories of the chronicle. I wanted this scene to remind us, the players and you, the viewer, that Damascus has a brother that he considers to be a bit of a deadbeat. It will be important next story.

Carl finally - after mass - gets to catch Father Joyce alone just in time to deflect a question about his girlfriend from his mother. Somehow, Carl doesn't reckon that Kemi is the take-home-to-meet-the-parents type. The Awakened in the building go off in private and put their Shadow Personae in place. "I know why you're here" - Ulysses Good. Makes it easier. Damascus tells Ulysses that there's a lot of support for him - enough to maybe win it for him without much trouble. All he has to do is stand. Ulysses is still resistant, not wanting to do Banneker a bad turn. Damascus asks Ulysses if he think Melchior would be any better. Melchior's new to the city and obsessed with his own doctrine. Thursday's a blunt instrument that has no feel for politics. Ulysses is different - he's clever enough to be able to cope with the position, wise enough to be a *good* Councillor and popular enough to have the mandate. What the city needs is a politician of his skill. "You want me to be a politician?" - Ulysses "I want you to be a leader. Something I've always told Wolsey; Politics is a game. You might have to play, but you don't have to let it define who you are." - Damascus Ulysses says that he'll continue to think about it. Damascus accepts that and leaves, saying goodbye to his family on the way out. Outside the church, Damascus phones Wolsey while figuring out how best to drive to College this time of day. "He's still thinking about it" - Damascus "Well, let's hope he makes his mind up soon. We can't wait forever" - Wolsey And with that, Damascus goes to class.

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... Having put it off and put it off, Kali finally finds herself sat on her motorbike outside the Time Machine, fighting her instinct to just drive away. Eventually, she plucks up the determination to go ring the bell. When she's allowed inside, and shown through the disused TV transmission station by a Recorders underling, it's by a different route to usual. She's not taken to the guest dorm - where she slept while under arrest that one time - or to the Demesne chamber up in the tower. Instead, she's led through the old offices - now crammed full of filing cabinets and lockers. Eventually, she reaches an office - Samuel's office, which she's never been in. It's vaguely like being called in to see the Principal. The servant knocks for her then strolls off to whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. The sound of conversation from the other side of the door stops abruptly, and then Samuel calls for her to just come in. Inside, Samuel is sat at his desk - remarkably clutter-free too. Across from him, looking like they're having a hard time of it, are Beckett and Shore. They both look around at Kali as she enters. "Go on, gentlemen. Astound me" - Samuel The Master waves Kali in and nods behind himself to a free spot near the wall. Beckett and Shore watch her cross the floor to stand there, then Samuel clears his throat and they realise they need to get on with it. Their argument is pretty much the same as Damascus tried to use on Ulysses, and that Thursday has been hoping to use. Half an hour's longwinded fictions sum up as "Ulysses isn't Melchior" Samuel regards them flatly. He informs them that he the reason he's not voting is that he simply isn't interested. In order to get him to come out, they're going to have to think of something. "Why don't you have a think about that?" (nods towards door) "Kali. Stay a while." Samuel Beckett and Shore leave the room, though their conversation can dimly be heard even from the office. Inside the office, there's silence. "Let me guess why you're here" - Samuel He's curt with her, though nowhere near as curt as he was with Shore and Ulysses the general impression is that he would be more caring and tutorly, but he's rather busy right now. She swiftly gives in on the whole getting him to vote thing. Eventually, Samuel notices the robe, and asks why she's carrying it around. Kali, figuring that it's costing her nothing, tells him everything. Samuel is not amused.

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"Shore! Beckett! Get back in here!" - Samuel The two Mastigos return to the office. "Congratulations, gentlemen. Kali has just told me something that means I will be willing to vote for you - for a price. I said that I am more interested in my researches? Well, an obstacle to them has appeared that I believe you can help me with." Samuel He puts a blank piece of paper on his desk and slides it - along with a pen - towards Beckett. "You want me to vote for your preferred candidate. I want Seraph's real name. Now." Samuel

"You can't..." - Shore "I can do whatever I please, Shore. This is the bargain." (off Beckett's look) "You're about to ask if I will use my magic to mitigate the karma you'll accrue for breaking your sworn word. The answer" (leans back in chair) "Is 'No'. I won't. You want me to throw an election for you so badly, you do this." (taps the paper) "Give me the name" - Samuel
This is probably the biggest example of Samuel being a bastard so far in the Chronicle. Which itself is an indication of how he has finally had enough of Seraph dicking about and ruining his plans by stalking Kali. Seraph has broken, in Brit-LARP terms, "Rule 7", which is defined as "Don't take the piss". He will get what's coming to him in 9.1. Maybe 9.2

Beckett stares at the paper. Kali tries to be as quiet as possible. "The Name" - Samuel Beckett - no longer nearly as amused or pleased with himself as normal, looks up ashen-faced at Samuel and Kali "I..." - Beckett He swallows whatever he was going to say, grabs the pen and quickly writes a name down, then folds the paper and gives it to Samuel. "You can go" - Samuel, dismissive Shore and Beckett leave, clinging to Samuel's promise to vote however they wish. Samuel looks at the name on the paper, then up at Kali, who stares back at him. "D'you want to come with me?" - Samuel
Which is a Doctor Who quote - it's what he says to the audience in the trailers before the new series. The link being that Time Travel is in the offing.

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... Damascus has made it to college, where he's in his History of Art lecture. "Hi" - woman sat next to him "Oh, hi" - Carl "I'm Monica" - Monica "Carl" - Carl "You don't mind me sitting here? Only, you're the only other adult here" - Monica And she's right - he is. Two adult students surrounded by young co-eds. Carl and Monica get to chatting after the lecture - she's seen him in other classes, she says, but she's only doing her degree part-time. They talk about Art, and their own work - Marie is a lapsed painter, while she's suitably impressed by Carl's ironsculpting. The time comes to leave - Wolsey's "shift" back at the Sanctum is coming to an end, and Damascus will have to be back there to see if the rota went his way and then Monica, hesitantly, asks if he wants to do lunch on Monday. Thinking of the Consilium on Tuesday night, and how busy he's likely to be as Damascus, Carl regretfully declines. But he'll meet her for coffee on the Wednesday before class.
Monica will show up again.

... Wolsey has taken a break, the first of his spells finished, when Shore phones him. "Good news!" - Shore "You managed it?" - Wolsey, not quite believing "Your girl Kali did. I don't know what she said to Samuel, but it worked. He's agreed to vote our way" - Shore Wolsey consults his notes, and his numbers. "That's it, then. We can have anyone we want elected" - Wolsey He and Shore are momentarily jubilant at one another. "What was the price?" - Wolsey "I... uh... I can't say. Not over the phone. Steep." - Shore, suddenly less Jubilant. Wolsey waits

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"You'd better ask Kali" - Shore, finally. ... Kali and Samuel are sat in the Demesne room of the Time Machine, the lava lamp shedding it's undulating light on the occasion. Samuel has the note with Seraph's real name on it. Kali has the Robe on her knees. "You remember how this works?" - Samuel "I do" - Kali Samuel casts Quantum Leap and Kali has the sensation of her mind being pulled out of her body and thrown back in time, where it comes to rest in an ephemeral form.
Details of Samuel's time-travel spells can be found earlier in the thread

Once the scene has stopped resolving itself, Kali can see that she and Samuel's new Twilight forms are in the Sanctum, watching Seraph's breaking and entering of the night before. Once Samuel has seen it, he takes them both out of the past. "His spell was Mind-based, one of the mid-level practices. But this isn't the first time he's been there" - Samuel "He's used the robe before?" - Kali "I think so. We can go again - we'll take them in reverse order." - Samuel He recasts the spell, sending them to a week earlier. Seraph enters the Sanctum as before, with a key. Kali can hear music coming from upstairs and realises she was actually at home and out of bed when this happened she just didn't hear anything. "Don't go upstairs." - Samuel Seraph crosses the Sanctum to the kitchen again and puts the Robe on. His eyes go wide as though he's suddenly realised something, and he looks around desperately. Then teleports. "One moment" - Samuel Their Twilight forms transfer to where Seraph reappeared - and Kali gets a very bad feeling. Seraph is running up a street, still wearing the robe, looking over his shoulder like a man being pursued. Problem is, the street he's on is the one Blaise gave Kali the Nickel challenge on. And Seraph is running towards her dad's house. Seraph runs up to the front door, pauses in the action of knocking, appears to consider, pulls a card out of his pocket and hastily scrawls an address on it before posting it through the letterbox.

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Turns out it *was* Seraph who sent the note.

And here's where I am slightly too subtle. Or maybe I'm not. Because, as should be clear if you read back, this is impossible. Kevin received the mystery note in Wolsey's handwriting *before* the gang got the Robe - long enough before to find the caryatid column, track down the artist and wait outside Damascus' house. So this vision of the past? It's been edited!

He then teleports again. Samuel curses, and the Twilight forms shift back to the Sanctum, where Seraph is having a confrontation with something Kali and Samuel can't see. "What are you?" - Seraph Nothing answers. "Well, that's too bad. Because whatever it's all about, it's all over - I've seen to that" Seraph The Seer is ranting, fearfully, to thin air. "So go ahead. Do your worst." - Seraph He pulls the hood of the robe back, and then his face goes blank. He takes the robe off and - looking like he doesn't know what he's doing there - stumbles and flees the Sanctum. All the while, Kali's bad taste in music wafts down from upstairs. Samuel cancels the spell, and Kali gasps for air. The near-Archmage gives her a few minutes, then casts his spell for the third time. This time, it's even longer ago - Kali identifies it as the Lonely period, after Avatar had left to get her head together, when Wolsey was still incommunicado and Damascus a rare visitor. It's late at night. Seraph picks the lock (no key this time) and sneaks into the Sanctum, being careful to look for defensive spells. He looks around - paying especial attention to Damascus' timetable, which at this stage is still on the noticeboard - and then spots the Robe. Looking like he thinks this is a practical joke, Seraph puts the robe on. He blinks, and then appears to spot something in the room. Or someone. "It's YOU" - Seraph, horrified The Seer backs away from nothing "But... you... I thought it was..." - Seraph He pulls the robe off, and like last/next time his face goes blank. Dropping the robe, he goes back to looking around clandestinely - clearly not remembering what happened when he put it on. Just as he finds the Sanctum's spare key, Samuel cancels the spell.

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Kali comes to, to find Samuel staring intently at the Robe. Far worse, though, is her own reaction. She's shaking, tears streaming down her face. And she has no idea why. "Spider" - Samuel He thinks while she composes herself. "...And the Robe of the Dethroned Queen" - Samuel "The Robe hides you from the Exarchs. Or marks you out to them." - Kali "But how? And... Could I borrow it for a second?" - Samuel Kali, frowning, hands the Robe over. Samuel takes a deep breath and puts it on. The room skips, like a record jumping a track. Kali is lying on the floor, trembling again, and Samuel has taken the Robe off. Kali has the very strongest sense of Inevitability. "That's it, then. The Robe hides you from whatever the Spider is - no.. whoever it is. Same way that they can't reach us when we time-travel, when we wear the Robe we can..." - Samuel "Think for ourselves?" - Kali "Yes! And then, we take it off, or return to the present..." - Samuel "Blammo" - Kali "They remove our memory of what we learned. We've probably seen who the spider is dozens of times - we just can't remember it." - Samuel
I should note that although Kali remains none the wiser, Sam figured out who the Spider is at the end of last session. Kali's own revelation is on course for three or four session's time, I reckon.

... Back at the Sanctum, Damascus gets back to find Wolsey has completed both the ward - set to alert Wolsey when a mind effect crosses the threshold - but also a very nicely coloured-in rota for the guarding of the place. Wolsey, though, is in a good mood this evening. He tells Damascus the news that Samuel and his 47 personal votes are joining their ticket, enough to easily fling Melchior into a distant second place. "All right, maybe I was too hard on her" - Wolsey, happy "You? Hard on Kali? Never." - Damascus, with deep sarcasm. "I'll make it up to her" - Wolsey
A rare occasion of Wolsey half-admitting he's wrong here. Savour it while you can.

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... By the time Kali gets home, weary and head full of implications, Amanda and Mycroft have also returned. Kali kicks the front door of the Sanctum closed and dumps her bag - including the robe, then wearily braces for round whatever of the argument with Wolsey "You. Wonderful, Wonderful Woman" - Damascus Damascus gives her a hug. Mycroft is beaming. "I..." - Kali "Shore phoned us. He said you got Samuel to vote" - Wolsey Amanda, sat on the sofa, opens her arms. "Don't make me find my way across the floor to you" - Amanda Kali walks over for another congratulatory embrace. Wolsey does not hug her.

"...It wasn't me. It was Beckett." - Kali She tells them exactly what Beckett had to do - and what it will likely cost him. He broke a Geas to give Samuel that name - he's cursed. "Did you?" - Wolsey Kali produces the piece of paper with Seraph's name written on it. It's passed around, Mycroft whispering the name to Amanda so that she can get in on the secret too. 'Simon Painten' "I think Beckett just discharged the favour he owed you" - Wolsey Kali shakes her head, emphatically "No. I don't think so - this is too big. We owe HIM for this" - Kali "You understand the situation now, right? Beckett's handed us the ability to have whoever we want elected - or at least, whoever we want as long as Beckett agrees with it. Now all we need is a candidate" - Wolsey Damascus shares his opinion - that Ulysses is "thinking" about it, and that any further prodding from Damascus will do more harm than good. "Well, if he takes too long... After today, I think Beckett deserves it" - Wolsey "The consilium will never stand for it" - Mycroft Wolsey blinks

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"They won't" - Mycroft

Beckett's an apostate ex-Guardian. Mycroft has issues, and hasn't ever met him to take the edge off those issues.

"Well, it's a dubious idea anyway." (to Kali) "Could you cast the bones for us? Find out what'd happen?" - Wolsey Rolling her eyes at "cast the bones", Kali casts .
And gets two successes

She shakes her head "If Beckett becomes a Councillor... he'll be dead within the year." - Kali Ulysses it is then. But how to get him to stand? Shore's tried, Damascus has tried, Beckett's tried. Damascus says that Dantor has tried. "Mara" - Damascus "You're sure? After Malakaii?" - Wolsey, dubious "She may not be a provost any longer, but she is still the head of our Order and someone he respects. He's supported her since she admitted what she did" Damascus "To do otherwise would be unchristian" - Mycroft "Mara's whole thing is that she's the person the Arrow Mages go to with their problems. And she is a Bearer. She can probably be the final person that persuades him" - Amanda "Damascus.. what sort of priest is Ulysses? Does he prefer Resurrection or Crucifixion doctrine?" - Mycroft "What does that matter?" - Kali "It shows how much he believes in redemption" - Damascus Wolsey - by accident or design - ignores Amanda's input and continues to address Damascus and Mycroft as he says that it's worth a go. As he tries to phone Mara, getting her voicemail, Amanda scowls at his back.
Trouble at mill. Wolsey and Amanda's fractured marriage since Querephas is one of the things that gets "handled" by Reign of the Exarchs III. It's the narrative focus of next session, in fact. He reached the answerphone of her practice, which was another excuse to break out the fact that her real name's 'Mahduri'. I'm big with the real names tonight.

Mara phones Wolsey back. He tries to arrange to meet her that night, but she's busy with something, and will be most of the next day. "Tell you what, though. Tomorrow night the Wardens are having a party. Roriko's opening another restaurant, and well, ever since Malakaii our half of the old Cabal could do with some team-spirit building. The Crucible should come - make a night of it. We can talk business then" - Mara

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"Sounds like a plan" - Wolsey He rings off. What else? Oh, yes. He explains the wards he's cast to the gang - Damascus clarifies that Wolsey *really* intends to recast them every fourth day so that they don't fade, and Wolsey says that yes, really, he does - and instructs them to call him should they be triggered. Kali finally confesses that she has more information about what Seraph was doing. She describes what she and Samuel saw - or remember seeing, rather - and the nature of Samuel's speculation after the event. "All of this fits together somehow. We just can't see it." - Damascus He paces, musing. "The Spider, editing our memories. Is interested in your Father and you. Seraph, likewise. Seraph. Seraph's connected to Malakaii - he's a Bearer. Do we know why he left the Pentacle?" - Damascus "No" - Kali
Which would be a lie - she does know, as he told her. But one that went unchallenged.

"Maybe he just got religion" - Damascus "I thought Malakaii invented the Bearers?" - Mycroft "No - we just assumed that he did" - Wolsey Wolsey explains about the Indian Cabal that Malakaii learnt his Legacy from "And we were in their Sanctum" - Kali "This has to do with that Indian Cabal." (frowns) "Maybe.. maybe Spider's one of them" - Damascus "How?" - Amanda "No - it makes sense. Malakaii could alter memories. Someone else of his calibre could too." - Mycroft "Why the Robe? Why the Deja Vu?" - Wolsey Kali tells them what she and Samuel reckon the Robe's effect is "While you're wearing it, you can think for yourself, figure out who the Spider is and even see them. As soon as you take it off, they mind-control you again and you forget" - Kali "Which would be why Damascus remains resistant, to the point he can tell that they've done it. His mind shield is permanent" - Mycroft

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Mycroft used his Attainment to figure that one out.

That doesn't, Wolsey points out, explain Kali being able to sense it too. Anyway. Back to the Vote. Wolsey says that he'll go to Banneker tomorrow - if he can tell the Hierarch that they can swing the vote for Ulysses (subject to Ulysses standing), then he may be able to get Banneker's support for Melchior removed entirely, which would make for a true landslide victory. It is now late enough that everyone is very tired. "Right." (stands up and stretches) "Damascus, looks like you're on. I, on the other hand, am going home" - Wolsey Damascus does not look happy at this. "Wolsey..." - Amanda Wolsey leaves. "I'll swap with you, Damascus" - Amanda "You sure?" - Damascus (bitter) "One of us should get some tonight, and my husband just walked out without saying goodbye" - Amanda There is an awkward silence "Go - I said I'll swap. You two have fun... and get some rest" - Amanda "I'll take the hours after you, and cover for the rest of you when you go to Mara's. I don't think I'd be welcome" - Mycroft ... And, Mycroft grabbing as much sleep as he can in the spare room while Amanda bitterly sits up, fruitlessly guarding the Sanctum, Kali and Damascus retire to Kali's room. Where, true to her threat to Wolsey and in some effort to assert that *she* owns *it*, not the other way around, they use the Robe of the Dethroned Queen as a bedsheet while they make love.
First time they're together since Vegas

--Late that night, Kali has a dream. Or maybe, more like a memory. It's late at night (she thinks), and she's very small, huddled beneath her Darth Vader duvet.
Star Wars bedclothes are a running theme with Kali, for some reason - at Sam's insistence I might add. I don't know what this says about Kemi's childhood. See, again, next session for this to be subverted.

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There's the sound of footsteps from outside, in the hall. Little Kemi takes a breath, apprehensive for some reason. The footsteps stop. Kemi's heart pounds. The door opens. And Kali jolts awake, sweating. "What?" - Damascus, surprised and now awake. "...I don't know" Kali She's starting to remember - this is when Anurati mind-wiped her and the father and left. Saturday. After taking her turn as Sanctum guard, Kali goes to walk the Thread, but something's wrong. She's not settled enough, or not rested enough, or something but she can't seem to get the thread. Wolsey manages to phone Banneker and tell him the news about the vote. Banneker's already promised his vote to Melchior, and can't break that promise, but is pleased to be outgunned on this.
Again with the Keeping of your Sworn Word - it's a very Mage thing, the importance on vows.

"I won't forget this Tom. Believe me, I know that it was your hard work that made this possible" - Banneker. That does not necessarily make Wolsey feel any better about this - setting Banneker up for a fall later on. Banneker says that he'll mollify Melchior by offering him a role as a consultant on the Lex Magica. Something to make him feel important. ... That night, with Mycroft on guard back home ("I promise I'll hide and phone for backup at first sight of a Seer attack"), Damascus, Kali, Wolsey and Amanda find themselves joining Mara, Proteus, Roriko and Jude at a Greek Restaurant out behind Central Station.
Roriko has been mentioned but never yet seen - she's a Japanese-American woman, a Bearer of the Eternal Voice, who acts as a contact hub and networker for the Guardians of the Veil. Proteus is a Thyrsus Sentinel of a shapechanging Legacy who's occasionally romantically linked to Mara. Jude is the red-haired Acanthus Sentinel who's shown up every now and again - most notably during Damascus' fight with the renegade spirit and the group who told Wolsey who Beckett was, both early on in the Chronicle.

With so many Sentinels in the room, Damascus feels right at home. The Eight mages - plus a handful of staff - are the only people in the place, as Roriko hasn't opened it properly yet. Over the meal, Damascus asks Kali what woke her up the night before. She describes her dream.

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Amanda and Wolsey, over on their table, are once again aggressively not talking about their relationship - or about anything beyond the level of minor small talk. After the meal, Roriko chats with Kali and Damascus; "Nice place" - Damascus "Thanks - and it's good to meet you at last. I don't live that far away, it's just that we were on different sides" - Roriko "Things change" - Damascus "For the longest time, I thought you'd named your Cabal 'The Bloody Crucible'" Roriko Damascus laughs "Why Greek?" - Damascus "I got bored of Chinese and Japanese..." - Roriko Mara, though, sensing that Wolsey wants to get this over with, goes to the bar with him. "You look well" - Wolsey "Thanks. I feel well. Better, anyway." (smiles, tired) "You don't know how much you've been crushed until the weight's lifted off. I've been saved from an early grave, and I owe you one, Tom" - Mara She gets him a drink "You want to talk to me about Ulysses" - Mara Wolsey explains - Beckett has managed to get Samuel on-side and where Samuel goes his Cabal will surely follow. They have the resources to have Ulysses win, if they can get him to stand. "You're the last person he respects. Talk to him. Gently." - Wolsey Mara thinks, and then agrees. She'll do it. ".. Something has been preying on me, ever since Amanda... Well, you know. I've been thinking about it more in the run up to this election. Melchior gave us the Eyes of Salt" - Mara "I have.. been deliberately avoiding thinking about that" - Wolsey
Roriko, as has been mentioned, is based off Rafe's very first Mage: The Ascension character, back in the very old days. Interesting chronological note - that character started off life as a Euthanatos and then halfway through the second chronicle she featured in got hit by a convoluted plot macguffin that altered her personal history every couple of days - her entire character sheet altered as everything that happened to her since the age of 5 got rewritten three times a week from the ground up, and although she was never conscious of what was happening it took a toll on the others, who once they figured out how to stop it were in the unhappy position of having to greet each new her with an eye to maybe keeping this one. In the end, they nearly went with the Nephandi and the Celestial Chorister, but plumped for the Cultist of Ecstasy at the last moment. That was, oh, ten years ago? Just goes to show that I've been doing this sort of thing for a very long time. But the progression from Chinese to Greek restaurants happened in that Chronicle too. Though in that case it was because it got trashed by a Zigg'Rauglar. While we're on the subject of odd influences, and given that Mara's in this scene - Mahduri is named after a friend of mine. My work and my social life don't tend to mix much, which has led to a long line of characters named after Archaeologists and

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Bankers. Mind you, next week I name a player character after a villain in Desperate Housewives.

--Sunday, and as the Cabal has lunch, Wolsey receives a call from Shore. Ulysses is standing for Councillor. Job done. --Election day! The Awakened of DC gather in the Consiliums central Sanctum at the Masonic hall downtown, and prepare to go through the elaborate ritual of choosing someone to be one of their leaders. Kali is bemused and amazed by Hoban's official hat, which appears to have had something die and be nailed to the top of it. The Scribe hands out small bags containing the pewter tokens. Everyone's here; the room's getting unpleasantly full. Already, Thursday and his people are glaring openly at Beckett, Shore and Mara. Samuel arrives, serious-faced. The crowd makes a gap for him. Hoban calls for the candidates - Thursday, Melchior and Ulysses. In ascending order of seniority they go through their Hustings, each giving a short speech about why they'd be best for the job. Thursday focuses on the external threat, how they are disunited and need to hold together in this time of upheaval for the Sleepers. Melchior says that the loss of Malakaii was a tragedy that should not have happened - that would not have happened under properly enforced rules of conduct. He looks right as Mara as he denounces casual experimentation with matters best left alone. He and his Cabal know the Way, he says. The Ascendants know how to lead the Diamond back to the true path. Many of those present - including Kali - sneak a look at how the Free Council nearlyArchmage takes Melchior constantly referring to "The Diamond". He does not seem amused. Ulysses, as most senior, gives the third and final husting. He says that he was persuaded to stand by people on all sides of what is turning into a dangerous rift. That Thursday was right in what he said about needing to pull together. The three Cabals who make up the core of the Consilium's defences are at odds, and this has to stop now. "It's time to let the past lie, and to forgive one another. We won't get many more chances" - Ulysses
Most definitely a Resurrection Catholic.

Hoban calls the Cabals, in order of their Founding, to vote. One by one, mages file past the three candidates. It soon becomes clear that Ulysses is winning. After

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Samuel puts his entire bag of tokens into Ulysses' jar, bag and all, it's all but certain. The Crucible's time comes. Everyone puts their tokens in Ulysses' jar - with the exception of Mycroft, who looks Thursday in the eye and gives him one single token. By the time Bethune, as the last person on the roll, votes, Ulysses is looking like a man shouldering a burden. And Thursday looks about ready for a fight. Hoban, Dantor and Samuel have a brief discussion, and then Hoban announces that - with everyone's indulgence - the Council has to meet now before they can let everyone go. Blaise has ceased to be Samuel's Provost and, for obvious reasons, Ulysses has just this minute stopped being Dantor's. All three of them need to appoint someone to do the running around and active Pentacle-wrangling. Together with Hoban and Banneker, they go into the next chamber. Out where the Crucible are, Beckett and Thursday look perilously close to coming to blows. Shore comes over to speak to the Cabal, wincing as Beckett skewers Thursday with a particularly impressive barbed comment. "I've got a bad feeling about this." - Shore "How so?" - Wolsey "Me and Beckett are the only qualified people left in the Defenders - and they need two people of our rank to be Provosts. If Beckett gets given a public office, Thursday will challenge him to a duel. And then Beckett'll kill him" - Shore Damascus watches Beckett. The Mastigos' smile never *quite* reaches his eyes. "No. Sorry - I just don't care" - Wolsey Everyone looks at him, he shrugs. "I've been thinking about this campaign since Malakaii died. I just don't have the race for Provost in me. I need sleep - then maybe I'll be able to care" - Wolsey React to his cursing himself and having nothing further to lose by trying to kill someone allegedly on the same side? Beckett? With his reputation? "If it comes to it, I'll square the circle for them" - Damascus Hoban comes out of the Council's deliberations, sighing. "How's it going?" - Wolsey "Well" (takes off the stupid hat and runs a hand through his blond locks) "There's a slight disagreement. About Trace." - Hoban
Hoban, I don't know if you recall, looks like an American Football player. He's big, strong, blond, square-jawed and handsome. Put him in a red pullover and he'd look like Flash Gordon. The fact that he's essentially the Consilium's PA is just one of life's little curveballs.

"She'd be *great*" - Kali, emphatically "Oh, no question, and she's waited long enough. That isn't the problem. The problem is that both Samuel AND Ulysses wanted her. Mary turned Samuel down yesterday -

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rumour has it that she's done him a deal where she gets leadership of the Cabal when he leaves instead, which means more to her. So he went with the best suited of the House, but Ulysses wanted a Guardian of the Veil to make good on his speech." - Hoban The Councillors and Hierarch all come back in. Hoban briefly confers. Dantor calls Shore out. The Mastigos downs his drink, takes the handshakes offered to him by the people around him, and half walks, half-jogs up to the front. Thursday and Beckett are now watching one another, not the stage. Ulysses calls Trace out, who was clearly not expecting it. Nor, it seems, was Thursday. She's happy, though, and passes a congratulatory Kali on her way. Samuel calls John Dee. "Go fuck yourself, chief" - John Dee There is deadly silence. Hoban freezes in the act of marking the appointment on his records. Melchior is making some kind of choking sound at the back, but Samuel doesn't seem that surprised by the outburst. "John..." - Samuel "Sorry, but no. Not interested. Find someone else." - John Dee "Er. Just a few minutes, people! No one go anywhere!" - Hoban Samuel and Ulysses have a quiet conversation. Both of them are gesturing at Trace, who seems worried. They break it off, and Samuel goes to talk to Trace. Hoban announces the slight change - Trace is now *Samuel's* provost, as per his first choice. Ulysses will announce his appointment shortly. Ulysses has retreated into the back room, alone. ... Half an hour later, and the Consilium is getting restless. Banneker has formally asked Melchior to lend the weight of his learning in matters of trials, and the elder Moros considered it for all but a second before agreeing. Wolsey can quite clearly hear Balthazar tell Melchior that it was a very wise decision, and that it was clearly an action of Fate. Wolsey worries about Balthazar, and his fortune-telling's hold over Melchior. "Guys" - Hoban, quietly The Crucible pay attention "He's asking for you" - Hoban, to Damascus

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... The Back room. Ulysses, looking like a sword of Damocles is over him, is sat alone at the table. "Mara or Beckett?" - Ulysses Damascus starts to say something, realises he has no idea what he's going to say and closes his mouth. "Come on, this was your idea. I've got two choices - Mara or Beckett. Either one of them is going to cause a shitstorm" - Ulysses "Have you seen Mara lately?" - Damascus Ulysses considers him ".. How much happier she is? She's *free* now. Making her Provost would probably kill her. How long before she cracks under the pressure again?" - Damascus Ulysses grimaces "I know, I know. Trace would have been perfect. An olive branch to the Guardians, someone from one of the other Cabals." - Ulysses. "How about I go get Wolsey?" - Damascus ... Damascus steps out and looks over the crowd. "Wolsey!" - Damascus "Dude!" - Kali, to Wolsey "Oh no." - Wolsey ... Re-assembled, Wolsey is presented with the dilemma, and has about as many ideas as Damascus and Ulysses. Some frantic poring over Wolsey's copy of the Electoral Roll ensues. "Really, we want someone from Thursday's cabal... for the same reasons you wanted Trace. Sister?" - Damascus "How about *Thursday*? He's certainly qualified." - Wolsey The other two look at him. ... Outside, Thursday is interrupted in the middle of a good staring contest with Beckett, his cabal drawn up around him in something resembling battle formation.

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Damascus approaches, waving a white handkerchief. "Very funny. What?" - Mr Thursday. "Ulysses would like to offer you the job of Provost." - Damascus "I've seen you two going in and out of there for half an hour. Just how low down the list was I?" asked Thursday, preparing to be offended. "Ulysses wanted a Guardian all along. One of your cabal for preference. It's why he wanted Trace. To help heal the Consilium. He did not ask you because he did not think you would accept. We persuaded him that it was at least worth asking if it would get him the person he wanted." - Damascus Thursday thinks briefly, nods, and goes in to see Ulysses. And the fix, finally, is in. This is going to take some getting used to. Kali's focused on Trace, though, happy for her friend - and watching Samuel leave without a word. Damascus and Mycroft are watching Beckett, who is lurking at the back of the room. One by one, the members of the Consilium leave for other places, their own concerns and cares. Beckett stays leaning against the wall. Finally, the Crucible take their leave. Beckett's still there. Brooding. Fin

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Chapter 8: "The Only Place You Can"

Session 8.1
Spoiler Alert! As with Story 3 and Story 6, this one is from the Reign of the Exarchs Sourcebook. So all credit to Robin Laws, whose Scenario this is. And really - if you have even the slightest interest in playing RotE, stop reading now. Not kidding. There'll be much less obfuscation and hiding of things in my blue notes for this story, as at time of writing we've now completed it and all the big plot revelations have been revealed. So. For those still with us, this story begins oddly - the players aren't playing their regular characters, instead portraying residents of a gated community on the edge of some city or other. As the story goes on, though, it becomes obvious that the events are a lie - the players *are* playing their regular characters, but those characters have been trapped in an artificial realm in Astral Space and have had their memories rewritten. Note that this central conceit of the story was spoiled the instant the gang looked at their new character sheets and realised the virtues and vices were the same (which in hindsight I really should have thought of). Still, they got into the spirit and decided to play it as a star trek holodeck story, working through their characters "issues" in the altered reality. Which, as it happens, is exactly the wrong thing to do. The altered reality is designed to emotionally trap the mages imprisoned within it, and the more they engage with the world the harder breaking out of it becomes. All the while, their real bodies are dying of exposure and dehydration while their minds are trapped in the Astral Realm. How they got to be in this mess is revealed over the course of the story in flashbacks as their memories return and they go about trying to escape. The important thing to realise from the start is that the Omniium - the layered magical effects that run this pocket world - has personalised the trap for each of the five Cabal members, creating a shared scenario from their memories, minds and subconsciousnesses. Therefore, the people that appear closely related story-wise to their characters represent people and things that are important to the "real" characters. Wolsey's dream-self is struggling with the breakdown of his marriage after his wife was crippled. Mycroft's dream-self has been assigned to a dead-end posting after making one too many enemies. Kali's dream-self has an overbearing and controlling mother, who disapproves of her every action and whom she desperately wants to please. Charlotte/Kali spends most of the story trying to hold on to the relationship with this mother-figure, even after she remembers who she really is - Kali sees this as an opportunity to have a bond with someone that she's never had in her "real" life. We all know, of course (or you do if you've been reading some of the blacked-out bits in the thread), that this character actually represents the Spider - who behind the obfuscation and memory-wiping actually is Kali's mother. At story's end, Kali finds out who the Spider is. Next story - 9.1 and onwards - is "There Is Nothing To Say", being Reign of the Exarchs IV. After that, we've finished with Reign for the foreseeable future - the final Reign Story ends any chronicle it's in, so we're entering a new phase of the Chronicle. There's a scene in a shower at the end of this one that represents the turning point in the Chronicle. Think of this as a extra-long season finale.

--We pan down from the twinkling stars to the endless grid of the Sutterton Farms gated community - rings and rings of identikit roads featuring identikit houses with identikit lawns. On Apple Street, near 34th Avenue, there are three houses. All in a row. On the porch of the Left-hand house, Paul York stands, checking his watch and looking each way. The Carpentry foreman on the community's construction and maintenance crew, he lives an ordered life of church, wainscoting and tasteful furniture. Tonight, though, as a favour to his mother (long since deposited in a Florida retirement home) he has agreed to take in his brother Peter, who is in need of both a job and somewhere to live. Peter is late. Typical, really.
Introducing... Damascus! "Paul York" being an altered variation of "Carl Washington". The leap from Sculptor to Carpenter isn't that big, really. Actually, I meant to name him after Paul Young in Desperate housewives, which this first third of The Only Place You Can owes a lot to. But I got the name wrong due to a brief brainfart. Paul is a boring, boring man. He's kind of the Ned Flanders of our story - cheerful to his neighbours, helpful, generous, far too pious. He believes in punctuality and neatness.

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Rafe was terrifyingly convincing.

In the kitchen of the house next door, Charlotte James - 15 years old and new to the neighbourhood - is hunting for ice-cream in the freezer. Glancing out of the window, she spots Paul standing there all alone, but her quest for dairy wins out.
Charlotte James... Kemi Simone? Okay, less obvious this one (other than being the female player character). Consider, though, the contraction of Charlotte "Carly". Sound it out in your head.

"You'll get fat, you know" - Anna The voice is that of Anna James, Charlotte's mother - 42 and starting to age, with a wearied gaze that cuts right through her daughter. Charlotte hesitates, decides to ignore her and keeps eating. "Why do I bother?" - Anna She flounces off, leaving Charlotte there.
This was tenser than it reads - there's a lot of undercurrents to Anna and Charlotte's interactions. It doesn't ever get fully "revealed" per se, as both characters know all about it but don't tell anyone else, but the family James is new to this area due to what Anna sees as their humiliation - Charlotte "went off the rails" (by which we mean "slept with a college boy and started drinking") and Anna had her institutionalised. Charlotte now is home from the mental institute after three months, moved to a new area where they can make a fresh start and never reveal their shameful secret. And desperate, as said, to gain her mother's approval.

Further down the street, a Nissan pulls into the driveway of the House on Charlotte and Anna's right. Donald Trask is home after a long day at the office and a few hours at his Elk Society meeting. Fake-antlered hat on the passenger seat, Donald sits in his car and regards his house with weary dread for a quarter of an hour before sighing and getting out of the car. The house is dark and quiet. There's an unoccupied Wheelchair next to the stairs, and the chairlift is at the top of the flight. Donald enters the kitchen, and pulls a sticky note from the table informing him that his dinner is in the oven. Sighing again, he sits down at the large, empty dining table and begins to eat.
Donald Trask = Thomas Dean. Same number of syllables, and "Don" sounds like "Tom" when you shorten the names. As with Charlotte and (to a lesser extent) Paul, Donald's tragic background is referred to by characters and informs what's going on but was never actually said 'on screen' - The Omniium has incorporated Wolsey's mixed guilt and anger over Amanda's maiming by providing "Donald" with a wife named Marie, who is paralysed from the waist down after a self-inflicted car accident - she crashed their car while drunk. He is named, in my perverse fashion, after the father of the scientist who invented Sentinels in X-Men. Or, if you take it as a reference to Donald Trask III, the son of said Scientist who was duped and killed by Cassandra Nova. Mark had no idea.

... Hours later, a beaten-up pickup truck, engine backfiring, growls into view on Apple road. Paul has a sinking feeling that he knows who this is, and sure enough it pulls into the drive next to his own car. The driver waves, and the mongrel dog in the passenger seat barks. "Hey, bro!" - Pete

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"... Nice truck. Where did you get it, the breakers yard?" - Paul "Some guy in Minnesota. Came cheap" - Pete The truck appears to have been repaired with gaffa tape in places. The dog barks again. "And you have a dog" - Paul "Yeah, this is Ricky." - Pete, going to the bed of the truck. Pete's stuff is in the back, open to the elements and now rather wet and windbashed. There's a tool box containing several tools, a doorbell and what looks like a burglar alarm. Paul raises his eyebrow, and Pete just shrugs. The brothers go inside - Paul saying that the dog can stay in the back yard.
"Ricky" is the name of Damascus' real brother. Pete, as should be noted, represents the antisocial, lazy, sexual and beery parts of Damascus. For Kali, the temptation offered by the Omniium is to have a family and have a relationship with her mother. For Wolsey, it's to work out his anger and guilt over Amanda's maiming. As We'll see, Mycroft has been put into a situation where he can get his resentment of the way he's treated by the Guardians out and Amanda has the opportunity to fight for her marriage in a way she doesn't dare to in the real world. Damascus is confronted by Pete - everything of his own character that he's ashamed of, or that he thinks is uncivilised. Everything that he brought up when he was being Antinomist. The pickup is a call to Damascus' own vehicle. Pay especial attention to Chekhovs doorbell...

... Midnight. Charlotte is in bed, wide awake.

Charlotte has Princess Amidala plastered around her room, which is a reference to Story Six.

Paul is in bed, wide awake. Listening to the dog - which he left out in the yard scrabble up the stairs towards the spare room he installed his brother in. Donald - who has sat up all night so far - finally goes to bed. Marie is a shape in the bed, facing away from him. All three characters close their eyes at the same time.
It was only later on in the story, when I asked, that I realised not one of the players realised what was going on here - the three characters (actually the five, because Mycroft and Amanda are stuck in here too) always fall asleep at the same time and wake up simultaneously. They're never actually asleep - the controlling force of the scenario just fast forwards time to the next morning. This becomes more obvious in the final third of this story, when Wolsey is horrifyingly injured but much as he might wish to can't fall unconscious - because the other four characters are still awake.

The next morning, Charlotte is downstairs and having breakfast while fielding a lecture from her mother on the subject of getting out of the house and not lazing around all day. "You need friends your own age - and you're starting school soon. Oh, but when you meet people, we'll need to say where you've been..." - Anna Charlotte suggests, into her cornflakes, that "band camp" might not cut it. And then instantly regrets it when Anna rounds on her.

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"Young lady, I just... I just can't have this conversation with you right now" - Anna
Rarely are my line readings significantly above "flat", but apparently that line sounded particularly realistic. According to Sam at the time, anyway.

Anna takes deep breaths and calms down, then turns the guilt on - they had to move, she says, because of Charlotte's "turn". "But you're better now." - Anna Charlotte figures it would be best to just not say anything. ... Later. Paul is on his lunch break at work, wolfing his sandwiches alone while the rest of the crew chat and joke. He heads for the site supervisor's office and asks his boss - a large man named Jim - if it's still okay if his brother starts working there. Jim says that it is, and if Pete is as good a worker as Paul then he's especially happy. They arrange for Pete to start the next day, installing fences on the new builds' gardens.
Rafe thought Jim was Mr Thursday (that's the Bokor's real name), but he was meant to represent the authority-figure to Damascus' dreamworld and wasn't anyone specific.

Donald is also at work, handling a really complex pencil order. Donald, you see, is a Manager at a stationary company.
Donald's job was going to be at a paper merchants, as per Ricky Gervais' "The Office", but we broadened it to general stationers and office supplies based on a joke about him being a "Pen Pusher".

"Coffee?" - Tracy Tracy is Donald's secretary - not "PA" - a blonde, bubbly woman who keeps trying to ply him with caffeine. The other worker in the place is Terrance, an obsequious little man with ambitions of having Donald's job. "Yes.. Oh, but only one sugar." - Donald Tracy frowns disapprovingly, and gets him his drink. ... Charlotte - not having any friends around here, and bored out of her mind at home is out for a run. She heads through the grid of gently curved avenues and crossroads (Sutterton Farms appears to be vaguely circular) and passes by what passes for the town centre - a small cluster of shops and offices next to the town hall, the church, the high school and a tiny "museum". On the far side of the cluster is the wedge-shaped park, extending like a pizza slice out from the core of the gated community. Rising from trees in the middle of the park is a cellphone mast, and on the far side is the country club and the golf course.
Remember the village in "Stop The Train, I Want To Get Off"? This description seems far more blatant here than in play Sam took in the detail of the cellphone mast, but it didn't have the attention drawn to it.

In the schoolyard, there's a maypole that's been painted gold.

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When she reaches the end of the circuit - back home again - Charlotte sees Pete's dog lounging in the front yard "Hey, boy. What's your name?" - Charlotte Pete comes out of the house and introduces himself, and Ricky. Charlotte is taken with Ricky. Pete is taken with Charlotte. Eventually, he drags his eyes off her and asks if she could do him a favour. He needs to go shopping. For which he needs to find the shops. Charlotte points the direction of the centre, and he asks her if she can watch the dog for him. "Well, I should..." - Charlotte "I'll pay you" - Pete "Okay!" - Charlotte ... Five O Clock rolls round, and Paul clocks off. When he gets back to Apple Road, he finds Charlotte on his front lawn, playing with the dog. "Hello?" - Paul "Heya" - Charlotte "You're the girl from next door, right?" - Paul "Yeah." - Charlotte At which point, Pete returns, bearing takeout. "Been out?" - Paul "Having a look around. Found a Taco place" - Pete "..I" - Paul Both brothers are distracted by Charlotte, who's been playing with the dog. Paul notices Pete noticing Charlotte and gets a horrible, horrible feeling. And then the lawn sprinkler goes off. "Weeell, we should get inside and eat this. Bye now!" - Paul Pete remembers something and gives Charlotte a bill. "Thanks for looking after him" - Pete The brothers go inside. Paul cringes as the wet dog pushes it's way into the house. "You paid her for?" - Paul "Looking after Ricky" - Pete, happily "Pete. She's fifteen." - Paul

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Pete shrugs.
The part of Damascus that Pete represents, the urges he's trying to control in this personified form? It's also the part that's attracted to Kali.

The office is dark, but Donald's still here. Avoiding thinking about home. "How long are you going to stay for?" - Tracy "A few hours at least. You can go home, though" - Donald Tracy shrugs. "You work late, I work late" - Tracy
Around this point, Sam was forced to point out to Mark - who was wondering who Tracy was supposed to be - that she's plainly Trace, the Guardian of the Veil Herald in the House of Ariadne. And Terrence is Tybalt. What this says about Wolsey's psyche, I don't know.

... Smell of Burrito fills the house, and Paul's stomach rumbles
Food, again

"Let's get some plates" - Paul Over dinner, Paul says that he spoke to his boss and that Pete can join the work crew the next day. Pete thanks him, repeating what is evidently a long-used line that it's just until he finds something permanent of his own. He saw a place called "Reach Experts" advertising when he was in the centre of town, and thinks they might be worth a go. Next door, Anne picks at her own evening meal while Charlotte doesn't so much eat as inhale solid matter. "I don't know where you put it all" - Anna "Growing" - Charlotte, between mouthfuls. "How was your day, dear? Did you leave the house?" - Anna "Been out nearly all day. Went for a run. Met a dog" - Charlotte ... Much later, long after the sun has gone down, and Donald gets home. This time, though, he's not as lucky as the night before. Entering the kitchen, he's confronted by Marie, her arms crossed. "Where've you been?" - Marie "Work. Working late. I told you" - Donald "No. You didn't" - Marie She wheels herself around and slaps his meal onto the table angrily. "I must have..." - Donald

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He gives up, and they eat in silence. Not even looking at one another. After the meal, Donald gets the plates to wash up. Marie gets onto her lift to head upstairs. "How's Tracy, by the way?" - Marie Donald winces, and doesn't answer. ... The next day, both Paul and Donald get the one up on someone at work - Paul instructs a lackey in the correct use of a lathe, while Donald spends a pleasurable half hour chewing Terrance out for a mistake the man has made regarding a major Pencil order. Once Terrance, ashen-faced, has fled Donald's office, Tracy offers coffee. "Yes. Thank you" (he considers) "And I'll have sugar this time" - Donald
These scenes, and the one in a minute with Charlotte, are the characters being given an opportunity to gain some measure of control over the cast of their little melodramas, addicting them in the process.

That night, Donald can't face going home. He drives right past Apple Road and heads to the centre of Sutterton Farms, to the community's one and only bar. He's never been in before, and nurses a single beer. "Do you ever feel trapped?" - Donald "Sorry?" - Bartender "I feel trapped. I can't explain.. there just.. there has to be something more than this." - Donald His cell phone rings. He ignores it. ... Meanwhile, at Charlotte's house, Anna has just found the stash of ice cram bowls. "Oh god, are you bulimic?" - Anna Charlotte, though, is getting good at defusing her mother's random attacks of worry: no, she's not. She just gets hungry in the night. "Hunger pangs? Are you pregnant?" - Anna No, not that either. Just a teenager. "So there's no need to worry, okay?" - Charlotte, patiently Anna, mollified, hugs her daughter. The doorbell rings. ...

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"Hi" - Paul Anna peers out at him "I'm Paul York. From next door. You're Charlotte's mother, aren't you?" - Paul "Has she been bothering you?" - Anna, against Charlotte's protests from inside. "No, no. It's just.. My brother and I were wondering if you two wanted to come to dinner on Saturday at our place. We're inviting the Trasks as well" - Paul She agrees, and Paul goes on to Donald's house. The door is answered by Marie, who looks worried. "You haven't seen Don, have you?" - Marie "He hasn't come home?" - Paul "No. And he's not at the office - I've checked. I don't know where he is" - Marie She seems pretty distressed (Paul doesn't know about the argument of the night before), so he offers to look out for him while he's in town. He needs to head to the store for a few things anyway, and it's either that or the country club unless Donald's driven into the city. ...

An hour later, coming out of the store, Paul runs into Donald coming out of the bar. "Donald!" - Paul Donald looks apprehensive "Marie was looking for you" - Paul "Oh. Right." - Donald

They stand next to one another, Don not looking at Paul, outside the bar. One of the community's private police strolls past them and removes a poster from the otherwise pristine wall. Don doesn't get a good look at it, but it's something about "Search Experts". Donald finally goes home, to find Marie already in bed. He climbs in, but she isn't asleep. "Don. This was not your fault" - Marie, nearly in tears.
Which is what everyone keeps telling Wolsey about Amanda's injury.

Saturday. There's no rest for the construction crew, though, and both Paul and Pete are at work. To Paul's chagrin, Pete is an instant hit with the builders, and while Paul eats his lunch alone Pete is laughing and joking in the middle of a gathering of workmates.
"I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Charlotte and Anna are at a supermarket just on the outside of Sutterton Farms, shopping. Charlotte is slouching along after Anna, to a constant tirade of whispers

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from her mother telling her to stand up straight, smile back at the boys that are checking her out and otherwise try above else to act normal. Charlotte meets the eyes of a black boy who grins back at her. "Don't encourage him." - Anna, whispering, horrified. Charlotte rolls her eyes, and goes back to slouching.
Sam spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out if Anna's racism here is indicative of Kali's real mother's attitude. Kali's dad is black, but Sam didn't know at the time why she left them. It's nothing of the sort. Anurati is an Untouchable - discriminated against because she has darker skin than most Indians. No, this is representative of the fact that Anurati disapproves of *Damascus* specifically. Why? If it doesn't come up when they meet her, I'll explain later.

Charlotte picks up a bag of fries "No normal boys will want you if you're fat" - Anna "I won't get fat" - Charlotte Anna "whatever"s, and Charlotte wins her fries. "I was thinking about changing job" - Anna, offhandedly Charlotte makes a querying noise "Well, I'm not home as much as I'd like. If I could work from home, I could look after you more" - Anna Charlotte's expression shows what she thinks of that idea, "If the wind changes, you'll stay like that. There was an advert in our letterbox this morning. There's an internet company expanding in the Farms, and they need people to help out. I could do it from home on our connection." - Anna "But you're good at the Library. You like it." - Charlotte, trying not to panic "Oh, I know, but that Mark's a pain to work with." - Anna
That would be Malakaii

"Now, I want you to try to look nice tonight" - Anna "Yes, mom" - Charlotte, wearily "And if anyone asks..." - Anna "... I was at camp" - Charlotte. ... Donald and Marie awkwardly get ready for the dinner party. Donald watches her struggling in the mirror before making a decision. She doesn't want to ask for his help, but he gives it. ... Paul opens the door, to let Donald and Marie in. There is much smiling, and even more awkward silence. Pete is in the kitchen, cooking, so Paul, Marie and Don sit around the table (Paul has removed one chair for Marie) and say nothing. Anna, Charlotte in tow, arrive, and the party starts. Wine begins to flow (except to 383

Marie - she's drinking water), and Paul's alarm is growing as Pete begins to flirt with Charlotte. "SO... What is it you do, Don? Some kind of manager isn't it?" - Paul, grabbing any distraction he can. Don describes his business, self-effacingly describing himself as a "pen pusher" (which gets a laugh from Pete), and clarifies that Paul's a Carpenter. "You don't socialise much together?" - Anna Paul and Don look at one another "Honestly, no. This is the first time - you and Charlotte arriving, and Pete, have given me the excuse" - Paul Pete is looking at Marie, mouth open and ready to frame the obvious question. At Don's frown, Paul steps into the breach. "So.." - Pete "...Anna. Is Charlotte's father..?" - Paul "Gone to Hawaii." swigs her wine "With his PA" - Anna Charlotte looks sad. "There's a lot of it going around" - Marie, sweetly Don winces. Pete has bounced back with The Question, though. "So, what happened?" - Pete "PETE" - Paul, sharply "No, it's all right. Don't worry - if it's not the chair, then people usually ask about the water. I crashed my car" - Marie Pete "oh"s, and they all return to eating. Eventually, Pete excuses himself and goes outside. After half an hour of small talk, listening to Don's thrilling tales of stationary and Anna cutting Charlotte off whenever the girl tries to say anything, Paul says he'll be back in a minute and heads off after his brother. Pete, Paul finds, is out in the back yard, ruffling Ricky's fur and smoking a joint. "What the hell is THAT?" - Paul "A joint" - Pete "Well, put it OUT. For God's sake, Pete, we have guests. And it's illegal! If you were found out, they could evict me from the farms. I could lose my job." - Paul jumping as if stung, Pete puts it out. "Is there any more?" - Paul "I'll get rid of it. I'm.. I'm sorry, all right?" - Pete "Where did you get it?" - Paul

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"One of the guys at work.. no, don't ask me who. Because we both know you'll just get them fired" - Pete "Yes, I WOULD" - Paul "Look, I'll shape up" - Pete He gives Paul the sob story - about how Paul had all the responsible genes in their family, and how he just wants to get his life on track. Paul is a sucker for a good sob story, and they go back inside. "Just get rid of it" - Paul ... The dinner party winds up. Paul asks if he'll see anyone at church tomorrow. Turns out he won't. Half an hour later, and Anna has gone to bed. Charlotte is taking the garbage cans out, when she spots someone lurking in the space between her yard and Paul's. It turns out to be Pete, smoking his recovered joint and trying to stay out of sight of the windows in Paul's house. Charlotte leans against the face, letting her hair fall down. Pete silently offers her the joint. "I shouldn't" - Charlotte, taking it anyway. They smoke for a while. "Listen. I need somewhere to keep my stash - somewhere my brother won't find it." Pete Charlotte listens "Up for it?" - Pete "If my mom were to find it, I'd be dead meat" - Charlotte, dubious "$300" - Pete "$400" - Charlotte "$350" - Pete Charlotte flutters her eyelashes "$450" - Charlotte "Hang on" - Pete "$4.. 60" - Charlotte "$400" - Pete "$500" - Charlotte "All right! All right. Christ. Never haggle with the jailbait" - Pete "Done" - Charlotte, with much satisfaction. Sunday Donald and Marie are at home, and Donald has something to say.

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"We need a vacation. Something. I've been feeling... We have to Go someplace. This life - it's killing us." - Donald Marie considers him and quietly agrees. She boots up their PC and calls up a website featuring a large staring Eye on top of some sort of column "What's this?" - Donald "Reach Experts. They're local - support Farms businesses and all that" - Marie The Eye gives Don a slightly queasy feeling, but he pushes through it and they begin looking around. "I guess Disneyland is out" - Marie, dryly Donald, though, flipping through sites of vacation ideas, has hit one that says something to him. Though he has no idea why - it just feels *right*, somehow. "Washington DC?" - Donald Marie raises her eyebrows. "I never thought you'd be interested in that sort of thing. Our Nation's Capital and so on." - Marie "I... Yeah. DC." (nods to himself) "What do you think" - Don She shrugs "As long as we can find a hotel I can get around, sure. How are we going to get there? You know I hate planes" - Marie "We'll drive" (off her look) "It'll be fine. And better than flying at any rate" - Don "Well.. all right." - Marie, dubious "I'll book it tomorrow, then. There's a travel agent near work" - Don ... Paul goes to church, taking confession - he says that his brother makes him furious, but also envious. That he's starting to doubt his place here, as though the Farms are stifling him. He doesn't get much advice, though. Father Hannigan doesn't like him very much. Probably because he takes a half-hour confession every week and tries to monopolise the Father's time.
That would be Ulysses, as interpreted through Damascus' insecurities

When he returns home, though, he finds Anna waiting for him on the porch. Smiling at nosy old Mrs Crabapple across the street, he asks Anna what's up. ... Charlotte comes home from a run in the early evening, and instantly knows something's wrong. It's the way Paul is in the house, and Anna is shaking with fury.

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And there's a rather pathetic in daylight bag of weed, still crusted with dirt from where she buried it in the flowerbed, on the kitchen table. Charlotte is so very, very grounded. "I can only apologise again. Pete.. will be gone by the end of the week" - Paul He leaves, and Anna goes ballistic. Charlotte shrinks in her seat "Why can't you be NORMAL? Why can't... We're throwing out this for a start" - Anna, removing Charlotte's ice cream stash from the freezer "Can I at least keep the fries?" - Charlotte Anna just glares at her. "STAY there" - Anna And she stamps upstairs. Charlotte hears her rummage about in the bathroom, and then Anna is back, bearing a bottle of pills. Charlotte starts to protest, but Anna takes a pill out and puts it in front of her. "I thought you were better. Obviously not. We can get you a new prescription when these run out" - Anna Charlotte stares at the sedative "Would you prefer to go back there?" - Anna Charlotte mumbles that she wouldn't, and takes the pill. Rather than swallow it, though, beneath Anna's eagle eye, she palms it before shuffling upstairs to her room. ... "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?" - Paul "I..." - Pete Pete sees the stash, in Paul's hand, just before Paul puts it down the garbage disposal. The blades grind it up, as Pete makes horrified noises and rushes out into the yard where the waste gets fed into a composting bin. Throwing it open, recoiling from the smell, Pete tries to pick the chunks of weed out with his fingers before Paul slams the lid shut again. "I'll ask you again" - Paul "Shit! Shit, bro - that wasn't fucking well MINE" - Pete Turns out he was just holding it for "the guy at work". A light shines in both of their faces. They turn, to find one of those Private Cops shining his torch at them.

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"Everything all right?" - Cop "Yes, thank you officer" - Paul Both brothers smile reassuringly, and the Cop retreats back down the ally. The moment has been defused, though, and Paul is more worried about his standing in the community. "Look. I know that this place is safe, and boring, and drab. Maybe it's not what you need. Maybe it's not what *I* need" - Paul "No.. No.. I'm sorry" - Pete He says that it IS what he needs, to be able to live in Paul's world, and that he'll change if Paul will only give him a chance and show him how. Paul rubs his eyes, weary. "Can we pay back your... source" - Paul (with heavy distaste) "I gave all my money to the jailbait to hide the fucking thing" - Pete "I.. How much money did you give her?" - Paul "Five hundred bucks" - Pete ... In her bedroom, Charlotte listens to Anna stomp around the house and tries to think of where she can dispose of her medication, knowing that Anna is likely to search her room at a moment's notice. She hears a sound at her window, and opens it to find Paul in his back yard, throwing pebbles at her. There's a brief negotiation, in which Charlotte agrees to give $400 of the money back - plus Paul subbing him, that'll let Pete pay his dealer back. Satisfied, the brothers go inside. Charlotte considers, and whistles. Ricky - in the Kennel Paul bought him in the back yard - comes out and whines, looking up at Charlotte. Charlotte feeds her medication to the dog. Monday. Paul gets up to find that Ricky has vomited all over the back step. "Aw, boy, what've you been eating?" - Paul As he cleans up the dogsick, he gets a sudden flash of.. something. Like a memory, or more than a memory. It's the smell, he decides, as he goes to get ready for work.
He's partly right - it's the smell of the vomit doing it in particular.

Work holds no comfort. Pete is joking with their co-workers as before, but Paul's even more isolated - any one of them could be the dealer, he thinks, and he suspiciously eyes them all. On one level, he's aware that he'll never be able to trust

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them again, thanks to Pete. ... Charlotte is grounded, and confined to her room except to go to the bathroom and mealtimes. Every five hours, Anna gives her another pill, and Charlotte tries to dispose of it without taking it. ... Donald is at work. "Hard weekend?" - Tracy "You could say that" - Donald "Coffee?" - Tracy "No" - Donald He ignores her for most of the morning. "Marie okay?" - Tracy Donald frowns. "Not particularly" - Don "I don't know why you stay with her" - Tracy, offhandedly He rounds on her "You don't? You really don't? What do you want me to say? That I don't love her any more? I admit it. People. Change. But she's still my *wife*." - Don He gets his coat "I'm going out" - Don And heads straight for the travel agents. His first hotel is full. That isn't so bad - switch to their second choice. Once he's sorted everything out, made sure they have access for Marie's chair and so on, he hands his plastic over. His credit card is denied. "Could you try it again?" - Don Still denied. Thanking the smiling assistant, he promises to be back later. Heading back to work, he spends a terse half-hour on hold before getting through to his bank. There's been a mistake, they admit, and they're working on getting it fixed ASAP. After work, he goes back, and this time his card is accepted. Now the place is booked. Grateful, he phones home and tells Marie that it's on, keeping his trouble booking it to himself. He also takes as much tourist information on DC as this tiny local town has.

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That night, Marie and Donald look through the materials, and Don is getting an awfully odd feeling. There are all kinds of things in the writings about DC that are prompting odd memory flashes, sparks of recollection regarding.. something.. something Don knows but can't quite put his finger on. Tuesday, though, rolls around. Paul sits in Pete's truck, feeling the steering wheel and trying to figure out where he knows this from. ...

That lunchtime, Donald is sat in a sandwich bar near his office. It's then that the travel agents phone him with bad news - the hotel he and Marie thought they'd booked? It's burned down in a fire. "Of course it has" - Don, with heavy sarcasm. He could delay his departure by a couple of weeks, which will allow them to have their original first choice. Or he could give it up entirely. Don gets the sense that someone is out to get him, or something. At the very least, it doesn't seem to want him to go on Vacation. At which point, Don slips off his stool. He's floating above a group of bodies - three people lying on the salt-encrusted stone floor of a cave, with maybe two others lying in the Shadows. Between them all is a smashed glass case which still has it's contents untouched - a metal sceptre, built into the shape of a Caduceus, with a serpent wrapped around a rod. He floats over the bodies, noting their appearances, before he comes to a rest floating above a man who has seen better years - soaked with urine, vomit and excrement, eyes crusted shut by sleep and unusual gritty powder caking his skin, the man looks a mess. Don then realises that the man he's looking at, in some way, is him. And then he remembers that his name is Thomas. Thomas wakes up on the floor of the sandwich bar, to find that the proprietor has called for an ambulance. Ignoring the well-wishers and rubber-necked sorts crowding around him, though, he stumbles outside He pulls out his cell phone and calls Marie "Hello?" - Marie "Get ready" - Thomas "I'm sorry?" - Marie

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"Just.. get ready" - Thomas Ignoring his office, he climbs into his car and starts off for home. A man with a mission.
Finally! The hardest part about this whole thing was how slow or fast to go on the "you're not who you think you are" level. I tried to introduce as much creeping mundane dread as I could, while introducing story elements for later on (the cell phone tower, the constant eating, the Search engine start-up). The gang up to this point have been metagaming their socks off, trying to stay in character (maybe too much for my ease of moving the story on) despite the fact that they ooc knew they were their usual characters transformed. Now comes the second phase of the Story, in which Thomas tries to remember just who "Thomas" is, and tries to figure out who the other bodies in the cave are.

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Session 8.2
And so on to the second phase - the quest to rediscover who they are, and find all the rest of the Cabal. Essentially, what happens now is as follows; whenever something happens, by accident or design, that would jog a character's memory of who they really are, they receive a flashback. The flashbacks link up to reveal just how they got into this mess and how they can possibly hope to get themselves out of it again. Before that, though, a brief scene with Charlotte...

Anna has kicked Charlotte out of the house for a few hours (and yes, the contradiction between this and "you're grounded forever" did cross Charlotte's mind), so she's kicking her heels in the tiny town centre when she spots something unusual. In the yard outside the town hall, there's a long wooden pole lying sideways across a set of trestles, which appears to be being painted gold by a group of teenagers. Figuring they must be serving some kind of community service punishment, Charlotte wanders over to say hi. "Heya. What did you do to deserve this?" - Charlotte, by way of introduction Turns out nothing - a rather preppy girl named Helen explains that the town puts a maypole up every year, and students paint it for extra credit. It was this or spend two weeks in summer school. Helen introduces her boyfriend Sy (who seems very friendly), another girl named Charley and a boy named Dexter. At the far end of the yard is the black boy Charlotte's mother warned her off at the supermarket - Helen studiously ignores him and Charlotte never finds out his name.
These kids - minus the black boy, who represents... well, I never really decided if it was Damascus or Virgil from 1.1 - 1.3 represent Seraph (Sy) and his Pylon. Helen is Hera.

Helen is droning on about the cheerleader team, and how she could put in a word for Charlotte, while Charlotte's more interested in Sy. Eventually, though, she realises that she's been out enough for Anna to use it as ammunition against her (despite Anna telling her to get out in the first place - Charlotte's used to this kind of thing by now) and makes her excuses. Sy gives her his number. ...
Back to Donald - or as we will now call him, Thomas.

Thomas - he knows nothing about himself other than the glimpse he got of his comatose self and his name, and "Donald"'s life still seems real to him - brushes off the concerned noises of the people following him out from the sandwich place. A man eating a hotdog walks past, and the smell makes him salivate. He runs to his car, and thinks. Washington. This all has something to do with Washington - the credit card and the fire at the hotel can't be coincidences. Something doesn't want him to go to Washington. And now, he reflects, he knows that there are at least two people who are meant to be going to Washington with him. Because he wasn't alone in the cave. He walks back to his office, but doesn't go inside. Climbing into his car, he sets out for home. The radio is giving a weather report. Apparently, there's a storm coming.
The eating thing completely sailed by the players - they can spot that their replacement character's virtue and vice are the same, but they can't spot that there's food in every other scene at least. Tch.

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It is one of the creepiest parts of this whole story, that. The idea's vaguely horrific if you stop and think about it too much.

He arrives at home - Paul is sat on his own porch, but it's far enough away that he doesn't speak - and heads inside to find Marie packing. His arrival causes her to *stop* packing and ask him what the hell's going on, which just makes him more nervy. He gabbles out that they need to get away for their own sake, and throws the remaining clothes into the suitcase. "Did something happen at work?" - Marie He tells her about the hotel burning down. "So where are we going to stay?" - Marie, not unreasonably "We'll find one when we get there." - Thomas He lugs the suitcases to the car while Marie descends on her lift. She isn't going fast enough for him, and he picks her up, puts her in her wheelchair and wheels her outside. "HEY!" - Marie "We can't stop. If we stop something'll happen." - Thomas "You're not making any sense" - Marie He helps her into the car "We have to go to Washington" - Thomas He turns the key. The engine whines, and then dies. "... Shit" - Thomas He gets out and kicks the car. "SHIT!!" - Thomas By now, people are coming out of their houses to see what's going on - old Mrs Crabapple over the road, Paul and Pete. "Everything alright?" - Paul "There's something wrong with the car" - Marie, who's opened the passenger door and is struggling, unnoticed, to get out. Pete ambles over as well, and the brothers take a look at the innards. Pete sucks the air in through his teeth. "Let me guess. It can't be fixed for a few days?" - Thomas "I'm afraid not. You need a new one of these" - Pete, pointing. Marie and Thomas look at one another.

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"In a hurry to get somewhere?" - Paul "Vacation." - Thomas "Well," (looks at Paul) "*we* have two cars" - Pete ... Charlotte is presented with a stack of textbooks by Anna - school starts soon, as thanks to her 'being away' she's missed out on several classes. Charlotte takes them upstairs and reads a celebrity magazine instead. ... The suitcases and Marie are transferred to Paul's car (the pickup would not last all the way to the Eastern seaboard, or so Paul thinks), and they're ready to try again. "You're sure about this?" - Thomas "Sure. If you run off with my car, I'll sell yours for parts" - Paul, smiling. "Better get going. It's gonna start raining" - Pete He is not wrong. Five minutes after leaving Apple Road, the heavens open. Visibility dramatically lowers, and Thomas struggles with the unfamiliar car for a minute until getting the hang of it. The main road out of town, though, turns out to be blocked with a tanker that's skidded to block both lanes. "Oh, for..." - Thomas Marie holds onto the ceiling handle a little tighter as Thomas guns the engine and heads in another direction. Subsidence, apparently, has taken care of this next exit route. Thomas gives forth on how this is clearly a conspiracy arrayed against him. Marie - terrified by the driving recklessly and angrily in bad conditions - manages to say that there's one other route out of town. She doesn't have to say why she doesn't feel good about the idea of taking it. It's where she crashed. "Honey, I..." - Marie "I mean, the card I could take. But then the hotel? And our car? And the tanker?" Thomas "LOOK OUT!" - Marie A car has swerved dangerously close to them. Thomas yanks right on the steering wheel, and they come off the road, skidding and turning 180 degrees on the soakingwet grass, churning it into mud as they go.

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Marie breathes raggedly, white with fear and shock, while Thomas focuses on why that car swerved. This road is blocked too. By fallen trees, no less. "Can we go home now?" - Marie "We need to..." - Thomas "Get to Washington. I know. But it'll be there next week, and we can fly right there" Marie "You hate planes. Hate being loaded like cargo" - Thomas "I hate nearly dying on the road more" - Marie As soon as they reach Apple Road, the rain stops. ... By now it's night, and Paul is sat up alone, watching the stars. Marie wants to just go inside to bed, but Thomas/Donald is still too wired and jumpy to sleep. Paul makes the mistake of asking what happened, and Donald gives forth on his theory - he's trapped here in Sutterton Farms, and forces are moving against him to try to prevent him leaving. He's determined to go to Washington. "There's a... a Cave somewhere" - Thomas Paul and Marie look at him like he's crazy. He spots Charlotte listening from her bedroom window. "What do YOU think?" - Thomas "Hey, man, whatever" - Charlotte He slowly realises that none of them believe him. "I'm sorry" - Thomas, to Marie "What for?" - Marie "You're not meant to go to Washington" - Thomas She stares at him "What's that supposed to mean?" - Marie "Nothing. Nothing. Just.. go inside. I'll be there in a bit. I need to calm down" Thomas He turns and walks away down the street. As he walks, his stomach rumbles. Hunger. He's always hungry. He's always eating, or drinking. Because, as he saw, he's starving to death somewhere in a cave. And so are the other two people he saw. He wracks his brain, trying to remember who he's seen that eats as much as him, and he remembers the Dinner party from the other night - Marie, Anna and Pete

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barely touched their food, while he, Charlotte and Paul wiped their plates and asked for more. He stops, turns and heads back towards Apple Road. ... Paul sees him coming "Hi..." - Paul "Listen to me. You're in a cave. I don't know where. None of this is real, and you're starving to death..." - Thomas Paul's eyes widen, as he experiences the same vision Thomas had - only from Paul's point of view the bodies of an older white man and a young woman with no eyes are also visible. In-between everyone is a pile of broken glass, lying inside which is some kind of golden rod carved into the shape of a snake. "Carl. My name's Carl" - Carl "I'm Thomas" - Thomas And then they both remember more... The wooden door splinters and opens, unblocking the entrance to the Salt Cave. It's bone-chillingly cold in here. "I told you this was a bad idea" - Kali "Why?" - Damascus "This is the place. This is where I'm fighting the snake" - Kali "Maybe it's a metaphor. Maybe there isn't an actual... what?" - Amanda In the centre of the cave is a glass covering, shaped like a bell. Inside, stood on a wire frame, is a sceptre in the shape of a snake clutching a ruby in it's mouth. "Guys. I just trod on..." - Amanda They turn. It's a corpse - mummified by conditions in the cave, dressed for hiking and lying peacefully, as though he had just gone to sleep. "Did he have any origin we know of?" - Kali "Nothing. There's the Cabal in Britain, but..." - Damascus "Damascus. Is the sceptre safe?" - Wolsey "I don't know" - Damascus At which point Kali picks up a rock and smashes the glass. Everything goes black... "Which one are you?" - Thomas "The black man. I'm black" - Carl, raising his eyebrows. "I think I call you Damascus" - Thomas "My name's Carl" - Carl, repeating it, trying it out

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"Maybe it's your Surname? Carl Damascus?" - Thomas They look at one another "We have to get out of here" - Carl "Right. But where's our other friend?" - Thomas "I count three more" - Carl "Right." (frowning) "Three." - Thomas "Your wife?" - Carl Thomas shakes his head, sadly "I don't think so. I think..." - Thomas He looks at Charlotte's now closed window "You have got to be kidding" - Carl ... Anna opens her door "Hi!" - Carl, grinning a little too wide and holding a bunch of flowers Five minutes previously: "We have to talk to the girl" - Thomas "Will that work?" - Carl "Worked on you" - Thomas "Point. But what about her mother? How are we going to get past her? Distraction?" Carl "She seemed very taken with you at Dinner" - Thomas "Oh no. Oh no no no no..." - Carl ... Carl manages to talk his way inside, and is just about settling down in the living room, pouring Anna a large drink, when the first snag in his and Thomas' cunning plan is hit. While Carl is keeping Anna busy, Thomas has taken the ladder from Carl's shed and is climbing up to Charlotte's window. Charlotte, absorbed in the Weekly World News, glances up at the clock and sees a figure looming outside her window. She screams. ... Carl winces as Anna runs upstairs. Outside, Thomas throws the ladder over the fence into Carl's yard, and just barely dives over in time to avoid the gaze of Anna, who goes to the window and peers out. "Did you see him? What did he look like?" - Anna Charlotte explains that it's dark out, so she couldn't really make anything out in the split-second she had.

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"Was it that boy? From the supermarket?" - Anna

Even though the Omniium's starting to lose control, it's maintaining the storylines it created for the not-yet-freed characters. So Kali's wish-fulfilment scenario of making her mother love her and approve of Damascus is still playing out in Charlotte's "reality".

"It might have been" - Charlotte, unhappily and a little shaken Anna phones the police. "I'll go see if he's still around" - Carl, dangerously. To Anna's obvious adulation, he heads out of the front door and then along the alley, making a show of checking behind likely hiding places. What Anna doesn't see out of the kitchen window is Carl - his back to her - talking to Thomas, who is lying down behind the fence. Carl and Thomas confer, and Carl reckons that Tom should lie low for a little while. "I'll get her drunk - shouldn't take long - and talk to the girl. You stay out of sight" Carl As he returns to the house, the community police arrive. Carl says that he saw a black man run off, but he couldn't keep up. The cops head off in that direction, and he returns to Anna's house. "Don't worry. I'll stay until we know it's safe" - Carl
Heh. This somewhat farcical run-around gets another airing in part three where the gang have slightly better luck climbing into Charlotte's window. As you'll see.

Two hours and many drinks later (Carl is carefully pacing himself while topping Anna's glass up constantly) and Anna is holding forth on the stresses of raising Charlotte. "I brought her here to be *safe*, you know? Away from our troubles, somewhere we could start over." (pained expression) "It just doesn't seem to work. She attracts trouble" - Anna Carl makes sympathetic noises "She's ruined my life" - Anna, darkly. He frowns "She has. Fifteen - nearly Sixteen years now. I used to be the one men looked at. Instead I'm half-dead with stress, single and aging. She's a little monster" - Anna
Sam - and after the story, Kali - wonders if this might be an indication of Anurati's motivation and opinion. It should also be noted - and I don't think Sam has figured this one out yet even after the revelations of this and the next two sessions - that "fifteen, nearly sixteen" years is the amount of time since Anurati abandoned the infant Kemi.

"You don't mean that" - Carl "No.. I..." - Anna Eventually, she dozes off, and Carl creeps upstairs. 398

Knocking on Charlotte's door, he softly asks if she's awake. She is - unable to drift off, she's lying there wide awake.
Because, as previously noted, all five characters have to go to sleep at the same time so the Omniium can advance time.

"Can I come in?" - Carl She says so, and draws the covers up over herself as he does so, sitting on the edge of her bed. "Listen. Your mom's asleep now, and you're safe. Or as safe as you can be when you're in a cave, starving to death. Lying on the cold, cold floor, with your four friends..." - Carl Charlotte shrinks back from him, instinctively fighting it, shaking her head.
Her reluctance to wake up is significant - contrast it to Amanda and Mycroft's reactions later.

Carl continues, describing the scene he saw. Finally, Kemi wipes tears away and grimaces. "Kemi" - Kemi He introduces himself. "Thomas - Mr Trask from next door. He's one of us. Is waiting in my house. You coming?" - Carl Bitterly, Kemi says she'll get dressed. "It'll be okay" - Carl ... The three people with no lives - just the memory of their real names and of an odd spelunking trip - assemble in Carl's (Paul's) house. Thomas wants out - finding that other people are sharing the experience has added fuel to his manic fire, and he's panicked with existentialism. His entire life is a lie, and he wants to wake up right now. The other two are less gung-ho (though he points out, increasingly shrilly, that they're starving to death). Kemi voices the opinion that maybe their lives here aren't so bad, and she and Thomas square off on the subject of what to do next. Thomas reckons there must be an exit which they should search for, or something keeping them here. Carl and Kemi think they should find their two compatriots first. Kemi and Thomas descend into increasingly obtuse bickering, Thomas pointing out what a hard time it was to break her out of whatever conditioning they've been put under. As they argue, Carl gets an odd feeling of having been here before, many many times.
The flashbacks are triggered by sense memory - this one, being triggered by the sensation of listening to Kali and Wolsey fight it out like the worst case of sibling rivalry ever for the five hundredth time, is by way of my little joke.

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Everyone stops, as something overtakes them. Kemi experiences the same vision Carl and Thomas had, but they get another one. An Earlier one... Damascus casts Alter Conductivity on the electric fence to short it out, and then begins to cut through it with a pair of heavy bolt-cutters. There's a red warning sign written in German, which the gang all ignore. They're on the edge of a pine forest, somewhere at night. It's cold, damp and misty. They are all bruised and scratched up, running on adrenaline. They explain what they just remembered to Kemi, and note that while waiting for Carl to cut the fence, they called her "Kali" "Maybe it's like Damascus" - Carl "A surname? Kemi Kali? Who'd be that cruel to a child?" - Thomas There is a noise from outside. "BRO! Hey, Bro.. You'll never gu..." - Pete Pete walks in on the three of them. "Hi Pete. Don't mind us. We'll keep it down" - Carl, with definite 'fuck off' vibes "Riiiight" - Pete. He closes the door again. "Okay. We need to move, if we're going to find the others or the way out." - Thomas "If there is a way out" - Carl They discuss the list of candidates to be the missing two team members - Pete, Anna and Marie are all rejected as not eating enough, as are Tracy, Terrance and Jim. They go through what they know of the town. Kemi offers up the tale of the golden maypole, and that gets them thinking of the sceptre. Carl shows them a flyer for a golf tournament being held - the prize being a golden club. Could be any of them. At the subject of flyers, though, Thomas has another idea. "Have either of you come across 'Reach Experts'?" - Thomas They have, and the Yellow Pages are consulted. It's an internet start-up and tailored search company, run out of Sutterton Farms. "It's a possible lead. Maybe they can help us find our friends. Maybe they're even there." - Thomas And so, hurrying out, they set off in Carl's car.

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'Reach Experts' is a near-anagram of 'Exarch Sceptre'. To add to the list of things they didn't get.

... Reach Experts turns out to be run out of someone's home - the ground floor of the premises near the Town Hall (which they break into) is given over to the offices of the tiny company. As they're looking around, though, there's a light from upstairs. "Whoever you are, I've already called the cops" - voice They all look up as a man, looking like he's been woken from bed by the disturbance, comes down the stairs brandishing a rifle. "Don't move." - Man "How much do you eat?" - Thomas, smiling a little madly. "Is this an audit? Do you people have a warrant? No. Get lost" - Man "I asked you a question" - Thomas "I don't have to answer questions from the likes of you" - Man "Jeff Carson" - Kemi, helpfully reading the name off a printout "Thank you. Now, Mr Carson, have you ever wanted to go to Washington? Or Germany?" - Thomas "Are you the IRS?" - Jeff Thomas suddenly - and without regard for his own safety - rushes Mr Carson and grabs the gun by the barrel. They struggle for a few seconds, then Jeff is knocked to the floor. Thomas cocks the gun, takes the safety off and points it at Jeff's head. "HOW. MUCH. DO. YOU. EAT!?" - Thomas Jeff, in tears, babbles about what he had for lunch that day. It sounds tasty, nutritious and nowhere near enough. "He's not one of us" - Carl Thomas looks grim. And then the windows are full of blue lights. "PUT DOWN THE GUN" - Police, over loudhailer Kemi and Carl look out of the blinds at the cop cars - and the SWAT van rolling up with uncommon haste. "They got here quick" - Carl "Too quick." (to Jeff) "What do you know about all this?" - Thomas Jeff, weeping, continues to exclaim his innocence in all matters.

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"Gag him" - Thomas Kemi gives him a sharp look, but complies. ... Minutes pass. The calls from the loudhailer become more insistent, as the police spot more than one person inside. There's a knock at the door, and the letterbox is pushed open "Hello? My name is Dr Driver. I'm not a police officer - I just want to talk. How about you let one of your hostages go and take me instead?" - Driver "How much do you eat?" - Thomas "Excuse me?" - Driver "Then I'm not interested" - Thomas The letterbox closes again. Thomas considers their situation. "Listen. This is about to get ugly. I'll.. You two were my hostages, yeah? I forced you to come here." - Thomas Kemi looks over at the gagged Mr Carson, who is listening to this exchange "Except.. he'll tell them" - Kemi "Oh. Right." - Thomas Thomas shoots Mr Carson in the head at point blank range. Shattering glass. Smoke. The sound of running boots. ... Thomas sits, calmly, in a cell in the basement of the Sutterton Farms police station. He's still covered in Carson's blood. The cell opposite is occupied by a dead-drunk, smelling strongly of urine. An overweight man with a face like Droopy Dog comes down the stairs and is buzzed through the security door, reading a file and eating a doughnut as he comes. "Donald Trask" (takes a bite) "Manager of a stationary supply company in Bellevue. You live on 34th and Apple. Married, no kids. Your wife..." (peers down at his file and

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takes another bite) "...was in an auto accident last year. DUI." - Detective Thomas stares at him. "So. Why'd you do it, Donald? Why'd you take that girl and your neighbour hostage? Why'd you kill him?" - Detective Thomas watches as the Detective finishes his food, and narrows his eyes. He leans forward. "Tell me something, detective... How much do you eat?" - Thomas "That matters a lot to you, doesn't it?" - Detective "Ever been to Washington?" - Thomas "No" - Detective Thomas leans back on his chair and says nothing more. ... Upstairs, Carl is trying to figure out what to do - he's been interviewed by the cops, who seem to be accepting him as a hostage, but Thomas is still under arrest. Putting two and two together, the cops have asked him if Thomas was the prowler he chased off last night and he's said that on reflection he must have been. Kemi has been having a harder time of it - her mother has turned up, still mostly drunk, after being driven here by a cop. She's brought Charlotte's medication with her, which Dr Driver - interviewing her to check her for shock - notices and asks her about. Anna asks if she's going to be okay. "Your daughter's being medicated for her condition, Mrs James. Tonight was obviously traumatic for both of you, but I think I'd wait it out a bit. Youth is resilient" (ruffles Kemi's hair) "and Charlotte is a tough cookie. If she has problems, come see me and I'll increase her prescription" - Driver Kemi is processed and then told she can go home. Carl likewise. "We'll be in touch" - Detective, eating another doughnut. ... Down in the cells, Thomas watches the Detective come back in. "All right. What drives someone like you to do this? Actually - never mind. Doctor Driver's going to do an assessment of you tomorrow, to see if you're in your right mind or not. We both know you are, though, don't we? You *decided* to kill Jeff Carson. You weren't driven to it." - Detective Thomas says nothing. "We've had to tell your wife, you know. Can you imagine how she reacted?" Detective

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He shakes his head, and makes to leave. "Detective. I have a question" - Thomas The detective pauses. "Are you lying in a cave, surrounded by other comatose people, arranged around a broken glass case containing a sceptre?" - Thomas . . "Oh, shit" - Detective He turns around, as though seeing the place for the first time. "Thomas" - Thomas "Mark" - Mark
Mycroft - whose real name is Mark Cheff

... Some time later... "I've already sent the others home" - Mark "Go after them. Tell them I'm okay, and tell them to keep looking for the last of us. And to try to figure out a way out of here" - Thomas "Any other message?" - Mark Nope. "Alright. I'll stall the procedure for dealing with you as much as I can." - Mark "I have a request.. could I swap cells?" - Thomas Mark looks at the piss-soaked cell opposite. "You sure?" - Mark "I have a theory" - Thomas ... Kemi has, at last, managed to escape from the clutches of her mother (who has collapsed back into bed, exhausted), and is watching the sky start to turn light in the East with Carl on his porch. A Car turns up and deposits the Detective that interviewed them. "Easy! Easy.. I'm Mark. I'm one of.. well, of us" - Mark

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"Thomas talked to you?" - Carl Mark fills them in on what's going on - how based on the evidence, they've asked for a psych consult on Thomas They now have three goals - prevent Thomas from going to jail or being committed, finding the fifth team member and finding out a way out of here. Carl has been thinking about the visions they've had so far. They seem to be "ActionArchaeologists", sneaking into somewhere and finding an ancient artefact and all. For now, though, they need to try to sleep. ... In the cell, Thomas considers the bucket now festering with the drunk's emissions. He holds his head over it and takes several deep breaths... The gang are in a van of some kind, being driven at incautious pace through a forest by a shaven-headed, chain-smoking man who chats away at them in German without apparently expecting any kind of intelligible answer. Suddenly, there's an explosion of some sort and the van rolls, impacting into something ahead of it. The five of them climb, shaken, out of the wreckage and check the driver - he's quite dead. Retrieving the bolt cutters and some kind of metal briefcase, they start walking through the forest. Just as he thought. The smell put him in touch with his real self - currently lying in a pool of his own waste. He thinks carefully and climbs down off the tiny bed onto the cold, concrete floor. Lying there, he tries to arrange himself into the shape he remembered his real self lying in... ... Morning, and the three "of those who are going to Washington" that remain at liberty have met up to try to co-ordinate their search for their missing fifth member. Kemi is operating under more autonomy - Anna is tearfully grateful to have her daughter safe, and is indulging Kemi's whims. Mark has taken Pete's statement that 'Paul' and 'Charlotte' were with 'Thomas' peacefully, told him a story about how that must have been before Thomas snapped and abducted them and filed it away in the garbage disposal. They're focusing on the Golden Golf Club. The prize in the Sutterton Farms golf tournament, it's given away by the president of the country club every year - and said President, Kemi realises, is also the head teacher of the local high school. The school, Kemi advises them, keeps coming up in her fake life. The maypole, the students - even her 'mother' keeps reminding her that school starts soon. This suggests two angles of attack. Carl will go to the country club to take a look at said golden golf club, in the hope that it might be the exit or that their missing person has been drawn to it. Kemi will go to the school and talk to the head teacher - and she'll ask about that Maypole while she's at it.

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Mark will go back to the station and see how Thomas is doing. ... Kemi has no luck with Mr Angler, the Head teacher. He expresses his shock at what happened the night before - it's been all over the news, and this is a very small town, so he has of course heard about it. The Maypole, it seems, is just something to keep some of the students occupied in the lazy weeks before term starts. He takes her around the school, though it's deserted except for one teacher, an affable, blond man who shakes her hand and says that he looks forward to teaching her all about the history of colonial India. His name is Mr Bakula.
And that would be Samuel. Quantum Leap reference at the insistence of Mark

Carl, though, has had much better luck. He's viewed the golden golf club - a perfectly ordinary 9-iron which has been painted yellow and set on a plaque. More importantly, while looking around the country club, he's spotted a lady sitting by herself at the bar. Eating an awful lot of peanuts. "Hi" - Carl She glances over at him, then back at her drink. "Buy you another?" - Carl "I should warn you, I'm married" - Woman, ruefully He shrugs. She laughs. "Alright then" - Woman "Do you ever get the feeling that there's more to this world?" - Carl
Good opening line, there

"All the time" - Woman She introduces herself as Patricia Angler - the wife of the country club president / school headmaster. "I saw the trophy" - Carl "And if he cared as much about... I'm sorry. I didn't mean that" - Patricia "Could I ask you a question?" - Carl "Sure" - Patricia "How much do you eat?" - Carl She laughs "So very rude so early in the conversation. I like you" - Patricia.

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"Could we go somewhere more private?" - Carl, looking around at all the people Her eyes twinkle, as she says she knows just the place. ... Carl and 'Patricia' stumble backward into the store closet, Patricia clawing at his clothes and kissing him. "Hang... on... Whoa... Er..." - Carl "What?" - Patricia, breaking off the clinch "There's... Uh.." - Carl He catches his breath. "There's a cave..." She frowns, but crucially, she listens.
This suggestion at a tryst is backed up in the main Chronicle - Damascus doesn't believe in Divorce, but is willing to admit when being perfectly honest that if things don't work out between Amanda and Wolsey, he doesn't know if he'd then be able to resist dumping Kali and trying to ask Amanda out. Which is why I hint that such a thing is possible here.

... A door chimes, as the five enter an antiques shop, piled high with clutter and junk. She waves them into a back room, muttering to herself in Russian, and presents them with a metal briefcase and a map of what turns out to be Northern Germany. She jabs her finger at a particular spot, and they carefully mark it before thanking her and leaving. Later. The five, pull up outside an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere and get out of their taxi. The driver spins the wheel and drives off with incautious haste, leaving them alone there. "Have you noticed how creepy this is?" - Kali "Yes" - Mycroft "I mean, it's really quite creepy" - Kali Then there's the crunch of gravel as the van arrives. The bald man hops out, and takes the briefcase from Wolsey. Opening it to reveal a human hand, mummified and painted with runes, he nods in satisfaction and gets back into his vehicle. The gang open the back door and pile inside. Thomas wakes up stiff as a board, but with the satisfaction that this is at least working. "How are you?" - Mark They compare notes, Mark telling him where the others have gotten to. Thomas nods, taking it in, and tells Mark of his own progress. Mark says that he'll try to get

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the others to recapture their memories too - it can't hurt to go over it again for clues. "Can I ask a favour? Where the cameras can't see us?" - Thomas Mark gets up and carefully walks over to the cell bars, blocking the CCTV's view of Thomas "I need a cutting implement" - Thomas, deadly serious Mark frowns, but takes a miniature penknife off his keyring and carefully hands it over. "Don't do anything stupid" - Mark ... Mark returns to Carl's just as a Porsche driven by Amanda (ex-'Patricia') pulls up outside. Amanda greets Mark and Kemi, and they all go inside to plot. Mark tells them of Thomas' luck with regaining memories, and they set about doing the same triggering the first catch-up vision with Ricky's bowl and the second with the floor of Carl's basement. Alone in his cell, Thomas considers, steels himself and pushes his fingers down his throat. He begins to gag, and vomits up on himself. In Carl's basement, Mark passes around the proceeds of raiding the police controlled substances locker - two squares of blotter paper soaked in LSD. Carefully separating them into halves, Carl passes them out. Walking in the streets of a German City, the Cabal are well and truly lost. "I thought you were good at this" - Wolsey, griping at Kali "I AM good at this" - Kali "It doesn't look it" - Wolsey "This isn't easy, you know. Getting answers from an unfamiliar city" - Kali "I hate to interrupt, but I believe we're being followed" - Mycroft "Where?" - Damascus "The Mimes on the street corner. No, don't look" - Mycroft. They hurry on, Kali declaring that the shop is definitely *this* way. . Earlier . The Cabal sit in Ulysses' office, within St Thomas' church. The new Councillor tells them that he's been making inquiries for months now, after they first came to him with the Ring of the Dethroned Queen. "I believe I have located Gawain" - Ulysses

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The elusive British distributor-of-cursed-artefacts traded with a Mysterium mage who deals in rare antiquities in Keil, Germany, only two months previously. Ulysses thinks that Gawain has gone hunting for another item of the Dethroned Queen. The gang consider that as Ulysses takes Polaroid photos of them, and writes their names on with a fountain pen. "There's apparently some kind of curse on the site Gawain was intending to disturb. A spell of forgetfulness. My contact advised that I should give you these" - Ulysses He passes the photos out. Wolsey, Kali, Damascus, Mycroft and Amanda wake up, their full memories returned at last. "I..." - Mycroft Amanda and Damascus subtly shift away from one another. "Progress, right? Now we just need to get out of here" - Damascus "...I can't feel Pandemonium" - Amanda They check, and her experience is across the board, at least in their little group. None of them have their link to the Supernal Realms. They can't use magic. And they're still in their Sutterton Farms bodies. Mycroft heads once more for the station, to keep Wolsey updated. When he gets there, he finds that Wolsey has cut his finger with the blade Mycroft gave him in an attempt to get more memory back - Wolsey's been concentrating on the drip, drip drip of blood. No memory has returned, but something has - Wolsey's link to the Supernal has opened a crack, and he now has the use of the Life Arcanum. He reports this, as well as the fact that as far as he can tell only he and Mycroft are alive (and then only very very faintly). Mycroft says he'll act as messenger-boy again and get the others to start experimenting. He tells him that they've found Amanda. Now they just need a way to get Wolsey out of jail. "I'll handle it - I've got plenty of time here. I'll figure out how to get Space back, and then I'll just teleport out" - Wolsey Sounds like a plan to Mycroft.
There now begins a series of "training montages" The regaining of one's Arcana uses a system in Reign of the Exarchs, but the optimum conditions are a ritual appropriate to the Arcana that involves risk of humiliation or physical harm to the practitioner. The more the self-imposed task shakes the false persona imposed on them to the core, the more effective it is.

Wolsey paces in his cell, trying to think of a means of regaining his powers. Mycroft explains to the others. He and Damascus have the bright idea of starting with their Legacies - Mycroft settles in for an epic game of 20 questions with Amanda, while Damascus goes to a house that 'Carl' built and tries to analyse it in the fashion of the Uncrowned Kings. Both attempts work, but only barely - it's like they're initiates

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again. Experimenting with his regained Arcanum, Damascus casts an Unveiling Practice of Mind and notices something quite disturbing. Everything here is connected - there's an underlying field of intelligence behind the entire visible world, and it seems to all be emanating from some place in the west.
This is the first indication of where the central Omniium lies - where they have to go to escape this trap.

Kali has phoned up Sy and gone round to his place. Finding his entire group of friends there, she suggests playing cards. Specifically poker, of the 'strip' variety. After narrowly escaping humiliation, and humiliating her would-be friends, she escapes with her clothes, Sy's money and the first practices of Fate. Touching base back at camp, Damascus and Kali consider and reject the idea of having sex as a sort of sacramental ritual - in her current body, it gives Damascus the heebie-jeebies. That's why it would probably work, but he's not willing to try it.
So no underage sex for you, thread-fans.

The four cabal members at large are experimenting with their sensory-level effects when, quite by accident, they realise something quite important. They're not the only things that are "really" here. Kali can sense Fate magic somewhere nearby, and Damascus Mind - they track it down to Pete's toolbox, and to the doorbell that's been sat there since Pete arrived. This, then, would be the Ring of the Dethroned Queen. A renewed search turns the Robe up masquerading as a sweater in the back of Kali's closet. "Why this sweater?" - Mycroft "It was her boyfriend's. It's the only reminder she has left of him" - Kali, tying it around her waist. So far, so good, but this is taking too long. More extreme measures are needed. ... "I want you to bury me" - Damascus "You want what?" - Amanda "In the garden" - Damascus "Got a spade?" - Mycroft "I don't see how you can be so cavalier about this" - Amanda "We're Moroii" - Damascus, by way of explanation. They get to digging, as the sun goes down. As they leave the house, they spot Marie wheeling herself past on her way home. She looks over at them, weary and resentful. "Is that... Is that what he thinks of me?" - Amanda

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Marie continues into her own house "I mean, that's me, right? Or the fake me in Tom's dream anyway" - Amanda "Don't think about it" - Mycroft Damascus surveys the preparations. "I'll need a tube to breath through or something" - Damascus "Your lung pressure won't be enough if we bury you too deep. You'll be breathing in your own carbon dioxide" - Amanda "Two tubes then. One out, one in" - Damascus "What are you guys doing? Detective?" - Pete, returning unexpectedly. "Looking for weed. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" - Mycroft Pete flees. "Hah" - Mycroft The distraction over, they have their trench. Damascus lies down, and Mycroft and Amanda begin to pile the earth back onto him. He closes his eyes as it covers his face. Eventually, he's completely buried. "Now what?" - Amanda Mycroft frowns. "This is a good attempt, but it could be better" - Mycroft. Slowly, looking Amanda in the eye as he does so (she bites her lip, but doesn't try to stop him), Mycroft squeezes the tubes closed. "Ten...Twenty...Thirty...." (glances at the ground) "... Forty... Fifty..." - Mycroft He lets go. Damascus' hand breaks the surface, reaching up for the air.
And with that homage to Carrie, he has regained the full use of his Death Arcanum

... Night-time now, and Kali has a plan involving risk of public humiliation, danger AND a time-based theme, in an attempt to regain her strongest powers. She's going to break into the town hall, strip naked, climb out onto the clock tower and set the clock back five hours exactly then return to the others, all without getting caught.

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This does not go entirely as planned. First, Charlotte's young fingers are not quite as nimble or used to picking locks as the adult Kemi's, and she fumbles with the lock for far too long before managing to get inside the building. Second, after she's stashed her clothes (including the Robeanalogue) and is padding through the halls, she sees torchlight and realises that the Town Hall has far more security guards than it probably should.
That - like the mysteriously appearing SWAT team - is the Omniium making an alteration to the setting to resist their attempts to break out. The alterations so far are only on the level of someone turning up to interrupt them, but will get much more blatant towards the end.

Running away, darting up a flight of stairs, Kali pauses for breath. And then, in true horror-movie style, the Guard grabs her from behind. She struggles, but her younger and smaller body fails her again and she's overpowered, dragged off, surrounded by security guards. ... Wolsey, still in his cell, has been informed by an officer that Dr Driver is about to arrive to assess him. The officer seemed to take great pleasure in this, informing him that he can sniff piss and throw up as much as he likes, it doesn't prove he's crazy. Once he's alone, Wolsey begins to contemplate desperate measures. He needs a sacrifice - something to affirm his connection to Pandemonium and gain his powers. Thinking over his life, and the events of the last few months, he realises what he has to do. He presses his thumb-tips into his eyes, takes a deep breath, steels himself, and pushes. Blood gushes down over his hands, as he puts out his own eyes. Delirious with pain, unable to pass out, He lies on the floor of his cell as alarms go off and he's lifted up. In the ambulance, he's put on painkillers and his eyes are dressed - but the shocked paramedic reports to Dr Driver, riding with him, what he did, and Driver redirects the ambulance to the medical wing of the mental institute. Understanding of the Arcana unfurls in Wolsey's mind, but not the one he wanted he regained his connection to Pandemonium, all right, but to the Mind Arcanum, not Space as he wanted. He's still a prisoner. As they wheel Wolsey through the institute, strapped to a trolley, Dr Driver is given papers to sign by an orderly. "It seems this man has ruined another life" - Driver, signing. ... Anna, upon being told what 'Charlotte' was just found doing by the police, has had her committed.
End of Part Two! And now it gets *really* strange!

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Session 8.3
We're in the home stretch now. The characters know who they are now and have started regaining their powers. Now for the escape, and for the attempts by the Omniium to keep them inside.

"She's late" - Mycroft He speaks, of course, of Kali "She'll be back" - Damascus "Anna left in a hurry while you were showering. I think... No, it's probably nothing" Mycroft Damascus, as they talk, has had a brainwave - he's rooting through Pete's tools. "I was thinking, maybe if I had something like my magical tools, then..." - Damascus He produces a Hammer. It doesn't feel quite right, but it's better than nothing. They continue their experiments - Amanda sticks wet fingers into an unscrewed light socket after Damascus rapidly flicks the switch, risking electrocution in an attempt to regain Forces. Damascus and Mycroft play a game involving a hammer and a stopwatch - Mycroft puts his hand on a table and Damascus times it. If Mycroft pulls his hand away before 4 minutes, Damascus hits it. If he leaves it there *longer* than 4 minutes, Damascus hits it. The first unsuccessful attempt leaves Mycroft swearing like a trooper and nursing a badly bruised hand. But it focuses the mind, and after several more goes Mycroft regains a bit of the use of Time. He immediately attempts to use it, but discovers that Sutterton Farms has no past to speak of other than a misty grey blur - this entire world came into being when "Paul" was stood on his porch waiting for Pete to arrive. The trio try to decide if they're now strong enough to rescue Wolsey from the Asylum (Mycroft reckoned it was a dead cert that he'd be put there - although they haven't heard about the eye-gouging yet) and reckon that they need at least a few more Arcana back. Amanda mulls Mind, while Mycroft and Damascus come up with plans for regaining Matter - that one, at least, they can do together. "It seems to work best when it hurts, or when it's destructive to this world... We could try to smash something into something" - Mycroft Damascus has the *perfect* idea. All those houses 'Paul' built? They could use a good bulldozing. "And while you're doing that, I have an idea" - Amanda She's been thinking about Damascus' whole sensory-deprivation method of regaining Death, and thinks it's worth a go to regain the Mind Arcana. She needs to be completely shut off - they don't have an isolation tank here in "Paul's" house, but they can do the best they can. "I want you to tie me up, wrap me in something and dump me in the attic" - Amanda, in all seriousness

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Mycroft, after a pause, says he'll go get the car started and listen to police radio for a while. . Upstairs, Damascus puts the finishing touches on Amanda. "Thought it'd take us longer to get around to this" - Damascus, joking "Don't start, Carl." - Amanda He gets a portable radio, tunes it to a dead channel and leaves it by her head for white-noise. . In "Mark's" car, Mycroft grunts as Damascus gets in. "It was just on the radio. They caught Kali streaking in the town hall and her 'mother' has had her committed." - Mycroft "Shit" - Damascus "Looks like we've got *two* people to break out" - Mycroft And off they drive to the construction site. --Kali, meanwhile, is unable to sleep, lying in a bed in the institute and staring at the ceiling. Time to think has not been good. Not good at all. With Kali's returning memories have come the realisation that despite everything she was *happier* as Charlotte. In the dark recess of Kali's mind, she knows that she doesn't actually want to be Awakened - Charlotte, with a family, with the innocence of youth and with the uncomplicated desires of suburbia, seems like an unattainable goal for her. "Charlotte? We met before. I'm Dr Driver" - Driver She looks up at him blankly "I want you to know, Charlotte, that we're going to take good care of you. The man who abducted you is never going to hurt anyone again. And your mother loves you" Driver "I know" - Charlotte. He pats her hand and leaves. She closes her eyes and tries to think of when life was easier. . Wolsey - painkillers coursing through him, face heavily bandaged - is lying in a padded cell, restrained. He hears the locks being opened and then soft footsteps.

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"Mr Trask?" - Driver "I'm here. Funny thing - I can't sleep. I guess it's because I am already" - Wolsey "Do you remember me?" - Driver Wolsey turns his head in Driver's direction. "How much do you eat?" - Wolsey "Excuse me?" - Driver "How much. Do you. Eat?" - Wolsey, smiling pleasantly "Enough to be healthy. You're very interested in what people eat, aren't you Donald? Why is that?" - Driver "Hungry people are real" - Wolsey "Everyone's hungry sometime" - Driver "But not all the time. I am - I'm starving. Literally. While I'm stuck here." - Wolsey "I don't understand" - Driver "Of course you don't. You aren't real. Look - I don't feel the need to lie to you. None of this exists. I'm lying in a cave starving to death, and you're a figment of my imagination. When did you last eat?" - Wolsey "A sandwich at around.. one, I think" - Driver "Definitely not real then" - Wolsey "So, we're making progress. You feel that your reality is a false construct, yes? And you're selecting individuals who meet your standards for being 'real'? Now, Donald.. We call that sort of thing 'psychosis'" - Driver (chuckles) "I'm sure" - Wolsey "Is that why you kidnapped those people? And shot Mr Carson?" - Driver He doesn't answer. Wolsey looks directly at Driver, despite having no eyes Driver flees. ... Damascus and Mycroft have reached the site, and are joyriding at a magnificent four miles and hour on a bulldozer. They round the corner and survey the line of gleaming, brand-new and unoccupied houses. Damascus puts the machine in gear and aims it at the first house. As it impacts, wood splintering and beams snapping all around them as the house goes over, two squad cars arrive sirens blazing.

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"They got here fast" - Mycroft, muttered Damascus swings the levers, putting the 'dozer into a sharp turn. It's not exactly a getaway vehicle though. The two men jump down and make a run for it, dodging between it and the next house while the rentacops run in pursuit. They take shelter behind the building while the rentacops struggle to turn the 'dozer off. Damascus, though, snapped the keys off in the ignition. There's another almighty crash as it hits the other side of the building they're hiding next to, and Damascus and Mycroft run forward, *just* clearing the building as it collapses in a shower of timber and dust, and regaining their use of Matter.
Thanks, in no small part, to the fact they both had armour spells up as well.

While the rentacops shout and stumble about, the two Mages run through back yards, heading for Mycroft's car. "Have you seen yourself in a mirror?" - Mycroft Damascus checks his reflection in the car window "I'm black!" - Damascus He is indeed - though it's still Paul's face, his skin colour has darkened until it's nearly Damascus' own. "How many Arcana to go?" - Mycroft "Just the one. Prime." - Damascus "It must be because we're nearly there. I appear to have lost weight, too" - Mycroft The police radio crackles into life. Damascus has just been identified. Cops are heading to his house right now to search it, as they think he might be connected to Wolsey's killing of the night before. "Amanda!" - Mycroft and Damascus, simultaneously. They start driving. ... Driver returns to Kali's bedside as she eats a lukewarm microwave lasagne that she's been presented with. "Charlotte. I'm making my final rounds now, so I'll see you in the morning. David here" (indicates Orderly) "Is going to give you your medication. We've increased your dosage, so you should feel a stronger effect, all right?" - Driver She nods, dully. "Good girl. Sleep well" - Driver

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He leaves, and David the Orderly puts a tiny plastic cup on her lap-table, containing two pills. Kali, bone-tired, still hungry and wanting this to end, wishes with all her heart that there were more. As the orderly does up her restraints, The pill-cup wavers in front of her and briefly becomes a large glass bottle containing dozens of the pills before changing back. No one seems to have noticed. When the orderly puts the cup to her mouth she dryswallows them, and lies back with an air of finality. It changed. It changed because she wanted it to change - because Sutterton Farms is a dream world, she can control it as though she were lucid dreaming. She recalls her times in the Astral plane with Samuel, and knows now where she is. Not that it matters, though. She doesn't *want* to wake up. The dream, for her, is too comfortable. Not perfect, but several shades better than her real life of squalor and loneliness. Kali concentrates, with all her effort, on shaping the dream. One by one, her memories of her real life fade and slip away. She has a blissful feeling of satisfaction which itself fades, as she becomes Charlotte in mind as well as body once again.
This attempt to seize control of the dream-world wasn't contested, as she wanted to revert to her false persona. Fortunately (and maybe with foresight) this is one of the things Robin Laws planned for in case of emergency when he wrote the scenario, so the system for willing yourself back into the Omniium's clutches was right there. Poor Kali.

Damascus and Mycroft are having problems. The traffic is terrible - trucks suddenly appearing to block intersections, police cars prowling in numbers that the community's size would not allow. "Ever get the feeling something's trying it's best to interfere?" - Damascus He, though, has come to the same conclusion as Kali regarding the dream world. Damascus is an Uncrowned King. He knows his own mind, and how it works. "Take a left here" - Damascus "It'll be blocked" - Mycroft "No, it won't" - Damascus For a brief instant, it is blocked, but Damascus focuses his will on the matter. The cop cars melt away into thin air, and they hurtle through the cordon, heading for "Paul"'s house. ... "How are you doing there, Mr Trask?" - Driver "Haven't you gone home yet?" - Wolsey "I was just about to, in fact. Once I'd checked on you" - Driver "They haven't fed me yet, you know" - Wolsey 417

"They will do" - Driver "What time is it?" - Wolsey "Nearly" (checks watch) "Midnight, actually. We're all running a little behind" - Driver "Must be lonely, never being at home" - Wolsey Wolsey casts an Unveiling Practice of Mind, watching Driver's mind pattern and reading his surface thoughts as he makes conversation. As "Driver" thinks of home, whole areas of his - or rather, It's - mind pattern change, as the construct updates with the new information that it has a wife at home who supports his work, but that he feels guilty being here all the time. Wolsey, though, saw the transition - nearly, but not quite, instant. He's caught the system behind all this on the hop, and now knows for certain that Driver isn't real. With this knowledge, he becomes much, much easier to manipulate. Wolsey pokes at parts of the construct with Covert spells while keeping up the conversation, and most importantly sees "Driver" thinking about Charlotte. "How long has Ms James been here?" - Wolsey "...How did you..?" - Driver "I heard some people talking" - Wolsey "A few hours. Poor thing - you probably weren't aware of this, but she was fragile before now. She's been undergoing treatment for a condition, which your kidnapping has dramatically worsened." - Driver Driver says that he will be making his report in the morning, and leaves. Wolsey waits half an hour for Driver to leave the institute - counting in his head - and then casts Impostor. Using the voice of Dr Driver, he screams for help. When the orderlies arrive they don't see Wolsey, but instead Dr Driver himself, eyes attacked and tied up in a straitjacket "THE GIRL! HE'S AFTER THE GIRL!" - Wolsey . Supported by two Orderlies, Wolsey - still wearing "Driver's" face - is taken to Charlotte's ward. Using a covert Unveiling of Life, he "sees" (against the red darkness of his blindness) the faint spark of life inside her false body. Steeling himself, he lashes out with the Mind Arcana and casts Psychic Assault On both of his escorts. As the orderlies writhe on the floor, cramping and spasming, he presses the assault and casts the spell again, snuffing their mind patterns out entirely and "killing" them.
He passed the Wisdom check - just as he passed the Wisdom check for murdering Carson, actually. Mark is very, very lucky with Wisdom Checks.

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He hears other Orderlies running, and runs towards Charlotte's bed, hoping (as he can only "see" Minds and Lives) that there are no inanimate objects in the way. As he reaches her bedside, he regains the use of a tiny amount of the Space Arcana. Snapping up a conjunctional Mage Sight spell covering all the Arcana he's regained, he looks around. Charlotte - who's been watching this whole thing - is terrified, shrinking back into her bed as he undoes her restraints and pulls her up. "Come on" - Wolsey "Your eyes..." - Charlotte "I can still see" - Wolsey
What Wolsey doesn't realise, is that he's covered by the effect of the Impostor spell still - and as Charlotte now doesn't add Kali's Gnosis to contesting rolls, she thinks he's Driver

As they leave, Wolsey tugging on her arm, two more Orderlies arrive. Wolsey mindblasts them as well.
Wolsey was biding his time for the second half of last session, but now the gloves are off. He's always, since day 1, been a character about freeing people from false realities - and although he *meant* "Sleepers from the Fallen World" this is pushing his buttons. As he said to Damascus several stories ago, he doesn't especially care if people *like* the Truth. He will force them to see it. And, to his mind, these constructs aren't real people. He's desperate, he knows he's dying, and he'll slaughter as many puppets of this realm as he has to to get out. In other news - *Covert*? The Mind Bashing-level damage spell is *Covert*? Ouch. Good thing Wolsey's an Adept of Space, not of Mind. I shudder to think what he'd do with a Covert Lethal damage spell.

"Alright. Listen. There are too many of them for me to keep this up. I'm going to have them send you home, alright? You should be able to slip away and rejoin the others from there..." - Wolsey They reach the exit of the institute, as orderlies flock around them. Wolsey barks orders, telling them to get Charlotte (who he still thinks is Kali) home. One of them takes him off towards the local hospital in a car, but Wolsey mind-blasts him and gets out once a fair distance away. To Wolsey's supernal senses, Sutterton Farms is a sea of sympathetic connections and false mind patterns - the entire community has some kind of underlying telepathic field. More to the point, everything and everyone is connected, sympathetically, to something off in the west - something that also seems to be the source of the mind field. Heading for an area with fewer of the knots indicating a puppet mind, he feels himself walking on grass and realises it's the park. Slumping down to rest in the bushes, he drops the Impostor and tries to steady himself. He needs something like an Incognito Presence, but it takes a long time to cast. ... Damascus and Mycroft have pulled up outside "Paul"'s house, and Mycroft has gone inside to rescue Amanda while Damascus keeps lookout. The cops, though, are even now walking up to the property. Damascus thinks wildly as the cops go inside, then decides to try something. concentrating, he imagines, then watches, as a wide hole appears in the upper part of the house's wall, revealing Mycroft and Amanda inside. making a leap of faith, they exit the building by this unorthodox second entrance while the cops are still

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downstairs. "What kept you?" - Amanda "Slight hold-up" - Damascus And then he and Mycroft both shimmer and change back into their real appearances, as they regain their last Arcana.
How? Easy. Mycroft's was his last dot of Fate, which he regained for the jump. Damascus' was Prime, which he got back for preventing the interruption of Amanda's.

They drive off, just as another car approaches the area from the other direction - this one containing Charlotte and an Orderly. Charlotte is tearfully received back at home by Anna, and the Orderly says that he was told to stay with them in case "Trask" Came back. Charlotte - after the declarations of love from both mother and daughter - says she's just bone tired, and goes upstairs to bed. ... The trio of Damascus, Amanda and Mycroft have reached the town centre and abandoned the car, deciding to try their luck on foot as they head West towards the whatever it is. "Where is she?" - Amanda "Hm?" - Damascus "I've been thinking about something. Since I saw Marie, actually... We all have our significant others here, right? I mean, when I was Patricia I was married to a man who cared far more about his work and hobbies than me. Tom has a crippled wife who resents him..." - Amanda "I suspect that Mark's boss was meant to be Mr Thursday" - Mycroft "I don't know who Pete's meant to be, but some people, yes. I think I've met a Ulysses, certainly" - Damascus "So there's one person who, let's face it, I'm pretty obsessed with. Where's Querephas?" - Amanda Good Question.
The sound you just heard was Wood having kittens as he reads this.

They walk into the park. ... Wolsey, meanwhile, has been preparing his spell. The body of a 2am Dog Walker who strayed too near to him is lying face-down next to the body of her dog after she made the mistake of asking him if he was alright. He's just finishing casting Incognito Presence when he hears people moving through the undergrowth. "Wolsey?" - Damascus
Damascus' attainment returned when he finished his Arcana - he's got his mind shield back, and saw through Wolsey's spell

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They grimly reunite. Amanda is shocked and appalled at what he did to his face. "Now I know what it feels like" - Wolsey She's speechless, and it's a good thing he can't see her expression. Wolsey says that he sent "Kali" back home, and the others curse at having missed her. "She should have gone over. I made it *easy*" - Wolsey "Damn. Well, then. We go back for her" - Damascus "I need my last Arcana back. I've been trying to think..." - Wolsey He describes his successes so far, and they theirs. "Right" - Wolsey And he runs, full-pelt, into a wooded area, trusting to luck to not run head-first into a tree. Amanda ties something around her eyes and charges off after him. When they return, She's regained her real appearance (except, for some reason, that her eyes are still here - clearly the maiming isn't in her residual self-image or something). Wolsey is stronger in Space now, but he needs to be stronger still. Going with the "obstacle course" theme, they move to the park playground where Wolsey runs through the equipment. "Better. Still not done it all, though. Drastic measures are needed" - Wolsey "What *sort* of Drastic Measures?" - Amanda "I'm going to jump off a building" - Wolsey ... Cut to the roof of an office building overlooking the park, as Damascus has used magic to shatter the bolts holding the fire escape up in order to allow them to climb up. Amanda and Mycroft are waiting on ground level, while Damascus is with Wolsey up at the top. "Are you sure about this?" - Damascus "What's the worst that can happen?" - Wolsey "You could die" - Damascus "And wake up? Might be worth risking it" - Wolsey He takes a run-up and swan-dives off the roof. Halfway down, his appearance shifts as he regains his powers. He opens his restored eyes just in time to see the asphalt coming.

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CRUNCH. "Ohmygod" - Amanda Damascus half-runs half-jumps down the fire escape's flights and joins them, stopping, horrified. Wolsey gurgles "How is he even *alive*?" - Amanda "More than that. He's conscious. He's still conscious" - Mycroft Wolsey - who at least looks like Wolsey - is horribly injured. His legs are bending the wrong way, having taken most of the fall. His neck is at a bad angle and he's bleeding. But he's still alive, and still conscious. though, obviously, in quite some considerable pain. "Arrrrhg" - Wolsey
He has filled up his health track with bashing that has wrapped around to two lethal. And here's where the Farms get nasty the Omniium doesn't make exceptions to it's "you all fall asleep simultaneously" rules for massive damage. Much as Wolsey would *like* to pass out right now, he can't. I decided to impose a -5 penalty to all actions, including talking and spellcasting, as a means of representing the agony. The idea being that his compatriots will be too busy looking after him to continue freeing themselves.

"We need to get to the centre" - Damascus "We need Kali" - Mycroft The Guardian considers, and then closes his eyes. Colours appear, shifting and blurring, as Mycroft attempts to summon a vehicle. Whatever controls this place fights him, but eventually a truck - like Damascus' in the real world - materialises, and they carefully raise Wolsey up and put him in the bed, Mycroft knelt next to him. "DRIVE" - Mycroft Damascus and Amanda jump into the front and Damascus starts the engine. "She could heal him" - Amanda Damascus grits his teeth, as - sure enough - mysteriously large amounts of traffic for this time at night appears on the road "She knew the Life Arcana" (near-hysterical) "She could do it" - Amanda Mycroft, in the back, tries to use a Compelling practice of Mind to alleviate Wolsey's pain. It helps, but not nearly enough.
I allow Mind Magic to be used for this purpose. I can't really be arsed to write it up right now, but as a rule of thumb it's successes = wound penalties ignored.

...

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They pull up near - but not on - Apple Road. Amanda stays with Wolsey while Damascus and Mycroft sneak into Paul's back yard. Lights are on in all three houses - Pete must have returned. Ricky the dog nuzzles at Damascus' hand. "Hey boy. Shh" - Damascus They look up at Charlotte's bedroom window - the lights are on. "Okay, then" - Damascus, fetching the ladder from where Wolsey-as-Donald discarded it the other night. ... Charlotte, unable to sleep even after taking pills, is playing a console game with the volume turned up high. She doesn't register her window opening behind her, or Damascus climbing in. Taking in the situation, Damascus realises what's happened. He makes his choice and grabs her from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth. Charlotte struggles and kicks him. Her flailing legs smash a mirror, but he keeps hold of her enough for Mycroft to assist. Eventually, they get her gagged, down the ladder and tied up. Dragging her to the truck, they deposit her in the back next to Wolsey (Charlotte screams into her gag at the ruin that is Wolsey) and they start driving all the way back to the park.
Forgetting something, guys?

The Farms' attempts to stop them become feverish, cop cars materializing from nowhere, roads vanishing and junk appearing in the street. Damascus, Amanda and Mycroft manage to counter-dream most things, and Mycroft at the wheel dodges the rest.
Mycroft, unusually for this Cabal, actually *has* the Drive skill high enough for action-scene driving.

There's a sudden flash of light and a crack of thunder from the sky, as something breaks through the clouds. "You have *got* to be fucking kidding me" - Damascus The UFO - massive saucer-shaped hull blinking with lights too bright to look at, draw overhead. The truck begins to rattle and the dash lights go crazy. Damascus, sweating with effort, wrestles with whatever it is for control of the shared dream, and the UFO melts away as though it had never been there. Damascus, panting, slumps in his seat. And then the engine in their truck vanishes. They coast to a stop, police lights flashing in the distance as the cops get closer. "On... foot.. then" - Damascus, getting his breath back.

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He and Mycroft support Wolsey between them while Amanda picks Charlotte up in a fireman's lift. They stumble towards the park, breathing heavily. Once they're in the park, they look back to see a line of policemen stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction, walking purposefully towards them. Damascus uses magic to melt the guns of the nearest five (it makes him feel better) and they continue as best they can. Suddenly, the ground opens up beneath Amanda and she falls with a shout, splashing as she hits water at the bottom of the instant well. Charlotte falls to the ground in front of it, and starts wriggling away. While Mycroft supports Wolsey (and tries again to alleviate the pain), Damascus wish-crafts a rope to haul Amanda out. The police, all the time, slowly but surely gain ground on them. Just as Amanda reaches up to take Damascus' hand, Charlotte's legs get free of her bonds and she struggles to her feet. Mycroft drops Wolsey as gently as he can and gives chase, football-tackling Charlotte and recapturing her. The cops are awfully close now. Damascus concentrates, trying to ignore the feeling of starvation and weariness. He summons a wall into existence, blocking them from the cops, but doesn't get a chance to rest as the policemen manifest grappling hooks, which he has to erase from the dream. "We need some way to hide, or... the Robe! Where's the Robe!" - Amanda Where, indeed, IS the Robe? "She had it..." - Damascus "Before she was arrested for streaking. Where her clothes are now..." - Mycroft, shrugging. Mycroft tries for a third - and more successful - time to dull Wolsey's pain. Wolsey is able to stand on his own more (though he still needs support), and he coughs. "We'll have to go back for it" - Wolsey, rasping. "I'll get it" - Amanda Amanda closes her eyes, and tries the same trick as Kali. "Kali wished herself back to sleep. So.." - Amanda She stands up straighter, and turns around. When she opens her eyes, they're made of stone. "Bow down" Querephas "I don't think so" - Damascus To be fair, she doesn't make the command a second time. "You need the Cxaxa, yes? Why should she help you? Little men who fought her..." Querephas

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"You'll die in here too" - Damascus "Just So? How can you know that?" - Querephas "How can you know you'll live?" - Damascus "This is not life. Trapped in the mind of a frightened girl. Unable to return... Perhaps if she dies, then the Cxaxa will incarnate again. Return again" - Querephas "Maybe that's true. You waited how many thousand years? Maybe when Amanda does die, you'll reincarnate. But how do you know what'll happen to her Soul if she dies *here*?" - Damascus Querephas considers him, and then teleports. They start moving as fast as they can, and realise where they're headed - the cell phone transmission station, standing alone in the middle of the woods. Helicopters burst into view overhead, seeking them out with searchlights. Damascus tries - and fails - to summon a LAW into existence. There's a blast of cold air from her Nimbus as Querephas reappears, holding the sweater-disguise of the Robe. "Hold her" - Querephas, approaching Charlotte "As it woke me, it will wake her" - Querephas She drapes the Robe over Charlotte's shoulders. Kali cries out as her body changes back to her own and her memories return. "Be yourself" - Querephas "I don't want to! I don't want to!" - Kali "Then you are a fool" - Querephas, coldly "Kali. I know what you tried to do" - Wolsey. Querephas sets about healing Wolsey's wounds while Mycroft holds him up. "I was Happy. I had what I *want*" - Kali, furiously "Then maybe you should stay..." - Wolsey "Impossible. The Serpent must be fought. This place is created from all of us - when we all leave, it will cease. There is no alternative. Attend to these words of the Cxaxa" - Querephas Well, that settles that then. Kali reluctantly agrees that - if she can't stay by herself then she can't make them die here for the sake of her dream. There is increased noise from the wall. The fivesome start moving towards the tower. "I had what I want" - Kali, quietly

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"And this is the only place you can, do you understand that? It won't work in the real world. You can't ever go back" - Wolsey
Story title!

They burst out of the woods, next to the electric fence surrounding the tower.
Deliberately familiar - it's the same as the flashback of breaking into the salt mine.

Damascus plucks a pair of Bolt-Cutters out of nowhere and shorts the power out in the fence. They cut a hole and climb through, just as the cops (the wall? what wall?) emerge from the woods. Querephas smiles and throws lightning at the police while the rest of the cabal make it through the fence. One Querephas is through, Damascus cancels the spell dampening the power just as more cops are trying to crawl through.
Which itself is what Damascus did to Querephas to prevent her re-emerging

"Thomas" - Marie Arrayed in front of the gang, emerging from the shadows, are Mr Angler, the chief of Police, Pete, Marie and Anna. "Don't do this, Thomas" - Marie Querephas regards Mr Angler, and blasts him in the chest with Lightning. He drops down, dead, and she curls her lip. "The Cxaxa is not amused by these petty shadows" - Querephas "Thomas" - Marie Wolsey ignores her "Right. We're here. Concentrate, now. We need to wake up. Imagine yourself back in the cave..." - Wolsey "Thomas" - Marie, crying "LISTEN to her! Don't you know what we are?" - Pete "I don't care" - Mycroft, joining Wolsey in sitting down in the meditative position. "We're YOU! We're part of you! We're not just toys to throw away - this place is made out of your minds, out of your souls. Marie is your love for your wife, and your regret at what happened to her. LOOK at her. If you leave, she'll die - and so will that part of YOU" - Pete Querephas laughs, the sound like a bark. Wolsey sets his jaw and casts Destroy the threads on Marie, severing the connection between them. Marie jerks and drops, like a puppet with her strings cut.
It's worth it, in his mind. And he knew it was over, anyway. For her part, Querephas has just killed the equivalent for Amanda. So here, in an imaginary place, is the end of Thomas and Amanda's marriage.

Kali is just stood, crying, looking at Anna. 426

Damascus steps up to Pete "You're part of me. I see that." - Damascus "I'm the best parts of you - the parts you want to deny exist, but make you alive" Pete "If I stay here I'll die, and so will you. So you're right, Pete. You're an essential part of me" - Damascus He holds out his hand "We belong together" - Damascus "You.. can't" - Pete "Why not?" - Damascus Pete takes Damascus' hand, and begins to blur. Damascus knows a thing or two about the state of his own mind - he's been controlling the dream more than any of them. Damascus absorbs Pete into himself, and then joins Mycroft, Wolsey and Querephas on the floor. "I don't... I hope you represent who I think you do" - Kali "I'm your feelings about her" - Anna Kali nods "Want to try it?" - Kali, holding out her hand Anna, dubiously, takes Kali's hand and is absorbed.
And so Damascus - and Kali, following his example, have broken the curse of the sceptre - that even if you do escape, the part of you that represents your dreams will be neutered in the act, and your life diminished. Wolsey, Amanda and Mycroft, on the other hand, are rendered incapable of following the dreams that have been externalised in this story.

Kali joins the others, and they all concentrate very hard. Above them, the transmitter warps and changes into a giant snake, screeching in a sound like white noise as it thrashes. The sky blurs, and the Police Chief screams in agony as his and Marie's bodies melt and blur along with the rest of the world. Gasping for breath, the Cabal open their eyes and sit up in the cave. "We're..." - Damascus "Not out" - Wolsey Damascus looks around. Not only is he not as weak as he should be - his body isn't wasted and suffering from exposure - but Gawain's corpse isn't there and - when she stands up - it is revealed that Amanda is still Querephas

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And where the Sceptre should be, there's a large, cobra-sized snake made of living metal, the colour shifting from gold to silver and back again. "What do we do?" - Damascus "I fight it. But..." - Kali She's seen this place, she reminds them. She's seen herself fighting this thing. But she's never seen herself *win*. "I don't want to. It's too early" - Kali "We don't have much option" - Damascus "She will do this or the Cxaxa will throw her to the serpent herself" - Querephas She walks over to the serpent and picks it up with one hand. It coils to try to bite her, and she grabs it with her other hand as well, holding it's fangs away from herself. It thrashes - far stronger than it should be - and swells in her hands, growing longer and thicker. Eventually, Kali is forced to her knees, holding the snake's head away from herself with both hands as it's coils thicken and squeeze around her. "Kali!" - Mycroft "Stay..." - Kali "Kali.. Stop fighting!" - Wolsey The fight continues, Kali getting weaker and weaker. Eventually, she comes to a decision. To the shouts of her Cabalmates, she lets go. The snake sinks it's fangs into her neck, and she feels poison pump into her. Kali collapses, and the world shatters around her. In the darkness, Kali's eyes flicker as her life flashes before her eyes. Her entire life, from start to finish, just as she remembers it. Then again, and again and again - nine times. Each time, the moments of uncertainty, the points at which they suspect someone has changed something in their memories, become less clear, less "solid" somehow, as though they're being eroded. On the tenth run-through, Kali realises she's dying. She starts to alter things, remembering them in different ways. She screams "I NEED HELP!" into nothing, and beermats and graffiti rearrange themselves. The flashbacks slow and begin to run in reverse, the moments of uncertainty seeming more and more real again. Finally, no longer certain that *any* of her life was actually the way she remembers it, the twentieth run-through reaches the point at which she grabs the snake. It slows... and stops. Sudden pain courses through her limbs, as Kali - half-starved and literally freezing to death, collapses, holding the Sceptre - now inert, mastered - clutched in her fist.
The entire Chronicle up to this point has been a flashback - that ninth run-through. Now we go forwards...

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Wolsey, groaning, rolls over painfully "Is everyone okay?" - Damascus Amanda - Amanda again - is quietly sobbing into the salt. Wolsey gets onto all fours. "I'll... I'll be back" - Wolsey And, swallowing hard, he teleports himself home, to Washington DC and to the Sanctum. Collapsing into the Sofa, letting Mana flow through him and fortify his weak limbs, Wolsey begins creating the Portal the others need to follow him. Eventually, it opens and he helps them through, fetching food and water from the kitchen. They eat and drink - careful not to gorge themselves with their starvation - and sit or lay where they can, letting themselves warm up. "Can we maybe get off the train now?" - Wolsey They look at him. Wolsey is regarding Kali intently "Are you okay now?" - Wolsey She shakes her head. "Listen to me. Listen to me. You could only do that there, do you understand? Going home, and trying to live like a Sleeper, is a pretty effective way to get your Dad killed" - Wolsey "I..." - Kali She stands up "I'm going to shower" - Kali She trudges off, the Sceptre still in her hand "You know I'm right, yeah?" - Wolsey, to the others
Yeah, he's right. Trouble is Wolsey and Kali have fought for so long about so many things that this is failing to get through. It requires the touch of a Damascus to explain that one can't un-Awaken because one might be depressed.

... Kali is in the shower, still holding the sceptre. She turns it over and over in her hands, and comes to a decision. Pointing it at herself, she activates it.
Is she trying to get back to Sutterton Farms? If so, she can't - the defences on the Sceptre have been deactivated.

And then she remembers.

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Everything...
The following sections are, as far as I can tell, every time Kali felt the touch of Inevitability in the Chronicle so far. If I've missed any, assume they were "A scrying window opens"

"The Robe hides you from the Exarchs. Or marks you out to them." - Kali "But how? And... Could I borrow it for a second?" - Samuel Kali, frowning, hands the Robe over. Samuel takes a deep breath and puts it on. "THERE!" - Samuel, pointing "What?" - Kali "A scrying Window. Someone's casting a spell on us..." - Samuel
This is what happened during 7.2, when she was in the time machine with Samuel

--------------Seraph is running towards her dad's house. He runs up to the front door and bangs on it, shouting. "MR SIMONE! MR SIMONE! THERE'S SOMETHING I HAVE TO TELL YOU!" Seraph Desperate, he looks around, and comes to a decision. he pulls a card from his pocket and writes on it. Samuel pauses the flashback, and they read the card. "Tell your daughter to ask Beckett" - card
The true nature of Seraph's card revealed - it couldn't possibly have been luring Kevin to the Caryatid, as this took place long after Kevin had already commissioned Damascus. From inference, then, we can assume that whoever DID send Kevin that address (as yet unrevealed) had it overwritten with Seraph's actions here. The "ask Beckett" took Sam by surprise.

---------------Seraph has teleported back to the Sanctum. He turns around, still wearing the Robe, and sees a blurring, shifting figure - someone who has cast some sort of Mind Spell to hide their identity. "What are you?" - Seraph "A Servant of God" - Figure "Well, that's too bad. Because whatever it's all about, it's all over - I've seen to that" - Seraph "Your note was ill-considered. I have already taken care of it" - Figure

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"Is that so? Anything else?" - Seraph "There is nothing more to say" - Figure "So go ahead. Do your worst." - Seraph He pulls the hood of the robe back
We got Seraph's half of this conversation in 7.2. Note that Kali's mother (for it is she!) identifies herself as "a servant of God", which is what Seraph calls himself.

---------------It's late at night. Seraph picks the lock (no key this time) and sneaks into the Sanctum, being careful to look for defensive spells. He looks around - paying especial attention to Damascus' timetable, which at this stage is still on the noticeboard - and then spots the Robe. Looking like he thinks this is a practical joke, Seraph puts the robe on. He blinks, and then turns around, seeing a middle-aged woman of Indian extraction, stood incongruously in the middle of the Sanctum "It's YOU" - Seraph, horrified, recognising her "It is" - Woman "But... you... I thought it was..." - Seraph He pulls the robe off, and she raises her hand, casting a spell.
And he recognises her, too! This is the first time Kali has seen Anurati within the final after-edits timeline. Seraph's last line is explained just a little bit further down-thread.

---------------In the shower, Kali starts weeping. ---------------In the Cafe, Kemi is absorbing the revelation she's Kevin's biological daughter, as Damascus slips back into his seat. "But.. what can you tell me about my mother?" - Kemi "She was Indian... From the North country. She... She left, when you were little. You were really upset, but you never talked about it. Eventually, you acted as though she'd never existed, and I didn't want to force the issue, so I went along with it." - Kevin "I remember..." (screws up eyes) "I remember her telling me to look after you" Kemi
This one's maybe less revealing than Sam was expecting - as although *Kali*'s false memories have been removed by using the Sceptre, her father's haven't - so she now has an unedited memory of him retelling an edited memory of his own. It's maybe a little convoluted to keep track of all this, but bear with me. It makes sense if you squint and drink enough rum.

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---------------The bar in Las Vegas airport: "These things - these artefacts of the Dethroned Queen. I don't need them and I don't want them. I feel like I'm on a train, hurtling toward something. I say we stop the train. I want to get off. I want to put this aside. Get rid of the Ring - and the Robe, if that's gone too far." - Wolsey "And give them to who?" - Kali "We destroy them, then" - Wolsey Kali frowns. "Wait... Do you see that?" - Wolsey "See what?" - Damascus "Someone's scrying on us.." - Wolsey
fairly bog-standard, nothing to see here. The beermats saying "I NEED" in this scene as originally played in 6.1 were entirely coincidental to the Inevitability - they didn't actually happen in the 'real' version of events, only in the run-through of the memory of those events that we've been calling 'The Chronicle' up to this point. You may now begin wildly speculating about what *else* in the previous seven stories never actually happened. I did intend at one point to have Mycroft turn out to have never existed - he'd been introduced as a Mary-Sue by Kali. But then I sobered up.

---------------The Basement of Malakaii's House; Damascus muses over the problem of the Portal. "Can you do it?" - Wolsey "No. I could if I knew Space" - Damascus "And I could If I knew Prime. And if only I had a heart..." - Wolsey Kali feels the now-familiar feeling of inevitability caused by the presence of.. whatever it is.. and casts Ring Sight: Space. She gets a glimpse of something rather like a scrying connection vanishing, and announces to the others that they were being watched. She doesn't know how long for.
Important: Anurati's scrying windows, and therefore her spells, are detectable with The Ring. Which means she's Exarch Tainted as much or more than the gang are.

---------------The site of Malakaii's death; Katherine, Trace and Kali, soaked to the skin, stand arranged around the site of Malakaii's attack, casting their minds backward. Wolsey and Damascus are warm and dry in the car, drinking coffee and watching the three Enchantresses.

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"Mmm. Starbucks" - Wolsey Kali watches, under Postcognition, as Malakaii lies dying in the gutter. He looks up, and sees the very same Indian woman. "It's you... Lord God... I remember you now. Have you come for me..?" Malakaii She doesn't answer, watching as he stops breathing, and then turns and walks away.
There is much speculation as to what this means later on.

---------------Banneker adjourns the Consilium, and Malakaii - glaring at the Cabal - leaves with Thursday to go question the seer. Damascus breaths a sigh of relief, and looks at Wolsey, who is watching Malakaii leave "We've made an enemy today... Good." - Wolsey Banneker approaches the gathering, Marion and the rest of his Cabal in tow, and addresses Kali. "Young lady. We take such matters very seriously in this Consilium. Therefore I must warn you in no uncertain terms to exercise caution when using vulgar magic in front of Sleepers - which I understand you did not. You should never initiate conflict - which you didn't - and always report Enemy activity to your nearest Consilium official" (pause) "...Which you did. So carry on, and consider this to be a stern warning to keep not doing those things I just told you to not do. Clear?" - Banneker Kali, blank-faced, agrees, and Banneker - looking awfully pleased with himself departs. "I just realised. The Seer will tell Malakaii about the Bell. Well... nothing we can really do about it." - Wolsey Samuel wanders over and sits backwards on a chair. "Told you you'd be okay. Party tonight?" - Samuel "Yeah..." - Kali She looks across the hall, and sees the Indian Woman again, casually walking to follow Malakaii "Who is that?" - Kali
If you'll recall, the Seer they're worried about turned up dead a few minutes later. Clearly, then, Anurati killed him. But did she do it with or without Malakaii and Thursday's consent? The fact that the two fell out (which led to Thursday feeling guilty after he died and thence to the hard-line Guardians of the later chronicle) over it would indicate that only one of them was aware if any. But which one?

433

----------------Kali wakes up in the Ambulance, groggy as hell and comfortably numb from the drip - which, the Paramedic tells her, has painkillers in it. She's all right, though, the wreckage somehow missed her ("damn lucky").. but Ichi was not so lucky. He's alive, and the Paramedic is working on re-inflating his left lung. As the medic talks, his words turning into a kind of droning buzz, Kali gets a feeling as if someone has cast a spell and a huge, crushing feeling of inevitability and predestination, like all of this is fated to go exactly the way it's going. She realises there's something in her hand, and looks down - it's the Nickel, still clutched in her left hand. She looks up and sees a Scrying window close. Evidently, someone is keeping an eye on her. Kali, pained, tries to roll over and look away from Ichi. Trying to make the world go away, covering her head with her arm.
Again, this is Anurati keeping an eye on her daughter.

----------------Kali and Samuel are viewing Malakaii's past; You know I meant to tell you this, but I thought that it might have been him altering your memory Kali Samuel says that the thought had occurred, and that hes checked. He is certain, by various means both magical and mundane, that Malakaii isnt the culprit. "Let's go forward a bit" - Samuel They see Malakaii trained by a Cabal in Northern India as a Bearer of the Eternal Voice. His mentor is a mage named Ashoka, who Samuel tells her is actually Mara's grandfather. Once Malakaii is an Adept, he decides to head back to America. Jump forward again. Malakaii has returned to India from New York - and there is a new apprentice there. A 10-year old Indian girl, who, Ashoka tells him, Awakened in the middle of a Hurricane that destroyed her village. "That was me.. I ... I thought that was me" - Kali Samuel looks at her "That's what I saw in my Awakening. I thought it meant I was adopted" - Kali
The first real sucker-punch for Kali (though Sam had already figured this out) - the vision Kali had in Arcadia during her Awakening wasn't of her false life, but of Anurati's background. Kali ruined her own life trying to find where she was "supposed" to be, but the thing is? She IS Kevin's daughter. On the other hand, I look forward to the women's meeting. They had and have very similar ideas.

434

--------------------Kali and Seraph are in the House of Stone... "Something like. You're like a Pythia." - Seraph "hrm?" - Kali "You communicate the.. plan. The..." (waves his hand around vaguely) "Design to the other parts" - Seraph, admiring. "Why did you leave?" - Kali "I became aware, in my early years as a Mage of the Guardians of the Veil, that there was more out there than in my teacher's philosophy. They teach you all kinds of things that don't hold up against scrutiny - like how, given that they control this world and we all awaken after growing in this world enough, the Exarchs can't possibly be responsible for your Awakening" - Seraph Kali frowns "Eventually, I became aware that there was something else. Looking down us, observing us. You've felt it, I know, with that Bell thing you took from the Irishmen. That sense of inevitability.. like everything is going to plan. If we can't beat the plan, Kemi.. If even the magics we use to alter this world are part of God's design, then why fight? It is useless to fight on this world, when even the act of fighting is an act of submission." - Seraph He leans back, companionable but serious. Trying to explain this. "I know that the Gods exist. I can feel the weight of their plan, and I know that you can too. History teaches us, though, that the Gods can be joined. I have that right. I believe I am worthy. We are elevated above normal humans through our magic - why stop here? Why insist that we know everything? I want to observe the observer. I want to look God in the eye, and in so doing be transformed. I want to Ascend. And that's why I left" - Seraph Kali considers "Seraph... That isn't God" - Kali He looks at her "That's someone's Nimbus" - Kali
The edited version cut the entire thing after the third line, but Kali and Seraph had a very similar (from which most of this dialogue is recycled) conversation after she killed his Puppet during the Malakaii arc. Which just goes to show - if you remove two people's memory of a conversation, they'll just end up having it again. And this was where Kali found out that the Inevitability she feels is her mother's Nimbus, not anything to do with Destiny.

-----------------------Kali has a dream. Or maybe, more like a memory. It's late at night (she thinks), and she's very small, huddled beneath her Darth Vader duvet.

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There's the sound of footsteps from outside, in the hall. Little Kemi takes a breath, apprehensive for some reason. The footsteps stop. Kemi's heart pounds. The door opens... ...And Beckett enters, Malakaii close behind.
Duh-Duh DUUUUUH!

The six-year old Kemi stares at the two strangers. "She's not in here" - Malakaii, leaving Beckett looks little Kemi in the eye, puts his finger to his lips and 'Sssh's her. Then leaves, closing the door behind him. Kemi waits, terrified, for a few minutes, then climbs down out of bed and goes to the door. Opening it slowly, she can hear voices from downstairs. She creeps to the edge of the landing and looks down through the banisters. On the ground floor, her mom is talking to Malakaii and Beckett. Anurati glances up and looks Kemi in the eye for a split-second - and Kemi feels paralysed by a feeling of transgression. She's seen this sort of thing before. Strangers coming to the house, late at night or when her Dad's at the base. No one ever mentions it - it's like a taboo. Secret. "Is there any truth to this?" - Beckett "There is nothing to say" - Anurati Malakaii glowers. "That's your answer?" - Beckett "Nothing" - Anurati Beckett sighs, pained, and looks at Malakaii - who seems to want to attack her right there. "Anurati, by the authority of our Order I arrest you for the murder of Epotet-Magister Ashoka and of the Cabal of the Eternal Word" - Beckett Anurati doesn't move. "Do you have a response?" - Malakaii, biting the words off "There is nothing to say" - Anurati "Then you'll come with us" - Malakaii She smiles at them. "...What about the child?" - Beckett, to Malakaii

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"It's a sin, but it's one I'm willing to make. She won't remember this" - Malakaii Beckett frowns "What of my husband?" - Anurati, as though making polite conversation "They won't remember you" - Malakaii Beckett turns to look at him "Now wait a..." - Beckett "...I will erase all their memories of you. They'll both be safe and well" - Malakaii "This isn't what we agreed..." - Beckett Neither Malakaii nor Anurati is paying Beckett any attention "I'll do it" - Anurati Beckett stops arguing, and just looks horrified "It should be me" - Anurati, reasonably Malakaii considers "Alright" - Malakaii Anurati starts to walk towards the stairs. Kemi crawl/runs back to her room and dives into bed, pulling the covers over her head. Her mother and the two strangers come into her room. "What are you doing?" - Malakaii, suspicious "I need my casting tools" - Anurati, reasonably. Kemi hears her mother displacing toys under the bed, fetching a box that's hidden there. "Kemi" - Anurati Her mother pulls the covers down, and crouches next to the bed. "Kemi. Look after your father for me." - Anurati Anurati takes what looks like a grey silk scarf out of the box and wraps it around her head carefully like a veil. She reaches her hand out towards Kemi, and everything goes black. --Kali, sat at the bottom of the shower, shakes. There's a thumping from the door.

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"Kali! You alive in there?" - Damascus

The entire Cabal is, in fact, stood outside the bathroom. Partly because Kali's been in the shower for an hour, partly because they're all still covered in their own waste themselves.

--"And that's it." - Kali The others, all now cleansed, have just listened to Kali. Who, in a break from the norm, has told them exactly, and in great detail, what's going on. "The Spider is my mother. The inevitability is her Nimbus. And Beckett and Malakaii were there" - Kali Cue a doctrinal dispute regarding what exactly to do about this. Wolsey's position is very clear - they should go to the Consilium with this right away. Anurati needs to be caught. Fast. Kali - in no mood for Wolsey telling her what to do - outright rejects it on the grounds that, no matter what she's doing... "...She's my mother" - Kali They don't know what's going on. They know that Malakaii and Beckett *accused* her of murdering the Indian cabal, but they don't know if she actually did. Kali openly suspects that Malakaii may have made it up for some reason. She wants to find her, and quickly, but she wants it kept within the Cabal or their very closest allies like Samuel. The first person they need to ask about it is Beckett. Wolsey doesn't like it - he points out that Anurati has been manipulating them for months. Years, in her case. "Don't you remember how much you hated Malakaii for doing that? She's doing it *more*!" - Wolsey Damascus - falling back on his Arrow philosophy - will go with the group decision, but is clearly favouring Kali's end of the spectrum. Mycroft considers. Slowly and carefully, he says that Beckett said "OUR Order". Anurati is a Guardian of the Veil - or was. There's a Guardian philosophy, almost a sub-cult, that take the Martyrdom aspect of the Order further than most. The Guardians have a whole thing about doing unpleasant things to themselves and the state of their souls for the greater good of the world (Wolsey at this point remembers Malakaii trying to justify himself). "Some Guardians - dedicated to the cause - effectively subsume their personalities into their task. She's erased herself. Removed herself from the world as far as anyone can remember. Is she a fugitive, or is she in the very deepest of deep cover?" - Mycroft Wolsey looks terribly disappointed in Mycroft.
Mycroft at least, to Wolsey's mind, should want her caught properly. And him agreeing with Kali even conditionally means Wolsey's lost the vote.

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"Hear me out. If she did kill Ashoka she must be punished. But maybe she already has been - we do not know the facts. And lastly... If she's done this to herself in order to accomplish some mission, it must be *hugely* important. Maybe that goal is only in her mind... but maybe it IS real." - Mycroft "You admire her" - Wolsey, disgusted "To do this to herself? To watch Kali grow up, to Awaken, and never reveal herself? The sheer willpower needed is unimaginable. I admire that, and I'm a little scared of it. Final word - we need the facts." - Mycroft Wolsey doesn't even have to wait for Amanda to speak to know the way the Cabal is thinking. When Amanda says that - as the person most involved - they should go with Kali's plan, he stands up. Kali watches him, getting ready for a fight. "Okay look. We're at impasse here. I don't agree with what you're doing, and no amount of arguing is going to change it. So... I'm going to go now, with your permission." - Wolsey "And do what?" - Amanda He shrugs "Maybe some work? I don't know. I'll stay out your way, and let you four get on with whatever you're doing. Call me when it's over" - Wolsey Before he goes, though... "We should divide the artefacts up. In case anything happens. Kali should keep the Robe, if it protects her from her mother's spells." - Wolsey The Ring goes to Damascus, and the Sceptre to Mycroft. "All right then." (looks at the four of them) "Good luck" - Wolsey And he leaves. . "First thing we do - we go to Beckett..." - Kali --Across town, Wolsey enters his deader-than-Stygia apartment. He sits down heavily at his desk and pours himself a very large scotch. He regards the glass in his hand for a few seconds, then hurls it at the wall, shattering it into a dozen pieces.
And that, finally, is the end of Reign of the Exarchs III.

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Story 8: Commentary
Rafe / Damascus: My thoughts on RotE 3. Based on a mix of the play of the chapter, and the post-session debrief at the end, where DaveB explained some it with reference to the book, and noted some alternatives and things that didn't come up. I seem to recall that of the three players, I liked it most. And I thought it had problems. Good points:

It provides (at the beginning, at least) an interlude of normal life, which in an Adept-level game may well have been lost or shoved to the side. The worth of this is all too evident from its effect on Kali. It does a good job of playing on the theme of masks and identities that is one of those central to M:tAw It's an interesting twist on the common 'holodeck' story idea (as DaveB referred to it), where solving your personal problems through the medium of the alternate life is not only not the point, it's part of the trap.

Bad points:

I, personally, am not a huge fan of in media res beginnings, especially when the situation that you are in the middle of is a trap that you apparently walked into. Big one here: Meta-gaming. DaveB noted that we were all trying to not metagame. To the point where he worried that we might not get out. The Sceptre's trap is a very well designed trap. To the point where the characters should not be able to get out of it, without the players thinking outside the game. Example: one of the clues that you're not in the real world is that there's no reference to fantasy or the occult. At all. Anywhere. OTOH, the characters have explicitly had all knowledge of the occult erased by the trap. So the characters are supposed to notice the lack of something that the character has no knowledge of. It is a no-win trap. The route out that Damascus found and Kali followed was not supposed to be an option. As written, the options are die, or kill part of your self. The metaphorical chewing your own leg off to escape. On the one hand, I respect the idea/theme that occult power has a cost. But it can be a very dangerous cost. The part of himself that Damascus would have had to kill would have ended the character's main theme. And probably made him unplayable. But at the same time, was the only reasonable option for his conflict. (This may be why DaveB let me get away with it...) This goes double with an i.m.r. beginning. The concept 'the only way to win is to not play' is a bit tricky when you start already in the game. There's a good likelihood that you'll end up doing some very silly things to escape.

Overall, though... It wasn't too bad.

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Chapter 9: "Nothing To Say"

Reign of the Exarchs IV

Session 9.1
And so, following swiftly on from Robin Law's "Sceptre", we get to Matt MacFarland's "Crown". Once again, Spoilers abound for Reign of the Exarchs. You know the drill by now. Of all the stories, this is the one that I've both been looking forward to the most and - because of the way the Chronicle so far has gone - the one that's changed the most from printed form to being played. The first story ran pretty much intact interspersed inside one of my own stories, the second had it's heroine replaced by a chronicle npc. The third was given shadowings of other stories and made to tie into the Chronicle as a whole, but this one's almost been entirely inverted. In the scenario as written, the Characters don't learn of Anurati's existence until right at the end. This way around, it's more of an active hunt - and the various things that happen in the scenario have shifted from passive to active as well. In the book, the Hungry Dragon's attack comes out of thin air and could conceivably be an accident. In this chronicle, it's more a question of which ONE of their enemies is trying to kill them. Rather than reveal her presence at the last minute, the fact that the Cabal know Anurati is out there leads to a certain amount of paranoia - has *this* scene been manipulated by her? How about *this* one? She doesn't actually turn up in 9.1, but her presence - like her Inevitable nimbus - blankets over the proceedings. Our theme for the story is "everyone is working for someone". Allegiances are about to get murky, secrets are becoming deadly serious and the backgrounds of certain npcs are getting very important indeed. Much that has been implied is flat-out said. The title is Anurati's catchphrase of sorts. I'll talk about why - and the parallels between mother and daughter it throws up once Kali and Anurati finally meet. For now, though, it's time to go see Beckett...

It's the morning after the Cabal made it back from Germany, and they collectively feel like crap (though Pattern Restoration has done wonders for their physical condition). Kali, though, is not one to sit on her pressing issues. She wants answers, now. "I'm not coming." (off Kali's look) "Look, I'm not abdicating from it entirely like Wolsey. I know what this means to you - I see my own daughter about once a year. But Beckett is still an apostate from the Order." - Mycroft "And you?" - Kali, to Amanda "Oh, no. I'm still in" - Amanda So the Cabal is reduced even further to Kali, Damascus and Amanda. The trio pile into Damascus' truck and head off up the Freeway towards Beckett's house. When they do eventually get there, though, there are no signs of life. The Atlantean runes spelling "Trespassers will be astrally projected into the Abyss" on the outer wall of Beckett's property have been roughly graffiti'd over with what - to Kali and Damascus' experienced gangland eyes - appears to be meaningless squiggles. "I don't think anyone's been here for a while" - Damascus They press the intercom button, but there's no answer. Beckett is not at home.
Beckett's warning sign was seen back in 1.3, oh such a long time ago. Mycroft's stance regarding quitters from the Guardians is solely to cut down on the number of active-stance NPCs wandering around any particular scene, but it is in character for him.

Damascus, deciding that the week they've been away has maybe turned out to be a long one, starts phoning around for a update. Shore isn't answering his phones, nor

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is Ulysses. Falling back on "Sentinels", he calls Jude. "He's out of town" - Jude Damascus inwardly curses According to Jude, the main issue facing the Consilium, Sentinel-wise, is the hunt for Seraph. The Seer of the Throne has finally pissed the Pentacle off enough to become a marked man, and Samuel has ordered him found. Proteus, the Thyrsus tracker in Mara's Cabal, has been tasked with the mission of locating Seraph's Pylon's Sanctum. "And then we'll all be on the brute squad" - Damascus "You said it, chief" - Jude As for Beckett, Jude repeats that he's out of town. "Ulysses'll know where. Hang on.. Baltimore, I think" - Jude Great. Damascus thanks Jude and hangs up, reporting Beckett's manifest not-in-thecityness to Kali and Amanda. "So now what?" - Damascus Kali considers. After Beckett, her plan was to go through the records of the city. In her now-remembered encounter with Beckett as a child he said "Our Order", ergo Anurati was a recognised Mage. She must surely turn up somewhere in the extensive paper trails generated by the Orders and the Consilium. The Recorders of Living History have their private recordhouse that she could probably get into by playing the Samuel card (it is towards the front of Kali's mind that she in fact now knows the piece of knowledge Samuel wanted her to find out for him - the identity of the Spider). Far less complicated, though, is the Athenaeum of the Mysterium, out in the Maryland countryside North of the DC urban area. They're in roughly the right part of town as it is (Beckett lives in Rockville). To the Athenaeum! --Wolsey, meanwhile, has been working. He's contacted several people he's worked for in the past and made it known that he's taking on consultancy work again. Having the same thought as Damascus, he's also been catching up on what he's missed. In Wolsey's case, though, he's been getting his updates from Banneker. "Where were you, anyway?" - Banneker "Germany" - Wolsey "Will I be expecting an angry call from my opposite number in Berlin?" - Banneker "No, no. Nothing like that. We were strictly off the radar." - Wolsey "That's a relief. It's bad enough Beckett being in Baltimore. Ulysses swears he knows what he's doing, though." - Banneker

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Wolsey takes on board the information, and asks how the city is. "Quiet. I think, touching wood, that everything's settled down now. Everyone's getting used to the New Order, and I've *finally* been able to get back to my own work rather than worrying about the Consilium. We're close to a major breakthrough on the area around Dupont Circle - we think we've found where the resonant flows are diverging from the..." - Banneker Banneker's highly technical description goes mostly over Wolsey's head, but from what Wolsey can gather the Utopians have charted what the resonance in the NorthWestern downtown is like right now, and plotted out what they think it *should* be like. Rather than demolish whole areas of town to rebuild them according to L'Enfant's original design (which would be impractical to say the least) they intend to use three Architectural contracts Banneker's firm has won to "twist" the resonance in the area back to it's optimum flow. Or something. Banneker goes on for a while about counter-influencing Mana cascades and how the decorative roof features of one building in particular will pacify the resonance of a four-block area. Banneker eventually says that everything else seems to be going fine. He notes that even the Ascendants are playing nice - and that he's been having dinner with Melchior semi-regularly. "Nice man once you get to know him. He was an engineer, you know, back in Germany. Bridges, mostly - we have an awful lot in common" - Banneker "That must be nice" - Wolsey, dryly. "And what about you? You know, now that things have calmed down, it might be time to think about your career again. With Malakaii gone, there's a chance we can get you into that Legacy. I'm sure Mara or Roriko could be persuaded..." - Banneker
Banneker, of course, does not know that Wolsey is already IN said Legacy thanks to having Malakaii's Soul Stone.

"Thank you, but I'm.. reconsidering my choices. Taking stock and figuring out what I want to do" - Wolsey "Well, if you're interested, we could always use another Son" - Banneker
Of Imhotep, that is. A worse Legacy for Wolsey I could not imagine. No, wait.. Tamer of the Cave.

Wolsey makes polite noises. "Oh, and talk to Mara. Her man is spearheading the hunt for your Seer" - Banneker "I'll do that" - Wolsey And the Hierarch eventually rings off. Wolsey considers, and finally calls Mara. "Hello, stranger" - Mara In between chiding him for not being in touch enough (though not *too* forcefully, given the circumstances in which he stopped), Mara tells him that Proteus is hunting Seraph (she calls him "Your Angel") and asks if he, with all his Cult contacts, wants to join in.

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"I'm not sure what good It'd do" - Wolsey "Come on, Wolsey. House of Steel? I was there - you led Malakaii and Dantor to them" - Mara He does not seem enthusiastic. "... How's Amanda?" - Mara, sounding one part shrewd to one part concerned "Fine." - Wolsey, with finality "Wolsey, if you need to talk about anything..." - Mara "I'm fine." - Wolsey
I felt Mara, being a psychiatrist and knowing both of them pretty well (she's been both Amanda and Wolsey's mentor in times past) had earned this particular leap of insight. In any case, Mara herself regrets what happened between her and Wolsey earlier in the Chronicle and wishes they were still friends. She's trying to get back into his good books both here and in her scenes in "Scorpion".

"Anyway. I'm not sure what I should tell you about your... Angel... over the phone." Mara
At this point in her notes for the session, Sam records "Thought: Difference in Status Mara/Anurati significant?" You THINK?

Wolsey realises what she's doing "Oh, well how about we meet up, then? Do you want to go to a game?" - Wolsey "Can you get tickets at this notice?" - Mara "I *think* I can manage that" - Wolsey, opening his address book to the name of a Baseball promoter he helped out a messy bit of business in 2005.
Wolsey, if you'll remember, likes to keep up with sports and meet business contacts at games. Gives him something to talk about in hotel bars. It's an entirely contrived interest - he doesn't actually even know the rules of half the games he goes to see, but it's the done thing, and part of his professional disguise. Mara's familiar with this part of his persona and has used him to get tickets to the Baseball and Football teams in the past - Washington's Football team is particularly hard to get tickets to, IIRC.

"Just us, or will you bring Proteus?" - Wolsey, making notes "I will if you want. Any of your friends coming?" - Mara "I'll ask them" - Wolsey "Including Amanda?" - Mara, gently "Including her" - Wolsey He rings off, and calls Amanda --The rest of the gang are parked up at a drive-through in Germantown - a little town North of the city, on the way to the Athenaeum - having lunch.

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Wolsey - Damascus has fed Amanda's cellphone through the truck's stereo magically as an improvised speakerphone - tells them about the hunt for Seraph, and invites them to the ballgame tonight. "Do I want to *see* a ball game with you?" - Amanda, sarcastically "There'll be a commentary" - Wolsey, defensive "And a thousand loud fans" - Amanda "Good seats" - Wolsey Damascus (and, after some griping, Amanda) say yes. Kali - feeling that if Wolsey won't participate in her matters of import, she has no reason to participate in his says no. . Team Kali finally reach the Athenaeum, where they are met by Ebony. The young Mysterium member greets Kali and Amanda, who introduce her to Damascus.
Ebony is Promethea's apprentice, and knows Amanda from there. She's one of Kali's friends in the Order.

"What were you after?" - Ebony, signing Amanda and Damascus in as guests. "Consilium records from 1989." - Damascus, doing the math in his head.
That would be when Kali was 6 - 18 years ago. References to "15 years ago" are generally rounding up. We're getting rather involved in the backstory of our city, and Sam in particular has already gotten confused between things that happened ten years ago and things that happened 18 years ago. It doesn't help that I mistakenly labelled it 1992 at various points - which would make Kali twenty, and not give her enough time to take over Ichi's gang. The following, then, is in the way of a public service. The Chronicle at time of writing is set in Fall 2006, in the run-up to the Congressional Elections. It started in the Spring of that year. Kali is 23 years old. She ran Ichi's gang for "three years" and was part of it for a while before that. She left home, accusing her father of covering up her (as it turns out imaginary) adoption, after finishing High School but before going to College - that would be in 2001, when she was 18. "Ten Years Ago" Beckett tried to kill Malakaii and Seraph quit the Pentacle for the Seers of the Throne. It's actually closer to Eleven years ago in Seraph's case - Beckett tried to kill Malakaii in 1996 and Seraph turned traitor in late 1995. Kali's flashback of Anurati erasing her mind was set in 1989. The Indian Cabal - of whom we will hear more soon - were killed off sometime in 1983. Kali herself would have been born sometime in the same year.

Ebony takes them upstairs and into a long room lined with reinforced shelves. identical file boxes, some locked, some marked with runes, fill the place. "Minutes of the Consilium Caucuses and Council Meetings, going back to 1970 in this room. The locked boxes hold minutes that have been noted as being confidential - I'll need a Council member or Banneker's permission to unlock them for you." Ebony "Changes to the Electoral Roll?" - Damascus "We have that all entered onto a computer system, along with voting records of motions back to 1985 at the minute. I'll find you a laptop. If you want voting counts or the Roll from before that, you'll have to consult the original documents, and Hoban

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has the Roll." - Ebony She fetches them a laptop, and they settle down for a good hour's cross-referencing. They're mages. They can *do* cross-referencing. In 1989, the Hierarch of Washington DC was a Mysterium Acanthus named "Sigmund", who Damascus finds reference to being both Samuel and Suleiman's mentor when they were apprentices. Banneker is recorded as being a Councillor, and his Provost was someone named "Argent". Malakaii, significantly, was a Councillor even back then - but his Provost was Pool. "'Head of Project Twilight' Pool?" - Amanda "Looks like" - Damascus "Good. Add her to the list of people to talk to" - Kali Beckett was the city's Interfector. There is no record of Anurati anywhere - her name doesn't appear on the electoral roll, she's not marked as being anyone's apprentice. "Maybe it's been purged. She might only exist on the Guardian's records" - Amanda "We'd have to ask Thursday, unless you or Mycroft could find out." - Damascus There is, however, mention of Mara - she's noted as joining the Consilium in that very year as Malakaii's apprentice. Add another to the list. "Okay. People to talk to: Pool, Seraph, Samuel, maybe Nimrod. I'll go to Samuel you two go to Nimrod and see if you can get us a meeting with Pool." - Kali --Wolsey has been mulling his plans, and has decided to set up a meeting with one of his cults. Making contact with the Order of the Solar disk, he tells them that he has returned from a several month's absence with fresh insights, and wants to call the group together. Doing so leaves him oddly unsatisfied, though, and he examines his motivations. What's he trying to achieve here? The eventual uplifting of a group - the cult in this case - certainly, but why? --Damascus, back at the Sanctum, has phoned Nimrod in an attempt to get a hold of Pool. Nimrod, though, is giving him what the Guardians of the Veil call "the brushoff". And the creepy brush-off at that. "I do apol...ogise, Sentinel Damas...cus... But Magister Pool isss.. not av-AIL-able." Nimrod Damascus explains what they're after - they just want to know if Pool knows anything

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about something Malakaii was involved in back in... "She and Mal--akaii were not what you might call the ve-ry closest of confff-FID-antes if you understand the impli-CA-tions of my statement. I must apologise to you for what must seem to be an AR-bit-rary denial of your Re-quest, but I'm sssorry to say that an Int-erview is simply not poss-ible at this stage." - Nimrod
Rebuffed! I actually remembered Nimrod's peculiar way of speaking (like Half Life's G-Man, in a reference none of my players got) for the first time since he first appeared back in the second story. I retcon it as being that his voice changes when he's using his Attainment to appear more intimidating. Which has curious implications for this conversation, doesn't it?

Kali, meanwhile, has hiked from where Damascus dropped her off to the Time Machine. It's started raining, and she didn't bring a coat. The outer fence of the Time Machine has been sprayed in meaningless graffiti, and although there are lights on in the old transmission station no-one answers her when she knocks at the door. Her knocks become more insistent, then segue into hammering on the door with her fists. There's the sound of the bolts being drawn back, and the door squeaks open. It's not Samuel, though, it's Mary - the Stone Book leader. "Such noise. What is it, child?" - Mary Kali pushes rain and hair out of her eyes and asks if Samuel is in. Mary leads her through the Time Machine to what used to be the break area. There, Samuel and Fisher King (of all people) are sat intently studying something laid out on a coffee table between them. Mary smoothly slides into her own seat, making up the third side of a square around whatever it is. It's a Monopoly board. And Mary's the banker. "Do you know, young lady" (to Kali) "that Monopoly is a metaphor for life?" - Fisher King The board, Kali sees, has Atlantean sigils in place of Road names. And odd, twisting gold things instead of Hotels. Samuel's the dog. Fisher King is the Boot. Mary's the Iron. "The first side of the board is the Quiescence" - Fisher Samuel smiles, and Fisher winks back at him. "It represents the journey of our Sleeping Lives. The corner is the Abyss, which we must all pass." - Fisher
Go directly to the Abyss. Do not pass the Supernal Realms.

"The second side is our apprentice, our training and our young Awakened life. We are beset by things we do not understand on all sides, but we have the consolation that there is always someone to hold our hand and show us the things we cannot see by ourselves" - Fisher Mary smiles into her coffee.

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"The next Corner is that indefinable moment. Not as strong as an Awakening, not a quantum leap" (winks at Samuel) "in understanding, but a clear demarcation. It is the point at which we graduate, realise the conclusion of the matters that have concerned us so far and become ready to stand by ourselves. The third side of the board is the life of the Adept. The *fourth* is the life of a Master, as we try to pass on what we have learnt ourselves" - Fisher Kali points at the "hotels" "And these?" - Kali "Students. Converting to Legacies" - Fisher Samuel's piece is nearing the start point. "What happens when you reach the end?" - Kali "You collect $200" - Samuel Kali shifts from foot to foot. Samuel swallows his wine and turns serious. "If you'll excuse me. I doubt Kali is here for a social call" - Samuel He walks out past her into the corridor. "Another time" - Fisher Kali hesitates, then follows Samuel
D'ya feel those Anvils? D'ya? Actually - do Americans *have* Monopoly? If not this may be completely lost on you, in the which case - by the medium of metaphor, Fisher has explained that the lives of our heroes, having now become Adepts, is about to completely change. Also that Samuel, just to reinforce what everyone knows, is going to be moving... on... soon.

Kali says that she was looking for Beckett this morning, and Samuel notes that he's in Baltimore "Acquiring the Codex. He has an acquaintance there selling, and Ulysses wants it bought. So Beckett has agreed to go and collect." (off her look) "It's a book. About the Abyss. Ulysses wants it taken out of unsafe hands" - Samuel Kali wrestles with whether or not to tell him while Samuel goes on about Seraph how he'll make sure Kali gets to be there when / if they capture the Seer. "Now. What was it?" - Samuel Kali tells him everything. --The ball game. Mara and Proteus are waiting for Wolsey, Damascus and Amanda at the entrance. Proteus glowers at them. It takes a few seconds, but then they remember that Proteus glowers at everyone.

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He's that kind of a person. "Hi Carl!" - Monica Damascus freezes, then turns to Monica, who's crept up on the group.
Remember Monica? She's the woman who shares a couple of classes with Damascus at college.

"Er... Hi! How are you?" - Damascus "You should have *said* you were coming to the game! I'm here, Ahmed's here, Julie's here..." - Monica. Damascus follows Monica's gaze to Amanda's hand on his shoulder (he was leading her into the Stadium. Amanda generally refuses to let Wolsey help her - Damascus, though, is neutral territory in her book). Amanda remains oblivious. "I'm here with friends" - Damascus "Where are you sitting?" - Monica Damascus indicates their seat numbers. "Wow. Someone's rich" - Monica "That would be my husband" - Amanda "Lovely to see you, Monica, but we should get to our seats. Tomorrow at class?" Damascus "You bet!" - Monica And she leaves. Everyone exhales. "So" (cheerful) "Snacks?" - Damascus Corn Dogs in hand, they watch the game. Or in Amanda's case munch stoically at her food and feel completely disoriented by the noise of the crowd.
She really shouldn't have agreed to go. In the history of dumb things to agree to in order to try to show your estranged husband you're still willing to try, this rates highly.

During a lull in the action, they talk a little shop. "Your Seer has gone to ground. I've been to the site of his House of Stone, and he's carefully removed all traces back to himself. He, Hera, Chaldony, Bishop and the fifth member of their Pylon appear to be hiding out." - Proteus They need some kind of plan for drawing Seraph out - something to lure him out of hiding and get him where the Pentacle Brute Squad can grab him. "We could try to convince him that we have Malakaii's Soul Stone" - Mara Somehow, Wolsey doesn't go for that idea. "Or that Kali is intending to turn traitor" - Wolsey

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"Use Kali as bait?" - Proteus "It's more a question of how we get any bait at all TO Seraph." - Damascus They agree to at least ASK Kali about it. But she's made her position on being Bait very clear previously. . The game continues "Do you know. I'm not sure if I even know the rules of this" - Wolsey . On the way out, Damascus asks Mara if he could have a word "Of course" - Mara, curious "This is going to sound strange... Can you tell me about what happened to your grandfather?" - Damascus Mara looks shocked, then looks like she's remembering something that makes her both sad and furious. "He was killed. Him and his entire Cabal." - Mara "Does the name Anurati mean anything?" - Damascus "That's the Chura bitch that did it" - Mara She leans against the wall, remembering.
Chura is a very rude word for an Untouchable - it means, roughly, 'Scavenger'. As has been stated a couple of times (and twigged to by Sam upthread), Anurati's an Untouchable, meaning she's not a member of one of the Indian Castes (and therefore, traditionally, meant for menial work). Mara's a Brahmin.

"I Awakened at university. After I had, some things my grandfather said when I was younger made sense. He said that if anything happened, I should look up Malakaii in New York. Well, I came to the States, found that he'd moved on to DC and came down here. He took me in as his apprentice." - Mara "What happened to him?" - Damascus "They took in a girl, a Dalit... an Untouchable, in English. Tried to train her but she killed them. Burnt their Sanctum down and vanished" - Mara "She was never caught?" - Damascus "Never. Believe me, I asked. As far as Malakaii knew, she'd vanished off the face of the Earth" - Mara She blinks back tears. "I'm sorry. It's just... Why? What's happened?" - Mara

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"My fault. We found some records, is all. I'm sorry to drag it up" - Damascus --"Kali.. I don't know what to tell you. I was a Councillor back then, and there is no such person" - Samuel
Well, he's taking it well.

He thinks about it some more, entertaining the possibility that maybe his memory of her even existing has been removed. "Maybe Malakaii..." - Kali "No, not Malakaii. I'd know." (frowns) "Have you any proof? Beyond what the Sceptre showed you?" - Samuel Other than the way she feels? No. "This could all be a trick. Some comforting shadow the Sceptre put into your head like the dreamworld you say it put you in. Another layer of lies" - Samuel She nods. "I should go." - Kali "Kali." - Samuel She stops. "If it IS true... Then she has expended great effort in staying hidden. For a very long time..." - Samuel He looks up at her "Please bear in mind. No matter how you feel... She may not be pleased to be found" - Samuel "Can I.. Can I use the Time Machine?" - Kali "There's someone using it right now. Maybe tomorrow" - Samuel "Right" - Kali --Kali doesn't fancy going home right now, and the rain has stopped. She takes the metro further into the city, then gets off an attempts to walk the thread, seeking any insights the City can give her. The attempt is an abject failure. Three hours later, with nothing to show for it, she gives up and takes the metro back to Anacostia.
Our heroes don't use the metro much, preferring taxis or Damascus' truck, which is a bit unusual in a city with traffic as bad

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as DC's. Their local metro stop (in the WoD version at least) isn't particularly safe late at night, but it's near enough to the Sanctum to make it doable.

The others arrive back at the Sanctum to find Mycroft home. "Were there corndogs?" - Mycroft "There were" - Damascus "I am pleased to report we remain unmolested by Seers" - Mycroft Yeah... About that. Everyone gets everyone else onto the same page regarding the day's events. ... Kali returns home, noting that the gang tags sprayed around the Sanctum have been partially painted over by green gibberish. This makes the third time Kali's seen it, and it's no longer coincidental as far as she's concerned. She uses her Attainment to look back - a Taxi pulls up and three people (including the driver), all wearing hoodies, pile out, spray the wall with paint, climb back in and drive off at speed. Shaking her head, Kali goes upstairs. Her expression visibly falls when she realises that Wolsey's there. ... "So what have you been doing then?" - Kali, with some hostility "I've been thinking about the Cults. And what I plan to do with..." - Wolsey Kali tunes out and flounces off to find food. The others listen, though, to Wolsey's dilemma. Thanks to Malakaii's Soul Stone he has a chance - a slim chance - of proving to a small group of people (such as one of his cults) that Magic exists. This does involve breaking the veil, and is quite dangerous - the idea is to cast vulgar magic in front of the Sleepers and then use the Bearer attainment in the opposite manner to which it was intended, using the powers of persuasion it gives him to stave off their innate Disbelief rather than hasten it. The Quiescence will *eventually* win, and they'll forget or rationalise what they see, but the idea is to do it often and regular enough that they become Sleepwalkers, or even Awaken. But, one thing or another, he's no longer entirely sure that it's what he wants. Or that it will even work at all. "I will not say 'don't do it'. You're old enough to make your own mistakes, but I will caution that the Veil exists for a reason. Repeatedly trying to force these people to confront the Supernal will..." (reaches for the right words) "...All Magic is tainted slightly by the Abyss. Doing this over and over will bring that Taint down - only a tiny amount each time but if you force the Supernal to stay in these people you'll force the Abyss in too. With the very best of intentions - and I do trust that you have them what you accomplish may not be what you intend" - Mycroft "The same applies to all magic, though" - Wolsey

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"But not to the extent that this does. You're pulling the tiger's tail - even if you find a means of performing the feat that is foolproof, even if you develop that as an Attainment so it doesn't use the Supernal Realms, the Abyss will always be trying to twist your work. Remember the second Atlantis" - Mycroft
Mycroft refers to the received wisdom in the Guardians and Silver Ladder that the "Atlantis" Plato writes about wasn't the real one, instead being an attempt by Aegean Silver Ladder magi to rebuild the lost Supernal society that ended in disaster and paradox. Both Orders have contradictory beliefs as to what happened and why.

Wolsey says that he's not sure he *does* want to do it any more. Nor that he wants to be Hierarch - he's seen how Banneker barely has time for his own work and doesn't want that for himself. Completing the hat trick, he says that he definitely won't be following Malakaii's development of the Legacy any further - if a second attainment comes, it will be one that he develops himself. Just as soon as he figures out what it is he does actually want to do with himself and his new-found power.
Wolsey has hit an "Adept Crisis". The Chronicle so far he's been making lofty goals and noting what he'll do when he's powerful enough. He's now "powerful enough", an Adept of Space with his first Legacy Attainment. But now he's here, the goals he was devoted to don't seem that important any more, and he's crippled with indecision about what any replacement ambitions should be.

Which brings them back to the Soul Stone, and it's possible uses in trapping Seraph. "Kali.. Proteus wanted to know if you'd be willing to be bait" - Wolsey Kali makes a face "You want to ask him about your mother? We need to catch him first. Oh! I had a thought - Mycroft, we have to give the Sceptre AND the Robe to Kali, if she's going to avoid being mindwiped." - Wolsey Mycroft shrugs and gets his satchel, from which he retrieves the Sceptre, handing it over to Kali. "I promised I'd do it if you absolutely needed me to. And I keep my promises" - Kali Wolsey, getting up to go home, has come to a decision. He asks that if they do manage to find Beckett, could he go along with them? He'll stay out of the way of the Anurati-related talk if they want, but he's decided to give Beckett the Soul Stone. It's the only way to be sure it doesn't get into the wrong hands. ... Wolsey walks into the ground floor of his apartment building and notes to his distaste that it's been vandalised - garbage cans have been set on fire, and there's random squiggles of graffiti painted over the elevator doors. He phones maintenance, then casts various spells at it - Mind magic fails to translate the graffiti, so it doesn't have any intrinsic meaning. There's no magical resonance, and only a single very faint sympathetic connection to somewhere far away - presumably the vandal. --The next morning, Damascus wakes to a message from Beckett on his answerphone.

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"You've been looking for me, yes? My house tonight, at ten." - Beckett Damascus calls around the gang, letting them know. Wolsey mentions the graffiti at his building and Damascus relays that to Kali, who says that she'll ask Ichi if it's especially prevalent (or, as she suspects, it's something happening only to the residences of mages - Kali thinks it might be Banishers, or Witch-hunters, or something marking out targets). For now, though, Damascus has class. "Hey there!" - Monica Damascus greets Monica, and makes small talk, deflecting questions about the rather odd crowd she saw him with as "my friends". The lecturer begins and they both concentrate on work, but she corners him afterwards. "Lunch?" - Monica "Ah.. Sorry, but I've got somewhere to be." - Damascus "Dinner, then?" - Monica He considers "Sure. Why not? Meet you at seven at the quad?" - Damascus ... He hurries out, calculating the time to his next class in his head. He has *just* enough time to get over to the other University and see John Dee. "Hello, youngster. What can I do for you?" - John "I wanted to ask you a question" - Damascus Something Damascus has been thinking about, forgetting, putting off and otherwise somehow managing to avoid - if he, as a Uncrowned King, has some sort of resistance to Anurati's mindwiping, then so, logically, should John. "I've been getting a lot of.. Dja Vu, I guess. I wondered if maybe you'd ever experienced the same thing?" - Damascus "A Dja Vu is a glitch in the Matrix." (beat) "But seriously, everyone gets them. Everyone Awakened anyway... Our world, kid, is constantly in flux to a minor degree. The Exarchs change things, the Oracles influence things, the Abyss nibbles away at the corners of Causality. There's a certain background amount of strangeness in the world. If you follow them, you Awaken" - John That does not... entirely... satisfy, but Damascus has run out of time. "I just... sometimes I feel like I have external influences... how did you cope? back when Malakaii was alive?" - Damascus "There's a rote, to examine your own mind for edits. I'll teach it to you, once you have the practices needed." - John

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There's a reason all the npcs are being singularly both true to their characters and entirely unhelpful. And it has to do with a monopoly board.

--Kali, meanwhile, has been to see Ichi and been given short shrift indeed. Not only is Ichi not overly concerned about the graffiti (which he puts down to dumb kids pissing about), but he makes veiled references to Kali never being around a lot. In Fact, he manages to imply that he probably won't re-do the tags on the Sanctum, as he doesn't consider it part of his territory any more. IF it turns into something bigger, then he might let her know what's going on. In short? Everything's fine, and Kali's presence is not required. So, aware that things on that front are sliding badly but not intending to do anything about it, Kali sets about her own mission. Getting her motorbike out, she drives North-West to the Time Machine. She's met at the door by Francine rather than Mary this time. Francine's much less off-putting than her mentor, and on Kali telling her that she has an appointment to use the Demesne she lets her inside and shows her to the ladder. "Holler if you need anything" - Francine Kali closes the hatch and sits back in the spherical room, bathed in the glow from the lava lamp. Closing her eyes, she tries to meditate, casting her mind inward, into the Realms Invisible. The Time Machine fades and breaks up into misty blankness, and she feels oddly buoyed up, as though she's in freefall. Through the haze, half-glimpsed thoughts float as broken images, sounds, smells and textures. The memory of her childhood bedroom forms around her, walls floating into place and "locking" around her. She reaches out, and the door swings open. Through it, with dream-logic, is Ichi's warehouse. Kali turns around, and she's in the Sanctum. She climbs the stairs up to the Hallow and is in Junior High - except the metal staircase from Malakaii's Sanctum is stretching from the middle of the schoolyard into the sky. Kali focuses, and thinks of her father. Something that may be a memory comes to the foreground - her dad, helping her with a science project when she was 12.
Erupting volcano models for the win!

The memory breaks up, though. It's difficult, in the Astral Realms. The memory cheats, and misremembered things merge with the subconscious. There are no absolutes, and it's hard to tell if a memory is real or imagined. As a case in point, she lingers over a scene that she's almost certain never happened - her mother joining her and her father for Xmas

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dinner when she was 15. Kevin somehow knows who Anurati is, but the elder woman wipes his and Kemi's memory on her way out. Seeking deeper truths, Kali tries to sift through the mess of images that is her own Soul. She turns on the spot and sees a most odd scene. The Sanctum has flattened, turned into Stage Scenery. And there, smiling at her, is herself. With six arms. Six-armed-Kali begins to dance, her tongue out, with 20 Amandas as backing Dancers. The Bollywood scene is joined by a figure that Kali only vaguely recognises as being Shiva. Closing her eyes, ignoring the music, Kali decides to go deeper - into the Temenos. The Sanctum's roof splits open as she resolves into the street outside. The Stars and Stripes Sky of the DC Temenos is clouded by smoke rising from parts of the city that always seem only one or two blocks away but can never be reached. The shrieks of the people dying in those areas float on the wind, barely audible against the tickertape parade going on where she is as the sun is blotted out by a huge shape. Looking up, shading her eyes from the sudden eclipse, Kali sees the huge, cartoon face of Shiva looming over the city. The celebrating people all jump up for joy and then collapse like dolls, dead. Shiva stretches out a hand over the city, vast fingers casting shadows over the monuments, and Kali crouches down into a ball, trying to think of Malakaii's Sanctum. A neon "EXIT" sign flickers into life over a fire door near her. She enters, and descends the spiral staircase. Looking up, she can see Ichi's warehouse along with it's halo of spiderwebs. She goes down. Down into Malakaii's Sanctum. When she reaches the main Sanctum, one of the doors the Cabal explored is open. The Shrine of the Trimurti - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - is lit as if by flames. There's one thing that wasn't there in the real world - a trapdoor, set into the floor. Opening it, Kali sees a shallow pit, with Wolsey's heart hanging suspended in mid-air within it, still beating. Closing the trapdoor, she begins to climb back up the stairs. Halfway up, she can hear footsteps behind her. Kali turns around. Cxaxa Querephas takes a bite out of Wolsey's heart and smiles. ... Kali, slick with sweat, wakes up in the Time Machine.
All that will make sense in time, I promise.

On her way out, she sees the graffiti again, and uses her Attainment. It's the same taxi, and what looks like the same group of three people, though she doesn't get a look at their faces.

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She does, however, get the badge number of the taxi. When she gets back to the Sanctum, she finds Wolsey there, waiting. He's cancelled his meeting with the Cult - done some soul-searching while she's been off in the Astral. He's also brought the large, fist-sized Tigers Eye that is Malakaii's Soul Stone. Kali tells him about the Taxi, and they decide to fill their remaining hours before heading to Beckett's house by doing a little useful research. They do, after all, have a Yellow Pages. ... Damascus meets Monica for dinner, and manages to deflect any and all personal questions away as she tries (and fails) to get to know him better. Kali is never mentioned. Monica chatters on about her own life, trying to draw him out, but ends the evening disappointed when Damascus leaves for Beckett's. She's not the only one disappointed. Kali and Wolsey are on the scent of the mysterious taxi, having tracked it down to a particular firm. Waiting at their lot, they spot it come in and an Iranian man get out briefly to talk to the controller. They follow them in Wolsey's SUV as best they can, but there doesn't seem to be anything nefarious going on - the taxi moves around the city as one would expect a Taxi to, taking fares back and forth. Eventually, they run out of time and swing onto the Freeway back toward Beckett's. --Beckett - looking rather tired - opens his door to the Trio. Mycroft and Amanda are back at the Sanctum, holding fort. "Good evening. Good evening. Now - what was so urgent?" - Beckett He takes them into the Library. There's a large black-leather bound book with a red "X" on the spine sat on a lectern. "The Codex." (nodding at it) "That's what I was fetching. Some things shouldn't be left out where amateurs can find them" - Beckett "I have something for you" - Wolsey He holds out the Soulstone. Beckett has the good grace to look surprised, and wary. "How long?" - Beckett "Since the day you told me about it. I've taken what I want from it. It's yours to dispose of" - Wolsey Beckett reaches out and takes the Soulstone. Kali, for an instant, thinks that Wolsey's giving him his heart. Beckett tucks the Tiger Eye away in a fold of his robe. "There was something else. We wanted to ask you about a case of yours, from when you were Interfector. Do you remember a woman who was accused of..." Damascus

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"...Anurati Sahley" Beckett "Er.. Yes" - Damascus, wrongfooted. "yes, I remember her. Though I'm surprised you know the name. Malakaii must have missed someone." - Beckett He looks away for a minute, remembering, then looks straight at Kali "Of course. She was your mother" - Beckett "That's right" - Kali, evenly "I didn't know. You must believe me - I just figured it out now. Obvious now that I..." Beckett "I wouldn't expect you to recognise me. It's been a long time" - Kali "We're trying to find out what happened" - Damascus "What happened? What happened was simple. The year was 1983... "Myself and Malakaii were both Adepts. Young and drunk on power as we climbed the totem pole, angling for better positions. Malakaii had become the Provost of the Guardian Councillor as was, and was expected to take over from him. You know the sort of thing I mean. "And then she arrived. Anurati. Newly in America, with her Sleeper husband and baby daughter in tow - she got her Green Card from him. She sought Malakaii out and told him that she was from the Cabal in India that had trained him, and had been told to look him up once she got to the New World. She became his apprentice." Beckett Kali listens. "An was very serious minded. It's a clich, I know. Name one characteristic of the majority of mages and 'very serious-minded' is high, but Anurati earned it. Worryingly so. She didn't mix in Consilium circles - she lived at home with.." (looks at Kali) "you and your father, or at my and Malakaii's Sanctum." - Beckett He sits down, continuing with the story "And then Mara arrived. 1989. She said her grandfather - Malakaii and Anurati's old mentor - had told her to find Malakaii if anything happened. That he owed her family a debt and that training her would see it paid. She also told him, when Gideon asked for news, that her grandfather was dead. Murdered, with the rest of his Cabal. Gideon... I'm sorry - Malakaii - went to India at once to check. "When he returned, he requested a closed meeting. Just me, him, Sigmund - that was the Hierarch then - and a few other Guardians. He said that he had proof that Mara was telling the truth. That he, unknowingly, had been sheltering a traitor and murderess for six years. "We went to her house - I saw you, Kali, when we were there. We demanded her

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surrender.. and she agreed. She admitted it - said that she was attempting to gather as much power as she could, and that Ashoka had stood in her way." - Beckett "What happened to her?" - Kali "I'm so sorry. Malakaii killed her right there in your house. Garrotted her. Then he and I modified the memories of her family - including you. Over the next year Malakaii wiped her from the Consilium records, erased her from the memories of everyone who knew her" - Beckett "Why?" - Damascus "Guilt, I suppose. Shame, that he hadn't spotted what she'd done" - Beckett "No. She's alive" - Kali "Kali.. I saw the body. I buried her. I can show you the grave, if... " - Beckett "Could Malakaii have altered your memory as well?" - Damascus "It's possible, but I routinely check myself." - Beckett "She admitted it?" - Kali, going back to that "Oh yes. I wouldn't say she was proud. Your mother didn't do pride. Anurati did everything because she *had* to, in her own mind at least. Sacrifice of one's own ego is a Guardian virtue, and she took that to extremes. Anurati believed that she had no free will of her own, that our lives were mapped out from the Supernal Realms and that no power could alter that. She did everything - including, I presume, murder because she believed it was her destiny to do so. It made talking to her infuriating. 'There is nothing to say'..." - Beckett Kali casts Ring Sight on herself, and notices that she is much less "Tainted" than she was before the trip to Germany and the retrieval of the Sceptre. "We think that maybe something's interfering with people's memories of the event apart from yourself and Malakaii. We.. Could we try this?" - kali, producing the Sceptre "What is that?" - Beckett "The Sceptre of the Dethroned Queen" (off his look) "No, seriously" - Damascus Beckett is about to answer when there's a crash from downstairs - someone's knocked a vase over. "Did you hear that?" - Beckett Kali puts the Sceptre away as everyone strains their ears. Something is moving in the house. From outside the library door there's a noise of wet, heavy breathing, like some kind of animal. *Something* plays over them all, and Kali feels a ferocious pang of Hunger that vanishes as soon as it came.

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Heavy footsteps - or pawprints - recede away from the door. "Do you have a more defensible spot?" - Damascus Beckett grabs the Codex, and they all follow him as quietly as they can to the corner of the building. Everyone casts their various Armour spells. Heavy footsteps come from the ceiling. Everyone looks up. Damascus, reaching up to tap the ceiling with his hammer, casts Steel Windows and turns the ceiling transparent. Above them, in Beckett's bedroom, is a huge creature. Twelve feet long at least, it looks like a cross between a Dinosaur, an Alligator and a Komodo Dragon. It's quadrupedal, reptilian and moving with an oddly silent grace. "... ...Knowledge Brings Fear" - W
Futurama quote!

The creature moves away from the transparent area and they loose sight of it. Tense minutes pass. Kali casts Acceleration on herself, and Lucky Coin on her pistol. And then the creature bursts up through the floor, showering them in splinters of wood. It heads straight for Beckett, wide jaws snapping.
Initiative order: Kali, the creature, Beckett, Wolsey and then Damascus

Kali vaults over the beast, landing and running past it's sweeping tail into the centre of the room. The beast rakes at Beckett's leg with its claws and attempts to get it's jaws around him as Wolsey - putting the lessons of Sutterton Farms to use - casts a Mind spell to try to fry it's brain. Damascus, grabbing the nearest thing to hand, smashes a bottle of brandy over it's head. The creature rounds crocodile-swift on Damascus, biting his leg, as the superaccelerated Kali manages to stop herself and draws aim. Beckett - leaning back against the wall, bleeding from his wounds - and Wolsey join forces in attempting to stop it from darting between them. Beckett's spell fails as he clutches at his leg, but Wolsey's succeeds and the monster's attempts to thrash Damascus about fail as it becomes temporarily unable to move. Damascus grits his teeth and transmutes the brandy into acid.
Wolsey's spell was Suspension

Kali opens fire twice as the monster snaps it's jaws open and shut on Damascus' legs as he tries to get out of it's way. Beckett and Wolsey give up trying to hold it in place - it's too strong - and go for the other half of the Mastigos skillset as they press a psychic assault. Damascus, fumbling for his Hammer, casts Armour Piercing. Kali fires again as it opens more wounds on Damascus. Wolsey and Beckett, though, are finally successful - they've inflicted enough damage to knock the creature out. It collapses between them with a thump, just in time for Damascus to render it's skull to a pulp with his enhanced hammer.

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Damascus falls to the floor, cursing, as he burns Mana reinforcing his pattern and healing his wounds. "I think we should leave" - Wolsey "I.. agree.." - Beckett, also healing himself "Who would want to do this to you?" - Wolsey "You're assuming it was after me" - Beckett "I'm assuming it was sent specifically when we were here - to frame us for your murder" - Wolsey Kali - returning to her usual timestream - kneels down and cuts a tooth from the monster's maw. "To track it with" - Kali, by way of explanation. "I'll take shelter with Shore. Let me get those things I can't leave behind" - Beckett He hurries about, selecting the most dangerous texts. Wolsey phones the Sanctum, letting Amanda and Mycroft know to be on their guard (just in case it WAS meant for them not Beckett). Mycroft offers to come out and see what he can find out with his powers from the corpse, and Wolsey - getting the goahead from Beckett who's busily stuffing books into a large bag - says okay. They meet outside after a tense hour in which Mycroft drives North to them - Beckett long gone through a teleportation spell. Damascus has managed to stop his bleeding but wants to be sure - he's going to drive to Christopher's clinic and get himself checked out. Wolsey will go back to the Sanctum to wait for them all. Mycroft and Kali examine the body, and the monster's route into the house - it literally broke the front door down and slithered inside, using remarkable stealth for a creature it's size. "Its a hunger spirit" - Mycroft, using his Attainment "Why hasn't it faded?" - Kali The body is indeed still very solid "It's ban. It can't dematerialise while it has undigested food in it's belly" - Mycroft To test his Attainment's conclusion, they cut the creature's stomach open with Beckett's sacrificial dagger. Inside is a half-dissolved dog, complete with collar. On removing the remains, the creature begins to collapse in on itself, fading away back into ephemera. "'Lucky'" - Mycroft, reading the name tag. He and Kali look at one another
The game is afoot!

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They walk through the wealthy suburbia Beckett lives in, following Kali's sense of the monster's progress in the past and occasionally stopping for Mycroft to analyse whatever traces of evidence they find. The creature, they conclude quickly, did not come through the Gauntlet by accident. It entered a killing frenzy when it tried to eat Damascus but until then - even moving through the city - it was extremely stealthy. This is not a random Spirit attack someone *summoned* this thing. They hike into the Northern tip of Rock Creek park - a long snake-like valley that winds all the way to the Zoo near the city centre - and follow it south until well after midnight. Finally emerging into Suburbia, a long way off Kali's internal map of the city, they hear a man calling for a lost dog. "Lucky!" - Man Following the trail back even further, they put together the final pieces. Before it went through the park to cover a great distance without being seen, the creature ate the dog to "fix" itself into the Fallen World as a materialised being. When it came through the Gauntlet it would have been ravenously hungry as per it's nature. At last, they come to a stop outside an anonymous property. The picket fence has a large hold in it where the creature came out. Mycroft phones Wolsey "Does" (gives address) "Mean anything to you or Amanda?" - Mycroft Wolsey and Amanda - who are sat up in the Sanctum awaiting news - reply in the negative. Mycroft phones Damascus, and repeats the question. "Wait. Say that again?" - Damascus They say it again "Yeah. I know that address... ..That's Cerberus' House" - Damascus
I've got to stop ending sessions on a Duhn-Duhn-DUHHHH! I really do.

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Session 9.2
And into the bridge we go. This is a quiet session, a sleepy session (we were all of us pretty tired when we played it. Or maybe it was just me that was. Anyways...) and one of the shortest sessions of the chronicle timeframe-wise. 9.2 takes place all on one day, following immediately after 9.1 until the next evening. There are no startling revelations of a momentous nature, which had to happen *eventually* but coming out of 7.3, 8.3 and 9.1 makes this one seem especially slow. It's more of a case of summing up, consolidating and organising all of the many, many things that our characters have on their plates. They focus almost exclusively on one avenue of inquiry here, but there are signs they can see the others. This is also a session, in keeping with the theme of story nine as a whole, when conversations that have been put off are half-voiced. Damascus starts to question the nature of what he's doing with Kali, Wolsey and Amanda have a tired, strained fight and Mycroft and Kali have a very illuminating talk. On the latter note, I was especially pleased with Mycroft this session Sam was heard to utter "Mycroft's so sad" at one point.

Positions. Wolsey and Amanda are at the Cabal's Sanctum, having just received a phone call from Kali and Mycroft, who are stood in anonymous suburbia to the North of DC somewhere near Rock Creek park. They are *currently* on the phone to Damascus, sat in the waiting room of Christopher's clinic, downtown. ... "Alright. Phone *Wolsey*. He'll know what to do. And don't do anything rash" Damascus They confirm that neither of them wants to start a fight, and they hang up. Damascus looks around the clinic. Half past one in the morning, on what's now only technically a Friday night. The plastic chairs are uncomfortable, the posters fading. The entire clinic could use a few new coats of paint, and the handful of nurses, junior doctors and armed guards for the pharmacy that are here all have the expression of people working in hopeless circumstances. ... Wolsey gets a second call from Kali and Mycroft. Mycroft explains what's going on, and how it's apparently Cerberus' house - Cerberus, Kali supplies, is in Samuel's cabal and is a member of the Mysterium. They're a bit leery of starting a fight with only the two of them there. Wolsey's advice - given to Mycroft while Kali drops and crawls through Cerberus' garden - is to withdraw. It may be an accident (though there are no signs of damage to the property, says Mycroft), or a fit-up, but Cerberus' job is to deal with large spirits, and proving he sent one after either them or Beckett will take more proof than "our attainments say it came from here". Best all round if they come home, and the Cabal figure out what to do as a collective. Mycroft goes quiet "What? Mycroft? What is it?" - Wolsey "... I've just realised I've lost sight of Kali" - Mycroft Kali, though, has not rushed in all guns blazing. Round the back of the property, she's spotted light coming from a basement window. Crawling up to it, she observes

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Cerberus performing some kind of ritual casting - she can recognise the High Speech, but he's using practices she's unfamiliar with and calling the Primal Wild, which she has no experience of hearing in a cabal of two Mastigos, two Moros and an Acanthus. Not knowing what he's casting - or how long he's going to be casting it - she retreats, and rejoins Mycroft. The Moros tells Wolsey that she's come back and that they're both on their way home.
Why didn't they immediately accuse Cerberus? Because they're worried about what they were doing - if the Hunger-spirit was sent after them and/or Beckett at that specific time, then it have been in order to shut them or Beckett up. In the which case, a trial would see the truth about Anurati come out when Kali is trying to control who knows and who doesn't. More to the point, they have no proof, and as Wolsey says, "J'accuse!" cuts no ice in the Lex Magica. PLUS, from what they know about him, this is wildly out of character for Cerberus. I believe Wolsey speculates at one point that he may have been mind-controlled by Anurati, in the which case confronting him solves nothing.

... Damascus has finally made it to the examination room, and waits only a few more minutes until Christopher makes his appearance. "What happened?" - Christopher Damascus explains he was attacked by a spirit. Although he's reinforced his Pattern with Mana, which seems to have cured most of the damage, he would like Christopher to check it in case the spirit left anything nasty behind. "What were you doing fighting spirits?" - Christopher, frowning. "I didn't start it." - Damascus Christopher kneels and examines Damascus' leg, tutting. "Good thinking, though... If it was bad enough to use Tass on, why didn't you apply first aid?" - Christopher Damascus, rather ashamedly, admits that no one in the Cabal actually knows any. Christopher is not impressed.
The only character in the Cabal with Medicine is Kali, and then only at 1. For a Cabal that doesn't have anyone with Life sufficient to heal, this adds a certain excitement to fight scenes. No one's willing to sink the points into buying Life, though.

"The Crucible, right?" (sees Damascus nod) "I treated your young Mastigos when she was blinded. You're John Dee and Ulysses' boy, aren't you?" - Christopher "They've both been my mentor" - Damascus "Local kid, from your accent. Made good, from your clothes and the fact I haven't seen you around here. Uncrowned King, huh? Must be nice. Focusing on yourself." Christopher
One of the prices people have to pay for being healed by Christopher is putting up with his resentment at the way other Mages - all from far more selfish Legacies, by and large, only ever turn up to be healed and never speak to him the rest of the time. He heals them anyway, but he guilt-trips them while he's doing it.

"You're fine" - Christopher, standing up

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Damascus flexes his leg "Thanks.. and, if there's..." - Damascus "There is, actually... You're from here, but you've made something of yourself. If you can find the time when you're not fighting spirits, maybe you could swing by, show the kids a good example" - Christopher. "I'll do that" - Damascus, meaning it. Damascus hands him a business card, thanks him again and leaves, putting a hundred into the donation box.
Christopher was just bitching, as is his wont, but Damascus took him seriously - he COULD be setting an example, and he isn't. Why not?

... Kali and Mycroft are lost in Suburbia, somewhere (they think) in the vicinity of Georgetown. Or maybe not. "Where are we?" - Mycroft Kali doesn't answer, trying to find Ariadne's web. "No, seriously.. Where the hell are we?" - Mycroft "This way" - Kali, pointing. They proceed, walking through anonymous tree-lined avenues, until Wolsey phones Kali, making her jump at her cell's vibration. "WHAT?" - Kali "Um.. You're not dead are you?" - Wolsey "No, I'm not dead. Do I sound dead to you? If I were dead, would I be talking to you? No - don't answer that. I'm not dead." - Kali "Where ARE you two? It's twenty to three" - Wolsey "I knew where I was before you distracted me and made me lose the thread" - Kali "Bu..." - Wolsey She hangs up. "Right, then" (strained and tired smile) "THIS way" - Kali Mycroft looks dubious, but follows her anyway. ... "She's not dead" - Wolsey, closing his cell phone.

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Amanda, sat across from him in the Sanctum, grunts. There is another in a long series of uncomfortable silences. "So..." - Amanda Wolsey looks up "Are you back 'in', now?" - Amanda "...Do you mean the Anurati thing?" (She nods) "No, not really. I went to Beckett's to give him the Soul Stone... Not to, you know..." - Wolsey She nods, pursing her lips. He waits for it. "You think I should be taking part" - Wolsey
Not a question

"Yes. I think you 'should be taking part'" - Amanda "I asked you all if you wanted me to stay out of it. You said yes. If I didn't, I'd disagree with the way you're doing it" - Wolsey "It's that simple isn't it? You didn't think that maybe you should take part without..." Amanda "No." - Wolsey, frankly and a little confused. He considers. "You get why I'm not, right?" - Wolsey "It's just... you've never had a problem disagreeing with the group before..." Amanda "And that's why I'm staying out of this - I want you to be able to do what you're doing without having me there looking over your shoulders" - Wolsey "Not what I meant. You always disagree, Tom. Always." - Amanda "I won't hide what I think to you. You weren't here when I went through this with Kali and Damascus, were you? I lie to everyone else, but not to the Cabal" - Wolsey "Again. Not what I meant" - Amanda ... Kali and Mycroft have found a metro station. Unfortunately, as it's three am, there aren't any metros. Kali, apologising to the shivering Mycroft, says that they'll try to find a nightbus or something.

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... Amanda and Wolsey are still at it. It's a very quiet, subdued argument they're having, though. But Amanda is determined to get something across to him, though she doesn't quite seem able to articulate what she wants to complain about. It's not specifically that he's abdicated from anything to do with Anurati - she sees it as a symptom rather than the main cause for complaint. It's that he's never, as far as she can see, pitched in on something the Cabal has decided to do despite any misgivings he might have. He never voices his opinion, gets outvoted and then follows the collective - he either reminds them of his choice constantly, butts heads until he gets his own way or - and Anurati is an example of this newest development just doesn't take part at all. Damascus, newly-healed and wanting to check in, arrives back at the Sanctum while the two of them are still at it. He listens for a while, as Amanda tries to get her concepts across. "What's it called, the thing the government of the UK do? It was in class..." Damascus
See? I knew that Damascus being told to go to college would allow Rafe to use his natural tendency towards always having a good example in a slightly more in character way, given Carl's background.

They both regard him "Where they discuss something within themselves, vote on it, but then all support the decision whether they voted for it or not" - Damascus "'Collective Responsibility'" - Wolsey "Thank you!" (to Damascus) "That's what I mean. The Cabal should come first, not our Orders..." - Amanda "Ah, now we're getting to it" - Wolsey The Silver Ladder believe that the goal of Ascension - and then the Order - comes before all other loyalties. The Guardians of the Veil believe that the Cabal does. "The Arrow, too - Right, Carl? We all believe in collective responsibility, and you're all about autocracy" - Amanda Wolsey tries to drag this away from being an Order versus Order argument, for that way lies badness... and what he thinks of the Guardians of the Veil. It's clear, though, that Amanda doesn't want to shy away from this. She wants to have this argument. Now. ... Kali and Mycroft are sat at the rear of a near-deserted bus, feeling very tired indeed. "How are you?" - Mycroft, with the air of one who has been waiting for his moment Kali blinks herself back towards awake.

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"Do you still feel like you did in the Farms? We haven't had a chance to talk since" Mycroft "I don't know. I guess." - Kali "Because I've noticed... You wanted to get your family back together, but despite what's happened.. you haven't actually been to see your father since the day I arrived" - Mycroft "I know." - Kali "May I ask why?" - Mycroft "I.. I don't know. I'm supposed to be meeting Dad in a few days, actually. We organised it, but... I guess I want to find my mother first." - Kali She rambles, trying to explain. She wants to find Anurati first as currently she's wrestling with the fact that she has two options with her dad, and she's not convinced she should be the one to make either decision - she wants to put the facts in from of him and let him choose for herself . Option one: keep him out of her Awakened life, so as not to endanger him; and option two: tell him everything, so he has the choice to regain the life he never really was given the choice to leave. "It's rare, what you have. Awakening is not genetic, no matter what people might suppose. People like Wolsey and Amanda are rare, couples who Awaken after meeting. To have the chance you have - your mother being one of us? It's like Hen's Teeth. I understand how you feel, why you'd want to grab that." - Mycroft "Your daughter?" - Kali "Caitlin. Her mother and I divorced long before I awakened." - Mycroft "Do you wish you saw her more often?" - Kali "Sometimes. But sometimes not. When I visit it's... good. I ask her about her life, listen to her stories. But I can never tell her about mine. I don't envy people like Banneker. Can you imagine? Every night, he goes home to his wife and lies to her about his day. Better to make a break of it" - Mycroft "I have a chance for that sort of life. I can't imagine how I'd cope without it" - Kali "Cabals. They're our family in this life. You can rely on no-one else in this world so the members of a cabal have to rely on one another. We've got your back - Amanda and me. Whatever happens with your mother, we'll stick by you" - Mycroft "She... she might have done those things. She might deserve to be punished" - Kali
First and only time she's admitted that, BTW. Kali and Mycroft have an odd relationship - he's older (and maybe wiser) but a bit of a kindred spirit. Kali sees how lonely Mycroft is and feels sorry for him, and some of his doctrines - like the one he's explaining - help endear him to her.

"If she does, it won't be me or Amanda that do it. We won't even hear about it, do you understand? The Cabal comes first" - Mycroft "Even above the Guardians?" - Kali

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"Especially above the Guardians. The Order would never even ask us to go against that." - Mycroft ... Back at the Sanctum, and Wolsey and Amanda are working their way toward closing statements. "Look. This thing with Anurati? This is the most important thing that's ever happened to Kali. I can't get in the way of that no matter what I think, and no - I'm not willing to pretend I don't think as I do for the convenience of the Cabal." - Wolsey "'the most important thing that's ever happened' to her? That didn't stop you when it was me" - Amanda
Ouch. I don't know what Wolsey *thought* Amanda meant there, maybe showing his hypocrisy up, but in fact this is her resentment talking. Because especially after Sutterton Farms she knows that Querephas - the person she's *supposed* to be - was destroyed, thanks to Wolsey. Mark: Actually, Wolsey IS following the exact same thing as he did last time - he *let* Amanda go off and chase her Heart of flies, and (to counter an earlier point) he then swallowed his objections and even *took* them to England. Admittedly, he then go involved to stop Querephas, but he wasn't exactly the only one. So there to her Wolsey's actual position is that Amanda should try and grab as much as she can from the knowledge Querephas left her.

Wolsey nods. "It's late. They'd have called for help if they were in any trouble..." (looks at Amanda) "I'm going home" - Wolsey "Fine" - Amanda "Is that all right?" - Wolsey "Yes, fine. Go home" - Amanda He leaves. Amanda gets up and feels her way to her room. Damascus, sighing, settles in to wait up for Kali and Mycroft. ... An hour later, Wolsey gets home to find the Graffiti still there. He makes a mental note to call building management again in the morning. Over at the Sanctum, Kali and Mycroft finally get back. Damascus greets them, but no one's in much of a mood for long, involved conversation. Mycroft goes straight to bed and Damascus, now that he knows the entire Cabal are safe, heads back to his own house to sleep. Kali takes up her now-habitual place on the sofa.
Kali hasn't slept in her own bed since Wolsey lambasted her for sleeping through Seraph's nocturnal visit - the sofa's in the main room, which the entrance to the Sanctum opens onto. One of these days, I really must draw a map of the Sanctum's internals. I know that Kali's room, the bathroom and Mycroft's room are upstairs, the Hallow is in the roof garden above them and the spare room, Amanda's room and the kitchen all connect directly to the main living area that I mean when we just say "in the Sanctum"

Saturday Morning, and Damascus, having gotten five hour's sleep, gets up and returns to the Sanctum. Kali is still laid out, snoring, on the sofa, but he can see Amanda feeling her way around the kitchen in search of bagels. He waves at her to

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attract her attention, realises, creeps over there and quietly says hi. "Could I have a word?" - Damascus Amanda cocks her head "Without waking Kali?" - Amanda "Yeah. Upstairs?" - Damascus They head up to the Hallow. "Sorry about last night" - Amanda "That's alright.. Listen. I wanted to ask you something. You and Kali are good friends, right? Well... Has she ever... Has she ever talked to you about her and me? What she thinks of us?" - Damascus Amanda, eagerly distracted from her own romantic woes by someone elses, considers "Does she.. think of me as her boyfriend?" - Damascus
Sam helpfully says that Kali and Amanda's "girl-talk" is mostly about Dominic Monaghan.

"Not as such... Carl, I honestly don't think Kali thinks about it much - she's got far too much going on. But, and trust me on this, I think she'll need you before this Anurati thing is over, whether she realises it consciously or not. I'd save any big state-of-ourrelationship talks for then, when she's maybe realised what she does and doesn't want" - Amanda He does not seem entirely convinced, but Amanda tries to reassure him that Kali does need him.
Amanda is maybe trying a little too hard. She's a bit of a romantic, and thinks they're better together than they maybe really are - she's the one that suggested they get together, after all.

As they head back downstairs, Mycroft emerges from his room, bleary-eyed. When they get to the living room, Kali has awoken. Right then. "Are we ready to make a plan of action? Should I get Wolsey?" - Damascus Amanda mutters something disparaging about her husband. Kali shrugs, focused more on her bagel.
I don't think the Cabal's bagel-love has made it into any previous recaps, which is an odd little thing. Anyways - they're obsessed with Bagels. They're the only thing Amanda and Mycroft trust Kali to cook (Damascus and Wolsey live alone) after the Terrible Couscous incident. Mycroft does most of the cooking in the Sanctum. Before he arrived, Amanda and Kali went hungry a lot. Sam: Or ordered an awful lot of pizza to go

Damascus calls Wolsey, (who has just checked and yes - a painter is downstairs removing the graffiti). Wolsey considers the drive all the way back to the Sanctum,

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decides to be lazy and teleports right to them. He tells them about the Graffiti, which Damascus has had an idea about: What if the random scrawlings were in fact some kind of targeting means for that Spirit that attacked them?
Good idea! Wrong, as it happens, but good idea all the same!

Kali asks if anyone has used Ring Sight or the Ring itself on the stuff. When it transpires that no one has, they troop outside to the example of the genre currently adorning the outside wall of their building. Kali casts Ring Sight: Fate and determines that the graffiti itself isn't tainted - but that *something* here is. She points out a perfectly ordinary-looking brick near to the vandalism, and says that it's showing as being tainted.
"It's a brick of the Exarchs! If we get them all together we can build..." - Rafe "a *throne*!!!" - Sam and Mark, simultaneously

Damascus then uses the Ring to Ring Sight the spell Dark Matter, and determines a much sharper image - there's some kind of substance on the wall, in the shape of a small ideogram or character - maybe Atlantean. That's what the Ring Sight is detecting. Mycroft pokes at it, casts an Unveiling of Matter and declares the symbol to be painted onto the brick in UV paint - invisible to the naked eye, but definitely there. So Damascus takes a chisel to it, carefully collects all the pieces and they go back inside. ... Wolsey scans the fragments for sympathetic connections and finds none - which is odd, as it should at least have one to it's creator. The obvious answer is that they've been removed magically with Destroy the Threads, but why? Wolsey voices a new theory - it's not so much that the graffiti is in the same place as the symbol. But they wouldn't have even thought to *look* at that wall if it hadn't been for the graffiti. He thinks that the vandalism is being conducted by Seraph and his Pylon, in order to warn the Cabal about the presence of these UV markings. "Maybe he doesn't even know why he's doing it" - Wolsey The follow-on theory, then, is that the symbol is Anurati's work. It has that combination of subtlety and manipulation that seems to describe her actions. Kali, game for any idea that doesn't incriminate her mother until she meets her, suggests something even more "out-there": what if the symbols (if there's more than one) are tools of the Exarchs themselves? They only showed up under Ring Sight, after all. And why would something of Anurati's show up using Ring Sight? Easy, Wolsey thinks (but very definitely does not say): She's a Seer. Damascus points out that they're all "tainted" too, and reckons that whatever Ring Sight detects is not the same as "works for the Seers / Exarchs". After all, the Robe is meant to make you invisible to followers of the Exarchs, and they can all see Kali when she wears it.

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Kali, by way of demonstration, puts the robe on. And vanishes to everyone *except* Wolsey There is some confusion until Wolsey says that he can still see and hear her - that's worrying. Very worrying. She takes the robe off again and casts Ring Sight. As before, Wolsey is much less tainted compared to the others, and as she saw she herself is less tainted after using the Sceptre. Damascus, reasoning that the Sceptre must have decreased her taint, asks her to use it on him. She does so (Damascus regains the true memory of the conversation in the cafe with Kali's father) and then rechecks. He is now much less tainted - and can see her when she puts on the robe - but her own taint has increased. Things learnt: Being under the effect of the Sceptre decreases your "Taint" by a lot. Using the items of the Dethroned Queen - especially the Sceptre - increases it again by a smaller amount. Kali declares an end to experimentation, feeling queasy at the implications. Wolsey is much more interested in why he's less tainted than any of the rest of them - including Mycroft and Mara. No one has an answer for him, though.
Mark: Although the question of why Wolsey is less tainted is important, he's not convinced that's the reason he can see Kali. What it is, he has no idea...

In any case, the Cabal decide that - unlike Cerberus who can "wait" while they make their inquiries and lull him into a false sense of security - these glyphs are something they can handle. For a start, they seem to be removable. They decide to go to Kali's father's house, to see if there are any glyphs around there (which would finger Anurati as the culprit) or if they're only on or around the homes and Sanctums of Mages (which would maybe finger Anurati or some other malcontent of a supernal nature). Everyone piles into Damascus' truck (Mycroft's car is still abandoned outside Beckett's house, and Wolsey's is at his own apartment due to his teleportation) for the drive up to where Kali and Blaise discussed Nickels so long ago. Remembering, Kali digs the Fateful Nickel (that blew up the Crack Factory) out of her pocket and quietly checks it for any Taint. It doesn't have any.
I've been waiting for experimentation along these lines for a while now. A lot of the time, the gang forget they have the regalia, or remember but don't use them anyway.

... There is vandalism here, too. Performed by the same mysterious taxi-using hoodies as before, according to Kali's Attainment. They find a glyph like the one before though not identical - outside. Damascus reckons that if it's High Speech, the glyphs are very basic phonetic sounds, like single letters in English. He asks to be reminded who the Cabal went to last time they needed Atlantean translated. The answer, of course, is "Malakaii", which isn't going to work. Kali decides to check inside the house, and grabs Damascus' arm.

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"Whoa! What are you doing? You're just going to walk up and ask to look around?" Wolsey "Noooo, I'm going to drop in for coffee with my boyfriend while in the area" - Kali She turns to continue towards the front door. "Hey, Damascus!" (he turns around) "I think that answers your question" - Amanda Damascus does not look reassured.
And is right to not be - Kali here is just going with the cover story Kevin swallowed last time they saw him, not making any declarations of romance.

"What was that about?" - Wolsey "Damascus wanted to know if he was her boyfriend or her fuck-buddy" - Amanda ... Kevin is surprised to see Kemi and Carl suddenly turn up at his doorstep, but invites them in anyway (the other Cabal members are out of sight down the road). Kemi cheerfully says that she knows they were supposed to meet in a few days, but that she and Carl were passing by and thought they'd see if Kevin was in. While father and daughter catch up, Carl excuses himself, and obtains directions to the bathroom. Upon hitting the stairs, Damascus casts Detect Substance and goes on the hunt for Glyphs. ... Outside, Wolsey and Mycroft are sat on a wall. "I meant to tell you, by the way - I gave Beckett the Soul Stone" - Wolsey "I hope that wasn't just on my account. I didn't mean my talk of the Abyss to scare" Mycroft "It's not that. I've just been doing a lot of thinking, is all. I decided I don't need it - I don't intend to follow in Malakaii's footsteps..." - Wolsey Kali and Damascus exit the house, saying goodbye to Kevin. They rejoin the group, and Damascus reveals the frightening extent of his haul. There was one glyph on the landing, one in the bathroom, one in Kevin's room and *five* in Kemi's. That does it, then - they're definitely of Anurati's doing. And Wolsey and Damascus have both figured out what they're for. The glyphs are sympathetic "bookmarks". Whenever Anurati wants to scry on someone, she casts Space magic to create a sympathetic connection between herself and the glyph (which counts as "known"), then uses that link to create a scrying window. When she's done, she uses Destroy the Threads to reset the glyph. The glyphs are all different so that she can target them individually.

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"Why so many in my bedroom?" - Kali "She left when you were six. You lived here until you were eighteen. She was probably watching you the entire time... When we get back to the Sanctum, we need to check Kali's room." - Mycroft "...Maybe they're not Atlantean. Does anyone read Hindi?" - Amanda Everyone looks at Kali "What? No! Why would I?" - Kali
I like the occasional reference to the way that Kali's entire knowledge of Indian mythology and culture comes from Wikipedia, but that everyone expects her to understand it.

The Cabal decide to split up to cover extra ground. Wolsey and Mycroft will first check Banneker's house for Glyphs and then do the same for Wolsey's apartment and the Sanctum interior. Wolsey will then create a ward around the spare room again, and they can keep the Glyphs they've been removing inside it. Kali will go to Samuel's to try to find out anything she can about Cerberus, while Damascus and Amanda will tackle the Beckett situation - taking the Sceptre with them, they're to go to Shore's house, find Beckett and go over both the night before and anything he couldn't tell them about Anurati the night before. ... Banneker's architect's firm is in the clear, glyph-wise. When Wolsey and Mycroft go to Wolsey's apartment to pick up his car, though, they discover that the lobby freshly redecorated only that morning - has now been re-vandalised, and a fresh glyph drawn onto the inside of a door frame. Wolsey declares that whoever's doing this is now just taking the piss, and they erase it again. They drive up to Beckett's to remove *that* glyph and pick Mycroft's car up, then head back south to the Sanctum.
Gotta catch them all!

... Kali, after walking from the metro, is finally approaching the Time Machine. As she rounds the corner on the final approach to the hill the Recorder Sanctum is on, she spots Samuel coming the other way. He makes a beeline right towards her, stopping just before he collides with her. "Ah! Now I get it!" - Samuel And without another word, he steps around her and walks off.
"Like So!" (A reference only British Doctor Who fans will get)

Kali follows him, hurrying to catch up. He turns a corner ahead of her, and she feels a wave of deja vu from his Nimbus. When she gets around the corner, he's nowhere to be seen. Thinking he's teleported, she uses her Attainment to go over the scene again - this time she clearly sees him vanish as soon as he turns the corner, with no flash of

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mana that one would normally get with a teleportation. She heads up to the Time Machine and knocks at the door. Samuel, wearing different clothes, answers the door. "Oh, hi Kali. What can we do for you today?" - Samuel Kali does a double-take, reprocesses the last five minutes and goes a paler shade of dark. "I think.. I think I just met your future self" - Kali "Really?" (curious) "What did I say?" - Samuel
The person in the street was Archmage Samuel, time-travelling back into the present. The one she's talking to is Master Samuel, the contemporary version.

... Damascus and Amanda have arrived at Shore's house, where Beckett has taken up temporary residence. Damascus looks around at Shore's modern, modest home near enough to the projects to display a concern for the common man but far enough to be well beyond Damascus' means. He pays especial attention to the way that Beckett's things seem to have pushed Shore's aside - Shore's books are piled on the table and Beckett's are on the shelf, as an example.
Shore and Beckett are good friends, thanks in part to the Cabal, but the players in particular reckon that Shore is completely taken for a ride by Beckett in a power-behind-the-throne way. Or, at times, more of a servant-and-master way. I commented a while back to Mark, by way of idle conversation regarding the Spirits that have turned up in the game, that I haven't had any crossovers despite the nWoD being at least mechanically set up to allow it. Mark's opinion is that we don't need no steeenking vampires. We have Beckett. As for the other npcs in this scene - Amanda is unusually quiet here because we actually forgot she went with Damascus until the *next* scene. Shore's house - cynically located for maximum political value - hasn't been seen before.

"I came about the conversation we didn't finish last night" - Damascus Beckett nods, slowly "Shore.. could you give us a few minutes? This is a private matter of the Crucible's that they're consulting with me on" - Beckett Shore shrugs and wanders off. Damascus tells Beckett that they tracked the Spirit. He doesn't say they tracked it to Cerberus - Beckett is known to have a leeeetle bit of a hair-trigger temper when people have threatened him. They go over Beckett's version of events from last night, and that Kali suspects Beckett's memory might have been altered. "Now." (gets Sceptre out) "Did you want us to use this to restore your memory? We have a slightly deranged ex-Guardian of the Veil to find... and it's not you!" Damascus Beckett points at a shelf containing only one book - the black-bound tome with the red X on the spine that they saw last night in his house.

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"Did I tell you about the Codex?" (off their expressions) "Fascinating creature. It isn't actually a book - it's an Intruder, a creature from the Abyss that *looks* like a book." Beckett He tells them about the Invisible Codex: an Abyssal entity in the shape of a book, the result of an attempt to make a grimoire gone horribly wrong many, many years ago. The book catches those in desperate need of knowledge and appears to be a reference work on whatever secret lore they're seeking, but absorbs their life force and eventually their entire substance. "It then skips back into the Abyss, returning at random sometime later - it usually likes to manifest as part of a book-shop's collection. In this case, we got wind of it being for sale in Baltimore and decided to get it out of the way of the unwary... Don't read it, by the way. I cannot emphasise that enough." - Beckett "What are you going to do with it?" - Damascus, curious "Banish it, of course. Just as soon as we can put together the necessary rituals. Would you be interested in taking part?" - Beckett "Of course... It's fascinating. And may I compliment you on dodging my question" Damascus "That's what I suspected last night of being, you know - an attempt on my life by any of the various Scelestus I've annoyed in my career. This book is a godsend for any Left-Handed mage" - Beckett "Still not answering" - Damascus Beckett has the expression of a schoolboy caught collecting worms. "Touch. And no, I'm afraid I must decline. I don't.. I don't trust this toy of yours. If it's what you say it is, then it's the instrument of the Exarchs" - Beckett "All right. Last night you mentioned that you buried Anurati" - Damascus "That's true" - Beckett "Where?" - Damascus "I'll show you, if you have transportation" - Beckett They prepare to leave. Beckett leaves Shore on guard of the Codex, warning him not to read the book. They drive South, out of the city, heading for Chesapeake bay.
The Codex is from Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss. Love that book.

... Back at the Sanctum, Wolsey has made a pile of the carefully-lifted from the surrounding matter glyphs, and is working on re-warding the spare room. ...

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Kali has walked Samuel through what he did. Is going to do. Will have done. Whatever. "I came about Cerberus. Has he seemed... odd to you, lately?" - Kali "Not especially. Why?" - Samuel Why? Kali tells Samuel everything - how they and Beckett were attacked by a monstrous spirit. A monstrous spirit, she adds, that seems to have come from Cerberus' place. Samuel notes that that isn't proof, nor is Kali's anecdote of spying on him while he cast something anything other than raw rumour. "There is one way to be sure, though" - Samuel Saying he'll be back in a bit, Samuel heads upstairs to the Demesne.
It is very hard to get away with anything when half the city seems to have Postcognition.

... Out in the countryside of the river delta around Chesapeake bay, Damascus' truck pulls up in the middle of nowhere - fields and the broken-up terrain of the waterways surround them. He, Amanda and Beckett walk up a track towards what looks like an abandoned house. An eagle cries out and flies past them, high above. "The thing about being an ex-Interfector... You know where the bodies are buried" Beckett They walk past the house, and Beckett stops at an unmarked piece of scrubby ground. "...We're going to need a shovel" - Damascus
The Guardian safehouse, out in the sticks, is based on a real-life place I went to when I was 16 and in the vicinity of DC - it's actually the summer house of friends of friends of my mother's. Those waterways are full of edible crabs.

He fetches two branches from a deadfall nearby, and uses Matter magic to reshape the ends into shovel-blades. Handing one to Beckett, who starts attacking the ground, he asks Amanda (who's sat on the abandoned house's porch) if she's joining in. "Oh, no. Men do the grave-robbing in my family" - Amanda
Which is a partial Buffy quote

Damascus regards the earth. "There are times when I hate being a Moros, you know" - Damascus "You should try the alternatives" - Beckett "I think I'd like to be an Obrimos" - Damascus

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Beckett makes a face "I'm not an Angel person" - Beckett Damascus shrugs and, rolling his sleeves up, joins Beckett in the grim work. ... Kali paces around the ground floor of the Time Machine, fretting. Painfully aware that she's broken the Cabal's decision on what to do about Cerberus. She isn't made any happier when Samuel comes back downstairs, speaking on a cell phone. "All right, then. We do this. Take care, Suleiman" - Samuel He hangs up. "I was just in Cerberus' house, last night. I'm afraid it wasn't an accident - he deliberately summoned that creature, and sent it specifically to kill Wolsey, Beckett and Damascus. Even banned it from harming any human beings other than them." Samuel Kali realises that she's not included on that list, and gets a horrible sinking feeling. "What are you going to do?" - Kali "I'm his Cabal leader. Suleiman, as head of his Order, agrees with me. He'll be arrested and probably trialled for attempted murder of a fellow Awakened." - Samuel, stony-faced "I..." - Kali "Go home, Kali. We'll handle this" - Samuel He does not look like he's brooking any argument. Kali leaves, unable to say anything that will make any of this better. ... After a fair amount of exercise, working in silence, Damascus and Beckett reach the body. Tightly wrapped in a sheet, the boggy ground around here has not helped it's condition any. Damascus climbs down into the grave and carefully unpeels the wrapping over the corpse's face. Damascus manages to keep his lunch down. He casts a Death spell to temporarily undo the post-mortem changes to the body, returning it to recognisable form. For a moment, he thinks that he might have been wrong all along when the changing body starts to look like Anurati, but then it changes again into a brown-haired white woman.
He got an exceptional success, which is why the effects of Anurati's Corpse Mask didn't stay. Otherwise it *would* have looked like her.

He reaches out to touch the dead woman's eyes, and slowly pulls his hand upward as though manipulating a puppet. His fingers trail thin lines of Ectoplasm from the eyes, which thicken as he makes a complicated gesture and detach from his fingers.

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The Ectoplasm wavers, flows together and rises up into a flat plane, ripples on it's surface making subtle marks and forming pictures. Damascus explains that the ectoplasm is meant to show the last thing the corpse saw before dying - but it's formed a flat plane, which he hasn't... He leans closer, seeing something in the ripples on it's surface. It's the face of the corpse below him, contorted in terror, clutching at it's neck. Looming "behind" it is Malakaii. "It's a reflection. Her last sight was her own reflection in a window or something, being strangled by Malakaii" - Damascus Beckett takes a look. "That's what he *said* he did to Anurati" - Beckett The ectoplasm retreats back into Twilight, and Damascus recovers the body, climbing up out of the pit.
This spell is Final Sight, again from the Guardian sourcebook. It is one of my favourite Death spells in the game, and really quite creepy.

"...She put someone in her place" - Damascus, horrified. ... Kali returns to the Sanctum, and tells Wolsey and Mycroft what just happened - how she saw a future echo of Samuel, indicating that he's nearly at the point at which he leaves. And about how the Consilium now knows about Cerberus. "Now, that's not what we agreed, is it?" - Wolsey
Said quite gently, actually

"I KNOW! What was I supposed to *say*? He.. Samuel... It happened. I couldn't lie to him" - Kali Mycroft and Wolsey go into damage control - if Cerberus isn't killed being apprehended, they need some way of getting in to see him. "...There's something else" - Kali She tells them about what Samuel said about the spirit's target. And, thinking back on it, the monster never attacked her. Tried to use it's Influence to disable her, but didn't physically attack her, even when she was shooting it. At the time, she put it down to her jumping out of the way, but now... They phone Damascus, who just by chance has driven back into Cell phone range and received several messages. "Guys.. Why do I have a message from Jude saying 'Have just arrested Cerberus for attempted murder of you'?" - Damascus
Yeah. About that...

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... Damascus, Beckett and Amanda reach the Sanctum, to find that it's all happened while they were out at the bay. Cerberus has indeed been arrested - and according to Jude, who Damascus is on the phone to as he walks into the Sanctum, he offered no resistance at all. Damascus warns Jude about the possibility of Cerberus suffering the same fate as the Seer they arrested back in the day. The problem is clear to the Cabal (plus their ex-Guardian co-conspirator): Given how out of character Cerberus' actions were, and given how he just gave up... It's awfully possible he was being controlled or compelled. Probably by Anurati, Wolsey adds. The resonance between the way he just gave up and Kali and Beckett's recollection of Anurati's surrender is palpable. Wolsey springs into action, phoning around to try to get them access to the prisoner. "I'm sorry, Tom, it's out of my hands" - Banneker Wolsey rolls his eyes at the gang. "All we're asking for is an interview. If he DID try to kill us, we'd really like to know why" - Wolsey "And I sympathise, but Melchior is running this particular show. First trial of the new way of doing things, and he's being a stickler for the Lex" - Banneker "Half an hour. It's all I'm asking" - Wolsey "All right - I'll see what I can do. But I'll warn you - you'll probably be escorted." Banneker "By you?" - Wolsey "God, no. Most likely one of Melchior's cronies. Balthazar or the other one" Banneker
No one ever remembers Caspar exists

Wolsey says that in that case they'll just have to cope with having a shadow, and hangs up. This... is not so much fun. Still, they have the promise of a chance to talk to Cerberus and figure out what last night was all about. What else do they have to do? Catch Seraph, find Anurati, figure out who's making these Glyphs, figure out who wants them dead... "...And crush capitalism" - Damascus "You work on destroying the economic system, I'll perfect human nature." - Wolsey "I got the easy job, there" - Damascus Here we go again.

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Session 9.3
Short one tonight - we started late and finished early last Friday and didn't really advance the plot all that much except in two regards - we didn't get a resolution to any of the four main plot threads going on in Nothing To Say, but we *did* set up two of them to get dealt with. Next session will start immediately in one of those resolution scenes. What with one thing and another, I've felt that we got slightly lost last time - Either a certain thing (ask me what it was when I finish this story in a couple of week's time) wasn't picked up on or the players have decided it isn't as important as it is. Combined with them not following the most obvious route, and we're now stuck in a second consecutive week of being between two scenes in the published scenario this story is based on. So much so that last week's and this week's should really have been one game session, and this story is going to extend into the unprecedented (for us) realms of a four- or even five-parter.

Two days later, and the Cabal are reduced. Mycroft has sent Amanda away on some errand or other (presumably relating to the business at hand, though he just grunts when they ask). Two days of sitting unable to think of what to do about their various predicaments, though, finally break. One morning, Damascus arrives at the Sanctum to find Wolsey doing paperwork and Kali returning from the Hallow. In the corner of the living room, Mycroft has set up a set of whiteboards, and is colouring in big, friendly block capitals. They read (underlined three times) "ANURATI" "Okay!" - Mycroft, turning to face them. They look up. "Let's do this. What do we know?" - Mycroft "You're going to burn that after, right?" - Wolsey, pointing to the whiteboard "I shall turn the ink into air or something" - Mycroft
This scene - which took half the session - started out as me recapping what had gone before in the Story, but rapidly turned in-character as the players started interjecting with their character's opinions. I apologise in advance if it seems rushed through - the sheer nature of a two-hour long rambling discussion on the plot as it stands is impossible to recap.

Mycroft starts to draw a spider-diagram on the whiteboard, linking "ANURATI" to various keywords as he thinks of them. "She was born in India. She awakened during some kind of natural disaster. She was taken in by the Cabal of the..." (thinks) "Sacred Word? Eternal Word? The Original Bearers, at any rate. Their leader was Ashoka, Mara's grandfather and Malakaii's old mentor... About twenty-three, twenty-four years ago, she arrives in this country and becomes Malakaii's apprentice. Six years LATER, Mara arrives and claims that Anurati killed Ashoka. Malakaii and Beckett go to her house..." (finishes and turns back) "And then what? Beckett says that Malakaii killed her, but his memory *has* been altered." - Mycroft "By which one?" - Wolsey Wolsey's cell phone rings and he goes to answer it. "This is important" (to Kali) "And I want you to remember it. Your mother is a mage. She's not a God, and she's not some other mythic being. She accomplishes things by Magic, as a Mastigos. 'The Spider' is just a Mage, and by figuring out *how* she's been able to do the things she has, we can work on finding her" - Mycroft Kali frowns

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"How... how would you go about hunting down a mage, as a Guardian?" - Kali "Just like this. Understand their strengths. Analyse what they've done and figure out what Arcana they're practiced with - and spot gaps, things that we can exploit. She's a Mastigos. Start there." - Mycroft "Mind or Space" - Damascus Wolsey returns "What are we doing?" - Wolsey "Figuring out what Arcana mother has" - Kali "Erasing memories is terrifying for the person affected, but it's not that accomplished, Magically speaking - right Wolsey? Not exactly an Imperial Practice" - Mycroft Wolsey shrugs "An Adept..." - Wolsey "A Master. She's been casting it at range. At least a Master of Mind" - Mycroft "And then, probably an Adept at least of Space" - Damascus Most people, though, aren't wholly dependent on their Path Arcana. A woman of Anurati's age, Awakened for at least 25 years, should have at least Disciple-level Practices in other Arcana. "Fate. She's going to have Fate" - Kali There is some discussion about that - and about whether or not she actually *would*. Wolsey is of the opinion that a worldview like Anurati's in which everything is preordained is incompatible with actually being able to *sense* Fate, but Kali throws a couple of counter-examples, such as the Ascendants, back. In fact, she's pretty certain that Anurati is involved, somehow, with the Ascendants.
Heh. Good instincts, there.

"She's casting advanced practices through sympathy. She must have a source of Mana - a Hallow or something. There can only be so many" - Mycroft "She could be *anywhere*. Her base could be in the Antarctic and it wouldn't make a difference" - Wolsey "The Bearer's Sanctum. You were there - was there a Hallow?" - Mycroft "Malakaii'd made it into an anti-demesne, so yes" - Damascus They think through Anurati's modus operandi - create a sympathetic connection to one of her "markers", scry through it, cast on anything she needs to and then destroy the connection. It's an awful lot of time and trouble to go through. However, some things just don't make sense. She's shown herself a few times, even

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though she probably should have just viewed the scene remotely. If - as the theory seems to be - she set the Monster after them, then it's doubly inefficient, as she's of enough power to be able to give any of them a stroke or boiling their brains alive without betraying any outward sign. Wolsey raises an idea he's had - what if Malakaii was in it with her? They're assuming that Anurati overpowered him and he covered it up, or had his memory of the event altered. But it'd be an awful lot easier if the entire thing was a con played on Beckett and the other Guardians. Maybe Malakaii wanted an agent no one knew about. "She watched him die. And he seemed a bit surprised" - Kali "Maybe it started like I'm saying. And... why do we still have the Sceptre? All she'd have to do is wait for us to not be wearing the robe. She could take it and erase our minds whenever she felt like it" - Wolsey "Maybe she doesn't want to" - Kali "Maybe she wants us to have it" - Damascus "Or for us to do the work of collecting them for her" - Wolsey "Does she even *know* about the thing?" - Mycroft Don't know. But a plan begins to emerge - stake out somewhere they know she's going to be. Either sit at one of her Glyphs and wait for her to scry through it, or do something that she's liable to turn up to - she arrived in person when the Consilium captured the Seer that... ...that knew about the Bell. She knows about the Regalia. And given what they know she can do... "...She's got the crown" - Damascus, making the intuitive leap. They dig out their notes on the Regalia, and the sparse descriptions of the Crown that they have. Damascus, back in the day, thought it was a Profane Urim - but the poem suggests it is designed to work on the servants of the Exarchs rather than just Sleepers. And given their own experiments in the field of "Taint" as revealed by the Ring, they now have a working model for what the Regalia consider a servant of the Exarchs to be. "We should assume it works the same as the Robe. Anyone tainted enough to not be able to see someone using the Robe is tainted enough for Anurati to possess" Wolsey Which, happily, means everyone BUT him. "Why am *I* the only one?" - Wolsey
Meaning "Why am I the least Tainted?"

They take a break - Kali declaring she's going to the grocery store. When she returns, there is food.

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Again with the Bagels. God knows what it means. Sam reckons it might just be crude sexual imagery. Now, Kali in body paint next session - *that*'s crude sexual imagery! But I digress...

Post-break, they go through Cerberus - not much to say here, other than that none of them think he was acting of his own volition. In fact, Wolsey reckons he may have been mind-controlled (implication being 'by Anurati') the entire time. They'll know when they see him. Just as soon as whoever is in charge phones him. Even briefer is the mysterious taxi people - they don't know who they are, or why they're vandalising the sites of Anurati's glyphs. Wolsey reckons they're Seraph's goons. Maybe they're even Seraph and his entire Pylon in puppet bodies. Speaking of whom... ("SERAPH" is written on the next whiteboard) Seraph left the Guardians ten years ago, because he felt Anurati watching him and mistook the sensation of her nimbus and the after-effects of her mind control for the sight of God. He believes that the Exarchs' control of the Fallen World includes it's Mages, and that the only way to self-determination is to join them in the Supernal Realms. He has an interest in Kali, and thinks that she will lead him to his God. Which, if you think about it, she probably will - given that his "God" is actually her mother. "Same as Samuel" - Wolsey Hmmm. Wolsey doesn't mean that Samuel is using her in the same way Seraph would like to be (though he has voiced such opinions occasionally in the past) - more that Seraph probably arrived at the conclusion that Kali was important the same way Samuel did. Through Fate magic rightly revealing her to be central to the Anurati mystery they were both only subliminally aware of. They've made a commitment to trapping him, but the way they draw him out is going to have to be clever. Wolsey starts to think about it, while the brainstorm goes on around him. Anurati believes that her own actions are premeditated, according to Beckett - the same as Seraph does.
Interestingly, this is one thing that Kali hasn't asked Samuel for his opinion on. Pentacle "orthodoxy" is that Sleeper's lives are dictated by the Exarchs but that Mages are freed by their Awakening. Some Pentacle Mages think that they *are* influenced by the outer Realms, but that the Exarchs don't necessarily have the monopoly on it and that the destinies of Mages are muddied by the Oracles - an example would be Balthazar in the Ascendants. It's rare for a Mage who's truly practiced in Fate to think that their entire lives are predestined, if only because it becomes possible to alter destinies with enough practice in the Arcana. But Samuel's a *Time* specialist.

"Shiva" - Kali "Excuse me?" - Wolsey, nonplussed "There was Shiva, and dancing people" - Kali She is eventually prevailed upon to explain herself, and she explains her latest trip into Astral Space, including Shiva looming over the city.

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"And then Querephas ate your heart" - Kali "She what?" - Wolsey "I was in Malakaii's Sanctum, only the stairs came out of Ichi's club. At the bottom of it was a trap-door. Inside that was your heart - only it was the Soul-stone. On my way up, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around, and Querephas was standing there, munching on your heart" - Kali "Was this in the you-part or the everyone-part?" - Wolsey "The Temenos" - Kali "Is that the you-part or the everyone-part?" - Wolsey "It's the everyone-part" - Mycroft "Well... That's worrying" - Wolsey
Wolsey, for a Mastigos, knows very little about the Astral Realms. He's just never had reason to go looking there, and I think he regards it as something of a distracting irrelevance.

"Which, by chance, brings me onto the last" - Mycroft He turns the Querephas whiteboard over. It reads "AMANDA" "We need to have a talk about Amanda" - Mycroft "I take it she's not on an errand?" - Damascus "Oh, she is. But I thought I'd use the opportunity. Amanda is coming up to a difficult time - you know that I'm here to assess her for membership in the Order? Well, one of her initiation tests is coming up, and right now I'm pretty sure she'd fail" - Mycroft He tells them that the basic idea is to challenge the prospective Guardian's duties against their personal lives, gradually at first and then more and more extremely, culminating in a carefully stage-managed confrontation. His initial thought was to ask the rest of the Cabal - or maybe just Wolsey - to leave town on the quiet for a week or so and "fake" them doing something Amanda should try to stop, to see if she does. But right now, she'd probably kill Wolsey out of general principle. Wolsey takes some umbrage at the very idea ("You were planning on asking me first, yeah?") but Mycroft points out that yes, he would have been consulted, and no, he's not planning anything like that now. "Though if you see me using more and more vulgar magic, I haven't taken leave of my senses. I'll be seeing how long it takes Amanda to call me on it. Anyway - that's only the first Initiation. There are others, and she's not remotely equipped to deal with them." - Mycroft "Can't you delay them?" - Kali "Thursday already thinks I've taken too long. If I delay much longer, he'll replace me as her instructor" - Mycroft

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They've all noticed that she's been odd. Ever since Sutterton Farms. Which leads them nicely back to what Kali saw in Astral Space. And to Amanda's perplexing argument with Wolsey, in which she accused him of interfering when the Cabal stopped Querephas from completing her rebirth with the Heart of Flies. "I believe the balance between Amanda and her alter ego has been shifted by our experience. If there even is a balance. It depends on what you believe Querephas to *be*. Is she an external being trying to possess Amanda? Is Amanda part of a greater whole that is now shattered? Is 'Querephas' really just an alternate personality of the same woman? Either way.. I think she wants to be her" - Mycroft "I know" - Wolsey They all look at him "She always felt like she was incomplete. And now she knows it for a fact. In her own mind, she's a component of Her" - Wolsey Damascus doesn't like that they're even talking about this without her. Wolsey, though, reckons that the Querephas they saw in Sutterton Farms - and the one that Amanda is increasingly acting like - isn't the same being as the stone-eyed autocrat they fought. "It's more like she's *remembering* what it was like to be Querephas." - Wolsey Someone raises the possibility of taking her into the Inner Realms, maybe getting one of the Claviclarius to talk to her. Mycroft vetoes it as the worst possible idea - the last thing they need is Amanda deciding to *harness* her inner Querephas as a Demon. And any voyage into Amanda's inner realms will be fraught with danger. "Because *She'll* be waiting. Whether she's a shard of memory from the gestalt being, or a psychosis brought on by same." - Mycroft Wolsey gives his blunt assessment - Amanda ("And we HAVE to get her to give herself a new Shadow name") is in the process of finding equilibrium with Querephas. The person that results might not be someone that the four of them like very much. She might decide that she doesn't want to be in the Guardians. "You think about that?" - Wolsey "Sure. Querephas was in the Silver Ladder..." - Mycroft "The PROTO-Silver Ladder" - Wolsey Mycroft shrugs
I liked that little character point. Wolsey's offended on the behalf of his Order.

"If she doesn't want to continue, then she doesn't want to continue. Better we learn that now than later" - Mycroft "So what do we do about it?" - Kali Wolsey look surprised.

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"Do?" - Wolsey His point... is that they shouldn't do anything. Who Amanda is is up to her and her alone. As he said, she's been feeling like she's incomplete as long as he's known her, and if she can find some kind of resolution he thinks she should. Even if the person that results isn't part of their lives any more. Damascus disagrees. Sure, Amanda's final 'personality' is developing. That means they have to be there as it does so that she has support. Fundamentally, he wants to help her figure out herself in a way that leaves a fifth member of the Cabal at the end of it. "We have a duty to provide moral guidance to those around us" - Damascus "We do?" - Wolsey Silence all round. Mycroft and Kali look like they agree with Wolsey for once in their lives. "Just me then. Work with me here, Wolsey - you're the frikking Silver Ladder" Damascus He knows. But her right to self-determination trumps everything. No one ever said Silver Ladders had to be nice. "What if she turns into Querebeckett?" - Damascus He means the possibility that she ends up angry and on the fringe of Consilium society. Okay.. more angry than she already is. Happy thoughts. Kali thinks it is their duty as friends to guide, not drive her. And that they shouldn't force her down a way that would make the rest of them happy but not Amanda. "She's free" - Mycroft "As any of us are" - Kali "Writing your name on a watchtower makes you free" - Mycroft "Does it? Really?" - Kali He doesn't answer. In the end, it comes down nearer to a compromise - Wolsey accepts that they can guide Amanda as friends and Cabalmates, but in the final analysis it's up to her who she becomes. And Wolsey has had a rather unruly idea. "Go back to Seraph..." - Wolsey An evil grin spreads, as he outlines his cunning plan. Seraph, they all pretty much agree, is Tainted enough that Anurati's Crown works on him. Which, it follows, means he should be Tainted enough for the Robe to work on him. They've been toying with the idea of luring him somewhere using Kali as bait, but the question has always been how?

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"We fake a religious experience" - Wolsey The idea is to use Wolsey's cult contacts - the Cults he isn't using himself any more following his decision to give up on his plans of mass Awakening - to stage a false revelation from the Exarchs, something Seraph would want to be there to interpret. Kali will be there, wearing the Robe and bearing the Sceptre, in order to see if Seraph turns up in person or using an Urim. The "Brute Squad" of Mara's Cabal, half of Dantor's and some of Samuel's will be waiting for her signal in a room nearby, at which point they'll slam a ward down around the building to prevent him teleporting, swarm in and apprehend him. That's the hook. Now for the bait. They know Seraph's real name, they know him assuming he hasn't cut his connection to them. And they have the Robe. First, though, an experiment. "Okay. Give me the Robe. I'm going to cast on Mycroft - with your permission, Mycroft - and I want you to tell me if you feel it... Ah... Actually - Kali's the one who's seen Seraph's real body, we'll want her in the robe. Kali, could you..?" - Wolsey Kali rolls her eyes and puts the Robe on, then casts a Blessing on Mycroft.
Once more taking the Wisdom risk for the good of the team. She passed the roll, though.

"I can feel a spell in the room, but otherwise... Nothing. Hang on." - Mycroft He casts a Mage Sight spell "Now I can see your spell, but I can't tell where it's coming from" - Mycroft Close enough for government work. Wolsey declares that he's going to work on getting the cult primed and ready, and the others break for lunch. Phoning his contact with the order of the solar disk (the guys who wear masks), and slipping into the identity he uses with them of a visiting "speaker" from a society in another city, he says that he knows he cancelled his return to the cult a few days ago, but that that was because the horoscopes were not right. He has fresh revelations for them, and would like to call a meeting of the group. The meeting arranged, and the others returned, he puts on the robe. "I feel dirty" - Wolsey
And he continues to pass his Wisdom checks.

Getting his ritual tools, he begins to slowly and steadily build the Imago of a scrying window to Seraph. An hour later the spell is prepared, and the window opens. Casting his senses forward, Wolsey perceives the inside of a run-down house, with semiconscious bodies lying about. Seraph is sat - perfectly alert - talking to a man who is drunk, stoned or both. Perfect. Seraph is taking part in his House of Stone.

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Seraph, you'll remember I hope, interprets the words of tripping acolytes as containing fragments of messages from the Exarchs. It's his method of divination, like speaking in tongues.

Wolsey carefully casts an Emotional Urging on the area, flooding it with the feeling of helplessness that Anurati's nimbus engenders. Seraph looks around slightly, clearly feeling it, and then spots the scrying portal. Wolsey braces himself as Seraph tries to follow the connection back to him, but the Robe does it's job. As far as Seraph's aware, the scrying is coming from nowhere at all. Wolsey appears to have the Seer's attention. For the finale, Wolsey carefully slips an idea into the acolyte's head. The stoner blinks for a second, and - trained by Seraph to just say whatever comes into his head so that he can fulfil his unwitting function for the Seers - starts to speak. "The... uh... The Sun will reveal the truth to the one who is unmasked" - Stoner Seraph is intent upon the stoner. And Wolsey cuts the scrying window. Pulling the Robe off, he declares stage two complete, and then proceeds to stage three. He calls the Solar Disk representative back and says that the meeting must be done in a certain way. It must be in four days, and Wolsey will not be the one doing the talking initially. The representative will deliver his message for him, revealing the truth to the one who is unmasked. And they're not to keep the meeting a secret. Hanging up, Wolsey permits himself the satisfaction of a job well done. Seraph will try to figure out what it means, hopefully realise that it was "Sun" and not "Son" and find out about the meeting. Then, Wolsey hopes, he'll interpret the message as meaning he has to show up in person. "Call the brute squad" (to Damascus) "And let them know that we're on" - Wolsey
The trap is set! We'll see how this works out next session.

And then the call comes in. They are clear to go visit Cerberus, who is closer than they might think. Normally, prisoners are kept at the Time Machine, but as Samuel has denied Melchior space there (ostensibly because Cerberus is in his Cabal), Dantor has volunteered to hold him. "Up for a walk to Dantor's?" Wolsey The Cabal walk the couple of miles to Dantor's, through increasingly unfriendly territory and then into the guarded zone around Dantor's Sanctum-Church. Damascus grows more uncomfortable as they near the Sanctum, and more so when they arrive. He knows that Dantor has hung the crosses upside down just to get a reaction out of him, and he knows he's enabling her by reacting in this way, but he can't help it. Dantor greets them pleasantly (Damascus in particular), and says that one of her Soldiers will take them down to where they're keeping Cerberus. "He's popular. Suleiman. Melchior. Balthazar. Mary. You're the fifth group here today" - Dantor

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"Will we be shadowed?" - Wolsey "The young Hermetic is there" - Dantor "Caspar?" - Wolsey, who was expecting Melchior Dantor shrugs as if to say 'just so' They go down into the crypt, and towards the back of the building, where the plumbing and heating for the Sanctum are maintained. Next to the boiler room is a heavy metal door leading to what might be a storage space. The solider heaves it open, and they are hit by a blast of hot, humid air - the space is right next to the boiler, and has the hot pipes running through it. There are two chairs, and no table. Cerberus is sat in one of them, looking scared to death. Caspar is in another. The Ascendant gets up and moves to the front of the room, leaning on the door frame. Wolsey sits. Damascus and Mycroft stand next to Caspar, and Kali carefully moves so that she's stood behind Cerberus. The Thyrsus flinches as she passes, and Wolsey frowns to her, silently telling her that they're not going for intimidation here. "Well." - Wolsey "I have nothing to say to you" - Cerberus, croaking. Wolsey and Damascus lay it out - they know damn well that he did it. They just want to know why. Cerberus refuses to talk, despite repeated attempts. Eventually, Damascus notices Cerberus' eyes flicking as he does so. "We can help you, if you'll just talk to us..." - Wolsey "I have Nothing to say to you" - Cerberus Damascus calls a halt, and they all troop out except Caspar, who sits back down. "We need to get rid of Caspar" - Damascus He has an idea - Dantor isn't especially fond of the Ascendants, and she might be able to be persuaded to help cook up a distraction. The others go back in and resume their fruitless questioning. Damascus heads back upstairs to the nave, where Dantor is performing an oblation that involves blood, the font and a combination thereof. Damascus waits until he senses the inrush of Mana, and then politely interrupts her as she's cleaning off. "Madam" - Damascus "Damascus" - Dantor He explains that they could do with a few minutes without Caspar there - that the Ascendant is impeding their progress. Dantor shrugs, saying that she knows Caspar is a stuffy pain but what can one do? "Surely you can do something" - Damascus "Because he attacked you, and because you have treated me with nothing but

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respect, even calling me 'Madam', I might be able to do something, but what would I get out of it?" - Dantor "What would you want?" - Damascus She asks, a certain gleam in her eye, for him to steal communion wafers from Ulysses. Not for any reason, just because he'll hate doing it. Damascus, regretfully, refuses. "Anything else, within reason. I'm sure there are enough rituals I'd find distasteful that I can help out with" - Damascus She thinks. "As it happens, yes. There is something. You won't like it." - Dantor "I probably won't, no" - Damascus "Word of the Lead Tower?" - Dantor "Word of the Lead Tower" - Damascus They link fingers on it, and the deal is set.
Swearing an oath on your Path has been portrayed - when it comes up - as being a most serious oath in my Chronicles.

"I cannot leave you alone with the man who tried to kill you. Greater powers than I would have my head if anything happened. I shall rid you of Caspar, but replace him with myself" - Dantor He returns to the frustrating interrogation, and then ten minutes later Dantor arrives. She calmly states to Caspar that Balthazar wants a word, and that her solider will take him to the phone. Unfortunately, it's in a different building. Caspar says that they gang will have to wait for his return outside of Cerberus' cell, and Dantor says she'll make sure they do. As soon as he's gone, She opens the door again and they all troop *back* inside. "Now. He's gone, okay? So talk. We don't want you killed - we're willing to listen to your reasons" - Wolsey "I can't tell you" - Cerberus "You can" - Wolsey "I *can't*" - Cerberus Kali has a brainwave, and casts a Mage Sight spell. "He's under a geas" - Kali Oh, he Can't tell them. "Okay. Don't 'tell' us. I'm going to cast a spell on you, alright? Just think about what

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happened" - Wolsey Wolsey casts Telepathy and waits. Cerberus thinks about Melchior and Balthazar telling him to keep his mouth shut, and about Balthazar casting a Geas upon him to force him to do so. "Huh" - Wolsey Cerberus thinks about summoning the spirit. "Huh" - Wolsey He relays that to the others. Dantor narrows her eyes, muttering something. Mycroft stares at Cerberus. "Okay.. why?" - Wolsey Cerberus is getting agitated. He thinks about Melchior telling him to keep his mouth shut again, and that Cerberus would escape punishment if he went along with it. "Why did you summon the spirit?" - Wolsey "Because Melchior TOLD me to" - Cerberus, blurting it out. "Wolsey.." - Mycroft Cerberus' eyes widen as he realises what he's done. The Geas - it's condition broken - rips his Fate. "I didn't know what was going to happen! Please! You have to believe me - I thought it would just scare you! He said Beckett was working with an intruder! He said you" (to Wolsey and Damascus) "were in on it! Please" (crying) "I trusted him, and I shouldn't have. He treated me better than the rest of you, made me feel like I was important! I.. Didn't.. know..." - Cerberus He gives up in despair. "The curse is still there." - Kali "Can you do anything?" - Damascus, to Dantor She considers. "I can." - Dantor She tries to cast Quell the Spark - a blunt instrument of a counterspell, that uses Mastery of Death to delete a spell from the Fallen World. The spell fails. Dantor, frowning, casts it again. It fails. Again, and it fails. Clenching her jaw, she tries it Again. And Again
Dantor needs five successes to break the potency of the Geas Balthazar cast on Cerberus. She got, in order, 4, 3, 4, 2, none. Her dice pool (which fortunately is 14 due to it being a Rote) is going down each time she tries it because of the failed attempts, which isn't helping matters, and she's burning through willpower.

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This makes Balthazar look far more impressive than he actually is. But it's really just a result of truly crappy luck and her refusal to show failure to the Crucible.

Kali casts Superlative Luck on Dantor, and she *still* makes two more failed attempts, and Dantor is sweating. Cursing under her breath, she makes a Herculean effort and they all feel the blast of supernal energy as the curse is removed from Cerberus. Damascus gets up to let her sit down, and she slumps in her chair, breathing heavily and glaring at anyone who looks like they're looking at her.
And on the eighth attempt, she got 7 successes. Good thing, too - as she spent her last willpower point doing it. All praise to Kali and her granting of 8-again.

Cerberus tells his story again. Melchior has been buttering him up for months now, taking an interest in his work and asking for his advice on the geography and fauna of the DC Shadow World. Later, Melchior started asking him about his approach to Spirit magic as a Mystagogue. Melchior's own method is highly regimented and *very* Silver Ladder, and Cerberus was flattered that Melchior - who's supposed to have managed to travel to the edge of the Supernal Realms and communicated with an Oracle - wanted to know about the methods of a lowly Liegeman like himself. Then, last week, Melchior told Cerberus in confidence that they were all in danger. Beckett was not as reformed as some thought, and was planning on taking his revenge for his long imprisonment. He had gone to Baltimore to recover a book which was actually an Abyssal entity, allowing it's owner to summon more Intruders. Beckett intended to kill Banneker and several others, and Damascus and Wolsey were his agents in the Sentinels and Heralds. Melchior needed to deal with it on the quiet, and had come to Cerberus - as the local expert - to summon a spirit that could do the job. "Wow. I didn't realise our plan was so nefarious" - Damascus Wolsey gently tells Cerberus that he's been had - Beckett HAS got an Intruder in his bookcase, but the evil tome was acquired on Ulysses' behalf. Dantor confirms that she's going to be helping - along with several others - in the ritual to dismiss the thing back to the Abyss. Cerberus, realising what an idiot he's been, begs for mercy. At which point Caspar returns. "Hey!" - Caspar, incensed that they've broken the agreement Wolsey rounds on him. "Why was THIS MAN under a Geas?" - Wolsey, pointing at Cerberus Caspar flaps his mouth and looks at Dantor. Dantor looks like she wants to gut him right there. Kali and Mycroft look like they agree.
Her vice is wrath. It'd get her willpower back, and make her feel better. Kali doesn't like people fate-binding, and Mycroft objects to the scenario on general principle.

"Balthazar did it! To stop him from trying to escape" - Caspar And as far as they can tell, he really believes that. Kali starts to get in Caspar's face while Wolsey, being very very calm, tells him 493

*exactly* what's been going on, and uses his Attainment as a bearer to make sure that Caspar believes it. The Ascendant protests strongly, then weakly, and then realises that they're telling the truth. Balthazar and Melchior have betrayed him. "I.. I have to go.." - Caspar He flees. "This will not stand. I do not approve. Neither, I think, will Suleiman or Samuel. If they want a Wizard's War, we can give them one." - Dantor She leaves, and the Crucible follow her. "You're going to tell them?" - Kali "I am" - Dantor "About Cerberus..." - Wolsey He and Damascus look at one another. Damascus nods. "You'll have to ask Beckett what he thinks, but we're willing to drop the charges. But he'll *owe* us" - Wolsey "Big time" - Damascus Dantor looks like she approves, and says she'll pass that on to Beckett and Suleiman. The Crucible leave. --"Do you think Beckett will go for it?" - Mycroft "I don't know. He doesn't exactly have a reputation for being a forgiving type. But he'd probably prefer the main course rather than second fiddle." - Wolsey, trying to phone Banneker.
Wolsey's trying to reach Banneker because he's surmised, as hinted at above, that Beckett will take them out once he figures it out, and Banneker needs to disassociate himself with them pronto.

The Hierarch is not answering his home, office or cell phones. --They reach the Sanctum, and Wolsey tries again. Fruitlessly. Cursing, he phones Hoban. "Dude!" - Hoban "Hoban.. Where's Banneker?" - Wolsey "Dude... he's at Melchior's or something." - Hoban Wolsey makes a face "Okay. Could you try to get him to call me? Thanks" - Wolsey "Dude" - Hoban

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. "What do we do? Challenge Melchior?" - Mycroft "We tell Banneker what Melchior's been up to and get the trial cancelled." - Wolsey "But Cerberus DID try to kill you... I know what you said to Dantor, but do you really forgive him?" - Mycroft "It's not a question of that. He was manipulated, and he's going to pay dearly for it. But I'd prefer him alive and owing us" - Wolsey . They settle in to wait. . "Tom! You were looking for me?" - Banneker, on the phone "We were. Can we meet?" - Wolsey "I'm at my office" - Banneker . On the way, they question Melchior's motives. Maybe HE believed the story too maybe it's Balthazar behind all this. But they remember Melchior as the one who gave them the Eyes of Salt, and the evidence of his perfidy is mounting up. In his office, Banneker is intent on the architectural model of his development near Dupont circle, carefully measuring the distances between the gargoyles on it's roof. He cheerfully points things out to them, marvelling at how good it is to be able to concentrate on work again.
Zuul! Oh, the irony.

They tell him what's been going on. It does not exactly make him the happiest Hierarch in the world. Banneker, looking like a man who's survived a shipwreck only to find himself surrounded by cannibals, reluctantly looks at his model. "Why does this always happen to me?" - Banneker Kali shrugs. The rest of them say nothing. "What do you want to do?" - Wolsey He says nothing. "Because we're willing to drop the charges against Cerberus..." - Wolsey Banneker looks at his model.

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"Suleiman.. Ulysses.. Dantor... Samuel... Gods, they're all going to want Melchior's head" - Banneker
He HAS managed to cut himself off from his Council here, hasn't he? The only one without a likely stance is Fisher King.

"Sir. You haven't done anything wrong. You supported the Ascendants as a Silver Ladder Cabal. You backed Melchior for Councillor *until* the people chose Ulysses, and then you handled letting Melchior down with tact and found him a position. Your council will be in touch soon, and you will only be a responsible Hierarch going along with their advice. No one will think worse of you for it" - Wolsey "I..." (trails off, and looks at them all) "...Kali? What do you think?" - Banneker "Fisher King said something to me the other day. We're Adepts now, and people don't help us any more - they stand aside and watch to see what we're going to do and where we're going to go and I think that applies equally to you. You want to know what I think? I think you should stop asking people that. I think that this city takes too much stock in what Fate mages tells them is destined to happen. Far too much stock. You can't keep relying on the future - or what other people say it will be - to do your thinking for you" - Kali Banneker looks for the rest of their reactions. They range from 'pleased' to 'surprised' to 'surprised and pleased' with Kali. Banneker nods. "Yes... This will not pass. Go home, and take my thanks. I will handle this" Banneker They leave. In the elevator, on the way down, Wolsey checks if Kali realised Banneker was really asking for Samuel's opinion - and as the most influential mage in the city rather than a Fate mage. "No" - Kali "A good answer, still" - Wolsey Mycroft is frowning. "Your first meeting with Banneker?" - Wolsey "Yeah" - Mycroft "Disappointing, isn't it?" Wolsey

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Session 9.4
Another game of two halves, this one - we're establishing a pattern during this story, I think, where you can slice the session down the middle. In this case we kick off with another magical tour of Astral Space and then head on to the meaty business of capturing Seraph. It's a *much* longer session than last time, though, and a much longer recap. We pick up right where we left off...

The Cabal, minus Amanda, are stood outside Banneker's architect's firm. No one makes a move towards the vehicle. "Sooo... Now what?" - Damascus Wolsey has the feeling that they've ignored something, or overlooked it. Cerberus trying to kill them at Melchior's insistence is important and worthy of attention, sure, but he fears that something that looks inconsequential now could return to bite them in the ass later. "Like the taxi people." - Kali "Or did we think that was Seraph?" - Damascus "To be honest, I was going to ask him after we caught him" - Wolsey Sounds like a plan. Wolsey, though, has remembered what Kali told them about her last trip into Astral Space. Specifically, the notion of an Astral Querephas eating his heart. "How did you know it was *my* heart?" - Wolsey "I just did. Dream-logic, you know?" - Kali In any case, Wolsey thinks they should check it out. It happened in the Temenos, as they've established, but it's an awfully personal inner manifestation for that. Which leads Wolsey, in his entirely uninformed way, to speculate that it might not have been just another background-extra mental spirit.
Wolsey knows nothing of Astral Space, and to Mark's credit *never* uses "Oneiros", "Temenos" or any other technical terms. His question of "where did you see this again?" is couched in terms of "you" and "everyone" for Oneiros and Temenos. Mark: Yes. It's good roleplay. 'Cause *of course* I know the terms ooc. Ahem

"So why don't we go look for it?" - Damascus Wolsey pauses a moment - his only Astral experience was Sutterton Farms, and that soured him on the notion - but agrees that it might be something worth getting behind. Thinking about it, he's up for trying. "So what do we need?" - Wolsey "The ability to follow guided meditation... And a powerful Hallow or Demesne" Mycroft Kali, sighing, says that she'll ask Samuel - though she doesn't sound happy about it. Wolsey tells her to wait, though. They don't want to bother Samuel - or rely on him too much. 497

"And, well.. the rest of us don't really know him. Is it his personal Demesne?" Wolsey She tells them that the Time Machine is used by the entire Recorders Cabal - a couple of times now she's used it when Samuel hasn't been there. But she agrees that, given her speech of half an hour ago, it would be pushing it slightly to co-opt Samuel's Demesne for a strictly Cabal issue. And what of the woman in question herself? "How long will Amanda be gone?" - Wolsey "Don't know" - Mycroft "As long as she's not chained up in the Ascendants basement, waiting for the Stars to be right" - Damascus They need to find a Hallow powerful enough for Astral voyaging, or a Demesne. It occurs to Wolsey that Banneker would be best placed to know where to find one that they could use. "I'll be right back" - Wolsey And he heads back inside.
Good thought on Amanda's whereabouts, but no - in truth, I haven't given any thought to where it is that Mycroft sent her. It's more terribly mysterious this way, and it will probably never get revealed unless I can think of something really importantly impressive that the npc could have done on her time off that the PCs couldn't have done. Her absence allows me to play around with a few things in the latter sessions of this story, and get the post-Querephas plan for her development down.

... Wolsey knocks on Banneker's office door. "You're back" - Banneker "Yeah. Sorry. Something's come up" - Wolsey He describes the problem - the Crucible has an interest in something in the Temenos, but their own Hallow isn't potent enough to do the job. As leader of the Sons of Imhotep, famous Ley-line manipulating Cabal, would Banneker possibly know of any likely Hallows for the job? "Ley Lines don't have anything to do with Hallows, you know" - Banneker "But they're sites of magical influence. Surely you map them too?" - Wolsey Some, the Hierarch admits, but Hallows of the strength Wolsey's talking about are very rare.
I only ever remember when I have to that Hallows =/= the junction points of Ley Lines. In fact, Mages try to *avoid* Hallows that are also Ley Nexii, because the Mana produced is tainted by the resonance of the leys. I do tend to remember, though, that Hallows form high up for some reason of Supernal mechanics modern Mages don't tend to understand - they're in Cathedral Towers, roof gardens and skyscrapers, not on ground level. It's a little bit of fluff intended to reinforce modern versions of "wizard's towers", but it does work for me.

"Does the Consilium maintain any?" - Wolsey

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"Some, yes. But we tend to hold in trust those Hallows that the Cabals don't want typically those that have juncture-cycles of lying fallow for long periods and then releasing Mana, like the Washington Monument. If you like, I could arrange for an Obrimos of sufficient power to artificially cause a Juncture to accompany you..." Banneker "That's not necessary. Are there any unclaimed ones?" - Wolsey "Define 'unclaimed'. By the Pentacle? Certainly. But I must caution you - do not use a Hallow you don't know the owner of. There will usually be someone or something, be it Seers or thaumivores of some kind. They're not safe." - Banneker Wolsey tries a different strategy, and asks who has a Demesne powerful enough. "Samuel... Suleiman... the Guardians perhaps" - Banneker Wolsey thanks him, and leaves to rejoin the others. ... Back outside, he lays out the idea - they need to use someone else's resources for this trip, and if they don't want it to be Samuel (which Kali is insistent about) they need to think of someone else. "Did Malakaii have a Demesne?" - Wolsey "yes. And we deactivated it when we took the Soul Stone" - Damascus
Not *that* dumb a question, actually. As it wasn't a Demesne - it was an Annullity, and I'm in some doubt as to whether they allow Astral travel.

"Are there any other Guardian Hallows they keep quiet?" - Wolsey, to Mycroft "Oh, Sure. Loads. The Pentagon's a massive Mana accumulator, you know. Why do you think they built it that shape?" - Mycroft, with some sarcasm
Actually, the Pentagon IS a pretty huge example of DC's squint-and-you-can-pretend-it's-partially-supernal landscape. But it probably isn't a Hallow, no.

Well, that leaves Samuel and Suleiman as definite Demesne-owners. Wolsey is all for trying Suleiman - he's the head of Kali's Order, after all, and they did help minimise the damage to the reputation of the Claviclarius caused by Mara's demon-summoning. Kali, though, is dubious. "I don't think I've ever really met him. Sure, he's the Mysterium guy, but I always deal with Ebony." - Kali "You'd prefer we go to Samuel?" - Wolsey She gripes, but gives in. ... Fortunately, Wolsey knows the address of Suleiman's firm, and the Cabal proceed through what is now the night to the place. Suleiman's building is a smooth tower of glass and steel downtown, empty of any outward sign of it's occupancy. Banneker's

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building is sloping, suggesting some kind of ancient temple, but Suleiman's is a blank wall of dark glass. Once in the lobby, they impress upon the security guard that they're visitors and get into the lift. Pressing for the top floor (best bet), Wolsey realises that it may be more polite to phone ahead. So does so. "Wolsey of the Crucible. To what do I owe the honour?" - Suleiman "We were in the area and wanted to come see you about something, if it's a convenient time" - Wolsey "When were you planning on coming?" - Suleiman "Ah... Actually.. we're already in the elevator" - Wolsey The elevator stops abruptly, mid-floor, as Suleiman considers. "And you've brought most of your friends" - Suleiman Wolsey looks at the others. "Wave for the camera, Wolsey" - Suleiman Wolsey looks up and sees the CCTV camera. Kali waves. "...You'd better come up" - Suleiman The elevator starts moving again.
At least they didn't have to beat a chess problem. (If you got that reference, take a "He say you Blade Runner" point)

The last floor light goes out, but the elevator continues upward. "...At least it's not on the 14 1/2th floor" - Kali And then the elevator stops. The hallway revealed by the opening doors has walls, and ceilings made of dark marble and ebonised inlays, with a dark grey floor of some hard surface. The smooth blackness is lit only by widely-spaced miniature spotlights, usually pointing up near the ceiling. They stand there for a few seconds until they hear the sound of someone walking their way in high heels. It turns out to be Katherine - the Silver Ladder Acanthus in Suleiman's Cabal who is in the House of Ariadne. Katherine smiles when she sees Kali, and (despite Kali's best efforts to hide behind Damascus) grips her by the forearms and air-kisses her. "Darling Kali. What can we do for you?" - Katherine Kali hesitantly explains that they're actually here on Wolsey's business, and points to Wolsey - who's stood right next to Katherine and trying to look like he's not bothered she went straight for Kali "Oh. Cabal business, then, not the House?" - Katherine

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"That's right" - Kali Katherine offers Wolsey her hand, and says that she's been meaning to meet him at Caucus for a while as a fellow Silver Ladder. Wolsey does his best impression of professional and asks if Suleiman is free. She takes their coats, stowing them in a anteroom, and then tells them to follow her. This entire floor of the building turns out to be the Recorder's Sanctum - and is entirely decorated in the same way as their entrance hall, with the jet-black inlays in the walls occasionally spelling out Atlantean sigils. "How come we can't live in a place like this?" - Damascus "Because we can't afford it" - Wolsey "Our Cabal is quite well-funded. My own Daddy was very successful even before I Awakened, and Suleiman is a very wise investor. - Katherine "Good for him" - Damascus She leads them to Suleiman's office. The Mystagogue sits, fingers steepled as he waits for them, behind a huge ebony-topped desk. His office is unostentatious, tasteful and just that noticeably slight bit bigger than the one enjoyed by Banneker
Suleiman should, really should, be Hierarch, but isn't for fairly opaque reasons. He and Banneker came to an arrangement, the terms of which aren't common knowledge. (Rafe: Were they having dinner in Granita?) (Dave: For Americans, Rafe is referring to the infamous in the UK conversation Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had over dinner in the mid-nineties, where they decided which order they would be Prime Minister in. Especially topical today, when Blair is widely supposed to be about to actually get around to honouring the agreement. In fact, by the time you read this he might have resigned.) At this point, comparisons between Suleiman and the Merovingian from the Matrix Reloaded started to be made. Which would make Katherine Persephone.

They explain to Suleiman the nature of their request - they need to go check something in the Temenos, and.. well... Just as Wolsey is gearing up to start hinting about all the trouble they could cause for him, though, Suleiman agrees. He's been waiting for them to come see him, he says - and starting to feel a little left out compared to his fellow Councillors. They have done him several favours and sought no reward, and he was starting to think they were saving up for something - Kali's work in the Mysterium, helping to uncover Mara's demon and especially today's business with Cerberus. He asks what the nature of their quest into the Inner Worlds is, and Wolsey confesses that they're seeking something that might - might - be some form of Demon. He says that they had an Astral experience in which they were trapped in a realm with the mind of an ancient archmage, and that that mind may have been freed at the same time that they were. Suleiman says that after today's service to him they use his Demesne, and asks if any of them have travelled before - he knows that Kali has been trained in Astral travel by Samuel, and trusts Samuel's judgement if the archmage thinks she's competent enough to go voyaging by herself, but what about the others? When they confess that they've never deliberately done it before, he asks if they would prefer a guide. He could call one of the Claviclarius up, or they could go with Katherine - she's reasonably experienced, and he promises them 'discretion'.

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They take the deal, and Suleiman calls Katherine back in. He tells her what's going on "And Katherine? This is an internal matter of the Crucible, which we are helping with after the mercy they've shown my friend today. This is not House business - am I clear?" - Suleiman She nods, and leads them back out to the elevator, where they go up yet another floor. Along the way, Katherine finds out what it is they're looking for and explains the basic "geography" of the Inner Realms - a meditative traveller moves from their consciousness to their subconscious into the Astral realm of their own soul (the "Oneiros") which then melds into the souls of everyone else in the Fallen World (the "Temenos") which then melds into the Soul of the entire Fallen World, not just it's inhabitants (the "Dreamtime"). At the furthest reaches of the Dreamtime, deep within every human being, lies the Abyss, and "beyond" it the Supernal Realms. They will meet up in the Temenos, but in order to get their they'll each have to travel through their Oneiros. Katherine recommends they just try to stay calm and meditate their way through their private realm without sightseeing. "Isn't there a way that we can all enter together?" - Wolsey "If I were a Mind Master, yes" - Katherine She leads them into a large room with a glass roof, showing the dark, cloudy sky. A variety of furnishings - all of different shapes and sizes - are arranged in a circle. A stone throne, a leather executive chair, a medical bed, a wide armchair... Damascus notes that the room is 7-sided. Someone has cracked a book on occult symbology in architecture. "I've just had a thought - if we're maybe facing an escaped demon, we should borrow the Fast Return. I'll be right back" - Katherine She clicks her way to the door, and then pauses "Don't touch the thrones" - Katherine She leaves. Kali looks at the odd assortment of furnishings. "Don't touch" - Wolsey, having a look himself. Each item has a Mage's personal sigil somewhere on it - the throne is Suleiman, the exec chair Promethea, the bed Bedlam and the armchair Shore. They belong to the Claviclarius Legacy members.
Who, after all, spend a lot of time in the Astral. The Claviclarius' projection is highly ritualised under Suleiman's leadership. The thrones are Earthly representations of the Thrones they appear in the Claviclarius' shared Astral Sanctum upon.

Eventually, Katherine returns wearing a silver locket on a light chain around her neck. "The 'Fast Return'?" - Damascus "It will yank us out of the Astral if we get into trouble" - Katherine

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"A panic button" - Damascus Katherine nods, and opens one of the walls to reveal a storage space, from which she starts pulling beanbags. Arranging them in a pile near the middle of the room, the five travellers get as comfortable as they can. And then they start to meditate.
I love group Astral voyages - no one *ever* crosses the thresholds between realms on the same roll. In this case, factoring in numbers of successes and time per roll, Wolsey and Damascus both spend an hour meditating, half an hour in the Oneiros and then make it to the Temenos. Mycroft and Katherine make it to the Temenos one roll (half an hour) after *that*. Kali, on the other hand, made it to the Oneiros pretty easily but on her attempt to get to the Temenos rolled rather too many successes - she overshoots into the Dreamtime. All this was rolled beforehand for clarity. We then proceeded to play the "each character in the Oneiros, then Wolsey and Damascus in the Temenos and Kali in the Dreamtime" scenes that resulted.

Kali can smell cooking, as she pushes the door to the Sanctum open and steps inside. Saffron. Following her nose, she walks to the Kitchen, where Anurati, Cxaxa Querephas and a third woman - all wearing Saris - are preparing some kind of feast. Anurati is gutting poultry, Querephas is at the stove stirring something and the third woman - who's back remains turned to Kali no matter which angle she tries to look at - is assembling. "What are you doing here?" - Anurati "Err" - Kali "Here we are, getting everything ready, and you aren't even dressed yet!" - Anurati Kali stares at her. Over Anurati's shoulder, Querephas declares whatever she's cooking to need more salt, and adds a few teardrops. "I know you're scared, but it will be okay. Your aunts and I have things well in hand" Anurati "What's she doing here?" - Kali, pointing to Querephas, who smiles back at her. Anurati takes her by the arm and walks her, firmly, to the foot of the stairs. "Your aunt Querephas has journeyed a very long way to help out. A *very* long way. Show some gratitude." - Anurati "I..." - Kali "Everything will be fine, dear. If you want to be useful, the tailor is here to get your dress ready." - Anurati, pushing her toward the stairs. Kali stumbles upstairs and into her bedroom. Laid out on her bed is a pile of brightlycoloured clothes. On the top is the Sari she saw herself wearing while dancing on the dismembered Seraph. "Time to get measured" - Malakaii Kali jumps at the sound of his voice, and turns. Malakaii is *right* behind her, noseto-nose. He smiles thinly, and produces a long set of shears which he opens and closes next to her ear.

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Kali shudders, and the Oneiros breaks up into fog-like particles as she drops into the Temenos. The transition goes too quickly, though, and the Temenos doesn't form. She falls. And keeps falling.
The three women are the triple-goddess. The third woman's identity will remain a secret for now, I think. The bit with Malakaii is a lot creepier if you remember he's supposed to be played by Joel Grey. Anyone seen the end of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's fifth season, when his character is sacrificing Dawn? Like that. Remind me to show that to Sam sometime.

... Damascus, lying on his cell bunk, listens to the background clamour. "What're you in for?" - Virgil

He looks up at his cellmate. "Unauthorised use of metaphor. You?" - Damascus "Being a character of early significance that disappeared" - Virgil "Ah" - Damascus They lie there for a while, Virgil on the bunk above Damascus "Disappeared?" - Damascus "Well, you never came back, did you? Never checked up on me. Smokey - I don't have it as rough as some guys. Ichi's taken to life inside pretty hard, but I'm kind of used to it. I feel sorry for his second girlfriend, though. She's in the wing for people whose names have been forgotten. And speaking of girlfriends..." - Virgil Damascus nods sagely "No hard feelings. I would have just pissed off her mother. Take my advice, man. Let her go. It'll be safer in the long run. Men like us, we do our jobs and then get offstage. We don't mix with rarefied folk." - Virgil "You people have it easy" - Ashoka, from the next cell "Excuse me?" - Damascus "Well, I never actually appeared - I was killed off before it started" - Ashoka "Why do I get the feeling this has something to do with Christopher?" - Damascus "He's the Governor" - Virgil Wolsey, dressed as a prison guard, rattles the bars of their cell with his nightstick. "Exercise" - Wolsey .

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Out in the yard, Damascus is surrounded by all the bit-part characters he'd forgotten about. Virgil. Ichi. Ichi's girlfriend-that-doesn't-like-Kali. The guy in Kalis closet. The senator's daughter. His own sister. He makes his way through the throng, trying to make sense of it all (and to concentrate his way out into the Temenos) and finally ends up next to the basketball hoop. Stood there, staring accusingly at him, is the ghost of the little girl. Damascus concentrates really hard, and the scene breaks up.
Rafe could hear the fourth wall cracking there. Ashoka is Mara's grandfather. Virgil was the plot macguffin npc from the first story, and the little ghost girl appeared there too - Damascus made a mental note to free her from her anchor, but even this late on in the Chronicle has never gotten around to it. Rafe: In fairness, I only got the Arcana I needed at the end of Story 8, or possibly 7, but then spent 8 in Sutterton Farms. Death 3 don't come cheap when you're a Matter Mage foremost.

... "So" - Amanda Wolsey sits up. "We're here again, I guess" - Amanda The room they're in is blurry and indistinct. Wolsey is vaguely aware of a party going on somewhere. Or maybe a ritual. It's hard to tell - both tend to involve a lot of alcohol. "Aren't you going to say anything?" - Amanda He looks over at her - sat on a blurry something, looking expectantly over at him and says nothing. For a good long while. Long after she's given up with a faintly disappointed air, he finally speaks. "Where are we?" - Wolsey "I can't remember" - Amanda "And... I thought you couldn't be here any more?" - Wolsey "Maybe I'm the memory of a memory. Or where a memory used to be" - Amanda She looks around. "This seems familiar" - Amanda He grunts. "Tom..." - Amanda Long pause "Yes?" - Wolsey

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"How did we meet?" - Amanda "It was... You were... Cults. We met through Cults, I think." - Wolsey, frowning. She says nothing more. They sit there for a while, until Wolsey's attempt to meditate finally pays off.
This is the psychic scar left behind by the Sceptres Omniium - the place in Wolsey's mind his relationship with Amanda should go. It's a half-formed version of the place and time he first met her.

... Wolsey and Damascus both appear at the same time, high up on a rooftop somewhere beneath the stars and stripes sky of the DC Temenos. Down in the streets, a vast military parade-cum-street-party cum-battlefield rages, clangs and pomps. Tank columns rumble up avenues while Elephants and Donkeys savage one another for the enjoyment of the ticker-tape revellers. On the horizon, the neglected and ignored burn, screaming. Looming large in the city, looking like bad 2D animation superimposed on the scene, Shiva the Destroyer looks down upon them with terrible eyes, leering with sharp teeth. "The others not here yet?" - Wolsey Damascus shakes his head "How was it?" - Damascus "A platonic form of every conversation I've had with Amanda lately. We start a conversation, end it, and then she stares at me while I fight the feeling I should say something" - Wolsey "I was in a prison for minor characters" - Damascus "Ouch" - Wolsey They regard Shiva. "What the hell *IS* that?" - Wolsey ... Kali, meanwhile, is standing in a hurricane. The air - the very particles of thoughtmatter making up the scene - are blasting toward and past her like a wind tunnel. Her ephemeral thought-form is starting to break up, distorting under the pressure. This somewhat lessens the impact of her now wearing the Sari (plus copious jewellery) and her skin being jet black instead of dark brown. The waves of force are emanating from a figure that can only, from depictions she's seen of him, be Shiva. "Not yet" - Shiva And she passes out.

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... Damascus and Wolsey have been joined by Katherine. "Oh! There you are. Where's the rest of our party?" - Katherine Mycroft appears, clutching his hat. "We shall not speak of that again" - Mycroft, muttering to himself. Katherine is looking at Shiva. "What IS that?" - Wolsey "I have no idea. It showed up about a month ago" - Katherine "It's culturally..." - Wolsey "I am become Death, Shatterer of Worlds. It's an archetype of destruction. Rapid change. The fall of civilisations" - Katherine. "Why'd it be *Hindu*, though? I mean, it wouldn't be on the majority of people's minds in DC" - Wolsey ... Kali slowly comes round, her fingertips wet. She raises her head (heavy with jewels, hairpins and some kind of headdress) to find herself lying in a shallow punting boat, driven by a cloaked ferryman by means of a pole. She appears as she did during her "audience" with the god, but her fingertips have now returned to their normal colour. Kali rubs a forearm, and feels something give. The black skin isn't part of her ephemeral body - it's body paint. Looking at her reflection in the water, she starts to remove the jewels that have been glued all over her body. The boat she's in is travelling down some kind of very wide river - the scenery on either side is full of palaces and jungles, deserts and mountains. "Where are we going?" - Kali, tugging at the cloaked figure. "To the palace. And it's good to see you, by the way. I wouldn't want to miss this we'll be there soon" - Samuel "Who's Palace?" - Kali "That depends on which Palace it is when we get there." - Samuel "What's IN the Palace?" - Kali "Two thrones" - Samuel She sits back, heavily, and prises a diamond out of her navel "You're not quite ready yet, though. You can't meet him dressed like that" - Samuel

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"I want to go back" - Kali Samuel looks ahead, grimly. "We have to make for the shore" - Samuel "Why?" - Kali "I said. You're not ready. You're not supposed to be here yet - this boat won't get you through the rapids" - Samuel She leans, looking past him. Ahead of them, the river breaks up into treacherouslooking waterfalls and rapids, jagged rocks and whirlpools. The terrain on the shores ahead is dark, twisted and unpleasant to look at. Right ahead of them, though, on the horizon, *something* is glowing with a clear, silver light. They arrive at a pier, and Kali gets up. "I'm going" - Kali "Don't go in the water" - Samuel "Why not?" - Kali "Are you kidding? They cremate the dead in this water" - Samuel He pilots the boat to the pier, and helps her off in a gentlemanly way. "Careful you don't get wet" - Samuel "What IS this river?" - Kali "Purification" - Samuel Kali turns and jumps into the water. "Say hi to me" - Samuel, as she goes under. She tries to hold her breath and think of the American Flag.
You know how Kali's first Astral journey held deep revelations for the chronicle from then until now? Well, this one's kind of like that too. Kali, not able to process such things at the time, was just trying to get the paint and such off.

... "Why is it HERE?" - Mycroft The air splits open, and Kali- soaked through, still painted (though now running everywhere) and still dressed in her finery (now ruined by the paint and her own attempts to remove it) appears.

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".." - Damascus, stopping short of greeting her by name. She stares at them, confused "We don't want to say your Shadow name. In case it resonates with *him*" Katherine, nodding at Cartoon Shiva. "What? Shiva?" - Kali The Shiva-cartoon stares at them "NOT YET" - Shiva And with a grinding noise, it sinks below the horizon and comes out no more. Kali, satisfied, finishes stripping herself off and wiping off the paint. "Good.. Gah" - Wolsey, averting his eyes "What? Go on - what?" - Kali He offers no comment, but offers his jacket instead. She takes it. "We're in the everyone-level, right? So all this is what *everyone* thinks. You're asking me to believe that everyone thinks Shiva is attacking the city?" - Wolsey "It could be that enough Mages are - we tend to have a..." - Katherine She doesn't finish. Kali is babbling about her experience. When she sees everyone watching and listening, she starts again. "Yeah. I was in the Dreamtime, or whatever, and I met him. Only much more realistic..." - Kali Katherine, with the air of one arriving at an unpleasant theory, says that if Kali did go to the Dreamtime then any beings she met would be like archetypes, or Gods. It's possible that the presence of Shiva the God (or simply "The thought of Shiva", which would be so potent as to make distinctions pointless) in the Dreamtime is warping the Temenos, causing a lesser form to appear here. Like a hologram being projected onto a sphere. "There's another option" - Mycroft They look at him. "It could be an Ochema - an Astral projection from... the other side." - Mycroft "The other side?" - Damascus "The Supernal Side. An Astral Projection of an Exarch into our world" - Mycroft Aaaaanyways. They're gaining little standing around here. "Where did you see her?" - Wolsey "The Indian Sanctum" - Kali

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Wolsey begins to open a portal, reasoning to the others that if all travel is thought here, than he should be able to make a *virtual* tunnel based on his own belief in where they're going. They try it, and appear in what in the real world was Malakaii's DVD room. The cases on the shelves are all named for Mages in DC, in the style of old movies. Wolsey is "The Constant Mastigos". On the flickering TV set, almost lost to a haze of fog, something is playing. Damascus stares at it for a few minutes before realising to his horror what it is. It's them. In Sutterton Farms. The events that played out there are being repeated on widescreen. They leave, heading into the main Sanctum. "Oh no" - Kali Shiva's statue is missing from the shrine. As, in fact, is Vishnu's. And for some reason, Damascus is now painted blue and dressed as the God. "Gah. Loincloths" - Damascus Wolsey - choosing to ignore that - asks where the heart was, and Kali directs him to the trapdoor. Inside, though, is nothing but blood-stained scraps of wadded-up paper strips. Wolsey, disappointed, starts to trudge up the stairs. Damascus casts a conjunctional Unveiling of Death and Matter, magically gaining the knowledge of which pieces of the torn-up item go where. He puts the jigsaw pieces in the proper order and calls for Wolsey. "It's your marriage certificate" - Damascus It is indeed. They climb the stairs, waiting for Querephas to pop up behind them - but she never does. Eventually, the spiral stairs emerge onto the parade-choked streets. "Why wasn't she there?" - Wolsey, musing to himself "Are we done?" - Katherine "We are" - Damascus Katherine opens the locket, and they all wake up back at Suleiman's Sanctum. ... On their way out, the gang throw some more theories around. What if "Querephas" has escaped, as Katherine confirms to them is possible, as a free-willed Astral Demon? Then it could either try to persuade a Spirit mage to make it a body or infiltrate the Oneiros of a compatible person. And they know of one compatible person.

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"Are you sure we can't contact her?" - Damascus "Yes" - Mycroft "I could scry..." - Kali "No. Besides, you might accidentally scry on a secret Guardian meeting and Mycroft would have to shoot you in the head" - Damascus "I have a gun, you know" - Mycroft, jocularly warning them to drop it. Which leaves them with the Shiva problem. "Kali... you're the expert on Hindu mythology" - Wolsey "I *am not*! Back of a cereal packet, remember?" - Kali "...Can I recommend a good Osbourne series?" - Damascus In any case, they haven't the faintest what it all means. Kali tells them what happened on her entire Astral journey, from Saffron-smell to parade, and there are no conclusions drawn. "Isn't there a thing where girls are married to Gods?" - Wolsey And, thanking Katherine and Suleiman for their time, the Cabal go back to the Sanctum. ... Wolsey wants something none of the others can possibly tell him - he wants to know where the Astral Querephas has gone. Or where she came from in the first place. And, come to think of it, why the collective subconscious of the entirety of DC includes her, Malakaii's Sanctum and his failed marriage. "Have you considered that those things are in DC" - Mycroft, not helping.
Not least because Malakaii's sanctum isn't.

And what the hell was the Shiva thing all about? "Seraph" - Kali She explains about how she saw Seraph in Shiva's place one time, but that doesn't *feel* right. Not any more. And then they all feel the Inevitable touch of Anurati's Nimbus. Kali activates the Sceptre on herself, but it's too late. She remembers feeling a spell being cast moments ago. Anurati is spying on them again. The next day, the Cabal decide, should be devoted to their mortal lives. Wolsey has work to do - including lunch with a politician of no small note. Kali, true to her word, spends the day with her dad.

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Damascus goes to college. Sitting down at his desk, yawning, he spots Monica watching him. "Long night?" - Monica "Out late" - Damascus, beat. Monica starts getting her notes out. Damascus looks around the classroom, his mind on the Cabal's problems. Suddenly, he feels a surge of magical energies right next to him. Whipping round in his seat, he comes eye-to-eye with Monica, who's staring at him with a decidedly odd expression on her face. He can taste Anurati's Nimbus from here. "Stop looking for me" - Monica Her eyes roll up in her head, and she falls forward gently before blinking and waking up. "...what?" - Monica, off his horrified expression. He casts a mage sight spell, and notes to his dismay that his desk has a big honking UV glyph on it.
Anurati's first actual speaking line in the Chronicle, there, other than ones in Kali's imagination / memory. She has a particularly intense rasping whisper of a voice - like she doesn't speak very often. Cross reference with the Story's title.

... Kemi's "date" with her dad starts at lunchtime - giving Kemi time to clean herself up and goes on from there. She tells her dad that Carl has class, explaining his absence. An awkward moment is raised when Kevin asks what she does for a living, until Kemi finally tells him that she's between jobs. He offers to talk to people who still owe him favours on the bases, but she refuses politely - he's right, though, and she does need work. She just needs to get it by herself. ... After class, Damascus walks out into the sunshine, trying to think this through. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Monica getting her taxi home. Her taxi. The one she gets home most days. The one with an Iranian driver.
Thread-fans may go "bhuh?" at this point. Monica's arrangement with the Taxi of doom HAS been established in the chronicle before - she's been shown getting into it - but it's been done extremely low-key and not included in the recaps as a test of Rafe's deductive powers. If I wrote it into the recaps, it would've been far too obvious.

Getting into his truck, he scrabbles around for his phone. Buried away in his contact list is Monica's address.

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... Kemi, against her protests, is being driven home by her dad. Who is getting increasingly disturbed at the sort of neighbourhood that his daughter is living in. "Seriously?" (peering out at the gangers) "You live here?" - Kevin "Just down that street, yeah" - Kemi "Let me drop you off at the door" - Kevin She sits back in her seat, defeated. "It's kind of rough, isn't it?" - Kevin, as they approach the Sanctum She admits that she's been thinking of moving - but lacks that job thing. To his credit, Kevin doesn't offer to let her move back home. Instead, he pulls the car up outside the Sanctum building's door, waits until she's inside and then gets back to the Freeway as fast as he possibly can.
Rafe notes that Kevin's credit is slightly detracted from by his offering to pull strings to get her a job.

... Damascus gets out of his truck as the sun goes down and walks across the patch of scrubby parkland set in front of an anonymous tower block somewhere in the western sprawl. Monica lives here, on the seventh floor. She seems somewhat surprised when he knocks on the door. "Carl! What.. what are you doing here?" - Monica "I...Uh... I lost my keys, and I was wondering if I'd dropped them and they'd fallen into your bag" - Damascus She invites him in. Damascus looks around Monica's apartment - small, but brightened by her paintings which are hung all over the walls and stacked against the furniture. Nodding to himself, he casts Detect Substance and magically intuits that the UV paint he's after is in the closet to his right. When Monica's back is turned, he sneaks a peak - a stack of spray-cans of paint and the UV pens. Along with the hoodie Kali saw "them" wearing. He looks up to see her watching him. "Spray?" - Damascus "I'm trying for immediacy" - Monica, pointing out the more recent of her paintings which, true to her word, do indeed to have been made with the spraycans. Damascus makes polite talk, saying that immediacy isn't something his particular artform is any good at. "I noticed the UV" - Damascus

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Monica smiles and flips the light switches, killing the lights and lighting a black bulb. Sure enough, some of her paintings light up. "Anyway - no keys, I'm afraid" - Monica "Ah, damn. Well, Guess I'll go see if I can look around campus again." - Damascus Outside, Damascus phones Wolsey as he heads back towards his truck. "Wolsey. I've found the taxi people" - Damascus ... By the time Damascus has returned to the Sanctum, the inevitable discussion is in full swing. Anurati appears to be wiping Monica's memory of being possessed, which is a blessing, but the end result is one that the Cabal were not expecting - the UV glyphs are drawn by the Vandals who, under Anurati's influence, are going around painting things. The four of them (Mycroft has been in all day - he doesn't have a day job either) sit down and have a good hard think. Wolsey is infuriated by his inability to understand how Anurati is doing this. The glyphs have no sympathetic connections at all, which implies that she's casting Destroy the threads both on herself (to cut the connection to the glyphs) and on them (to cut their connection to her). But she's then able to use them as "bookmarks" for her scrying. And then, after Kali remembers something from her Postcognition (which itself implies that Anurati wiped this particular puzzle piece until she used the Sceptre last night), it makes sense. Photos. When Anurati's puppets make one the glyphs, they photograph it with a camera modified to have a UV flash. Anurati has a collection of all the photos, and casts a temporary version of Create the thread on a particular glyph when she needs it, using the photo to give her enough of a link to give her magic purchase. The only way to find her, then, that he can see is to camp out one of the Glyphs and wait for her to scry using it - then follow the link back to wherever she is. The trouble is that Kali can't teleport, and every scenario Wolsey can think of involves him facing Anurati alone. At which point, the Cabal agree, Anurati is likely to just kill him. "I... I'm starting to have second thoughts" - Kali "You're what?" - Wolsey "I don't know if I want to find her any more" - Kali Wolsey looks serious. "Well, this is a reversal. I come on board and..." - Wolsey Damascus looks like he agrees with Wolsey. "I thought you didn't care?" - Kali

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"My opinion changed when I dug up a dead woman" - Damascus

Sam's nonverbal reaction to this line doesn't go well into words. Suffice to say, that stung Kali.

Wolsey carefully says that he always said he wanted Anurati *found* - she may have committed (and is looking increasingly likely to have committed) crimes. He just disagreed with the Cabal's method of looking for her - he wanted to enlist the Consilium's help right off the bat. "We were going along with you because of your personal stake. If you don't care any more, then the rules change. But not today, okay? We'll continue as we are until after Seraph's caught, and then - if he tells us anything and you still want out... then we'll have to have a conversation about what happens next" - Wolsey "May I ask what you DO want to do?" - Mycroft "I want to tell my Dad" - Kali The three men take big, deep breaths. Kali rolls her eyes and says that yeah, she knows it won't work, but she wants to try to find some way to tell her dad. If the Quiescence will make him incapable of taking in what's going on, then she wants to try to push him into being a Sleepwalker. Well, kinda. It's not that it's certain to not work - it *might* - but she knows it's unwise and dangerous. More than making him a Sleepwalker, she wants to empower him to make the choice for himself rather than live never knowing the choice to choose has been ripped from him. "We've been over this before. No one knows how it happens. And there's no sure-fire way to Awaken someone, either" - Wolsey It just feels wrong lying to him, she says. He deserves to know. "What does he remember?" - Damascus, agreeing with her. At least one version of Kevin's memories - and his head seems to be played with as much if not more so than theirs - has Anurati abandoning him and Kemi and vanishing. She could tell him that she's turned up again under those conditions. But if he's currently in a memory-set involving Kemi being adopted, then... "I hit him with the sceptre" - Kali The boys are even more dubious at that. It has some merit, but only really in the case of definitely acting as a beacon to Anurati. Wolsey tries to drag this in a constructive direction, and asks what they're planning on doing about the taxi people. The Cult meeting is going to be the day after tomorrow, so they have a day to... "Look. Not tomorrow. I'm run ragged. My Mundane life is hectic, and my Awakened life has been pretty crazy these last weeks. I need to rest." - Damascus
Rafe: he's trying to maintain a part-time job as an artist, do a full-time degree (and US universities do not, I understand, go in for the 'turn up to lectures, or don't, doesn't really matter' approach that UK ones do), keep a Consilium post and deal with the stuff that comes from being a PC. I'm fairly sure he's been using Mind magic to stave off a nervous breakdown already...

Class dismissed.

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... The Next day passes quickly. Wolsey spends the afternoon carefully briefing the speaker of the Order of the Solar Disk on what he wants him to say. Damascus goes to college again, and afterwards goes to buy a basketball. Heading to the court where they found Virgil's "Well" painting oh such a long time ago, he casts Grim Sight and looks for the ghost of the little girl. Finding her, he uses magic to first make the ball crumble and fall apart in his hands, and second to create an ephemeral version of the object. With much solemnity, he hands the ghost-ball to the child, who smiles up at him and runs off.
Damascus shamed into enacting a promise he made himself back in 1.2? That's right! Frankly, I'm surprised given Christopher's talking-to in 9.2 and the Astral experience that he didn't go look Virgil up.

Kali, though, is dissatisfied. The previous day has left her feeling a curious sense of what's-it-all-about. And what she said to her dad has stayed with her. Kemi spends the day looking for a job. Towards the end of the day, she gets an interview in a coffee bar - and quite a posh one, near to the Capitol, too. Determined that like Carl she'll have *some* part of her that isn't caught up in the Supernal, she refuses to use magic to sway the interviewer. She gets the job anyway, and will start tomorrow night.
On a *chance die*, no less.

... The fateful day dawns, and preparations are made. All over the city, Pentacle Mages with a grudge against the Seers, a liking for the Crucible, an itching for a fight or a background in the matter are congregating on the Order of the Solar Disk's meeting house. Wolsey is going over the instructions one more time with Kali - who's dressed as one of the Cult's handmaidens and looks like she resents it. Satisfied she knows what she's doing, Wolsey opens the door to the back room, and is quite surprised by just how many people have turned up. "Who.. How many are *here*?" - Wolsey "Fourteen" - Damascus They survey the assembled horde of Dantor, Ebony, Promethea, Thursday, Bedlam, Shore, Beckett, Link, Nimrod, Proteus, Mara, Jude and... "... Who are you?" - Damascus "Valkerie" - Valkerie ...and Valkerie. "I'm surprised Samuel didn't turn up" - Wolsey

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"He's waiting for my signal - he's pre-cast a ward over the building, which will go off when we need it" - Valkerie "Oh" - Wolsey "And Ulysses is building a dead-magic zone in Dantor's crypt, ready to hold Seraph after we catch him" - Beckett "Suleiman?" - Wolsey "Sent us" - Bedlam, nodding at Promethea and Ebony "And is making sure word doesn't get out of any altercation here" - Ebony "Bedlam!? Well, uh... welcome aboard, I guess" - Damascus
More surprised to see him up and temporarily lucid for the occasion.

The hour draws close. Wolsey and Damascus start dividing the volunteers into groups (the "emergency warding" team, the "portal to Dantor's" team, the "countermagic" team and the "overpower Seraph" team. Wolsey hands Kali a wire-mike. "Now, you remember what I said? Put this on under your clothes" - Wolsey "Yeah, I do remember, thanks" - Kali, sourly "Alright! Everyone! Quiet, now!" - Wolsey Kali goes into the next room, where the sleeper attendants are gathering. She puts her mask on, then puts the Robe of the Dethroned Queen on over the top. Showtime. Kali lurks near the back of the room, watching the curious and the credulous from the various Sleeper parts of DC's occult underground enter one by one and mingle with the masked Solar Disk cultists. She notes that some of the guests ignore her completely - and not because she's pretending to be a servant. They must be Tainted enough by the Exarchs' influence for the Robe to work on them. After about half an hour, a large white man - *very* well dressed and walking with a cane - joins the gathering. He strolls to the back, and for a moment Kali thinks that he can see her, but he stops and talks to the man stood behind her - looking right through her as he does so. Kali shivers as he goes back towards the main gathering, holding a drink. As she follows him with her gaze, she notices a familiar tattooed, bald head poking out above the crowd. "He's *here*" - Kali
Seraph, for the curious, looks like the guy on the front cover of Secrets of the Ruined Temple.

Seraph spots the large man. The large man spots Seraph.

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"YOU" - both men, simultaneously "There's *two* of them!" - Kali And as Damascus and his team crash in through the antechamber door, Seraph and the mystery man do their best to kill one another with magic. Damascus and team "dispellation" crush the supernal energies the two combatants are summoning. Seraph - who's facing their direction - realises with shock what's going on and tries to teleport, but doesn't go anywhere.
Both Seraph and Tycho (that's the other guy's Shadow Name, as we'll get to in a bit) attempted, for sake of brevity and the fact that they are in a room literally *crowded* with Sleepers, to kill the other using Mind-based Lethal damage spells - Mind has an advantage over many Arcana in that it's damage practices are covert unless you spend Mana to inflict Aggravated Damage. In any event, though, team Dispel had enough Prime-based counters at hand to squish the attacks. Seraph then tried to Teleport, but hit Samuel's Ward - the Archmage had pre-cast a "teleport barrier" around the building as a conjunctional effect with Time, and triggered it from the security of his own Sanctum at Valkerie's mind- and space- based communication. Wolsey and team "Ward" then whacked their own reinforcements on top of it just in case.

So far, the entire confrontation has taken six seconds, and has taken place entirely in the minds of the mages present. As "team dispellation" prepare to dampen any more spells, Dantor performs her "party trick" of Suppress Other's Life, the Imago modified on the fly to cover both men. Neither has a Mage Sight active, and are caught on the hop by the sudden Covert attack. Both Seraph and the large gentleman waver on their feet and then - as far as the Sleepers now reacting to the sudden commotion are concerned - faint.
Dantor last performed this trick - a particularly nasty application of Death Mastery that whacks your target into a deathlike trance and, like those Mind Damage spells, is happily Covert in aspect - in the mission Damascus made a blessed dagger for.

Beckett and Proteus grab Seraph from the floor. Damascus and Shore have the stranger. They leave the way they came without a word. Wolsey looks imperiously at the amassed Sleepers, most of whom are shouting queries. "LET THIS BE A WARNING TO THOSE WHO CONCEAL THE TRUTH!" - Wolsey As Wolsey launches into an inspired bit of pseudo-philosophical homily, Kali quietly slips through the door and joins Damascus and the gang out back. As Proteus guards the door to make sure no Sleepers try to investigate what's going on, Beckett, Ebony, Promethea, Shore and Bedlam pull a Portal to Dantor's Sanctum open with quiet efficiency.
Five Mastigos, most of them Adepts of Space, working in concert, just about counteracts the pain of casting the spell Instantaneously.

Everyone hurries through the Portal, and it closes. The entire operation took less than ten minutes. ... Down in Dantor's Crypt, Damascus and the carry-squad, plus Bedlam and Kali (still

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wearing the Robe) deposit Seraph in the room recently occupied by Cerberus. On this occasion, though, they handcuff him to the heavy iron pipes and remove the rest of the furniture. And just in case, they strip him naked first. Damascus looks at the runes Ulysses has chalked around the place, fixing the Antimagic zone into place. "Room for two?" - Damascus, indicating the stranger. Ulysses reckons the dead magic zone should extend into the boiler room proper, so lacking a second cell they strip him as well, improvise with some chain and secure him there. As soon as they enter the area bounded by the runes, of course, all spells on them unravel - including Dantor's suppression of their lives. Both men are groggy and confused, though Seraph seems to realise what's going on after he tries (again) to teleport "Sorry. You're not going anywhere" - Ulysses "WAIT! Please! You're making a MISTAKE!" - Stranger "Really?" - Damascus Damascus goes to talk to the stranger, while Beckett is taking great pleasure - great, great pleasure - in taunting Seraph. Kali, secure under the Robe, watches. And then notices that Bedlam is looking at her. The unstable Mastigos is muttering about "Them" and narrowing his eyes at her. "Who are you?" - Damascus "He's a Seer." - Seraph, from his cell. "He's LYING!" - stranger Damascus does not look convinced. "My name's Tycho! I'm a member of the Silver Ladder in Baltimore! I heard about the meeting and thought it would be interesting! PLEASE! He's lying to you!" - Stranger Damascus looks at Ulysses, who - where Tycho and Seraph can't see him - is going through their things. He holds up a silver amulet with a piece of High Speech calligraphy on it up, and shakes his head. "Sit tight" - Damascus Damascus heads to the cell proper, and smoothly holds his hand out to Beckett. The elder Mastigos wordlessly hands Damascus the Dagger which he had produced from... somewhere... and turns on his heel, walking out. As he goes, Beckett flatly tells Seraph that sooner or later, it will be Beckett's turn to guard him. Which will be fun, won't it? Seraph silently watches Beckett go upstairs, and then glares at Bedlam, who looks impassively back at him. The Seer doesn't appear to notice Kali at all.

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"Well, you're in for a long stay. The zone will last.. quite a while, I guess, with the runes. And before you think of anything.. yes, your Attainment may still work, but so does mine. And, crucially, so does Dantor's." - Damascus
Which means Dantor's zombies can happily walk around inside it.

"Do you have ANY idea what you've just done, Carl? You've declared *war*." Seraph Damascus doesn't look impressed. "I've been the only thing - the ONLY thing - keeping the Pylons off you people. Without me, you're going to start losing people. One. By. One." - Seraph "I'M NOT A SEER!" - Tycho "He's a Seer" - Seraph "Kinda worked that out" - Damascus (disgusted) "He's not one of mine. And he's even worse for you. Tycho there is highly-placed in the Ministry of Mammon - the Ministry that you guys gave a bloody nose in July. His superiors aren't going to take this lying down either. May you and they wipe one another out." - Seraph Bedlam shakes his head, sadly. "They're both dirty" - Bedlam. He looks at Kali "Why are you wearing that? It belongs to Them" - Bedlam He leaves, shuddering. Kali looks back at the scene in the Cell, and at Ulysses - who shrugs, helplessly.
Sam's notes here read "BEDLAM KNOWS RING SIGHT!" Heh.

Upstairs, Wolsey appears with a flash of his Nimbus having Teleported. The massed volunteers are jazzed and riding high on adrenaline. There is a bit of a carnival atmosphere. He heads down to the Crypt, passing Bedlam on his way down. "How're we doing?" - Wolsey "He's not talking. And this one claims to be a Ladder Mage from Baltimore, while Seraph says he's in the Ministry of... Mammon, I think" - Damascus Leaving Ulysses on guard, the Crucible confer. They want to talk to Seraph while they still have the chance - sooner or later, someone will shiv him, or this will be made official. While he's alive, he's a danger.

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"You got the Sceptre?" - Wolsey Kali nods. "Let's find out what he knows... Is Mycroft about? We could use him" - Wolsey They look around the party, and then ask around the party. Mycroft, it turns out, left with Thursday as soon as they arrived through the portal. Wolsey, concerned, Scries on Mycroft. "He's.. uh.. standing under a bridge with Thursday. They look like they're waiting for something" - Wolsey Concluding it must be ultra-secret Guardian of the Veil business, they return to the matter at hand. Or nearly do, anyway. Wolsey looks around the assembled throng, representing Mages from all Orders and most Cabals in the City. "Every Council member got involved. Every main Cabal sent people. Except Banneker. See this? This is his problem. He should BE here" - Wolsey, exasperated. They go downstairs. Just in case the Sceptre won't work in the dead-magic zone, they set up another room. Seraph allows them to walk him there without comment. Seraph sits down on the chair they provide, and stares at Wolsey "Okay, Tom. Let's hear it. How did you do it?" - Seraph "Good wasn't it? Sorry to tell you this, but you've been had" - Wolsey Wolsey describes how he faked Seraph's 'Religious Experiences'. And how he knew how to do so exactly because every such experience Seraph's had has been equally fake. "I don't believe you" - Seraph Wolsey rolls his eyes "I'm telling you the Truth" - Wolsey "No. You're using our Attainment. You killed me next to a portal to Malakaii's Demesne. I know you're a Bearer, Tom" - Seraph "You don't know anything. Kali, take the robe off" - Wolsey She does so. Seraph flinches as he sees her "appear". "We're going to give you your memories back now. And then you're going to talk" Wolsey Kali points the Sceptre at Seraph and activates it. ...

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When Seraph recovers, he looks shocked, angry.. and resigned. "You knew who she was" - Damascus "Malakaii told me about it, when I was a Guardian. He said he'd killed her" - Seraph "And you worked out it was my mother?" - Kali He nods, curtly "Why'd you send the card to my dad?" - Kali "I knew where he lived, and had to think on my feet. A month or so earlier, I'd sent him an anonymous letter telling him where Carl's statue of you was. No real reason, just to fuck with you all" - Seraph "What was all that about Pythias?" - Kali "I thought I could follow you down the path to God, and when you were one step away from finding it, I could kill you" - Seraph, flatly. She frowns. Not what she was hoping to hear. "Anything else you can tell us?" - Wolsey "I have nothing more to say" - Seraph "Seraph... You were fooled." - Wolsey "You think that matters? I believe in what I've done." - Seraph They are, to varying degrees, disappointed. "We both know I've not got long to live here. Within a few days, one of your people is going to kill me. Probably Beckett" - Seraph He seems resolute. Going down with the ship. They take him back to his cell, and then - after Proteus relieves Damascus as the guard for the rest of the night - head upstairs and out into the night air. Nobody says anything. After a while, a Limo pulls up - a decidedly unusual sight in this part of town. The door opens, and Mycroft calls over to them. Curious, they get in. Waiting inside are Banneker. And Caspar. "Congratulations on today. I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but I had an opportunity and took it." - Banneker, nodding to Caspar. Every once in a while, Banneker comes through. "I... Melchior and Balthazar told me the story they told Cerberus. They told me that

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they kept me out of it for my own protection. But I don't believe them" - Caspar He hauls out a metal file box from under his seat, and unlocks it. "That's why I took this" - Caspar And he takes out the Scroll of the Ascendants. Kali takes a sharp breath. "...The part about the Dethroned Queen is especially interesting." - Mycroft
Dah-dah DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

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Session 9.5
And so we come to it at last. This session - the end of Reign part IV - has been my intended destination for the Chronicle ever since session 3.2, which was when I decided on the familial relationship between Black_Hat-Matt's villainess and Kali. This story, as I said back in 9.1, is arse-backwards - the Characters know the "ending" thanks to knowing about Anurati ahead of time, so are approaching everything in the story as a maze to be negotiated to a goal rather than layers of enigmas with a mystery at the end. I have borrowed elements that will turn up in future stories in the chronicle in order to try to put some of that feeling of 'not knowing where this ends' back in - Anurati in the original scenario is the person at the end of the yellow brick road, but for my purposes it works much better if there's someone *else*, who is referred to obliquely and will turn up in later stories. The plot by now has gotten quite confusing after having been dripped into the chronicle in mutually-contradictory bits and pieces, and I've been unable to provide summaries for fear of prejudicing the characters. But now that the players have all figured out what's going on, this is the state of play in summary. Note that this reveals everything up to the end of THIS session - so if you're reading the thread as a mystery and "playing along at home", skip the rest of this blue note; Anurati was born in northern India, an Untouchable. She lost her family (and most of her village) in a natural disaster, and Awakened as a Mastigos. She was taken in by a Cabal of Guardians of the Veil who subscribed to a Hinduised form of Atlantean Orthodoxy - they believed that western Mages' "Atlantis" legends were corruptions of the Deluge in their own culture, and equated the major Hindu Gods as being actual entities in the Supernal realms; Both Oracles AND Exarchs. Anurati was fatalistic before her Awakening, and doubly so after it. After being trained by the Cabal she wound up practically fate-bound, convinced that her every action was dictated by Supernal beings which she believed to be her Gods. Some time later, Anurati turned up in America, a new immigrant married to a US soldier who'd toured India. She was also pregnant. Apprenticing to Malakaii, who was an heir to the same Cabal, she kept herself apart from the Consilium. Years of virtual hermitage in Awakened circles ended abruptly when Mara arrived from India, claiming to Malakaii that the Cabal had been murdered some years before. Malakaii went to check and on his return declared that Anurati had killed her - and his mentors. He and Beckett went to arrest her, and Beckett remembers Malakaii garrotting her and wiping the memories of her husband and 6-year old daughter, before then going around the Consilium and making sure no-one remembered her existence and no records remained. What *actually* happened is this: Anurati had at some point acquired the Crown of the Dethroned Queen, which she used to possess Malakaii and Beckett and alter their memories. She substituted another woman for herself to give them something to bury, and set about erasing herself from the memories of as many Mages as she could. A combination of her Occultation, her use of the Crown to mind-control mages and Malakaii (thinking he was covering up someone he'd killed) altering paperwork served to hide her. Her activities since then are murky - she has been doing "God's work" as she sees it, and believes she's paving the way for the end of the present Age of the world, when Shiva (who in her cosmological view resides in Pandemonium, and can be roughly equated to an Exarch) will cross into the Fallen World. She equates the Fallen Queen with Dakshayani, Shiva's consort who immolated herself and scattered pieces of herself over the world praying to be reborn. She has unwitting agents in both the Pentacle and the Seers of the Throne. Seraph, at the time a Guardian, mistook the presence of Anurati's nimbus of helplessness in the face of destiny to be the scrutiny of an Exarch, and spread the cult/Legacy she originated from to the Seers - which the Crown could easily control. In the pentacle, she provided the Ascendants with a scroll containing her beliefs and made Melchior believe he had received it from the Oracle "Aion". She also took control of Balthazar when he entered into precognitive trances, and fed him "steering" conclusions. Her means of casting sympathetic magic is complex, and designed to protect her own secrecy. Using the Crown as a Profane Urim, she possesses a group of sleepers she has groomed for the purpose and forces them to mark areas of the city she will need a sympathetic connection to with UV sigils, committing acts of vandalism to cover the marks up. She then has a scrying room containing photographs of every sigil, which are enough for her to then create a sympathetic connection to the target location using Space magic. She scrupulously uses Destroy the Threads to "clean up" after herself, so that she can't be traced back. As an extra added precaution, this scrying room is *not* anywhere near her Hallow and Sanctum. In recent months, she's been getting more and more active, keeping tabs on the Cabal as they collect the other artefacts of the Dethroned Queen and edge ever closer to figuring out exactly who Anurati is. She has been particularly interested in her daughter Kemi, and has come to a rather worrisome conclusion - Anurati left her husband and daughter to attempt to spare them from her destiny and give them a happily ignorant life. The only problem is that Kemi Awakened as an Acanthus and mistook Arcadian visions of Anurati as being images of her own imagined secret history - in particular, Kemi remembered Anurati's village being destroyed as though it were her own. When Kemi chose (entirely at random) the Shadow Name "Kali", Anurati became convinced: Kali was actually Kali. The Goddess. She is convinced that her daughter is a God, and destined to ascend to the heavens and face her husband-God (who is, of course, Shiva). She has developed an antipathy towards the rest of the Cabal, who she sees as getting in the way of Kali's purpose. In particular, she wants Kali to leave Damascus (who reminds Anurati of her own Husband) before he holds her back. As Anurati sees it, the only way Kali will be free of the crushing predestiny every mortal has imposed from the Supernal is to take up her mantle as goddess and ascend. And she's willing to try to kill - or have her pawns try to kill - the rest of the Cabal in order to get them out of the way of Kali's "progress". In fact, she's willing to do anything: Anurati has a kind of immediacy that the Cabal aren't used to in their foes. Most mages lay long-term plans and prevaricate before taking action. Anurati will decide that God wants her to do something and then instantly do it. And as far as she's concerned she doesn't have a choice in the matter...

The Crucible, minus Amanda, are in the back of a limo in an entirely un-limo-like part of town. Sat with them are Caspar - who has stolen his Cabal's prophetic scroll and

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fled to the Consilium - and Banneker. Banneker taps the metal file-box the scroll is lying inside. "Warded" - Banneker Wolsey nods. "We can't do this in the car. Your Sanctum is nearby, isn't it?" - Banneker It is, and they give directions. While the car's picking it's way through the streets, Caspar explains what the Ascendants are all about - starting with their Legacy. The Thrice-Great (or "Hermetics") believe that the classical planetary spheres correspond to parts of the Silver Ladder, the mythical means by which the Exarchs and Oracles ascended to the Supernal within their bodies. They equate Hermes-Thoth with an Oracle they name Aion, and upon reaching the third attainment... "We're here" - Damascus They all get out and head up into the Sanctum. "Do you have a warded room?" - Banneker "This way" - Wolsey They enter the warded room, Wolsey kicking the pile of removed glyphs under the bed. Caspar nervously picks up "Fool's Errand", then replaces it.
One day, that book'll mean something. You just watch me.

Anyway. Caspar removes the scroll from the case and begins to carefully unwind it. It's written in a language none of them can read, but fortunately there are pictures. "...Upon reaching the third attainment, members of our Legacy climb the Ladder and stand at the edges of the Supernal Realms, further than which no one can go. They are met by Aion itself, who descends from the Aether to commune with them. Some Ascend, some become Archmages. Others come back with a rote, an artefact or some mission from the Oracle. In Melchior's case, five years ago when he climbed the spheres he came back with this Scroll." - Caspar They lean in to get a better look, as Caspar narrates. The Scroll was written by a Cxaxa Dcharavan several thousand years ago and says... or Melchior says it says... how the Silver Ladder was created out of the priest caste of Atlantis by the Dethroned Queen. She created a tripartite structure, with three wise kings reporting to her, three masters reporting to them, three younger masters reporting to them and so on.
One for you, Wood. Another Cxaxa for the list.

"Furthermore, it says that three kings will arrive to return the Order to that perfected organisation - uh... two white, one black. They will arrive in the Awakened City and perfect it's Consilium by following the scroll's edicts." - Caspar

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"Caspar, I don't know what to tell you... but that's garbage." - Banneker Caspar blinks at him. "The Dethroned Queen?" (disgusted) "The Dethroned Queen is a fairy story invented by Seers of the Throne to justify their faith. An easy legend that they use to 'prove' their belief that they can join the Exarchs - if they can come down, then the Seers can go up. I've been a member of the Silver Ladder since my apprenticeship. I've travelled the world and talked to other Hierarchs. Believe me, the creation of our Order had nothing to do with any imaginary antediluvian archmage" - Banneker
Wolsey failed his Academics + Silver Ladder Status to realise it was bunk, but Banneker passed his. I wasn't too fussed - I relished the opportunity to point out what Banneker knows. Or in this case, doesn't know.

He continues. "Every young Mystagogue or Guardian or half the Libertines as well at some point in their early career hears a rumour about one of the artefacts of the Dethroned Queen. They're never as advertised. Let me take a guess on something - you people found the Eyes of Salt trying to hunt down one of the so-called 'regalia', didn't you?" Banneker Caspar looks crushed. "Thought so" - Banneker
And I get to obliquely tie up a loose end - how the Eyes got to Melchior (he was looking for the Robe, and went trying to find temples to Querephas).

Damascus and Wolsey put forward a more politically correct form - maybe the "Queen" never existed, but is a metaphor for half-remembered stories about the real Antediluvian Mages. Banneker concedes that it's possible, though he's still darkly amused that Melchior believes fervently in something Banneker considers to be a playground story. Wolsey asks why Melchior tried to kill them. "He says that... Here. He says that this section tells of a reflection. As the Three begin perfecting the Awakened, there's a reaction against them - a triumvirate of opposites, vulgar versions of them tainted by the Abyss in the form of three Mages who oppose the three. He says.. he says that that's you two" (to Wolsey and Damascus) "and Beckett" - Caspar "Two white, one black. Damn I'm nefarious. Do you feel nefarious?" - Damascus "I do" - Wolsey, wryly. "The kings are meant to embody creation, preservation and fated renewal, as are the reflections" - Caspar "Who's who?" - Kali "In our Cabal, myself, Melchior and Balthazar." - Caspar "And us three?" - Damascus

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"You would be creation, I think" - Caspar

Spot the oWoD triad! Well, not really - the three are disguised versions of the Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Because Anurati wrote the damn thing, and she has the Trimurti on the brain.

He winds through the scroll "Here" - Caspar And he shows them a picture of the dethroned Queen dispensing wisdom to three crowned figures. The art style is odd, and stylised, but the woman depicted is unmistakable. It's Anurati. Kali barely suppresses an outburst, and excuses herself. She doesn't *quite* get out of the door before laughing. Out in the main room, she leans on a wall for support, laughing so hard she cries (or crying so hard she laughs). Banneker looks perplexed. Wolsey frowns "Excuse us for a moment" - Wolsey He and Damascus head outside. Kali is now slumped on the floor, giggling quietly. "Finished?" - Wolsey "Nearly" - Kali, stifling another guffaw He waits patiently for her to compose herself "Okay." (looks at the door) "Can we *tell* them, yet?" - Wolsey His argument is a short one: this has now gone beyond "Anurati is out there" to "Anurati is trying to undermine the Consilium". This is the second group of people they've found being directly manipulated by her today, and if you add in indirect meddling, Cerberus, Samuel and themselves aren't immune either. Banneker in particular needs to know that she exists. "Because if we don't tell him now, and he finds out or needs to know later, it's going to look really bad on us" - Wolsey Mycroft puts forth a compromise, which is accepted - they tell him about The Spider, but they don't "out" Kali as her daughter, which protects Kali in the short term and maybe - just maybe - lets them solve this peaceably. Because if Mara finds out who the Spider is, or Thursday, then Kali herself is going to be in an awkward situation. Which nicely sums up Kali's own argument too: if they reveal everything, Kali is going to be watched like a hawk. They go back in. Banneker raises an eyebrow. Deep breaths. "The scroll's a fake" - Wolsey

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"That Scroll is over a thousand years old" - Caspar, protesting "That person" (points to the picture) "is a Mage alive and well now in DC, that we have had run-ins with of late. She's been manipulating Seraph and his Pylon of Seers, staying hidden and working entirely through sympathy. We caught Seraph this afternoon by faking one of her visitations and luring him into a trap. It seems she's not just manipulating the Seers" - Wolsey Banneker looks at the scroll. "You're sure?" - Banneker "Quite" - Damascus. Wolsey just nods. "What does she want? Is she a Seer?" - Banneker "We don't know. And I don't think so. We think she may have been connected to Malakaii in some way - she has strong memory-manipulation powers, either by dint of being a Master of the Mind Arcanum or by possession of an Artefact. Or both. It's not just us - Samuel has been detecting the presence of someone." - Wolsey "Samuel knows about this?" - Banneker "Ah... And Beckett, too." - Damascus Banneker raises a Mage Sight and begins scrutinising the scroll. Damascus, taking that as the cue to start with the spells, does likewise. As do Kali and Mycroft. They conclude that it is indeed magical... And it does indeed to be as old as Caspar says it is, under the eyes of age-finding spells Damascus and Banneker use on it. They all mull the problem. There are two theories; 1) Melchior did not receive the scroll from Aion (though he might well *think* he did). 2) The scroll has been carefully altered from a real text rather than provided wholecloth. Aside from that is the question of who if anyone in the Ascendants are in on it. Caspar wants to believe that Melchior isn't, though it would be easier if he was. As for Balthazar, though... "Oh, God. The 'Lady'. When he goes into trances to divine what we should do, he always says 'The Lady wants...'" - Caspar ...Balthazar, though, is looking 50:50 between true stooge and willing accomplice. Banneker is still looking at the scroll. "If it IS enchanted, we have a means of dispelling it..." - Kali They get what she means. "What means?" - Banneker

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"It's an item we acquired when we were in Germany. A kind of rod of dispellation. We've found it quite useful." - Wolsey Banneker takes that in his stride.
They're careful to not call it "The Sceptre of the Exarchs" in front of him, and he figured they went to Germany for some reason anyway, so he takes them at their word. As they describe it, it's really 'just' an enchanted item of Supernal Dispellation. Useful, especially to a group of Adepts without an Obrimos, but not of earth-shattering importance.

"If it comes to that, I can do it myself. My concern, though, is what will happen to the scroll. Melchior is liable to call for your head" (to Caspar) "for thieving it anyway. If we are unable to give it back due to it being irrecoverably altered.. well..." - Banneker "If it's been changed enough by magic, he might not even believe us if we do give it back" - Damascus "Or if it's created entirely magically, it'd vanish" - Mycroft Banneker mulls the problem. He does not offer it up as a vote. "Might it help if we took a copy before doing anything drastic?" - Damascus The Hierarch nods, and Damascus fetches one of his college textbooks that seems to be of about the right length. Concentrating, he draws on Stygia and forces the ink of the textbook to rearrange itself, flowing between the closed pages and resettling in the shape of the ink on the scroll. Opening the book and flicking through it to confirm that they now have a copy of the scroll, he confirms that they're ready to go ahead. Kali fetches the Sceptre, which she levels at the scroll. "Ready?" - Kali "Do it" - Banneker She activates it, and the scroll changes.
And, on what would on the face of it be the least consequential use of the Sceptre, Sam failed Kali's Wisdom check and her character dropped to Wisdom 5. She passed the insanity check, though. Sam is currently evaluating what this means for Kali's personality in play - significantly, she has lost her instinctive prohibition against fate-binding people, as it's a Wisdom 6 sin. Ideally, it will be portrayed in some way relating to the turmoil going on in Kemi's life right now.

The cracked, partially torn and faded paper of the scroll warps and straightens. Rips join and flakes realign. The ink darkens and straightens. "Interesting. Carl - your opinion as to it's age again, if you please." - Banneker
Banneker continues his habit of casually calling people by their real names. I just think it's a thing for a Hierarch to do, to show that one has particularly large cahjunas. This session, incidentally, is showing Banneker on a *good* day. A damn good day. Compare with his prevaricating time before last before Kali gave him a good talking to.

Damascus casts his spell again. "Five. It's five years old, at most." - Damascus Caspar looks ill.

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"So it is a fake. Resonances, people?" - Banneker "Pride." - Damascus Nods from Kali, Mycroft and Banneker "And.. I think under the pride.. Doubt?" - Damascus Banneker sits back and thinks. "Alright. This is what we do. Caspar, you'll come with me. We'll take the real scroll and leave the copy with the Crucible - we'll go to Melchior and try to forestall anyone claiming the Right of Nemesis on anyone. Tom, Carl - I am taking you from any duties you might currently have with the Sentinels and Heralds and giving you a mission. I want this woman found and her intentions to my Consilium laid bare to me. *I* will then decide what to do about it. Use your contacts, draft Consilium officials if you need to. Find out if anyone else has been sensing any 'presences'" (disgusted) "Or is following any ancient texts they found under their bed one morning. If anyone gives you any grief, send them to me." - Banneker, eyes flashing. Wolsey and Damascus, faced with this new person who appears to have replaced Banneker, agree. "And take another copy of the scroll before we leave. It may be helpful to see if any of the text has changed" - Banneker They do so (determining that no, the text hasn't changed one iota other than suddenly being it's real age - so the entire scroll is a fake, which further crushes Caspar's spirit), and Banneker and Caspar leave. Wolsey exhales carefully and finds a seat. Kali puts the Sceptre away. "We got out of that all right, I think. Being granted executive powers to investigate what we were trying to investigate on the quiet is a win" - Wolsey Kali grunts something about how he and Damascus have, anyway. "Yes, but while we're going around everyone checking to see if anyone else s working for her, you and Mycroft can be digging through the scroll" - Wolsey "And we can still try to get you to her first. After all, it's our Cabal's business, now" Mycroft Damascus is hung up on the changes to the scroll. "How did she DO that? I mean, I can't figure out how she'd do that. She must know Matter, but even then I don't know how I'd do it" - Damascus "She didn't. Melchior did - and you could do it with Death" - Mycroft "She possessed Melchior and made him age the scroll she then gave him. He made the forgery he was taken in by. Damn that's..." - Damascus "...Efficient" - Mycroft

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Kali and Wolsey are looking at the text. "Is this written in Hindi?" - Wolsey "Back of a cereal packet" - Kali "We might be a bit beyond that" - Wolsey She considers. "I can learn to read Hindi, I think." - Kali "May I ask how?" - Wolsey "Magic" - Kali, bluntly
Hee!

The next morning, the Cabal split into two teams - Wolsey and Damascus will work on the Sentinels, Heralds and Cabal leaders. Mycroft and Kali will see what can be gleaned from the scroll. Before they go, though, they all consider the conundrum of the Scroll's writing. Wolsey is advanced enough in his understanding of the Mind Arcanum to be able to read it regardless, but he's got to go wrangle Heralds. They throw out a couple of rather convoluted half-formed ideas about how they can get around this imposition, but Kali eventually says that she has a plan in mind, thank you very much. There's a research spell Samuel showed her that allows for rapid comprehension and study, and she's going to cast it in combination with taking herself out of time. That and a couple of "learn Hindi" books from the Library, and she'll have a certain level of comprehension by the afternoon. Wolsey and Damascus head off on their way. Kali heads off to find a bookstore while Mycroft gets himself ready for an extended amount of resonance scrutiny.
Kali's spell cascade is based on "Library of Mind" and repeated "Temporal Pocket"s to vastly decrease the time it takes to buy the Linguistics merit down to a few hours. It isn't a skill-adding spell (for a start, languages aren't bought as skills in the Storytelling system) but a time-reduction one: she bought the merit with xp fair and square.

First, Damascus drives Wolsey all the way back to the Cult meeting house, where Wolsey left his car yesterday.
Ah, teleportation, and it's effect on one's grasp of where one's possessions are.

Their first stop, they reckon, must be Mara. Given her position as head of the Adamantine Arrow and her close ties to the Sentinels, she's going to find out about the situation. And if she finds out who the Spider IS, then there may be trouble. "I want her out of this. The last thing we need is Mara going off on one" - Wolsey "You don't think she has a right to?" - Damascus "You've spoken to her about her Grandfather, and what she thinks of Anurati..." Wolsey

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Wolsey's face is a map of disapproval. "I'll be damned if I'm going down because of a Caste System" - Wolsey
Kali ignores Mara's racism, and Anurati herself wouldn't ever even think about it. It's interesting that it's Wolsey who vehemently objects to it.

And they drive in convoy to Mara's. ... Kali and Mycroft's efforts are progressing - Kali is up in the Hallow, zapping her brain with Arcadian energies. Mycroft is downstairs, getting increasingly frustrated with his inability to find anything on the scroll. After a few hours, though, when Kali breezes down, they realise what's wrong. Her repeated Temporal Pockets may have done the trick, but one of them failed to cast or rather, it didn't. Kali has managed to cause a Paradox effect, bleeding Arcadia into the local area and upsetting probability. The effect is playing merry hell with Mycroft's legacy-granted senses. They confer and decide to wait it out. ... Mara is surprised, but not unhappy, to see Damascus and Wolsey, and invites them both in. She says that she was hoping to compare notes with them - she's having her turn at interrogating Seraph and Tycho that evening, and wanted to know what the Crucible had managed to find out. Slightly wrong-footed, the men make polite noises until Wolsey decides to take the plunge. "Mara... There's something you should know. We're telling you first because you'd find out anyway, and because we'd prefer you to learn the facts rather than halfguess them." - Wolsey He carefully gives her the same explanation of "The Spider" that they gave to Banneker. But goes further, and says that they suspect her to have been involved in the deaths of both Malakaii... and Mara's grandfather. Mara immediately assumes they're there for her help, and fiercely agrees to give it. She is dismayed when Wolsey says that actually, they were hoping she would stay out of it. Or take a back seat. Banneker has tasked them with hunting this person down, not her. "Does he know? Does he know WHO SHE IS?" - Mara Wolsey is forced to concede that Banneker isn't aware they suspect the mystery woman of being Anurati Sahley, no. Mara immediately says that she'll tell him, and Wolsey coldly says that that's her right. Mara has her back to them, absently rearranging things on her desk out of pent-up

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energy. She suddenly stops, and turns back to them - realisation has dawned. "She's her daughter" - Mara Wolsey and Damascus firmly state that Kali wasn't aware of that until very recently, and that she is as much - if not more - of a victim in this as Mara is. Kali is not working for her mother. Mara doesn't seem to believe them, but the irresistible force is meeting their immoveable object. She states that she'll go to Banneker and take *his* judgement of whether or not to stay out of this. "How long?" - Mara "Has she been here? We don't know. She was Malakaii's apprentice at one point..." Wolsey "She's still working for him. Or is working to his plan - she must be. Anurati isn't smart enough to do all this" - Mara Wolsey is sceptical - as far as he was aware, Mara never actually *met* the object of her obsession. Mara, though, is adamant: there's no way that Anurati has the initiative to do all of this by herself. She must be working to a design handed down to her, and Mara favours Malakaii as being the mastermind. Wolsey humours her, and says that they have a lot of people to get around. For the time being, could Mara *try* to keep her theories and the Spider's identity confidential? After they point out that they don't know who's compromised, Mara agrees that she won't risk tipping Anurati off. She seems determined to try to get herself into the investigation, though. They leave her to phone Banneker, and head outside. Wolsey is, frankly, disgruntled. "She's not 'smart' enough?" - Wolsey, disgusted. "It fits something I've been thinking about" - Damascus "Not what I meant - and not what she meant, either. She just can't imagine that an Untouchable did this by herself. And did you see the look on her face when she figured out who Kali is? We're going to have a problem with her." - Wolsey "Banneker will keep her off our backs... But what I was saying... You know? I don't think she actually *did* kill the Indian Cabal" - Damascus He lays out his troublesome theory - Anurati is *immediate* in her actions, and as Mycroft said *efficient*. She's stayed hidden by a combination of patience and economical use of power, carefully covering traces of herself. When someone gets too close, she wipes their memories - and she has only resorted to more direct confrontations, up to and including the Hunger Spirit and possessing Monica, after that stopped working. "Everything we know about her says she didn't do it. Murder like that, arson of their Sanctum? It just doesn't fit - she'd have wiped their memories and walked away with them none the wiser. Quicker. Cleaner. Easier" - Damascus

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"So who DID kill them?" - Wolsey "...I think Malakaii" - Damascus, coming to a conclusion They will probably never know. Wolsey is prepared to accept the theory that Malakaii was involved at least some of the way, but gets the feeling that if she is a tool, Anurati is a tool that has gone rogue. After all, Malakaii was surprised to see her when he was dying... Which raises further disturbing questions - why hasn't Anurati ever done anything to Mara? Or has she? Did she have a hand in Mara's demon escaping? Anyways. They take their leave of one another to tackle their respective Consilium officials. Damascus watches Wolsey drive off, then phones Nimrod. He tells the Shadowman the location Beckett took him and Amanda to out in Chesapeake Bay, and asks Nimrod to recover the body there. "I recovered fingerprints, when I broke the Corpse Mask. If you can pick them up at some point I'd appreciate it. I'd like to see her returned to her family, whoever they are. Bury her under her own name." - Damascus Nimrod agrees to see to it, and Damascus rings off.
Rafe: The final respect you can offer to the dead.

... Wolsey is calling around Heralds trying to organise them to meet up. He's managed (by means of shenanigans) to get a table at a rather exclusive eatery, and is inviting his fellow Heralds out to dinner tonight. ... Kali and Mycroft are trying again - Kali can now read the text, but it doesn't really seem to be helping. What IS helping, though, is that she's now able to concentrate on what her mother meant when writing it - as a collection of squiggles it means nothing to Kali, but as a hand-written text (even one intended as a lure to Melchior) it has enough of Anurati's passion and *faith* in it to be reflective of her personality... Her personality and... Kali and Mycroft both simultaneously succeed in perceiving the very deepest layer of the writing's resonance. Inevitability. Helplessness in the face of Destiny, and utter unshakable faith that that destiny is what will happen. Anurati hasn't used Destroy the Threads on the text. It's still sympathetically connected to her. "Mycroft... We're going to need a map. And probably a globe" - Kali He fetches the required ingredients, and she takes one of the magic markers from the Cabal's whiteboard-fuelled brainstorm of the other day. Putting her hand on the text, she feels it's placing in time and space. Almost in a

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trance, she puts the tip of the marker to the globe over Washington DC. After a few minutes, it jumps, moving around the US... Europe... into Germany... then all the way back to DC again. Kali opens her eyes and looks at the line.
This spell, which I can't remember the name of, is in the Guardian of the Veil book. It basically uses Time and Space to trace the previous movements of a target. If you're casting it on a supernal item or a mage, you can also include prime so that the line is marked whenever the target cast a spell.

"It ends here. She wrote it in the city" - Kali Mycroft fetches the map of DC, and Kali repeats her spell, concentrating on the period before the text suddenly jumped to Germany (which would be when Anurati gave it to Melchior). When she comes to the end of the spell, the magic marker is pointed at an otherwise unremarkable area of the city, near the western "tip" of the Diamond. Mycroft carefully puts a pin in the map, and writes the address down. "Now we know" - Mycroft "Now we know" - Kali "...Do you want to wait for the others?" - Mycroft She shakes her head. "My car's outside" - Mycroft They leave.
At this point, I would like to point out something. We're on session five of this story for one reason and one reason only. The Sceptre works to cancel the effects of 'tainted' things. It doesn't just work on the things Anurati's done using the Crown - it works on all spells cast by all people sufficiently 'tainted', and it's criteria for 'sufficiently tainted' is slightly laxer than the Robe's (Anurati *can* see people wearing the Robe, for example, but the Sceptre works on her). The Cabal could have gotten a resonance signature for Anurati and used the spell Kali's powers to find her at any time, by using the Sceptre on any of the Graffiti. It would have removed Anurati's Destroy the Threads. Just, ya know, saying. It's not like I was patiently waiting for three sessions for one of them to think of it. And they never did.

...
And now, something that's been building since... well... last session, actually. It was not hinted at, because I wanted this to be a genuine nasty surprise...

Damascus has called Jude. He's called Proteus. He's just about to dig Link's number out, when his phone rings. The caller id says "Dad" Jerome Washington is a long-haul truck driver. A religious man, a quiet man. Growing up, Carl, Maree and Ricky were mostly raised by their mother - partly because their dad wasn't always there but mostly because even when he was he never seemed to really understand what to do with his three kids. Now that they're adults, they get on better - especially after Carl got out of prison. Jerome *thinks* about things, things he never says. Now that Carl's at College there's a certain

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amount of wistfulness, but Carl is certain of one thing. His dad's proud of him. Albeit unable to articulate it. He is also not prone to calling Carl. Ever. What contact they have is entirely initiated by Carl - Jerome figures that his son is a grown man and will be in touch when he wants to be. "Hi?" - Carl "Carl? Son... I don't know what to do..." - Jerome "Dad?" - Carl "It's your sister..." - Jerome ... Wolsey wonders what he's supposed to do next. ... Mycroft and Kali leave the Sanctum and climb into Mycroft's beaten-up car. "What are you going to do if we find her?" - Mycroft "I'll think of that when we get there" - Kali ... "I... I should phone your mother" - Jerome Carl nods dumbly, and his father leaves them alone. "Hi, Maree" - Carl Maree winces. Carl tries to ignore the beeping of hospital machines. "Did you get a look at them?" - Carl She shakes her head slightly. He exhales. "They gave me a message..." - Maree, painfully His face is grim "They said 'tell Wolsey he'll get his, too'" - Maree He twitches slightly. "Name mean anything?" - Maree Damascus - shocked into being Damascus - looks his little sister, who was jumped by a group of men and beaten with metal bars on her way to lunch that day, and decides to lie.

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"No" - Damascus She doesn't believe him. "Pretty stupid names you gangers give one another" - Maree "Maree..." - Damascus She closes her eyes. Carl - Carl again - stands up slowly and goes outside. His father catches him by the shoulder. "Carl... Tell me this had nothing to do with you" - Jerome "I don't know. I honestly don't. I haven't been... It's been *years*. Does anyone have a grudge against one of my old friends? I don't know. But I'll find out." - Carl "How much longer are we going to have your childhood hanging over us?" - Jerome; sadly, not accusationary "I wish I knew" - Carl
Harsh! Damascus' family assume that this is part of his gang past catching up with them, and that Maree has been targeted just to get at him. In fact, this is his magical present come to catch up with him, and Maree HAS been targeted just to get at him - the Seers of the Throne have finally, finally had enough of being baited by the Pentacle. Remember the CIA list? "Never harass the opposition".

... Wolsey's cell phone rings. "Damascus. I've got a dinner set up with the Heralds. How are you coming with the Sentinels?" - Wolsey He listens, silently. Puts the cell down and starts driving toward the hospital. ... Kali turned her cell off. Mycroft didn't though, and it starts ringing. Kali shrinks into her duck-tape-repaired seat as Mycroft takes both hands off the wheel to try to fish it out, and throws it to her. "Yeah?" - Kali Mycroft glances over at her. "I... No. We're not at the Sanctum. We're on the road." - Kali Damascus says something. "We.. uh... We found her." - Kali Damascus says something else

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"Yeah. You too" - Kali She closes the phone. "Damascus' sister's been attacked. He's at the hospital. Wanted to make sure we were on our guard." - Kali They contemplate that while they idle in traffic. "Kali" - Mycroft She looks at him "Am I going right or straight ahead at this intersection?" - Mycroft Kali looks between the two roads. Family or Friends. "... Go right" - Kali He turns. "Cabal before everything, yeah?" - Kali ... Wolsey, Mycroft and Kali troop into the waiting area of St Jude's. Damascus looks up, and sees them. He is confused, but pleased, to see Kali and Mycroft. "You came" - Damascus "Schyeah" - Kali, rolling her eyes "But.." - Damascus "She can wait" - Kali Finding a quiet corner, they sup vending-machine coffee and get up to speed on one another's progress. Wolsey tells of how Mara has figured out that Kali is Anurati's daughter, and that he fears she may be about to do something stupid. Kali and Mycroft, though, have now figured out where Anurati is - or at least, where she wrote the scroll, which gives them a major lead. Maree, according to the cop that is taking her statement upstairs, was attacked in broad daylight by a group of men that jumped out of a van. Wolsey glumly says that they were probably being piloted by Seers. "Seraph said he was the only thing keeping the Seers off us" - Damascus Wolsey shakes his head "'Seer War'? No - too neat. Too pat. I don't think this has anything to do with Seraph. I reckon he's on the verge of being an outcast in the Seers as it is - I don't think they'd attack over him. I think it's about the *other* guy" - Wolsey "The Ministry of Mammon guy?" - Damascus

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Wolsey nods Damascus gives him the Seer's message. Wolsey frowns. "Why me and you?" - Wolsey Because Damascus was on the jump-squad that captured Tycho, and then Wolsey gave the "thus to evildoers" speech. Kali was invisible in the Robe and Mycroft was in the back room the entire time. Wolsey starts to complain that there weren't any more Seers *there*, until Mycroft gently points out that there were an awful lot of Sleepers. Who could be *asked* what Damascus looked like. "They'll go after our families and loved ones" - Wolsey Kali worries about her dad. She gets up to call him. "I.. I need to call my daughter and ex. It's my turn to have her for thanksgiving" Mycroft, ruefully "She was coming *here*?" - Wolsey "Not any more." - Mycroft, standing. Kali's dad is fine. As she comes back, Kali says that it's probably okay, anyway. Mr Simone is an ex-army man. He still has his weapon. And if they go after him with magic... "...Well, it'd be one way to find Mom" - Kali
Which was actually my backup-backup plan, if scrutinising the scroll failed to get them on the trail. The seers would have attacked Kali's dad, and Anurati would have appeared to nerf them.

Mycroft is having a quiet argument with his daughter. He comes back. "Teenagers. She hates me - a bit more than usual" - Mycroft "You could always meet her halfway somewhere" - Kali, hopefully Mycroft gives a rumpled shrug. "Call Amanda home" - Wolsey "You might be right" - Mycroft, phoning the Fifth Cabal member While Mycroft tells Amanda that something important - very important - has come up, and that she needs to come back to the city ASAP, Wolsey tries to think of how the Seers are going to attack him. He doesn't HAVE any loved ones. "They could always blow up your apartment with you in it" - Damascus He hadn't thought of that. Plans of action, then. All Cabal loyalties aside, if Kali is to meet Anurati before the Consilium start all hunting for her, she has to do so before an outraged Mara

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persuades Banneker to let her off the leash. Wolsey wants to ensure that his home and the Sanctum - are safe and explosive-free, for which he'll need a Moros. Damascus notes that he's partially resistant to Anurati's mind-bending, and volunteers to be Kali's backup. Kali and Mycroft look at one another. "Okay" - Kali Mycroft, then, will go with Wolsey. Damascus carefully parks his car in the afternoon sunshine, right in the middle of a nondescript part of town. Cheap apartment blocks, four stories high and accessed from outside walkways and stairwells, are arranged around scrubby patches of chemically-neutered grass. Faded clothes flap on lines. Everyone - from the old man crossing the street to the small children on the grass - is staring at them. Damascus looks up at the walkways, and sees at least a dozen faces all pointed in his direction. He shivers. "Welcoming" - Damascus They get out of the pickup truck, and Kali looks around. "She was over that way" - Kali, waving a hand. "Hey- KID!" - Damascus, calling The child wanders over "You ever seen an Indian lady around here?" - Damascus The child stares at him. "Come on, kid." - Damascus, smiling. Damascus hands the kid a twenty. The child points - up - and then runs away. Feeling everyone's eyes on them, Kali and Damascus climb the stairs.
Anurati has conditioned the local people over the years to be suspicious of outsiders - and to be her puppets when she needs them. It's creepy, which is why I like it.

They stand on the highest walkway, looking at the plain door to apartment 206. Damascus casts various protective spells upon himself, getting ready for anything. The door - unlocked - swings open at Kali's push. Inside, it's dark and smells of odd, foreign food. Kali half-closes her eyes, sense memory triggering.
Mmm. Curry.

She slowly walks into the first room of the tiny, three-room apartment - there's a small bed, a crushed and sagged sofa that looks like it was bought from a yard sale and -

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on a table - a stone object that looks sort of like a cross between a lamp, a water fountain and a crucible.
The object is a Linga, an element of Shiva worship.

Damascus tries to follow her... ...And bounces off the doorframe. The apartment is warded and Banned against something that he qualifies as. "Kali!" - Damascus The door slams shut in his face - all by itself. "KALI!" - Damascus Inside, Kali has spun around at the door slamming. She can hear Damascus shouting from outside. She takes a step backward, towards the bead curtain separating the room from the even tinier kitchen. Something brushes her hand. She turns again, and comes face-to-veil with Anurati. Anurati's eyes stare at Kali from a tiny gap in what looks like silken cloth wrapped around and around Anurati's head. Kali's eyes droop, and Anurati cocks her head. Kali shuffles back and sits on the sofa, mouth slightly open as though trying to remember something important.
Gotcha! The protective Ban is against active spells on the pattern of the entrant, as is intended for just the purpose it served no-one with mage armour can get in. Anurati used the Crown (that's what the veil-thing is) on Kali.

Outside, Damascus has to think quickly. thumping the door, he looks around to see everyone watching him. Carefully, so it's blocked from them by his body, he casts Steel Windows on a letterbox-sized piece of door, making himself a viewing hole. Inside the dingy apartment, Kali is sat submissive and apparently unaware of her surroundings. The second figure appears to be beginning some kind of extended spell. A plan is needed. Cancelling the Steel Windows, and looking around, he suddenly has an idea. Climbing on the walkway wall and then jumping up, he manages to grab hold of the edge of the flat roof and haul himself up. Damascus' thoughts: Is Ban a wall or a Sphere? Determined now, feeling the spell building downstairs, he casts Steel Windows on what to him is the floor, seeing Anurati in the living room casting something while Kali sits, puppet-like. He counterspells whatever she's doing, and feels the energy dissipate. Anurati turns her head and looks right at him. Damascus feels something being cast and desperately counters. Between his own magic, his innate mental shield AND his

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Prime-based Mage Armour, he manages to dampen down whatever mental assault she tried. Eventually, Anurati breaks eye contact and gestures to Kali, who stands up, weak-kneed, and follows Anurati through to the kitchen, out of sight. Damascus shakily gets a hold of himself and cancels the Steel Windows again, then runs along the roof and recasts it.
Anurati is attempting to build a Portal so that she can escape and take Kali with her - she only has Space 4, so she can't teleport Kali away as well as herself, but she can cast Portal and then Portal Key as a pair of conjoined spells. But not with Damascus distracting her. Their brief mental standoff was an outright attack - she used Mind 5 to inflict aggravated damage. Add "Damascus' High Resolve" to the list of things that just *barely* cancelled out all of her successes. But - didn't it take several combat rounds for him to climb up? Yes it did. Anurati cast space-based Mage Armour on Kali and then herself in the intervening time.

Anurati has just finishing re-applying her mental hold over Kali and is knelt next to her daughter, examining her as though searching for something. The ceiling slowly turns transparent, the effect spreading from where Damascus hit the roof with his hammer. Anurati and Damascus face off against one another. She goes for the mental attack again, gesturing as she does so. Damascus, realising that they can keep doing this all day until he runs out of Mana for defending himself, makes a desperate ploy and takes the attack. He suddenly has a blinding headache, the worst migraine he's ever had. He forces himself to stay calm - ever since they figured out she was a Mind Master he's been expecting something like this, and ignores his screaming frontal lobes.
He threw his initiative - waiting for her to go first. Which means she can't counter...

Wiping his nosebleed, Damascus points at the floor/ceiling above Anurati, and casts Destroy Object. Anurati's eyes widen as cracks spread like a spider's web in the (transparent) ceiling. Which begins to collapse under it's own weight. Onto her. There's a blur as Anurati's Mage Armour kicks in, directing her away from the worst of the damage, but she falls, pinned by a particularly large chunk. Damascus is stood now on empty air - Anurati's Ban is keeping him up, but Mana is crackling at his feet as gravity fights to pull him down into the room. Anurati narrows her eyes at him, looks him in the eye... ...And teleports. The Ban vanishes, and Damascus plummets into the room, his own Mage Armour taking the force of the fall. "Kali!" - Damascus, snapping his fingers. She comes around, blinking and apparently confused as to why she's covered in dust. Damascus looks around. "...Disciple 1, Master Nil!" - Damascus
The victory does not go to the strong. It goes to the clever. Damascus has always been good at this sort of thing - he takes note of his surroundings and uses magic tactically. Anurati can't attack his mind, which is the thing she relies on - she was capable of getting away at any time (as evidenced) and was never in any real danger from him, but he made it impossible for

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her to take Kali with her.

... Wolsey and Mycroft have finished searching Wolsey's apartment for any nasty surprises when Damascus calls them to attend to the scene. There's been a fight, and Anurati has escaped. When they get there, Damascus and Kali have emerged from the wreckage of the apartment after a fruitless search for anything. Kali seems extremely preoccupied.
She's wondering what would have happened if Damascus hadn't been there - or if Anurati hadn't used the Crown on her.

"Apartment's clean.. Are you all right?" - Mycroft "No" - Kali Damascus is jubilant about his victory, claiming that although Anurati did get away he considers himself to have won on points. "Now can we go public?" - Wolsey Kali moves as if stung "She attacked you" - Wolsey "She attacked Damascus" - Kali "After she mind controlled you" - Damascus Kali casts something she's been thinking about for a while now - a Divination combined with a Conjoined Postcognition.
This spell - which is Time 4 due to welding two other spells (one of which is Time 3) together, is a basic "what-if machine". It casts Kali's mind back and takes the Divination from there rather than the present, allowing you to pose hypotheticals. Unless you're an Archmage, of course, it's nigh-on impossible to then do anything *about* the other paths you learn about, so it's a good way to make yourself very depressed.

What would have happened if she'd been alone? Anurati would have opened a portal, and they would have both gone through it. What would have happened if Anurati hadn't mind controlled her? The same, after some conversation. "I would have gone. I would have gone anyway..." - Kali "...We have a dinner appointment. And... We... " (looks around) "We shouldn't stay here much longer" - Wolsey They drive back to the Sanctum. ... Kali sits, brooding. "You coming to this?" - Wolsey

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She shakes her head. "Okay. Listen - this is overtaking us, if it hasn't already. Sooner or later, she's going to be caught. The Consilium is starting to get involved..." - Wolsey He talks calmly and patiently. He's very deliberately NOT trying to tell her to give up and have the Consilium handle it. He's just telling her the facts, and what she does then is up to her. He and Damascus leave her to mull over it as they get changed and leave for their engagement. Mycroft smiles reassuringly at Kali, and settles down with a book. ... The Herald's dinner is not what Wolsey and Damascus are expecting. Hoban, Francine and Trace (for old times' sake, although she's not a Herald any more) hear their warnings about the Spider and promise to keep their eyes out, but the everreliable Herald-Gossip-Ring is more concerned with the upcoming Caucus, which Banneker has called in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation. "It's gonna be a bloodbath" - Hoban Melchior has announced that he will be demanding his scroll back (which will be hard, as Banneker gave it back already) and that the Consilium turn Caspar over to him. Suleiman will demand that Melchior face justice for agitating Cerberus into trying to kill the characters. Beckett has now finally heard what Balthazar and Melchior have been saying about him, and is out for blood. Yeah, about that... "I'm not planning on helping Beckett summon an Abyssal creature, you know" Damascus, smiling Dead silence. "What?" - Damascus Francine carefully says that, um, actually, he IS. At least according to Dantor. Beckett needs to make the Intruder he brought over from Baltimore drop it's defences so he can banish it back to the Abyss. He needs one Mage of each Path for the ritual, and someone to act as bait. The Intruder is in the form of a book which takes over the reader, right? Damascus, with a terrible sinking feeling, realises what the unspecified "thing he could help with" he agreed to do for Dantor was. "She's sold my Soul to the Abyss?" - Damascus, being very very calm Francine nods. "If it helps, I'm the Acanthus in the ritual. And Beckett is certain he can get rid of it." Trace

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It doesn't help. Still, on the plus side, it looks like in all the duelling that's going on no-one's remembered to duel *them*.
Admittedly, the irony is that D's an Ad. Arrow and fairly dutiful. He probably would done it if they'd just asked.

... Kali gets up. "I'm just..." - Kali Mycroft shuts his eyes and puts his fingers in his ears "..." - Kali She nods, understanding, and leaves. Outside, she assesses the problem. Anurati clearly has a bolt-hole - there were no photographs in the apartment, so it's not where she does her scrying from. And now Kali has a sympathetic connection to the Crown - which (she checks) Anurati hasn't cast Destroy the Threads on. Kali scries for the location of the Crown, and gets her answer. Following her Finder sense, she climbs onto her motorbike and starts driving.
Normally, Anurati's Occultation would protect her anyway, but her Destiny has the Bane condition of "The Crown", so looking for it picks her out.

... Wolsey and Damascus get home, Wolsey disgusted with the thought of the duelling. He hates the Dual Arcane - always has. It's not a true means of settling differences, he gripes, more wand-waving and comparing size of stick. "What a Civilised bunch we are, ready to blast one another like gunslingers while the Seers are attacking" - Wolsey "You know what they say about an armed society..." - Damascus
Story Ten, incidentally, is called "A Polite Society"

He looks at Mycroft as they enter the Sanctum "She went out. I very deliberately didn't ask where" - Mycroft "Good. I was hoping for that" - Wolsey ... Kali, wielding the Sceptre and wearing the Robe, walks into the lobby of a motel. "Hello?" - Kali

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The desk clerk can't see her. She looks over the rack of room keys, searching for the missing key that is significant. When she has her answer, she leans over the desk. Room 5 is booked out to "John Smith". And has been for twenty years. ... She knocks on the door of room 5 and waits, having taken the Robe off. The door unlocks, and opens. Anurati - not wearing the Crown now, and giving Kali her first look at her mother's face with adult eyes - peers suspiciously out at her. "Hi Mom. I came alone." Kali "I knew you would" - Anurati, croaking. It doesn't sound like she speaks a whole lot. She limps (her leg was hurt when Damascus fought her) into the room. Kali follows her in, and carefully closes the door. The walls - and parts of the ceiling - are completely covered in Polaroid photographs of glyphs, people, places. Kali only recognises some of them. Anurati goes to the stove - a quarter of a century old, as this room hasn't been updated since she first moved in - and starts making tea. Kali sits down and waits. Anurati glances back at her. "I know why you're here. It has all been explained to me." - Anurati "I'm sorry about before" - Kali "You should not be with that one" - Anurati "Because I'm meant for someone else?" - Kali Anurati grunts and nods, sitting down. "You know that's not going to happen, right? He can go fuck himself" - Kali
They are speaking of Shiva.

Anurati looks sullen. "Disobedience" - Anurati "Damn right" - Kali "I was given an object lesson in disobedience." (looks up) "I dreamed and it left me thinking that I was sparing you from your fate but I mistook the servant for the master. I hadnt realised who you were but you are. - Anurati She's lost Kali there.

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"Great Mother, have pity on me" - Anurati And Kali realises just how mad her mother is. "...Who do you think I am?" - Kali "You named yourself. You thought you chose it at random, but you *named* yourself. The Black Goddess of Time" - Anurati "I'm not.. It's just a NAME, mother" - Kali
What was it Samuel said - you can't call yourself 'Kali' and not expect anything to happen because of it?

"You went to Heaven I knew you were coming. - Anurati, rambling to herself rather than answer "I went to..? Mother, I went to *Arcadia*" - Kali Anurati nods fiercely. "Exactly. You went to Heaven and it opened your eyes to your lost throne. You will return there with your husband at the turn of the age" - Anurati "What I don't want to?" - Kali You dont have a choice. It makes you better, to believe in Fate. We are all destined to live our lives. My part was to bring you into being I thought I was rebelling, but I was merely playing my part. - Anurati, with great conviction "That's..." - Kali The end is nigh. The Lord will descend from the Throne of Iron and sweep away the world. There are those chosen by God to have a part in the work, and I used them in the work. Like you. She said you would come I wrote it for the little men, in their book. - Anurati "The book I understand... The 'work'..?" - Kali My work is here preparing you. You cannot have these people. Leave the boy, daughter. The Lady will come for you. You will come to the end but they will not be able to go with you. It will be easier to leave them now they may try to interfere. They will not succeed, but if they try to interfere they will suffer. - Anurati
Anurati is trying to tell her why she left her Father and her - Anurati was trying to spare them, and keep them out of whatever it is she's doing, but in doing so she caused Kali to Awaken, which has only reinforced Anurati's belief about destiny.

"The Lady will come for me, will she? Well, I'll tell her the same thing. I sit on a Tiger rug for no-one." - Kali Anurati twitches, stands up and holds out her hand as though demanding something. Eventually, Kali realises she wants the empty tea mug, and hands it over. Anurati goes back to the stove. "When she comes, tell the Lady that she is your servant, as are we all. She has been waiting for you since the first time you were here. - Anurati

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Kali is floundering. "The first time?" - Kali The Goddess came down from Heaven and burned herself on the pyre into diverse parts; her parts were spread across the world. Shivas wrath was terrible, and he caused the earth to rise up and the world to tremble. Then she returned, born out of the world but the same goddess. - Anurati Kali mouths silently, trying to make sense of that one. "Here is one of her parts" - Anurati, pointing to the Sceptre. Kali understands. Maybe.
Anurati interprets the story of Dakshayani as being the Dethroned Queen - and Shiva's wrath as being the fall of 'Atlantis' (which in her worldview is one of the cataclysms of mythic India), which Anurati interprets as meaning "as a mortal". And as all goddesses are technically aspects of the same goddess... Long story short: Anurati thinks that Kali is the Dethroned Queen, reborn and on her way back to the Supernal Realms. Shiva would be another Exarch, waiting to guide her back. Except that Anurati literally believes that the Exarchs are her Gods - and that Kali is one too. Now. Who's 'the lady'?

"If I'm a Goddess, why can't I choose to do as I please?" - Kali Fair question. Anurati seems to think so too. "Because you are not her yet. We beings of mortal flesh are the puppets of creation. You will be free when you regain your Throne" - Anurati, reassuring "What about you?" - Kali "I will never be free. Neither will your friends, or that boy. Only you are destined to escape destiny." - Anurati
It's quite a compelling argument, if you ignore the gonzo crazy of it. If the Exarchs and oracles control the Fallen World, and Mages are part of the Fallen World, then they control the Mages too - and in fact the only way to escape their ties is to become one of them yourself, and ascend to the Supernal. At which point you become a puppeteer instead of a puppet. And there is absolutely no way to prove Anurati wrong on this one. By all the laws of logic and what the Awakened know about the universe, she's *right*. It's just that no one really wants to think it through to that conclusion. Anurati doesn't want her daughter to Ascend for the kudos, or for religious belief (which is a part of it), she knows Kali wants to be free and thinks that the only way for her to be is to become an Exarch. And yes, this IS what the Seers believe. The only difference between Anurati and a Seer is that a Seer thinks that anyone can Ascend and become an Exarch with enough servitude. Anurati believes that except for a tiny minority of a tiny minority of Mages destined for it, Humanity is fucked, and no amount of worship will change her from being a slave.

"They're going to come for you" - Kali Anurati shrugs "I want you to leave." - Kali She waits for Anurati to come back and sit down again. "Leave. Get out of the city. You wanted to prepare me? I'm prepared. It's not worth your life. you ARE free." - Kali

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Anurati shakes her head, sadly You, mother, will be free. I will leave, if you will continue. Someone has to do Gods work. - Anurati Kali sits very still for a long while, and then nods. Anurati stands up. Kali does too. Anurati reaches out and touches her face. Kemi. I always - Anurati She teleports away. Kali calmly sits back down and finishes her drink, then takes the mugs back to the sink. ... One by one, Kali removes the photographs from the walls of the motel room, stacking them neatly on the table. ... The motel room is clean, wiped of all traces of Anurati's presence. Kali has a stack of Polaroids to take away, as well as a few of her mother's clothes. Anurati lived very simply, and Kali has checked and doubled checked for any sympathetic connections that the Consilium might use. There are none. There is, however, the crown. Folded neatly in a drawer. Picking it up and running it through her fingers, Kali realises that it's only black on one side - the other is heavily decorated with symbols and pictographs, depicting the Dethroned (actually Throned in this case) Queen with two figures (a male and a female) either side and three male figures (two white, one black) below. She carefully folds it up and folds the Robe around it, figuring it will hide it. Then she leaves. On her way out, she starts shaking. She digs her cell phone out and tries to phone her father - but there's no answer. She starts back towards the Sanctum. ... Wolsey, Damascus and Mycroft look up as Kali comes in. Wolsey has been studying National Geographic for some reason. "It's done?" - Wolsey Kali tries to remain calm. "She's gone. I told her to leave town, and she did." - Kali

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She slumps on a chair and tells them the story. "And she gave me this. Left it for me" - Kali She shows them the Crown. Wolsey sits back, watching her. "I want to get off the train, now" - Kali He nods. "We don't have to make it easy for them. Whoever they are. All five of these things are needed, right? So we get rid of one of them. Put it somewhere no one will find it." - Wolsey "We don't really use the Ring much any more" - Damascus Kali shakes her head, and presses the Crown into Wolsey's hands. "I don't want this" - Kali He nods. "Where will you take it?" - Mycroft He hands his National Geographic over. Mycroft looks up at him. "I'll need a shovel" - Wolsey ... Kali, exhausted, goes to bed. ... Wolsey, carrying the Crown wrapped up in cloth and locked in a box, teleports to Washington State. Under cover of darkness, on the slopes of Mount St Helens, he buries the Crown. ...
Last scene, now

The next day, the Cabal are waiting in the arrivals hall of Dulles International Airport, out to the West of the City. "We should have a sign" - Kali "Yeah, that'll go down well" - Damascus Wheeling her suitcase behind her, Amanda comes through the gate. Her hair has been de-spiked, and she's dyed it all one colour for a change.

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There are greetings. "So... Did I miss much?" - Amanda Fin.

And that concludes Story Nine, and Reign of the Exarchs IV along with it. Remaining loose ends - what to do about the Ascendants, for example, will be picked up next time. I have the duelling stats for all the major players, and I'm not afraid to use them and lose them.

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Chapter 10: "A Polite Society"

Session 10.1
My many apologies for the delay. I suck. And after a five-session story that counts as our longest, we now have a one-session story that's our shortest. Well, joint with "Five Things" at any rate. I think a line has been crossed with the end of Nothing To Say: the chronicle *feels* different, either because the ratio of my plot to the book's plot is suddenly inverted, or because we'd reached such a climax that this time feels like either an epilogue or a prologue. One of the two, at any rate - I get definite 'season opener' vibes from this one. So as you read this, consider it as five hours of me setting my chess pieces up exactly as needed for the coming four or five stories. The majority of the session takes place in one evening - an emergency caucus of the Consilium, in which the many questions of what to do with the fallout of the Reign of the Exarchs plots are considered. The *precise* order of things in the caucus is a bit fuzzy, as scenes of a certain length tend to be in my recaps - I'm normally quite good at noting which order scenes come in, but when a scene took three hours to play and contains many branching and looping conversations, it can be a little difficult. In any case, I'm pretty sure I have all the important points here - certainly, all of the emotional marks that the gang have hit are present and correct. These, too, are of a positioning quality: Wolsey and Amanda completing their ongoing break-up, Kali getting ready to take over the House of Ariadne post-Samuel, Damascus planning his encounter with the Abyss. On with the show!

Anyways. Barely days later - it may even be the very next day after Amanda returned from wherever she was - and the Cabal are getting ready for the Caucus that Banneker has called in the name of "reconciliation". The Crucible have still not received any formal challenges of the Duel Arcane, so it's possible that they'll escape, but when Wolsey and Damascus think soberly about just what they're going to probably be called upon to reveal to the massed throng, *someone* will want to have a pop at them. The Caucus is to be held in the Masonic Hall, the grandest of the Consilium's Sancta, and - everyone is informed - will be held in full regalia. Wands and Robes and all. Each and every Mage will be expected to wear their accomplishments, affiliations, legacies and so forth literally on their sleeve according to an obscure "style guide" invented by a half-mad-from-deliberate-mercury-ingestion Mystagogue in the late 18th century and adapted over the years as new Legacies joined the City. Wolsey is particularly displeased with his hat. And don't get him started on the high, curved collar denoting his Order and his position in it. His robes, being black, aren't especially comfortable, and he doesn't much like the Iron wand. And the sash of Herald-dom is heavy.
Black and Iron are Mastigos correspondences. The Silver Ladder ornamental collars make them look like Time Lords .

"I think I can pull this off" - Damascus Damascus, by contrast, has Grey robes cut for running and is toting a "purely symbolic" warhammer and a long stick made of lead. The Uncrowned Kings are denoted by not wearing hats, unlike most of the male Mages. Damascus counts this as a bonus. Amanda (Black dress that she manages to make look much better than Wolsey's robe, blindfold covered in dark red runes) and Mycroft (Grey robe, blank metal mask) finish dressing and settle down to wait.

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"So.. where IS Kali?" - Wolsey

Grey is the colour of Moroii, and Guardians go masked.

--Kali takes table 14 their order.

Remember Kali's job? I finally did!

--"Okay. We can't wait for her any longer or *we'll* be late" - Wolsey "To the campaign car!" - Amanda He ignores her, and they pile into his SUV.
Amanda is pretty mean to Wolsey throughout this story, building up to the ending... Er.. There aren't any remaining Thomas-Amanda shippers out there are there? They may be about to have a rough recap.

--The Caucus hall has been set up with two ranks facing one another across a cleared space (big enough to perform the Duel Arcane in), with a third rank and the Official's seats taking up the third and fourth sides. It's deliberately polarising, the idea being that people can look people they're accusing in the eye, with the added attraction of trying to get your opponents to sit on the left-hand side.
The gang were last in here when Malakaii tried to charge Kali with endangering the Veil, which was foiled by Fisher King filibustering. Which explains Wolsey's next line...

The only official here is Fisher King, apparently asleep on his chair. "Bet he's been here since *last* time" - Wolsey The Utopians and the City Souls are here already, though Banneker and Suleiman are absent. The members of Banneker's Legacy are dressed in Egyptian-themed outfits. Promethea, wearing what was probably originally a wedding dress before it was torn and stained with various fluids, appears to be the most senior Magus here. It's all in the symbology, you see - the Sons of Imhotep may be have been formally created in the Parisian Reconstruction, but they're descended from Egyptian Architect-Magi. The House of Ariadne are originally Ancient Greek. Banneker, in demanding on full pomp and circumstance, is denying Melchior the ability to play the 'ancient and established hermetic order' card AND drawing everyone's attention painfully to the ancient heritage of Atlantis of which they are all heirs. Or something. The Cabal sit on the left-hand side of the hall. They'll get the darker mages, the rebels and the outcastes, sitting around them, but that's no bad thing in these circumstances. Next to enter are the Children of the Book, the rarely-seen Cabal from College Park. Marathon and his team go to the left-centre edge. Then it's the Wardens. Mara is dressed as an Indian Goddess, body-paint and all. 553

Wolsey makes a growling noise. "Problem?" - Damascus "Look at her. Making a *statement*." - Wolsey Suleiman arrives with Samuel's Cabal, talking to Mary. They linger near the front as the Recorders go to sit, ranked out in front of the Crucible on the left. Francine gives them a wave one-handed, holding her Book of Names. Over at the front, though, Suleiman (dressed in full finery, including Turban - all of the Claviclarius are Crowned in some way and bear keys) has sat down next to Fisher. And Mary, propping her Book of Names on her knee, has sat down next to him in Samuel's seat. A ripple of murmurs goes around the hall. "I guess that's it, then, for that. A declaration - Samuel must have left..." - Wolsey Samuel comes in, nods at Mary, and goes to sit down with the rest of his Cabal in the ordinary seats. "...Or abdicated." - Wolsey The Gatekeepers are next, marching in to sit at the front row of the Right. Mr Thursday is in full ritual Bokor garb, complete with ashen skull-face. The human skull on his belt has lead coins riveted into the eye sockets. Damascus mutters something about being glad he went for the Matter associations. Trace - blue Grecian dress with spiderwebs and a small mask that doesn't conceal her identity thanks to her blonde curls - crosses the floor to come speak to the Crucible. "Hi guys. Is Kali here?" - Trace "She's running late" - Damascus, charitably. "Well.. I need to see her" - Trace, glancing down at the back of Samuel's head "He's abdicated?" - Wolsey "He's stood down as Councillor in favour of Mary: He's leaving. Very soon, now. The House need to decide some things." - Trace As she goes back, the Ascendants arrive at the same time as Dantor, Ulysses, Beckett and Shore. The two Cabals - emerging from separate doors - have a brief face-off before Ulysses and Dantor go to their seats at the front, the Ascendants camp themselves firmly in the middle of the Right - exactly opposite the Crucible Shore and Link go sit next to Mara's gang and Beckett strolls up the steps - never taking his eyes off Balthazar - and sits next to Wolsey. "Good evening, everyone" - Beckett "Evening, Beckett" - Damascus

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Beckett and Balthazar stare at one another. "Excuse the imposition. I thought we should just give the Hermetics the one place to look" - Beckett As they're talking, the last few stragglers come in. Anyone's hopes of Kali maybe making it there by herself are dashed as Banneker arrives, dressed in something resembling a king of Egypt complete with double crown representing the two cities. The Hierarch carries a great golden key and a diamond plumbing weight. Banneker sits, and the Caucus starts. ... Kali finishes her shift and goes to her locker, retrieving a backpack and her bike helmet. She checks a scribbled note of the Caucus' address. The Hierarch's opening speech is short and blunt, befitting the sudden calling of the Caucus. Since last time, the Consilium has seen a few victories - the capture of the two Seers Seraph and Tycho for one - but also (and Banneker here looks grim) matters that give him cause for concern. There are two trials to be held. Cerberus and Caspar are sat, on their own and even spaced apart from each other, right in the middle of the floor, where everyone can see them. Kicking everything off with a relatively easy one: Cerberus. The Thyrsus admits everything - though Banneker has to firmly tell Melchior to sit down and shut up a few times while Cerberus admits that it was all Melchior's idea. He is guilty by admission of breaching the Veil, and of attempting to kill Consilium members in good standing. His motive, though, looks rather shaky, and Banneker announces a brief recess while the Council consult in the back room regarding the outcome. While everyone's chattering, Wolsey heads to the Council. "Tom" - Banneker "How does it look?" - Wolsey "Not good for Cerberus. His motive is shoddy, even if we can get Melchior to admit it. the problem is that isn't a shred of proof. He can accuse Melchior of inciting him, Melchior will deny it and we'll be nowhere." - Banneker The next case, though, is Caspar - and Balthazar and Beckett look like they're ready to kick off already. If they can get Melchior and Balthazar's accusation of Abyssal magic against the crucible aired in court, then it will likely turn into one of the things any duel will have to settle. The outcome of *that* will be legally binding, which will give the council grounds for some leniency - though not much - against Cerberus. "Defer, then. And Tom... is it true? About Kemi?" - Banneker
Which, I think, is the first time Banneker has called her by her real name. That being an ongoing thing with Banneker, the use of Naming as a means of exerting his control and influence over his people.

"...It is" - Wolsey

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"And the outcome?" - Banneker "Anurati's gone. Left town for good." - Wolsey "Kali will have to account for her actions. In court. She understands that?" Banneker, shifting back to Shadow Names now his point has been made. Wolsey doesn't answer. "Is she even here?" - Banneker "Not yet" - Wolsey "Alright. Go. And hope she turns up." - Banneker "..There is one other thing. I'd like to request a sabbatical, from being a Herald. I need time to... focus." - Wolsey Banneker nods in false understanding "I understand. I do. The pressures of office and the need to do your own work..." Banneker "Not so much that. More the need to *find* my own work" - Wolsey "Well... It'll be waiting for you when you want it." - Banneker ... "We find Cerberus guilty, as by his own word. Sentence will be deferred, for other matters we will hear of tonight have bearing on his crime" - Banneker Murmurs go around the Consilium "But we will get to that. Next case. The application for the right of Nemesis called by Melchior against Caspar..." - Banneker ... Kali arrives and passes the "bouncers" (actually two of Dantor's gang members). Hearing the voices from the Consilium hall, she ducks into the bathroom to get changed. ... Melchior, meanwhile, has accused Caspar of stealing Cabal property and betraying his oaths. Caspar has counter-accused Melchior of acting against the Consilium and the Ascendants agreement with the WDC Mages. He further accuses Melchior of being the agent of some hidden power, which Melchior laughs off. Banneker raises his Key-sceptre for silence, and says that the matter he spoke of in regard to Cerberus may have some bearing here, and that it will be taken into account.

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Caspar tells everyone what Melchior said about Wolsey, Damascus and Beckett. Melchior says that Balthazar's prophecies have never failed before, and turns to the Acanthus for support. Balthazar stands up and shouts that he stands by it - those three are agents of dark powers. "And you, sir, are a puppet." - Beckett, also jumping to his feet. Beckett spits that he *is* intending to summon an Abyssal entity. At the Council's request, in order to banish it. Playing to the crowd, he intimates that Balthazar mustn't have got the memo. Not being a full member of the Consilium and all, Ulysses, Dantor and Beckett didn't think they needed to clear everything with him. Ulysses confirms it, but Balthazar is not for turning. "I stand by my word - this man is a poison. He will turn against you" - Balthazar Balthazar and Beckett stare at one another. There's a hush as the critical moment is reached. "Duello" - Beckett, coldly. Balthazar nods. Everyone starts talking, as they both sit down. "Well. I get to kill at least one Ascendant today" - Beckett, mildly.
"Overconfidence is your weakness"

"This matter will be deferred until the outcome of the duel. Do you both have seconds?" - Banneker. Melchior and Shore raise their hands. "Then spend any recesses agreeing terms. This will be settled *tonight* or the Duel is forfeited. Do I make myself clear?" - Banneker Both men nod. "All right..." - Banneker The door opens, and more people come into the hall. Banneker frowns at the interruption (and the lateness), but then sees who it is and his expression changes to one of curiosity. Nimrod, plus a man and two women that must be his fellow Shadowmen, has arrived. The leader of the group is a suited woman with thin lips and an unhealthy pallor - her features the same sort of not-quite-right that marks Nimrod. "Director Pool. Welcome" - Banneker Pool looks around with heavy-lidded, unblinking eyes and then calmly sits on the Left, her apprentices around her. She very deliberately nods at Thursday, who seems to have been expecting her.

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With everyone's attention on the reclusive Guardian Cabal actually joining in for a change, no-one notices Kali slip in the other way and sit behind the rest of the Crucible. Kali is dressed up - more so than her Cabalmates have ever seen her. She's wearing midnight blue robes with green sleeve inserts/darts, spiderwebbed in silver over the shoulders and across the skirt. Overall it's close in appearance to the Grecian chiton, but with sleeves. The headpiece is basically several pins stuck into a simple cascade of curls, draped with cheap diamante 'dewdrops' strung on twine between them to resemble a web on her head. The effect against her dark skin and black hair is stunning. "Miss much?" - Kali Amanda leans backward and gives her the prcis.
Pool's name is sometimes spelt with an e on the end in my notes and sometimes not. Executive decision - this spelling is correct.

"Kali... Banneker has been stalling for you, but you're going to have to tell all and make it good. And... Uh..." - Wolsey He looks over at Mara, who is on the edge of her seat. "...I think Mara may kick off" - Wolsey Kali asks if she has any choice in this matter, and they firmly tell her no. Mulling, Kali casts Prophecy and determines what will happen if she does tell all. She sees, in a flash, what's about to happen - she will lay out the facts as Wolsey wants her to, Mara will vehemently disagree with something, and then Samuel will Duel Mara - humiliating her in an entirely one-sided contest. Kali blinks, and relays that to the gang. Mara is going to try to duel Kali, and Samuel will impose himself as the combatant. They look over at Samuel, who judging by the back of his head is indeed regarding Mara with a certain preparedness. "We have to stop it" - Wolsey He and Damascus agree - Mara, bereft of what little prestige she has after the Malakaii incident, would be a dangerous wild card, and the last thing the Adamantine Arrow needs is for it's nominal head to be lashing out to try to regain a reputation. Not unreasonable. It looks like the brief pause is turning into a mini-recess: Banneker, Thursday and Pool are deep in conversation. Wolsey hurries over to Mara, who watches his approach cautiously. "Can I have a word?" - Wolsey Mara raises an eyebrow. "Don't do this. We both know what's about to be said in court, and believe me - you do not want to cast any unfounded accusations. Kali is innocent. Anurati is gone. I

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know you're angry, but it's not worth it. And it won't be *Kali* you go up against." Wolsey, very deliberately leaning so Samuel is framed in her view over his shoulder. "Do you understand anything about honour, Thomas?" - Mara, coldly "'Honour'? This has nothing to do with 'Honour'" (irritated) "... and everything to do with self-destruction. We will not be the machinery of your martyr-complex, Madhuri. You're warned." - Wolsey He returns to his own seat. "Smooth" - Amanda, with deep sarcasm. He turns to reply, and catches the runes on her blindfold in the right light and angle to recognise them. He's not 100% sure, but he thinks one of them is "Cxaxa". Banneker announces that they're going to get on with it, now, before Wolsey can say anything. "Cerberus was told by Melchior of the supposed perfidy of three of our liegemen. Melchior arrived at this conclusion by means of the scroll he accuses Caspar of stealing. These events are linked - and I will ask Kali of the Crucible to explain how." - Banneker
Perfidy is such an under-used word nowadays

Swallowing hard, Kali stands up. "For the last fifteen years, the Consilium and our opposite numbers in the Seers have been manipulated by a Mage named Anurati - a lost apprentice of Malakaii's... and my mother" Kali Kali's explanation is thorough (though she glosses over the Crown, saying only that it was 'an artefact' that gave some measure of mind-control powers). Mara constantly attempts to interrupt, but Banneker is having none of it - eventually being forced to tell Mara to put her hand down and sit quietly or he'll throw her out of the hall. Banneker begins, to Kali's dismay, to cross-examine her. "So she was *not* a Seer?" - Banneker "...No. From what Seraph..." - Kali "The Seer captured in the raid a few days ago" - Banneker "Yes. From what we know, he's been fooled too. She's been doing it to both sides." Kali "I'm trying to understand something... How do you know she's gone?" - Banneker "I... I asked her to leave, and she left. I believe her" - Kali "But you have been controlled by her in the past?" - Banneker "Well... yes. But she didn't do anything that last time. We talked, and I persuaded her

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to leave." - Kali "And she went. Just like that?" - Banneker "She'd done her job" - Kali "And what job was that?" - Banneker "To prepare me." - Kali Banneker frowns, and takes pity on her. "Alright, Kali. You can sit down" - Banneker Mara takes that as her cue "I claim the right of Nemesis!" - Mara Banneker regards her, pained, but indicates she should get it over with. Mara tells her story again - how Anurati killed her grandfather. "If *she* found her once, she can find her again." - Mara Banneker calls for a halt, as the Council deliberate. Wolsey, sensing his moment, hurries over while Beckett and Balthazar swap taut messages via intermediaries. "Could Kali find her again?" - Banneker "I have no idea." - Wolsey "What happened to the artefact?" - Banneker "We got rid of it. Put it somewhere secret. And safe. It's in no one's hands" - Wolsey Banneker looks at Mara "Would it help if I tell you that Samuel is ready to ruin Mara's career over this?" Wolsey "Samuel... He abdicated. I found out an hour before we started" - Banneker, sadly "Which means he's a free agent. And Kali's his *favourite*." - Wolsey Banneker nods. "Thank you, Wolsey. That will be all." - Banneker Everyone goes back to their seats. "It's quite a story. But I find it hard to reconcile... There are no records of this woman, there are no witnesses... Yes, Beckett, I'm aware, but your memory has been altered as well, has it not?" - Banneker

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"...Yes" - Beckett "There are no unbiased witnesses. And most importantly - no proof that the woman who has been doing this IS Kali's mother. We could all be still under the sway of who-knows-who. I need proof that Kali's story is true. I'm sorry, Kali." - Banneker The crucible go into a whispered conference. Wolsey will have to go and get the Crown and then turn it over. It's the only way... "There is an... eyewitness" - Nimrod Banneker stops. "I was... Malakaii's Provost at the time... I... helped expunge the REC-cords of Sahley's.. Life. I knew HER.. while she was.. herrrre." - Pool "Furthermore... We have recovered the BOD-y that... was...supppossssssed to ... be hers. It was Corpppse-masked." - Nimrod Banneker considers, and appears relieved. "Thank you, Director Pool. Thank you. Alright. Kali - you are *certain* this 'Spider' was your mother?" - Banneker Kali nods "And you swear, on your oath, that you negotiated her departure from our territories?" - Banneker "I do" - Kali "Then we find Anurati Sahley, late of the Guardians of the Veil, Guilty of numerous counts of deception, of oathbreaking and on your testimony of supporting the treason of Simon Painten, known as Seraph, and of inciting the quarrel between Malakaii and Beckett that nearly cost one or both their souls." - Banneker Mara stands up. "There is, however, no proof of her involvement in the deaths of the Cabal of the Eternal Voice. I'm sorry, Mara. We cannot go by the handed-down word of a dead man - especially not one who assisted her vanishing and kept her presence secret even before they fought." - Banneker The councillors look at one another and nod. "In accordance with her proven crimes, I therefore banish Anurati Sahley from the territories of this Consilium, on pain of death. On the word of Kali, sentence has already been carried out." - Banneker Mara begins to object, loudly. "IF she should return, Kali, and contact you, then you are charged with reporting it IMMEDIATELY to us. Do you understand?" - Banneker, ignoring Mara

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"Yes" - Kali Samuel looks tense. Mara looks around the room, and gives in, bitterly. Samuel visibly relaxes. Banneker, on a roll, is growing more authoritative with each passing word. "Beckett. Balthazar. You have one hour before I seal a circle for you. I suggest you reach terms quickly." - Banneker The Caucus once again takes a break. Wolsey exhales. Damascus sympathetically pats Kali on the shoulder. Trace comes over to sympathise with Kali, too. "That had to be rough. I'm sorry" - Trace Kali shrugs at her friend, still processing. "Mycroft, Amanda... We have Thursday and Pool want everyone to go over some things while we're all actually here" (off Damascus' look) "Guardian things." - Trace "Who gets to be Epotet?" - Wolsey Trace makes a noncommittal expression. "Alright" - Mycroft The Guardians all peel out of their various groups and go into the back room.
This Guardian of the Veil meeting, tucked away between Beckett's Duel and Kali's spotlight, is actually the most important part of the session. All will become clear. In time.

"Caspar" - Wolsey He's had an idea. "Melchior's case against Caspar is pretty tight, yeah? Even if Beckett wins and Melchior's proved to have been a dupe" - Wolsey "'If'?" - Beckett "On my understanding, yes" - Damascus "What if he were deputised?" - Wolsey "He wasn't" - Damascus "No, but - if he were deputised by a Sentinel, then he could have retrieved the Scroll legally, right?" - Wolsey, watching as in the background Banneker is asked by Trace (who's re-emerged) to join the Guardians in the back. "What are you suggesting?" - Damascus

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"That we get one of the Sentinels to say that he was acting for them." - Wolsey He looks at Damascus, hopefully. "No" - Damascus Wolsey blinks. "NO, Wolsey. You want me to perjure my word and go against my oath as a Sentinel? I wouldn't do that for someone I liked, certainly not for someone I really don't care about. I refuse to sacrifice my honour to save him." - Damascus Wolsey flaps. "If you'll excuse me. Nimrod has just come back in" - Damascus The Guardians have indeed returned. Wolsey hopes, for a second, that Damascus might be trying to get Nimrod to do it, but realises soon enough that Damascus is thanking Nimrod for supporting Kali in her time of need, and especially for retrieving the body of the woman by the bay. Nimrod says that she's been reburied, and her family informed, which Damascus considers to be the end of that matter. Damascus returns and sits, without a word to Wolsey. The Mastigos looks like he's about to say something, but gives up. Amanda and Mycroft return quietly. "Miss much?" - Mycroft "Not really" - Damascus
Wolsey's plan came up against Damascus' Arrow hot-button, as Damascus' patience with all the double-dealing and fixing of trials reached it's end. Mark professes to not know what will set Damascus off in one of these "arrow" trips and what won't, but I would venture that asking him to publicly lie - and everyone at the Consilium would *know* that Damascus was lying if he claimed Caspar was his deputy, even if they went along with it - would be firmly in the trips camp.

Beckett and Balthazar have reached the end of their haggling over conditions. Beckett first suggested that they perform the entire thing in the Shadow World, which Balthazar wisely turned down. Beckett accepted a normal Duel, then, and smoothly suggested that they then refrain from using non-Supernal Spiritual abilities. Balthazar, who's Legacy is based around Spirit powers, refused. Both quickly and all-too-eagerly agreed that there will be no pussyfooting around. The injuries incurred from the duel will be real, not imaginary.
Ah, making the Duel Arcane do health levels instead of Willpower points. The true psychotic's choice. Balthazar is noted in Reign of the Exarchs as Duelling to the death if it ever comes to it. Beckett... Has just been itching to kill someone for about a Decade, now. As Rafe says, Beckett isn't dipping occasionally into the dark side. He serially flirts with the light.

Banneker casts the Duelling Circle spell, and the contenders take their places. Reality ripples as over thirty Mage Sight spells are cast at once. Beckett and Balthazar stare at one another for a very long moment, and then the air blisters as sword-shapes snake and strike between the two, and protective ripples form to ward them off. Both Mages strike true, bleeding wounds like claw-rips opening in their faces and arms. There's a split second as the shields and swords warp and change into new forms and then both men strike again. Beckett is knocked off his feet, blood bubbling up from his mouth as he falls over. Balthazar, clutching 563

his side, stumbles down onto one knee. He's won, although it's nearly killed him. And then Beckett, wounds closing, sits up suddenly and hits Balthazar with a striking sword made of Space. Balthazar, eyes widening, topples backwards. The circle flashes and disappears. "Beckett..." - Hoban "Regenerative charm.. check the agreed rules... he said... he said we could use non supernal powers" - Beckett, coughing blood. Hoban, looking like he's swallowed something extremely distasteful, formally reports to Banneker that Beckett, Master of the Second Degree and member of the Defenders of the Forgotten, is victorious over Balthazar, first degree Master and member of the Ascendants. Master Balthazar has lost his life in the exchange. The crowd murmur. Beckett sits there, his Nimbus unveiling around him like a cloak of shameful feelings as he restores his own Pattern. Eventually, Shore helps him up. No one picks Balthazar's corpse up.
Beckett made Balthazar accept the use of non-magical powers - which Balthazar took to mean Legacies Attainments and, knowing Beckett was a Bearer of the Eternal Voice, figured wouldn't be as important as his own abilities as a Thrice-Great. The regenerative charm, though, was a one-shot Numen. The murmurings aren't so much because Beckett out-thought his opponent. They're more because there are only so many Spirits willing to do that sort of thing. In oWoD terms, that flash-regeneration of Beckett's final health level was a demonic investment. It's something he traded with a demon for.

"And so..." - Banneker The hubbub continues "AND SO" - Banneker Everyone shuts up "By the Duel Arcane, the Accusations against Beckett, Wolsey and Damascus are proven false. Melchior - you *were* misled by Anurati Sahley. Whether you were aware of her machinations or not I leave a secret only you can tell, and hope that you do. Caspar's actions were justified, mitigating his breaking of his Cabal vows. The Ascendants..." - Banneker "There are no Ascendants any more" - Melchior. The Moros' voice is hollow, and his manner grief-struck at Balthazar's death. He does not look at Caspar. Wolsey turns to Damascus "Well, I guess that's another member of the team" - Wolsey, indicating Caspar
He's an unattached Mage in the city, after all.

"No. I have had my fill of this Consilium. I choose exile." - Caspar, red-eyed. Banneker nods.

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"And on the matter of Cerberus..." - Banneker "Hierarch? We..." (looks at Damascus and Beckett, who nod) "..the injured parties, plead clemency for Cerberus" - Damascus Banneker looks at Wolsey, who nods. And then at Beckett, who nods after being poked by Kali. "Indeed. Cerberus?" - Banneker The Thyrsus gets to his feet "What you did is inexcusable. I've consulted with the Council on this matter. I've consulted with Samuel, who until tonight was your Cabal leader. I've consulted with the head of your order. Regardless of any mitigating circumstance, REGARDLESS of your intended victims pleading for you to be spared, you will be punished. IT IS ONLY BECAUSE OF THEM THAT YOU'RE NOT DEAD!" - Banneker Cerberus flinches "Branding. A Fine of Fifty Tass, paid at your soonest ability. Public condemnation AND retraining under a Master of our choice. Welcome back to apprenticeship, consider yourself very lucky, sit down and get out of my line of sight. Melchior. You are banished from this Consilium and it's territories. I will not chase the matter further, because of your loss and Anurati's manipulations, but I will not tolerate assassins or those that hire them." - Banneker The hubbub becomes clamour. "Settle, people. Pax. We have one more thing to decide. The Seers." - Banneker Everyone goes back to their places, Beckett limping. "Two Seers have been caught. One known to us, one not. Whatever fragile detente we had with them has now been broken. We have harassed the opposition and must steel ourselves." - Banneker Damascus has his hand raised. "Sentinel" - Banneker, yielding the floor. "It has already begun" - Damascus Damascus tells everyone how the Seers have identified him and Wolsey at the very least for reprisals. And that he would expect more - potentially, everyone who grabbed Tycho and Seraph at the meeting may have been identified. "We have been in this place before, friends. Many of us remember the last years of the millennium. We've grown sloppy, lax in our methods while the Seers 'leave us alone'. Take care. Take precautions. Those of you who have tasks in a war footing, be about them. I don't want to hear of anyone being surprised by the Exarch-kissing bastards" - Banneker Nods all round.

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There's a fair amount of backstory to the setting that hasn't come out, mostly because the pcs haven't really been interested but the turn of the millennium was a pretty rough time for the Pentacle Orders, yes. There are things about the end of Sigmund's reign as Hierarch and how the city was divided between his apprentices (Samuel and Suleiman), Banneker and Malakaii that have yet to be revealed.

"But what are we to do with the prisoners? We do not have the resources to hold more than one, and cannot hold them at Dantor's Sanctum for very long. Either of them, alive, is a magnet for other Seers and their Puppets. There can be no forgiveness for the crime of betraying the Watchtowers. These traitors are dangerous to hold, they put us in peril every minute they continue to draw breath... We have heard the sad tale of Seraph. We know why he Fell. We know what he has been doing. We know his plans and his ambitions... ...We do not require him to be alive. Interfector?" - Banneker Mycroft stands. The rest of the Cabal weren't aware he'd been *made* Interfector
Because it happened when the Guardians and Banneker went off-screen earlier.

"Seraph is to be made safe at dawn tomorrow. Dantor, you are to find out as much as you can from his Ghost and then force it to pass beyond the Twilight." - Banneker Mycroft and Dantor nod. "The other Seer remains a mystery. We don't know what Ministry he's from, who his Pylon are, or what he represents. As long as he can be of use, HE will be our one prisoner. He is to be turned over to the Guardians of the Veil, under joint authority of Thursday and Pool, until they determine that he is of no further use in debriefing, at which point he too will be put down." - Banneker "Could he not be memory-wiped and then released after being debriefed?" Damascus People don't seem to go for that. "Hear me out - we don't really want a war. And they might not go to war over Seraph alone..." - Damascus Poole stares at him, expression (as ever) unreadable.
Rafe: THAT went down like a lead balloon.

"I'm sorry, Damascus. It is simply too risky" - Banneker The Consilium Waits "I bring this meeting to an end" - Banneker Everyone starts moving around. Mara - glaring at the gang - sweeps out, Proteus at her heel. "We've made an enemy today" - Wolsey "Good" - Damascus
A call-back (though I don't know if the guys realised it) to the last Caucus set in this location. It was said about Malakaii there.

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"You okay?" - Mycroft, to Kali "Fine" - Kali "About Seraph?" - Mycroft "Fine" - Kali She gets up, and without a word goes to seek Samuel out in the crowd. "So... Damascus. I seem to have survived" - Beckett, wincing "The Book?" - Damascus "The Book. How much have people explained to you?" - Beckett "Not much. You want me to be involved in the ritual?" - Damascus Beckett, shifting his weight off his injuries, starts at the beginning. "The Codex IS the Abyssal. It's an entity of the Abyss that takes the form of forbidden, compelling knowledge. It enters this world, usually as a book, when it senses that someone needs to know something magical at *any* price. It offers them secrets, secrets which play on and feed into the victim's desire for Power. The things it teaches are real, and Do grant power, but by then the Abyssal has taken root in the victim's mind. Think of it as an intelligent, malevolent meme, a mental creature that is it's own lure." - Beckett "And you need me?" - Damascus "Because you have resistance to mental pressure. And because you are as selfless a person as I know. If *I* were to read the book, it would consume me. I need someone who it can't attract, who can resist it's temptations for as long as we need to do the ritual." - Beckett "What does the ritual involve?" - Damascus "Together with you reading the book, we transfer the meme-form of the Abyssal into your mind. You then visualise a location in the Abyss - which I will coach you in beforehand - while we adjust local conditions. Hopefully, if you resist the thoughts that it will try to become in your head, it won't be able to get it's hooks into you. When you then think of it's home in the Abyss, it will become the thought of that non-place, and go there. Banished." - Beckett "And if I give in?" - Damascus "Then it will give you whatever you want, the power and the knowledge necessary to achieve anything you want. And it will consume your soul from the inside-out in a matter of days." - Beckett They sit there. "Want to back out?" - Beckett

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"No" - Damascus "Good man. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pee blood" - Beckett
The Invisible Codex is from Intruders: Encounters With The Abyss, and is one of the coolest critters there. I've slightly expanded upon it's nature as an Evil Meme, which puts me in mind of the conceptual entities that are enemies in some Doctor Who spin-offs.

... Wolsey sits with Amanda and Mycroft. The atmosphere is frosty between the two Guardians. "So interfector. The meeting you all had?" - Wolsey "Among other things. I can't talk about most of it" - Mycroft Amanda looks like she's about to say something "And neither can she" - Mycroft, firmly. ... "I found her" - Kali "I heard. Congratulations - and sympathies" - Samuel She smiles, weakly "So..." - Samuel, as though trying to think of the correct way to say something Kali waits "... I've quit the Council" - Samuel "I saw" - Kali "...And the Cabal. Mary's in charge... I have a favour to ask. Of the House." - Samuel "Of course" - Kali "..I'd like to get everyone together, in a few weeks. And go for a walk" - Samuel "The thread?" - Kali "Yeah. We'll all walk the thread together. Like old times..." - Samuel He pauses, reaching. "...Kali, can I ask you a question?" - Samuel She nods "... Have I Will have come back to see you? I've been turning up in all sorts of places, I'm told..." (produces a notebook) "...And I'm trying to build an itinerary. I need to be last Wednesday to see Trace, for instance." - Samuel

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"No" (innocently) "I haven't seen any more future-yous, not since outside the Time Machine" - Kali
Which is not actually true. The Samuel she met in the Dreamtime, piloting the boat, *was* Archmage-Samuel.

"Right. Cool. Well... It will be good to walk the thread. Thank you, in case no one's done that yet. And well done getting her to leave peacefully. Now, I'm afraid I have other people to ask, so I'll say goodnight." - Samuel They hug "Come see me as often as you like, until we Walk. We might not get another chance" - Samuel He leaves, and Kali sees Trace watching her. "He told you?" - Trace "Yeah" - Kali, contemplative. "Fancy getting a drink?" - Trace "Yeah" - Kali ... "Mycroft and Amanda went home. Getting ready for the morning." - Wolsey, to the returning Damascus and Kali "I'll see you back there. Me and Trace are going out for a drink" - Kali "Okay - have fun. Damascus - anything else to do here?" - Wolsey Damascus does not think so. The Crucible leave.
An important conversation, now, hidden by it's politeness and lack of fighting.

Kali and Trace are in a bar, having shed the more outlandish parts of their outfits. "You can find things, right? With the thread? You're not just sensing the threads and seeing where they go, but you can tug on them to find what you want?" - Trace Kali nods "You've made it, then. So far, so quick. You've made the second attainment, same as me. You're capable of teaching others" - Trace She sits back. They drink a while. "It's just us two. Blaise, Katherine, Shepherd - they haven't made it as far. Without Samuel, it'll be down to us" - Trace

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"What's he told you?" - Kali "About his idea? It's... A senior member of the House, a Weaver, like Samuel, they undergo an ordeal before they gain the third attainment. Samuel can follow the thread to find signs of what might happen in the future - he doesn't use it much because his magic is more powerful, but it can be broader and reveal other things. Anyway - the first future they find in the City is their own death. To be a Weaver you have to follow the thread to learn how you're going to die." - Trace She pauses "And now, he's going further. Ariadne, the original Ariadne - she walked the thread of the city where she lived until she found it's beginning, and then vanished. That's what Samuel's going to do - we'll all start out, but one by one we'll drop off, or lose the thread, or get too tired to carry on. And he'll keep going." - Trace "Until he vanishes" - Kali Trace nods. "I can't do politics" - Kali, with finality. "And I'll never be as strong as you are. You've been doing this less than a year and you've caught up with me, gone well past everyone else." - Trace Kali nods again, acknowledging it. Trace isn't a rival - she's a friend. "We'll both do it" - Kali "You'll lead the House internally, through the rites and in seeking the thread. I'll keep the Consilium off our backs." - Trace, satisfied. They relax "We're not going to be the force we are now, not once he's gone" - Trace "I can live with that" - Kali
And so the leadership of the House of Ariadne is finalised, and Kali becomes our first Legacy leader in the player characters. Your mentor becoming an Archmage will have that effect.

... Wolsey and Damascus, bone tired, drive back to the Sanctum. When they walk in, though, they don't really get the warm welcome of home. "It's *my* decision!" - Amanda Amanda and Mycroft are facing off, framed in the view from the doorway. Mycroft has shed his mask, but Amanda is still wearing her blindfold. Although, as Wolsey and Damascus' Unseen Senses attest, she's using Mage Sight so she can *properly* glare at her mentor. You can cut the tension in the room with a knife.

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"Are...we interrupting?" - Wolsey "Not at all. Cxaxa here was just explaining her choice of new Shadow Name" Mycroft "Cxaxa?" - Wolsey "Don't start, Thomas" - Cxaxa, dangerously. He looks like he's about to say something, as does Mycroft. "At least I *have* a goal. What's yours this week? Education? Cults? Do you even HAVE one?" - Cxaxa Face imperious and disconcertingly like that of her alter ego (and now namesake), Cxaxa turns on her heel and marches straight to her bedroom. "Cxaxa?" - Wolsey Mycroft sighs, a deep expressive sigh, and collapses into a chair. "I don't know, all right? She announced it at the meeting. Said she wanted to try to find a balance between her two selves." - Mycroft He seems utterly defeated. "I'll talk to her" - Damascus He knocks on her door. "Am... Cxaxa? Can I come in?" - Damascus Cxaxa's room is dark, as you'd expect. As Damascus' eyes adjust, he spots piles of books. Some in Braille, most not. There are a lot of tomes that aren't exactly recreational reading - some of the books have High Speech on the spines. "What did you want, Damascus?" - Cxaxa. She's lying on her bed, face pointed at the ceiling. "Your mind is made up?" - Damascus "You of all people should understand, Carl. I want... After Sutterton Farms, I need to understand her" - Cxaxa "Is this about understanding her or being her. Because the Guardians may frown on that." - Damascus "If that's their decision, then that's their decision. But it's understanding. Reconciling. I joined the Guardians to make sure nothing like me happened to anyone else: I can't do that while ignoring her. It happened. I have her memories - she lived longer than I have. There's more Querephas in me than there is Amanda." - Cxaxa "If this quest causes a problem for the rest of the cabal..." - Damascus

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"...I'll take steps" - Cxaxa He frowns, mulling it. ... "If she blames this on me, I'm out of here" - Wolsey "What?" - Mycroft "If she says that she felt pressured to take a new Shadow Name..." - Wolsey "Thomas, I can honestly say that your name was never mentioned. This is all about her." - Mycroft "How do you guys feel about this?" - Wolsey ... "So how IS the politics?" - Kali "I survive. The Order gives me more trouble than Ulysses does. Your Cabal-mate 'Cxaxa' for one..." - Trace ... "Not all of them are happy, no. *I'm* not happy. If this goes the way I think it's going if she strays from the Order in her need to understand her former self, then she won't be accepted through the Veil. She'll be alone." - Mycroft He frowns, thinking about something. "What aren't you telling me?" - Wolsey "Nothing I can tell you, I promise" - Mycroft "Cabal before everything, I thought?" - Wolsey "And if you were in any danger from what's going on - any whatsoever - I would tell you. The Order would know that and wouldn't involve me. OR Cxaxa. I know what you think of us, Wolsey, but what was discussed in that room does not concern you" - Mycroft. Damascus re-emerges "How'd it go?" - Wolsey "I have her promise that she will change things if it becomes an issue" - Damascus
Which is in NO WAY what she said, and Damascus knows it. He's just trying to make Wolsey feel better. The gang aren't upset that Amanda has picked this Shadow Name to spite her - as Kali's example proves, Names have a strange power, and a way of defining a person that Mages have yet to fully understand or explain. By calling herself that, by signalling her intent to *be* a Hyperborean Mage-Queen, Amanda is "making a statement" symbolically. And not a statement they're comfortable with. Actually, I maybe should have called this story "Making a Statement".

572

... Kali eventually returns, asking if the others have heard. They've heard. They take her news - that she's now joint leader of her Legacy - with tired congratulations. "We have a busy start tomorrow" - Mycroft, soberly "When do you want us?" - Wolsey (checks his watch) "Everyone get up and be here for half five. We'll need some time to prepare, give him chance to say anything he needs to say... This is not... This is not how I wanted to spend my last night before becoming a killer" - Mycroft Damascus claps him on the shoulder, sympathetically.

...

In the morning, the entire Cabal rises and breakfasts in silence. All five are dressed soberly, Mycroft with his metal blank mask on. Silently - the tension between Cxaxa and Wolsey making the others sit between them - they drive to Dantor's Sanctum. They are met by the Councillor at the door, thankfully wearing more than the ashes and bones she was sporting last night. Dantor bows to them, wordlessly, and extends her arm, indicating the door to the basement stairs. "Cxaxa. Would you please see to Tycho?" - Mycroft his tone brooks no argument - and is full of distaste for her new name. Cxaxa scowls at her mentor's back, and peels off from the group to head to the cell where Tycho is being kept. The remaining four - Damascus and Mycroft at the front, loom in the door to Seraph's makeshift cell. "It's time" - Mycroft, gently "So it would seem. Kemi? Are you there? Hiding under your robe?" - Seraph, trying to see past the two Moroii "I'm here." - Kali, flatly "Do you have anything you want to say?" - Mycroft "You'd only think I was trying to bewitch you, anyway" - Seraph "Simon Painten. You have been judged a traitor, and will die." - Mycroft, formally. Mycroft produces a knife. "Not by magic?" - Seraph

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"Not by magic" - Mycroft, firmly

Part of it is that they can't take the risk of taking him out of the anti-magic field. Part of it is Mycroft refusing to use the Art to kill someone.

Wolsey hears conversation coming from Tycho's cell, and leaves the other three with Seraph. Dawn is fast approaching. He ducks in to find Cxaxa crouched next to Tycho, who flicks his eyes up at Wolsey nervously. "What's going on?" - Wolsey "Guardian Business. None of yours" - Cxaxa, sharply. She stands up and pushes her way past Wolsey "...Cxaxa. Wait" - Wolsey She turns, stood on the lowest step of the stairs out of here. "I've been thinking... about us. And new beginnings. With your name and all..." Wolsey She waits "I'm going to go to a lawyer, this afternoon. And get some divorce papers" - Wolsey There is a long pause "Yes, I think that'd be for the best" - Cxaxa, coldly He hurries to catch her, halfway up the stairs. Dawn's light is approaching. "We both know it's the right thing. We're neither of us the people we were" - Wolsey "...And it'll be amicable enough. Not like I can take you for Alimony" - Cxaxa, smiling. Wolsey smiles too. "Yeah. And we don't have any custody battles to fight" - Wolsey "You're right..." (still smiling) "...I had the abortion" Cxaxa She smiles wider, showing teeth, and then carries on walking upstairs. Leaving him in the dark. ... He catches her in front of Dantor's "font". Grabs her arm. "Let go of me, Tommy" - Cxaxa

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"I... I want you out. Out of the Cabal. Gone. Or I'm Gone." - Wolsey She snarls "Fine" - Cxaxa And shakes loose of him. "Either that was a lie or you kept it from me, even when we were together. Either way, the ONLY reason you have to say that to me now is to hurt me." - Wolsey "Very perceptive, Tom. Don't bother trying to justify which one of us should go - I'll leave the Cabal." - Cxaxa She walks away, pauses by the door "And I'll divorce you, too" - Cxaxa And she's gone. ... Wolsey trudges back down the stairs, to find the others coming out of Seraph's cell, Mycroft wiping his dagger clean. "It's done?" - Wolsey "It's done" - Mycroft, pulling his mask off, sadly.
Mycroft failed his Wisdom check for killing Seraph here.

"Listen.. Something's happened" - Wolsey He tells them what just went on. Damascus and Mycroft are concerned. Kali, though, is angry - she doesn't believe that Amanda, her friend, would just quit the Cabal like that. She demands to know what Wolsey did to provoke her, all but blames him for it. "KALI. Really - I *didn't*. I even called her Cxaxa. She brought up... She said... She said she'd had an abortion, said it like a weapon. I don't know if it's true, and I don't know which I'd prefer" - Wolsey Mycroft is pained. "What do you think?" - Damascus "I'm staying. Get that out of the way first off. If she still wants to learn, she can do so from outside the Cabal" - Mycroft "The artefacts" - Damascus Wolsey realises what he means.

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"They're ours. Not hers - agreed?" - Wolsey Nods all round. "Okay... I'll TP home and get them. Get them out of temptation's way, before she has a chance to even think about making off with anything" - Wolsey "What then?" - Mycroft "Then I come back.. and we get Breakfast. As a Cabal. Right?" - Wolsey "Just the four of us" - Kali, still tinged with bitterness "Just the four of us" - Damascus . And they do.

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Chapter 11: "Yours To Throw Away"

Session 11.1
This story is one I had hoped I'd get to eventually, chronicle length permitting, and I am pleased to have made it. Like Fisher King said a few sessions ago, we're now clearing the turning point between Disciple and Adept - the characters aren't the new kids on the block any more, they're established and the other mages are their peers rather than their superiors. The title is from a line by Wolsey early on in regarding Kali taking the reins of her Legacy (and it's her Legacy now) over from Samuel. Free from the mysteries and intrigues of Anurati and Seraph, the Cabal are spending this session focusing on their own plans. There IS an awful lot going on in the city right now, and some of it threatens the Cabal by fact or by implication, but none of it is imposed on them as a result of ancient history - it's all of their own doing and the result of their actions during the first half of the Chronicle. Foremost of which is Cxaxa's shift into being an Antagonist. Anyway. I have skipped a minor (and unspecified) amount of time, and taken the opportunity to anchor the timeline again on a solid date...

The Day Before Thanksgiving. Kemi is at work, having enthusiastically said that she'll work Holidays (minus a day at Christmas for the Cabal and one for her father), the heat from the percolators offsetting the deep drifts of snow outside. Winter has hit the Broken Diamond with a vengeance, and the city seems emptier than normal. Part of that, though, may well be the after-effect of the Congressional elections, of which Kemi is only dimly aware (not being able to vote anyway). Trace tells her that first the city empties of politicos while the campaigning goes on, and then... "...All of the action is taking place in a few closed rooms" - Julia Julia - or "Trace" as the other Mages in the city know her - has begun frequenting Kemi's place of employment. She sits at the counter, idly reading the papers and making casual conversation with bits and pieces of more.. Supernal.. dialogue mixed in. "Did your guy get in?" - Kemi "Oh, yes. My job's safe. To be honest, I'd just find another one within a few weeks" Julia Kemi nods the nod of someone who doesn't really understand. Mostly, they talk-in-code about the House, organising the transition of power from Samuel to themselves - Samuel is apparently *very* nearly ready for what Kemi calls "The Walk". But there are other titbits, too. "Oh, before I forget. Your friend's wife..." - Julia Kemi raises her eyebrows in a studied expression of casual interest "She's staying with Carrie" - Julia Kemi frowns and shakes her head slightly. Julia taps her paper. There, in the crossword grid, she's written "PROMETHEA".
The real names are coming thick and fast tonight. The implications of Cxaxa having gone to Promethea for shelter after leaving the Cabal will be gone into by Wolsey later on. Promethea was one of her tutors until Mara's incident with the Demon.

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Kemi's boss distracts her with an errand, and when she gets back Julia is packing her things away. "Sorry. I get off shift in about an hour if you want to..." - Kemi "No, I need to get going. Kem... Can I ask... Why this job?" - Julia
"Kem" without the I isn't a spelling mistake. Julia calls her that - there is not a name short enough that it can't be contracted.

"I have to support myself somehow" - Kemi "So do what we all do - talk to Shepherd. How do you think people pay for all the Sancta?" - Julia
Shepherd is the Money-Man, the House of Ariadne member in Banneker's Cabal. He'll turn up later, but is intended to be the first in a series of uses for her apprentices (hah!) Kali will have over the coming sessions, to get her used to power and to get Sam used to the idea that her character now has underlings.

Kemi shrugs "Seriously. There are better jobs" - Julia Kemi promises to at least think about it, and Julia leaves. Kemi putters about with mugs for a while, and when she turns around there's a woman stood where Julia was. The newcomer is tall, almost statuesque, and has a completely blank expression that breaks into a not-very-convincing grin a fraction of a second too late. "Hello! Sorry - I didn't hear you" - Kemi "So-ry!" - Woman Her accent isn't American, though Kemi can't place it. She also doesn't appear to speak much English. Kemi serves her by the "point at the menu" method, and goes about her job. When she looks around again, the woman is gone. Kemi shivers. Someone walking over her grave. Then goes back to work.
I think you'll find who the mysterious woman is neat. I may spoiler-bar it if anyone wants to know ahead of time.

...
A brief note before I start Damascus off - it's not referenced in this story, but I wanted to get it into the thread before I forget it. Damascus has been buying Rotes - specifically the Mind-based attack spell - in preparation for maybe having to take Mara out as leader of the Adamantine Arrow.

While Kemi works, Carl is finishing up his studies for the Holiday. The University has given it's final lectures before the long weekend, and the campus is emptying as students go home. Trudging through the slush and snow, he spots Monica across the quadrangle. She spots him, too, and hurries over. "Hi!" - Monica "Hi" - Carl "So... Are you..?" - Monica "Going home? Well, my folks are from DC, so I'll just go around tomorrow night" Carl

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She nods rapidly "I'm going to my ex-husband's. A pain, but... All for the kids, and it gets me out of the apartment" - Monica He nods. She seems to be thinking about something. "Monica?" - Carl "I was just.. It's odd. Since you came round that time, the place just feels different. Emptier." - Monica "It's just the time of year" - Carl
Or Anurati no longer possessing her and using her as a graffiti artist in order to create spatial bookmarks. Maybe.

"You know.. You ARE allowed to come around again" - Monica They smile. "How long are you gone for?" - Carl "Three days" - Monica "...Want to.. uh" - Carl "Yes. When I get back" - Monica, firmly. Her taxi comes, and he waves her off.
Awwwww

... "...And Cxaxa has found someone to take her in" - Mycroft Mycroft and Wolsey - in defiance of the spirit of the season, they're definitely Mycroft and Wolsey rather than Mark and Thomas - are sat, a surreal pair, in the International House of Pancakes. "Oh?" - Wolsey "With Promethea" - Mycroft, every syllable telling a story of pained acceptance. "Great" - Wolsey Wolsey stabs at his pancake with a fork. "And Tycho has been moved from Dantor's. Safer." - Mycroft "Guardian safehouse?" - Wolsey "Let's just say... He's... a guest of Twilight" - Mycroft

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Wolsey sits back "I'm sorry, you totally didn't have to tell me anything then. None of my business" Wolsey "Bah, it's okay. If you ask anything I'm not allowed to tell you I'll just say so." - Mycroft He ducks beneath his seat and produces a briefcase, which he slides over to Wolsey "All of the Artefacts, obviously minus the Crown. And... I think that's it" - Mycroft "How long are you away?" - Wolsey "Four days maximum. If you need me, you have my cell. I *think* there's signal in Iowa" - Mycroft "Enjoy your time with your daughter" - Wolsey "If you do need me..." - Mycroft "We won't" - Wolsey, reassuring Mycroft gives him A Look. "...Only if it's urgent" - Wolsey
There is an undercurrent here, mostly through tone of voice and my eyebrow acting, that says Mycroft would not be entirely unhappy if the gang did call him back. Thanksgiving is a time for families - which is a shame when you don't really get on with yours. Mycroft's going to see his daughter for thanksgiving. The young Ms Cheff hasn't ever been named, that I can recall, but the setup for this was back in 9.3 and 9.5

Mycroft gets up to go. "It's been quiet since the Caucus. Kali's been gone a lot" - Mycroft He pauses "Naturally, I followed her. Nothing to worry about - ask her if you're curious" - Mycroft ... Later on, Kali returns to the Sanctum to find Wolsey and Damascus there waiting for her.
I *think* Wolsey asked Damascus if he knew where Kali was going while they were waiting - the point being that she hasn't told either of them about her job.

After she flings herself onto the sofa, Wolsey clears his throat "I've been thinking..." - Wolsey "Dangerous" - Damascus "When are you doing the thing with the book?" - Wolsey

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"Don't know. Within a month, I guess; when the ritual team are ready" - Damascus "Because, well.. How much do we trust Beckett?" - Wolsey It's not so much that Wolsey DOESN'T trust Beckett - Beckett's their ally - it's more that Wolsey doesn't feel entirely happy that Beckett won't make any rash improvisations should things not go according to plan. "Like... If it came down to it, and whatever it was was trapped inside your head? Can you tell me that Beckett wouldn't kill you in order to get rid of it?" - Wolsey Damascus, pondering, slowly states that he HAS thought about this and to be honest if he does end up getting possessed by the Intruder then, well... He fully expects the others to kill him.
I keep calling Intruders "Abyssals", short for "Abyssal Entity". I figure that it's a perfectly acceptable term IC, despite it's OOC unfortunate associations with Exalted.

Wolsey is of the opinion that a little independent verification might be nice. For which he needs Kali. "Can you get me into the Athenaeum?" - Wolsey "When?" - Kali "Tomorrow night?" - Wolsey Tomorrow night is Thanksgiving. Kali shifts, and says that she promised her dad. "Well, can I get in on your ticket?" - Wolsey "You CAN come to mine, you know" - Damascus "It'd be rather hypocritical of me, wouldn't it? Socialising with your family after all these months of telling you you do too much?" - Wolsey Damascus shrugs "Look - I want to get on top of this. I can do this while you two and Mycroft see your families. I wanted something useful to do - it's this or the bottle" - Wolsey Kali shrugs and digs out her cell, explaining that Ebony is the Athenaeums keeper. She can ask, though. . Ebony answers, distracted, and after pleasantries and code-words, Kali makes the request. Unless Ebony has plans, of course. "No, no. I'll ask. Call you back?" - Ebony And she rings off. "She's going to call back. Didn't sound likely, though" - Kali

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Wolsey makes a disappointed face. "I... I had something I wanted to ask you, while we're talking shop" - Kali He sits up "Both of you" - Kali Damascus stops looking out the window at the snow. She explains that she's been appointed as Samuel's successor, and that she's supposed to run the House of Ariadne now. And simply asks them for any advice they might have. "I mean, I don't know why. I'll probably just ruin it or throw it away" - Kali "You don't know why? Kali... You're an Adept. Within a year of starting to properly train. You and Damascus joined your Legacies less than a year ago - tell me... Have you reached the second attainment?" - Wolsey "Well, yes, but..." - Kali "...That's why it's your Legacy to throw away" - Wolsey She blinks. "Kali. You're exceptional. People can see that - people want to get on your good side because they know that in five, ten year's time you'll be a Master, working on your second degree. You have Talent." - Wolsey "I have no idea how I'm going to lead the House. I mean, Samuel makes it look easy." - Kali "You are not Samuel. The House will be different under you" - Wolsey "I know that. What I mean is, I don't know what I want to do with it. I have ideas, but I don't know if they're good ones" - Kali "Do you have any help?" - Damascus "Trace is doing the important part" - Kali "What's that?" - Wolsey "The Politics. I'm doing the teaching" - Kali "That is the important part" - Wolsey "Not Really" - Kali "No, Really. Look - next month, yeah, Trace will be seen as being more immediately important. But think long-term - you'll be the one with the apprentices. Look at Samuel - he's unassailable politically. Everyone from Banneker to Thursday respects him, because he trained a generation of Mages who have spread far and wide. How many Cabals have a member of the House?" - Wolsey

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She considers. "And while we're on the subject, there's something *I've* been meaning to raise... I think that it's time I stood down as leader of the Cabal" - Wolsey She realises what he means "You have to be kidding" - Kali "You're seen as a prodigy" - Wolsey "That doesn't mean anything" - Kali "Look. It's skill versus capital, okay? Example. Banneker has skill - more skill than Capital. Samuel has loads of Capital. He has a wad of fifties. We've relied too much on skill, and YOU, Legacy-leader and Prodigy, have the Capital in this Cabal. As long as I'm in charge, we'll look like a Cabal of deal-makers. That's not what we want any more" - Wolsey "We should wait for Mycroft to get back before making any decisions like that" - Kali, blatantly stalling. Wolsey looks over to Damascus, who shrugs in agreement with both of them. Wolsey's right, but they should probably wait. "Think about it. We've got allies and we've got enemies. We need to bed down and build a proper power-base, and for that we need you more than we need me." Wolsey "Enemies?" - Damascus "Mara. Cxaxa." - Wolsey "...Any news?" - Damascus "She's with Promethea. I don't know what that means, but it can't be good." - Wolsey Kali's cell rings. "Hello? Oh! Well.. Thanks! I owe you one!" (closes it, then looks soberly at the others, concerned) "That was Ebony. You're okay to go to the Athenaeum tomorrow night - she'll meet you there at eight. But... Ebony is Promethea's apprentice." - Kali "It's a trap!" - Damascus, in an Admiral Ackbar voice Wolsey considers "It still needs to be done. We need to learn something about this Codex rather than have Beckett just tell us" - Wolsey He produces the briefcase Mycroft gave him "Here. The Artefacts" - Wolsey, passing it to Kali.

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"What am I meant to do with them? keep them under my bed?" - Kali "As long as you don't let them out of your sight, yes" - Wolsey "I know, I'll handcuff myself to them" (sarcastic) "That way, when it falls off, I'll know I've grown up" - Kali
A little inter-textual indulgence on Sam's part. A shout-out to the Deliria thread!

At which point, Kali feels awfully Inevitable. Unseen Senses tingling, all three Mages snap up Mage Sights in time to see a scrying window close. "...Was that?" - Wolsey Kali, recognising Anurati's resonance, nods. "...Okay. I take everything I just said back. I thought you said she'd Gone?" - Wolsey, taking the briefcase back and giving it to Damascus instead "From the CITY" - Kali, defensive "But she's still up to her old tricks?" - Wolsey Damascus reasonably points out that Anurati was probably just checking up on her. Wolsey does not seem happy. "I saw Monica today. She says her apartment feel different" - Damascus "I would hope so, now Kali's mom isn't joy-riding in her" - Wolsey Magely conversations exhausted, they turn to the Television. "Lost?" - Kali "You have to be an Acanthus to understand it" - Wolsey, flicking channels. And they all watch Horatio Caine: Supercop until late. The next day, Kali goes back to work (after finally telling the others where she's been going), while Damascus putters about his Studio and Wolsey prepares for a marathon research session. The strange woman is back, speaking a little more English this time. Kali takes it in stride. ... That evening, while Damascus and Kali are at their parents' house, Wolsey meets Ebony at the Athenaeum. Explaining what he's after, Wolsey hits the stacks looking for texts about Abyssal Intruders. After an hour, Ebony rolls up her sleeves and starts helping. Between them, they find patchy references to an Evil Grimoire spawned by the everything-and-nothing, and track down a huge, visibly ancient, tome from deep in the collection. It describes the means by which the Invisible Codex enters the world;

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Three Conditions must be met, being the presence of a Mage of sufficient Power (usually a Master at least), the desire for Power and a place for it to manifest as a book. It can use two to bring the third about. Wolsey frowns, bone-tired. From his reading, then, Beckett is the perfect host for the Abyssal. Which would make the "Nefandi in Baltimore" nothing more than the third condition, a convenient way for the Codex to put itself into Beckett's possession. "Where does this book come from?" - Wolsey "It was in the bequest of.. uh.. Pollux. A Magus of the Adamantine Arrow, who died in the 70s." - Ebony "He didn't give it to his apprentice?" - Wolsey, not buying it "He mustn't have had one. It's not unusual - most of the collection was given to us in wills" - Ebony In any case, dawn's light has broken, and Wolsey is shattered. He thanks Ebony, who equally tiredly says it was a good way to spend the night. Wolsey drives back to his house then teleports to the Sanctum in hope of finding Damascus and Kali. Processing the evening, he thinks about Ebony - the way she took her jacket off, agreed quickly to hang around and help. That goodbye remark... Pity she didn't realise he was flirting with her all night.
The irony being that she was flirting with him all night and didn't realise he was flirting with her. Gads, not separated from his wife one session and he's already chatting up the Goth-girls.

Kali spent the night at her dad's. Damascus was driven home by his dad and is still asleep. Deciding to wait for them, Wolsey takes a comfortable position on the Sanctum's sofa, and immediately falls asleep.
Ebony didn't make any mention of Cxaxa, though she did seem somewhat interested that Wolsey was looking up books on the Abyss. The Research attempt took a magnificent 12 hours before yielding enough successes - Intruders (the sourcebook the Codex is from) has a neat innovation of every Abyssal coming with an associated research table, giving the information you learn with increasing successes. Wolsey (Ebony aiding on the rolls) got 7 successes. Eventually. His interest in the Abyss is coming ic from a desire to go forewarned into the Damascus situation, but ooc Mark is trying (and, I think, succeeding) in gear-shifting his character into the new direction he decided on last week.

... Wolsey sleeps into the early afternoon (Damascus works on a commission in his studio rather than come to the Sanctum), his sleep disturbed by dreams of the Eyes of Salt. Meanwhile, Kali is back at work again. And that woman is back, too. Kali pays only as much attention as is due to a customer (though she does note that the woman only seems to be interested in being served by her), but when she looks up after serving someone else, she's gone. Kali continues working, and the *next* time she turns around the woman is back, sat there as though she was never gone. She smiles that odd smile again, gets up and leaves.

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Kali shrugs and gets on with her job. . Hours later, Kali is finished for the day. Going into the tiny staff room, she opens her locker to retrieve her things. The Crown of the Dethroned Queen is folded neatly on top of her bag. Kali dumbly stares at it, then uses her Postcognition. Or tries to, at least - the last few hours in this room are unreadable, warded in Time. Kali scrutinises the ward, and recognises the resonance. It's hers. Feeling dizzy, she fumbles in her coat for something, eventually retrieving the Fateful Nickel. Long-buried theories are raising themselves like warning flags in her mind. She hurries out of the coffee shop and starts driving for the Time Machine. ... Wolsey has woken up and - after checking that he doesn't have company - has teleported to Damascus', where he's explaining what he and Ebony found. Essentially, he's not happy. Not happy at all. Beckett said that Damascus had to have no desire for the power the Codex contains, right? But Wolsey's researches indicate that it actively selects it's victims. And Damascus doesn't qualify on any points. They decide to head to Beckett's to have him explain his working to them. And only remember to check if he's home AFTER they drive the hour through snowladen DC to get there. He isn't. A quick U-turn, and they're on the way back home. ... Kali reaches the time machine, to find the place filled with packing boxes. "Hi, Kali. Excuse the mess" - Samuel "I.. uh.. I need to talk to you" - Kali He takes one look at her face, and suggests they go to a nearby bar. . "...So that's it. The Cat came back. And I think I did it, from the future." - Kali Samuel shifts uncomfortably "It's not quite what you're thinking. More... More the opposite, in fact, if I'm right. I

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can't explain everything now. Some, and some more on the Walk." - Samuel She takes that in. And also takes in a vodka. "Okay. People of my.. My colleagues.. No, colleagues is the wrong word... Peers? Close enough. We have codes of conduct that we're supposed to follow, to keep everything nice and prevent, you know, the world from ending. Kind of like the Russians." - Samuel She looks blankly at him "Russians? No? We can kill all of them, but they can kill all of us?" (shakes his head) "You were born a decade too late. When I was growing up, it was the Russians. Anyway, it's like that. There's a rule. The Pax Arcanum. Kind of a non-aggression pact for very scary people, in which we don't mess with what one another do..." Samuel He looks at her, plainly failing to get the point. "It'll come to you in time" (reassuring) "Another drink?" - Samuel She hands him her glass. When he comes back, he has the air of someone who's decided on a fresh tactic. "Okay. Reality." (starts tearing up beermats and scribbling diagrams on them) "Remember Plato's cave? Reality is the shadows on the wall of the cave, cast by unseen movements and processes in what we call the Supernal Realms. As above, so below - basic magical principle, right?" - Samuel "Right" - Kali "Now. Each pairing of Arcana is made up of one Supernal aspect and one Fallen aspect, which is the Supernal Aspect's shadow on the far side - which is to us the near side - of the Abyss. This world is made up by the merging of those Fallen Aspects, right? And when you cast you channel the forces of the Realms down either as the fundamental or the shadow. It's like holograms" - Samuel Kali is lost "Holograms? Yeah? Image projected into media? Okay. The Primal Wild is made up of Spirit, which is cast onto this world as Life, yeah? Now. "Time" is what we call the hologram-form of Fate. In Arcadia, there is no Time. There's only Fate." - Samuel "But we can manipulate Time" - Kali "By drawing on the Realm to alter the shadow it casts. Understand? Beyond the Abyss, where the Exarchs and Oracles sit, there's no Time" - Samuel "Only Fate" - Kali "Exactly. You'll understand that, too, eventually" - Samuel He frowns. "I may have done a very bad thing. I suspect that I know how a particular thing

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happened" - Samuel "The same way the Crown came back?" - Kali "Yeah" - Samuel, soberly "People say that you can't alter history. And that's bunk, because you blatantly can. It's normally focused, though, and something of a blunt instrument. When you reach Mastery yourself you'll be able to go back a day, maybe even a week, and do that time over again - effectively you reset the clock, but keep your memories of the alternate world you left. But when you get to where I am, it's a different problem." Samuel He downs his drink "You can alter history - as long as you remember that it's already been altered. Say if you were going to have an inheritance. You would go back to give yourself it later. I think that we..." - Samuel He shakes his head "I'll tell you on the Walk. And if I can't tell you then, then I'll tell you when I next see you afterwards" - Samuel "That reminds me - I *have* seen you after the Walk. You were in the Dreamtime" Kali She tells him of her experience on the River, and he makes careful notes.
What IS Samuel talking about in this whole thing? You'll find out. Or maybe you'll figure it out. The Pax Arcanum is the agreement Archmages and Tetrarchs have to keep out of one another's business.

... The boys are back from their fruitless visit to Beckett's empty house, and considering the best course of action. "Who else could tell us about the ritual?" - Wolsey "Ulysses.. Trace.. Shore" - Damascus "We need to know what'll happen if it goes ahead, if Beckett is being affected by the Intruder, then who knows if the ritual to banish it hasn't been subtly twisted by it's influence?" - Wolsey Damascus nods "So help me, I think I'm going to have to do a Melchior" - Damascus
By which he means "get Kali to cast prophecy". It's normally Damascus who asks for Kali's prophetic abilities anyway.

... Kali winds her way into the Sanctum, having left Samuel at the Time Machine. "Where've you been?" - Damascus

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"Samuel" - Kali "Something's come up, and we need you to..." - Wolsey Kali, though, is phoning Trace. The boys wait. "Trace? Yeah. I've been thinking, and talking to Samuel. I'm going to get Shepherd to..." - Kali She listens, then waves the boys over. "Right" - kali She hangs up. "The Seers are back. They've had a go at Valkyrie" - Kali "Who?" - Damascus "She grabbed Seraph with us. What happened?" - Wolsey "They had her arrested after dumping a load of money in her bank account. The cops are trying to prove she's been messing with the wills where she works" - Kali
Valkyrie is a Bearer of the Stone Book, who works at a nursing home.

Hmm. "About that problem..." - Wolsey He tells her what they've been worrying about - they think that the ritual is becoming flawed, and that Beckett is being corrupted by the Codex. "I need to know what'll happen if the ritual goes ahead as it is now" - Damascus "You want my opinion as Cabal Leader? Because we were waiting for Mycroft" - Kali "I want a Prophecy" - Damascus She sighs "Get me coffee" - Kali
Kali uses a beverage - normally caffeine, but she's done it with brandy once - as a Chalice when she uses Time Magic, staring into the liquid.

He does, and Kali casts Prophecy "If you do the ritual as it stands.. Beckett is going to die." - Kali "...Oh" - Wolsey "...And Damascus is going to kill him" - Kali "What if we DON'T do the ritual?" - Damascus

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"Then he'll die, after a bit longer. And then the Codex will take other people." - Kali "Is there any way to stop it?" - Wolsey She casts a third time, and frowns. "The moment has passed" - Kali "The what now?" - Damascus "He's on a critical path, and he's missed his chance to avert it" - Kali
Well... shit.

"If I don't do the ritual?" - Damascus "Dead... Look, I can't see a way out. If you don't do the ritual he dies. If you DO, he dies." - Kali They consider. "We need a plan C. Something we haven't thought of... He can't be in the ritual and survive. The ritual has to be done... Is there anyone else that can do it?" - Wolsey Damascus shrugs helplessly. "We're going to have to ask him if there's anyone." - Damascus Kali nods.
They are not listening to her - Kali's questions to the Prophecy spell were *very* specific: "What will happen if we go ahead with the ritual as planned?", "What if the ritual goes ahead but Damascus is replaced with someone else?" "Is there any way to prevent Beckett from dying while doing the ritual?" and so forth. No one asked about the manner of death (which is actually different for most of the cases), or what specifically would happen. Prophecy's a bitch.

"The moment has passed. He's doomed" - Kali "So was Wolsey" - Damascus "Yes, but that came true" - Kali Wolsey frowns, thinking. "But not in a way I was expecting. Yes, I lost her because of her Dreams of Cxaxa..." - Wolsey Damascus' phone rings. "scuse" - Damascus, answering it. "What the hell do you people think you're doing!?" - Christopher, furious "Er. Hi Christopher. What?" - Damascus

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"I am NOT happy with your invasion of my Sanctum. Right of Hospitality, Damascus. Right of Fucking Hospitality." - Christopher "Look. I can account for... Oh hell. What exactly happened?" - Damascus, suddenly realising something. "Your Cabalmate just burst in here when I was with a *client* and demanded her "property" back. Accusing me of being a thief, threatened me. She can *have* the damn things for I care, but she can ask, not kick my door in." - Christopher Damascus looks up, and says - so Kali and Wolsey can hear him... "Cxaxa took the Eyes of Salt" Damascus Wolsey and Kali pay attention. "Whatever she's calling herself now" - Christopher, hotly. "I'm sorry for your insult, but.. Cxaxa isn't a member of our Cabal. We kicked her out a week ago" - Damascus Christopher processes that. "Well, then - *Sentinel*. I wish to report a breach of protocol" - Christopher Damascus sighs, and takes the details of exactly what happened. And, after hanging up, tells the others. When Amanda became Querephas, she tore out her eyes and replaced them with Querephas' eyes of Salt. When the Cabal broke the Heart of Flies, the spell was undone and the Eyes deactivated. Christopher - who treated her for her injuries removed the inert stone eyes (finding, in the process, that the bleeding had been cauterised by the eyes themselves and the optic nerves neatly cut, so he only had to treat the injuries caused by Amanda's fingers digging into herself). Christopher, not being the sort to throw away cursed artefacts casually, kept the Eyes. And Cxaxa has just demanded their return. "And because everyone thinks she's still in our Cabal, everything she does is going to reflect badly on us" - Damascus "Damage limitation, then. We need to make her expulsion official, right now. And you need to get off the case. We need another Sentinel to handle it. Nimrod?" - Wolsey "Is a Guardian." - Damascus "So's Mycroft, and he'll have to be the one that punishes her if she's found to have done anything" - Wolsey "But his position requires him to be strictly neutral. We should get him back in the city ASAP anyway..." - Damascus Damascus thinks. Proteus is Mara's lover. Jude is in Mara's cabal. And Link, after the Mara incident, dislikes and distrusts the Cabal.

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"Do you realise, Wolsey, that - with the exception of Nimrod, who may well be insane - we've managed to isolate ourselves from the city's Sentinels?" - Damascus "Mara?" - Wolsey "Mara. I'm going to try Link - but if he tells me No, we're stuck. And he'll be within his rights to do so." - Damascus Damascus' conversation is hurried - Link, to his credit, keeps it professional and to Damascus' relief agrees to look into it. He checks if they've told Hoban of the change to their Cabal. While the Sentinels are talking, Wolsey calls Mycroft. "Hello?" - Female, youthful voice. Ah. "...Hi. Is Mark there?" - Wolsey, hoping it isn't a wrong number. "DAAAAAAD!" - voice "Tom" - Mycroft "Mark... I'm sorry, but we, ah.." - Wolsey "You want me to come back to the city?" - Mycroft, a subtle tinge of thankyouthankyouthankyou in his voice. "I wouldn't ask but" - Wolsey "Well, it's.. ah... it's" (raises voice) "It's very inconvenient." (lower) "what's happened?" - Mycroft "It's my wife" - Wolsey There is a long pause "... What's she done?" - Mycroft

Both men conclude their conversations. "We need to get the electoral roll changed, and if at all possible retroactively. If she's still a member of this Cabal legally then Link *might* go after us as well as her." Damascus "Damnit. CAPITAL. We wanted to stop doing this kind of thing" - Wolsey Kali rolls her eyes in the background. He calls Hoban "Dude!" - Hoban

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"Hi Hoban. Listen. Do you have the Roll there?" - Wolsey "*More* changes?" - Hoban "What changes have there been?" - Wolsey "Mycroft making Interfector. You quitting as Herald. Cxaxa's new Shadow name. Cxaxa quitting your Cabal." - Hoban Wolsey thanks his lucky stars, eyes closed. "She already told you" - Wolsey "Yup. As of five days ago. She's in Limbo at the moment while Banneker considers it" - Hoban "Considers what?" - Wolsey "The formation of a new Cabal" - Hoban, in a tone that indicates he thought Wolsey already knew "Whose new Cabal?" - Wolsey "Promethea's" - Hoban "*Promethea's*?" - Wolsey Hoban tells him that yes, Promethea, Ebony and Cxaxa have applied for permission to found their own Cabal - Promethea and Ebony would quit from Suleiman's if approved. Wolsey sits down, heavily, and thanks Hoban. "We're in the clear. I think. But it raises... I don't like this. I don't like the implications" Wolsey
He doesn't like the feeling the Cxaxa situation engenders - suspecting that she's planning something against the Cabal but being helpless to find out what, and lacking any proof in any case. It's a sword of Damocles.

"The three of them? That fits" - Damascus Kali frowns. She quite *likes* Ebony, actually... And then she looks up. "Wait a second. Christopher is in Suleiman's Cabal. Ebony is in Suleiman's Cabal, for the time being. Didn't he know?" - Kali "He's a bit of a recluse" - Damascus "Okay. We can't do any more on that. Backtrack. Where were we?" - Wolsey "Beckett" - Kali "Right" - Wolsey He calls Beckett. Who, mercifully, answers

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"Yes?" - Beckett, weary Wolsey asks if they can come round, and the elder Mastigos assents. (quietly) "To the campaign Car?" - Kali
She feels like someone should say it, now that Cxaxa's gone

"I'm afraid not. I TP'd here" - Wolsey "Oh... To the pickup truck?" - Kali ... Beckett's place. Newly repaired after the Hunger-spirit's attack "I'm sorry I wasn't in. We've all been rushed off our feet - me, Suleiman, Ulysses, Shore... There's war in the Shadow" - Beckett Wolsey waits, politely "More so than usual. There's a new, or rather *old* spirit on the loose. It's making allies, eating others and, well, building an army. The two City-Fathers are both loosing ground. It's going to play hell with the resonances all across the city." Beckett "What happened?" - Damascus "You met it once - Atraxis? The conceptual Lord of Shifting Perspectives? Someone broke my bindings over him, and now he's loose" - Beckett "Someone?" - Wolsey "Seers" - Beckett, flatly "That's.. Insane. Starting a war in the Shadow, because we captured one of theirs?" Wolsey Beckett shrugs. "At my guess, they're trying to keep us busy. And succeeding. Plus, you know, it's giving Thursday and his like a chance to mutter about me, because it looks like my fault." - Beckett "We.. We wanted to talk to you about the Ritual" - Wolsey "Oh, yes?" - Beckett ... Wolsey explains what he's found. Beckett is politely interested, but doesn't seem too bothered about the inconstancies. "Look, here" - Beckett

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He opens a book from *his* library, describing the Codex. "The Codex follows rules, laws hardwired into it's nature. The person being attacked must make the first move, it cannot do anything that a book cannot, so it's reliant on others to move it. It can't change what type of book it is and lastly, when it's taken by someone with the intent of increasing their own power it's freed to act, and use it's numina on them. To banish it you need three things - a Master of Spirit to counter it's powers and it's attempts to avoid banishment, someone able to resist it's temptations and someone able to visualise a destination in the Abyss." - Beckett Wolsey is reading over his shoulder "Excuse me, but.. does that say they need to be the same person?" - Wolsey "Well, yes. Essentially, you have to trick the book into targeting someone who seems suitable, but is pure of heart and able to banish it" - Beckett "Damascus doesn't know the Spirit Arcanum" - Wolsey, reasonably. "Which is why I propose to cheat. The Ritual we're doing is intended to give Damascus the knowledge he's lacking. I'm going to make a Soul Stone - using *that* will enable Damascus to access my link to Pandemonium and cast using my Arcana. You gave me the idea, actually, Wolsey, when you used Malakaii's to learn his Legacy." - Beckett
More Soul Stone fun! I love Soul Stones, especially after Tome of the Mysteries increased the options for their use.

"Is there anyone else experienced enough to be able to perform the ritual all by themselves? It still sounds a little risky" - Wolsey "Of *course* it's risky! It's very, very dangerous. But it'll work. Look - I'm the only one with the knowledge and power to do it, but the book would take me over. So I'll grant my powers in trust to Damascus, who can then do the deed. It's positively symbolic." - Beckett "We have reason to believe that the book may already be working it's spell on you" Wolsey "Tell me something I don't know" - Beckett Wolsey looks helplessly at Damascus "You know?" - Damascus "Yes - I knew when I took it. I'm resisting, and I haven't read it, but I know It would go wrong if I tried to banish it myself." - Beckett They look dubious "Do you want to back out?" - Beckett Damascus looks at Wolsey "No" - Damascus

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... The next morning, Mycroft returns to the Sanctum to find the Cabal in thoughtful mood. "What else has been happening?" - Mycroft, dumping his suitcase "This came back" (indicates the Crown) and the Seers have been attacking" - Kali They tell him about Valkyrie and Beckett. Wolsey is thoughtful "Problem?" - Damascus "Yeah. There's something..." - Wolsey, considering. "What?" - Damascus "They said 'Tell Wolsey he'll get his'? Right? When they... How is your Sister, by the way?" - Wolsey, suddenly remembering that, too. "As can be expected" (flatly) "They say she should be able to come home in a few days." - Damascus "They're going after our *real* lives, except for in Beckett's case." - Wolsey "Probably because he doesn't have one" - Mycroft "But I do. Excuse me." - Wolsey He teleports home, then a short time and one quick check of his bank account later, returns... "There. Fifteen Thousand Dollars I don't have, paid in." - Wolsey, grim "Seraph's lot?" - Kali "No. Remember what Ministry Seraph said Tycho was from? *Mammon*. This is about Tycho." - Wolsey "Should I worry about my Dad?" - Kali "You weren't on the team that caught him. You were in the room, but you were invisible... To be honest I hope they DO go after your family. It'd be funny" - Wolsey Kali is taken aback. "Your mother? What'd she do to them, do you think?" - Wolsey "She doesn't have the Crown. I do..." - Kali, trailing off. "What?" - Damascus "We could use the Crown. To make them stop, I mean. Or - here's a thought? The Ritual. We could use it to remove the memory of the book from anyone it'd affect." -

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kali "Kali, we've already lost one person in this Cabal to their ancestry. Let's not make it two" - Damascus Wolsey phones his bank, telling them that the money isn't his and they should try to find out where it's from, takes a complaint number and then calls his lawyer. "We need to talk to Tycho. Do you think you can get us in?" - Damascus, to Mycroft

Mycroft sighs and goes into the other room to call around.

"Shepherd!" - Kali "Excuse me?" - Wolsey "Shepherd! He knows about Money - he might be able to help... I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier." - Kali She calls.
This session really is a phone-a-thon

... Later on, and they're still in the Sanctum. Shepherd has come over, and is looking at Wolsey's accounts online. "See, here? This is them too. And this, and these. The big sum was to distract you good if it worked, but you were meant to think you'd dealt with it" - Shepherd "Thank you for this" - Wolsey "No problem. I'm trying to get Valkyrie out of it too. Seers, huh?" - Shepherd "After you're done, Shepherd, I'd like a chat about the House." - Kali "Yeah. I'll transfer everything into your name. Been meaning to, but I've been distracted" - Shepherd. "Everything?" - Kali "The mortgage on the Time Machine. The other properties. The House's accounts..." - Shepherd "...Right" - Kali . Mycroft rejoins them, three hours of cajoling and phoning after he started. "Good news and bad" - Mycroft

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"Go on" - Damascus "We have a face-top-face with Tycho. Nimrod will take us there. But it'll be secured by Twilight, and we'll be in Nimrod's hands. Also..." - Mycroft Wolsey knows what he's going to say "...It turns out Tycho's debriefing is being handled by a small team of Guardians across Cabals, picked by Pool. Cxaxa is one of them, and she'll be there." Mycroft

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Session 11.2
Part two now, in short(er) order. The Cabal's new dynamics continue to settle, as the change of Cabal leader from Wolsey to Kali starts to affect the feel of things. Most of the session is devoted to Wolsey who, having successfully spent the last two sessions ridding himself of all of his 'props', plot-wise, now begins to rebuild himself as a follower rather than a leader. I am put in mind of the role-transitions in the Invisibles. I must see about maybe swapping Damascus and Mycroft's habitual roles, too. If Rafe were up for it. The Recap should (I laughably suggest) be slightly more accurate than usual, as the session had a much stronger structure to it - the Cabal talk, split up in pairs, talk, split up pairs, talk and then split up again. Much easier for me to remember than a sprawling, looping, six-hour conversation like 10.1. If a character drops off the "screen" for longer than usual at any point this session, it's because their player was happily reading Magical Traditions. Our verdict - mostly good, especially the opening and closing chapters, but sadly it's probably the sourcebook in the line so far that we'll use the *least*. I very much look forward to Astral Realms, though.

Morning has dawned, calmer heads have prevailed, Wolsey's lawyer is running rings around the bank's investigations department and the Cabal are no longer quite so sure that they want to go see Tycho after all. It starts as doubts that they'll be able to get anything useful out of him, then someone points out they'll not be left alone with the prisoner. *Then* Wolsey asks what they planned to ask him. You can hear the snow falling upstairs in the garden. "Because anything we want to ask, the Guardians probably already have" - Wolsey People glance at Mycroft "Look. Cxaxa is on the interrogation team..." - Mycroft "Are you saying we should be there because of that?" - Damascus "I can't tell you what she's doing" - Mycroft "But you can advise us to keep our eyes on it?" - Wolsey "... It's..." (considers his words carefully) "It's delicate. If her actions threaten you, then I'll tell you. Until then I won't, but we should be aware of the broad movements" Mycroft Clear as mud.
This is the second (I think) time Mycroft's brought this up - he clearly knows what Cxaxa is doing for the Consilium, doesn't like it and is waiting for his excuse to spill to the others.

"So, if we're not going to see Tycho what *are* we going to do?" - Kali "What other pressing matters are there?" (counts off on fingers) "War in the spirit world, the aftershocks of same in this world, Beckett's ritual and our own various studies" - Damascus "And the Lady" - Kali "Oh, yeah" - Damascus "The Lady?" - Mycroft

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They explain Kali's suspicion/fear (delete as applicable), which he seems sceptical of. Kali is all for finding out what's going on with her mysterious visitor, though. "She's tall.. .has red hair sort of curled and piled up.. She didn't speak English at first but every time she turns up she's getting better..." - Kali "She could just be foreign" - Damascus, half-joking "Crown. Coming Back. And mother said 'she'd' be around" - Kali She's set to go investigate. "Well, with your permission, I'd like to continue my research into the Abyssal" Wolsey "Actually, I wanted to come with you this time" - Kali "Well, time is of the essence there" - Wolsey She's torn - the Lady or the bookstacks. "Your decision" - Wolsey "Oh, no - we decided, remember? We weren't settling anything until Mycroft was back" - Kali "I *am* back" - Mycroft, reasonably. They tell him (he seems amused) about Wolsey's decision to abdicate in favour of Kali. Kali isn't liking it - she complains that what with the House of Ariadne she's all responsibility-d out. "Well, I'm quitting. And we need someone to replace me" - Wolsey "I vote Damascus" - Kali, quickly Damascus blinks, then straightens in his seat "And I vote Kali" - Wolsey "Abstain" - Damascus "...Kali" - Mycroft
Et Tu, Mark?

"2-1" - Damascus Kali gives him a very dirty look "I'm not good at responsibility. Damascus is." - Kali "And that's the point. The position is one of responsibility. It will teach whoever has it that their actions have consequences and reflect on their people... Damascus already

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knows that." - Mycroft "Thank you" - Damascus "You're welcome." - Mycroft "If you know I'll make mistakes..." - Kali "Better that we take the hits than your apprentices." - Mycroft "What he said" - Wolsey "I don't *have* any apprentices" - Kali "Katherine? Blaise? Shepherd?" - Mycroft "They're not as far as you, right?" - Wolsey "Riiiight" - Kali, wary "Then once Samuel goes, they're your apprentices" - Wolsey "Oh, crap" - Kali
How mean am I feeling? Should she spend the three permanent willpower now, or once she gets to Gnosis seven and *can* teach the second attainment? Actually, I think I'll leave it up to Sam and how she portrays Kali's guiding the House. The upside to spending the willpower is that she'd get one extra xp a session per person... But that's still an outlay.

"I'll tell Hoban" - Wolsey, retrieving his phone. . "Dude!" - Hoban

All of Hoban's scenes now open with that.

"Hoban! Sorry to bother you again, but there's been another change to our Cabal and after the thing with Cxaxa we figured we'd tell you nice and early... I've stepped down as Cabal leader, and we've just elected Kali" - Wolsey "Taking more sabbaticals, eh?" - Hoban "Concentrating on what's important" - Wolsey "Well, done and... done! You'll be pleased to know your Cabal sigil is now slightly more symmetrical" - Hoban "Good to know" - Wolsey, dryly. . "The Lady?" - Mycroft, getting everyone back on track. "She can wait. I'll take Wolsey to the Athenaeum" - Kali "Ebony might be willing to baby-sit me if you want to do something else" - Wolsey

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"Oh, I'm certain she would be. But no, it's good." - Kali "Well.. I could do something about your visitor" - Damascus "Like what?" - Kali "I could scope her out. It's in my role as a student to hang around in cafes and drink coffee" - Damascus "Who's role isn't it?" - Wolsey "Er... Mormons?" - Damascus "I'll go with that. I might be able to tell something about her" - Mycroft "Don't you have secret Guardian meetings to go to?" - Wolsey, joking "Not until tomorrow, when Nimrod comes to take me to Tycho." - Mycroft "You don't have to tell us" - Wolsey "Best if I don't. These Guardian meetings are just a front, you know, for the wild parties. Everyone wearing masks and nothing else" - Mycroft Kali fakes suppressing a shudder, and Wolsey rounds on her, amused "You're no better - you and the House. At least the Silver Ladder don't invite me to the orgies. I'm sure there were meant to be orgies." - Wolsey "The first rule of the Adamantine Arrow is.. Damn it!" - Damascus And with that, the Cabal are about their business. ...
Remember how Wolsey and Ebony flirted past one another last session? It continues.

Kali and Wolsey drive North, to the Athenaeum. They've called ahead and Ebony is waiting for them outside. Wearing a very low-cut top. The two women greet one another. "I didn't know you were coming too" - Ebony "Spur of the moment" - Kali Both smiles don't quite meet their eyes. Over the next few hours, the three of them hit the books some more - Kali casting Superlative Luck on them all before they do so to make the finding of references easier. Ebony and Wolsey occasionally glance at one another, and Ebony's body language is fairly clear. Kali - much to Wolsey's irritation - is observing all of this with a particularly smug grin. They soon (relatively speaking) confirm Beckett's notes about the laws the Invisible

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Codex must obey while in this reality and the method of banishment, but keep digging. What Wolsey wants is an account of a successful banishment. "Here's one" (hands Wolsey the book she's holding) "There. It was successfully removed from the Fallen World, at some loss of life..." - Ebony Wolsey reads the passage without a word, then passes it to Kali "Does this say..?" - Kali "Yes. I think Beckett is slightly underplaying things." - Wolsey "Is it useful?" - Ebony "Very - thank you, again. You've been a great help, giving up your time like this" Wolsey "You can repay me another time" - Ebony He narrows his eyes slightly, but takes it in the spirit it was meant. "Whew.. Eight hours. Is there, uh, anywhere to eat around here?" - Wolsey "I know just the place" - Ebony, maintaining eye contact "Great, I'm starving" - Kali, cheerfully Ebony glares at Kali's back.
I'll reveal what they found out when they tell the others, so I don't have to type it twice in this recap. More cinematic this way, anyway. For all that she's being annoying and spoiling him flirting with Ebony, Kali over the last few sessions has had a much improved working relationship with Wolsey - they don't have huge screaming arguments any more, not since Anurati. Part of it's probably that she came around to his thinking with the Artefacts, and part of it may be his own realisation that she's overtaken him magically. Or that he's not worried about the Cabal all the time and has space to enjoy being a member... Either way, not being Cabal leader suits Wolsey. He's getting his life together, and not aggravating his friends. More of this later in the session.

Damascus and Mycroft are staking out Kali's place of business, sat at different tables ad trying to be incognito. (over walkie-talkie) "the hawk is still not in the nest" - Mycroft Damascus shrugs - his back to Mycroft - and gets another coffee. Hours pass. Mugs pile up. "I'm not sure how much more of this I can take" - Damascus Mycroft only grunts in reply. He's had five mugs and counting. Fortunately for everyone's bladders, the door to the shop opens and - along with a blast of cold air from the snow outside - in walks a woman matching Kali's description of her visitor. Damascus clocks her and, when she passes him, casts a mind-based Mage Sight, hoping to read her aura. She doesn't have one.

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Confused, he scrutinises, staring closer at her. He makes a horrible realisation just as the fact that she's now looking right at him percolates into his brain. He throws a counterspell *just* in time as something horribly complex and Fate-based attempts to weave itself into his pattern. The mystery woman turns on her heel and marches out of the shop into the street. Damascus sits there, dumbfounded for a moment, then gives chase, Mycroft getting up as he does. Outside, the woman is walking across the main road as though the traffic did not exist - and yet, it's somehow managing to avoid hitting her.
The "Morpheus Trick", but with cars.

"Should we?" - Mycroft "Let her go... If 'her' is the right word" - Damascus "What WAS that? My Attainment didn't work on it" - Mycroft "I think.. I think that was a spell" - Damascus "She cast a spell?" - Mycroft "She *was* a spell. That 'woman' is being generated by Supernal forces. I couldn't tell the Arcana, but the Practice is.. Imperial, I guess." - Damascus "Kali was right?" - Mycroft "About one thing at least. I got the resonance of the caster - and it was Kali's" Damascus "That could be faked" - Mycroft "Yeah.." (looks around) "I think we've had enough coffee. Let's get back" - Damascus Mycroft looks dubiously at the weather conditions. "The snow and cold will be good for you. Come on" - Damascus They hustle off into the freezing snowfall. "Yeah... Okay, now I need to pee" - Mycroft ... Wolsey, Kali and Ebony are in a cafe in the small town of - oddly enough "Damascus", which is near to the Athenaeum. "...So it looks like Banneker is going to grant Promethea her charter" - Ebony "Will you go with them?" - Wolsey "I haven't decided yet. I respect Promethea, but she's taught me almost all that she can, and with Cxaxa back she's focusing on her. Besides, I've been saving up favours for a while now. It's good to be the Librarian sometimes" - Ebony

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"Not getting sick of it?" - Wolsey "No, it's interesting enough, and needed in the Order. I don't get to participate in much, but I end up being owed a lot" - Ebony "Like today" - Wolsey "Like today. If I were to change, I'd try to find a Legacy" - Ebony "I meant to ask. Not a Claviclarius?" - Wolsey "Promethea wasn't advanced enough to induct people until recently, and by then I knew I didn't want it. I mean - Astral Space is all very well, but it's a bit limiting. Oh! That reminds me, I've been meaning to ask you" (to Kali) "Do you have any idea why Shiva is in the Temenos?" - Ebony "It's a projection" - Kali "We think it's either a Dreamtime creature moving nearer to reality or a portent of change and destruction for the City. Probably both" - Wolsey Ebony flicks her attention away from Kali and back to Wolsey. Kali smirks. "Promethea was asking. It's getting in the way of training Cxaxa." - Ebony
Which means Promethea is teaching Cxaxa Goetia - which has dark implications... (good catch Scott. I forgot to put this bit in first try)

"Back to the Cabals. If you decide you don't want to go with Promethea, then our door is always open" - Wolsey "So I've heard. No more trouble with Seers?" - Ebony "Not anymore" - Wolsey
Which means she knows about Seraph's little visits. Which means, as Wolsey realises, Cxaxa has been telling people.

Everyone makes polite small talk, until Ebony needs to get going. "This was nice. I'll see you around" - Ebony "You bet" - Wolsey After she leaves, Wolsey turns on Kali, who is still smirking. "Okay. What the hell was that all about?" - Wolsey "I think you know" - Kali "I'm a big boy" - Wolsey "Clearly" - Kali "If you have anything to say..." - Wolsey "If you're going to do it again, do a better job" - Kali, clinically

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"... I... I think the only proper reaction to that is to say Mind your Own Business" Wolsey Kali makes an "okay, then" face "Really. You and Damascus, back when we found out Cxaxa was in town and right up to her leaving the Cabal. Please, don't do what you did then. Let me find my own way" - Wolsey "Okay" - Kali "Really" - Wolsey "I said, Okay" - Kali He looks dubious "Okay. You made me Cabal leader - I was concerned that you'd repeat your mistakes, and I've voiced it. Because I don't think we can survive *another* rejected ex-lover of yours" - Kali "I won't do it again. I promise" - Wolsey "Good." (brightly) "Home?" - Kali "Home" - Wolsey ... The Cabal reassemble, and thoroughly spoil on another's day with what they've learnt. "How've you b... Oh." - Mycroft, to Kali and Wolsey "What?" - Wolsey, Kali grinning in the background. Mycroft just looks at him. "Oh my" - Mycroft Wolsey gives him a look "Sorry. Too much caffeine. I'm reading everyone" - Mycroft "Yes. Fine. Ebony is flirting with me." - Wolsey He reports that she is wavering about whether she'll go with Cxaxa and Promethea if/when they get chartered, and he's enthusiastic about maybe recruiting her for the Crucible. "Best of all, she's a *Thyrsus*. You know, that thing we don't have? AND it sounds like she's had enough of being Promethea's apprentice, waiting around and putting up with her antinomism until Promethea could teach her Legacy" - Wolsey

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"Why didn't she just go to one of the others?" - Kali "The other Claviclarii? Promethea would never forgive the insult. Especially if she went to Shore - Promethea and he can't stand one another" - Mycroft They look at him
You know how the Cabal have, at times, wondered where Mycroft gets his in-depth political analyses from?

"I sense hidden information about people by looking at them. I've been to Consilium meetings. Don't look so surprised" - Mycroft
There's the answer.

"Well... She's wavering." - Wolsey "Has it occurred to you that she may well have been told to get into your confidence by Promethea and Cxaxa?" - Mycroft "It has" - Wolsey "Does it bother you?" - Mycroft "Not especially. Cxaxa already knows all our dirty secrets. And that's the other thing... Ebony knew things" - Wolsey He tells them about Ebony knowing about Seraph's nocturnal visits. "...So Cxaxa is telling everyone she can about everything. We need to send her a Message. Something to warn her off" - Wolsey "Like what?" - Damascus "Fish in a blanket?" - Wolsey, half-joking "She'll probably be there when I go to see Tycho. I'll try to talk to her then - though it depends on how receptive she's feeling." - Mycroft "I still get the feeling that she's going to do something..." - Wolsey "And when she does we can retaliate. But we can't make the first move" - Damascus "I suppose" - Wolsey "So in amongst all the socialising... Anything about the Ritual?" - Damascus "You're going to like this. You know how Beckett said you just had to visualise the Abyss? he didn't mention that it *opens a portal there*. A physical portal." - Wolsey Damascus winces "We found a description of one time it was done. Apparently, it also drove mages all around it mad with desire for it in a last-ditch effort to save it's hide. Most of them died killing one another in order to claim the book" - Kali

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"Could that be why I kill Beckett? Either I've gone mad or he has?" - Damascus "Could well be. The Book's a spirit. Or it manifests in our world as a spirit, which then materialises..." - Kali, echoing Ebony's explanation earlier. "...And like all Spirits it has a specific remit. In this case 'The desire to know'. If it gets desperate, and the gloves come off because it's being banished, it can warp the minds of people around it" - Wolsey "Okay. Easy. We don't let him anywhere near the ritual. I'll talk to the others about it" - Damascus "How did you two do?" - Wolsey "Well... She turned up" - Mycroft Kali waits "She's a spell. That's the best way I can describe it - she isn't a spirit, and definitely isn't a flesh and blood person. It's like a Phantasm only... Well... Much much more advanced, and not based on the Prime Arcanum. When I looked at it, it tried to lay some kind of Fate-based smackdown on me. A really, really powerful curse." Damascus He explains that he got two things out of scrutinising it - First, the Practice used was well beyond anything he's seen, so he assumes it was cast by an Archmage. Second, the resonance was clearly and quite potently Kali's. "Goddamnit!" - Kali "Now, that can be faked. Remember when I made mine look like Malakaii's?" Damascus "It could be a manifest paradox. I mean, we DO know of an uber-powerful Acanthus preparing to do something hideous to the timeline soon" - Mycroft "And the paradox is coming backwards through time?" - Kali
Her tone of voice is curious, not incredulous. She thinks it might be that. She also, IIRC, thinks it's much more likely to be cast by her future self.

She resolves to ask Samuel about it when they go on the Walk. Damascus has had an idea, speaking of Spirits. The thing stopping Beckett from getting on with his thing is the Spirit Count Atraxis, freed by the Seers- and Damascus thinks he may well do best to help out with that, as a means of preventing any disruption caused by the spirit war. Wolsey, meanwhile, needs direction. And he turns, in uncharacteristic haze, to Kali. "Are you doing anything tonight?" - Wolsey She's slightly taken aback by that "No... Why?" - Kali

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"Because I've been thinking through some things, and I'm at an impasse. I need independent advice... Could you walk the city with me?" - Wolsey "You want to walk the thread?" - Kali "Why not?" - Wolsey ...
Why not, indeed? I Asked Mark why Wolsey went to walk the thread and... Mark: Because I didn't know what to do next. So there you have it.

"So how does this work?" - Wolsey, shivering They're stood, in the snow, on the downtown side of the bridge to Anacostia. The thread is easier to grasp in the city centre. Kali explains the way the divination works. She uses Fate magic to identify "significant" items, occurrences or phrases. They follow those clues wherever they lead. Kali's had enough practice that even if they get one or two clues wrong, she'll usually be able to pick it up again. Of course, if he wanted to know what happened in the past of a place, or wanted to find an object, the process would be modified by her Attainments. Kali prepares herself, standing with people walking all around her. "What counts as 'significant'?" - Wolsey A newspaper, carried by the wind, hits him and wraps around his face. Kali reaches out and takes it. "That" - Kali The specific page is a crossword - on which only two clues have been completed "Affidavit and Dimension?" - Wolsey "4 across and 9 up" - Kali . The intersection of 4th and 9th turns out to be two stores - a DVD rental place and a Vacation tour organiser - both are shut. In the window of the first is an offer on the complete works of James Cameron. In the second is a dilapidated poster for the Grand Canyon. "The Grand Canyon? I can open a portal, probably..." - Wolsey Kali shakes her head. Wherever it will be, it'll be within this city. .

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The Grand Canyon turns out to be a Chinese restaurant. "Taking me to dinner, now?" - Kali Wolsey makes a face, and asks what's good. Kali's sense of significance is triggered by the meal, which they note is number 6 on the menu. Once fed, the two of them leave and look around for any further clues. Nothing. "Maybe something nearby?" - Kali "There's a cinema" - Wolsey, pointing It's a tiny independent place, dilapidated. The last showing of the evening is nearing it's end - part of a season of classic sci-fi. "Aliens" to be exact. They look at one another, shrug, and go in. Just in time to see Bishop be torn in half by the Alien Queen and Ripley duel it wearing power armour. The credits roll. "Oh, for..." - Kali . Back at the first place they went, they're looking in the DVD store's window. "Okay.. So the thread wasn't just to the tour operator - it was to both of them. The special is number six, so the sixth film is..." - Kali "...The Abyss" - Wolsey
Hee!

"What's THAT supposed to mean?" - Kali "I have my suspicions. Can you find anything else?" - Wolsey "No - it's just these two things. In a loop. I don't..." (shrugs) "Sorry" - Kali They start to walk back, cold and wet. Kali spots something shiny in the snow, and bends down to retrieve it. It's a Nickel. She immediately bombards it with Mage Sight spells, but it does not appear to be magical nor placed there by her future self. Nor is it glued down. "What do you think?" - Kali, passing him the coin. "It's scratched" - Wolsey The inscription has been deliberately scored over on the I and O of "In God We Trust"

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"Io?" - Wolsey
At least no-one suggested teleporting to the Moon of Jupiter. Although the out of character suggestion of same did lead to a digression about teleporting to Mars in both oMage and nMage, and how in nMage it'd just be Mars while in oMage it'd have a magical castle on it. Which led, naturally enough, to me and Rafe explaining the term "What Would Porthos Do?" to Sam, who never played oMage.

They dig out Wolsey's PDA again. . "Io" is a nightclub. A nightclub that, from the outside and the bouncers, looks a bit too exclusive for the likes of Kali. "Dinner, now Dancing. Not bad" - Kali "I'm dressed for it, but.. Do you want me to cloak you?" - Wolsey She nods, and Wolsey casts "Incognito Presence" on her. The club is fairly deserted, a bow-tied bartender perking up as Wolsey approaches. "What's good?" - Wolsey, getting the hang of this thread business. The bartender makes something complex and dark red which he informs Wolsey is called a "View From the South". Kali nudges Wolsey (the bartender can't see her) and Wolsey gets her a drink too. . "Dinner. Dancing. Drink!" - Kali, slightly teasing. "'View from the South' mean anything?" - Wolsey She casts a simple Knowing Practice of Space, and points. "South's that way" - Kali
I swear blind there was an "Internal Compass" spell, but I can't find it in the corebook. Maybe in one of the supplement. Anyways, it's pretty clear that it should be Space 1, covert, instant and of scene duration. I don't sweat the details. Tome of the Mysteries has greatly improved my grasp of nMage's magic system - I tend to think of spells in terms of Practices now, with modifications (plus one arcana dot to affect someone other than yourself or cast at sympathy and so on). The players, I think, tend to start with the listed spells and modify them to get what they want.

. They exit the fire door of the club, the nearest to the south, and clamber up the fire escape onto the roof. Shivering in the snow, Kali orients herself and looks South. Most landmarks are obscured by other buildings, but she knows that the White House is almost exactly directly south of them. She knows this because she *can* see the tip of the Washington Monument, twin red-lit windows in the summit glaring like eyes. "The Mall" - Kali "South... Jefferson?" - Wolsey

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Kali looks at the Nickel, with Jefferson's portrait on it. "Looks like" - Kali
Enough of the adventures of Wolsey and Kali for now. Let's catch up with Damascus...

Damascus spends that evening first talking to Cerberus about the turbulence in the Shadow World, learning about Atraxis. "It's pretty powerful - and sort of esoteric. Spirits tend to get more and more symbolic as they increase in strength, so Atraxis is the spirit of perspective in both senses of the word." "How big are we talking?" - Damascus, thinking "He can hide in the lines of perspective, and become larger or smaller to match faraway or near objects." - Cerberus Damascus frowns, trying to wrap his head around that one. "If he's stood next to you, he's about six-five, six-six? But he gets physically larger as he moves away from you. If you could see the Washington Monument, say, from a distance that makes it look six and a half feet, he could stand right next to it and be as big." - Cerberus
(Father Dougal) "This spirit is small. THIS spirit is far away..."

"What's he doing?" - Damascus "Recruiting. Atraxis is promising minor spirits of all stripes and courts his patronage and essence in exchange for besieging the two City Courts. The DC Hierarchy is particularly beleaguered, because Atraxis' lair is closer to the Temple of the West than it is to the City-Father of Washington's lair." - Cerberus "Do we know his ban?" - Damascus "For now, yeah - if he consumes enough spirits to shift upward a weight-class, or if he eats too many inappropriate things and becomes a Hybrid, his Ban will change. For that matter, if the Court of DC mounts a counter-attack and manages to discorporate him and shift him *down* in power it'll change, too. So this is 'maybe already changed' in duration. but Mirrors. Atraxis is fascinated by his own reflection, and can be trapped between two mirrors." - Cerberus "I think... I think I have an idea" - Damascus . One truck-drive later, and Damascus is waiting at Shore's office. The Mastigos is working late tonight. "Still snowing?" - Shore "Yeah. Listen. I came about two things..." - Damascus Shore stops writing, and lays his pen down.

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"First off - the ritual. You're involved?" - Damascus "I am" - Shore "We have some concerns. Wolsey and Kali have been researching the Codex, and found a report that.. well.. Beckett may be downplaying the amount of resistance it's able to put out against being banished. Portals to the Abyss have been mentioned. And a tendency to drive anyone who might be susceptible to it mad in an attempt to defend itself" - Damascus "Anyone in particular?" - Shore, concerned "... We were thinking of Beckett, actually. He says himself he's being tempted." Damascus "We can remove him from the scene. Once he's made the soul stone, he has no reason to be present... I'll Ban the area from anyone except for the ritualists" - Shore Damascus nods. "But I don't know when that'll be. The Shadow.." - Shore "I had thoughts about that." - Damascus Damascus produces some hastily-drawn sketches, depicting a globe in two halves, held together with a framework on the outside and sitting on three legs like a cauldron. From the dirty scale, it's about eight feet in diameter. "What's this?" - Shore "A spherical mirror." - Damascus Shore realises what he's getting at, and grins. "It can't have any lines in it at all, or he'll be able to move through them" - Shore "It'll be perfect. I'll get Ulysses to imbue it, so the two halves of the mirror-surface merge without leaving a join." - Damascus "What do you need?" - Shore "A way to get Atraxis to this thing, or this thing to Atraxis." (ticks off on fingers) "The metal. A place to work, with a reinforced floor - I figure this thing will weigh several tons. About two tons of glass-grade sand, the facilities to melt it and lead and mercury for the backing." - Damascus Shore is making notes "An Adept of the Spirit Arcanum should be able to transport it into the Shadow... I'll make some calls in the morning. I might even be able to get you a grant for it - write it off as a public art installation. Once we've removed Atraxis from it" - Shore "How were you planning on doing that? Because..." - Damascus

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"Once we have him trapped - and I think this will trap him - Beckett can tear his Essence apart. Destroy him" - Shore He sits back. "Good work, Damascus. Very good work indeed. We might be able to pull this off" Shore "I hope so" - Damascus "Sorry - I've been rude. How are the Cabal? I heard Cxaxa left you for Promethea" Shore "She did" - Damascus "Unfortunate. Doesn't bode well for the Astral Reaches. Mind you, that has it's own problems... Can I ask, by the way? Katherine mentioned you people might know... What's with that giant Shiva?" - Shore Damascus gives a helpless shrug "A symbol of impending disaster or change? Something to do with Kali, or her Mother? There's a theory that it might be something from further into the Invisible Realms echoing downward" - Damascus "From the dreamtime?" - Shore "Or further" - Damascus "An Ochema? I don't think so - or I hope not anyway. But the way we've been going with ancient evils..." - Shore
An Ochema (plural Ochemata) is a sub-self of an Exarch, Astrally projected across the Abyss into the Fallen world in the reverse of most Astral travel. They're very powerful, very very rare (to the point that most Free Councillors don't think they exist) and mentioned once in the gameline, in the Tome of Mysteries.

"Tell me about it" - Damascus Shore shivers. "Oh! Before I forget - Frohman may come looking for you." - Shore "Who?" - Damascus "Banneker's apprentice. The one who caused your cabal to be created and meant you were Ulysses' apprentice not mine. He wants some casting tools made - need a golden knife for something or other and heard how good you were with making ritual items to order. He came to me because I'm easier to find than Marathon, I said I'd talk to you about it." - Shore
Marathon and Shore are the two Provosts, as the Council currently stands, in the Arrow. Ulysses and Dantor as Councillors are meant to be too busy to handle such minor things. I've been meaning to play up Damascus' role in the Consilium at large for a while now, but the flow of the stories always got in the way. He's set up to be a support character for all the npcs that might need his services, and I'm glad to be able to actually have them use him as such for a change.

Damascus takes his leave, off to draw up more detailed plans. And maybe sleep. 614

...
Back to the adventures of Kali and Wolsey

Kali and Wolsey have made it to the Jefferson Memorial by means of Portal to get through the locked gates. It's eerily silent in the circular room. Wolsey looks at the words written around the circumference "...I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Wolsey, reading it out "What's that?" - Kali "Pretty much my motto. I think the thread's trying to tell me something. The Abyss? This?" - Wolsey They look around, and don't find anything. "Hang on" - Kali She holds the Nickel out, and waves her finger in the air, counting letters. "12. 84. 12 times seven" - Kali "What?" - Wolsey "'In God We trust'. Twelve characters." - Kali The phrase maps onto the Jefferson quote on the memorial seven times, letter for letter. "Okay.. so the scratches are on the I and the O. If the first letter is the first letter, then the first O is... V" - Wolsey (counting letters off) "I V O H G E S L S V F R T...M" - Kali "Take the letters as numbers, reduce them numerologically by adding digits together... If you make one number out of I and another out of O..." - Wolsey He taps away at his PDA. "32 and 37" - Wolsey "Number 32, 37th street, or the other way around?" - Kali "Let's try both." - Wolsey
For the curious, or those who like letter substitution puzzles, here's the full solution. And no, I didnt make the players figure this out themselves - I rolled Wits and Academics for the pair of them. This is just for my own amusement. Without spaces or punctuation, the two phrases map like this... IhaveswornuponthealtarofGodeternalhostilityagainsteveryformo ftyrannyoverthemindofman IngodwetrustIngodwetrustIngodwetrustIngodwetrustIngodwetrust IngodwetrustIngodwetrust If we highlight just the I's and O's it's

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IhaveswornuponthealtarofGodeternalhostilityagainsteveryformo ftyrannyoverthemindofman IOIOIOIOIOIOIO So the I's are; IhaveswornuponthealtarofGodeternalhostilityagainsteveryformo ftyrannyoverthemindofman IOGSSFT I O G S S F T works out into numbers (A=1, B=2) as 9 15 7 19 19 6 20 If you reduce them numerology-style (add digits together) it's 9 6 7 1 1 6 2 Making 32 The O's are IhaveswornuponthealtarofGodeternalhostilityagainsteveryformo ftyrannyoverthemindofman VHELVRM VHELVRM = 22 8 5 12 22 18 13 = 4 8 5 3 4 9 4 = 37 This is not the most elaborate puzzle I ever made in an RPG. That involved acetate, and layering the elements of the puzzle on top of one another to build the clues. I would be a right bastard if I ever designed a proper Gygax-style D&D dungeon. Temple of Elemental Evil here we come.

. It's now very late at night, and the snow that was being turned into slush by the traffic is staying and heaping up. The first address they try is a used bookstore, shut and security-grilled. Not wanting to give up quite that easily, they poke around in the alleyway to the store's side. There's a torn refuse sack filled with ruined, pulping books that have been left out here. Wolsey kneels to look through them, and looks up as Kali shouts in alarm and there's the noise of metal breaking. He steps up just in time for a fire escape ladder to slide down onto where he was kneeling, freed by a bolt shearing up above. The ladder has been painted silver. (looking at Kali) "You have got to be kidding me" - Wolsey They climb. Once on the roof, crunching through the snow and the gravel, they look around. "What's south of here?" - Wolsey Apartments. "It's not that.. It's..." - Kali She stares off to their left. Wolsey turns. There, in big neon letters, is "HERALD". . The Herald turns out to be a newspaper. They lurk outside for a few minutes, ruminating on the thread so far. Consensus seems to be that it's piloting them through Wolsey's magical career so far - we've had the Abyss (the state of being a Sleeper?), his founding principles and Awakening, his Order and now his Consilium position.

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A van leaves the back of the newspaper's offices and starts making it's way through the streets. Kali and Wolsey give chase, subtly. It stops off after a block at a latenight news stand and drops off a bale of papers. Wolsey buys one, and they huddle beneath a shop awning going through it. On page six, there's an advert. "Turn your life around! Gain the respect of your peers! Find your Direction!" - Advert It seems to be some kind of mail-order life coaching. They note the address. "It's not far. We could walk it" - Kali . The consultancy is based in a low-rent office building, that rents out suites to small firms. "Look at this - an artist's studio, a *private investigator*? This is us..." (looks up at the directory) "This is the Cabal" - Wolsey "What am I?" - Kali "Probably the Hindi correspondence courses" - Wolsey She makes a face. "I can't see anything else" - Kali "That's okay... I think.. This has helped, a lot. Taking stock. Plus, I get to see what you do" - Wolsey "Not bad for a first date" - Kali He gives her A Look. "Want to see what's over the road?" - Kali He shrugs It turns out to be a library. Which, like most things this time of night, is closed. "Okay. I get what it's trying to say. Let's go back" - Wolsey . They catch a night bus home. Wolsey leans back in his seat. Kali rests her head against the window. They pass a "Look left" sign, and Kali gets a sudden feeling that they're maybe not done. She pokes Wolsey in the ribs and they both look left. The bus passes a building with an illuminated sign saying "KINGFISHER TRAINING". And then a billboard selling diamonds for the holidays with the slogan

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"Give her one". Kali raises an eyebrow at *that*. "Kingfisher Training. Okay. I'll come back when it's..." - Wolsey "*Fisher King*? Maybe?" - Kali "Oh, yeah" - Wolsey
And that's the end of that.

... In the morning, Kali and Wolsey sleep in after getting home at 4am. Damascus, though, potters about his house making plans for the Atraxis-trap. He is interrupted by a call from Shore, telling him that the art grant is on, and that Shore has hired him a warehouse in which to work. He takes the address and then spends time organising contractors and deliveries before heading to the Sanctum. Kali and Wolsey have emerged, and Mycroft has reappeared from... Wherever he's been... and the Cabal have another of their "kvetch about the universe" lunchtime talks. Wolsey describes his thread experience (which he seems genuinely enlightened by), and asks if Damascus can come with him to see Marathon, as a member of the Adamantine Arrow. Wolsey hopes Marathon will be able to get a message to Fisher King, who Wolsey has been told by the City to seek out for his new direction. Mycroft tells them - while the mood is still high - that Banneker granted Promethea's request. Even that doesn't spoil the mood, though, and Wolsey speculates about what Ebony will do now. "Interested?" - Kali, smiling mischievously. Wolsey rolls his eyes "Remember the advert" - Kali "What about you?" - Wolsey "I have a date. It's... It's Samuel's goodbye party tonight." - Kali "When was this announced?" - Wolsey "Trace called. This is it. He's leaving tonight." - Kali "... Give him our best regards, will you? I know it won't make much difference, but... I'd prefer to have him like us" - Wolsey "I will" - Kali
She doesn't, though - she doesn't remember to give the message. Which is a so-minor-it's-inconsequential spoiler for 11.3

...

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That evening, Damascus and Wolsey head up to College Park. Consulting Wolsey's addresses from when he was a Herald, they walk through the grounds of the University of Maryland. Coming to one of the houses on the edge of campus, they knock. The door opens. They both look up. "Hello, there" - Marathon Marathon, the "forgotten Provost" of the Consilium, is very very tall. "Come on in, it's cold out" - Marathon Over drink, Wolsey gets to it - can Marathon get in touch with Fisher King for him? When asked why, Wolsey says that he's wanting to understand some of the more esoteric parts of supernal lore - beyond what apprentices get taught by their Orders. He wants to go digging for the Big Questions, and as far as he's aware Fisher King is the man for that sort of job. Marathon agrees heartily - Fisher has advised Suleiman, Samuel and Banneker among the big names. But... "...If you're wanting to delve into the Fallen World's guts with him, wear sensible shoes. Fisher doesn't exactly live in places that suit would fit in." - Marathon
And more on that next time. Not the actual training, though Fisher does turn up.

... The House of Ariadne is meeting, as is their habit in formal occasions, at the Octagon House. Kali has spent her spare few hours preening for a change - she's wearing a small black dress and high heels, and has combed her hair out. Drink is flowing, and Samuel looks like he's getting nicely drunk. "Kemi! You're my... Kemi." - Samuel "Hi Samuel" - Kali, tolerantly "You're easily my favourite. Not of these guys, that would be..." (pauses) "Taking sides, but of you. You're my favourite you - the others don't turn out so well" Samuel, drunk as a skunk. "You've seen her already, haven't you? Look her up, Kem. I can't say here, but.. If you don't figure it out, I'll tell you when I abduct you" - Samuel "Abduct me?" - Kali, reasonably "To my world! Yeah. It has to do with focuses and bending Mana streams..." Samuels He rambles. As far as she can make out, he's going to make a pocket world for himself, like a mini Fallen World. And he'll be able to 'beam people up' into it. Alien Abduction-style. She's kind of worried by that - he doesn't make it sound like the most reassuring of processes.

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"And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But I did... Or I will do... I will have done... Damn tenses. Here" - Samuel He produces an envelope, and - as she doesn't have a bag, nor pockets - slides it into her cleavage. "Read that. When I'm gone." - Samuel, waving his finger at her. "What is it?" - Kali "An address" - Samuel He taps a fork against his glass, and Katherine, Trace, Blaise and Shepherd fall silent. "My friends... I... I just wanted to... " (pauses, attempts to recall the speech he wrote) "Uh... Eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among such excellent hobbits..." (no one laughs) "...Well. Uh..." - Samuel He pulls his coat on, raises his finger to the air. "NOW!" - Samuel And runs, full pelt, out of the door. The others look at one another, realise what's happening, and scramble for their own coats. They catch up with him, breath steaming in the freezing air, as he sticks his hand out on the edge of the road. A bus pulls up next to them. "Everyone on board!" - Samuel They begin to follow the thread.

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Session 11.3
Wolsey and Damascus emerge from Marathon's house, having secured Wolsey's introduction at some near future point to Fisher King. Marathon has also promised to put one of his Cabalmates - a Thyrsus named "Key" - on to Damascus, to help with the Atraxis-catching. They walk back to Damascus' truck through the campus grounds. "Mind telling me?" - Damascus Wolsey explains his motivation - ever since he realised he couldn't do what he wants with the Bearers of the Eternal Voice, he's been floundering. And the Cxaxa situation hasn't helped. Now that she's gone, he has a chance to make a fresh start - aided and abetted by his abdicating from Cabal Leader in favour of Kali, who has Trace to help her negotiate politics. So Wolsey is free to go back to his plans. He wants to try to tease the Supernal out into the Fallen World, to show prepared groups of Sleepers the bars of their cage - he thought he could do it with the powers of belief and persuasion he's now got, but he's going to try a different route - the Supernal is hidden in the world, but that doesn't mean that someone can't find it. He's going to look at those Cults.. not as blank slates in which he can impose his own Truths, but as holders of the secrets he's after. Every once in a while, one of those rituals or practices will have a higher resonance, and he'll be able to use it. Now, Fisher King is the man who can read Supernal symbols in the migratory patterns of birds - he's the man to ask.
"Magical Traditions" turns out to be more useful than I thought it was going to be after all! Wolsey hasn't told this yet, but he's also formulating a theory about Legacies - at what point does a Magical Tradition become a Legacy? Are the Bearers of the Eternal Voice based on a Supernal sympathy somewhere in human culture? I'm thinking Greek Rhetoric, myself, which is why I set up the House of Ariadne's origin in just a few scene's time: sometime soon, I will finally get to run a Mage Story of cultural archaeology, as the Cabal go to Europe and look for their roots. Should be neat. Maybe I can get a Ruined Temple in, too...

... The House of Ariadne are in the Mall, having gotten off the bus. Samuel is striding along at the front, Blaise by his side. In the middle of the group are a shivering Trace and Katherine, who is wearing a big furry hat that puts Kali in mind of a stuffed animal. Kali herself is sloshing along through the snow at the back with Shepherd. As the procession pauses outside the Natural History museum, Shepherd and Kali discuss her career prospects; "...So Trace said I should come to you. I like the idea of working, like a normal person. But I need something flexible enough to work around whatever's happening magically" - Kali "Freelance" - Shepherd That puts her in mind of reporters, and she breezily asks him if can get her a job as a reporter. She has a high school diploma and everything! Shepherd looks dubiously at her "It'd have to be as an Intern, if I can manage it. You wouldn't get paid" (off her expression) "But I can make sure you have enough to live off, and it'll lead to a

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paying job" - Shepherd She says she'll think it over, but seems happy with it as an idea.
Can you imagine Kali as a reporter? With her powers, she'd be *great*. Could maybe do with.. I dunno.. any of the skills that one requires like Expression, but her Academics is good and she's a Time-fuelled quick learner. Anyway - the point is that she feels the need to work for her keep. Sam: "I figured out that the main reason Kali wanted a job - it wasn't so much for the income as the impression it would make on Kevin. Kali wants to impress her dad - to show him she's learned from her mistakes - even if all that meant was getting a back end job in a coffee shop. She wants to be able to show him that her life is working, that the growing up he helped her with was not in vain. I think she's also trying to come off the reliance on other people, and this extends her independence by a snat"

. Up ahead, Blaise and Samuel are talking closely. Blaise, Kali can see in the streetlights, is crying. The two men (ex-lovers) embrace, and then Blaise leaves by the right-hand road, hurrying away into the night without looking back. Samuel watches him go, as the rest of the House cautiously close in on him. "Shepherd. Take the thread" - Samuel Shepherd glances at Kali, raising an eyebrow, then goes to let Samuel whisper in his ear. After a few moments Kali feels Shepherd cast Correspondence and Sybil's Sight, seeking Ariadne's thread.
I *always* get that wrong - I always say "Interconnections" instead, because it sounds right. But it isn't. You use Space 1 "Correspondence" to feel for the links between things, and Fate 1 "Sybil's Sight" to pick out the significant ones.

And then they're off again - Shepherd and Samuel in the lead, with the three women behind. "I didn't think Blaise would go first" - Katherine "It looked like they reconciled, though" - Trace Kali doesn't say anything. After some time and a fair amount of walking, they reach the US Mint, where months ago Kali was inducted into the House. This time, it's Shepherd's turn to have the talk. Shepherd seems to take it much better than Blaise, bows to Samuel, tips his hat to the ladies of the House and then walks off. Samuel joins the three girls. Kali and Trace look at one another, and between them Katherine steps forward, realising that she's up next.
Blaise's specialty is the Mall and the other public places. Shepherd's is the world of money. Each of them is taking Samuel one step, then disembarking.

... Meanwhile, Damascus and Wolsey have reached the Sanctum, and are talking about Marathon. The Provost may be a relative recluse, but he's a Master - and an Adamantine Arrow. Damascus will need to be on his good side if, as he confides to Wolsey, he ever needs to remove Mara from power.

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Fun thoughts. "I always forget Dantor isn't in the Arrow.. Why *is* Dantor in the Free Council?" Damascus "I assumed lightning was involved" - Wolsey
Bwa!

He considers. "It's probably something to do with rejecting Atlantean philosophy - looking for the Supernal that's bled through after the Fall, rather than remaining from it" - Wolsey "Maybe you should add her to the list" - Damascus There is the sound of *several* feet on the stairs. The men look at one another, and Damascus shrugs slightly. (outside) "Ah.. Hold on a second" - Mycroft Mycroft opens the front door and pokes his head inside, peering around. "I didn't think anyone would be home" - Mycroft "We just got back" - Wolsey "Ah..." - Mycroft "Secret Guardian matters, We understand. We'll go" - Wolsey "Well, I don't mind but" - Mycroft And then Wolsey hears Cxaxa's voice outside. Mycroft looks apologetic. Wolsey looks around, strides over to the window and opens it. "It's okay. We won't get in your way" - Wolsey And then Wolsey climbs out the window. Onto the fire escape. Damascus does a double-take then clambers out after him, before Wolsey slides it shut. Inside, Nimrod and Cxaxa enter the Sanctum, and the guys outside can see Mycroft trying to explain. "You know. WE don't bring people round unannounced" - Wolsey "That's because we've annoyed almost all of our Orders and all the Sentinels - we have no-one to bring" - Damascus Wolsey shrugs "Bet he doesn't tell us what it's about. We don't have secrets with one another" Wolsey Damascus' expression says that Damascus damn well does, but if Wolsey wants to

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think that fine. "Damn! I forgot my laptop" - Wolsey It is indeed sat on the table inside, next to Nimrod "You leave it here all the time" - Damascus "Not in a room full of Guardians" - Wolsey He opens the window and climbs back inside, picks the laptop up and then climbs back outside. "Come inside. Really." - Mycroft "We're fine" - Wolsey "It's snowing" - Mycroft "Bracing" - Damascus

"Is that Carl? Hi Carl!" - Cxaxa, from inside "Er... Hi!" - Damascus, cheerfully "Misster Damasscus? Whaat are you. doinnng outside?" - Nimrod "We're just leaving. Don't mind us" - Damascus "Seriously. It's fine. We'll see you tomorrow" - Wolsey Mycroft looks dubious, but closes the window. The fire escape creaks. "I'm just going to TP home. You okay?" - Wolsey "Sure. My truck's down there - I'll just drive home" - Damascus "Goodnight, then" - Wolsey "Night" - Damascus Space warps with Wolsey's Nimbus as he Teleports, and Damascus is left alone. Very carefully, he descends the fire escape. ... Katherine is next to leave the party, outside a nightclub in the city centre. She cries into Samuel's shoulder, but eventually goes. Trace and Kali shuffle their feet uncomfortably in the snow. "My girls" - Samuel

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They neither of them say anything. "Let's do this inside. There's a bar this way" - Samuel . Inside the bar (quiet and dark, only a couple of government workers whiling away an after-work drink in the background), they slide into a booth. Samuel starts digging through his satchel, producing document folders, a sheath of papers bound with string and a couple of thin notebooks. Last out are a handful of envelopes, each with a name written on them in thick black marker pen. "Now. You both have your letters - but you're not the only two I have things to say to. I trust you to distribute these to their recipients" - Samuel The letters are for Banneker, Suleiman, Fisher King, Mary and John Dee. And - oddly - Dantor. He pushes the document folder "The deeds to the Time Machine, and the House accounts. Talk to Shepherd. I'm afraid I've had to remove the soul stone, so it's not a Demesne any more." - Samuel And the notebooks "And these contain details of other Houses across the world, should you need to contact them, all the way to the home Sanctum in Knossos" - Samuel Kali frowns "It's in Greece" - Samuel Kali is enlightened "Anyway - what contacts I have in Houses out there are all written down for you. I'm afraid I'm taking most of my library with me, though what's left is yours." - Samuel He looks at their expressions. "This isn't goodbye, you know. You are both still my apprentices - and when you need me to teach you the Third Attainment, when you're ready to walk your deaththread or if you just have no way out of whatever situation you're in, contact me. Please. We'll operate on a dead-drop basis - if you want to get a message to me write it in a letter and then either throw it forward in time or post-date it and arrange delivery for the... I dunno.. 5th May 2012? At the Time Machine? I'll go there and get any letters you end up sending me, then take you into my Chantry." - Samuel They've finished their drinks, and he stands. "And now... Trace, if you would please take the Thread" - Samuel And they're off again.

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. Almost before she begins, Trace reaches her "stop", right on the doorstep of the Consilium building. She and Samuel have a heartfelt farewell, and then - finally - it's Kali's turn. "You said I was my favourite me. How many others?" - Kali "Five. None. Hard to tell" - Samuel "Can I meet them?" - Kali He shrugs "All things are possible. you could become them" - Samuel "Possible futures?" - Kali "Quite the reverse" - Samuel And that raises the Enigma rating through the roof. They stroll some more. "...In your letter. There's an address, a date and a time. You should be there. It might help you to understand things" - Samuel "What did you do?" - Kali "I haven't done it yet" - Samuel, eyes faraway "Will I need the Time Machine?" - Kali "For this? No. Your own abilities will be fine. Should you ever need to go into the Inner Worlds, though, ask Suleiman. He has agreed to let you use his Demesne, given that I've so heartlessly destroyed my own." - Samuel They ride the bus a while "Your mother looks well" - Samuel, abruptly Kali doesn't say anything "I went out to see her a few days ago. She sends you her regard. We had a long talk about things. Understood one another" - Samuel "Is she still..?" - Kali "Convinced you're a God? Yes. And in her interpretation of what that word means" Samuel "...She might be right" - Kali She presses her head against the bus window They get off the bus. Kali recognises where they are.

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It's the motel Anurati used as her scrying room. "Kemi. It's nearly time" - Samuel She starts to feel deja vu - the effect of Samuel's nimbus, rippling back in time from his impending departure. Her head spins, and she desperately wants to sit down. "No one can interfere now - in these next few minutes. The peace, remember?" Samuel
The Pax Arcanum, meaning other Archmages (even Seer Tetrarchs) won't try to interfere in his casting, so he's relatively free to act.

"The Woman. Your mother spoke of a mysterious woman. She's been appearing to you, too" - Samuel Kali nods, and regrets it with her dizziness. "This is not the first time something like this has happened. Look to your books" Samuel He turns towards the door to the motel room, which opens of it's own volition. Somehow, he's now carrying a staff made of metal, which he raises "Wait! I need.. I need to tell you something. I need to tell *someone*, and you're.." Kali He turns his head "...I want to use the Sceptre on my father. To give him the choice. He doesn't even *remember* he used to be married. It's been taken away from him. And I know I'm unlikely to make him a Sleepwalker, and it's even more unlikely he'll awaken. At best he'll be devastated by the knowledge. But he deserves the chance to choose for himself, informed." - Kali "It will put him into grave danger, for little certain reward. But then" (he smiles) "That's the story of our lives. Do as you must. I would caution that the weapon of the enemy cannot be used easily and without consequences. When you know what your Lady is, you'll understand" - Samuel She nods, mind racing. Samuel cups her chin in his hand, lets his arm drop and then walks into the motel room. The door closes, Kali's world spins around her... ...And then he's gone.
Finally! Samuel's rise to Archmagedom was started back in the Vegas session and has been steadily building since. I find it quite sad that Kali can only trust him with her full internal debate about using the sceptre, though she has at least mentioned it to the others. I just forget where temporarily.

After she gets her breath back, and the aftershocks of Samuel's passage subside, she takes the Thread again. Homeward bound, attempting to read the future of the Cabal. It is not a reassuring few hours. By the time she arrives back in Anacostia, her mind is full of omens of turmoil and betrayal. Something bad is coming. Something very, very bad.

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She walks in, straight past Cxaxa, Nimrod and Mycroft, and goes to her room. Then sleep. Lunchtime the next day, and Wolsey and Damascus stop by the Sanctum. Greetings are made (Wolsey asking Mycroft if his meeting went well in a slightly chiding tone of voice) and Kali drops the bombshell. "Samuel left last night" - Kali "Did you give him our message?" - Wolsey, hopefully
That being an expression of their regard for him, as relayed last time

"Ah.. no" - Kali "Damn" - Wolsey "But I got an awful lot of paperwork.." - Kali That sparks Mycroft's coffee-addled memory "Oh! Wait! Tom - Amanda left something for you" (rummages) "Here." - Mycroft Wolsey opens the envelope, and leafs through the divorce papers. He takes a few seconds, but eventually smiles in acceptance and relief. "Well. I know what I'm doing today. Filing these" - Wolsey "I've got people to see about the spirit-trap, and then class" - Damascus "I have post to deliver" - Kali, waving Samuel's letters to all and Sundry "I'll come along with that, if you don't mind" - Mycroft, to Kali's shrugged acceptance. Kali then takes out Samuel's letter to her. Pauses, holding it, then tears it open. Her eyes scan over the cramped text of Samuel's handwriting. "'I have taken your Nickel. My apologies. Ill give it back when we next meet" - Kali, checking and discovering that the Fateful Coin of crack-factory exploding is indeed gone. "Anything else?" - Wolsey "'Don't trust the skull'... What?" - Kali, confused
Planescape: Torment Reference. I have no idea what that means, but you watch me, I'll put a skull in at some point. That must not be trusted.

"And.. Oh." - Kali The address, date and time are of Kali's dad's house, on the fateful night when Beckett and Malakaii came calling on Anurati. "How am I supp... Postcognition" - Kali

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She nods, and puts the letter away. "Alright troops. Reconvene this evening. Diss-missed!" - Kali And they all trudge off on their errands. ... Damascus' first port of call is to Ulysses, who is at home. After the pleasantries, Damascus asks his old mentor for assistance in the spirit-trapping apparatus. He needs to have the Sphere imbued such that it melds together rather than leaving a join. Ulysses ums and ahs over it, and says that he thinks he'll be able to help. "Word of warning. you're not the only one to ask me to imbue something this week" Ulysses "Oh?" - Damascus "Your friend Cxaxa. She wanted me to re-enchant those stone eyes." - Ulysses "... Did you?" - Damascus "Can't. I don't think anyone could. And I told her so" - Ulysses Damascus nods, and thanks the priest for his time.
Well, it isn't possible to recreate the tripartite Soul Jar / Grimoire enchantment on the Eyes that the original Querephas put into them in Ancient Hyperboria. Because, like so many things in Awakening, it would require Archmastery to do. Cxaxa isn't going to get to turn herself back into Querephas so easily, especially not without the Heart of Flies. On the other hand, she can (and in fact has) imbue them permanently (after scratching runes into their surface) with earlyPractice Forces and Mind effects. Basically making them contain the spells Cxaxa uses to "see". But even then the effect wears off and the Eyes need recharging with Mana so that they can cast the sight spells again and again, because Cxaxa's living pattern can't accept a permanent spell. Now Samuel is an Archmage, so he *could*, theoretically, make the spell permanent. Or summon Querephas' identity out of the past and graft it into Cxaxa's. But he's busy with his own stuff and would be unlikely to do so anyway. Besides which, the Quintessence needed would likely be something really nasty. (Speaking of Quintessences - the symbolic components needed to cast Imperial Practice spells - consider the entire sequence of the House walking the city at the start of this session, leading to where Anurati was "The Spider" as one. Also - Samuel took Kali's nickel. That's gotta be important.

... Kali and Mycroft deliver Samuel's letters. They're not told what the contents of any of them are, but they do collect a lot of congratulations and well-wishes. Banneker in particular attempts to impress upon Kali his continuing regard for "your house", and asks them to continue their present work. Suleiman - as the Mysterium leader in the City - is equally pleased with her rise to the top of an old and established Legacy, and confirms what Samuel said about allowing the House to use his Demesne. ... Wolsey delivers the divorce papers to his lawyer, and spends his day thinking deeply and looking up travel websites. Specifically, flights and hotels to/in Boston. ...

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Damascus, meanwhile, has moved on from Ulysses' and wound up at College, where he's attempting to eat his lunch and being constantly distracted. His first visitor is a young man with long red hair who, by his jacket, appears to be in a Fraternity that wouldn't look twice at Damascus. This is Frohman. Silver Ladder Magus and the reason the Crucible exists.
Frohman is named after the architect of DC's cathedral (well, he IS in Banneker's Cabal), and it was his being poached by Banneker from Suleiman that caused the Crucible to be founded. This is his first appearance in the Chronicle.

Getting right down to business, Frohman asks Damascus about the dagger he wants making. Damascus takes some technical details (does Frohman want it to have a cutting edge - no - that makes it much easier), totes it up in his head and tells Frohman that he's going to need the gold. "That's what's in the briefcase" - Frohman, putting a briefcase between them. Damascus opens the case, and then very quickly closes it again. It contains, in padding, a bar with a rather governmental stamp on it. "That.. should be fine" - Damascus, a little weakly. Frohman takes his leave, and Damascus tries to eat casually, doing his best to not look like he has a bar of gold resting next to his feet. His poise is near-perfect. Until Monica turns up. She sits herself down at his table and starts rambling about her Thanksgiving at her ex-husband's, punctuated by asking how Damascus' went. With slightly fixed grin, he says that it was okay, but as his sister is still in hospital it was a bit sombre. She should be out soon, though. Monica finally leaves, and Damascus high-tails it out of there. ... That evening, the Cabal meet up again at the Sanctum, all too aware that there's not actually any forward direction being imposed on them for a change. The universe isn't ending, they have no insane maternal figures to find and they're not being mindcontrolled by an instrument of the Exarchs. Damascus says that he's going to be concentrating on the apparatus to catch Atraxis over the next few days, aided by Ulysses, Key and whoever else wants to lend a hand. "Can we help? With the deployment?" - Wolsey "Every body is welcome, I'd think - but then I know nothing about the Shadow. Shore's organising everyone" - Damascus Wolsey nods "...And then at *some* point I'm going to have dinner with Monica" - Damascus "Is that wise? I mean... No. Sorry" - Wolsey

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"What?" - Damascus "I was about to Hypocrisise myself" - Wolsey "Swear to do no harm?" - Damascus, mock-confused "Forget it" - Wolsey . Kali has ideas of her own. She's going to the Athenaeum again, to look for any previous sightings of the Mystery Lady. "Want to come?" - Kali, to Wolsey, smirking "I..." - Wolsey He pauses "Huh. I... Don't know." - Wolsey "I thought you and Ebony were..?" - Mycroft "She's interested. And I might be interested. But that's not it." - Wolsey, frowning "She could be using you - a spy for Cxaxa" - Mycroft "Cxaxa knows everything about us anyway. No - I think that it might be the other way around. I'm thinking of using her to act against Cxaxa if we have to. I have to decide if I'm willing to do that, or if I can pursue this without an ulterior motive and..." Wolsey He comes to a decision. "No." (to Kali) "no. I'm done. I'm walking away from it" - Wolsey
A moment of clarity for Tom, there.

"What *are* you going to do?" - Damascus "Well.. Given that we have some time, and bearing in mind what I'm about to start trying to do... I thought I'd retrace my steps a bit. Go back to the beginning" - Wolsey "Explain" - Kali "If there is the Supernal in all the cults I've been in, there to be found if I look, where better to start than the one I Awakened in?" - Wolsey "Boston" - Mycroft "Boston. I can be back in time for the fight with the Spirit" - Wolsey That's settled then.

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...
And now... A Montage!

Kali sits down, a stack of books in front of her. Damascus opens the door to the warehouse and surveys his materials. Wolsey stands in the checkout line of Dulles International.
The hours approaching, just give it your best You've got to reach your prime. Thats when you need to put yourself to the test, And show us a passage of time, We're gonna need a montage (montage) Oh it takes a montage (montage)

Kali continues going through books, empty coffee mugs piled next to her. Damascus welds. Wolsey walks down a street in Boston.
Show a lot of things happing at once, Remind everyone of whats going on (whats going on?) And with every shot you show a little improvement To show it all would take to long Thats called a montage (montage) Oh we want montage (montage)

Kali turns the page, and spots something. Damascus and Key pour the molten glass into the frame, using magic to make it flow into a sphere. Wolsey sits at the back of a meeting of the Order of Ophidius, watching the speaker carefully handle a snake.
And anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro, You need a montage (montage) Even Rocky had a montage (montage) (Montagemontage) Anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro, You need a montage (montage) Oh it takes a montage (montage)

Kali is writing notes, while Ebony brings her more books Damascus surveys his work - the metal and glass apparatus, standing on three heavy iron legs like the world's largest crystal ball. Wolsey is handed the snake, which he looks down at with polite distaste.
Always fade out in a montage, If you fade out, it seem like more time Has passed in a montage, Montage! Okay... All reference to Team America: World Police aside, this was handled simply as three extended rolls - occult for Kali and Wolsey and Crafts for Damascus. The Order of Ophidius (who Wolsey described as a "bunch of hippies" the one time he ever spoke about them, much earlier in the chronicle) were the cult he was in when Amanda went missing and he Awakened.

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Four days later, and the Cabal reconvene. "How'd it go?" - Damascus "Complete strike out. They know nothing." - Wolsey, disgruntled "No traces?" - Damascus "No. I didn't awaken because of something in the cult" - Wolsey He fumes for a second, then shrugs. "What about you?" - Wolsey "All done. We're meeting Shore and the gang tomorrow." - Damascus "How are you transporting it? Because I had an idea.." - Wolsey Wolsey explains his cunning plan. Damascus likes his cunning plan. They agree on the cunning plan. That done, Kali drops a bombshell "I know what the Lady is" - Kali Her quest has been successful, and she are now armed with knowledge. "Anyone ever heard of an Ananke?" - Kali An Ananke is a being of pure Fate - speculated to be a creature from Arcadia, summoned into the Fallen World by an archmage in the days of Atlantis. It's like a self-aware, active Destiny that latches onto someone and attempts to force it's preferred timeline to come into being. The Atlantean Kings would summon them to make sure that prophecies went the way they wanted.
And the really amusing thing? Sam was reading the Corebook's section on them the week before the game, and not only didn't realise that the Lady was one but thought it would a neat thing to turn up in the Chronicle. Ha!

"So this one?" - Wolsey, not happy at all "Must be trying to enforce something to do with the artefacts. It brought the Crown back after we got rid of it, it's been doing something to my mother... She said that The Lady would come for me. Well, here she is. She's a living Fate spell. Cast by me" - Kali "How do we know that?" - Damascus Kali shrugs. To her, it's obvious. At some point she'll become powerful enough to interfere in her own past. The Ananke would presumably be summoned to make sure that she DID become powerful enough to summon it and.. urgh. "Paradoxes make my head hurt. This sort of Paradox, I mean. Not the other sort" Wolsey In any case, it explains why Kali has a Destiny when examined by Fate sight. She

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never did before, but as Mycroft checks, she does now. "When did it appear?" - Damascus "I dunno.. After Sutterton Farms?" - Kali "When we got the Sceptre." - Damascus "It got stronger after I got the Crown" - Kali, quietly
Sam bought the Destiny Merit after both stories, at my urging. It's taken this long for anyone to notice IC

"Your nimbus could be faked - or the Ananke's aura could just be the same as it" Mycroft
And at THIS moment, they realised Kali's nimbus was the same as her mother's.

"Inevitability. Fated." - Kali, dully They consider "What do we do?" - Damascus "Ananke are rare. Most cases - the person affected finds it easier to just go along with whatever it wants them to do" - Mycroft, hollowly "To hell with that" - Wolsey They all look at him.
"Can I say something about Destiny? Screw Destiny!" Ah, Winifred Burkle. I miss you. And the show you were on.

"Artefacts" - Wolsey Kali fetches the briefcase "It was under your bed, wasn't it?" - Mycroft, gently She looks guilty, and hands it over. "What are you going to do?" - Kali "Throw them away again. And again. Until this thing takes the hint. I'll see you tomorrow morning" (nods at Damascus) "For the plan" - Wolsey And with a crack, he Teleports ... Wolsey reappears, wincing with the effort, on a pier in Boston.
That roll did not go so well - Wolsey is nearly at the point where his die pool is sufficient - especially if he ever took Teleport as a rote - that no amount of Sympathetic connection or lack thereof can stop him. But sometimes he does have to burn the willpower to get through

Hefting the briefcase, he throws it as far as he can into the water. Watching to make sure it sinks, he turns and looks for a hotel sign. He needs sleep. 634

... He wakes up, in the hotel room, late at night. There's someone in the room. Sitting up, getting ready to fling spells, he sees a dark-skinned woman with bright tattoos on her forearms sat, calmly, across the room. "Just who are you?" - Anaconda (for it is she?) "I could ask the same" - Wolsey "Anaconda. Sentinel." - Anaconda, underscoring that last. He shifts his posture to be slightly less aggressive. "Wolsey. Silver Ladder. Washington DC Consilium" - Wolsey "And what makes you think breaching the Veil by teleporting to a public place is acceptable?" - Anaconda. "I came from here, originally. I apologise. I'm leaving your city in the morning." Wolsey "So soon? Teleporting again?" - Anaconda, steely "By plane. And I've done what I had to" - Wolsey She glares at him. He calculates the risks and issues involved, and decides to throw the die. "I disposed of an artefact, in the harbour. It's caused my Cabal nothing but trouble. You're welcome to move it on if you want to" - Wolsey "We'll look into that" - Anaconda "Good night, then" - Wolsey She stands, staring. Sure he's up to no good "Don't let me see you again, Magus" - Anaconda And she leaves. By the door.

... The next morning, and a very tired Wolsey manages to get from Dulles, all the way around the DC Beltway to Anacostia and into the Sanctum. And *still* manages to get there before Kali gets up. Kali just isn't a morning person. "Is it done?" - Mycroft

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"Done. I think Boston's Consilium might have picked them up already, but.. Out of our hands" - Wolsey Kali drifts in, getting dressed while she eats breakfast. Which is lunch for the men. "Carl's meeting us at the warehouse" - Mycroft ... The four Cabal members stand in the warehouse, surveying Damascus' very large work. It's impressive. "How much does it weigh?" - Mycroft "A Couple of Tons. Is that going to be a problem?" - Damascus, to Wolsey "I'll let you know" - Wolsey Wolsey summons his reserves, fixes the thing with his steeliest glare and chants in the High Speech. Nothing happens. "Is it?" - Damascus "That was to create the pocket realm... Here comes the hard part" - Wolsey
Yup. That was Wolsey casting Pocket Realm, creating a bubble-universe *just* big enough for the apparatus. Next up is *two* castings of Safe Keeping, the spell needed to shunt the two halves of the globe into it. Such is his and Damascus' plan: They won't need to transport the apparatus, Wolsey will transport it for them and remove it from the pocket Realm around Atraxis. All told, it's a very good plan. Even by their standards. Wolsey's effort is coming from casting three Adept-Level, *Vulgar* instant effects on an object of unusual size. Combined with the teleport from last night (and Anaconda interrupting him meant he didn't get willpower back) and this is extremely taxing for him. Cool as all hell, but extremely taxing.

As Wolsey works, first the upper half of the globe and then the rest shimmers and disappears. "Got it?" - Damascus "All in here" (taps his head) "Ready to go." - Wolsey ... Night is falling as the team climb out of Mycroft's battered car on Hanes' Point; the furthest tip of Potomac park, a thin needle of land stretching out surrounded on three sides by water. Over the river to one side they can see the lights of Ronald Reagan Airport. To the other side is the Naval base near the Sanctum. There's a sombre atmosphere, as Mages emerge one-by-one from the evening fog. Beckett, Shore, Fisher King, Link and Cerberus are all here, lurking next to boulders which - on closer inspection - turn out to be made of metal. Metal sculpted into the shape of body parts - a hand here, a knee here. Wolsey and Mycroft - the least familiar with the city's quirks of sculpture, look around,

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arrange things in their head and realise that they're standing in the middle of what looks like a buried 100' giant, trying to claw his way out of the ground. Fisher King is perched, bird-like, on the Giant's bearded, screaming face. "It's called 'The Awakening'" - Shore "You're kidding me" - Mycroft "If only. Malakaii spent months trying to find out who'd interfered with the sculptor. I rather like it" - Beckett "It is suitable. Here, at twilight, at the end of the land by the buried man. This is a thin place" - Fisher King "You've got the cage?" - Shore "In a pocket realm" - Wolsey "Excellent. Fisher - the plan?" - Beckett The elder mage smiles paternally at them all.
No, Shore isn't kidding. And neither am I - it's a real place, this; The Awakening . I have wanted to include it in a session for a very long time indeed.

"How much do you know about the Shadow?" - Fisher King "Virtually nothing" - Wolsey Fisher smiles and settles down. Damascus, seeing the way this is going, gets a notebook out ready to take lecture notes. "The Shadow is on the surface much like our world. Separated by a metaphysical barrier or membrane, it is made entirely out of ephemera and what we call essence. You are familiar with Resonance - Leys and nodes, yes? Resonance is the only thing to exist in both worlds simultaneously, and is the foundation of the Shadow. Most things there exist in a form that resembles this half of the world but not - like a shadow of an object, hence the name..." - Fisher King He goes on to describe how Spirits arise from particularly strong emotional resonances, how they feed from their resonance or from other spirits of the same type, or become hybrids by feeding inappropriately. And then he describes Nexxii and Verges. "...Of all the thin places, this is the best guarded. Adam" (he pats the statue) "is a mighty guardian, too powerful for Atraxis to assault when in his place of power. In addition, it is a straight line through parkland from here to the Temple of the West. The park will be as empty as any place in the Shadow - most spirits powerful enough to leave their birthplace migrate north to the mall" - Fisher King Cerberus - the expert on the Mall's spirits - nods "We have an agreement, with the Father of the District of Columbia. His dominions are threatened by the Conceptual and it's hybrids. We can take shelter at the Temple of the West, regain our strength from the journey and then strike North to the heart of

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the Conceptual's empire. Into Atraxis' lair" - Fisher King "Watergate" - Beckett, for the Cabal's benefit "Changes of Perspective. A Betrayal of a Nation. The Watergate complex is fat with spirits of revelation and blame. Atraxis feeds off the weaker ones. It's trying to shift it's Meaning from a purely spatial one to a metaphorical one - that wouldn't make it become a hybrid, it thinks, and would empower it quickly. Watergate is three blocks away from the Temple, which is why Fourscore is willing to help us. It is sentient enough to calculate the risks to itself, and it has always hated the creatures lurking in the hotel so close to it's centre." - Fisher King
Forescore is the DC City-Father spirit. We'll meet it (and yes, it does look kind of like Abe Lincoln) next session.

"Move quickly. Don't touch anything. Everything in the Shadow is alive and it all without question hates and fears you. Not as they hate and fear the Wolf-Men, who are their keepers, but as *Food*. They survive on the stuff of human feeling and we, as Awakened Beings, provide an energy source more abundant than anything native to the Shadow. The pleasant-seeming is not." - Fisher King He gets down. "Prepare yourselves" - Fisher King While everyone else casts protective spell after protective spell on themselves, he and Beckett begin to concentrate, casting their spell. In the middle of the area covered by the statues, a sickening, pulsating tear begins to open, through which inhuman echoes and howls can be heard. "Three groups of three. Cerberus, Link and Shore first. Us three (nods to Damascus and Mycroft) second. Fisher, Beckett and Kali last" - Wolsey The tear opens large enough. "GO" - Beckett They dive through.

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Session 11.4
Grrrr. As I say - my PC lost most of this recap, so I'm having to do it again from memory. And you know what *my* memory's like. I shall curse my fate and resolve to save the recaps to a USB key every ten minutes from now on. Damnit. Let me see... My "opening blue note" was longer than normal because... Yeah, that was it. Welcome back! We wouldn't have played this week, only I'm too ill to go on the big four-day LARP that I habitually attend over August bank holiday. Fortunately for fans of my overly-long-winded Actual Play threads, it's my leg that's injured, not my gab or my hands, so I consoled myself with returning to Mage a week earlier than planned. In the time off, I had a good hard think about the chronicle and where it was going. I've been feeling a small amount of narrative 'drift' over the last three or four sessions, and I wanted to know why I was going off course and it seemed to be taking twice as long to do anything as it used to. The days of three-session stories are the halcyon past to me, now. In the end, and much conversation with players, I've put it down to a case of misread signals between me and the gang. Often, they're ready to continue a particular plot when I'm not - or, equally often, the reverse. This has been happening more and more lately. Maybe I need a hand-signal system or something. I also spent much time mulling the "Wolsey and Damascus problem": That the two male characters often seem to be sidekicks in their own story. In Wolsey's case, it's down to the character changing direction a bit too fast for me (who usually plans three or four sessions ahead) to keep up with - this links into the signalling problem where, for example, Mark wanted to get on with the whole Supernal Echoes thing mid-way through two sessions ago, but I wasn't ready for it myself. I was still trying to see what of the Ebony-Wolsey plotline I spent hours coming up with could be salvaged after Wolsey had a change of heart on that score. Still - I made it my mission to make time this session for Wolsey's interests. Damascus, though, is harder. Rafe cheerfully admits that the character is the most Reactive of the PCs, and prone to sitting back and waiting for things to strike him. Nothing wrong with that, but it does make him a bugger to write for. Carl has a very interesting background and deep layers to him that don't get shown nearly enough, it's just a case of trying to peel them out and of trying to make Rafe notice when I'm trying to. Last week, though, I came up with a really quite horrible thing to do to Damascus, which will - I hope, unless I miss my plot-aim yet again - cause him much Angst. And I'll note that unlike some people, I *do* know what the word "Angst" actually means. So - several weeks and promised-but-not-delivered slashfic involving all our female characters in an orgy later, and we're ready to get back to that cliffhanger. Link, Shore, Cerberus, Wolsey, Damascus, Mycroft, Kali, Fisher King and Beckett had just leapt through a Spirit Road cast by Fisher King at Hayne's Point, ready to make their cross-city hike to the Lincoln Memorial...

There's an odd feeling, like pushing through some kind of membrane while being stood in a plummeting elevator, and Wolsey's ears pop as he comes through to the other side. His first impressions - what no-one seems to tell young Mages about the Shadow World is how *still* it is. Sounds are oddly flattened, as though they're not carrying as far. There doesn't seem to be any air (though he can breath) - the tiny breezes and currents that exist even when there isn't any wind are gone, and when he moves he can't feel any resistance. "You think that's air you're breathing now?" - Wolsey, muttered. The last of the group come through the Spirit Road and Fisher King collapses the spell, the shining Portal vanishing behind him. Second impressions - it's dark, the sunlight weak and oddly dim. Third impressions - the statue isn't a statue. "Adam" - in "flesh" (well - ephemera) as huge as in bronze - is making a low groaning sound, clawing at the not-air as he tries to drag himself out of the ground. Thick black chains around the wrists and ankles pull him back whenever he seems to be getting very far, dragging him back down under the earth (which to him seems as permeable

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as water) with an odd clanking sound, as though there's some machinery ratchetting it. "Adam - Quiet" - Fisher King The spirit-guardian quiets down slightly, though the noise is still awfully distracting. The Mages move away, past the wide circle of dark gravel-like material he's entombed in and towards the riverbank. Kali looks around, wide-eyed. She's not seen this side of the Gauntlet before either, and from where they are they have an impressive view. The view to the East is dominated by Fort McNair and the Air Force Base, separated by the mouth of the Anacostia River. Kali squints, looking up the river in the direction of the Sanctum, but the horizon here in the Shadow seems nearer somehow.
The Sanctum, and the Cabal's home turf, is just on the other side of the Air Force Base, geographically speaking. But it's a pretty damn big Air Force Base.

The two military bases are shrouded in river fog and barbed wire, large, hulking shapes moving slowly on the edge of perception. Things with tank treads, Hulls and heavy barrels. It's eerily quiet. Fourth Impressions - the Cabal have a horrible, prickly sensation of being Watched. The other direction is much more active, though not in a good way. Reagan Airport appears to be the site of a medium-scale battle, with low-slung, snaking things with many wheels biting at the bellies of large, winged, metal beings. Smaller Spirits fly, crawl and wheel around madly, screaming at one another in a thousand voices. Beyond them, walls taller than on the material side, black and pulsing with red veins, is the Pentagon. One face still burns with the aftershocks of 9-11. "Is it... This is the effect of Atraxis, right?" - Kali, gesturing at the Airport Fisher King takes a look, then shakes his head. "No... No. It's meant to be like that. Terrible places, Airports. Spirits are drawn to them by desire, a burning need to travel that they don't understand in their limited way and can't exorcise. So they battle, and they scream, and they never go anywhere. The frustrations of a million travellers. Don't look at it too hard - we might attract their attention" - Fisher King The elder Thyrsus leans on his staff (which seems to have appeared from nowhere) and considers.
Didja spot the link to Samuel there?

"We will make best time if we start out now. Stay away from the trees and cross any paths quickly. Avoid any statues" - Fisher King "So basically stay on the grass?" - Damascus He nods "At the Northern tip of the park we have to cross a railway and two major roads. Stop when we get to the rail tracks - we have to make sure it's safe. After that, I will

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negotiate our passage with the Bridge to the mainland, and then we're safely in FourScore's heartland, and Cerberus' area of influence." - Fisher King Cerberus nods in the background, brandishing his "Wand" (actually a heavy, long flashlight) "Can't we just teleport?" - Wolsey Fisher considers it too risky, especially as Atraxis is a creature of Distances and Angles. Besides, the Shadow is a slightly protean place, Space-wise, and Wolsey hasn't been to *this* Watergate. They set off. It isn't long before they hear the whispering voices of the trees, enticing them to draw closer. The spirit-proficient Mages make warding motions, and the newbies hurry on, trying to ignore them. Worst by far are the Cherry trees - they give off a cloying, sickly sweet aroma and speak with roughly feminine voices, wheedling and inviting the passers-by to take the fat, dark-red fruit. After some time, they reach the train track and wait. After a few minutes a large metal something, like a snake crossed with a horse given a hundred legs, thunders down the track, sparks flying from it's hooves. "ONE WAY. ONE WAY. ONE WAY. ONE WAY" - Train-Spirit Fisher waits a few seconds after it passes, and - satisfied - nods for them all to cross. The main road to Arlington comes next, Traffic Lights screaming orders ("STOP!", "GO!", "WALK!", "DON'T WALK!") at them as they pass. The road is almost empty of vehicles - a couple of slow-moving SUV-like spirits and, in the distance, a Sports Car moving with a predatory air that Fisher King keeps his eye firmly on. After that, it's the Tidal Basin and more Cherry Trees. Wolsey is glad that they're avoiding the Jefferson Memorial - he doesn't want to speculate what it's like here. They do pass Roosevelt's, though, after they cross the bridge: the statue threatening to use The Weapon against them, whatever that means.
The Train-Spirit and the Traffic Lights are both from Predators. The description of the Airport earlier on was from Book of Spirits. I take a holistic approach to the Shadow world; just because a book is a Werewolf supplement doesn't mean I won't use it.

And then they're approaching the West end of the Mall. Cerberus takes the lead, muttering under his breath. The Temple of the West - Lincoln's Memorial - is taller and larger than in the material world, the reflecting pool reflecting a moon that isn't in the Shadow sky. To their East, they're scrutinised by the baleful glare of the Washington Monument, and to the North a thick line of dark, warped trees thankfully blocks their sight of whatever is making a grief-wracked moaning noise.
The Vietnam Memorial

The Mages hurry up the steps and enter the Temple, the Cabal hanging back as Fisher King makes the formal speech of thanks in the sibilant Spirit Tongue. FourScore itself is, as described, Abe Lincoln's statue. The spirit is rooted to the spot and the great stone throne on which it sits is apparently as much a part of it as the

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humanoid figure shaped on it. In particular, FourScore doesn't seem able to move it's arms from the pose the human sculptor in the material world gave them, gripping the arm-rest ends of the throne. The rest of FourScore's upper body, though, is fully animate, and the Spirit has a disquieting stare that Wolsey is pretty sure didn't feature on the original. He's *also* pretty sure that the real Abraham Lincoln wasn't attended by a court of servants - scribe-spirits writing down it's every utterance, black-skinned creatures wearing broken manacles and - worst of all - spirits formed in seeming parody of Southern soldiers, lying prostrate at FourScore's feet. "I WAS BORN IN A LOG CABIN..." - FourScore, apparently in reply to something Fisher has said "This is wrong. This is just... wrong" - Wolsey, looking around and feeling wounded on behalf of Democracy everywhere. "Democracy?" - Damascus He nods, pained. "I think the ideal of this place doesn't mesh well with the inherently..." - Cerberus, fishing for the right word "...Hierarchical?" - Damascus The Thyrsus nods "Hierarchical nature of the Shadow. I mean - ask yourself - is the president *really* just another man?" - Cerberus Wolsey understands, but the Shadow is rapidly being filed under "Do Not Want". Cerberus continues, saying how FourScore maintains it's "Court" by being the most revered, and therefore the most senior, of the Monuments - which FourScore calls it's "Senators". Being in mostly human form has given it more of a semblance of sentience than, say, the Washington Monument, otherwise it wouldn't be top dog of the "DC" Spirit Court. And if Wolsey thinks this is bad... "...You should see the Oval Office" - Cerberus "I shudder to think" - Wolsey "Desk just big enough to fit an Intern under?" - Damascus Kali snickers. Damascus cracks a joke about cigars. Wolsey fails to relax. Fisher King comes over to their corner, sitting down carefully. "Try to relax. We are safe here - FourScore has always had an enlightened view of Mages, for all it's limitations. The Court of DC is not hostile, as are Atraxis and the Court of Washington." - Fisher King He pauses, waiting for the obvious question to be asked. Kali bites the bullet. "What does *Washington* look like? If this is DC?" - Kali

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Fisher and Cerberus glance at one another. "... A Gangster. Washington is a creature of fire, addiction and entrapment" Cerberus "Figures" - Damascus, joining Wolsey on the offended train. "The Shadow shows us what lies beneath the skin of the world. Everything here is fed by the Resonance *we* make, as living emotional beings. If this place, or the lair of the other Court, seem wrong by your standards consider them as the agglomeration of the feelings of everyone. Even the ones they don't admit to." Fisher King "Is this place closer to the Supernal, then?" - Wolsey Fisher blinks "I mean - it's made up of emotions, and reflects what's real more than ours. Mind and Spirit are Subtle Arcana..." - Wolsey "An intriguing point. But this is not the time to raise it - when we have more leisure, I'll be glad to revisit this conversation" - Fisher King "How long will we be here?" - Wolsey "Long enough for me to rest after creating the Portal, for any defensive or offensive magic to be recast and for us to decide what the best route to Watergate should be." - Fisher King They discuss the route: Watergate is a short distance North of here, a handful of block's distance. There are a few options. They can go straight North, through the JFK Centre for Performing Arts. (Which Fourscore says is the most heavily guarded route). They can go East one block before striking North, through the US Navy Surgery (which Kali refuses point blank, based on how twisted the rest of the Shadow is) or they can go even further East through the State Department, which Wolsey and Cerberus are both leery of. If they want anything else, they're going past the Vietnam Memorial, which Fisher King does not advise. There is some back and forth, with the various routes having their pluses and minuses outlined...
Something occurred to me after the game - this Shadow-sequence "uses" DC as a setting far more than the rest of the chronicle does, even Kali's thread-walking. It roots Broken Diamond to it's setting in a way that previous storylines hadn't. It's odd... And might be why I think Werewolf is so well-designed, with it's inbuilt and inherent "character parties" and it's overwhelming focus on whatever immediate setting you're using. Speaking of Werewolf, my own Werewolf The Forsaken chronicle of a few years back was set in and around the tiny villages of Lake Illiamna in Alaska, and I similarly went to town on the Shadow of that setting, too. Mark commented after this session that he hadn't realised how different the urban and rural Shadow Worlds are - there are more Conceptuals in a city, and far more Genius Locii (like FourScore itself)

"...Why not the River?" - Damascus Everyone looks at him.

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"The Potomac is awakened, but it resides further downstream.." - Fisher King, slowly "Is the water real?" - Wolsey "Real enough to drown" - Shore "There's the steps down to the riverbank out behind the Temple" - Cerberus "...Pleasure Boats?" - Damascus There is much nodding. Consensus has been reached. Enough rest. Time to move - but first, most of the assembled crew cancel their Mage Armour spells and allow Fisher King to cast one on the entire group - it's stronger than most of them, as he's a Master, and it'll hopefully block Numina as well. Link and Shore augment their weaponry with Prime magic. Onwards! They walk down the steps, to the water. Cerberus opens his wallet and scatters dollar bills, like throwing crumbs for ducks. Aghast, Wolsey watches as Five Pedalos approach, gliding over the surface of the water. They have grotesque faces on the prow, like a parody of a children's animation - big chubby cheeks and smiling grins. As they glide around, the dollars are sucked into the mouths, like some kind of sea creature feeding on plankton. Feeling like maybe the Naval Surgery building is a safer option, the group divide up into twos and get in. "FUN?" - Pedalo-spirit And, throwing dollars in front of their craft to show them which way to go, the charge of the Pedalos sets off upriver. . A short trip up river later, and the mist-shrouded bank next to Watergate comes into view. As they approach, though, several figures shuffle into sight, standing watch against the Mages' river landing. The Spirits are dark and shrivelled, long fingers stained with ink. They are also, all five of them, "wearing" Richard Nixon Masks. One of the Nixons opens it's mouth impossibly wide and bellows "I AM NOT A CROOK!" at the Pedalo-Spirit carrying Wolsey and Damascus. Their mount sighs as it's essence begins to break up, and it moans something about Number Four's time being up as it begins to sink. Thinking quickly, Damascus casts Shape Water on the river, creating a wave that propels them to the bank just in time. Across from them, Kali and Mycroft make it to shore, Kali triggering the Acceleration she prepared earlier. Link and Cerberus are just behind them, Shore and Beckett Teleport themselves within line-of-sight to get onto the bank and Fisher King strides up, Mana flaring around him as his Nimbus becomes visible. The battle is short and to the point - a Nixon sprays something that may well be Napalm at Fisher King, but most of it is deflected by his Mage Armour. Fisher and Cerberus respond with Harm Spirit spells, made Aggravated through Mana. Beckett

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uses Control Spirit to cause the one he's faced with to flee the scene. Link, Shore and Damascus resort to good old fashioned pummelling with enchanted weapons on a fourth. The spirits themselves try to use some kind of mind-controlling charm on Wolsey and Kali (who are attacking - Wolsey with a gun, Kali with a knife), which bounces off their Mental Shields. Turnabout being fair play, Wolsey reasons that as beings of politics (and from the feel of what he was being urged to do, something to do with betrayal) they should be in tune with his Legacy, and tries to use his Attainment. Successfully, as it turns out. Wolsey persuades "his" Nixon to attack and kill the one that Link, Shore and Damascus were fighting, literally stabbing it in the back. "Politicians. You can't trust 'em" - Wolsey Beckett uses Control Spirit to make Wolsey's Nixon flee. A brief pause while the Mages regroup. Cerberus checks their weapons for signs of awakening as spirits, and forces a Mote out of Wolsey's gun. Fisher reinforces his pattern to heal what damage went through his defences, and they press on to the Watergate hotel itself.
Rafe points out that I haven't said what they're Spirits of - "Betrayal by those in authority over you"

. Watergate is taller than in the physical, dark and brooding. Lights flicker off and on, illuminating a half-dozen windows at a time. Shadowy figures can be seen through them, prowling through the building. The grounds seem deserted at first glance. As the Mages look around, though, they spot the guards. Tall, lanky spirits with eyes of tape reels and long snouts made of microphones. Magnetic tape spills out instead of feet from beneath their long, shabby trenchcoats. As the Mages are spotted, more Spirits arrive, converging on them from all directions. Spider-like, scuttling things made of files, like origami arachnids. Short things waving burning flags. The host close in as Fisher casts a Ban against spirits, and the Mages hunker down in the centre. "Can you see Atraxis?" - Mycroft Wolsey peers about, and eventually gets it. "There. In the line of the reception awning" - Wolsey Beckett, standing close by, nods "That's him" - Beckett "If I bring half the apparatus out, can you manoeuvre it?" - Wolsey "Yes" - Beckett "Okay. Taunt him" - Wolsey

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Beckett steps to the fore, and begins calling Atraxis out. The Cabal, without a knowing Practice of Spirit to rub between them, can't understand the Spirit Speech, but from Atraxis' reaction (manifesting before the ward in threatening manner) it's rather rude. Wolsey cancels one of his Safe Keeping spells. One Hemisphere of Damascus' Atraxis-trapping device materialises next to the group and Beckett, who manipulates it through magic to float in the not-air.
Basically a fine-control version of Suspension, that - a means of doing what Telekinesis does with Space instead of Forces.

Wolsey then Teleports right behind Atraxis and cancels the second Safe Keeping, bringing the other half of the sphere out of the pocket realm. Beckett makes his half close in on Wolsey's - Atraxis, unable to look away from it's own reflection, is caught in the middle. Wolsey Safe Keepings the completed globe once the edge fuses, and then Teleports back into the middle of the group before the horde of angry spirits gets to him.
And now for the confessional: Safe Keeping and Pocket Realm do not, I am now told, actually work like this. But, I figure as an Adept of Space that if there isn't a published "bag of holding" spell, there damn well should be one Wolsey can cast.

"Got him!" - Wolsey From the south, FourScore's subservient Spirits attack, and the surrounding Watergate spirits are drawn off into a tearing, burning fight. Fisher King casts a combined spell of Portal and Spirit Road, and the successful strike team jump through... ...To find themselves in the warehouse Damascus made the globe in, about an hour after sunset. Wolsey checks his watch and announces that the Pocket Realm doesn't have long to go, but Beckett and Fisher assure him this is as good a place to drain Atraxis' Essence away until it dies as any. But not tonight. Rest tonight.
Not Wolsey's only reason for checking his watch - he wants to know how long they were gone versus how long they appeared to go. He has a theory, briefly outlined above, that the Shadow is more made up of the Subtle Arcana than then Gross, while the Physical world is the other way around. Hence the checking of the watch - Space and Time are rather protean in the Shadow, indicating that it's relatively more skewed towards Mind and Fate. This is Wolsey getting into the swing of being a theorist.

"Pizza?" - Damascus Most agree. Link, though, feels like staying - someone should watch the globe. "Congratulations on the plan... went much better than last time" - Link
He is referring to the way Damascus froze him out of the Astral Demon investigation - and indicating a thaw between the two of them, now.

He says he'll call Proteus and have him take over for him in a few hours. Damascus promises to have food sent to the warehouse. Fisher doesn't look like he's joining the rest of the group either. He's considering the prison-globe. Wolsey, feeling that now is his moment, approaches. "Is now a good time for our talk?" - Wolsey The old man blinks, shaking away whatever he was thinking about, and smiles.

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"Yes, I do think so." - Fisher King "I'll catch you up. Save some for me" - Wolsey, to Damascus Everyone leaves except Link, Fisher King and Wolsey. Link nods and steps outside, phoning Proteus and giving them some space. Fisher King looks around, selecting a likely crate to sit on. "First, I should like to apologise for not finding you sooner. When Marathon passed your request on, I will confess that I hadn't heard much about you. I have since spoken to Banneker, Mara, Ulysses" (thinking) "Suleiman and... Thursday... And Cxaxa about you." - Fisher King Wolsey doesn't quite know how to respond to that. "All good, I hope?" - Wolsey "The general impression of you is of a political young man, with ambitions of Council. Each of those I spoke to highly recommended you to me, saying that you were a creditable young Adept with a history of hard work. Not very advanced in your Order, though - you prefer the company of your Cabal, which you recently relinquished leadership of" - Fisher King Wolsey nods
Wolsey's relationship to the rest of the Silver Ladder is one of those never-really-mentioned things: it just never comes up, does it? Not like Kali's status in the Mysterium or Damascus' in the Arrow. Or even Mycroft and Cxaxa's relationship to the Guardians. Wolsey just isn't very Order-centric.

"More to the point, each of them considers you to be on their side, sympathetic to their causes but sadly, through no fault of your own, unable to assist them more than you already do." - Fisher King He stops, giving Wolsey space to retort. "I'm trying to give that up" - Wolsey "You handed over power in your Cabal to Kali - yes, I know Kali - and went on sabbatical from being a Herald in favour of 'focusing on your own studies', Banneker tells me. And you come to me" - Fisher King "The Abyss. And the Nature of the world - finding the Supernal within it" - Wolsey "Just so - the very pursuit which has been my life since I gave up my own positions of authority." (smiling again) "Very well - I accept your quest. Together we will try to shed a little light on the Mysteries." - Fisher King Wolsey is relieved and pleased to be accepted. "Where do we start?" - Wolsey "With the One Real Thing. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes... I did divine one thing in my questions to those who've shaped your Path so far... I fear you may have been done a disservice by being trained by Mara rather than Promethea" - Fisher King

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Wolsey frowns, confused "You are at a starting disadvantage, Wolsey. The One Real Thing... yes... Have you seen an Awakening?" - Fisher King "No" - Wolsey "Not many people have, but you should, if you get the chance - to look on the Supernal, even for an instant, through the Soul of someone other than yourself? Wonderful - in the true sense of the word - and enlightening. Yes. In most Awakenings, perhaps four in five, or seven in ten, the mind of the new Mage is pulled into the Supernal along with their soul. They may go into a trance, or be there and back in no time at all, but they experience the Real World with their conscious mind. The remaining Awakenings are subtler, perhaps, or the minds of the new Mages more grounded. Why, no one knows, but they experience their Awakening within the Lie, not Without - the forces of the Real act upon and from their Soul, guiding the world around them in what we call a Mystery Play. It is this, I understand, that you yourself experienced?" - Fisher King
This, believe it or not, is not just background colour to the conversation. This is me setting out my stall for a future plotline. Because if the Cabal are becoming Adults, they need apprentices. With the current state of war between the Seers and the Pentacle, a new Awakening would be... well.. it'd be a race.

"I... Yes" - Wolsey "You did not go to Pandemonium. Pandemonium came to you. Not lesser, not substandard - if anything, Mystery Plays afford people like you and I excellent opportunities for study, because they affect the world around the neophyte. You remember Balthazar?" - Fisher King "The Ascendant" - Wolsey "Just so. He had a Mystery Play. He looked out of his window one night and saw something moving in his garden. He went outside to find a rough pile of stones, rearranged them into the shape of a crown and... that was it. His Awakening, over in ten minutes or less but a profound influence on him until the moment he died. The One Real Thing he ever did. I am digressing again: Your disadvantage, though, lies there - you *believe* in the Supernal Realms, following the examples of your peers and old men like me. But you don't *know*. You didn't go to Pandemonium as Cxaxa did. And you were trained by Mara, who also had a Mystery Play and who does not believe even as much as you. You, I am told, decry the influence of Outer beings on you and your Cabal's life. You are especially displeased with the notion of Fate, and of Destiny. You are sceptical" - Fisher King "Of some things... Destiny, though, is Imposed. It's external." - Wolsey "Because it is a Subtle Arcana" - Fisher King, understanding Wolsey nods "You refer to the common wisdom taught to apprentices of subtle and gross Arcana and the theory - shared by luminaries like Samuel, amongst others - that the Subtle Arcana do not enter the world naturally, but enter through spells, either ours or the Exarchs? That no one would have such a thing as a Destiny but for them being

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imposed by Mages or Supernal beings?" - Fisher King He pauses. "It is true, Wolsey, that Fate is a Subtle Arcanum. But so is Mind" - Fisher King Wolsey was maybe not expecting that. Wrong-footed, he thinks about it, frowning. "So.. All Thoughts... No. You're saying that some Fate *must* be part of the design of this World?" - Wolsey "I don't know" - Fisher King, simply. He watches for Wolsey's reaction. The younger Mage thinks through it, then nods in acceptance. Fisher King twitches a smile. "Perhaps you will be able to find out. So - the One Real Thing. Sort of my motto, and it is high time I explained myself. Why are you here?" - Fisher King "To study the Supernal" - Wolsey "And how do we know about the Supernal?" - Fisher King "From our Awakenings, and..." - Wolsey "...And? Nothing. Only from Awakenings. This world is a Lie. A Prison. Our Awakening experience tells us that. Cast on the meeting-point of the Five-and-Many Realms and reflected on the Lies of the Abyss. Nothing we do here matters, nothing of it affects any place outside of these Prison Walls. To quote the great sage Yoda" (twitches again) "We are luminous beings, not this crude matter - and each of us has done precisely one Real Thing. We have each performed one Act, one imposition of our will on the worlds beyond, that gives us our sympathy to those worlds rather than to the Abyss, that gives us our insight, our often painful knowledge and is the source of all our powers. One Real Thing. The Watchtower caught you, brought your soul across the Abyss, but you marked it in return. The only way we can learn about the Supernal is from our own actions there, and the actions of others. Fortunately, as everyone we know has performed precisely one such action, they are usually able to recall it most vividly." - Fisher King "What about spells?" - Wolsey "Excellent question. Spells draw down the true reality, it is true - every time you cast, you take some water from the bottomless well of Pandemonium. But you don't alter the Well itself." - Fisher King Wolsey does not seem entirely convinced of that last. "But we persevere. In studying the One Real Thing each of us has done, we learn to recognise the touch of the realms, the better for Seeing it when it creeps, unnoticed by the Exarchs, into this world. When you watch with Magical Sight the soul of an Awakening Acanthus, you can recognise Arcadia in the stretching of time when you wait for a bus. When you hear the tale of a Moros, you see Stygia in the funeral rites of ancient civilisations. It all starts with that one act" - Fisher King "Where do I start?" - Wolsey

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"With your own tale." - Fisher King He rests back on the crate. "Tell me, Wolsey. What did you Do?" - Fisher King
Which is in no way my blatant attempt to finally get the story out of Mark himself - when Fisher asked that I, Dave, had no idea what happened to Wolsey. I knew about Kali's Awakening - it was a plot-point, when she mistook Arcadia showing her Anurati's life to it showing her her own, and Damascus' was a near-death experience following the break-down of his life as a (failed) gangster. But of Wolsey's, I have no idea

... The celebratory group of Mages, unable to too-loudly talk about their trip through the Shadow in the late-night cafe they've taken over, slowly drifts apart as individuals head home. Eventually, Damascus and Kali - both feeling as tired as Mycroft, who has fallen asleep at the table - and Beckett remain, waiting for Wolsey and Fisher King to conclude their business. Beckett tells Damascus that he feels on a high - having beaten Atraxis, the Invisible Codex will surely be next. He sets the date of Saturday night at midnight for the banishment of the book back into the Abyss, giving them two nights to make their final preparations. He then sits back, thoughtfully, and looks around as though to check that no one else from the Pentacle remains in the cafe. "I have had some time to think, about something you said to me. And time to read some things, and make some conclusions" - Beckett "Oh, yes?" - Damascus, wary "When we went down to Chesapeake Bay... You said that my mind had been altered by Anurati Sahlay... And that you could undo it. With the Sceptre of the Dethroned Queen" - Beckett "We were wrong. It was just a rod of dispellation" - Damascus, smoothly "But then, when Seraph was caught, Kali here had a Robe that made her invisible... And Anurati herself was controlling people with an artefact." (fixes Damascus with his best 'bullshit me not' stare) "Was it a... Crown?" - Beckett He knows. Damascus glances at Kali, who makes a tiny, curt, nod. He says nothing. "What else, I think to myself? Do you have the Throne?" - Beckett "No" - Kali, breaking her silence. Beckett looks to her at her rather too-forceful word. "But they are the real thing?" - Beckett "Yes" - Kali "In Truth.. we don't have any of them any more" - Damascus, attracting Beckett back

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to him "Why not?" - Beckett, suspicious "Wolsey took them. They were trouble." - Damascus "But... All the danger we're in from the Seers - Valkyrie arrested, Atraxis unleashed. Sleepwalkers and Sancta attacked all over the city" - Beckett "They're not our Tools. They're the *Exarchs'*" - Damascus "They're weapons. We could *use* them... Shiva. Does this have anything to do with the Shiva that has been appearing in the Temenos?" - Beckett "We don't know. We think.." - Kali "That it's from the Dreamtime. Or further" - Damascus "An Ochema?" - Beckett, frowning Damascus nods his suspicion of that, yes "It's gone. Vanished, Shore tells me." - Beckett Damascus and Kali look at one another, suddenly very worried. "Did it.. Do you know if it went up or down?" - Damascus "Which way are you calling 'up'?" - Beckett "Alright.. Has it moved towards this world?" - Damascus "It isn't in the Dreamtime, that Shore could tell" - Beckett "So it's in someone's Oneiros" - Damascus "It's in someone's head?" - Kali "Or worse... Or it could have gone after the Artefacts. Maybe it's not here any more because we got rid of them. We did it to get rid of the Ananke... oh, yeah - we have one of those too." - Damascus "An Ananke? What you need is a Mage with knowledge of both the Spirit and Time Arcana, to determine it's Ban" - Beckett "Do you know someone?" - Damascus Beckett doesn't. Damascus and Kali do, though. Samuel. Yeah - that helps. ... "It was UPS, in the end... But it all started with my wife" - Wolsey

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Fisher King waits for him to continue. Wolsey casts his mind back, remembering. He tells Fisher how after Amanda disappeared, he joined the Order of Ophidius in Boston to look for her, and failed. But in amongst the ritual phrases and the mutterings of the cultists, he felt that certain phrases, certain movements were significant. "I can't explain it other than that. Just.. Significant. Like they were marked out for me in my mind, or highlighted." - Wolsey He followed these signs to another cult, and then to Washington DC. He moved his business to the Nation's Capital, meeting commissioners, lobbyists and councillors again, certain things were highlighted for him, secrets revealed to him. He stopped looking for Amanda, and started following this "trail" for it's own sake. Finally, he received a parcel. "From UPS" - Fisher King "Yes. And... I signed for it. I felt something change, and I... I remember this quite clearly... I said 'I know all your secrets now'" - Wolsey "And that was it?" - Fisher King "That was it" - Wolsey "'Wolsey'. You can tell a lot about a person from their name, the name they gave themselves. Your wife, for instance... Named for a Hyperborean Queen" - Fisher King "It's a lot more personal than that for her, I think" - Wolsey "You refer to her.. What would be the appropriate word.. regression?" - Fisher King Wolsey nods "Hm. Wolsey. I looked it up. A churchman, favoured servant of an English King, who in the eyes of many overshadowed his master - he had a larger palace, finer clothes. He commanded respect for his ability to get things done. And the first time he failed he lost everything." - Fisher King "That's right" - Wolsey "Why?" - Fisher King "It's a warning. To myself - a reminder to not make the same mistake." - Wolsey "Now, you see - that I find interesting. Beckett, too, is named for a churchman - from roughly the same period, and for much the same reason" - Fisher King
Waaaay back, in session 1.3, Beckett noted it was an ironic coincidence

"He was betrayed by those he trusted, and clung to his beliefs.. Yes, yes I see that." Wolsey "He changed it to 'Beckett' when Malakaii broke his heart. That's what it was heartbreak. The realisation your friend has become a monster. Of the others Mages

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in your kind of situation, Tybalt is named for a character in a play, I believe. And Alexander needs no explanation" - Fisher King "May I ask a question?" - Wolsey Fisher nods, smiling again, knowing what's coming "Why 'Fisher King'? That's something to do with the Grail, isn't it?" - Wolsey "The Guardian of the Grail, yes, that the Questors approach in their search for the treasure. The Guardian of the Secret" - Fisher King "But Percival didn't listen to him" - Wolsey Fisher shrugs "I point others toward the Supernal. I seek it out, try to tease it from the world. But I know that I will never go back - I will never Act again. I realised, long ago, that I was not meant for Ascension. I could not take Samuel's path, either - we have had many conversations about it." - Fisher King Good line of thought, though, asking him. Wolsey needs to do more of that - he should ask as many people as will tell him about their Awakenings.
Yes, Wolsey IS shifting ever-so-slightly Mysteriumwards

... The four at the cafe - Mycroft has woken up - look up as Wolsey finally arrives. "Oh, good. I can give you the message. I forgot in all the excitement - Banneker wants to see you, me and Damascus tomorrow night, among others. To discuss the.. final disposition of Tycho" - Beckett He bids them goodnight, and leaves. "I note that I'm not invited" - Mycroft "Yeah. Me neither. I understand me, but you're going to have to Do whatever it is." Kali "That's probably why he's not invited" - Damascus "I suspect I know what it's about, anyway. But... Well... You know" - Mycroft "You can't tell us?" - Wolsey, wryly "Not yet" - Mycroft, gloomy. Friday. Damascus has gone to college, where he has a philosophy 102 class foisted upon him. Wolsey, on the other hand, has gone to work - a big political meet and greet, an

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opportunity for the lobbyists, fixers and this year's crop of politicians to meet one another. He spies Alexander across the room, and wonders how many Seers there are among the crowd. "Good afternoon" - Trace "Oh, hello. Looking for work?" - Wolsey "My guy got back in. How many of yours did you lose?" - Trace "...Five, I think. But I'm working on it" - Wolsey Trace steers him over to a tall man, clearly one of the movers rather than the shakers. "Have you met Congressman West?" - Trace "Earlier on" - Wolsey, shaking the man's hand. They peel off again. "He used to be a General. Worth keeping an eye on - the Pentagon's one of the places we're thin on the ground" - Trace They make small talk - Rove will be out of a job next year, Wolsey reckons, though Trace thinks it's too early to call the next election.
One aspect of Broken Diamond's fast-slow pace, where events seem to rocket through in the confines of the story (it's been Eight months in character since the Cabal met up at Damascus' house for the first time, but it's been twice that out of character) means that we have a particular in-joke regarding Wolsey's dealings with politics - basically, whenever someone asks him for a prediction, Mark rattles off something that we know, eight months later, will actually happen. It's a cheap gag, but it works.

Trace asks if Wolsey's going to be at the meeting that evening - and when he reacts notes that she is too. So, she says, will Cxaxa. "Great" - Wolsey ... Kali, meanwhile, has been calling, one by one, on the other members of her Legacy. Trace, she soon learns, is busy at some function or other, but she gets around the other three no problem. The news, though, is not good - as she listens to her "apprentices", a disturbing picture builds. Shepherd has been countering the Seer's attempts to smear Pentacle Mages through their banking, which is taking a lot of his time. He can tell that the patterns and flows of the financial world in the city are being affected by something, something that's growing in influence and throwing his part of the Web into a new alignment. In news closer to home, Banneker has stopped asking him for funds, which means that Banneker's pet project has been put on hold yet again. And that means that the Hierarch is being distracted by something, something important enough to put his own work aside. Blaise tells her that the city is emptying for the Holidays, that the spirits around the Mall are becoming malcontent. Everything seems harsher and somehow meaner to

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him. There's a subtle shift towards the Federal Reserve which he can't explain - the city is becoming more focused on money and the economy. Part of that must be the current mortal trend anyway, what with the recent election and current fears. But... Katherine tells her the view from the top. The "Grand Old Party" Republicans are jumping ship, abandoning the cliques surrounding the President who, let's face it, they never liked much anyway. There's a nasty feeling of entitlement settling in among the very rich - Katherine's circles are feeling more privileged, and are caring much less about who knows it. Kali's conclusion: "Washington" and "DC" are being pushed apart. The haves have more and the have nots have less. Tensions are rising, and all of this has something to do with the Ministry of Mammon. She decides that the House need a grand Walk of the thread, to attempt to divine any further insights they can - everyone is to meet up tomorrow late afternoon, before the attempt to destroy the Codex.
Kali, more than the other two PCs, "gets" the Washington/DC dichotomy, and the idea that there are two coexistent cities. Which given what's happened to her is no so surprising. It was her ability to see the half of the city that most Mages including the rest of the House - ignore that made Samuel pick her out, as he explained to Wolsey once - but never to her.

... Damascus finishes class and - after having a drink with Monica - heads home. He pulls the truck up outside the Sanctum when something rather disturbing happens. A young man, still in his teens by the look of him, is walking past, keeping his head down. Damascus sees the car driving at speed toward him and seems to see the young man with the SMG lean out of the window in slow-motion. Without time to even think of it, Damascus grabs Stygia, grips and throws it at the young man. The Mage Armour hits him a split-second before the Drive-by open fire. They careen off, and Damascus tries to get their number plate. He looks back around to see the youth they were aiming for climb back onto his knees, terrified.
Damascus won Initiative.

The Sanctum wall is riddled with bullet-holes, marking an arch around the silhouette of the youth. The young man bolts. Damascus doesn't blame him. He wasn't a gangster, though, as far as Damascus can tell. He wasn't wearing any colours. Which makes it all the worse. ... Kali doesn't want to go back to the Sanctum just yet - there's been something she's been putting off for a while now. She gets the bus to her father's house.
Samuel's instructions.

...

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Wolsey and Trace decide that, as they are both going to Banneker's "do", they may as well go together. So when Wolsey swings by the Sanctum to pick Damascus up, Trace is on the back seat. Pointing out the bullet-holes, Damascus tells Wolsey what happened. "... We need to move" - Wolsey "Because of this?" - Damascus "Not just this. Look around. The place is getting worse, and since Kali stopped running the gang we're not as protected as we were. We have to decide, as a Cabal, if this place is worth it. If not, we should move." - Wolsey "And go where?" - Damascus He isn't disagreeing, though. He's just asking "I don't know. Find a Hallow..." - Wolsey "Kali owns the Time Machine" - Trace, nervous at entering what she suspects is a private conversation "What?" - Wolsey "Samuel left it to her. It's not a Demesne any more, but it's a Hallow. And fitted out as a Sanctum..." - Trace
Technically, he left it to both of them. But Trace seems to have a more realistic view than Kali of who's running the Legacy.

... Once Kemi has eaten, and her father is puttering around in the garden, she stalks through the Scene of the Crime, considering. Samuel's note contained the address, and the date of Anurati abandoning their family. There is too much history in this house - Kemi's feelings are too confused, they're to mixed up with Kevin and Anurati and multiple layers of lies and falsehoods to get a feel for the place. Her Attainment refuses to work. So, she does it the old-fashioned way, walking through the house casting Postcognition. She watches Beckett and Malakaii arrive from the point of view of the living room, sees Anurati calmly greet them as though expecting them. She sees Beckett see her own younger self watching, and put a finger to his lips. Then Beckett and Malakaii trail back downstairs, following Anurati who is wearing the Crown. The trio - her mother and the two mind-controlled Guardians - leave by the front door. From her own bedroom, the scene plays out as she knows, and then (once her younger self is unconscious and Anurati is modifying her memory) as she expected Anurati uses the Crown on Beckett and Malakaii, who trail downstairs after her. Calling out back that she'll see her dad soon, Kemi leaves the house. One last Postcognition sees the trio get into Malakaii's car and drive off.

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As she walks to the bus stop, Kemi goes over it all over and over again. She's witnessed this scene what feels like hundreds of times now - in her Awakening, in her dreams, in the onrush of memory when the Sceptre gave her her real life back, in Postcognitions galore. It doesn't change: Anurati sits calmly waiting for Beckett and Malakaii, they discuss her crime, they go upstairs and Anurati uses the Crown on everyone. Two things come to her, as the bus pulls away. Her father wasn't home - Anurati must have removed *his* memory at some later point. And she knew they were coming. Anurati knew Beckett was coming. For all her belief in predestination, her mother doesn't have the Time Arcanum. She needs to look earlier. ... Banneker's meeting, it turns out, is in the boardroom of his firm. The attendees are the curious group of Cxaxa, Nimrod, Pool, Wolsey, Trace, Mara, Damascus and Beckett. Banneker tells them right from the start why they're there: Tycho has started talking. He's naming names. They represent people who have expressed an interest in what happens to Tycho, the people who are interrogating him and those who Banneker wants to follow up on what the Seer has said so far.
Damascus, you'll recall, called for Tycho to be mind-wiped and released.

Tycho, Cxaxa says, is from the Ministry of Mammon - the Seer "Order" devoted to control of the population by means of the mind Arcanum. They focus Sleepers on distractions, gilding the cage the Exarchs have put them in and inciting jealousy in the ones they don't give riches to. Mammon have always had a minor presence here - minor compared to Panopticon, the Ministry of Space, but their numbers are now growing rapidly and they're seeking to take control as fast as they can. Tycho says although he's never met him - that the Minister himself has been rumoured to spend some of his time in DC. Tycho had a hit-list of people he was instructed by his superiors to target and gain influence over. With his capture, the Seers will have moved a different Pylon onto the tasks, but the Pentacle might be able to get there first, or counter whatever the Seers have done. Wolsey is given five names - one of which, he notes without any surprise, is Congressman West. "We're not going to be able to win this" - Wolsey He voices a concern he's had ever since Mammon started to rear their heads. The Ministry is too large, and has far to many resources. They're also focused - all of them, however many there are, on their organisation's goals. The Pentacle is spread far, far too thin, all pulling in different directions. But in the meantime, what can be done about Tycho? Damascus raises his opinion again - that they release Tycho, as a peace gesture. Mind-wipe if need be. Pool says that he will soon cease to be useful, and Banneker that he is coming around to Damascus' way of thinking - only that once they DO release him, they're going to have to be careful. Dantor will have to move Sanctum - Tycho saw the inside of the

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place - and those people that Tycho has interacted with will have to watch their backs. "Is it worth that much risk?" - Banneker "To stop something we have no idea we can beat?" - Damascus Banneker says he's coming around, but still needs to seriously consider it. If they could do it in a safe way, such that Tycho wouldn't be killed by his peers believing he had sold out to the Pentacle... He calls the meeting to an end. He'll be calling on the Sentinels and the rest of the Adamantine Arrow to do what they can. Trace and Wolsey are to go down their lists of names. Pool is to keep him regularly updated on the situation. Everyone stands up. "Cxaxa. Wolsey. Stay" - Banneker Everyone else leaves. On his way out, Damascus is cornered by Mara, who congratulates him on the night before. Damascus says it was nothing, he was happy to serve. Inside, Banneker is watching Cxaxa and Wolsey. "Can you two work together?" - Banneker Cxaxa starts and says that of course she can. Wolsey replies in the affirmative as well. Banneker doesn't seem convinced. "Wolsey. I want you to observe the interrogations. You are our expert in matters of influence - you might spot a name we haven't picked up on yet." - Banneker Cxaxa looks like she's going to disagree "I will inform Pool that Project Twilight is to allow it. I want my own man on the inside on this" - Banneker Cxaxa smiles, as coldly as Querephas used to, and says that she will be happy to have Wolsey along. She gets up and leaves. "I don't trust them" - Banneker "Cxaxa, or Project Twilight?" - Wolsey "Either. Both" - Banneker "Me neither" - Wolsey He gets up and goes, too - and manages to catch Cxaxa waiting for the elevator "Cxaxa, listen..." - Wolsey "It's all right, Wolsey. I bear you and the Cabal no grudge. I just don't see what good you can do" - Cxaxa

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"Orders from on high" - Wolsey "I'll send Nimrod to pick you up tomorrow" - Cxaxa "Make it the day after. I've got a thing with a book tomorrow" - Wolsey She leaves. "Ready to go?" - Wolsey Damascus, leaning against the wall in the background, nods. "Call Mycroft. We need the Cabal for this" - Wolsey "Wolsey, a moment" - Banneker, also emerging. Damascus returns to his wall. "How is it going with Fisher King? He asked me about you" - Banneker "It's going well.. Not quite what I expected." - Wolsey "No. He has that way. He used to be in the Ladder, you know" - Banneker "I got that. Or the implication of it" - Wolsey ... Kali gets back to the Sanctum, just as Mycroft gets home. They chat for a minute about Kali's next move - she wants to go into Astral Space again to look for Shiva, and Mycroft agrees to go with her. Damascus phones Mycroft and - Simultaneously Wolsey phones Kali. ... The Cabal meet up in a restaurant, taking a private booth for themselves. Kali describes what the House have been feeling through the thread, Wolsey tells them what went on in Banneker's meeting and Damascus chips in with the tale of the failed drive-by. He presents Kali with a bullet he took from the wall. "It's getting dangerous" - Damascus Wolsey wants to move, and when challenged as to "where?" asks Kali if she does or doesn't own the Time Machine. She hesitates. "I've thought about it. Moving there, just me. I thought it would help, but I.. I don't know what kind of a statement it'll make. Moving into Samuel's old Sanctum" - Kali "It'll make *exactly* the right statement" - Wolsey, seriously. She does not seem convinced. "Look.. throw the dice on it if you want. Read the future. Tell me if it's a good idea" Wolsey

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Kali casts Divination, and concedes that it does appear that moving to the Time Machine would be beneficial to her. "But it will cause Damascus great pain. It's. uh.. it's neutral for you two" - Kali Damascus ventures that if it's only going to harm him, well then he can put up with it for the good of the group. What's the worst that can happen? "What about our Sanctum?" - Kali "Give it to Dantor? If she needs somewhere?" - Damascus Which brings it neatly back to the Tycho situation. Mycroft shifts uncomfortably as they talk. "I can't understand what they think they can get out of him. They need the conditions to release him to be right? What does that mean?" - Damascus "...Pool has great experience in these matters" - Mycroft, blankly Damascus, at that moment realises something. "They're running an operation, aren't they? They've got a double-agent" - Damascus Mycroft wrestles with his vows. "You're..." - Mycroft Damascus is on a roll "They intend to turn Tycho? Use him as a spy?" - Damascus Mycroft reacts as though stung. "It's not... It's not what they're *going* to do. It's what they're doing" - Mycroft Damascus doesn't get it. "Who's been publicly distancing themselves from everyone else?" - Mycroft, teeth gritted. The lightbulb goes on over Damascus' head. "Oh, God... Cxaxa" - Damascus Wolsey catches up. Kali is still confused. "They're running a double-agent operation. Tycho thinks he's turning Cxaxa to *his* side. They're going to stage a breakout, and she'll escape with him - to be an agent in the Seers" - Mycroft He grimaces, furious. "...And they had this meeting tonight so they could blame it on you. Say you gave

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them the idea" - Mycroft "I take it it now endangers us?" - Wolsey Mycroft nods. "I believe Damascus is being set up as the fall guy. But the worst part? I don't know how much of the last month - changing her name, quitting the Cabal.. I don't know how much of it was her cover." - Mycroft "This is either the best or the worst plan ever... It's certainly the riskiest. How much does Banneker know?" - Wolsey "I'm not certain. He gave Pool free reign." - Mycroft "Of *course* he did. He's doing it all over again. She's his new Malakaii" - Wolsey "If you think about it, it makes sense. Cxaxa has a history with Mammon, through the cult she Awoke in. She has a reason to fall out with the Pentacle - and us especially. She broke up with you right outside Tycho's cell, where he could hear her." - Mycroft "Not what worries me. What worries me is that, unstable as she is, she might *actually* be going over to them. Kali?" - Wolsey She casts Divination again, frowning as she interprets her questions. "You're being set up as fall guy all right" - Kali, to Damascus "How?" - Damascus "You'll get called to wherever they're keeping him. She'll attack you for his benefit. I can't.. I keep trying to see if she means it or not. She does and she doesn't. She's a Seer and she isn't. I think... I think Cxaxa might mean it, but Amanda is still working for us." - Kali "How do we stop this?" - Wolsey Mycroft tries, weakly, to protest, but Damascus agrees with Wolsey "I'll change what I do at the last minute. When they ask me to go there..." - Damascus "Then whoever does the asking will tell us how far up this goes. If it's Nimrod, Banneker doesn't know. If it's Mara, he does" - Wolsey "I can have extra guards or something, Cxaxa won't be expecting it." - Damascus "Should we be doing this?" - Mycroft "Hell, yes" - Wolsey "Won't you get into trouble for telling us?" - Kali, to Mycroft "This is why I never last long in a Consilium. Every time, my fellow Guardians push me too far... At least this time I have a Cabal" - Mycroft

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"And they needn't find out. We can foil it by 'accident'" - Damascus ... Wolsey and Damascus go home, leaving Mycroft and Kali to head to Suleiman's and their delayed date with Astral Space. After some meditation in Suleiman's Demesne, they break the dreamshell and enter the Temenos, materialising as ever on the ghostly thought-form of Suleiman's tower. Down in the streets, the Elephants have been killed by the Donkeys. Shiva is gone from the sky. And the just-over-there flames are burning a little bit higher than usual. "Where do you want to look?" - Mycroft Kali concentrates on Home, trying to think her way to Anacostia. She sort of succeeds, finding herself walking down the spiralling staircase in what - if you squint looks like Ichi's warehouse lair. The spiderwebs on the ceiling are burning, and the curtain to her old room blows as if in a gale. There are muffled screams from out-ofsight people. "This isn't right" - Kali She focuses, and the scene resolves into the Sanctum. It feels neglected, dust piling in corners. "Let's check the rooms" - Kali Hers first. Kali's room is filled with Spiderwebs, and the very faint smell of Indian cooking. She narrows her eyes and calls out softly to her mother, but Anurati does not appear. They walk into Mycroft's room, and Kali blinks. Everything has gone black and white. A ceiling fan rotates. "I knew the broad was trouble" - Mycroft, drawling She raises an eyebrow at him, and they try Cxaxa's. "Hello" - Querephas The Cold Smile is sat primly on Cxaxa's bed, eating a meal of five hearts - one of which is crawling with maggots. "She's been looking for you, you know" - Kali "I've been here all the time. She'll have to come back if she wants me" - Querephas "She won't" - Kali "She'll have to destroy this place" - Querephas "Where's my Husband?" - Kali "Gone away" - Querephas

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"Gone where?" - Kali "Away. I have it on good authority" - Querephas "We're going now. In the real world, and here. She'll never come back." - Kali "You should be careful. See for yourself what abandoning your last home did to it" Querephas "Dad's fine" - Kali Querephas smiles condescendingly. Mycroft and Kali close the door on her, look at one another and break the spell, waking up again.
I like Astral Sequences. Just remember - they're not like the Shadow, which shows ignored truths. The Astral is literally all in the person's head - that wasn't really "Querephas", if such a being exists. It's more the idea of her.

They leave, heading back to Mycroft's car. "I have to ask.." - Kali "I've been thinking. About a job. I've been so busy since I got here, but.. I think perhaps my Order won't be trusting me with quite as much work from now on. And to take your example, I need to get out there and do what I'm good at." - Mycroft "You're going to be a detective?" - Kali, amused "Why not? I did it in Chicago. I'm rather good at it, in case you hadn't noticed. But that's what I wanted to ask you... You're good at it too" - Mycroft Is he asking what she thinks he's asking? "Want to go into business with me?" - Mycroft She considers. The never-materialised reporter internship Shepherd was going to try to organise, or... "As long a business is stereotypically slow. I have quite enough on my plate as it is" Kali "Was that a yes?" - Mycroft, getting into the car "It.. Yeah" - Kali, getting in. At which point, both of them feel very Inevitable. Mycroft glances at Kali, checking that she's not casting anything. Having eliminated her as a cause for the Nimbus, he looks up. Kali stares at the Scrying channel Anurati is using. It doesn't go away. "Oh, for God's sake. I can't drive with her watching me." (gets out of the car) "Talk to your mother" - Mycroft

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He stomps a way away through the snow. "Mom..." - Kali She tries to think of something to say that will mollify Anurati, and thinks of the last thing Anurati tried to ask her do. "Mycroft isn't my boyfriend. We're not together. There is no danger there. Happy?" Kali The Scry ends. ... Over the city, Damascus sleeps. He feels something, and rolls over, groggily awake. Casting a Mage Sight, he sees Anurati's scry above his bed. "Was there something you wanted?" - Damascus, testily Nothing "Because I have a big day tomorrow" - Damascus It goes "Alright, then" - Damascus He rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

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Session 11.5
So. This session comes courtesy of "Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss", and should be considered mild to medium spoilers for the Invisible Codex chapter in that book. Not so many more than there already have been in the chronicle so far, but I may as well remember to make a spoiler warning before the last session to use the thing. Yeah. "Yours to throw away", then, refers not only to Cxaxa and Wolsey's now-completely disintegrated marriage, with the increasing threat of what Cxaxa is about to do, not only to Kali's leadership of her Legacy and the Cabal, not only to Anacostia and the Sanctum, but to the Invisible Codex itself as well. In case you're wondering where Wolsey is in our initial stages, Mark was an hour or so late to the game. The session is part and parcel of my ongoing efforts to try to give a little more screen time to Damascus and Wolsey. Mostly Damascus - the Chronicle is moving in an intriguing direction right about now, and over the course of the next couple of stories we should, if it works out, really explore the nature of the three main characters - what makes Carl "Damascus", and why Kemi is Kali. It feeds into the quest Wolsey's on, too. To facilitate it, then, the story shifts abruptly Damascus-wards. As I said last time, Rafe has a habit of not realising when he's being given a prompt. Before the session, we joked that we needed to resort to hand signals.

Saturday morning, and Damascus makes his way to the Sanctum feeling like the hours are running out on his life. The ritual to dispose of the Invisible Codex is set for midnight that night. "Good morning" - Damascus, mock-cheerful Mycroft grunts into his breakfast "Where's Kali?" - Damascus "In the Bath. Don't worry, we're making progress. She now gets dressed before walking back to her room" - Mycroft The lady of the house makes her appearance, and then there are Bagels. "I had a visitation from your mother last night" - Damascus, chewing "So did we" - Kali, matter-of-factly "What did she want?" - Damascus Kali shrugs, unconcerned. Anyway. Plans. Damascus' diary is free until his soul is eaten by the Abyss tonight, and he was wondering if Kali and Mycroft were up to anything. As it turns out, Kali does have an idea - the delayed mass walking of the thread by the House of Ariadne, in an attempt to get any insights they can into the Seers of the Throne's activities. "Want to come?" - Kali "Yeah, alright. If we run into the Seers and I get killed... well" - Damascus They look at Mycroft "I'm afraid I'll turn down that opportunity. I'm going to establish some facts, regarding how much Banneker really knows about what Cxaxa is doing" - Mycroft "How are you going to find that out?" - Kali

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"I'm going to ask him" - Mycroft, flatly. They tell him how the Astral voyage last night went, describing what the mentalQuerephas said and how the Sanctum looked in the Temenos. Kali reiterates her opinion that the two cities are moving further apart. Be that as it may, Damascus reckons there's something else they can be getting along with - and Kali has just reminded him. "Have you been to see Ichi lately?" - Damascus Kali shifts uncomfortably and says that she doesn't really hang out with her old gang much any more. Or at all. Damascus reminds her about the failed drive-by, and says that if she's seeing signs of turmoil in the Temenos as well there may be something in it. "Let's go see him. The three of us" - Damascus
I'm not sure how much of Damascus' decision was Rafe humouring me and feeling that he wanted to advance the plot, but in truth this is all about Damascus. As will become clear.

... The three of them start walking through the streets of Anacostia, towards Kali's old den. Almost immediately, they realise that something's wrong. The streets are nearly deserted, the few passers-by that are there keep their heads down and hurry along. There are more abandoned cars than usual. The cabal quickly pick up on the vibe. Trouble. Gang war. Combined with the shooting, Damascus reckons - and Kali agrees - that a new gang must be muscling in on Ichi's territory. And then they see the tags. Ichi's tag on a nearby wall has been sprayed over by another tag, which has itself been defaced and replaced by Ichi's. Damascus goes quiet.
At which point, I made a jokey handsignal to Rafe, telling him to put his protagonist hat on.

"The Razors" - Damascus "The what?" - Mycroft "The new gang. They're my gang" - Damascus, grim "You have a gang?" - Mycroft He used to. Damascus was once a petty crook and car thief, before he went to juvie and then Awakened. The tag matches his old crew. "Which means either someone is using a symbol that doesn't belong to them, or it's one of my old friends" - Damascus He runs through the list. Of those still alive that he knows of, Ragger and Pink-Eye were both in Jail.

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"'Pink-Eye'?" - Kali, amused "He got glassed in the face one time" - Damascus, absently. They walk on. "So..." - Mycroft "Yeah, I was in a gang. Growing up there, there weren't many options" - Damascus
It's implied a lot whenever it comes up that the Alley Razors - even down to the frankly stupid name - were kind of a crap gang. Eight teenage boys wanting to appear hard, stealing cars and getting caught and sent to juvie before they moved onto anything worse.

"Hey, I'm not judging. I grew up poor, too. 'Course, I never joined my neighbourhood's equivalent because, well... wrong colour" - Mycroft Damascus looks grimly amused "Just the truth" - Mycroft Kali is quiet. They reach the warehouse. There aren't nearly as many people here as there used to be in Kali's day, and those that are - part-hidden by the dimmer lights - look variously ill, scared or wary. Climbing the staircase to Kali's old rooms unopposed, the trio look around. There are two upper rooms on the building. When Kali lived here, the outer room was used for meetings of her crew, separated from her bedroom by a thin curtain over an open doorway. Ichi apparently doesn't like to sleep that exposed, though - the doorway has had a plain metal door roughly fixed into place. The outer room is inhabited only by Lisa, Ichi's girlfriend. Damascus - who Lisa nearly ran out of the gang's turf months ago, before Malakaii's death, before Vegas, before Cxaxa Querephas, almost doesn't recognise her. Her eyes seem hollow, her body weight shrunk. She is quite clearly a crack addict, scratching at herself absently. "You" - Lisa "We need to see Ichi" - Kali Lisa starts "Don't worry. We're not staying. We just need to see him." - Kali Lisa shuffles to the door and knocks, three-up, two-down. The trip down memory lane reaches another stop on the track when Virgil opens it.
Remember Virgil Johnston? He was the Sleepwalker back in the very first story. I don't know if it made it into the recap until now - and I'm even less sure if it ever made it into the chronicle proper - but he's in Ichi's gang now, after the job he was so proud of collapsed. You might want to reread sessions 1.1 to 2.2 before going any further, as there's a lot of call-back in this session, and they'll be even more in the future.

Virgil looks shocked to see them, but waves them inside. In the inner room, Ichi and

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a rather weasel-ish man are sat. There's a gap which Virgil appears to have vacated. "Well.. Look who it is. Here to complain about the noise?" - Ichi "We're here about the gang war." - Damascus "Finally noticed, did you?" - Ichi Yes - the gang is being muscled in on by another operation, he tells them. They're bigger, better equipped and better funded - they have automatics, for instance. But mostly, they're ruthless in a way that Ichi's gang aren't. "We don't try to go outside Anacostia. They do. We don't link up to Nationals for money and guns - they do. We don't kidnap. And we don't sell crack" - Ichi, almost accusing Kali nods, pained "Who's in charge?" - Damascus "Some guy named Red. Has one red eye - he got knifed in the face or something" Ichi Damascus gets a horrible, horrible sinking feeling. "What do they want?" - Damascus "Same thing they want from everyone else up and down the east side - allegiance. Most of the crews have gone over, started wearing Razor colours and paying their franchise Fees to Red and whoever's behind him. Only guys not being lent on are the hoodoo guys out eastways - those fuckers are scary" - Ichi
And that would be Dantor's crew

"Go back - they Kidnap?" - Damascus, concerned "Rich dudes kids. Ransom them back to them - ruthless business." - Ichi "What if we could do something?" - Kali "'something'?" - Ichi, sceptical "I'm not coming back" - Kali "I didn't ask" - Ichi, spitting "Well, then. Something. If we could make this guy leave you alone" - Kali "Then there'd just be some other takeover next year." (shrugs, defeated) "Sign of the times, babe. Sign of the times. The era of the neighbourhood crew is *over*. If it weren't these guys..." - Ichi "It'd be the Bloods, or the Crips" - Damascus, heavily Ichi nods

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"DC's always been strange - the National organisations have never had much pull here - too many Feds, maybe, or too many home-grown soldiers with minds of their own. Anyway - it's changing. I can smell it, like the weather in the wind off the river. There's no room in this game for a five-block crew with morals" - Ichi "Look. I think I know this Red. I'll talk to him. Try to get him to back off you guys. Has he given you any kind of ultimatum?" - Damascus "We've got six days" - Weasel, breaking his silence "What are you going to do?" - Kali "Honestly? Babe, we're going to fold. Half of the gang have gone over to them anyway, and most of the rest are running scared. We've had shootings." - Ichi "I know. I saw one" - Damascus "Outside your place. Right. I knew there had to be a reason you'd noticed" - Ichi Damascus winces "Anyway. Thank you kindly, miss, sirs, for coming down to our level for the visit. VJ'll see you out" - Ichi They leave. "Do you really think there's something you can do?" - Virgil, his voice low "Maybe" - Damascus "Any... Voodoo crap?" - Virgil "We'll do our best" - Damascus "Look. I know what you people can do, right? Ichi and Sean? They don't *know* man. As far as they're concerned, your friend here is just his weird ex-girlfriend that used to have it in for chickens" - Virgil "I'll see what I can do" - Kali, gently He seems mildly reassured by that, as they cross the street and head back toward the Sanctum "Want to fill me in?" - Mycroft They look at him "That guy was a Sleepwalker. Also... Did you..?" - Mycroft "Yes" - Kali, wearily
Ha!

"You realise there probably isn't anything you can do?" - Mycroft

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"We know" - Damascus "I mean, this was pretty inevitable. Kali's gang survived because they had magical backing, despite having limits put on them. Keep the limits, take away the magic and... Well." - Mycroft "'Magical Backing'... Last time I saw 'Red' he was seventeen and liked porches above his ability to jack them. Now he's taking over gangs all over the South-East city? I think I know who his 'Backers' are." - Damascus "Seers" - Mycroft "Damn right" - Damascus "The cities are getting further apart" - Kali, hollowly. ... They return to the Sanctum, where Damascus begins to pace back and forth. "I don't need this. Not now. Not *today*" - Damascus "How long?" - Mycroft "Midnight... I can't do anything about Red. I'll... I'll think about it tomorrow. If I don't die tonight" - Damascus "You could come along with me this afternoon - take your mind off it" - Kali "What's this afternoon again?" - Damascus "The House. We're walking the thread, trying to find signs of the Seers. Only we're not exactly fighters, and..." - Kali "..You might find some Seers. Sure" (brightens) "And hey - if I die, then at least I don't have to worry about the ritual!" - Damascus At which point Wolsey calls, asking if he's missed anything. Damascus starts to explain, but after the first few sentences Wolsey asks if he should just come over. Damascus readily agrees, so Wolsey starts driving. While the fourth Cabal member is on his way, the three who *are* there return to the unhappy topic of the 'Gang Problem'. Most of the worry is coming from Damascus and Mycroft, who are both concerned about the area they live in being destabilised and Damascus even more so given he knows people on both sides. Kali, though, is confused - she thought they were quitting Anacostia in favour of the Time Machine? She was persuaded of such just the other day. It's the principle of the thing, though, for Damascus. And he still has family around here. Kali argues that they would do more good fixing the imbalance between the Two Cities in concert with the other Pentacle Mages - the local problem is symptomatic of the larger. She doesn't actually use the word "symptomatic", but the thought is there.

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Bit of a role reversal here - Damascus, not Kali, is looking out for the little guy. Her position has pushed her viewpoint wider than her own little world, and she now sees the City as the unified super-organism the House's teachings would have it be. Gang Wars are a result of an imbalance of the "humours", part of the greater struggle. She's absolutely right - the gang situation IS being caused by what Mammon are doing - but it ignores the fact that they know and kind of like the specific people that will die. Which is what Damascus can't get past. Actually - I just thought. Part of this attitude is also the result of the Wisdom loss she's taken over the chronicle from using the Regalia.

Wolsey arrives to find them debating the effect of the Seers on everything from Politics to the Gang War, and is filled in on what's going on. Not having been there that morning, Wolsey is still thinking in terms of the night before and Banneker asking him to work through Tycho's list of potential patsies, and voices an opinion counter to both Damascus' (fight the small battle in front of you) and Kali's (fight the larger causal battle and the rest will follow). "I don't think we can win" - Wolsey, simply. The others stare at him. He explains, reiterating the opinion he gave Banneker, but not pulling his punch with his friends. "There's too many of them, all working to the same goal. Say one thing for the Seers - they know how to move in a unified purpose within their Ministries. Look at us - look at the Pentacle. We're spread out, interest-wise. Any given Front the Seers pick, they'll have their full effort on it and we'll have one, maybe two Mages. The Consilium is trying to do too much, so we'll never manage to fight them off on all fronts" Wolsey "What do you suggest, then?" - Mycroft "We need to pick one fight and fight it. And accept losses in the others" - Wolsey
The kicker here is that Wolsey actually has no intention of doing what Banneker asked - because he doesn't think he has a chance of winning and it would be a waste of time and effort fighting a symptom.

"Move out" - Kali He doesn't reply - that isn't the sole extent of what he meant, no, but it's a start. Damascus protests. "But.. We have links to these people" - Damascus "You do. I don't. Mycroft doesn't. Kali doesn't - she was daytripping in this world, not born here. And Cxaxa knows about this place." - Wolsey
Remember that Kali Divined last session that abandoning Anacostia would be painful for Damascus? This is why.

Cxaxa's scheme - or Pool's scheme, or whoever's scheme it actually is - is brought up. "Ideally, we need to be South of the Border before it goes down. But that would mean burning our bridges with the Consilium" - Wolsey Happy thoughts. Kali checks her watch and announces that she and Damascus need to get going.

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"We'll meet up for the trip to Beckett's" - Damascus "Where will you be in all this?" - Wolsey, to Mycroft "Talking to Banneker" - Mycroft He pauses "It occurs that in all our concerns about what Cxaxa and Pool may be doing, we haven't got enough facts. We don't know if Banneker knows" - Mycroft "How are you going to find out?" - Wolsey "I'm going to ask him" - Mycroft ... While Wolsey busies himself with work and Mycroft goes Hierarch-questioning, Kali and Damascus meet up with the House of Ariadne and commence a very, *very* trying afternoon, evening and early night. For seven hours they wander around downtown from holding company to financial institution to anonymous office building. The taste of Mammon is in the air, but there's no sign of a Sanctum, or even a Seer the Ministry is very well hidden. More to the point, they appear to be regularly destroying sympathetic connections they set up in their "work", making the threads particularly hard to see. It's almost like they knew the House would be looking. There's one word, though, that keeps coming up. "Glory". What it means, though, the House are collectively at a loss to explain. And then the hour draws late, and Wolsey picks Kali and Damascus up for the drive North to Beckett's. All gird themselves with Mage Armour spells and - in Kali's case Prepared Acceleration and Curse of Chronos "I just thought of something" - Wolsey "Mmn?" - Damascus, understandably distracted right now "I thought of something we could use against the Seers... The book. They'd be right up it's street" - Wolsey They consider "Bit late now, no?" - Damascus Wolsey shrugs "Is there any way to get our hands on it during the ritual?" - Wolsey, as though making casual conversation. "In front of Beckett, five ritualists and assorted onlookers?" - Damascus

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The pull up outside Beckett's house - there are too many cars to get into the drive. Something passes over them, like a whisper. "If I get the chance, I'm going to take the book" - Wolsey, with finality Kali nods, looking suspiciously at the back of Wolsey's head as they get out of the car. Wolsey himself is busily looking ahead of them at Trace, who's lingering in the doorway and looking suspiciously right back at Wolsey. "The Soul Stone" - Wolsey, still thinking "Hm?" - Damascus "Once you have it, he'll owe you three favours" - Wolsey
As you've probably guessed, the Invisible Codex has started to try to defend itself - everyone in the area now wants the book for themselves, to varying degrees. The worst affected is actually Kali, who got hit by a mighty exceptional success from the Codex's Influence roll.

Inside, Beckett is welcoming everyone as though they've arrived for a dinner party, taking coats and showing people upstairs to his library (wall now rebuilt following the attack of the Hungry Dragon). The Codex sits on it's lectern, firmly closed. The plan is gone over yet again, to make absolutely sure everyone understands. Beckett will give Damascus Malakaii's Soul Stone, which Beckett has now turned into his Soul Stone. It is also a Grimoire, or the equivalent thereof - using it will give Damascus the ability to use Beckett's Arcana and the specially-modified Spirit Road rote that will open the gateway to the Codex's realm in the Abyss. Doing so, however, is a tricky proposition indeed. Before they can use it, ownership of the Codex has to be transferred from Beckett to Damascus - which is what the fiveperson ritual of Trace, Dantor, Ulysses, Heinrich and Shore is supposed to achieve. Once Damascus owns the book, he has to resist it's powers for long enough to cast the spirit road spell and deliberately cause a manifestation paradox in the process. That will open the tear to the Abyss, which he *then* has to summon enough willpower to throw the book through. Needless to say, this is not going to be an easy night. First, though, Shore casts a Ban around the five ritualists and Damascus, sealing them in. He then relinquishes control of the spell so that he can't immediately destroy it himself should the Codex take control of his mind. Beckett protests that he just thought of something, and tries to get into the circle. The Ban doesn't allow him. He swears and kicks the boundary. Kali edges away from him, hoping that he'll distract those on the inside and prevent them from observing her own actions too closely. Wolsey, for his part, tries to figure out how he's going to teleport the book out of there. Damascus casts a Mind Spell splitting his mind into two, better safe than sorry. One half is concentrating on the ritual, leaving the other free to act as a backup in case of... influence.

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The Ritual begins. This part contains no Supernal magic - the five ritualists *represent* the Supernal, through their Paths and the fact that they are all five personally specialised in the Subtle Arcana of their Paths.
Trace is an Acanthus, Dantor a Moros, Shore a Mastigos, Heinrich a Thyrsus and Ulysses an Obrimos. Heinrich is a Shaman in Suleiman's Cabal, in case you were wondering. She's only appeared a few times and only in big group scenes. She is also, as should be obvious from that last sentence, a She. She just has a particularly misleading Shadow Name. Then again, the players were confused to find that Ebony was white, too.

Everyone's Unseen Senses start tingling. Wolsey activates a Mage Sight spell, hoping to get the drop on anyone else casting anything. The ritual continues - all complex hand motions and chanting in nasty, guttural utterances that sounds reminiscent of, but certainly aren't, High Speech
If the High Speech is the Real language, the Ur-tongue that all mortal languages are "real" by dint of containing traces of, then the Abyssal sounds of the ritual are the Not-Real language. The Abyss being the home of everything that doesn't and can't exist.

Kali inches closer to the Ban, preparing to do something rash. Wolsey - wanting the Codex for himself - watches her, and sees the flicker of her Nimbus. The spell he sees is Vulgar, so the Arcanum used is particularly easy to spot - it's Space and Mind-based. Thing is, though, Kali doesn't *know* the Mind Arcanum. Wolsey looks for and spots Anurati's Scrying conduit, and sends his own senses hurtling down it, feeling his mind stretched thin down the connection to the other side of the world. Kali has just enough time to hear "Just what do you think you are doing?" - Anurati In her mind, before Wolsey establishes contact to the other side and uses Anurati's conduit in the reverse direction, casting Teleport and vanishing in a blast of his own Nimbus. The conduit vanishes, and Kali totters on her feet, suddenly unsteady. The ritualists don't seem to have noticed. "What happened? Where'd he go!?" - Beckett, high-voiced in paranoid panic Kali looks from Beckett, who is staring around himself and fretting, to the Ritualists who are continuing oblivious, and triggers her Acceleration, charging at and, unfortunately, bouncing straight off the Ban. Before Beckett can react, though, she casts Shifting Sands
The last turn never happened.

"What happened? Where'd he go!?" - Beckett, high-voiced in paranoid panic Kali looks from Beckett, who is staring around himself and fretting, to the Ritualists who are continuing oblivious, and begins to cast Temporal Pocket, reckoning that she can finish it before the ritualists finish their ritual. Once in her time bubble, she can work on breaking through the Ban at her leisure.

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Inside the ritual, not distracted by performing complex and arcane rites, Damascus clutches the Codex jealously to himself and watches what Kali and Beckett are doing. ... Wolsey, gasping, reappears.. somewhere. He's never Teleported blind before, using someone else's conduit. He's in some kind of shack. And it's hot here - coming from the bitterly cold DC Winter it's like walking into a greenhouse. Anurati is regarding him like an animal that's just performed a particularly interesting trick. "You... You should *not* have done that" - Wolsey, angry Anurati furrows her brow "You were meant to LEAVE" - Wolsey "I have left" - Anurati, simply "It doesn't... count...if you.. keep SCRYING" - Wolsey "She needs me. She is being influenced by that thing" - Anurati "We..." - Wolsey Before Wolsey can finish, though, she Teleports. He looks around. Two can play at this game. Something he can use. Something with sympathy to this place... Searching the place, he discovers that it appears to be a goat-herders shack, somewhere high up in the hills somewhere he has a hunch is the Indian subcontinent. There is nothing giving him sympathy to Anurati - old habits die hard, and she seems to be following her previous operating procedure of having a place she casts her Scry spells from that isn't where she actually lives. "Right" - Wolsey He sets fire to the shack, and Teleports back to the Sanctum. ... Mycroft looks up from Fool's Errand "Problems..?" - Mycroft He trails off, using his Attainment on Wolsey "Oh" - Mycroft "I need..." - Wolsey

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Wolsey, having gotten his frustrations out on Anurati's shack, has just realised something. He's no longer quite so convinced of the need to steal the book. "I need to borrow your car" - Wolsey ... Kali has, by now, retreated into her own personal Timestream, where she is considering the best course of action. Beckett has gone downstairs, where he's starting his own elaborate casting ritual out of sight, summoning something to break the circle for him. The ritualists complete their work, and Damascus feels the Codex move beneath his hands. "Lad?" - Ulysses Damascus looks at the Codex's cover. He hesitates, and casts a Ruling Practice of Mind on the half of himself that conducting the ritual.
This is a variant of a spell from the Guardian of the Veil book, that John Dee taught Damascus back when he was worried about Anurati rewriting his memory. It essentially checks your own mind pattern for alterations - the original makes sure your memory hasn't been altered, this variant looks for external influences

"We're being influenced... It's tainting our minds! Dantor... Kill magic!" - Damascus She regards him suspiciously "You're all being Influenced! Kill magic!" - Damascus. Dantor believes him. She casts an area-effect Quell the Spark. The Ban, Kali's Temporal Pocket, the Codex's Influences, all of their Mage Armours, Damascus' Mind-split and - downstairs - Beckett's Greater Spirit Summons all cease to exist.
And this time - unlike when she tried to remove the Geas from Cerberus - Dantor got a truly impressive amount of successes. NINE in all. Any and all Potencies were well and truly overcome.

Damascus holds the book as though it might explode. Everyone takes a deep breath. "Mind shields" - Ulysses Beckett rushes back into the room "Is it?" - Beckett, stopping as he sees Damascus still has it. "Not yet" - Damascus Shore and Beckett distribute Mental shielding spells and Beckett and Heinrich cast protections from Spiritual Influence on everyone.

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Damascus takes a deep breath, waiting for everyone to get their defences into place, and opens the book. . Outside, Wolsey has finally arrived back at the scene, but before he can run in he spots a mysterious van parked across the road. Casting Spatial Map reveals the interior space to be dominated on both sides by consoles, and there to be four people crammed into the back. Casting Impostor and First Impressions, he marches up to the van door and yanks it open. "JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" - Wolsey The four FBI agents blink at him. He waves his driver's license at them. "NSA. Give me those tapes" - Wolsey "The...?" - FBI man "The TAPES, man. You're in danger of compromising a major operation here, and I'll have your ass for it. I'll see you manning a field station in Alaska unless you give me those TAPES now. DO I have to call your AD?" - Wolsey Between his Attainment and the spell, they hand over the tapes and drive off, looking scared. "Amateurs" - Wolsey, pocketing the tapes of Beckett's house and the ritual. He casts as strong a Mental Shield as he can muster before going back inside. ... Damascus is reading the Invisible Codex, skin growing waxy by the second as he flips page after page, utterly absorbed. The ritualists around him look on with naked hunger but are apparently rooted to the spot, unable or unwilling to take it from him. "Round Two" - Damascus He begins to cast Beckett's spell. The onlookers huddle together at the far end of the room, feeling the queasy feeling of an oncoming Paradox.
Simple enough, this - the spell itself required fifteen successes, but he needed to get a Manifestation Paradox in the process. Which, when you've got a Gnosis of three (because he's using the Spirit Stone to grant Beckett's Spirit Arcana rather than his Gnosis) is actually pretty difficult. Which is why he fails it

Damascus' eyes open wide, and his flesh seems to wither on the spot. He begins to laugh to himself... Kali casts Shifting Sands
And the last action - Damascus' last roll on the extended spell - is deleted from the timeline.

Finally, a small hole - maybe a foot wide - opens in space in front of Damascus. Howls and gibberish can be heard from the other side. There is the impression of

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things that don't exist trying to climb out. Damascus pushes the book toward it, struggling as though it were pushing back but actually fighting with himself, and finally manages to force it through. He cancels the spell, closing the gateway. And then falls to his knees, dry-heaving. The door bangs open and Wolsey - dirty and smelling faintly of smoke - re-enters the room. "You're being mind-controlled!" - Wolsey "We know" - Damascus, strained There is a pause. "There were FBI agents outside, listening in. I chased them off" - Wolsey "Seers?" - Ulysses "Probably sent by, unless anyone here's annoyed Nimrod lately" - Wolsey "Seers" - Damascus Everyone looks at him "That's what it showed me. The Seers. Who they are, where they are. What their plans are. Everything we need to defend the Consilium" - Damascus Over in the group, Beckett has the shakes - the Mastigos has collapsed and is shuddering as though freezing cold. "That's how it works" - Beckett Damascus takes a ragged breath. "Can you tell us any of it?" - Beckett "I can't remember. It's... It's gone" - Damascus Kali checks Beckett out, Destiny-speaking. He's still Doomed, but his death tonight has been successfully averted. The Cabal take their leave, hobbling back to the cars. Wolsey gives Kali Mycroft's car keys. But first, he'd like a word in her shell-like. "I went after your MOTHER. Who is STILL interfering and..." - Wolsey Kali casts Shifting Sands But first, he'd like a word in her shell-like. "I.." - Wolsey "I don't need a lecture about my Mother" - Kali, cutting him off with Finality.

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He peers at her suspiciously "What was that?" - Wolsey "What was what?" - Kali, innocently "How many times did Damascus do the ritual, Kali?" - Wolsey "Only once" - Kali She and Damascus get into the car. "Fine. I'll see you in the morning - Nimrod's picking me up from the Sanctum" Wolsey He climbs into his own vehicle and... away!
Shifting Sands is a very easy spell to abuse. Neat, though.

Sunday. The Cabal gather for a "we're not dead and/or trapped in the Abyss" brunch, while Wolsey waits for Nimrod and they compare notes of the night before. Wolsey has spent the morning teleporting to god-knows-where in Pakistan and leaving money under the ruin of the shack, in case it belonged to some innocent farmer. "...and why 'Heinrich'?" - Damascus "Maybe I should ask her. Maybe I should ask Nimrod, even" - Wolsey "Mine's simple. Sherlock Holmes' smarter older brother. Carl here..." - Mycroft "It's a city, that had a special type of Steel no-one has been able to replicate. Scientists reckon there was something special in the iron in the region. Something to do with nanotubes" - Damascus "Also, a famous conversion happened on the way there" - Mycroft. Damascus nods. They all turn to Kali. "...Back of a cereal packet" - Mycroft "Damn right" - Kali, eating her lunch "Question... Something I've been wondering. What the hell type of breakfast cereal has a factoid of Kali, the Indian Goddess, on the back? Count Chocula?" - Mycroft "Booberry, surely" - Damascus She opens her mouth to retort, and decides to think of something witty. In the gap, Damascus gets a more thoughtful point in. "I suspect it may have been a Significant cereal packet, if you take my meaning" Damascus

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Anyway. The tale of the night before's heroism and near Mexican Standoff is told, and Mycroft fills them in on his own progress. Banneker, he tells them, knew Pool was planning to implant Cxaxa into the Seers, but not that they were going to attack Damascus for extra authenticity - and he isn't happy now that he does know it. "We will have to see what comes of it" - Mycroft Wolsey grunts. "Anyway. Since I seem to have survived... Kali.. do you still have the bullet I gave you?" - Damascus She does. "Could you find me the gun that fired it?" - Damascus She can indeed. A half hour's work with a map later, and she has the movements of the bullet over the course of the last three weeks. Damascus has an address South of Anacostia - the region Seraph was set up in oh such a long time ago. That done, Kali says she has business to attend to, and takes her leave. Mycroft clears up, and just after noon the doorbell rings. Nimrod has arrived to take Wolsey to see Tycho.
And now a three-way split-up. These three strands happen simultaneously - we'll take Wolsey first

Wolsey shifts in the leather seat, in the back of a black diplomatic car cruising it's way across the bridge to central DC. "Can I ask you a question?" - Wolsey Nimrod - sat facing him, inclines his head slightly in what Wolsey takes to be assent. "Why 'Nimrod'?" - Wolsey The Shadowman seems taken aback by the question, and considers carefully. "You know the story of the Biblical Hunter?" - Nimrod "It's a Hunting thing? Like hunting your prey?" - Wolsey "Not... Before I Awakened, I worked in Missing Persons for the Bureau" - Nimrod "Ahhh" - Wolsey "I always found them. Always. It defined me." - Nimrod Wolsey nods. The rest of the trip passes in silence. They come to a rest somewhere underground, in a garage reached through a long tunnel. "This way" - Nimrod

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Wolsey is led through long corridors full of pipes, walking for what feels like a mile or more. Nimrod pushes open a door marked with a Pentagon internal evacuation plan sign, and they enter a sterile, white-grey corridor.
Wolsey immediately took that to mean that wherever they were, they weren't anywhere near the Pentagon. It's easy to put a sign like that up.

They enter a small room, decked out like a waiting area, and Cxaxa - dressed in a skirt-suit, a pair of sunglasses hanging unused from her neckline, stands to greet them. "Wolsey" - Cxaxa "Cxaxa" - Wolsey "Let me tell you what we've managed so far" - Cxaxa She describes how Tycho began offering up names of targets after he decided he'd been captive long enough for them to be assigned to other Seers - he assumes that they will be given to a rival Pylon within the Ministry as punishment for his own Pylon, so had enough impetus to break his silence. "That can't be all of it" - Wolsey "He.. He also believes that he is close to persuading me to his point of view" - Cxaxa, clinically Her expression is almost unreadable. Wolsey can't even tell whether she's looking down at her notes or over her nose at him - her stone eyes are entirely blank. She describes how they've lulled Tycho with gradual increases in his comfort, with allowing him to think that he's getting one over the rest of the pentacle by playing on Cxaxa's own desires. "Alright. How about I sit in on a session?" - Wolsey Nimrod rises, silently, from his seat in the background and takes them both to Tycho's cell. Wolsey leans against the back wall, observing, as Cxaxa works with Tycho. His impression - the Seer does indeed think he's persuading Cxaxa to think of him as a human being, and he seems very satisfied with that. Cxaxa gets a few more details of Congressman West out of him. After the session, they compare notes back in the waiting room. "What's he given you? A few names, some details.. He's drip-feeding you. HE is in control of this situation. He's comfortable, and he isn't scared. He can't possibly be giving you everything that he could." - Wolsey Cxaxa frowns "There are reasons" - Cxaxa "Have you considered more direct means?" - Wolsey

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"Yes, and we rejected them. He's a Seer of Mind - he probably has all kinds of resistances to torture." - Cxaxa "Is there a long-term plan?" - Wolsey "I... Look, Wolsey. There are things going on you don't know about, but yes, there is. I'm the good cop - we have bad cops" (nods toward Nimrod) "as well" - Cxaxa "All right, then." - Wolsey, sounding dubious There is silence for a while. Nimrod slowly gets up and heads out on some small errand. "How's the gang?" - Cxaxa, suddenly "Good. Destroyed the Codex last night" - Wolsey "And Ebony? She's been asking about you - why you don't call her any more" Cxaxa Wolsey shifts uncomfortably "You should call her, Tom. She's going to need all the friends she can get" - Cxaxa She glances at the door "In fact, you should take the Cabal and get out of the city for a few weeks. Have a proper vacation. You'll all be better off" - Cxaxa, in a conspiratorial whisper Before he can reply, Nimrod comes back in and announces that it's time to go.
Is she trying to warn him of the plan she doesn't know he knows about? Or DOES she know, and she's running a complicated double-bluff? Wolsey's observation of the interview session implied that Cxaxa was appearing to be manipulated by Tycho while actually manipulating Tycho, and that Tycho was manipulating her by appearing to be manipulated under the guise of manipulating her. Which doesn't put him in entirely the right frame of mind to dig through layers of meaning to figure out exactly what his ex-wife is (or isn't) trying to tell him.

... Damascus has thought long and hard. After about an hour of indecision, long after the others have left, he's been home and obtained his old jacket. Wearing Razor colours, he walks South, into the past he thought he'd left behind. The address Kali gave him is of an old machine shop. Lookouts, gangers passing time on the street corners and the Tags on the Walls all say this is the place, deep in Red's new-found territory. He's up to the front door when he's challenged - the lookout demanding to know who he is. Carl snarls back that he's one of the Originals, that he and Red go way back and that the kid should get the fuck out of his way. The kid gets the fuck out of the way. Inside, Red is talking to one of his underlings. He sees Carl enter and breaks into a

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wide grin. "Cee-dub!" - Red

CW - it's Carl's initials. Simple gang name, really.

"How are you, man?" - Carl Red clasps him by the shoulders, pleased to see him. "God, bro, good to see you back in colours. Heard you left us all behind" - Red "You were in jail, Red. Hard not to" - Carl Red laughs, and says that he can show Carl around. "So how'd the gang get this BIG, anyhow? Last I checked there were three of us left." - Carl "I met some guys inside. They hooked me up. We have Sponsorship, now. Funds. Equipment. Sources of a pharmaceutical nature" - Red "And in return?" - Carl "They get a percentage. Nothing we can't afford, business as good as it is. And on occasion we do a job for them, for which we get extra" - Red "I've heard things. Kids" - Carl "Yeah. That's the kind of thing. We get a name, we grab the brat. Maybe cut off a ponytail. Few days later we get the call, we put the kid in the back of a car that comes round, we get paid." - Red Carl's face speaks of disapproval "Problem, bro?" - Red, smiling a little too wide "It doesn't sit right. And this I hear about you and turf wars..." - Carl "Now I know why you're here. Yeah, man. I know. Living in your big house, fucking that freaky girl in 'Costia. I'm negotiating with your neighbourhood right now" - Red "So I hear. What's going on with that?" - Carl "Same as any hood. They sign up, they give their cut, they get taken under our wing and the wing of our sponsors." - Red "They don't sign up?" - Carl "Well, Cee-dub, then we have a problem." - Red "That's not what we were about, man. People - working people trying to live in places like that? They don't deserve this shit" - Carl "And we don't give it. Our business is with Scratchy and his few remaining gangers,

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nothing more... Look. Because you're my friend, and you live there, I'll give them an extension. Cease of hostilities, till new year. Tell 'em to think about it" - Red Carl nods. Good enough for a first attempt. "Dealing Crack and Meth now, too?" - Carl "Don't come all moral with me, bro. Weren't for us, some other fucker'd be dealing. It's like..." (searches for inspiration) "It's like we're the sewer, yeah? You may not like us, but we're necessary, as are the things we provide. Weren't for us, you'd be down here in the shit with the rest of us" - Red
Remember Kali's speech on the matter all the way back in 2.1? This was a deliberate parallel. Red - and by extension the Seers behind him - are filling the void Kali has left.

"You say no-one other than gangers is a target?" - Carl "Calling me a liar?" - Red The atmosphere suddenly becomes very tense Carl throws Red the bullet "One of your guys shot THAT and a clip like it at a kid that wasn't wearing colours" Carl Red considers the bullet, expression unreadable. Carl, feeling he should go for broke, tells Red the numberplate of the vehicle. "Get Toby in here" - Red, to his underling. Some minutes later, and one of Red's gangers is stood in the room with them. "This the guy?" - Red Carl takes a good look "Yeah" - Carl Red pulls out his SMG and shoots Toby in the face. There is silence, the smell of gore and cordite. "We done?" - Red, whispered dangerously "Till new year?" - Carl "They have until then" - Red Carl pauses at the door, touches his old gang colours "You want these?" - Carl Red makes a face

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"Schyeah, right. You and me go way back, bro" - Red, grinning He dismisses Carl with a wave. Carl walks calmly outside, down the street and throws up in a garbage can out of sight. Damascus, feeling like he would have been better off in the Abyss, walks home.
And Damascus fails the his Wisdom check for causing the ganger's death. Poor, poor Damascus. This is the bulk of our setup for next story right here. It's always tough trying to sound authentic in scenes like this, given me and Rafe are both pasty-faced Brits. It was only the last line that rang true in this case. Which itself is better than most hit-rates. And now, Kali and her Special Secret Past. Sounds, in the words of Starbuck, like a bad cover band, doesn't it?

Postcognition is a wonderful spell. Kali sits in the Sanctum's Hallow, using Postcognition down a Scrying window to scan back through the history of her family home. On her first attempt, she sees Anurati sitting there, waiting. Same as always, but right at the start of the vision she gets an odd feeling of Deja Vu. On her second attempt, she combines the effort with a Mage Sight spell and looks slightly earlier. Sure enough, Anurati is still sat there (she appears to have been so for hours before Malakaii and Beckett arrived), but there are the aftershocks of some kind of massive spell she can't figure the Practice of. She's certain of one thing, though. Samuel cast it. On her third attempt, she feels her Temporal conduit sliding off something, as though it can't resolve at the point she wants. She winds up watching Anurati rush around the house, throwing supplies into a bag. Kali has never seen her mother rush anything before, and it's oddly fascinating. Subsequent attempts get closer to the point she was after, but fall on either side of it instead of resolving. Again, she can feel Samuel's Nimbus. It's as though the sheer force of whatever Time spell he's cast is preventing her own comparatively weaker one from working on the time and place he cast it. Finally, just as she's nearly exhausted both her own and the Hallow's Mana supply with all this Combined Sympathetic Spell malarkey, she manages to force the Postcognition to view a snatch of time inside the missing hour. Anurati desperately packs, and stops dead as Samuel - entirely without fuss or special effect - materialises in the middle of the living room. He's older than Kali remembers him, carrying his staff - this is Samuel the Archmage, having timetravelled, rather than any young contemporary version. "Who ARE you?" - Anurati "Your Daughter's teacher. I have an important message for you, Anurati Sahlay" Samuel "They're coming for me. The girl has accused me of murder" - Anurati "I know" - Samuel

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"God must desire this. Punishment for thinking I could live among the..." - Anurati "I know" - Samuel, patiently "How can you be my daughter's teacher?" - Anurati "I am from the future" - Samuel, smiling Anurati takes that entirely in her stride. "Then it's true" - Anurati "She is, yes. But only if you do as I must now tell you to" - Samuel Anurati stops and waits "Leave the girl behind. Go into hiding yourself. Use the Veil to erase everyone's memories of you - even my own, in my younger days." - Samuel "But, how will she know who she is if I leave her?" - Anurati "Exactly" - Samuel At which point, the Postcognition is getting too close to whatever Imperial Spell Samuel is "about" to cast, and it whites out. Kali sits, very quietly, thinking about things.
And so - the very bad thing Samuel was going to have done? Persuading Anurati to abandon Kali, leaving her to grow up not knowing about her mother. Why? Well, it has to do with his rambling in the last few sessions before he left, and by a Shadow Name that Avatar-as-was mistakenly called Kali one time...

... The gang reconvene, later on that night. Damascus is sketching the dagger Frohman commissioned from him, trying to keep his mind off his problems. The Seers are the topic of conversation. Cxaxa's plan is... well, Wolsey doesn't quite know if it's failing, but he thinks Tycho is playing Twilight for fools. The political battle is all but lost without Malakaii to fight it. The gang war? If they somehow persuade Red to change his ways, the Seers will just start "Sponsoring" one of his rivals. This calls for desperate measures. They need means of countering Seers, of interrogating Tycho while being certain he's not just feeding them BS, of releasing him without subscribing to Pool and Cxaxa's plan. "We need..." - Wolsey He grimaces, what he's about to say bitter in his mouth "...This would be a lot easier if we had the artefacts" - Wolsey
And on that dubious note, we conclude "Yours to Throw Away".

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Interlude: A Sad Announcement

"Damn That Real Life", someone says up-thread. Weeeeeeell... You may notice that my Profile here on RPG.net says "Massive Banker" under Occupation. Also that we live and play in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK. Also that I've mentioned a couple of times that Mark / Wolsey works at the same place as me. Starter for ten for our British readers - what's been in the news recently? Anyone? Anyone? Anyways. We are no longer certain that Mark, Sam and I will be based in this region of the country after the very, VERY immediate future. The only person we ARE sure of is Rafe, who is doubtlessly capable but can't carry Broken Diamond on by himself. Now, we *could* end up staying together, Group-wise, for years to come. But we might not. And after Deliria I'm not taking any chances. And so Story Twelve, entitled "In The Air Tonight", will have "The Throne" embedded within it. And it will, with much regret after a year and a half, be the final story of Broken Diamond. All is not lost. I have had considerable time and space to make my plans, draw up my diagrams and figure out what hoops have to jumped through to get to the end. Entire stories' worth of plots have been ditched. Some C-Plots are abruptly cut off, but the A-Plot and the B-Plots are all going to get their finishes. By Hook or By Crook, this chronicle will have it's proper finale. We have already played two sessions of it, the final decision of whether to commit to finishing up being made just before playing 12.2. I reckon we have another 2 or 3 left, which is within our realms of possibility. I don't want to do this, but it's better than the outcome I'm afraid of - leaving it hanging forever, unfinished, where it'll gnaw at me like a ghost-wolf.

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Chapter 12: In The Air Tonight

Session 12.1
Well... Here we go. Thank you all for the good vibes! I'll try to make these last few recaps not suck, or wallow too much. In any case, although the circumstances had started to happen when I ran 12.1, the final decision wasn't made to end the Chronicle until AFTER it. This session is shorter than normal, with only a few key events to cover within it. The Cabal only actually get together the once, as well, spending the rest of the time on their various obsessions. Or in Wolsey's case obligations. As is mentioned upthread (before all the angst), this week is dominated by Damascus - having lost Wisdom last time plotting his old friend's destruction, and Kali meeting her mother again and getting another piece of the picture. I wasn't too happy with the way 12.1 turned out, in the end. I had a very bad day at work beforehand (understandably) and was kind of distracted, plus we were interrupted part-way through. Many things I underlined in my notes as "must do this session" did not, in fact, get done, and "planning syndrome" has set in again. I came out of it, though, with a very definite list of things that I've underlined as "must do next session". And so it goes... Now, then. See everything that happened in "Yours To Throw Away"? multiple combats, Damascus coming up with winning plans, Astral voyages and Wolsey redirecting his life to arcane matters? At story's end, the PCs gained a metric butt-load of XP - 18 normal and 10 Arcane each on average. Wolsey and Kali now become double-Adepts - Wolsey has Mind 4 to go with Space 4, and Kali has added Fate 4 to her Arcana. Damascus (and, in the shadowy realm of npc progression, Mycroft) has now achieved Gnosis 5 and his second Legacy Attainment.

THREE WEEKS AGO Wolsey sits in Banneker's - In Isiah's - Living Room, asked to judge the home-made holiday decorations of the Hierarchs children. After extricating himself, and accepting a drink from Isiah's wife, he and Banneker manage to get some peace and quiet. "So. What do you think?" - Banneker "The plan? Is extremely risky. I'm frankly not sure how much Cxaxa is pretending to buy into Tycho and how much she actually is" - Wolsey "Well, that would be the idea" - Banneker, dryly "Cost Benefit Analysis. What do we actually hope to gain here? Twilight have had him for weeks, and they've only got superficial details out of him. Where are the lists of Seer Sancta? Where are the details of his Pylon, or rival Pylons?" - Wolsey "Pool feels..." (pause) "Pool feels that anything he told us would already be out-ofdate, given that they've had so long to react. Of course, they've only had so long to react *because* of the approach the Guardians have taken, but I have to make my decision based on now, not what could have been." - Banneker "So what ARE they trying to achieve?" - Wolsey "She feels that by getting an operative into Tycho's Pylon we will learn much more about their future movements. You see my decision? Definite intelligence on what they've DONE, from Tycho's point of view, versus theoretical intelligence on what they're doing from Cxaxa's." - Banneker "In my opinion, Pool is thinking of this as the Cold War. Plus, it's a long-term plan, but we won't *get* to the long term without immediate information." - Wolsey "I agree." - Banneker "Why Twilight?" - Wolsey

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"Pool was pushed out by Malakaii - she used to be his Provost, before Mara arrived, and Twilight represent too powerful a group to have on the fringes of the Consilium. I need to bring them into the fold, and deferring to their expertise here was the best way to do it." - Banneker
Note when Banneker *made* this decision - right after the truth about the Ascendants came out. Never Again: he wants everyone in his Consilium to be IN his Consilium, and none of this semi-member shenanigans where divided loyalties can live. He's even reached out to Beckett.

Wolsey grimaces. "I won't allow them to harm any of our people. I was not happy to hear of their plan, and I've informed Pool in no uncertain terms that it will not be carried out." Banneker "I just don't like it" - Wolsey "What's your alternative?" - Banneker "Remove any spell-triggers and Contingencies from Tycho's pattern. Take his memory apart and get everything we can from it. Have Mycroft use his Attainment on him. Then kill him... Or Not. I don't particularly care which." - Wolsey Banneker sips his drink "You don't agree with Damascus, then?" - Banneker "No... If you DO go with Pool's plan, I would appreciate a warning. So that we can protect ourselves." - Wolsey "If I told you to get out of the city for a few weeks, Tom.. Would you actually obey? Or would you try to interfere?" - Banneker, shrewdly "We'd leave. Kali has responsibilities to her Legacy, but we would leave" - Wolsey. "Hm" - Banneker. .....
We now begin a time-skipping Montage, advancing us by three weeks. There was... some resistance to this initially, from the gang. I haggled down to including the above scene between Banneker and Wolsey, but this three week gap was absolutely necessary - not a lot could happen without a little bit of time. Fortunate, as it turned out, because this time-skip was one of the things that made me able to turn this into the final story of the chronicle.

- Damascus stalks Red over the three weeks, under cover of Incognito Presence and other mental baffling spells. He calmly watches as Red's gang - as Damascus' old gang - move their product, build their forces and hang out. Damascus watches silently, his anger gradually growing. - While Damascus is wallowing in the unknowing company of bottom-dwellers, Kali is trying to approach the situation from a different direction. She has, she reasons, quite a resource in her amassed apprentices. She's directing the House of Ariadne's effort into "improving" the regions Red and his people are corrupting - the House is coordinating funding with Shore and Ulysses for social reforms, outreach programs and the like.

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- Wolsey works through the list of Tycho's targets that Cxaxa provided Banneker with - he, Tybalt and Trace have split them between them and are making steady, if gradual, progress. He's met with West, who tells him that he has received a threat - a threat to kidnap his daughter. Wolsey promises him that the matter is already well in hand.
Mycroft, by contrast, went off and learnt his second attainment. Fortunately, it wasn't said *where* he was in this three week gap, which allowed me to retcon that in when Mark asked during 12.2. Lucky escape, there.

Saturday 23rd December The desk is thick with dust, and it's freezing cold. Kali looks around the tiny, dingy office with a studied air of dubiousness. There's a crash as Mycroft dislodges a particularly high pile of crap in order to dig out a hatstand, which he rights and sets down. He turns to Kali, broad grin on his face. "What do you think?" - Mycroft "It's.. Freezing" - Kali, hugging herself "It's been unoccupied for a couple of months of heavy snow. A few space heaters and it'll be fine. We need to get some more furniture, mind..." - Mycroft He rambles, happily, and Kali tries to get into the mood. ... Wolsey is discharging a most unpleasant duty - Tybalt has asked to see him. The other Mastigos self-importantly goes through his own successes with Tycho's list and notes that although he's managed to counter most things, he still hasn't seen an actual *Seer* yet. Wolsey indicates that his own share of the list is much the same, and Tybalt asks his advice on the last of his - one that he's having particular trouble with. Wolsey smoothly agrees to take it off his hands, and Tybalt offers a swap - so Wolsey gives him the hardest of his own assignments.
There's *always* time for petty point-scoring...

... In the Chem. Lab of Howard university, Damascus and John Dee sit examining the golden dagger Damascus has now finished making for Frohman. "You can tell a lot a Magus by the state of his phallic symbol" - John Dee Damascus raises an eyebrow "Frohman's a Silver Ladder, which means *this* is a Wand to him. Pointing symbol, used for grounding magical energies in a direct line. Very masculine - you can tell it's a man's Tool. And also.. gold. Useless for the function it's form would suggest. For show." - John Dee "I tend to just use my hammer" - Damascus "Same thing. Wand" - John Dee Damascus' mentor produces a long spark-lighter that's been heavily modified and

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carved. "So this thing can tell us a lot about Frohman... But you made it for him. It can tell us a lot about you, too" - John Dee They contemplate the dagger "Hard edged. Reflective - many angled planes, never showing just one surface. Back-weighted - it pulls towards the wielder, not towards what it's pointing at..." John Dee . Damascus exits the building some time later, contemplating his dilemma with Red. He's been skirting closer and closer to a decision, and his talk with John has helped. It's time to be decisive.
And that what the first use in the Chronicle of Damascus' second Attainment - when contemplating something he's made himself using Craft, he temporarily gains his Mind Arcana's dots in one attribute the player has selected at achieving the Attainment. What this boils down to is something that will help understand the next bit - for the next few Scenes, Damascus has a Resolve of Seven. Which translates as being utterly, inhumanely self-assured.

... The Cabal gathers in the Sanctum to chew the fat and touch bases before Christmas. And the newly-iron minded Damascus has a favour to be asking of Wolsey. "You're an Adept of the Mind Arcanum, right?" - Damascus "Yes" - Wolsey, curious and wary
Which is actually another downtime development. He wasn't last story, but he is now. Fortunately, as it turned out, because Damascus' plan hinges on a couple of spells that need Mind 4 to cast.

"I have an idea for dealing with Red. But I'll need your help with it." - Damascus "Should we be doing this?" - Kali "Doing what?" - Damascus "Dealing with the Gangs directly. What will getting rid of Red solve?" - Kali Damascus regards her oddly "I mean... It's a symptom. We should be looking at the City. Washington and DC are growing further apart, and..." - Kali "Who are you and what have you done with our Kali?" - Mycroft She makes a face. Damascus turns back to Wolsey. "Can you or can't you enter someone's dreams?" - Damascus Wolsey considers.

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"It's more like they enter mine. But yes. What did you have in mind?" - Wolsey "I had all kinds of advantages Red never had. I could have wound up like him if not for my Awakening" - Damascus "You can't make someone Awaken" - Mycroft "Don't mean to. I mean to share the experience I had in Stygia. Hopefully it'll have the same outcome. "Isn't your Awakening too personal?" - Wolsey Mycroft nods "You wandered the plains, Damascus. I never left the Watchtower." - Mycroft Damascus - with some finality - says that he knows the Awakening experience is limited to each person, but he got a good look at Stygia last and first time he was there and he is hopeful that it will provide an excellent backdrop for morally educating Red. Kali points out that turning Red back to the right side of the force won't necessarily change a thing. The gangs - and the Seers pulling the strings - would just get a new leader. "I had thought of that... And I only care about Red. I have a plan for the rest of them, though" - Damascus The plan, such as it is, is twofold. In his observations of the gang's activities, Damascus spotted some cops taking money. That isn't so unusual in a city as thoroughly destitute as parts of Washington, but it means that the gang is unlikely to be dealt with by the proper authorities. So Plan B - to include Red in it's scope in Plan A doesn't work for him - makes sure they're dealt with by authorities that have the clout. Essentially, Damascus intends to frame them for terrorism charges using magic, contacts in the Nation of Islam and reports on some of the things that they *have* actually done. If there's no uniting over-gang, then the pressure on people like Ichi should cease and normal working conditions will return. "You want to ship them to Cuba?" - Mycroft Damascus shrugs "Damn right" - Damascus "Who are you and what have you done with our Damascus?" - Mycroft "He watched Red kill a kid" - Damascus, grimly.
Talking about yourself in the third person never helps. Never.

Kali has been thinking "Then what?" - Kali

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"Then we try to stop this from happening again. What are our goals here? Make life safe for Ichi and company, after you've taught them morals?" - Damascus "To stop Washington and DC growing any further apart" - Kali "Any ideas?" - Damascus She outlines what the House has been doing. "Forgive me for saying this, but that sounds very... DC. And not very Washington" Mycroft "Why do we want them in balance, anyway? What's the difference?" - Wolsey "From what everyone says, DC is everything good about the city and Washington is everything bad" - Damascus That's an oversimplification, Kali knows it is. Damascus pushes on. "Because I'm FROM this part of town and as far as I can see? As soon as DC takes over completely, the place will improve dramatically - Damascus. "Who's Washington, anyway? Kali's guys are all DC. Banneker's lot are all DC." Mycroft "The Defenders" - Damascus "What do they get out of it? Why does Ulysses think Washington is better, or Shore?" - Mycroft "A certain sense of paternalism, I suspect" - Damascus, grimly. Silence.
Not really a big line - but it's a line for Damascus, outright saying that he thinks Ulysses' behaviour is the result of a character flaw, not any kind of noble undertaking. It's an excellent sign of Damascus' inhuman Resolve right now, far outstripping his all-too-human Composure. Rafe played this note-perfect.

The question that hasn't been asked yet - what are the *Seers* hoping to achieve by all of this? Leverage over people, says Wolsey, which they get from Red doing their dirty work and terrorising those that the Seers deem to be potential threats. Jealousy, says Kali - the Ministry of Mammon wants to inspire Envy, they feed off Envy and use it to control the human population. To have Envy you need haves, whom you shower with gifts, and have-nots, for whom you make life gradually worse and worse. In the final analysis, Red IS just a symptom of a wider problem. A problem which is especially taxing Wolsey and has been for some time; "I honestly do not think we can win" - Wolsey
He's re-stating his position, just as Kali is repeatedly re-stating hers. There isn't action, though. The contemplation of action has led to inaction.

"Would the artefacts help?" - Mycroft

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"Let's not go there. We're better off without them. No matter if it would make life easier" - Wolsey "Oh! Did I mention - I figured that out" - Kali Blank stares from the menfolk indicate that she did not, in fact, mention. "I know how the Ananke did it. It came to me, a few weeks back. I was looking into a way of maybe summoning them back to me, you know, in case we needed them, and came up with the idea of tangling them to my Destiny-line. Anyway..." - Kali She commences a complex explanation involving highly-complex Fate-Weaving. Wolsey roughly understands the Practices involved. Damascus and Mycroft are lost.
Because he's an Adept, too. And they're not. The spell Kali is talking about is either Gift Of Fate or the Loyal Possession spell that, I believe, is in Free Council. Might be wrong about which book that one was in. In any case, it's the same principle - by means of Fate magic you make circumstances contrive to bring a desired item to you. I like that about Awakening - and it' different from Ascension. The Practices mean that a character can understand the theory of an Arcanum of her power level that she doesn't have, even if the specifics elude her.

"...And then I realised that that's what she's already done to me. That's why the artefacts keep turning up" - Kali Damascus blinks and asks - if he's figuring this correctly - if that means the Throne is on it's way. Kali nods. "Or now that I know what she did, I could maybe undo it, if we wanted. Besides, I suspect I know who has the Throne." - Kali "Who?" - Wolsey "The Seers" - Kali "Is that a hunch, or backed by something?" - Wolsey She regards him. "Look, I'm asking. Give us the benefit of your divination, oh Enchantress" - Wolsey "Fine. Get me coffee" - Kali . Minutes later, and Kali is swirling coffee in her Chalice. "Okay. I'm going to try to scry the location of the Throne, based on the tie the Ananke made to me" - Kali She concentrates, casting, and harrumphs. "Nothing." - Kali, disappointed. Change of tactic. "I'm going to look forward in my Timeline, searching for the point at which the Artefacts intersect with it" - Kali 694

This one is a rather complex Time 2 / Fate 2 improvised spell - a particularly advanced use of the Knowing Practice to determine the point in Time of a crossing of two destinies. Because the number of artefacts had to be put in as a modifier, there wasn't enough potency left to punch through the Robe's inherent Occultation effect, which is why...

"I can't see the Robe. But that might just be the Robe being the Robe... Let's see... The Sceptre and the Crown are coming soon, and... The Throne and the Ring are coming together... later. Relatively later than the first two" - Kali "Isn't the Ring *with* the others?" - Mycroft, confused. "Guess they're on the move already" - Damascus "Hmm" - Mycroft, mulling the problem. They wait. He uses his Attainment "The Seers are seeking the Artefacts" - Mycroft, with certainty. "How can you tell?" - Wolsey "My Legacy. I weighed the Evidence" - Mycroft
The second attainment of the Eleventh Question, which gets quite a lot of play here in this final story, especially as it's such a good means of the PCs finally having the ability to TEST their whacked-out crazy theories, works slightly differently from the similar one the Sphinx possess. The 11Q version allows the character to propose a hypothesis based on the available evidence, and get a Yes/No answer to it - or in Exceptional Successes the details of "Why". In this case, faced with the fact that the Ring has gone from it's last known position, it's new connection to the mysterious Throne and to the Seers, Mycroft flat-out asked "Are the artefacts being hunted down by the Seers?", rolled his Wits & Investigation & Time and got the answer "Yes". There is, however, a danger implicit in this - Mycroft could start to slide down the horrible, nasty slope marked "GMPC" if he starts solving the plot. He therefore is restricted to moments where the players are stuck despite my best hints in a pixelbitch situation, and when they ask him to use it. It' tricky, having an npc (or two) in the "party" while not having them overshadow the players. I'm reasonably satisfied with Mycroft in that regard. Incidentally - Cxaxa, I felt, was sliding too far GMPC-ward. That's why I had her leave the Cabal.

"I think Panopticon have the Throne" - Kali She hasn't forgotten the other Ministry, then. And in truth it does fit with their stated method and goal more than it does with Mammon. Especially as they're the Ministry of Space rather than Mind as Mammon are, and the Throne famously gives it's user a Sympathetic connection to anything in the Fallen world. "So... Red" - Mycroft
Another use for the npc. This is me saying, in dialogue disguise, "you've taken a tenth of our game session to talk this through. Get on with it."

"I'll do it. But you're doing it with me. I've never been to Stygia - I need an artistic consultant" - Wolsey, to Damascus "In the meantime, I have a delivery to discharge. Frohman's dagger is finished. Up for a trip to see Banneker?" - Damascus, to Wolsey The Mastigos shrugs

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"I'm going to look around the House of Stone. See if I can get any kind of Thread off of it" - Kali ... In fact, as soon as she's out the front door and alone, Kali about-turns and heads straight for Ichi's. The old haunt is deserted. Even the few straggling gangers that were there on last visit have gone. "Merry Christmas" - Ichi, sarcastically. Kali notes that he's started packing. "You okay?" - Kali
Lots of shrugging today. It's the gesture of the season. Sometimes I get into a descriptive loop, where the same description bleeds onto almost every npc that comes along. There was a Deliria session last year where everything - and I do mean everything - "lumbered". It's a weakness as a GM. Actually - it feeds into a big weakness I have as a GM, as.. well... we won't have much chance for me to disclose this in future and writing that last got me thinking about it. I suck at describing things live and in the day. I mean, *really*. All the humorous confusion about what npcs look like? It's because except for a very few cases I've never actually *said*. Beckett remains undescribed, as for example, even this late in the Chronicle. My guilty secret is that I describe places and people much better here in the thread than I do in play. Which is a whole other can of worms.

"We lost. At least this ways there's no fight" - Ichi "You're giving up?" - Kali "Nothing left to give up, Kem. The guys have split or signed up already. Only me and Virgil left." - Ichi, picking up another... something... and tossing it into a cardboard box "Where will you go?" - Kali "Miami" - Ichi He breaks out into a wistful grin "Got family down there. Sun, for a change. Gotta watch out for the cops, though. I hear they're hardcore" - Ichi
Horatio Caine: Supercop!

Kali touches him - once - and then breaks contact. "I'll see you" - Kali "No, you won't" - Ichi She nods, agreeing, and heads upstairs. "Anyone in here?" - Kali

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"Oh, hi. It's our saviour" - Virgil "Yeah. About that... You leaving too?" - Kali "Not to Miami, thanks." (deep sigh) "I'll probably go straight, actually. Vanish into another Hotel's cleaning staff, or flip burgers. The gangstering life isn't for me anymore" - Virgil "Want a job?" - Kali "...What?" - Virgil. Surprised, and a little worried. "Me and a friend - the guy with the hat who was here with me last time? We're sort of setting up a Detective Agency as dayjobs. I can't promise we'll have much money, but..." - Kali "Does it come with Dental?" - Virgil "Probably not" - Kali "I'll.. I'll think about it" - Virgil . Leaving the warehouse, she now *does* head South to where the House of Stone was, and spends a few fruitless hours trying to find trace of Panopticon. Seraph was careful and now Seraph is dead, though, and connection is not forthcoming. In desperation, she even tries to invert her route or advance it, walking the thread "backward" and "forward" the same way she did when she encountered Panopticon's stoner-cult offshoot. Nothing. Empty-handed, she returns to the Sanctum. Damascus and Wolsey go to see Banneker, fortunately for everyone at Banneker's firm. The Hierarch is distracted by his model building, but takes Frohman's dagger and promises to deliver it to his apprentice first chance he gets. "May I ask, Sentinel, how the gangs are?" - Banneker The Hierarch smiles to himself as they start "I hear things, and you're not the only Mage interested in the tribal politics of the unreclaimed regions. I take it Seers have been detected?" - Banneker
The 'unclaimed regions'? Ouch. I wanted to just reinforce Banneker' position on the Washington/DC line there. When I came to declare this session the first of the final arc, I was quite glad I did that. A minor thing, but it get back to the point of the Chronicle, which can otherwise get lot among all our talk of Seer Wars, Artefacts and Ochemata.

"Their influence, certainly" - Damascus Wolsey and Damascus describe what's going on - the link between Red and Tycho's hit-list indicating that Red is being sponsored by Tycho's replacement. And Damascus' connection to Red.

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Banneker seems to visibly perk up. "But this is an opportunity, don't you think? Consider - we have here an organisation with an almost certain link to at least one Seer, maybe even a whole Pylon. If we could exploit that, there'd be no need for Pool and Cxaxa's plan with Tycho... We could offer Pool a different Operation." - Banneker "What are you suggesting?" - Damascus, wary "This man is a friend of yours, correct?" - Banneker, wheels spinning "Yes... And No. I won't be your agent" - Damascus, firmly Banneker narrows his eyes in a frown, but Damascus maintains eye contact
See the give and take, there? Dave raiseth plot possibility. Rafe sayeth "nada". In truth, it's probably bet that he didn't do it. Much quicker this way.

"There are other means... Beckett tells me tales of an Artefact you liberated from Anurati Sahlay..." - Banneker "Unfortunately, we no longer have it." - Wolsey "And we are not trying to get it back" - Damascus Banneker is disappointed. "Back to Plan A, then" - Banneker "Have you decided..?" - Wolsey "No" - Banneker, flatly . They head outside. "That could have gone better" - Wolsey "Could have gone worse, too" - Damascus "Where too now?" - Wolsey "I'm off to the National of Islam... Er.." - Damascus "I'll head home. Catch up on some paperwork. Tomorrow evening?" - Wolsey "Sure. Oh - one thing. Christmas Dinner, at my parents'... Mycroft's coming, so you wouldn't..." - Damascus "We've had this conversation before. I'd still feel a hypocrite and it's still not my thing. In any case, I've been thinking about something Cxaxa said. Something I should do" - Wolsey

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They go their separate ways. ... That evening, Kali takes her turn to take Mana from the Cabal's Hallow, meditating in the roof garden of the Sanctum, when she feels awfully Inevitable. Opening one eye, and certain that the Nimbus is her mother's and not her own, Kali casts a sympathetic-range Ring Sight: Fate right back at Anurati down the scrying channel. Anurati is somewhere warm and bright, casting an extended spell. To Kali's Ring Sight, the metaphorical (Kali hopes) ropes and chains suspending Anurati like a puppet are thin and frayed, looking to be on the point of snapping. Kali then looks at herself, and gets a comparison. By contrast, the ropes coming off Kali herself are thick and very, very solid. They're even putting out twine feelers, like a crawling Ivy, digging painlessly and invisibly into her. Kali sits and waits. A Portal appears next to her, shining with feelings of helplessness in the face of destiny. Kali calmly steps through it, suddenly being hit by warm air. The disconcerting feeling of travel by Portal subsides, and Kali looks around. She's in a house. Small and rustic, made of unfamiliar materials and decidedly nonwestern. Anurati nods at her, expressionless. And then the jet-lag of traversing half a globe's time zones hits Kali. She wavers. Anurati points. "Lie down through there. Our food will take a few hours to prepare" - Anurati Kali stumbles through into the other room, strips and collapses gratefully onto the small bed. Behind her, the Portal vanishes with a wave of Anurati's hand. Kali's mother then casts Destroy the Threads and Portal Lock.
Note that Kali doesn't have the Space necessary to do that by herself - she's reliant on Anurati for transport...

Sunday 24th December Anacostia: Damascus goes to church for Christmas Eve mass, sitting down and listening to Ulysses' sermon. Damascus finds Ulysses much easier to interpret nowadays - the subjects he's referring to in his speeches are now becoming apparent more easily, which somewhat takes away from the effect of them. Or maybe Damascus is just turning cynical. Anyways. Mass ends, and Damascus hangs back, wanting a word. "Can I ask you for some advice?" - Damascus

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"Advice or Confession?" - Ulysses "Advice.. for now. I'm considering doing something bad. Something that... Well, it's *wrong*, by most moral compasses." - Damascus Ulysses sits on a pew "Such as?" - Ulysses, carefully "Is it a Sin to falsify crimes against a criminal, when the crimes he *has* committed cannot be punished?" - Damascus "It sounds like you've already made up your mind" - Ulysses, tactfully.
An example, here, of how to run an npc encounter where a PC is asking for advice without actually railroading the player. And yes, I know I railroad players all the time. They largely don't mind. On the other hand, this can lead to "never giving a straight answer" syndrome, which Mages seem to suffer from especially badly. This close to the end, though, there' less of that - because npcs being shady inevitably comes, in my mind, from the impulse of the GM to hold back aspect of the plot. If you tell the players everything, there isn't a story - notice how the Crucible are shutting down Cxaxa's plan based on them finding out about it beforehand? If I'd wanted to railroad it into going ahead, they wouldn't have found out about it. As a counteragent - because I'm well aware that I do it - we have one scene in each session of this final arc in which an npc tells the absolute, full truth a far as they are aware of it. Given that 13.1's example of this is Samuel making his reappearance, they take on a certain tinge of "explaining the plot to the dumb players", which I don't entirely like. But the urgency of finishing the chronicle necessitates it.

. Northern DC: Wolsey sits in his apartment, mulling. His case notes are neatly piled on the desk. The other Cabal members do not require him today or tomorrow, it seems. He picks up the phone and - hesitantly - phones Ebony "Hello?" - Ebony "Ebony? Hi" - Wolsey "Wolsey?" - Ebony "Yeah.. Uh.. Listen. Are you doing anything this afternoon?" - Wolsey "I don't think so..." - Ebony "Would you like to meet me somewhere..." - Wolsey "Are you asking me out, Wolsey?" - Ebony, carefully Deep breath "Yeah" - Wolsey Thankfully, she laughs and agrees. .

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India: Kali wakes up to the sound of Anurati chanting... something. Kali can just about see, through the doorway, Anurati moving around something she saw last "night" - a stone object, like a basin with a raised middle podium-spout, that Anurati is carefully pouring water onto.
Although it looks all magical to Kali - who, let's face it, isn't especially cultured, this is perfectly normal. The object's a Linga and the chant is a prayer to Shiva

Kali lies there for a long while, listening to Anurati mutter to herself in her native language. Finally, she gets up, noting that her discarded clothes are gone and holding the bundle of cloth that was laid out on the bed (that she was using as a pillow) to cover herself.
This is in deliberate parallel to something that happens next session - things are repeating themselves, and one of them is Kali becoming accidentally dressed in an "appropriate" manner for whatever she's doing. Wonder what THAT signifies, eh?

Anurati doesn't look up, but does grunt to herself in acknowledgement of her daughter's entrance. "How long?" - Kemi Anurati doesn't answer the question. "We'll eat soon. Get changed" - Anurati, stirring the contents of her stove. Kemi's sense-memory from childhood is triggered, as in the Astral - her mother's cooking. "Um" - Kemi Anurati clucks to herself, takes the bundle of cloth and unfolds it, shaking her head. It turns out to have been Kemi's change of clothes, which she helps her with.
Anurati cooking here is in deliberate call-back to the scene in Astral Space back in session... whatever damn number it was. When Kali saw Anurati, Cxaxa and the Ananke presiding over a banquet.

... Tugging at the unfamiliar Sari, Kemi sits down to dinner with her mother. Anurati's Story
The first of the Exposition-dumps in this Chronicle Finale now follows. It might be illuminating, it might not. Either way, the last time they met things were by necessity tense. This - finally - is mother and daughter starting to bond.

The Sahlay women eat their curry in silence, Kemi noting that it doesn't resemble anything found in an Indian restaurant back home. She tries not to think about it too much, though - anything that would give her a clue as to where in India they are, she tries to gloss over in her mind. Her mother's safety from people like Mara (and Wolsey) must come first. Once they're done, Kali compliments the chef. "There is a village. We can walk there later" - Anurati "I'd prefer to stay here, if that's okay" - Kemi

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Anurati moves one shoulder an almost imperceptibly tiny amount by way of reply Kemi shifts on her stool.
They're almost male in their taciturn nature. Kali normally has the gift of the gob, but around mom she clams up. Intimidation factor of the unknown maternal figure, I guess. For her part, Anurati desperately *wants* to relate to her daughter, but thinks that not only has she ruined any chance she might have had to properly do so but that she never had any choice in the matter. Anurati's a fatalist - but it doesn't mean she has to like it. The Gods told her to abandon her family (well, Samuel did at any rate) and she didn't believe she had any choice in it. Doesn't mean it didn't hurt her, though. Just that she did it anyway. This is Angst.

"It is good you were alone. I waited until it would be late at night there" - Anurati Kemi nods. "It would not do for the suspicious one to see me again" - Anurati "You mean Wolsey?" - Kemi Her mother grunts "The others, though... The strange little man with the hat." - Anurati "Mycroft. And Damascus - don't worry about either of them. We're just friends." Kemi Some more silence. "So..." - Kemi "Your teacher speaks well of you" - Anurati Kemi blinks "He came to see me, not long ago, for the second time and the first time." (frowns) "I do not pretend to understand. He said that my faith in you had been rewarded, and that he had prepared the world for you" - Anurati "Samuel?" - Kemi Anurati half-nods "Prepared the world?" - Kemi "For your Ascension" - Anurati "I'm not going to be an Exarch" - Kemi Anurati snorts "'Exarchs' 'Oracles'... You Pentacle Mages and your false distinctions. The Gods are the Gods - all the same. There is no difference between those you call Exarch and those you call Oracle. They are Divine, coming to Earth in their Avatars" - Anurati

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Kemi does not seem convinced. Anurati, though, seems to have been saving this one up. "You believe that the 'Exarchs' control everything in the world, that nothing escapes their attention?" - Anurati She pauses. Kemi shrugs slightly in a "er.. yeah?" sort of a way "Except" (with deep contempt) "For yourselves. And why? Because you have been to the Pillars of Heaven. Where *They* rule? Everything, Kemi, is under their attention. Even Mages. *Especially* Mages. Your 'Oracles' are an attempt to justify your rebellion. You cannot accept that the Gods made you Awaken, because that would mean they still control you, which you cannot admit to yourselves." - Anurati
Anurati's worldview is very odd, yet fits all of the available facts just as much as the Pentacle version does. What IS the difference between an Exarch and an Oracle, and how do Mages still exist if it's counter to the Exarch's will? Anurati would say that it must not be counter to their will. And some Seers would agree with her. This is the dualistic side that I bring to Awakening by way of reading The Invisibles too many times. That the Exarchs are malevolent and the Oracles benevolent is a big setting assumption in Awakening, as well as there being a difference between the two groups of Supernal mages. I like to present characters - like Anurati and Seraph and Mara in her own way, and even Ulysses - that don't interpret the evidence along Pentacle orthodox lines.

"So it's destined?" - Kemi "Your teacher and priest, he said... The first time he came to me, the night I left you and your father. He said that the End Result is always the same, never in doubt, but that the steps on the road can change. The Lady says the same" - Anurati "The Lady. Right. You know what she is?" - Kemi "A being of Heaven, sent to guide you through your rebirth. A creature of your Heaven. I know" - Anurati "He said many things which did not make sense at the time, but I can see the truth of now. He said that sometimes... sometimes you have done as much as you can, and must wait for events to move before acting again. He said that 'the right person at the wrong time can make all the difference'. He told me that I needed to abandon you, but that you would survive. That I should watch but not contact you - that you would, in the course of achieving Godhood, seek me out yourself. He made me promise to keep our agreement secret until then, even from himself - that I would see him, younger, and would have to hide from him." - Anurati "I saw most of it, in the house. That was the first time?" - Kemi "For me. Not, I think, for him. The last and first time was not so long ago. He appeared, and we talked of the Gods, and of Fate, and what the Lady said when she visited me in my secret exile. He wanted to know the terms of our agreement, but I would not tell him. He made me promise not to" - Anurati "What were the terms?" - Kemi "That I should leave you and your father. That I should remove your memories of me using your Veil. That this would ensure that when the time came, you had the best chance of achieving our hopes for you" - Anurati "As opposed to the other five" - Kemi

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Anurati frowns, confused "Never mind" - Kemi . They spend the next few hours not talking "shop". They go for a walk outside. "I have to go back" - Kemi "Of course" - Anurati "I'm meeting Dad for Dinner..." - Kemi "He has had you for every other birthday. He can let me have you this once, before you leave... Kemi.. I regret..." - Anurati
She totally missed that. I must have said it too fast or too quietly. Sam didn't record it in her notes, even. Which made the whole "this isn't a Christmas thing - Anurati's Hindu - it's Kemi's 24th Birthday" fall more than a little flat.

She looks her daughter up and down "It was difficult. Staying away. It still is, but it was Gods' will." - Anurati "I love you too, Mom" - Kemi
And that concludes part 1. Coming next - Banneker makes his decision, Operation: Torture Red in his Sleep kicks off and we have "Tycho's Story", in which much is made clear about the Ministry's plans. They're going to steal God.

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Session 12.2
And now we're into the proper bulk of the final arc. It was the day of running this session that the decision was made, and I at down with a notepad to map out everything I needed to do to finish the Chronicle. Some plotlines (which I've briefly listed already) went by the wayside. So yes. The session title is named after a song, which the character keep hearing. It's actually bleeding through from Samuel's Chantry as he prepares to make contact, but the combination of event and lyrics is supposed to get across a feeling of something being just on the verge of happening... I was going to make this the final story, and a four-parter, but I've decided to split it into two two parters instead, after a player next time uttered a line that made me sit up and think "my god - they actually *get* it!" to myself. It deserved to be the title of the finale. Plus, there feels like there's a narrative shift. You'll see. We begin just a few hour after we left off - I wanted to get one particular thing out of the way right away...

Sunday 24th (continued) The Time Machine is dark and quiet, boxes piled high and sheets over what little furniture Mary's Cabal left behind when they cleared out for Arlington. The monitors are shut off, the myriad gauges and readouts silent. A Portal opens, parallel to the ground, and Kali falls out.
The 'plummeting character' is a comedy trope of portals, going back probably to seeing old Mr Bean serials when I was a kid. Dignity is the word. Always Dignity. Anyway - the Time Machine's state is supposed to reflect the mood of the session. It's between owners - the shell of Samuel's life, waiting for Kali to move in and make it her own home. It's the nearest thing to a memorial for Samuel the House of Ariadne have, with him off doing whatever it is archmasters do.

"Ow" - Kali She gets to her feet, wincing. "You couldn't have landed me upright?" - Kali, to the spot where the Portal was. Not getting any reply, she looks around and shivers. Not just from the melancholy (and in truth slightly creepy) surroundings, but because she's suddenly arrived in DC in the Winter. Which she isn't really dressed for. Looking around for a clock, she finally finds an old battery-powered one that looks like it's still working. Establishing how long she was in India for, she realises it's late on Christmas Eve. There's... something. Like music at the edge of her hearing. Probably the Time Machine playing tricks on her. Shaking her head, she heads to the exit. There, on Samuel's goofy "Welcome" mat, is a Fed-Ex package. Addressed to her (as her real name) care of this address. Knowing she's not going to like it, she picks the package up and listens. No ticking. She tucks it under her arm and heads out. A few minutes of trying to walk through the snow in her sari later, she takes the bus back to Anacostia. ... Damascus, fresh from Ulysses', is wandering. Taking the air. Taking the mood. The streets around the Sanctum are quiet and still - Red's deadline grows ever-closer, and the people know it.

705

Heading up and into the Sanctum, he settles down to wait for the rest of the Cabal, mentally preparing himself for tonight. All the fear outside can be stopped, if he can force Red to change his ways. ... Wolsey hurries through the snow, crunching his way towards a cafe. He considered his mental list of the city's restaurants and hotel bars, but decided that Ebony would feel out of place in them. She doesn't look that "in-place" here.
In my mind, this is one of the many cheap cafes the Crucible eat at - all laminated tables and jukebox.

They exchange pleasantries, occasionally looking at the menu. Wolsey inwardly admits that nothing looks particularly edible. "So... why do you only call me on public holidays?" - Ebony He looks up. She's mostly kidding. Mostly. "I mean - not that I mind, but.. family?" - Ebony "Somewhere. I don't contact them." - Wolsey "But your Cabal have family. I know the feeling" - Ebony "Yeah... I owe you an explanation. I didn't call after last time because, well... I didn't think I had any reason to. I didn't... I don't want to go There again. So I thought it was easier to not call you, after we dealt with the Codex. So I'm sorry for that" - Wolsey
He still isn't interested in her. Wolsey is a very isolated man - I'm not sure if this is his trying to make a friend, or if he's really just doing this out of politeness following Cxaxa prodding him earlier.

"Accepted. So this isn't a date?" - Ebony "I'm afraid not" - Wolsey They're both smiling "Good. I was starting to feel a bit insulted" - Ebony He looks around again "This is kind of a bad place, really" - Wolsey, observationally She takes a parcel - a wide rectangle wrapped in plain paper - out of her handbag. "I didn't know if you... So. Anyway. A gift." - Ebony He takes it. "Go on. I don't mind." - Ebony He opens it. It's a book. "Deductions on the Nature of the Ur-Tongue and it's Descent

706

into Modern Language". "We had more than one copy, and I thought you'd be interested. It's about High Speech and how modern languages contain fragments of it - the author travelled the world and met all kinds of High Speech-centred Legacies. The Athenian Orators, the Bearers of the Eternal Voice, the Bansheigh... She looked all over the world for linguistic fragments, trying to map migrations" - Ebony "It's perfect. It's... Thank you." - Wolsey Ebony preens. He looks around again "Do you want to go somewhere else?" - Wolsey "Oh, God, yes" - Ebony
This scene would have led into Wolsey's quest in a later story, but stayed included in the chronicle for reasons of continuity with the end of 12.1 and for a "life goes on" feeling. Wolsey's story isn't neatly wrapped up in the Chronicle - it's unlikely to ever be - so I wanted to get the sense that he's about to embark on a journey. Of course, given that this is the end of the Chronicle, it remains to be seen if he takes that journey with any of the other characters.

... Damascus dozes off on the sofa, not waking when Kali comes in. Not wanting anyone to see her like this, she tip-toes past him to her room. The sound of her bedroom door, though, wakes him up.
This was done with a stealth roll.

"Kali? That you?" - Damascus "Hang on a sec!" - Kali The door opens, Kali newly changed into sweats. "Sorry. Got wet. You okay?" - Kali, overly-brightly He sees the package, and nods at it. She prevaricates for a second, but decides to tell him. "I'm getting post at the Time Machine" - Kali "Do you think..?" - Damascus "Yeah" - Kali "Want to open it?" - Damascus "No" - Kali But she picks it up regardless and carries it back out into the living room like it might explode.

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The package is opened, and Kali sees, with a sinking feeling, a neatly-folded grey cloth. She lifts the Crown of the Exarchs out and lays it on the table. Underneath it is the Robe. Damascus doesn't say anything.
Yeah. They came back again. Fate's a Bitch, and hopefully Kali will get to tell her so next story.

The front door opens, and Mycroft comes in, shaking snow out of his hat. "Does anyone know how *this* got into my car trunk?" - Mycroft He waves the Sceptre at them. "Your *trunk*?" - Damascus "Where my Tire-Iron should be" - Mycroft "Great" - Damascus Kali sits down, the Robe on her lap "Great" - Kali, hollowly "You're telling me. Carl, I'm going to need to borrow your Tire Iron" - Mycroft ... Wolsey and Ebony have moved on to a better place. Well, a better restaurant anyway. "So the author is still alive. I can write you a letter of introduction for you - it helps that you're a Ladder, and not a Libertine or anything" - Ebony She receives a phone call, and has to leave. Wolsey pays up, heads home, and Teleports to the Sanctum. .

"Guess what we've got back?" - Damascus, mock-cheerful "You're kidding" - Wolsey They're not. The return of the artefacts has led to a bit of philosophy about them. After all, Wolsey said they'd come in useful before. Now that they're here staring him in the face, though, he doesn't think they should be used. "Why not?" - Damascus

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"Because they're Evil" - Wolsey, after some thought. He ruminates on it, troubled. "It's all about Symbolism. Magic is Symbolism, and they're bad symbols. The Throne of the World? The Crown? It's what they represent." - Wolsey
It's important to note here what no-one asked him - the difference between the Silver Ladder's Path Tools and this. The Ladder routinely makes use of the props of Mortal Authority in it's workings, from Wolsey's ID Badge to Banneker's PharaohCrown. The Regalia of the Dethroned Queen, though, are markers of Supernal Authority - they mark the wielder out as an Exarch, and the difference, slight as it looks to other Orders, is huge to him.

"Nothing to do with the crazy-making?" - Mycroft "Well, there's that too. We know that they're... You know... Tainted. And using them makes you more Tainted, because every time you use them you're acting like an Exarch." - Wolsey "Like Querephas" - Kali "Interesting tangent - we think that they're progressively worse, right? The Crown is the worst one we've got, corruption-wise. Why isn't Anurati madder? I mean - more obviously crazy than Querephas?" - Mycroft "Isn't she?" - Wolsey "No. Not really. Querephas talks to herself in the third person... Maybe it's because Anurati thought she was acting on something else's authority... She never regarded the Crown as being hers..." - Mycroft "Can you check that?" - Wolsey Mycroft concentrates "No..." (troubled) "I can't..." - Mycroft "Why?" - Wolsey "I have no idea" - Mycroft
This looks either extremely ominous or me not wanting to spoil the plot with the npc's attainment. In fact, he just failed the roll.

"This attainment.. when did you get it?" - Wolsey, thinking "In the last few weeks. When I went to see Caitlin - you remember? I stopped off at my old mentor" - Mycroft "In any event - I don't think even using it for a 'good cause' is justification. This is a Good versus Evil thing. You can't use them safely" - Wolsey "What if you Ascended?" (off everyone's looks) "Look - It's stupid to deny that people are saying it. What if?" - Kali "An Oracle wouldn't use it" - Damascus (nods) "Only an Exarch would impose their will on the Universe" - Mycroft 709

Kali frowns, remembering her mother's argument. "Which is why it's a bad idea to even think about it. I'd make a very bad god" Damascus "That's not..." - Kali "Being able to control the Fallen World with a thought? Being one with Magic? I am self-aware enough to acknowledge that there are things I would want to change." Damascus Mycroft watches Kali "What?" - Kali "We know what you'd change, Kemi" - Mycroft, gently "Is it possible?" - Kali, quietly "To cut your connection to the Supernal from the Supernal? Maybe." - Damascus "...Erase your name from the Watchtower" - Mycroft, as though he's swearing Wolsey is quiet.
The sudden left-turn in conversation is in reference to Kali's deeply-held wish - expressed in The Only Place You Can - to be a Sleepwalker instead of a fully-Awakened Mage. This concept gets much more play next session, when Wolsey confronts her about it. After all, the Dethroned Queen "forsook all magic"...

"Wolsey" (changing the subject) "Are we still on for tonight?" - Damascus "Operation: Mindfuck? Yes" - Wolsey
A probably unintentional Illuminatus! Reference, there.

Kali yawns, and says that she's going to bed. Santa won't come if she's awake. "Wait. What are we going to do with these?" - Wolsey, indicating the Artefacts "We're not throwing them away again" - Kali "Then you keep them" - Wolsey "What? Chained to my wrist?" - Kali, sarcastically "Just.. Make sure they're not left on their own" - Wolsey "I can take them for now" - Mycroft "Fine. Put them in my room if you get bored" - Kali, leaving. After she leaves, Mycroft frowns. "She's been to India" - Mycroft 710

Damascus sighs. Wolsey starts.

Sam was heard to exclaim "Traitor!" or something like that.

"Damn it" - Wolsey "You can't stop her seeing her mother, Tom. But she has been with Anurati all day." Mycroft Wolsey shakes his head. It is pointed out that Anurati is still - just barely - obeying her Exile. She's not coming into the city, Kali's going to her. "Not what I... It's the fact that she hid it..." (hollowly) "Is this the cause of it? Does she go through with IT because I've been telling her not to all the time?" - Wolsey
By "IT" he means the gathering of the Artefacts and whatever it leads to. It's a harsh thing for him to have realised this late in the game - that Kali operates mostly by reverse-psychology. Mark put amazing amounts of nuance into that line - all of Wolsey's dreams come asunder. The horrifying realisation that by constantly harping against "The Train" he may, in fact, have ensured it. Ouch.

Damascus and Mycroft look sympathetic. "Red" - Wolsey "Red" - Damascus ... Wolsey and Damascus figure out the details of what they're going to be doing. Damascus provides Wolsey with a photo of Red, along with his real name (Charles Taylor). Wolsey intends to cast Dream Traveller on himself, linking Red and Damascus in as additional targets, and maintain a Telepathy between himself and Mycroft (who's staying awake) as well as a second Telepathy to Damascus to allow communication Red won't be able to sense.
Wolsey can make the Telepathy last a scene because he's an Adept of Mind now. Note that Damascus can't hear Mycroft or vice versa - Wolsey can't network a group together like that, as that requires Mastery. He's having to actively maintain three spells for this to work.

"I'm not going to visible, okay? Think of me as the man behind the curtain. You tell me what you need, and I'll provide the special effects" - Wolsey "Gotcha" - Damascus Both men put themselves to sleep with relatively minor Mind Spells, and the scenario starts. ... Red is in the Desert. Walking slowly through a blood-red landscape (Mars? Nevada?), trying to shade his face with his hand. Vultures circle. He sees something on the horizon and painfully makes his way toward it. Damascus, dressed all in white, sits on a rock.

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"See what Awaits You?" - Damascus The Desert bursts into flames. Red yelps, and jumps backward, landing in the nolonger-flaming sand. Damascus coordinates with Wolsey as the ground turns cold and hard. The sun turns to a dull grey - the colour of lead. The Air becomes thick and oppressive. All around, shades break the surface of the desert, hauling themselves up. The river Styx is the last touch on this rendition of Stygia. "SEE WHAT AWAITS YOU" - Damascus "You're not Cee-Dub! This isn't real!" - Red "OH?" - Damascus And Damascus proceeds to begin scaring his old friend, quite literally, half to Death. ... Kali dreams of music (just out of hearing still) and then of some kind of Court, somewhere warm and near the sea. She's aware of two figures, a male and a female, arguing in front of a large stone object of... She wakes up, and is groggily confused. There's something over her face. Reaching up, she confirms that for some reason she's wearing the Robe and the Crown in bed. The Sceptre is on the floor next to the door. She pads over to the door and sneaks out, still wearing the Artefacts. In the living room, Mycroft is sat eating Chinese take-out and watching "It's a Wonderful Life". Damascus and Wolsey are asleep behind him, lying on the sofas. Kali leans down over them, inspecting them, then sneaks back to her room. Mycroft remains oblivious to the whole thing. Wolsey, though, has just been Scrying on his own body in order to check the time, and is rather alarmed. He and Damascus confer as much as they can until Red starts to reject the dream again and Damascus has to concentrate on *that*. Wolsey shouts Telepathically at Mycroft to wake up, and directs him to Kali. Mycroft - swearing blind he didn't fall asleep down the link - carefully opens Kali's bedroom door. "She's.. She's not in here" - Mycroft, looking around "She's *right there*..." - Wolsey Realisation dawns. She's wearing the Robe. "Okay" - Wolsey

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While, in the background of the Dreamscape, Damascus delivers a speech unto Red about changing his ways or suffering for eternity (and Red tells Carl to go fuck himself), Wolsey directs Mycroft by the left-a-bit, right-a-bit method toward the once more sleeping Kali. At least, Wolsey thinks she's sleeping. Her head's wrapped in the Crown. Mycroft reaches out and brushes against her. Kali jolts upright, and Mycroft - feeling the movement even if he can't see her - jumps back in fright. Kali - just - gets a grip before using the Crown on him.
By means of a Composure Roll.

"Uh..." - Kali She undoes the Robe, and turns back. Mycroft backs off again. Kali grabs the duvet to cover herself with. "Better?" - Kali "Not really" - Mycroft Damascus and Wolsey - Red left to his own dreams for tonight - run in. "Kali, what..." - Wolsey He stops. Damascus stops dead in the doorway. After a long moment, she realises what they're all staring at (and it's not the Duvetcovered nakedness) and pulls the Crown off her face until it lies around her like a scarf. "What happened?" - Wolsey "I don't know... I..." - Kali "You were looming over us" - Wolsey "I was awake then. I think. I... Can I get dressed?" - Kali They wait outside. When she re-emerges, the artefacts are not on her person. . Kali, afraid of herself, explains what happened. It does not reassure them. "How did they get into my room anyway?" - Kali "I slipped them through the door" (off her look) "You told me to! You *did*!" - Mycroft She did.

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Casting Postcognition, Kali watches herself climb out of bed and put the artefacts on in her sleep. "Change of plan. Can we destroy them?" - Wolsey He's serious. Don't these things have a kill condition, or a secret means of destruction or something? Kali dubiously says that she could maybe - maybe - inflict a Doom upon them. Or maybe there already is one. She checks, casting various probing Fate spells upon the Crown. The results are bad. "It... Uh... It can only be destroyed by an Exarch" - Kali "An Exarch or an Ascended being?" - Damascus "Let's not start that again" - Wolsey, disappointed. He stands up. "Okay. Are they safe?" - Wolsey Kali hefts the duffel bag she's put them in, and shrugs. "If it happens again, I don't know. You might have to tie me to the bed or something" - Kali Damascus coughs (maybe saying "Again?"), and the tension is broken. He checks his watch and announces that it's now well into Christmas Day. "Hang on..." - Damascus, rummaging around in his coat pockets. He distributes small parcels to each of his Cabal mates. "You may as well open them" - Damascus Kali, realising, goes to get hers, as does Mycroft. Wolsey is the obligatory curmudgeon that hasn't got anyone anything. Damascus' gifts are all handmade out of metal and glass - an ashtray for Kali, a Magnifying Glass for Mycroft, nicely unobtrusive and entirely unadorned coasters for Wolsey. Kali has persuaded one of her underling to imbue three small charm-amulets with a low-level fate spell of blessing. Mycroft has themes - new forge gloves for Damascus, an entire series of books on the mythology and ritual of India for Kali and a wallet for Wolsey. It' a nice wallet, but it's also not so unique as to offend Wolsey's sensibilities. Wolsey Teleports home. ...

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The unique sensation of Teleportation - pressed all around by his own Nimbus, aware for a split second of nothing but the sensation, somehow, of Pandemonium ceases as Wolsey reappears in his apartment. The distinctive vocal stylings of Mr Phil Collins wafts through the place. Wolsey immediately goes on the defensive, and raises protective magics before turning the stereo off.
The song is In the Air Tonight. The sensation of Teleporting - which some Mages like to think takes you, somehow, through the outskirts of Pandemonium, is described here in more detail than usual because it's going to be very important come the finale...

He immediately phones Damascus, and says that there's something concerning in his apartment. He needs it examined, by as many means as the Cabal have available. Opening a Portal for them, he waits for them to come through. "The Radio?" - Damascus, stepping through to the apartment "The Radio. It was playing when I got here." - Wolsey Kali flicks it on again experimentally. It's now playing something by REM, which sounds naggingly familiar. She inwardly suspects it may be what she heard in the Time Machine.
"It's the End of the World As We Know It"

"Kali?" - Wolsey She casts Postcognition, and reports that as far as she can tell it turned itself on. At the same time, the lights flickered on then off again. Mycroft is examining the radio "It's fine. There's nothing wrong with it." - Mycroft "Wait a second..." (thinking) "yeah... the lights flickered and it came on. Right about the time that I put the Robe on" - Kali Now THAT's disturbing. Wolsey phones the night super of his apartment block and asks if there was a power surge. There was. "Okay... Nothing more to see here. Thanks everyone." - Wolsey They troop back through the Portal, which closes when Wolsey lets it go. Thinking a moment, he Lock Portals it. And then goes to bed. ... Monday 25th December Kali spends Christmas Day with her Dad, as arranged. Wolsey spends it alone,

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reading his book. The stereo in his apartment remains unplugged. Damascus and Mycroft spend it at Damascus' parents' house - Mark is explained as the roommate of Carl's ex. All is going fine - Carl's mom is more than slightly drunk and playing bad music from the 80s - when there is a knock at the door. Carl's mom goes to get it. "Hey there, Mrs Washington" - Red Damascus nudges Mycroft, and they go out into the hall just in time to meet Red, who's greeting Carl's family. "Charles! When did you get out?" - Mr Washington "Month or so, Mr Dub... Is that Maree?" - Red Red winks at Damascus, and proceeds to start flirting with his sister. Eventually, he leaves. Mycroft melts into the background while Damascus tries to explain. "I always felt sorry for that boy" - Mrs Washington "Mom... Charles got out a while back. He got into some bad stuff inside. Met some serious villains." - Damascus "You've been to see him before?" - Mr Washington "...Yeah. I want to help him out of the place he's in, but..." - Damascus "He might not want to be helped" - Mrs Washington . That night, Kali dreams of the Time Machine and Phil Collins. She wakes up and, afraid to go back to sleep, drinks an awful lot of coffee. ... Tuesday 26th December The next afternoon, the Cabal reconvene at the Sanctum, and Damascus and Mycroft tell the worrying tale of Red sniffing around Damascus' family. "Tonight we up the ante" - Damascus "Oh-kay" - Wolsey Their discussions as to how, exactly, they should up the ante are interrupted by Wolsey receiving a phone call from Nimrod. After he hangs up - the conversation was very short - Wolsey addresses the Cabal. "Nimrod is sending a car for us. He says Banneker has 'made his decision'" - Wolsey

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"Did he say what it was?" - Damascus "No. I have a BAD feeling about this" - Wolsey ... When the diplomatic car arrives, it does not take them straight to Langley and the Project Twilight Sanctum. Instead, the unseen driver takes them out to a deserted and closed-down shopping mall parking lot. There, waiting for them, is Banneker's car. Crossing the asphalt, they climb in and come face to face with the Hierarch. "Gentlemen. Mistress Kali. I have considered the options carefully, and what you told me has made my decision. Sentinel - Proteus has infiltrated your acquaintances' organisation and is gathering information on when the Seers will next meet with this 'Red'. I require you to go to Twilight's Sanctum now and get as much information on the Seers' activities from Tycho as you can. Use any means at your disposal and Interfector?" (to Mycroft) "I leave Tycho's final disposition to your judgement. Twilight have already been informed." - Banneker They get back in their own car. "Cxaxa's not going to like this" - Mycroft "It's out of her hands, now" - Wolsey The car stereo crackles, and begins to play a familiar tune. Wolsey reacts as if stung, taps the partition window and orders their driver to pull over. "Alright. What's that song? What's it DOING?" - Wolsey Mycroft scans the CD and reports that there's no hidden substance to it that he can tell. They send the driver around the block while they talk. "Are we being mentally influenced again? Is this like Sutterton Farms?" - Wolsey "It feels like we're in the real world" - Damascus "It did then, too" - Wolsey "It's an odd coincidence... But odd coincidences happen - Kali: isn't this how you people think the City communicates with you?" - Mycroft Kali, tired from the previous night, notes that yes, as it happens, it is. "But if this is the Thread, what's it trying to say?" - Kali "Genesis. Beginnings. Or new Beginnings" - Damascus "The Great Flood" - Mycroft "I've heard it before" - Kali She describes the Time Machine, and her dreams.

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"I was in Greece... That could mean it's something to do with the House" - Kali "How do you know it was Greece?" - Damascus "It looked like it, from movies, you know? All robes and pillars. Near the Sea" - Kali, trying to remember "Kali... The flood. The End of the World. That wasn't Greece." - Mycroft "Where was it, then?" - Kali "I think it was Atlantis" - Mycroft ... Hours later, and they're in the waiting area of the Twilight holding rooms. Cxaxa is here, plainly not happy. "Wolsey" - Cxaxa, nearly spitting it "Hi Amanda" - Kali, trying to defuse the situation. "Did you get the memo?" - Wolsey Cxaxa, furious, leads them to the cell door and unlocks it. She starts to open it, and Wolsey interrupts her. "We can take it from here, thank you" - Wolsey And, after the Crucible enter, he shuts the door on her.
Ouch. The Cxaxa-Wolsey situation reaches it's sad and inevitable conclusion in the finale.

Tycho looks up as they enter. They don't say anything - Mycroft takes the seat and sits, watching Tycho with steepled fingers. "Where's Cxaxa?" - Tycho They don't say anything. Wolsey begins constructing a network of Telepathy spells around the Cabal. --Check him-- - Wolsey, silently Tycho flinches as various forms of Mage Sight rake over him, looking for Conditional Spells. "What are you doing?" - Tycho Kali casts Evil Eye on him, and while his luck is significantly retarded Wolsey follows it with a Befuddle to reduce his ability to resist the Mind-Probe while Mycroft and Damascus stand ready to counter anything he casts. "What..What are you DOING!?" - Tycho, panicked.

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They don't say anything. "Please!.. I... What are you Casting? What did you just Cast?" - Tycho Kali blasts him with another Evil Eye and then Wolsey casts Read the Depths Over and Over and Over again. Tycho, driven into a state of terror by their earlier spells, is helpless.
The Evil Eyes ruin Tycho's resistance rolls, while the Befuddle reduces his Composure to one, which is why he's so frightened. Composure is the resistance stat for Read The Depths. Method, see?

Tycho's Story Tycho's name is William Averton. He comes from old money, and old secrets. His father was a cultist in the sort of society that Wolsey deals with every day, but in his case it was not part of the Guardian's Labyrinth nor a shadow of true Magical Tradition. Averton Senior's cult was a plaything of the Seers of the Throne. When William Awakened as a Mastigos, he was quickly found and indoctrinated by the Seers. They confirmed the attitude of privilege he already had about him - Tycho was used to being seen as better than other people through his wealth, and the assumptions of the Seers as to their place above the common enslaved members of humanity came naturally to him. His motives are less grandiose than Seraph's were - Tycho isn't in this for being a God, or for Ascending himself. He wants Temporal power. Craves it. He wants to be one of the secret rulers of THIS world, not the next. As such, he's a perfect middlerung member of the Ministry of Mammon - the Seers below Tycho in the Pyramid are (he believes) barely-inducted servants, while those above him have their thoughts aligned to Heaven. He has never met the Minister who's every relayed order he obeys without question, but he believes his Shadow Name to be "Rex Mundi".
A rather grandiose name for a Mage, even a Minister - it's what some Seers refer to the Exarchs themselves as. Literally "King of the World".

Tycho was sent to DC by his superior, a Seer he knows only as 'Janus', several years ago to make it a fit place for Mammon's work and to recruit as many useful slaves as he could. At the time (and indeed until very recently) DC's Seers were dominated by the Ministry of Panopticon, so Tycho was careful to keep a low profile. Well, as low a profile as he could stomach. Turning to old lessons, he began several clubs for the rich that quickly turned into full-blown cults. And there he sat, king of the hill, surrounded by Sleeper slaves. The Crucible are... not entirely surprised... to learn that one such cultist was Cxaxa. Tycho never noticed that one of his Cultists was Awakening until it was too late. By the time Amanda had returned from Pandemonium, she had been spirited away by the Pentacle Orders. And then the day came that Tycho was told to make room for guests. Another Mammon Pylon was to be placed in the city, and Tycho - as the trusted and valued man on the ground - was told to provide a Sanctum for them.

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The Crucible grimly note the addresses. He thought no more of it until last January, when at a face-to-face meeting with another Mammonite he was introduced to a member of a third Pylon, also here in the City, about which he had not been told. When he complained, he was told in no uncertain terms to be watchful of how he presented himself. And so the king of the hill found himself gradually pushed out and ignored. Janus moved to the city and began coordinating more and more arrivals. Tycho recognised fewer and fewer of the Seers he was ordered to provide cover identities and living space for. The Ministry began to conflict with Panopticon, and Tycho - as the Mage the local Panopticon agents recognised - became a target. His rivalry with Seraph was already bitter and swiftly became murderous, with the two of them sending one another's cults after the other's operations.
Which is where that whole House of Stone vs. House of Steel thing came from

Finally, one day two months ago, Tycho learned from one of his own underlings - he had apparently missed the memo - that the Minister himself, the Master Seer Rex Mundi, was on his way to Washington DC to personally oversee events here. Event of great importance to the Ministry.
Many Bothans have died to bring us this information...

At the last, there was a battle. Fought silently and through cats-paws and puppets, but Panopticon suffered some kind of great defeat. Tycho doesn't know exactly what happened, but Rex Mundi won some kind of prize from his rival Minister. He does know, however, that the Minister is kept safely guarded in a Demesne somewhere, ceaselessly striving for his own Ascension. Curiously, after the Minister arrived, Mammon began to threaten Sleepers of influence with the kidnap of their relatives something they'd never stooped to before, when they could just as easily buy them outright. Another Pylon was given the task of building a gang strong enough to rule the "Washington" areas of the city (and yes, the Seers do know about that) and these 'gangers were - are - used to do such work. Tycho suspects, though he would never voice it, that there's another reason to have Sleeper agents trained in spiriting away individuals. He thinks they're actually only meant to kidnap ONE person - and everything else is cover for it. Who? Why? He has no idea... Tycho sits, crying, as the silent Crucible survey him. --Mycroft - did you get enough?-- - Wolsey Mycroft nods, once, and stands up. "What... what are you going to do with me?" - Tycho They leave, without a word. ... In the hallway, Cxaxa is waiting for them.

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"That's it?" - Cxaxa "That's it" - Wolsey "Indeed" - Nimrod There's a shimmer as Nimrod steps literally out of the shadows behind them. The Shadowman relieves Cxaxa of her keycard to Tycho's cell - she looks like she's going to object for a moment, and then sees the look on Nimrod's face. "You obtained the information we need?" - Nimrod "Yes. We need to see Banneker as soon as he's able" - Wolsey "Cxaxa will show you out" - Nimrod She does so, fuming. When they finally climb into their car and begin the long drive back to DC, Wolsey glances out the window at her. "We do keep taking her toys away, don't we?" - Wolsey --Alright. Mycroft - what does all this mean?-- - Damascus --I'm looking for patterns.. What do the Seers want? Does this Rex Mundi have the Throne?-- - Mycroft --I think Panopticon have it-- - Kali --They might not have it any more-- - Damascus --What about my Intended? Where does He come in?-- - Kali --Shiva... Shiva isn't a Mammon sort of an Exarch. He doesn't feel like a Mammon sort of an Exarch. I'd expect an Ochemata visiting Mammon to be.. well... Mammon.-Damascus --How do we know he'll arrive into a Seer? What if Wolsey's right about them? What if the Exarchs don't care about the Seers at all?-- Mycroft --Or if he's here to help the Minister to Ascend, it might not be the Mammon Minister he's here for...Mammon are trying to steal the Ascension!-- - Damascus --What?-- - Kali --No, no - it fits. They know that an Exarch will arrive, so they want it to appear to *them*. They think... Of course! Why would he be Astrally projecting into a *Mage*!? He's an Exarch - they work through the Fallen World. They'll be someone out there, some Sleeper or Sleepwalker, someone who's Destined to be Shiva's Host-- Mycroft --Virgil?-- - Kali --I don't know, but... Red. It's all about Red. If the Mammonites are trying to steal the Ascension, and they've stolen or are going to steal the Throne from Panopticon, then... Then they need to steal Shiva's Host. If they kidnap whoever it is, then Shiva

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will manifest in the place of their choosing. That's why they need Red's gang. One of Red's Victims... - Mycroft --We need to get word to Proteus-- - Damascus --And for that, we need to talk to Mara-- - Wolsey He taps the partition, and instructs the Driver to take them to a new address. Time is running out.

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Chapter 13: Is This a Rescue Attempt?

Session 13.1
"We Lied. We are not at War. This is a Rescue Operation." - Mr Six, The Invisibles And so on to the final story of Broken Diamond, which is in two parts - this one and the feature-length finale next time. Dice have been cast, the positions have been drawn up and the dominoes given a hearty flick. The Ochemata is on it's way... This story as a whole breaks the normal operating procedures of the new World of Darkness - we have running gun battles, car chases, natural disasters, apocalyptic happenings and the clash of great and terrible powers. I cheerfully break rule one of Mage: The Awakening by having an Exarch manifest. You try telling him he's just a myth. A lot of people are going to die by the end. The title is a line by Damascus that made me so, SO pleased with Rafe. Because I was intending it to be the big surprise right at the end of the Chronicle, and he went and guessed it. Everything in the final story is a Rescue attempt.

The Cabal have been dropped off at Wolsey's apartment and have transferred themselves to his SUV before striking out North toward Mara's house. The combination of the long drive and her sleep-deprived state has sent Kali to sleep, and she dozes on the back seat. Wolsey glances at her in the rear-view mirror and then at Damascus, riding shotgun. "At least she isn't sleep-artefacting us again" - Wolsey Damascus nods, and watches the buildings go by. ...
And now to break the first taboo. "Thou shalt not show Atlantis"

Kali is dreaming. She's on the island that she thought was Greece but now knows better, running as part of a crowd through an open-plan palace set on the coast. On the horizon, just visible, is a great rock spire, extending up from the centre of the Awakened Nation from the city of Atlantis itself. Something has been built onto it, extending it's height even further.
The Silver Ladder - or the physical components of the great spell called "The Silver Ladder" at any rate. I figure it was part collaborative ritual and part artefact, co-opting the Spire. According to Awakening, the Spire contained the caves the first mages Awakened in, and was the graveyard of the Dragons that came - and ascended - before them. It's my intention as a Storyteller here to have the Spire as a symbol of Ascension - it represents Ascending to the Supernal, and the Fall was due to the Exarchs in their hubris using it for their own ends, forcing it to allow them into heaven bodily.

The palace is decorated in blue and turquoise, painted and lacquered as though it were the ocean surface seen from below on a sunny day. The crowd wear a variety of robes and costumes - Kali herself, along with a sizeable portion, is wearing a light blue robe. Every now and again there is a guard, dressed in the same blue but wearing armour and wielding a trident. The crowd reach the great throne room, a circular chamber with a back wall open to the air, pillars supporting a great golden dome above them. The open side overlooks the Atlantean countryside, and the Great City in the distance barely visible at the feet of the spire.

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Against this backdrop is a great stone throne, armrests carved in the shape of sphinxes and high back depicting the Spire in carvings.
Fourth-wall time - the Throne of the Dethroned Queen (for it is this) is the object shown shattered on the sea bed on the front cover of Awakening itself. And the bluey-turqoisey effect of the palace's decorations is the colour of Awakening's gameline. That sets the tone for these last two sessions - we're going deep into the mythology here. Because unlike some on RPG.net, I *love* M:TAW's setting, and I can't see what the problem is with it. I said at the very start of this thread that I would try to learn to love Atlantis? Well, I love Atlantis. I really do. I would play a historical game based around the Fall and it's immediate aftermath in a heartbeat. So yeah. The link to the game line's art is one of the most inspired minor touches in Reign of the Exarchs. I appreciated it.

Sat upon the throne is a small, dark-haired woman with olive skin, wearing a very familiar looking robe and veil. Kali observes the Queen. The Queen seems to be adjudicating - or at least listening to - an argument going on right at the foot of the throne dais. A tall, red-haired woman in a more ornate version of the blue robes is having a heated argument with a short, brown-haired man with a very tall, curved hat, who seems to be some kind of official and is wearing a heavy Orichalcum chain of office. These individuals are arguing by oratory, directing long speeches at one another, the Queen and the crowd all in a fluid language that Kali only recognises occasional syllables of. It's High Speech, used as an actual language. And then Wolsey shakes her awake. ... "Whu... what?" - Kali "We're here" - Wolsey They have indeed arrived at Mara's house / practice. They're not met by Mara's secretary, though. "Hi" - Jude "What brings you here?" - Damascus
Jude is a Sentinel, one of the less-seen ones, and an Acanthus.

"Escorting Banneker here and back, in case the Throne try anything. If you wait, I'll find out if they're taking guests" - Jude "Banneker's here? That saves us some trouble" - Wolsey Jude goes into Mara's office, and then returns. "They'll see you" - Jude, nonchalantly ... Mara is sat behind her desk, Banneker stood by the bookcase. "You were successful?" - Banneker

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He tells them why he's here - while they were off interrogating Tycho, he came to Mara to get Proteus' first report back from within Red's gang and to organise the Adamantine Arrow. Wolsey gives their report - they have a list of addresses that are or were Seer safehouses, they have Shadow names and descriptions of several Seers, they know the Minister himself is in town and... "...We have reason to believe that we know what the target of the kidnaps is. An Ochemata that..." - Wolsey Mara laughs, once, like a bark. Wolsey frowns, and looks at Banneker. "Go on" - Banneker, glancing at Mara "An Ochemata that we believe is intended for Panopticon. Mammon hope to capture it's host before it arrives, in order to get whatever it's supposed to give to Panopticon themselves. That's why the Minister's here" - Wolsey "Shiva?" - Banneker "At our guess" - Wolsey Mara laughs again "Is there something wrong, Madhuri?" - Banneker "I'm sorry, Isiah... An Ochemata? Are the Seers not enough without resorting to fairy stories?" - Mara "Astral Entities have crossed over into our world before, have they not? I seem to remember one that gave you particular trouble" - Banneker
Ouch

"Yes, but..." - Mara "And you have heard, no doubt, reports from your people in the Claviclarius of the Indian God that has been appearing in our Temenean Skyline?" - Banneker Wolsey says nothing. Just the memory of Mara being politely taken apart like this is enough. "Then we shall instead say that we believe a powerful Astral Entity will cross over into this world. Does that meet with your approval?" - Banneker
This minor smackdown of Mara is intended to reinforce what Fisher King said earlier in the Chronicle - she doesn't believe in the Exarchs. It's brought up here to set the scene for next session, in which her lack of respect for the Ochemata has fatal results.

"... ... Fine" - Mara "Who will it manifest in?" - Banneker, to Wolsey "We don't know. We believe it won't be an Awakened." - Wolsey

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"What's he here to do? Does this have anything to do with the artefacts?" - Banneker "What artefacts?" - Mara "We" (looks around at the rest of the Cabal) "have been keeping a set of artefacts safe for the Consilium for some time now. An incomplete set which we believe to be connected to the Seers" - Wolsey Banneker nods "Proteus has already replaced one of 'Red's gang leaders. We should have information soon on their targets. Hopefully we have been given enough warning. Now. What about the Ananke?" (off Mara's look) "Yes, Madhuri, there is an Ananke" Banneker "She hasn't shown herself for some time." - Kali "But she's still out there. Samuel told me about Ananke. Spirits of a future event, summoned from Arcadia to ensure a certain timeline takes place." - Banneker "I had a thought about it. We know that it adapts to circumstances - it keeps bringing the artefacts back to Kali, which suggests it wants her to have them for whatever it's event is. But it takes time for it to react. My idea - and this is a very risky idea - is to go along with it right up until the last moment..." - Wolsey "The Critical Path." - Banneker "Yes. We wait until it's too late for it to react and put a spanner in it's plans. If, that is, they're not to our benefit" - Wolsey "That's very dangerous" - Banneker, to Kali "I know" - Kali "We need to know what event it's trying to enforce first - and who cast it. I can't tell you to gamble with your life like that - I must leave the decision to you" - Banneker Kali nods "Regardless, we must act in the immediate against the Exarchs' servants in this world. The Gatekeepers, Wardens and Defenders are to survey the Seer Sancta that you've identified - Mara, I want reports and battle plans for any that are still occupied as soon as possible" - Banneker "Yes, Hierarch" - Mara "Can I ask the Crucible for something?" - Banneker The fearsome foursome look at one another and nod "We need to know if Red already has the One or not. I take it that you are conducting your own operation regarding his gang?" - Banneker "We're... attempting to influence Red through his dreams, to get him to abandon his

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organisation" - Damascus "Are you having much success?" - Banneker "We've only done it the once" - Damascus "Do it again. Urgently. We need to know what he knows. If you can't turn him around, you'll have to follow the brute-force approach and do to him what you just did to Tycho." - Banneker ... On their way out, Kali decides to drop her bombshell "I think I know who summoned the Ananke. I think I've seen her" - Kali She tells them about her dream, and the woman she saw.
No time for tip-toeing around now. Share the information immediately.

"Was this a dream or a dream?" - Wolsey "What's the difference?" - Kali "Was it a dream like we're giving Red?" - Wolsey "I think it might have been" - Kali So they check. Pulling the car over, Mycroft, Wolsey and Damascus check her pattern for contingent spell effects and other Fate-based triggers. Five. Kali has five spells on her, all waiting to be triggered by specific events. Three of them have the same Nimbus as Kali, and two from Samuel. "Okay... So is it my resonance, future-me's resonance, the Ananke's resonance or Mom's resonance?" - Kali
There followed a brief digression about the fact that although they're easily confused, Kali and Anurati *don't* have exactly identical resonances. There's a subtle difference between their Nimbi - Kali's is one of Predetermination, while Anurati's is Helplessness in the face of Destiny. As I say, they feel very similar. The Ananke, though, has been shown to cast with Kali's nimbus. And the theoretical future-kali would too.

"Can you tell what the triggers are?" - Wolsey She can, in fact, with a particularly high-end Knowing Practice of Fate - a spell Kali would call Analyse Spell Trigger if she'd ever bothered to give it a name. She immediately makes a face. "Okay. Two from my nimbus and two from Samuel" - Kali "What was the fifth?" - Wolsey "That *was* actually me. I still have a contingent Acceleration up. Sorry." - Kali

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"Tell me the others aren't spells you've forgotten about, too" - Wolsey "Samuel's are hard... One looks like it's designed to wait until a specific event happens, but his work is too intricate to pick apart. And... oh, great. The other's set to go off if I die. One of the ones from 'me' is set to go off when I'm asleep... And the last is when all five artefacts are in the vicinity" - Kali They need to know what the woman was saying to the man. They need someone who can speak Atlantean.
Various theories were suggested here - from Beckett to the ghost of Malakai, which would involve summoning the ghost of Malakaii. The gang decided that was a silly plan, but it touched something within me, so next session... Oh, you'll see.

In the end, Wolsey reckons there's nothing to be lost by *trying* Read the Depths followed by Universal Language, and gives it a go. To his surprise, it works. The woman's name was "Aldones" (pronounced, as much as he can make it out, Aldon-ee) and her ideological opponent was "Neotalba". Aldones refers to herself as a "Wing", which the Crucible correctly interpret as being an ancient analogue to the Mysterium. In any case, the argument is regarding the use of "The Great Work". Aldones is trying to persuade the Queen that the purpose of Ascension through the ritual her order has devised for the Kings is to know the universe and achieve transcendent enlightenment by becoming one with Heaven. The successful Exarch should be content to exist on a higher level, communing with great forces. Neotalba, who seems to be some sort of Priest, is arguing that the purpose of Ascension is to improve the world by having the power to act upon your superior and more enlightened morality - that the wise and just rulers of Atlantis will be wise and just in heaven, and in so being perfect the world below. "It's odd. They don't correspond with the Oracle / Exarch split, as far as I can see. Maybe there's a third faction of Ascended beings?" - Wolsey
Actually, they do - that's pretty much the Oracle (Aldones) and Exarch (Neotalba) arguments, couched in the terms the Atlanteans would have understood them.

"Do you think the Ananke was cast by this Aldones? It just looks *just* like her" - Kali "It's possible... I have a theory, about the Queen" - Wolsey He elaborates - Kali has a spell trigger set to go off when the artefacts are together, right? There's an ancient mage who seems to be influencing modern events? Where have they seen *that* before? "What if this is the same thing as Querephas? Sitting on the Throne turns you into the Queen? Maybe Querephas was a failed attempt to make it work. Maybe she hijacked whatever the Queen did for her own reincarnation-within-her-descendent trip" - Wolsey "But she came back. She was Dethroned." - Kali "Shiva." - Damascus They look at him. "What about Shiva? What's he trying to do here? What would an *Exarch* actually care enough about to manifest in this world for?" - Damascus

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He leaves it hanging for a moment. "...Is this a rescue attempt?" - Damascus

YES! Yes, Rafe, it is! Have a cookie! Not in the way that they think in this scene, but yes, it is.

... Once safely back in the Sanctum, Kali sits drinking more coffee while the boys think through how to make Red's sleeping life even worse. "Up the ante tonight with the stick, and then offer a carrot tomorrow?" - Damascus "You think we have that long?" - Mycroft "No, now you mention it. Okay - we'll have to try both carrot and stick tonight. Banneker seems to be in a rush" - Damascus "Of course he is. He wants to get back to his castles" - Wolsey They look at him. "Put yourself in his shoes. You have to split your time between the Consilium and being a Mage in your own right - and if you slip on either then you'll be replaced. Probably fatally. You're held back compared to the other Masters because of the amount of time you spend on the rest of us. If Banneker *didn't* go back to his buildings all the time he'd go crazy and be replaced as Hierarch by a better Mage. There are only so many people who could stomach making political office their praxis *and* Shadow Life. Before my change of direction... Maybe I was one. But not any more." - Wolsey
Important character point ahoy! Wolsey here realises why Banneker is the way he is, and in so realising forgives him. Now they can both grow.

They start preparing their Sacraments for the upcoming violation of Red's mind "Wait a second. About the Artefacts..." - Kali "Yes?" - Wolsey "I'm supposed to wait until it's too late and then stop, right? But what does the ritual actually *do*? Maybe it's worth it" - Kali Ascension. Ultimate Power. That sort of thing. Maybe. Kali clarifies - the Queen came back, say the books. She came back and "forsake all magic". "Even dying of a disease she should have been able to cure" - Mycroft "It's a risk-benefit game. Potential Risks versus Potential outcomes. The safest route is to scupper the thing" - Wolsey "But what if I could..." - Kali

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"...Be a Sleeper again?" - Mycroft, gently "OR you could wind up as an Exarch. Or dead." - Wolsey "But if I could" - Kali "You're not listening. Risk..." - Wolsey Damascus butts in and attempts to put it in layman's terms "If I understand Wolsey's reasoning, you have two options - do the ritual or not. 'Not' maintains the status quo. Doing it has potential outcomes - you could become the Dethroned Queen, you could lose your magic, you could Ascend. Is the risk worth the benefit you want?" (to Wolsey) "Is that what you meant?" - Damascus "Yes" - Wolsey "...Yes." - Kali "You're willing to risk becoming an Exarch to give up your Path?" - Wolsey "Yes. I don't expect you to understand, but I am. Even if I Ascend, then I can always Descend like She did" - Kali "You can't know that for certain" - Wolsey "But it's worth the risk. It's what I want - what I've wanted since I Awoke" - Kali Wolsey is disturbed. "You know... The more you explain yourself, the more fucked-up you sound" Wolsey She bristles. Damascus tries to mediate. "Let's go do something we can do, just for a change." - Damascus "Wait a minute. I just honestly can't understand why you're giving in to this thing." Wolsey "... ...Red" - Kali, jerking her head toward Mycroft and Damascus "Well, they can't do it without me" - Wolsey, irritably "Tragically true" - Damascus "Go play with Red. I need to think" - Kali ... Preparing their spells again, the boys once more abduct Red's sleeping mind into Wolsey's dreamscape. At Damascus' direction, they send him through an Urban Hell. Red wanders the burning streets, betrayed by his own gangers and facing a slowburning sense of fear.

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At the critical moment, as Red is chased down by Alley Razors, Damascus appears -THIS IS YOUR DOOM- -Damascus
This "break Red" sequence was conducted as an extended social roll overcoming his willpower and resistance checks, which is why the descriptions are a bit cursory compared to last time. The dice took over, in an effort to get it out of the way as quickly and cleanly as possible. Also, because it makes Mark happy.

... Kali - having left Damascus and Wolsey asleep and Mycroft in front of the TV - rides North on her motorbike through the worsening snowfall, trying to get to the Athenaeum. She came to the snap decision to research the Dethroned Queen again, or possibly "Ochemata", while trying to think of ways to avoid falling asleep. The last few sleep-deprived days, plus coming down from all that caffeine, finally starts to take effect, and she nearly comes off the bike on a corner, nodding off at the handlebars. Jolted awake again by the adrenaline, she realises she's not going to make it as far as the Athenaeum and consults her mental map of Northern city locations. She could head to the Children of the Book in college park, to Cerberus' house, to Beckett's or to the Time Machine. Reckoning that it will be the least relaxing place to sleep, and hopefully won't set off whatever spell is on her, she diverts to the Time Machine.
A case of that GM's trick-choice here - the Time Machine was listed second-to-last, then Beckett's. Kali wouldn't willingly spend the night at casa Beckett, and the other options are too obscure. I feel a bit of a heel whenever I do this to Sam - she's comparatively inexperienced and falls for it more often than the lads do (Mark makes a habit out of always doing whatever the GM apparently doesn't want him to, which turns any attempt into a cunning double and triple bluff game). SAM: Would it help if I said I saw what you were doing but did it anyway? On other occasions I've missed it, but this time I knew you wanted me to go the Time Machine - it happened that I wanted to as well.

... Red is responding to the surroundings, but not so much to Damascus, so Operation Mindfuck adjusts to play that angle. Wolsey has hit an untapped talent for artistic flair, and is imbuing the scenery with real misery and despair. -Yeah. More like that. Scare him with hellfire - you're the Mastigos. You've seen demons- -Damascus -You want me to make him a Christian?- - Wolsey -...No. But it wouldn't be so bad- - Damascus -Good thing I'm a good salesman- - Wolsey They freeze Red for a moment, putting him a loop, while they figure out the carrot -You realise that he's still a Sleeper, right? Showing him Stygia, showing him Pandemonium. They're not going to help him get out of the Lie. All we're doing is swapping one trap for another- - Wolsey -I know. But you can build a better mousetrap- - Damascus

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... Kali enters the abandoned Time Machine again. ... The boys have moved from "Stick" to "Carrot", and are showing Red what he COULD have... ...A job as a construction worker. -What?- - Damascus -Nothing... Nothing. Over-identify much?- -Wolsey -It's a good job- - Damascus
It's HIS job, from Sutterton Farms. I don't know why the Farms story started getting call-backs at this stage in the Chronicle, but I was really quite pleased that it did. Makes it feel like it was worth it, maybe.

... Kali, exploring the Time Machine, decides that the "best" place to rest is the old control room - all the monitors and gauges are creepy in the dark, and the floor is particularly hard and cold. As she lies down, she thinks she can hear static coming from one of the monitors, but it's just the wind. ... Operation: Mindfuck is finally successful - Damascus and Wolsey have Red's psyche in the palm of their hands. Interspersing their scenes of happiness and fulfilment (with overtones of regret for the path not taken) with nightmares of fleeing impossibly through urban wasteland, tracked and killed by his own gang has done the trick. Also, Damascus not doing his "DOOOOOM" thing so much. Turns out Red wasn't really afraid of that. Still - job well done. They've successfully terrorised a Sleeper, and think he'll be in touch soon. They wake up. "Heya" - Mycroft "Kali?" - Damascus "Gone out" - Mycroft "Artefacts?" - Wolsey Mycroft nudges the hold-all of ultimate evil with his foot "I'll take it. Not that it really matters - If the Ochemata or the Minister try anything we don't really have any way of countering it" - Wolsey

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"I've been working on the hope that we'll see the scrying channel even if they use the Throne. That way we get three seconds warning of the sympathetic kill-spells" Mycroft
Encouraging! As for Operation: Mindfuck, in the end they wore Red down to having no willpower left.

... The equipment around Kali crackles and - after a long, drawn out feedback whine starts playing Genesis. Loud. Kali, clutching her ears, sits bolt upright and immediately regrets it. The room spins around her. She feels like throwing up. Feeling very ashamed of herself, she throws up in reverse and faints, feeling at the last moment like she's losing her grip on the world and falling up, or pouring up, or something like that. Kali is not the sort to assume Alien Abduction. She knows exactly who's abducting her. . Phil Collins is singing backwards, while Kali is going forwards. This is not a happy state of affairs. All the light fixtures are sucking in the light, and the equipment is crackling. Kali feels a hand on her shoulder. "...tnenemom a ni reisae steg tI .htaerb tsuj ,regiT ,ysaE" - Samuel "Does it? really?" - Kali, through gritted teeth "thgiR. This way around. Try it now" - Samuel She opens her eyes. Phil Collins is now the right way around, though playing at half speed. "a n d t o o s l o w . . . " - Kali Her ears pop. "Now?" - Samuel "Better" - Kali "Great! You have no idea how difficult it is to do that. Equalising the temporal..." Samuel He spouts some technobabble happily. "So..." - Kali "...Yeah!" - Samuel

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He helps her to her feet, as she looks around. Although it looks like it, this isn't the Time Machine. "This is the Chantry?" - Kali "This is the Chantry" - Samuel
Archmaster's pocket realms are called Chantries, which like the unique Sacraments needed to power Imperial Spell Rituals being called "Quintessences" is a call-back to Mage: The Ascension that amused me greatly when I read it in Tome of the Mysteries. In fact, this entire sequence was inspired by the Xeno and the Archmaster fictlet in that book, and Samuel's plotline was created specifically to lead up to it.

"... ... Why Phil Collins?" - Kali "I need a Zeitgeist, to open a sympathetic conduit. Want the tour?" - Samuel
What does that mean? I have No idea whatsoever. I don't especially think it matters.

"Sure" - Kali He shows her around, quite chatty - though Kali, through her disorientation, is a little uncommunicative. "Congratulations on the Codex, by the way. Making the edit so Damascus succeeded. I approve" - Samuel She gives him a look "I know, I know. My approval doesn't count for much. But well done anyway" Samuel He leads her up to where the meditation chamber in the real Time Machine is. In the Chantry, though, the transmission tower opens up to a small ring platform, like a lighthouse. The building, Kali realises, is suspended in absolute nothingness - no stars, no ground, nothing. Except... ...In one direction, the nothing is nothing. And everything. Her eyes hurt looking at it. And beyond it, a tiny light on the horizon. "What's that?" - Kali "The Watchtower" - Samuel "Which one?" - Kali "Ours" - Samuel Kali peers out into the non-wind (in fact, as far as she can tell, there's no air at all - it doesn't feel like she's moving *through* anything) at Arcadia. "It looks so small" - Kali "This Supernal Realm is small. This Supernal Realm is veeeeery far away" - Samuel, making complicated gestures with his hands. She nods.

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"You have questions" Samuel. Samuel's Story She asks him about the two spells he has contingent on her. "It's kind of like cookies" - Samuel He means Web cookies. "No? Well, they're to track your collapsing wavefront through the..." - Samuel And then he proceeds to launch into more technobabble. As far as Kali can tell, one of the spells is his means of tracking her progress through space / time allowing him to target her from the Chantry. The other, the one meant to take effect in the event of her death, turns out to not be a resurrection spell or anything like that. It's simply meant to inform Samuel that she's died. "Why now?" - Kali "Now or never. This is the closest I can get to what I like to call Event Zero - the event the Ananke was created to enforce, and the point at which the majority of timelines splinter off from one another. The Ananke is moving more and more approaching the Event, and the Ochemata is about to download into your timeline. I'm afraid of the Ochemata, and the Ananke is covered by the Pax Arcanum" Samuel "We're that close?" - Kali "I took you from the last night before He Downloads" - Samuel She shivers "When will it happen?" - Kali "Can't tell for certain. I can't see anything in DC's noosphere for the next 28 days. Too much churn. After that time, there are too many potential futures to pick out the most likely. You might die. You might Ascend. I don't know" - Samuel "So you can't interfere?" - Kali "Not directly - not with the Ananke being another Archmaster's work. But HE can. This is important, Kemi - He never agreed to any truce or non-aggression pact between very scary people. He'll interfere as much as He sees fit." - Samuel "Who are the other five?" - Kali He seems ashamed of himself. "When I first realised what was going to happen to you, I tried and failed to scry forward to the Event itself. I also saw all the potential outcomes and was determined to... Ah... 'fix' it. Railroad you into one of the good outcomes, if that makes sense" Samuel

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"Kind of. So the others are what? Not-so-good mes?" - Kali "Right, but not in the way you might think. Anyway. After I gained my present facility I decided to do something about it. I went back to the critical point of your life, intending to alter it and so prepare you for whatever the Event was going to be... ...And I found that someone already had" - Samuel "The Queen" - Kali "What? No - me. Or another version of me" - Samuel "I'm confused" - Kali "This isn't the original timeline. You, me, your Cabal, your mother... Everything is the result of someone altering history with an Imperial Spell. As far as I can tell, the culprit is the version of me from the real timeline, who managed to erase himself doing it. All that remained for *me* to do was follow the tracks he laid down and solidify our, altered, timeline by persuading your mother to abandon you and your father. Not only did that create this version of you, but by turning Anurati into The Spider, it created this version of ME. Without the sense that there was something else out there I was missing, I don't know if I'd have become an Archmaster. And if I *hadn't*, I couldn't have gone back to set it up" - Samuel "Is this the Nickel?" - Kali "No. But speaking of which" - Samuel He gives her her Nickel back. "I've had it imbued. Nothing that breaks the Pax, though it bends it a little. You'd be capable of casting it's spell yourself in a few years anyway, if you could find a Free Councillor to teach you it. It's a little something we Libertines call Save Point" Samuel "I've heard of it. A time-reversing spell" - Kali "When the coin triggers, it creates a temporal anchor. When you activate it the second time, it resets you back to the anchor. This could save your life" - Samuel
The spell is in the Free Council book. It's a Time 5 spell - a higher-powered Shifting Sands - and is the cause of much controversy among Mage forums where it appears to be believed to be overpowered. Bollocks to that, I thought, and made damn sure Sam had the opportunity to use it. Even if she doesn't, in the end

"In any case, I have made a study of the original timeline - like we used to go time travelling in Twilight, remember? And I've come to some conclusions. Want to see it?" - Samuel She considers. "Okay" - Kali He produces a remote control, and presses a button while casting something. The Chantry vanishes, and Kali is suddenly standing, insubstantial, on a street corner.

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"This is the world as it was before my alternate selves started trying to erase *your* alternate selves. To the Sleepers, it's much the same as our DC - a little grimmer, maybe, and there's a pervading feeling of being unable to change events combined with certain messianistic tendencies that are playing merry hell with the politics of the country, but... You don't need to know about that. What you DO need to know is that in this world, your mother never abandoned you. She killed Malakaii and Beckett, and used the Crown to erase Mara's memory of accusing her." - Samuel They wander a while "You are brought up by Anurati, filled from your adolescence with her particular beliefs about the nature of the Universe. By the time you Awaken - as a Mastigos, incidentally - you've fully bought into the idea that you're meant to become a Goddess. With the Crown, you're an instant celebrity among the Pentacle because you keep the Seers off them - in fact, you have as many Seers working for you as Pents. The Traditional battle lines fall away, replaced by a tight organisation of mages of any order with you at the top, and rebels outside." - Samuel Kali looks around her, looking for evidence of it "And your Shadow Name is 'Rani'" - Samuel Kali stops "I've heard that before" - Kali
Amanda, still in her post-Awakening oddness, thought it was Kali's Shadow Name right back near the beginning of the Chronicle. It means "Queen".

"Your Cabal consists of your Mother, Cxaxa Querephas - in this world, Amanda goes fully through her transformation - and Seraph. The Ananke has manifested and acts as your advisor. Querephas gave you the Robe just as in our world, you went to Germany and won the Sceptre. You took the Ring and the Throne from the Seers using the artefacts you already had, and the combination of the Throne and the Crown secures your hold over the city. You're always watching from your Sanctum, up there in that tower" (nods towards a building she recognises as Suleiman's Sanctum) "and you can rewrite the mind of anyone under you from there, without them ever knowing." - Samuel She looks at the building. Samuel coughs, and nods towards a window of the house next to them. She recognises the person in it - it's Damascus "The rebels are gathering, for one desperate attempt to stop you. Damascus, Banneker, Hera, Fisher King, Ulysses and Shore. Mycroft never left Chicago. Wolsey either never made it here or was quickly killed by Querephas. Tonight, they've learned, is when you're going to perform the ritual the Ananke has been teaching you, to use the pentad to become an Exarch. Your court is fuelling the proceedings with a vast rite in your Hallow. For reasons I am unable to see, the people within the Sanctum, Mages and Sleepers both, appear to start acting something out towards the end, as if they're possessed - or hallucinating." - Samuel The scene fades out, and the Time Machine Sanctum fades back in "And that's where it ends. I can't see the end of the ritual, because it never reached

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completion. Fisher King got word to my counterpart in that timeline - I never left California - and seeing what was happening I went back to try to stop it. Which brings us right around again" - Samuel "... The five?" - Kali, distantly "We're not the result of my first attempt. It seems that at first, I went for the direct route of just killing Anurati right there. That results in you Awakening as a Thyrsus, apprenticing to Malakaii, becoming his protge until the fateful day you discover your mother's Crown among his belongings and murder him in his sleep and.. you get the idea. Killing Malakaii as well makes you go Left-Handed. Taking both Anurati AND Kevin out of the picture makes you a Seer of the Throne. Kidnapping you as a baby and raising you my damn self in California means *Hera* gets hit with the Ananke instead. Every time, it happens, and every time, I erase myself from history in the process of having another go." - Samuel
If the alternate setting seems oddly well described, it's because this would have been an entire *story*. Essentially, if the Chronicle hadn't been cut off by events beyond our control, Kali would have become trapped in the real history after postcognitioning the history change too deeply - and Samuel would have projected the other PCs into it to get her back out again. Or she could have tried to get her own way out and been the mechanism by which alt-Samuel learns of what's going on and decides to change history, while Mark and Rafe played the alternate versions of their own characters. In any case, this scenario would have shown the characters the final ritual before it happened, giving them more ammunition for the end. It will be played in Heaven.

"So I'm the best?" - Kali "If you can't stop something, alter it's *Timing*. The right person at... You already heard that one. In this world, I become an Archmaster quickly enough to be able to advise you of what's going on. In this world, you have a grounding as a Mage *before* your mother gets her hooks into you. In this world, you have the potential to tell the Ananke where to shove it - or not. But I believe that this you" (he tweaks her nose) "Won't be an Exarch. I think you're wiser than that" - Samuel "I could be a Sleeper" - Kali "You could. Maybe. The point is that this world has far more outcomes of the Event than the best efforts of my other selves managed. Sometimes, you just have to suck it and see. Time to let Destiny take it's course, and see what we get at the other end" - Samuel "How did the Queen become Dethroned?" - Kali "No idea. The Fall of Atlantis is occluded - it created a lot of... Best word is Turbulence. I can't travel to it" - Samuel "But Ascending and then coming back is the best option?" - Kali "I hate to rain on your parade, here, kid, but... There's no proof that the Queen ever actually Ascended" - Samuel "Now you've lost me" - Kali "Well... The Artefacts *could* have been made on Atlantis rather than in the Supernal Realms, so they can't help. The important thing, as ever, is the timing. Did her Ritual take place before, during or After the Silver Ladder was in place? If it's before, then it's doubtful it will work as advertised in the modern world. If it was during, then it

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likely relies on the Silver Ladder - and in fact might be the Exarch's end of their Ascension spell - and would have Unforeseen Consequences if cast today, now that the Abyss exists." - Samuel "If it was after?" - Kali "Well.. Then it might work. If that's what it did in the first place. Remember the lack of proof" - Samuel "But you know I'm supposed to... You came to see me on the barge" - Kali "Haven't done that yet. There's one difference - in *none* of the other timelines is our boy Shiva present. The Ochemata only exists in *this* world, and any Ascension could be down to him" - Samuel "So what? I don't go through with the ritual but it turns out it didn't make me Ascend anyway, and then Shiva carries me off?" - Kali "It's a possibility. About Him. He's powerful. More powerful than me, far more powerful than the Ananke. But he's limited by the form he assumes and the world he's constructed for us all to be trapped in. While here, he has to obey local rules he has to have a body, and to only cast spells it's possible - however unlikely - for someone still trapped in the Fallen World to cast. He's not going to be especially Vulgar in his magic, but he *will* be incredibly strong. You won't be able to dispel his spells, or overcome his wards. The Artefacts, though, will work on him. More so, mostly, than on normal people or even Seers. The Crown commands the servants of the Exarchs rather than them themselves, so it's iffy, but the Sceptre, the Ring and the Robe should all work better than they do against one of us. If you don't want to be carted off to Pandemonium, keep your damn Robe on, and keep the Sceptre handy." - Samuel Kali nods "Promise you'll remember that?" - Samuel "I'll remember" - Kali "The Event has to take place for the Ananke to be satisfied. But it's uncertain who's supposed to do it" - Samuel, checking his watch "We okay?" - Kali "Running out of time..." - Samuel "It's okay. I'll see you again" - Kali "Yeah... I've been saving it" - Samuel She's confused "Well.. If things go one way, then I can pull you up here for chats all the time. But if they go the other way... then that trip in the barge is the last time I'll see you. So I've been saving it." - Samuel "I'm ready" - Kali

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"I've done as much as I can. Time to see what comes out the other end" - Samuel And the Chantry breaks up around her as Kali is downloaded back into the Fallen World.
VERY deliberate use of the word "Downloaded" there, and when describing the Ochemata as a piece of the Shiva-Exarch "downloaded" into the Fallen World. Partly due to Samuel's Free Council background but partly because, with it's Matrix connotations, it points out that Earth as our Heroes know it is not the "Real" world. The Exarch is in the Real world, and he's connecting to the simulation / soul prison that the rest of them are in.

Wednesday 27th December

Time to get back to the boys, and get this show on the road. But first, the end of the Red plotline. Damascus has Rescued his old friend...

Damascus is woken by his cell phone. "Whuh?" - Damascus "Cee-Dub? That you?" - Red "Red. Yeah" - Damascus "Listen, man.. Is there anywhere we can meet?" - Red, sounding shaken Damascus suggests the address of one of Kali's House-funded outreach centres (one that Christopher runs) and Red agrees to meet him there. Damascus immediately phones Christopher to get his permission and then, having got it, Nimrod. "You have made progress?" - Nimrod "It's on" - Damascus He snaps the cellphone shut, and goes to get dressed. ... "I'm fucked, man. I need out" - Red Damascus surveys his old friend from the far side of the cracked Formica table. The centre is distributing hot food, and there are sad-looking Christmas decorations up above the counter, behind which Christopher and Nimrod are lurking. "What's changed?" - Damascus "Kids." - Red Red tells his story - he did jail time with a man who introduced him to what Red thinks is a corrupt Fed, or some other kind of government official. This man - who Red knows only as "Mr Shield" - is the one who has been supplying Red with money, armaments and protection from the police. "And he's the one behind the kidnaps?" - Damascus "He gives us details, we take the kids and hand them over to him when the ransoms 740

are paid. He then gives them back to the families. I don't know why he does it that way - some of the guys think he has a sideline as a consultant or something, you know? Get us to take the kids, then takes a fee from the families to 'rescue' them from us" - Red "Mm" - Damascus "Any case; It's been getting worse. We're growing bigger and bigger. There are guys in the Razors now I don't recognise, young guys. *Bloodthirsty* guys. Like that boy shot up your hood despite being told not to." - Red "You want out?" - Damascus "I want out. I want it to stop" - Red "Okay. Here's what we do. I have friends that can protect you while we take the Razors down, and Mr Shield with them. When're you next meant to meet him?" Damascus "Today. We've got one kid at the packing plant, and there's another being snatched this morning. Mr Shield will pick them both up tonight." - Red "No, he won't" - Damascus . Leaving Red with Nimrod for 'debriefing', Damascus returns to the Sanctum. "'Mr Shield'?" - Damascus, to himself ... Kali has finally made it to the Athenaeum, where Ebony is helping her look through as much as she can about the Atlantean Court. There's not much more to go on than they've already heard, from Ulysses' initial researches following them discovering the Ring right up to Anurati and Samuel's infodumps. The Athenaeum, it seems, is nearly exhausted on the subject of the Dethroned Queen. She does confirm, from putting various descriptions of the Awakened Castes together, that Aldones was a Mysterium-equivalent and Neotalba a Seer-equivalent one of the priests that worshipped the Exarchs before their Ascendance.
Aldones being a Mystagogue isn't from Reign of the Exarchs - it's a minor stylistic change intended to link her in Kali's mind to herself. Also, bearing in mind the expansions to Awakening's setting that have been released in the year since Reign came out, it makes more sense. We know, for instance, that the Wings of the Dragon (the Mysterium) were the ones who created the Ascension Ritual and gave it to the Exarchs, which changes Aldones' motivation slightly - as written, she's arguing from an academic point of view of Ascension. Now, with that change, hers is the Mysterium's position of trying to advise the Exarchs to not use the Ladder.

... "How did it go?" - Wolsey Kali enters the Sanctum, just as Damascus is explaining the minor victory this morning "We did it. He's out - off with Christopher, to try to make a new life for himself." Damascus, with some satisfaction "Congratulations" - Mycroft 741

"The Seer running the show is named 'Shield'. Ring any bells with anyone?" Damascus There is a mass shaking of heads. Kali slumps in her chair "You alright?" - Mycroft "I saw Samuel last night" - Kali "...And? What did he say?" - Wolsey "Just... It's coming, soon. The Ochemata is about to arrive. I found out some personal things, but nothing that changes anything. It's going to happen within the next four weeks - maybe within the next few days." - Kali "What are you going to do?" - Wolsey "I haven't decided yet" - Kali "But..." - Wolsey "I haven't decided yet" - Kali -Tom- - Banneker Wolsey looks around, and sighs -Yes, sir?- - Wolsey
Telepathic Communication from the boss is never easy. This little scene here is the last time we'll see the Crucible's Sanctum. Say goodbye to it! Christ - it's milestones like that that make me realise this is over.

-The game is afoot. We've got a window of opportunity to catch the Seers with their pants down. Nimrod is assembling the strike forces at the following addressBanneker Wolsey suddenly *knows* the address -Have as many of your people as are up for combat meet him there as soon as possible. They leave within two hours. I will be maintaining our fallback position atBanneker Wolsey knows another address -Anyone that can Ward, Ban, Portal or heal that isn't taking part in the fighting would be welcome. Tell the rest of your Cabal- -Banneker Wolsey feels the contact cut, and relays the message. Damascus, Mycroft and Kali all decide to go on the hunt, while Wolsey reckons he'll do more good at the fallback point.

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"Artefacts" - Wolsey Kali opens the Duffle Bag of evil, and hands the Sceptre over to him. "The rest?" - Wolsey She hands Damascus the Crown "Why do I get this?" - Damascus "You're least likely to use it" - Kali, carefully folding the Robe up and slipping it inside her jacket before doing it up.
She kept the Robe, like Samuel told her to. And without telling the boys, either! And now onto the bridge - the triple-threaded action sequence to close out the session. But first, an inspiring speech...

In a parking lot somewhere near Howard University, a small force of Mages is meeting up. "Alright! PEOPLE! Listen up! SWAT are going to be here any minute so you *need* to have your cover stories. Alright, now Nimrod here is in charge of wrangling the cops, while I'm in charge of you lot..." - Shore The three representatives of the Crucible stand next to Cxaxa as Shore - breath steaming in the cold air - gives his briefing. "Damascus" - Cxaxa, gruffly "Cxaxa" - Damascus "...So you're all Agents, okay? Now - we have two targets. Our primary site is the packing plant run and defended by the Sleeper 'Alley Razors' gang. We understand that the Seers - led by a 'Shield' - will arrive to pick up a child that the gang has been holding there. *We're* going to be there to take them out. Our secondary target is a crche up the beltway from here - a group of gang members is set to take another child from there. If the Seers want these kids, we don't want them to have them. So. I need three or four people to take the secondary site, and the rest of us will be going to the primary." - Shore Jude - the Acanthus Sentinel - raises his hand. Kali looks around and - seeing noone else is volunteering, sticks hers up. When she does so, Mycroft puts his up too.
DAVE: I can't remember - was that based on a divination, Sam? SAM: No pure I want to go where the kids are Kali was getting motherly-protective. I think at the time I had made the decision that Kali would try to unAwaken on the Throne, and here she's doing some 'preparation' for being unAwakened. DAVE: And having a life. Right.

"Okay, great. That's enough. You guys take my car" - Shore, throwing Jude the keys "How long do we have?" - Mycroft "Not long. You'd better get cracking. Also, if you need backup or extraction call it in to the fallback point that Banneker's running" - Shore

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"Link, Damascus, Cxaxa, Thursday - you guys are with me and Nimrod. Proteus and Sister will meet us there - Proteus is already in place at the site and will identify himself when it starts." - Shore Kali, Jude and Mycroft walk around the Humvees the others will be using and see Shore's car. Shore's black, shiny, very new and extremely expensive supercar. "...Shotgun!" - Kali ... As they roar off, Cxaxa quirks an eyebrow at Damascus "This is your gang, isn't it?" - Cxaxa "Formerly, yes" - Damascus "Got any friends there?" - Cxaxa "All safely out, thanks" - Damascus
What's going on with Cxaxa? She's such an important character to the chronicle that I didn't want her to just vanish into the background ether like - as for example - Monica has in the finale. Whatever happened, she had to be part of it. So I went back to what was going on before she quit the cabal in order to carry out her deep-cover assignment (the deep cover assignment her former cabalmates scuppered). She wants back in to the Crucible, although she knows she'll probably not get it. And she wants to pick up with Carl where they left off, friendship-wise. There's a revelation in that that will come out next time that *would* have been part of the double-agent plot.

... Wolsey reaches the ninth floor of an office block some ways East of the gangland. One of Banneker's works-in-progress, the place hasn't yet been finished. The floor and ceiling are bare concrete, with the air vents hanging bare waiting the false ceiling to be put in beneath them. Only the structural walls are present - internal partitions are missing leaving it one big space. Adding to the ambience, only one wall has had the windows put in - the rest are covered by plastic sheeting, through the gaps in which the wind is howling. "It's started snowing again" - Banneker Wolsey nods The team at the Fallback point consists of Wolsey, Banneker, Beckett, Promethea and (Wolsey does a double-take) Bedlam. Banneker mentions something about there also being an Astral team keeping an eye on the Temenos and a Shadow team consisting of Fisher King and Cerberus guarding the site from that side of the Gauntlet. Bedlam wanders over. "Bedlam!.. What are you doing here?" - Wolsey "Helping. I'm told." - Bedlam, staring at Wolsey

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"Okay. Uh.. How are you?" - Wolsey "I have deep-seated emotional problems. Do you have deep-seated emotional problems, too?" - Bedlam "Who says that?" - Wolsey "My Therapist" - Bedlam "You, uh..." - Wolsey "It's Mara" - Bedlam Wolsey rolls his eyes "Mara has deep-seated emotional problems. I've seen them. Actually, they're more Out and Proud..." - Wolsey Promethea sees them talking and stomps over "Bedlam, stop bugging Wolsey" - Promethea "I don't mind. We were just talking here" - Wolsey, with overtones of "Bitch" She turns her nose up and huffs off instead. "You're not Tainted" - Bedlam, staring at Wolsey Wolsey takes a second, and assumes he knows what Bedlam's talking about "I don't know why" - Wolsey "Me neither. I'm not. Some of us aren't. Banneker is - no-one else here. Why is that?" - Bedlam "Is it..." - Wolsey He looks around "Promethea and Beckett aren't? We aren't? But Banneker is?" - Wolsey Bedlam nods "Is it because he's connected to the Sleepers? Is *that* it? Is that how I've avoided the trap?" - Wolsey
Actually... yes. Bit late to figure that out, but your 'Taint' as seen by the Ring is a function of how much you buy into the Exarch's trap - Mages involved with their Sleeper lives have more as a baseline, and you earn more by doing the Exarch's Work. Still, he got it before the end of the Chronicle!

... Kali, Jude and Mycroft scream up to the Crche, and discover that they're too late -

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the police have been called, and the workers are trying to handle traumatised children. Kali takes the outside while Mycroft goes in and Jude hangs around by the car. Kali discovers - using her Attainment - that someone has been lurking in the alley beside the place, a lot. Wanting contact with someone inside but not being able to force themselves to actually go in. Mycroft emerges to say that the kid they're after - a three-year old adoptee who apparently had some trouble in his birth family's past - was snatched at gunpoint by three gangers. Jude has been casting Postcognition and has the ganger's numberplate. Mycroft looks up the road at the traffic and deduces - using *his* Attainment - which way they went. Jumping into the Shoremobile, the trio get going again.
You'll find out who it was in the alley soon enough. The vehicle for this sequence is Shore's Sports Car because of the whole Miami Vice thing, by the way. The Radio is probably playing that song. One of my "I must run that at some point" chronicle ideas is a Blue Planet game set around Haven's Vice Squad. Aw, yeah. Mark'd be okay with it. He likes Michael Mann films

... "Is he still there?" - Damascus There's a blast of gunfire "Yeah, he's still there" - Cxaxa, sarcastically The whole Catch-the-seers-with-their-pants-down plan is going Swimmingly. Cxaxa and Damascus are facing off against a Seer outside the packing plant. The sounds of gunfire are radiating all around - the battle is raging between the cops and the gangers, with Mages duelling Seers in amongst them. Cxaxa and Damascus are crouched behind a wall, on the far side of which is the Seer's van. The Seer himself is somewhere behind *that*. Cxaxa looks around - not at the Seer, but at the exits. Damascus realises what she's doing - waiting for all Sleepers to get out of sight before flipping out. "I'm going to try to get beside him" - Damascus, whispered. Cxaxa nods He takes a deep breath, then rolls left and starts running along the side of the van, using crates as cover. The Seer attempts to fire at him but misses (thanks to Damascus' Mage Armour) and Damascus gets a good look at him before diving back into cover. Now he knows where he is, and can hear him reloading, Damascus doesn't need to see him to cast Psychic Sword. He remembers too late, though, that Mammon is the Ministry of Mind - the Seer is shielded too much for Damascus' attack to work. Then the Van explodes. . 746

Damascus picks himself up, shaking dust off himself, and checks the Seer - who is in pieces. Damascus looks over at Cxaxa, whose resonance he quite clearly felt then. "Shall we?" - Cxaxa They run into the plant. ... With Jude at the wheel, Luck-enhancing spells covering his Fate, the Car Enchanted to perform to it's utmost and Mycroft yelling directions from the back, the secondary team are getting closer. And then they come across the car crash. Rewinding the events isn't hard - the Car's tires just blew, and then two men and a woman got out of their own vehicle and retrieved the boy - who was mysteriously unhurt - from the wreckage. They went... "There" - Jude, pointing at a closed-up store Kali squints at it through the snow and nods. They give chase on foot, and burst in on the three Seers. One of the Seers is trying to cast a Portal (and, his concentration well and truly broken, he abandons the Extended Spell) while the other two watch the child. "Hi" - Jude "Pentacle" - Male Seer 1 "Throne" - Jude There's a flurry as everyone pulls guns on everyone else. Kali can feel ripples of Jude's resonance as he casts a trick-shot spell on himself. The Seers raise Mage Armours (The Pentacle Mages already have them). Kali edges herself for position, getting a clear run at the little boy - who stares right into her eyes with utmost calm. Mycroft, at the back, presses a button on his cell phone. "This is about to get very foolish" - Mycroft There's a flash of everyone's senses, and then Promethea, Beckett and Wolsey Teleport in. The Seers - surrounded - shift to cover both sides. Kali triggers her held Acceleration and runs forward, grabbing the boy, sliding on her heel and running for the door. The Seer that had him tries to follow, but Beckett casts Suspension on him, freezing him on the spot. The shooting starts as Kali gets out of the door, bullets deflected by her own Mage Armour. Wolsey ducks out after her, casting Incognito Presence. "Kali!" - Wolsey She stops, halfway down the block, as he catches up. She's holding the boy in her

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arms. "I..." - Kali Mycroft comes out, wan-faced "Well.. we won" - Mycroft Jude comes out next to him. "Wolsey - can you give these two a lift back to base? I'll get Shore's car out of here" Jude "Beckett and Promethea?" - Wolsey "Entertaining themselves" - Mycroft There's a scream from inside the building. As Promethea shows the female Seer her own entrails, and asks what Omens can be found within, Wolsey tries his best to ignore the sounds and builds the extended spell for a Portal back to the building site. ... Damascus and Cxaxa run through the battle, keeping their heads down. They come across Link, who's lying propped against a wall Healing himself. The Thyrsus looks up at them and grits his teeth against the pain. "The fighting's spreading out - the kid's that way" - Link, nodding. "You going to be okay?" - Damascus Link nods, rapidly, and winces "Okay..." - Damascus They all duck as someone jumps down from the rafters. "Me" - Proteus "Alright. Proteus. Cxaxa, with me." Damascus They run through the plant some more, heading for the storerooms at the back. There's someone already there, though - a man they don't recognise is holding a preteen girl at athame-point. "Hold it" - Seer They skid to a halt "Now... Let's talk." - Seer At which point Shore and Thursday also arrive "Take a look around. You're more than outnumbered" - Damascus

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"And I can open her up before you get to me. So.. Trade, yes?" - Seer Cxaxa growls and mutters High Speech under her breath, preparing to cast something rather fatal "Settle, Cxaxa" - Damascus She stops "Give us the girl, unharmed, and you'll leave here alive. That's it" - Damascus The Seer considers, and releases the girl, who Proteus scoops up. Shore then puts the Seer to sleep with a spell. "Get her to safety" - Shore, to Proteus. The Thyrsus nods and leads her out to the cops. Shore, meanwhile, starts building a Portal.
*Technically* they followed the deal. Sucks to be that Seer.

... Portals open, and both teams make it back to the building site, minus Shore and Nimrod for the A team and Promethea and Jude for the B side. Along with the A team's prisoner and the boy the B team rescued - who Kali is still carrying. Banneker hurries from arrival to arrival, checking everyone's okay. "Sir - what do you want doing with this one?" - Damascus "We..." - Banneker He pauses, slightly, and then shakes his head "No. We do this now. I want him taken care of - interrogate him. Wolsey. Beckett. See what you can get out of him. Now." - Banneker Kali, not wanting to see another Seer's mind taken apart, wanders to the far edge of the building site. "How do you want to do this? Together or in parallel?" - Wolsey "Parallel, I think" - Beckett
In fact, Wolsey reconsidered as soon as he said that - he doesn't want Beckett having potential access to his mind.

The same trick as before is used - Befuddle first, and then Read the Depths, with results relayed to Damascus by way of Telepathy. The Seer's name is George, but in magical circles he goes by "Oboloi". He's a Moros (which surprises Wolsey - he had thought all Mammon Seers would be Mastigos) and works for the Ministry in the minor capacity of "Asset Handling" - a lot of base Alchemy to produce precious materials and a fair amount of people-handling too, buying and selling the affairs of Sleeper dupes, servants and outright slaves which he

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trades between other Mammon Pylons. His superior in the Throne is a Mage named Shield, which Damascus recognises as the one that Cxaxa blew up. Shield was a member of a Pylon called "Aegis". There's something else, that they recognise from Tycho's interrogation - something they didn't think of then. The phrase "One World" seems to be important to the Seer, like a motto that Oboloi has heard but doesn't really understand. They break the spell, and Beckett puts the Seer back to sleep with a wave of his hand. "Well?" - Banneker "His name's Oboloi - he worked for a Pylon called Aegis. A Petty alchemist and people trafficker..." - Wolsey
It is crucial here that Wolsey was interrupted before he mentioned the 'One World' thing to Banneker, and I cut away to Kali at this point. The reason isn't entirely shameful - Banneker would recognise the phrase and be able to solve one of the remaining plot mysteries of the chronicle using it, and I wanted the players to have the opportunity to figure it out themselves first. I figured that if by halfway through next time they hadn't made any progress on it, I could introduce it again in Banneker's presence to hurry things along. And, as it turns out, that's exactly what happens next session. 'Oboloi' is a reference to the coins paid to the ferryman - he evidently learned the wrong lesson from Awakening in Stygia.

Over in the far end of the room, Kali is holding the little boy and listening to the wind. "Heya..." - Bedlam She turns to say hi, and sees Bedlam staring at her. Or rather, at the child. "..." - Bedlam His eyes widen in fear, and Kali feels him cast a spell. Then he starts hyperventilating. Kali's Unseen Senses begin to react to something BIG. She puts the boy down - and he stands there, staring at Bedlam. Kali runs for it, pulling the Robe out of her jacket as she heads desperately for Wolsey and Damascus. She throws it on and activates it just as she reaches them, trying to tug the Crown and the Sceptre from them. "What?" - Wolsey, confused "I need it. *NOW*" - Kali, terrified. Bedlam screams, and now everyone feels the ripple of invisible forces. Something very magical is happening, and not in a good way. "What the..." - Banneker "He's here He's here He's here He's here He's here" - Bedlam The Crucible - without really thinking - close ranks around Kali, joined by Cxaxa and 750

Beckett. "That what I think it is?" - Beckett "Uh-HUH" - Damascus "Plan?" - Cxaxa, stone eyes glinting Banneker shouts something, and a Portal opens up behind everyone.
It's never said, but that was cast as a prepared spell by Fisher King - note that he's been absent so far.

The child stretches and, in one fluid movement, grows to adulthood - a tall, dark-eyed young man.
Shiva has entered the Building. give him a big hand, ladies and gentlemen...

Bedlam screams, and falls to his knees as the Ochemata stares at him. The Mastigos begins smacking his head against the concrete floor, leaving patches of blood behind. "RUN" - Wolsey, to anyone that will listen. Banneker signals the retreat, and people start fleeing through the Portal. The Crucible plus their two hangers-on, though, stay put. "We can't leave Bedlam" - Damascus Beckett snarls something to the affirmative, bellows a challenge in High Speech and charges forward, giving the Ochemata his best death spell. The Ochemata - which until now has been concentrating on Bedlam - snaps it's head around to look at him and makes a chopping gesture with it's hand. Beckett stops as if lifted off his feet and starts to make choking sounds. Blood pours out of Beckett's eye sockets and nose. The Ochemata cocks it's head and Beckett's corpse drops to the ground like a discarded doll.
Killed by an *Exarch*. In person. It's the way he would have wanted to go. In game terms, Shiva's death-spell is 'just' an Aggravated Continuous Damage spell - it kills an average person in two rounds. More on the mechanics behind Shiva in a bit. For now, I'll note that Beckett has been literally Fated to die since "Scorpion", and I've been putting him in increasingly dangerous situations in the hope that one of them would kill him off in a thematic way, but the player characters keep on saving him. So I decided to signal Shiva's arrival in the Fallen World by bumping the old Nefandi off.

"...Shit" - Damascus, whispered. The Ochemata has now noticed them, and - ignoring Bedlam who is now unconscious behind it - is strolling toward them. Damascus adjusts his position, hoping to get a clear run at Bedlam. Cxaxa steps forward next to him. "Wolsey. Get her out of here" - Cxaxa "YOU get her out of here - and get yourself out too" - Wolsey Kali puts the Crown on "STOP" - Kali

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The Ochemata does not appear to notice. Kali pulls the Crown down off her face and tries to think of something else. The creature, though, has paused by Beckett's corpse and is looking at it as though it were a particularly interesting beetle. "No one follow me" - Damascus, muttered And he makes a break for it, trying to run in an arc past the Ochemata so he can reach Bedlam. As before, the sudden action attracts the Ochemata's attention and it snaps to him, making the hand gesture of doom. Damascus is held, crushed, by the same telekinetic force as he feels his mind boiling. Kali, desperate, points the Sceptre at Damascus and activates it. He is immediately released by whatever it was and drops to his knees, coughing up blood.
And that's *why* it does a relatively small amount of agg damage, but continuous over several rounds. So that there's a chance to dispel it with the artefacts and save the poor sod so marked out for brain-death. Despite that and his mind shields, Damascus took about half his health track there.

The Ochemata immediately looks in her general direction though not, she is thankful, right at her. Where is she? - Shiva The guys, thinking that it is probably the best course of action, stay silent. Cxaxa and Wolsey - the two that can see Kali despite the robe - try to put that out of their minds. There are a variety of winces as they feel their memories being paged through.
Not so funny now, is it?

Cxaxa and Wolsey run forward to get Damascus "Get BACK" - Wolsey "Get back YOURSELF" - Cxaxa They drag Damascus to his feet. Mycroft hovers in the background. "WOLSEY!" - Banneker The Hierarch is shouting through the Portal "WOLSEY! COME *ON*!" - Banneker "Go" - Wolsey, to Damascus and Cxaxa "I can't leave him" - Damascus Cxaxa grabs both Damascus AND Wolsey and tries to bodily drag them back toward the Portal, but they both shake her off. "Now is not the TIME" - Cxaxa, hissing Wolsey just angrily shakes his head, glancing at Kali

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Wolsey has a motive for staying here - he's not allowing Kali to be left behind with the Ochemata, as he thinks she'll do something... unwise. SAM: Kali stayed so she could still dispel anything the Ochemata threw at her Cabal - her friends.

"COME ON!" - Banneker The Ochemata frowns, and the Portal vanishes. "Where Is She?" - Shiva The air grows thick, like the pressure in the room is building. There's a horrible feeling of being Fixed, held in place. There is silence. Damascus keeps looking for an opening to move toward Bedlam again. Wolsey and Cxaxa are having a silent argument about who should retreat. Mycroft is trying to keep the Ochemata looking at him, but not to provoke it into killing him. Kali, terrified, is clutching the Sceptre and trying not to breath too loud. The Ochemata looks slowly around the room, and then addresses them all - each one of them (including Kali) thinking it's speaking directly to them. "One World" - Shiva And then it vanishes, in the blink of an eye. The plastic sheeting is blasted out as the pressure equalises, and the sound of the wind outside rises in a winter fury. Damascus limps to Bedlam, and checks him "He's alive... In a bad way" - Damascus Cxaxa goes to see him, trying to heal or at least hold the damage with Life magic. Wolsey is rooted to the spot, trying to keep his knees from buckling. "Are you there?" - Mycroft, to the empty room "I'm here. I... I can't take the Robe off. Samuel said, and it worked" - Kali "Samuel said?" - Wolsey She nods Damascus kneels next to Beckett's corpse. "Go on, to wherever you can find peace" - Damascus And, using Death and Matter magic, he turns the body to dust. . The fivesome stand. Cxaxa and Mycroft holding Bedlam between them. "... ... Now what do we do?" - Kali

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"We Fight" - Cxaxa

And yeah - she is maybe getting into this a little bit too much.

"*We*?" - Wolsey, to Cxaxa with a dangerous tone in his voice. She glares at him. As he glares back, his cell rings "Wolsey!? Wolsey is that you?" - Banneker "...Yeah. It's gone. Teleported. I think it's still in the city though" - Wolsey, wincing at the amount of static on the line "...Whole City's gone crazy. I've not seen a blizzard like this for years... Wolsey. We're all at the Consilium House. And someone just turned up..." - Banneker "We'll get there and rejoin you as soon as we can... what? Who? Someone turned up?" - Wolsey "A Seer, in a Puppet body. She said she wanted to talk.. And that she wanted to know where her Son was" - Banneker Wolsey looks from member to member of those still left at the building site. "Wolsey? Wolsey!? ...Wolsey, are you there..?" - Banneker Wolsey hangs up, and takes a deep breath.
TO BE CONCLUDED... As should now be obvious, the Ochemata is inhabiting the child of Hera and Seraph - and it was Hera that Kali sensed lurking near the nursery. More on the Blizzard that DC is now suffering next time - it's a product of the Ochemata's presence.

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Session 13.2: THE FINAL SESSION

Well, I finally made it this far. These last recaps have taken it out of me, though not in the usual way. My normal memory problems have vanished entirely - Mark said last recap was the most accurate one ever - but they're getting harder to write. Probably because I'm nearing the end. This thread... Be warned. I'm going to get mushy now. This thread has been Great. All of you guys have been great. I've done AP threads where no one commented. The constant encouragement has raised my confidence powerfully, to the point that I'm now seriously considering how to get into Freelancing. So many thanks to all of you. But first... I have my feature-length finale to finish. As I said at one point last time, this session was a good three hours longer than normal. Combine that with the knowledge that this is my very last chance to get anything down in these blue notes of mine, and you have the makings of an epic. I write this first blue note the evening of the 24th October... Let's see how long it takes me to finish the recap, eh? As per several of our earlier stories, this session contains spoilers for Reign of the Exarchs, specifically "The Throne" and the climax of that supplement. You all pretty much know that, but I feel the need to warn you all that if you read this recap, you'll have the ending of the sourcebook ruined for you. Everyone still onboard? Good. Here we go...

.... SUNDAY 31ST DECEMBER FOUR DAYS LATER...

If I had the benefit of time, I would have just picked up straight from the end of 13.1, but it was of the essence and I wanted to start off right on a slightly disjointed 'we're so very screwed' feel.

Washington DC is gripped in a blizzard that came out of nowhere just after sunset on the 27th. The metro isn't running, driving is dangerous in anything with less than fourwheeled drive and flights are grounded. All over the city the population huddle in their houses, workplaces and shelters, waiting it out. Cell phones are disrupted, phone and electricity lines are brought down by the storm with depressing frequency. Kali wakes up, and stares blankly at the pattern of grain in the wood above her. She's lying in a sleeping bag, the Robe still clasped around her inside it, with her head underneath a desk. Her few scrounged possessions - mostly the contents of her pockets four days ago - are tucked away down there, too. That way no-one standing in the doorway of the room can tell who it is sleeping down here. Or "see" an empty bag, as the case may be. When the Crucible arrived here at the Consilium Sanctum by way of Wolsey-Portal, they found that Hera had already been chased away. From what little they gleaned, the Ochemata is inhabiting the body of Hera and Seraph's child. Hera had given the boy up for adoption, but Seraph's death at the hands of the Pentacle Orders made her increasingly want him back. Kali gets up, and tries to negotiate getting changed while keeping the Robe on. Halfway through the technicalities, she stops and holds as still as she can. A familiar - all too familiar - pressure is at the back of her mind, playing over her. Searching for her. The Ochemata's attention moves on, and she finishes getting ready. Banneker quickly housed Kali in his office after being told that she couldn't take the

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Robe off, as an effort to keep it as under wraps as possible. Everyone else, though, is in the Great Hall. The ranks of seating have been removed, and camp beds set up in rows. Privacy is nearly non-existent and, as Mages value few things more, tensions are rising. There is a feeling of all being trapped together - unable to venture out even as much as the Sleepers are. Because the Ochemata is still out there.
These developments are all in the aim of strengthening my theme and/or setting plot pieces for the session. Most obvious, and most important, is the feeling the Pentacle have of being besieged, refugees in their own city. Although the sleeping arrangements might seem hokey to some, camping out in the great hall that we've seen used for the games of politics many times before says something about what's happening - how far they've fallen in such a short space of time, how the Ochemata is like a natural disaster and the emphasis on the humanity of the Pentacle Mages with such close quarters.

One group of Pentacle Mages are still braving the outside world, though - under Mara's leadership of their Caucus, the Adamantine Arrow continues it's work. Together with a few Guardians of the Veil and others that can't allow the Arrow to throw themselves into such terrible danger without doing something to help, the Arrow continues to strike at the Seer of the Throne Sancta they've identified. Each strike takes the best part of a day, moving through underpasses and metro tunnels to avoid the storm as much as possible, shifting to and from Twilight and the Shadow when obstacles in the physical become too great. No one, after that first day, Teleports or uses a Portal. No one's quite sure where the word came from, but in the close quarters it has spread like wildfire: Sympathetic spells are being *watched*. Portals attract 'His' attention and Teleportation is a suicidal move. Even telepathic communication is considered too risky, when an Exarch known to have powers over Space and Mind has taken on mortal form in the vicinity. Mara, though, laughs at suggestions of an Ochemata. To her, the creature is a Demon. A tremendously powerful demon that the Seers have summoned. She stubbornly orders attack after attack, and will not hear "excuses".
Mara's attitude - the sense that she's trying to re-prove herself to the Consilium by gambling with her own people's lives - is a ramping escalation. Rafe bought one of the few post-creation Rotes among the PCs for the specific purpose of gaining the advantage over Mara in a leadership struggle. I couldn't promise that it would go exactly as he planned, but I was damn well going to give him that leadership struggle.

Other, more cautious, Mages are warning those that stay inside the Sanctum, though. Cxaxa, Promethea and Jude had a narrow escape on the Friday when the Seer Sanctum they were staking out was attacked by a different group of Seers... And then both groups were attacked by the Ochemata and wiped out. Well, to hear their story of it less "attacked" and more "got in the way of". The Ochemata, as on that first fateful day, hardly seems to notice the lives it snuffs out.
It was important to me to show, right from the off, that the Ochemata is an equal-opportunity force of destruction. He's killing Seers that cross his path as well.

And now, this morning, Ebony has managed to get a message to the Sanctum by means of a Spirit courier. She's at the Athenaeum, by herself, and has been since the crisis began. She's starting to get worried, especially as the Athenaeum is a likely target for the Seers. ... Kali is joined by her Cabal mates, bringing her breakfast.

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"Is she in here?" - Mycroft Wolsey nods. Kali waves her arms energetically, and a blurring distortion is just about visible.
The Robe offers the equivalent of a high-potency Complete Invisibility, which despite the name is not *perfect*. There's a predator-like effect when she moves quickly.

"How is it?" - Kali, taking the food from Wolsey and digging in. "Cxaxa had a run in with Him, but got away unnoticed, and Ebony wants to be retrieved from the Athenaeum" - Damascus "Anyone we know died?" - Mycroft
Harry Potter shout out!

Heads are shaken "We should go to get her... Ebony. We need the Athenaeum" - Wolsey "You want to look something up?" - Damascus "Him. All of this... There has to be some reason why he's creating this storm..." Wolsey There's a knock at the door, and Banneker enters "Is she here?" - Banneker "Yes" - The Crucible "Sir.. We were just saying. We can't just sit here waiting for the defences to be breached. We could go to the Athenaeum, see if there's anything that could help, and get Ebony back." - Wolsey Banneker nods, considering. Wolsey continues trying to sell it. "The effects He's having..." - Wolsey "Are significant. We've taken some Knowings of the leys - and he's tainting the resonance of the city. It's like... His presence would have a vast emotional affect, but the energy is being grounded and drawn off into the leys. The entire Grid becomes slightly more... closed off. Boxed. Set in their opinions. Argumentative. If we didn't have the Grid, it'd all push onto his immediate vicinity and then we'd get Sleepers dying with the psychic shock of his being there." - Banneker "Maybe that's what it's for. The Grid" - Wolsey
Perhaps. Certainly lucky it's there, eh? "Knowings" instead of "Readings" is a Magical term from the Practice of the spells involved.

Banneker doesn't answer, still thinking "We could also research the Seers - what we learned from Oboloii. This 'Aegis'..." Damascus

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"Yes. Yes... It needs to be looked at immediately, and Ebony needs to get out of there before the Seers notice it's so poorly guarded. But I'm not sending you people" - Banneker They look at one another "I'm sending Dantor and a team to rescue Ebony and as much of the collection as they can. It wouldn't help you in any case - I am informed by Suleiman that the esoteric study of the Enemy and their servants isn't a very wide topic on their shelves. But there *is* another library that covers such things. If you agree, I'm sending you there while Dantor goes to the Athenaeum." - Banneker "Where is it?" - Wolsey "You've been in it several times. More than any of us" - Banneker "...Beckett's house?" - Wolsey Banneker nods "Beckett made the greatest study of the Seers, the Abyss and the Exarchs on the East Coast. He certainly had the time and the obsessive nature. And here is the heart of the matter: he defended his house with powerful spells. We're not sure how powerful, and whether they remain active after his death, but knowing Justin I would say that they were designed to be fatal." - Banneker
"Justin" was Beckett's real name. He was named for Harry Dresden's evil ex-mentor. And writing this, I've just had a huge could-shoulda-woulda moment. I may have seriously miscalculated by having dropped people's real first names throughout the Chronicle. I think it would have been far more powerful if people were only named after they died. 'His Name Is Robert Paulson'...

"You want us to break in?" - Kali "Not at all" - Banneker He regards Wolsey "He left it to you" Banneker "To me?" - Wolsey, confused "Justin's will was left with Dantor. When she reported in yesterday, she brought it with her. He leaves the Library in it's entirety, along with all it's contents, to Wolsey." (off their looks) "Don't look so surprised. Beckett often said you reminded him of himself: he had the greatest regard for you" - Banneker "I just never knew if he meant it" - Wolsey
I don't know how happy Wolsey is meant to be at the revelation Beckett thought of him as a younger version of himself, but this was always coming - it's not just something I did for the finale. Ever since Wolsey became interested in the Abyss, the Supernal and their interaction in the Fallen I have had it planned that he would end up with Beckett's library. It was Beckett's hope that Wolsey - who managed to get out of the Government Trap and avoid the falling-out with the Consilium that Beckett had - would be able to put it to more practical use than Beckett himself had. Beckett has had no opportunity to do anything other than the bookwork since he tried to kill Malakaii, but Wolsey is free to act.

"He meant it. You people and Shore were the last of his friends - I believe he left

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things to Gareth as well" - Banneker

I think it's been said before, but in the interest of clarity, 'Gareth' is Shore's real name.

"Do you have the will?" - Wolsey "Dantor still has it. Why?" - Banneker "He might have said something in it - some hint of how to get through his defences" Wolsey The Hierarch nods "Good idea... Good idea. Check before you leave." - Banneker He peers around "Kali? You've been quiet" - Banneker "...There's not much I can say" - Kali "How are you holding up?" - Banneker "I can feel Him Looking for me. In my head. The Robe stops Him from finding me, but..." - Kali
But, as Sam says in her notes, Kali has the thought constantly at the back of her mind through this session that all of the pain and suffering the Ochemata is causing would stop, immediately. If she took the Robe off.

"We will find a solution to this. We must." - Banneker They do not seem much cheered by the words. ... The Cabal decide that the best means of getting to Beckett's without the use of Space magic is to drive - it's far too far to walk, and a helicopter wouldn't fly in the storm. They therefore require a vehicle that can cope with the blizzard. Fortunately, this is Washington DC. Such vehicles abound - though finding one that isn't a) tracked and b) in a military base is more difficult. Kali half-heartedly suggests talking to her dad, but the idea is quickly dropped. Instead, the plan - cunning as it is - is to brave the great outdoors, spot a Humvee and steal it. But first, they need to find that will. Fortunately, it turns out that Shore and Dantor are themselves seeking Damascus, and the two groups run into one another in a corridor near to the exit. "Councillor. Provost" - Damascus, nodding to them "Damascus. I was hoping I'd find you. There's something I want to ask you" - Shore

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"As it happens, we were looking for you. I understand that Beckett left a will. May I see it?" - Wolsey, to Dantor Dantor nods and produces a folded document, which she hands over to Wolsey. As he reads it, Shore tells Damascus what's on his mind. "You heard about the run-in with the Ochemata?" - Shore "Cxaxa, Promethea and Jude. Yes" - Damascus "This is getting dangerous, Damascus. Mara is going to get people killed if she carries on" - Shore "Can't she be persuaded?" - Damascus "Not by me. Proteus is.. well.. he's taking her side. Jude is on ours, obviously. But she just says he's talking out of fear" - Shore Wolsey looks up "I don't want to be thought of as interfering in your Order's business, but... Have you thought about..." - Wolsey "...Removing her?" - Damascus Everyone looks sombre. "There are protocols. Ways of doing things. There is a strong case that she's failing her protectorate, and her vows to guide us. That's the relatively easy part. The hard part..." - Shore "...Is finding someone who can challenge her. Before we can remove her as head of our Caucus, we need a replacement" - Damascus
I never got the chance to delve into the Adamantine Arrow as an Order - I never really delved into any of them, actually, which is one of the things I've resigned myself to examining in any future Awakening Chronicles I might run. Note that it's not that Mara is endangering them that they're worried about - it's that she's failing her 'protectorate' and her oath-sworn duty. Such things the Arrow take very seriously.

"Marathon is trapped out at College Park by the storm." - Shore

Marathon, remember, is both a Provost, a Master AND an Adamantine Arrow - that doesn't get mentioned much, especially as I believe he's only had five speaking lines in the entire Chronicle. I obviously didn't want him to end up as the head of the Arrow, given the alternative of having it be someone we've actually seen over the last 12 stories and grown to care about, so I nixed the idea right here.

"Could you do it?" - Damascus Shore shakes his head "Not at the moment. I'm not what the Caucus needs. Not another Mastigos." - Shore
A bit clumsy, but I didn't want Shore either - despite the Crucible's earlier plotting to have him replace her, back during the Demon crisis in 'Who Benefits'? This is because I knew something else was going to happen to Shore later in the finale, which will become clear in a bit.

"Ulysses?" - Damascus

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"That's what I wanted to ask you about. I need you to talk to him" - Shore "Why?" - Damascus "I've tried to raise the subject of what Mara's doing, but.. This whole thing has hit him hard. Terribly hard." - Shore "I've seen him. In the great hall, staring into space. I thought he was meditating, or..." - Damascus "He's not meditating. He's just sitting. I think... We forget that Ulysses is as set in his beliefs as Mara is. I think he's scared. I think he's terrified. I think he thinks the Ochemata... is the Devil" - Shore "He might be right." (pauses) "I'll try. Let's go" - Damascus They leave together, leaving Wolsey, Mycroft and Kali with Dantor Wolsey reads the will. "'I owe my liberty to you. I was pleased when you turned from the path that would claim yours toward one of knowledge, and hope that this gift serves you well...'" Wolsey "He spoke of you often" - Dantor "I.. Nothing about defences. Maybe a good sign" - Wolsey "You are going to secure your inheritance?" - Dantor "At Banneker's request. I understand you have a mission of your own?" - Wolsey "The Athenaeum" - Dantor "And Ebony... When are you leaving?" - Wolsey Kali rolls her eyes in the background. Wolsey frowns. "Within the hour" - Dantor "I would have preferred to go myself. She shouldn't have been left out there for this long" - Wolsey Kali attempts to mime something about Wolsey and Ebony sitting in a tree "Is there something wrong, mistress Kali?" - Dantor Kali freezes
Some Mages, when being formal, call Kali 'Mistress' to denote her status as the head of a sizeable and powerful Legacy, in lieu of her having another title. Dantor or Banneker as Masters calling her "Adept" is technically correct but has overtones of being condescending to a lesser Mage, while that honorific indicates that they respect her as a prodigy and person of merit. It's also because she's known to be the closest confidante of an Archmage. Samuel may have left the political game himself, but he casts a long shadow.

"You can see me?" - Kali

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"Why would I not?" - Dantor

I'm not entirely sure why they assumed Dantor would be tainted, but it was very funny.

Kali shuffles, and her hand goes unconsciously to the Robe's clasp. Dantor casts Supernal Vision and looks Kali up and down. "That Robe.. There is a concealing spell emanating from it?" - Dantor "It.. uh..." - Kali Wolsey tries to catch Kali's eye and shake his head "It stops Shiva from seeing me" - Kali, blurting it out Dantor's eyes narrow "He's looking for you?" - Dantor Wolsey appears to be trying to signal Kali to shut the hell up "He... Well... I was told so. By Samuel" - Kali "By Samuel." - Dantor Wolsey is making choking noises "Well. I must prepare for my own trip. Good hunting to you, Wolsey. Mycroft. Mistress Kali" - Dantor And the Bokor smoothly leaves. Wolsey rounds on Kali, furious "Don't say anything! Don't gesture! Now Dantor knows it's after you - the more people know about it the more likely you are to be used as bait or just FED to it. I think you underestimate what a bunch of bastards you're in with here!" She starts to reply, but he cuts her off "I'm going to see what's keeping Damascus. Get out there and find us transport" Wolsey He storms off, leaving her equally furious. "Look at it this way... We get to go outside" - Mycroft . Damascus and Shore cross the great hall to the corner where Bedlam lies, kept unconscious by spells for his own good. "How is he?" - Damascus "Not good. He had a hard Awakening... He believes he saw an Exarch in

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Pandemonium when he was there. No one really gave much credence to it, given how unstable he was beforehand, but I believe him. I took him as my Apprentice... Damascus. In confidence?" (Damascus nods) "My telling people that the Ochemata can sense us using sympathetic magic? Well... I was told by Bedlam. You can see why I haven't told anyone" - Shore
The implication being that Bedlam saw this particular Exarch - the one projected as Shiva - but it's never concretely said. Bedlam started off as a character in this Chronicle long before I read Reign of the Exarchs, after which he took on several character traits of an npc called 'Remainder' in Matt McFarland's story. The resulting hybrid is a heavily disturbed young Mage with an especial affinity for the Exarchs, and an ability to sense their servants using a variant of Ring Sight. I *think* I've said before that he's Shore's apprentice, but I'm not sure. I never gave his backstory until this final session - I've always speculated about what happens if a Mage should be caught by an Exarch during their time in the Supernal Realms...

Sat near to Bedlam is Ulysses. "Master" - Damascus, sitting next to him "Since when do you call me that?" - Ulysses "I know... I haven't been your student for a long time, and I'm in John Dee's Legacy, but... I still think of you as my Mentor. I think I always will" - Damascus Ulysses looks up, eyes devoid of hope "You saved my life, Peter. When you visited me after the crash" - Damascus
Damascus is referring to his own Awakening. It's from his background but again I don't know if it ever made it into the Chronicle except as implication. Ulysses used magic to save Carl's life and was there when he woke up from his coma during which he'd Awoken in Stygia.

Ulysses returns to looking at the floor "I needed you then. Your Order needs you now" - Damascus "You want me to challenge Mara. You and Shore" - Ulysses "We want you to talk to her, Sir. She respects you, not us. You've always been the voice of reason in the Order" - Shore Damascus nods in agreement. "I can't see what to do, boys" - Ulysses "We have faith. There must be some way out of here" - Shore
Mark, who has watched Battlestar Galactica, wouldn't let me use 'All Along the Watchtower' as the song Samuel used to intrude into the Fallen World over the last story arc. I therefore amused myself by part-quoting it in dribs and drabs throughout the finale. He only spotted a couple of them: this wasn't one of them. See if you can do better!

"Please" - Damascus "...All right. I'll talk to her. I don't know what good it will do" - Ulysses "Thank you" - Damascus Wolsey, who arrived halfway through the conversation, watches.

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... Kali and Mycroft are outside, coats done up and trying to see through the whirling snow "How about that one?" - Kali Mycroft hears her, can't see where she's pointing, but spots the Humvee she's spotted, driving carefully toward them. "All right. How do we go about this?" - Mycroft Many means of getting the driver out are considered, but eventually Kali decides on the most expedient route. She casts Monkey's Paw at the vehicle, which sputters and dies. The driver, cursing, gets out and is hit by Mycroft's spell sending him to sleep. Mycroft quickly picks him up out of the snow, and they retreat - carrying the Sleeper back to the Sanctum. . Inside, they give the Sleeper to Shore, who's gone back to the exit with Wolsey and Damascus "When he wakes up, tell him that he collapsed in the street, and we're getting his car fixed, okay?" - Wolsey "Okay. Good luck" - Shore "Who's going with Dantor, by the way?" - Wolsey "Cxaxa, Promethea and Proteus. Ebony's Cabal plus a pair of heavy hitters. Let's hope it's enough" - Shore . Outside, Kali cancels her own spell and replaces it with Lucky Coin, while Mycroft gets behind the wheel. "Next stop, Beckett's House" Mycroft
The session, in the end, turned out to be divisible into five rough sections. This is section 2, which is the last plot-dump of the Chronicle.

Beckett's house is closed up and dark. The warning glyphs have faded and died. "I'll go in first" - Wolsey He turns the handle and opens the door - it was unlocked - and crosses the threshold. "Okay. Damascus, come on in" - Wolsey The Moros joins him without incident in the hall.

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Kali steps over the threshold, and everyone's Unseen Senses begin to tingle. "Kali, I invite you in" - Wolsey, quickly And whatever it was goes. "Mycroft, I invite you in, too" - Wolsey, relieved . As they move through the house, a feeling of being watched sets in. Beckett's resonance lies over the place like a shroud, making them feel like trespassers.
Beckett's Nimbus - I don't think I said this before either - is 'Transgression': everyone around him feels as though they've just done something truly shameful.

Reaching the library door, Wolsey repeats the list of invitations - just in case. Inside, in the windowless room, the feeling of being observed grows too strong for Damascus to be able to take without response. He casts Supernal Vision and detects no active spells in the room, but the feeling is still there. "Okay. Look for the Ochemata first" - Wolsey Easier said than done. Beckett's filing system is unorthodox to say the least, and they're painfully aware that they don't have the luxury of being able to explore the shelves over the course of a few weeks and some bottles of wine. "Here's something... 'On the Visitations of the Enemy'... It says here that Ochema are only a rumour" - Damascus
Ochema is the plural of Ochemata, though it doesn't seem intuitive that they're that way around. Speaking of plurals - does anyone know if my use of 'Sancta' as the plural of 'Sanctum' is correct?

Wolsey snorts "Yeah. Well... It *also* says that it's fundamentally the same thing as a Profane Urim, just on a much larger scale. Using either an Artefact up there, or it's own magic, an Exarch splinters a piece of it's mind and soul off and astrally projects it into a host body, overwhelming the host and suppressing the native soul in the process. What we're dealing with is only a piece of the Exarch's mind, like one of us casting Multitasking or something. Ochemata literally means 'Soul Sheath', as a description of the host" - Damascus "So the body is like the condom with which Shiva penetrates Reality?" - Wolsey "Urg. Yes" - Damascus "Does it have any weaknesses?" - Wolsey "How did they leave in the past?" - Kali (to Kali) "Doesn't say. And again doesn't say. But listen - he's a creature of Pandemonium, right?" - Damascus "How do we know that?" - Wolsey

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"Anurati saw him there in her Awakening" - Mycroft Damascus doesn't mention Bedlam, but nods. "So he might be weakest on the Minor Arcanum... We should try to use Matter against him" - Damascus "How?" - Kali "Well, He needs His mortal host to stay in this reality same as any other possession. We could always collapse a building on top of Him" - Wolsey "They also normally only turn up to counter the workings of an Archmaster... Samuel?" - Damascus "No. He said he couldn't see here when Shiva's here. He was afraid of it" - Kali "Then it might be here to fight the Ananke" - Damascus The room grows thick somehow, as the familiar sensation of the Ochemata's attention passes over them. Kali shudders. "You felt that?" - Kali "We felt it... But that's not all. You feel *that*?" - Mycroft "Like we're being watched?" - Wolsey "Like we're being watched" - Mycroft Wolsey checks the room with a Space-grounded Mage Sight, detects no scrying conduits and tells them as much. "I'm going to check Twilight. I think maybe this is a Spirit he put to guard the place" Damascus He does so, casting a Death spell to peer into Twilight. To Damascus' eyes, the room grows pale and silvery, a haze of half-seen books, shelves and walls with the silver shapes of his Cabal mates stood in the centre. And there, watching him, is someone he was not expecting to see. The ghost peers contemptuously at him through it's ectoplasmic spectacles. "... ...Hello, Malakaii" Damascus Malakaii's Story
I said last time that I fell in love with the idea of Malakaii's ghost turning up? Well, I had a quick turnaround and managed to get it into the chronicle. This whole scene *could* have just been a standard extended research roll, but I figured I'd make it a little more interesting. Plus, it's the first Ghost Mage I've shown in Broken Diamond, too (though not ever - the spin-off oneshot "Bleak House", which is recapped in this forum, has one as the antagonist). Story-wise, though they didn't ask, Beckett pressurised Mary into creating the Ghost. The rote to do so is in the Mysterium sourcebook, if you're interested - it requires a hefty Death mage with sidelines in Mind and Time.

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it, and sniffs. "The Crucible. My torment is now complete" - Malakaii "Malakaii... You're Beckett's defences?" - Wolsey "Beckett's 'Defences' are the pack of Spirits bound downstairs. No, I am Beckett's Librarian. Cursed to remain here and reveal secrets to the unworthy" - Malakaii, bitterly
Malakaii is an artificial Ghost - a mind summoned out of the past with Time magic from the point of his death and bound into a ectoplasmic form using Death magic. As such, he's significantly more self-aware than a normal Ghost (which in the nWoD tend to be of the 'replaying of their deaths' variety, and his mind is more complex, but he lacks his Legacy and Magic. Ghost Mages do exist, which manifest favourite Rotes as Arcanoi, and even their primary Arcana as Influences as a sort of halfform of their living magic. Interestingly (for crunch-heads), The Ochemata itself was statted through a three-stage process. I first created arbitrary stats for an ancient Archmage of puissant skill and power - Gnosis 10, Space 6, Mind 6, Matter (the Mastigos minor Arcana, remember) 4 and the other Arcana at 5. Converted *that* into a Ghost Mage, and then - using "Predators" for Werewolf converted *that* into a Spirit-Claimed using a baseline of 1 in each stat for the host (well, he is in a small child, after all). The result is a Spirit-Claimed with "Space Archmaster" "Mind Archmaster" and "Other Arcana" as Influences, a few rotes as Numina and attributes boosted quite considerably by the in-pouring of the "Ghost Mage" stage's Power, Resistance and Influence traits. It ended up really quite horribly strong - too strong for the Cabal to take on directly - but I felt moderately more honest with having arrived at stats for it. It *could*, however slim the chance, now fail a roll. And more importantly, as I said to the gang, anything with Stats can technically be killed. Incidentally, I choose for simplicity to believe that Shiva *is* a Mastigos, having Awakened in Pandemonium back when he was a priest-king of Atlantis. Technically, the Atlantean Mages wouldn't be limited to the Five paths modern Mages are, but it made more sense for him to have a weakness to Matter like Pandemonium-based things the Cabal were already familiar with. I figured that Rafe had shown a particular skill with coming up with inventive ways of using Matter magic, and that by exposing the chink in the Ochemata's armour like that they would maybe be okay if they decided to take it on. Plus, they had the Save Point coin, which I could bring into play if any of them got killed. The thing I'm trying to get across here is how pre-planned Shiva was, and how much thinking I did before introducing a creature of it's power (nearly at the "no stats" level) to the Chronicle.

"How are you bound here?" - Damascus "My Soul Stone. Amongst the many uses he put it to, he had the Libertine Woman use it to copy my mind into Twilight form" - Malakaii "Why haven't you faded?" - Wolsey "Mary released the spell used to create me. With Beckett dead, I pass to a new master" - Malakaii "So... You have to take Wolsey's orders?" - Kali Malakaii glowers at her. "Do you know what's in the books?" - Damascus "I would hardly be able to act as Librarian without knowing, would I?" - Malakaii "All right. What can *you* tell us about the Ochemata? Why this snowstorm?" Wolsey "The stuff of Pandemonium entering this world changes from Subtle to Gross Arcana, as differences in Mind - perceived and felt separations between individuals - become physical differences and separations. We exist in many Spaces because there are walls between our Minds" - Malakaii 767

"And he's trying to stop that?" - Mycroft, frowning "Far from it, whoever you are. He exists to create it. The Fallen World and it's rules are His creation, along with His fellow Exarchs. The storm is a manifestation of this he creates, through his Will, the walls between us all. In his presence, the world reacts and enforces those walls. Out there are thousands of Sleepers, all alone and scared, locked into their small positions. Kept in their boxes and pigeonholes. The storm is a metaphor, a resonating effect of that central idea." - Malakaii "It must be more than that. As Shiva is part of the 'Real World' and is one of the shapers of the Fallen World, *everything* he does ought to affect the Fallen World in small ways. Much like the snowstorm, but at even lower levels. As Above, So Below. He'll be warping our reality just by being here... Which means we should be able to tell what he's doing by seeing *what* he's doing, if that makes sense" - Damascus "It would seem to be a sound hypothesis" - Malakaii, cagily "Mycroft? Can you check that?" - Damascus The Eleventh Question blanches "I'd really not use my powers on anything to do with Him" - Mycroft Understandable, really. "What does 'One World' mean to you?" - Damascus Malakaii ignores him "Answer him" - Wolsey The ghost hisses in displeasure. "A motto of several Ministries of the Seers of the Throne, notably the Ministries of Mammon, Unitas and Panopticon. In all cases, it is expressed in a variety of forms such as the Eye atop the Pyramid. It serves to remind the Seer that there is only one Fallen World, and that it is for total supremacy over it that they struggle. To Unitas it is an Ideal to be achieved. To Panopticon it is a shorthand for that which is observed by the Exarchs and in so being observed is created. To Mammon it is a goal - what they seek to acquire." - Malakaii "Are you in pain?" - Kali "What? No." (peers at her) "Oh. It's *you*. The daughter" - Malakaii "That's right" - Kali "I should have killed you when I had the chance. But to answer your question, whelp, No. I.. exist. I am not Malakaii. Malakaii has passed on , and his Soul has gone on to the Great Mystery according to his Karma. I am a.. thing made of Shadow and Twilight, a copy of his mind it amuses your dear friend Beckett to torture." - Malakaii "I need to know something" - Kali

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The Ghost looks argumentative. "Answer her questions" - Wolsey "As you wish. Ask away, idiot girl" - Malakaii She ignores that "You went to India to confirm that my mother had killed Ashoka's Cabal..." - Kali The ghost laughs, a thin, hollow sound. "I did no such thing" - Malakaii "You didn't?" - Kali, long-held suspicions growing "No. I already knew that Anurati was innocent. I knew that with her particular brand of faith she would be easy to manipulate, and to blame if anyone came asking questions - as they did, with Mara" - Malakaii "Who killed them?" - Kali "I did." - Malakaii Kali scowls "Why?" - Kali "I wanted the Crown, of course. I had seen it, used it even - Ashoka was *very* proud of it, the old fool. I couldn't find it, and assumed they had hidden it. I didn't realise until too late that Anurati herself had already stolen it, used it to wipe their memories of her doing so and fled from them. By the time I did realise, she wiped my mind as well. And much good it did her." - Malakaii "Did you know we were collecting the Artefacts of the Dethroned Queen?" - Kali "No. I... Malakaii... Never learned that in life. I thought it was an Artefact, a rare and special variant of a Profane Urim. Which, I hasten to add, it is. I would speculate it is what the Exarchs use in the Supernal Realms to create Ochemata, bereft of most of it's function by being trapped in the rough matter of our world" - Malakaii
I wanted to reinforce the idea that the Regalia are designed to be used in the Supernal Realms fairly quickly. The Crown is what an Exarch might use to command it's servants and appear as an Ochemata. The Throne is the artefact used for viewing the Fallen World, and the Robe to remain hidden from it. The Sceptre, then, becomes the artefact used to *create* the Fallen World. It cancels spells because it's reinforcing the design of the reality the Exarchs have manufactured. The characters, being mortal, lack the ability to alter the reality it creates. Sutterton Farms, therefore, becomes a mini 'Fallen World' preset into the Sceptre as a defence. This will be very, very important later on in the session.

Questions answered. "Do you want to be released?" - Damascus "It hardly matters. I am not Malakaii" - Malakaii "But do you want to be released?" - Damascus

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"...yes" - Malakaii "Are we done?" - Damascus, to the others There is nodding. Damascus casts a spell to remove the library as Malakaii's Fetter. The ghost breaks up into Ectoplasm and fades back into the Twilight, the forces keeping it here gone. The room grows thick as the Ochemata searches for Kali again. Everyone waits for His attention to pass by.
There is deliberate parallel here between the Ochemata and what Anurati used to do, mixed in with a whole "Eye of Sauron" thing.

"We need to get back" Wolsey Shore is waiting for them, pacing, when they return. His face is grim. "What's..." - Damascus Wolsey realises. "What happened to Dantor's team?" - Wolsey "Seers... They managed to get the Athenaeum sealed, but there were a lot of enemy Mages. Dantor's dead" - Shore "WHAT?" - Damascus "Promethea barely escaped with her life. Jude and Link were the back-up team - they managed to get to Cxaxa and Ebony and all four came back okay ten minutes ago. Link's injured, Ebony's pretty shaken... And Cxaxa's talking about herself in the third person" - Shore
And we know what THAT means, don't we kids? Cxaxa's delicate mental balance takes a battering every time she gets overly stressed. On the other hand, acting like Querephas probably saved her and Ebony's life here. The disastrous mission to the Athenaeum is something that would have been nice to have had player involvement in, but time pressures, and... you get the idea. I like to think it works okay here as it is, with the Cabal arriving in the aftermath of it - none of the recriminations come back to them, and they can deal with the fallout as neutral third parties. Well, not really neutral as I wanted to definitely establish that Dantor's death is Mara's fault. Which should give Rafe that last little nudge and out of character prompt as if to say 'feel free to depose her any time you like'

"Proteus?" - Damascus "That's the other thing you should know, Carl... Proteus never went on the mission. He was diverted to a scouting party. By Mara." - Shore Damascus closes his eyes. "What happened? We left hours before they did, and, what... you forgot to have that conversation with Mara?" - Damascus "Thank you, Disciple, for reminding me of that" - Shore "This needs to end now" - Damascus

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"I concur. You have a plan?" - Shore "I've had a surprise in store.. Something I've been saving in case it came to this. Hopefully, it and my Attainment should see me through. If you want me to do it" Damascus "Get everyone on side. We need supporters. I can trust you to do this?" - Shore "You can" - Damascus "All right. I have to find Banneker now - tell him what's going on. With Dantor... After Dantor, I'm now Councillor" - Shore "I wish it were in better circumstances. And I apologise - I didn't mean to imply this was your fault. We know whose fault it is." - Damascus "Oh, no, I'll need someone to remind me of that sort of thing... *Provost*." - Shore He claps Damascus on the shoulder and stalks off. Wolsey, realising he's off to see the Hierarch, hurries after him. "Congratulations, I guess" - Mycroft "... Yeah" - Damascus
First and only PC to get made Provost! This is why I didn't put Shore in as a shoe-in for Mara replacement - I knew he was going to be a Councillor, having made the decision to kill Dantor off. Everyone in-setting has assumed for months that Shore will make Beckett his Provost when the time comes, but.. well.. that'd be kind of hard right now.

He shakes himself awake, and hurries to the main hall. Kali and Mycroft trailing behind him. Cxaxa and Promethea are not hard to find - they're having a good old fashioned yell at Proteus, right in the middle of everyone. Kali takes note that Cxaxa is alternating between "I" and "The Cxaxa", and that Promethea herself is being even more prickly than normal. Part of that is probably that she's justifiably furious, but between the lines... "... She's terrified. Scared witless, and covering it" - Mycroft, whispered "Isn't everyone?" - Kali . Damascus has found Link. The Sentinel is sitting, watching the Cxaxa / Promethea / Proteus argument with his arm in a sling.
Link was actually injured by a combination of pattern-scouring himself for mana and paradox, which is why he hasn't been healed - it's resistant damage.

"You agree something needs to be done?" - Damascus "And quickly" (winces) "You spoken to the old man, yet?" - Link "On my way" - Damascus

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"I'll back you and Shore. No question. Jude will too, after yesterday." - Link "Proteus?" - Damascus They regard the argument "Has the good grace to look ashamed of himself, but he might back his girlfriend anyway." - Link "Who else?" - Damascus "Just Bedlam" - Link "Let's leave him to his sleep for now" - Damascus "You have a plan?" - Link "A duel of Psychic Assault. My Legacy should give me enough of an advantage to cancel her experience" - Damascus "*That's* your plan?" - Link "It has the benefit of simplicity. The alternative is to duel her, and that could go either way. Let's hope she doesn't know much about other Legacies and falls for it" Damascus "Let's hope" - Link . Wolsey, meanwhile, is waiting while Shore talks to Banneker. When the Adamantine Arrow is finished, he goes to join Damascus and Link. Wolsey approaches the Hierarch. "Tell me you learnt something" - Banneker "He can be killed, or the shell he's in can, at any rate." - Wolsey He has a sudden thought "Promethea got separated from the others, right?" - Wolsey Banneker nods "...How did she get back here?" - Wolsey . "Ulysses" - Damascus Ulysses gets to his feet, and looks at Damascus, Link and Shore. The old man sighs "All right then. Let's get this over with" - Ulysses

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The Adamantine Arrow, looking ready for a fight, march across the Great Hall, Damascus at the lead. In their sights: Mara, who is loudly telling everyone who will listen that she would do it again, and that while Dantor will be missed she couldn't have prevented it. Proteus sees them coming, but Cxaxa and Promethea have him pinned down. "Sentinel. With us, please" - Damascus Cxaxa looks like she's about to object, but sees the look on Damascus' face and backs off. Proteus in tow, Damascus and company clear the remaining distance. "Mara. A word" - Damascus Mara looks up, seeing her Caucus surrounding her. "We have concerns" - Ulysses He looks to the others. Shore nods. Ulysses, silently elected the spokesperson, continues "What happened this afternoon was avoidable. We have a duty..." - Ulysses "Don't lecture me about Duty, Peter. I've been running this Order while you've been hiding in the corner" - Mara "Be that as it may, you must concede that the situation has become too dangerous. The Creature..." - Ulysses "'The Creature' is just a Demon. Just. A. Demon. Not an Exarch. Not an Abyssal. Not the Devil - just a Demon" - Mara "And you would know" - Link, sourly "What?" - Mara "Have you seen Him, Mara?" - Damascus "Well..." - Mara "Because I have, and I believe. Whether you do or not is immaterial - what matters is that you are endangering lives. How many more Dantors must we have?" Damascus "That was not my fault" - Mara "No, Mara, it never is, is it?" - Damascus "Say it" - Mara, dangerously "You are failing your protectorate" - Damascus "Are you challenging me, Disciple?" - Mara "It's Provost, actually" - Link

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Damascus waves Link quiet "Yes, I think I am. Master. I have a suggestion of terms, since you clearly think highly of your skill with the Mind Arcanum. Hit me. Once. Match a Master against a Disciple. Then I hit you, and repeat. If I'm still standing, I win." - Damascus There is a long pause "Do you think I'm an idiot? I know whose Apprentice you are." - Mara
Yeah. Good idea, and Rafe will probably disagree, but that wasn't the best of plans. Ah well. RAFE: Although it would still have been pretty unfair. Namely, based on a guess at her stats that I don't know for sure, she'd have been rolling either a chance die or a single (non-chance) die against me, depending on whether she had the rote or not, and I'd have been rolling about 10 dice against her...

Damascus mentally concedes the point "I didn't realise the doings of the Uncrowned Kings were that common knowledge, but all right. If you're afraid to try..." - Damascus "Duello" - Mara "I accept. But as we both agree that this not about knowledge, but the wisdom to use it well... let's limit it to Disciple-level Arcana." - Damascus "... Agreed." - Mara
RAFE: Given she'd already turned down a contest where - as far as many people would have been concerned - she should have had an advantage... Evidently she felt pressured into accepting that one. Or you were just being very nice to me. :-)

"Seconded" - Proteus and Shore Ulysses begins to cast Squaring the Circle. Damascus turns to Jude. "Jude. I'm always prepared to admit I'm wrong. Maybe you could save us having this duel. You're our Acanthus. Tell me... 'What is the fate of the Arrow and the Consilium if Mara remains Warleader?'" Damascus Jude casts a divination. And slowly looks horrified "To fall. To... fall." - Jude Damascus glances at Mara. She pretends she hasn't heard. He looks at the gathered Arrow. "Fine. I've stepped up to the plate. But if I fail... You know what you have to do." Damascus They all, even Proteus, nod. .

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Wolsey, meanwhile, has reached the "walking wounded" area, where Ebony is now sat watching Bedlam. "How are you?" - Wolsey She shudders. "I'll live. More than..." - Ebony She trails off. "What happened?" - Wolsey, gently "We were securing the Collection - shifting it into... Well. We were ambushed by a group of Seers. Promethea tried to open a Portal back here, but got pulled through. Then Dantor and Cxaxa held the Seers off until the Sentinels arrived... Dantor went down fighting. Cxaxa was shrieking and throwing lightning everywhere..." - Ebony "Promethea was 'pulled through'?" - Wolsey, frowning "When she tried to make the Portal. She'd made the sympathetic connection, but she vanished before the Portal opened" - Ebony Wolsey looks across the hall, where Promethea and Cxaxa are now deep in conversation with Mycroft and Kali - it turns out they can both see her. "Excuse me a minute" - Wolsey . Ulysses has created the Duelling Circle, and Mara and Damascus face one another. They're drawing quite a crowd - Banneker is watching from a discrete distance, trying to not shout words of encouragement to Damascus. Mara and Damascus stare into one another's eyes, daring each other to cast the first strike. . "Ladies" - Wolsey Cxaxa looks him up and down "Wolsey" - Cxaxa, flatly He smiles, without humour. "Promethea - could I ask you something?" - Wolsey Promethea, who wasn't paying attention, realises he wants to talk to her and not Cxaxa. She frowns and nods. "What happened?" - Wolsey

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He focuses on her, ignoring his ex-wife entirely. "I'd established the scrying link, and was fashioning the Imago for the Portal to follow. I felt... HIM. And I was almost.. pulled, forced through the link. I could feel Pandemonium all around me, like I was being crushed between this world and the realm of the Watchtower, and then... I materialised here. They all think I teleported by accident." - Promethea "But you didn't?" - Wolsey "I never cast anything other than the Scry. Wolsey - I could feel Him looking at me. Examining me, during it. It was the worst thing I've ever experienced..." - Promethea Wolsey thanks her for her time and walks - not running - to Banneker "Sir... We have a problem" - Wolsey, whispered. . Back at Promethea and Cxaxa, Mycroft and Kali wonder what that was about. "Good to know Tom's doing okay" - Cxaxa, sarcastically Kali rolls her eyes "You're all right?" - Cxaxa "I'm... I've been better" - Kali Cxaxa pats her arm, sympathetically "Girls... The Duel" - Mycroft . In the duelling circle, Mara and Damascus suddenly break into action. Damascus wins the advantage, sending a hammer of matter toward her, which she hastily deflects. Mara's first strike, a twisting translucent snake of primal energy, hits Damascus squarely in the chest making his knees buckle. His hammer-shaped riposte has almost as much force behind it, hitting her in the shoulder and halfspinning her. Her second strike makes him grunt with pain and struggle to stay upright. He realises he's not going to survive another blow.
She's duelling with Prime, using Space as a shield. He's duelling with Matter using Death as his. They are in fact, with her having rashly agreed to use only Arcana she's a Disciple in, equally matched - they have equal Willpower scores. After her first two attacks Damascus has only one single willpower point left: Mara's got four left, but the next attack roll is his. However, he won the first blow. RAFE: Which was probably the only reason I won - the +1 bonus that gives cancelled out her Gnosis 6 to my Gnosis 5. Meaning that we were rolling exactly the same dice-pools. It then went two strikes each... leaving me on one willpower and her on about 3, and I dropped her on my third attack, with a very lucky roll. If she'd won either the stare-down *or* the first strike, I'd've been toast.

. "What is it?" - Banneker, quietly 776

"Promethea didn't come here under her own power. The creature forced her through when she tried to Portal past it, and appears to have scanned her in some way when it did it. Which means it knows where we are." - Wolsey Banneker, distracted from the Duel, regards Wolsey, worried "That's what the Storm is.. It likes people being where they are, or where they're meant to be. Using magic to get past that seems to attract it's attention" - Wolsey "And that would lead it..." - Banneker "...Here" - Wolsey "How long do we have?" - Banneker "Frankly, I'm surprised He isn't here already" - Wolsey
I'll say why he wasn't there already in a few moments. See if you can guess.

. "Come on, Carl" - Cxaxa, whispered Mycroft glances at her, quirking an eyebrow
This sailed by the characters, so I went more blatant later on. Wolsey's irritation to the contrary, Cxaxa isn't trying to reconnect with 'The Cabal'. She's trying to reconnect to Kali (who's her friend) and Damascus. Specifically. Look at last session, with the Cxaxa-Damascus action sequence...

. Damascus summons his last reserves and throws his mental hammer square at Mara's head. It's slowed slightly by her shield, but connects. Mara wobbles, and collapses backwards. The Duelling Circle breaks, the spell completed, and Mara is caught by Proteus. Damascus, holding on to Shore for support, blankly processes what just happened. "Victor" - Ulysses, quietly, indicating Damascus with an outspread palm. Damascus blinks, but before he can reply, he's interrupted. "...ALL RIGHT! EVERYONE!!" - Wolsey, bellowing He gets the Hall's attention "We need to move! Suleiman's Sanctum is only a few blocks away - we should be able to get there on foot but we need to go *now*. The Ochemata could be on it's way already!" - Wolsey He jumps down from the seat he's been using as a podium, and hurries to the Walking-Wounded area. "You okay to make the trip?" - Wolsey

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Ebony nods, and then looks at Bedlam "We need to wake him up" - Wolsey "I'll do it. He knows me" - Ebony Leaving her to do that, Wolsey hurries over to his own Cabal. "Cxaxa. Ebony might need a hand" - Wolsey Cxaxa gives him A Look, and goes.
Wolsey has a thing throughout the final session of reminding Cxaxa that she's not in his Cabal any more - she's in Promethea and Ebony's.

"Damascus?" - Link Damascus nods to himself, and addresses his Order "I want us spread out, guarding the edges of the group - we defend the noncombatants, agreed?" - Damascus Nods all around And then the air begins to turn thick "HE'S ON HIS WAY! MOVE!" - Wolsey The Consilium are marshalled - a shaky-looking Bedlam supported by Ebony and Promethea while Cxaxa prowls beside - and begin to head out into the storm. Leaving even what little possessions they had behind. Kali and Wolsey linger until the last moment, feeling Shiva's Resonance draw all around them. Kali toys with the clasp of the Robe. "You coming?" - Wolsey Her hand drops, and without a word she follows the others out.
So, to recap that section - everyone's even more fucked than they were at first, and Damascus is now both a Provost and the Head of the Adamantine Arrow. The moving of Sanctums wasn't something that was pre-planned: note that Shiva doesn't manifest until Wolsey puts forth the theory that he would. Mark was pretty histrionic about it in character, and this late in the game I didn't want Wolsey to look like an idiot, so I adjusted my plans to make him turn out to be entirely correct and forwardthinking instead. Promethea's unfortunate Portal accident was another "show, don't tell" thing of reinforcing the setting of the session, displaying what happens if you try. Portals and Teleportations are being *watched*.

The lights flicker on in the City Soul Cabal Sanctum, the black walls, minimal lighting and expensive art offset somewhat by the bedraggled refugees. Kali finds herself next to Bedlam "He can't find her" - Bedlam Wolsey glances at him, then to Banneker "Do you have anywhere we can talk?" - Wolsey

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The Hierarch nods and mutters something to Suleiman "My office is at your disposal" - Suleiman Banneker jerks his head, and Kali starts out in that direction. "Bedlam. Would you like to join us?" - Wolsey Bedlam looks pleased to be included, and happily follows Kali "I'll be there in a minute. I have things to sort out" - Damascus . Banneker turns the lights on with a wave of his hand. Kali slumps into Suleiman's reclining chair. "No more Portals. Not even in emergencies. We don't have anywhere left to run" Banneker "No more Sancta?" - Wolsey, rubbing his forehead "Something I've not been spreading around: The Seers have been breaking into our Sancta just as much as we've been attacking theirs. Including yours - Dantor said it had been breached by a Pylon two days ago. They seem to have left empty-handed" - Banneker "Well, they would have. The Artefacts are here. Do you know which Ministry it was?" - Wolsey "No" - Banneker "Pity" - Wolsey
It was Mammon: They were looking for the Artefacts

"This isn't going to end until someone has all the Artefacts, right? But Mammon have the last two" - Kali "We don't know that" - Wolsey "He wants this to stop" - Bedlam Everyone looks at him. He shifts uncomfortably. "But to stop properly" - Bedlam Banneker considers "Did you find anything out about Mammon?" - Banneker . Outside, Damascus is briefing the Arrow on a slight change of priorities.

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"No more harassing the enemy, but I'll not lie. This isn't going to end without a fight but it will be one we pick deliberately. For now, rest, get yourselves centred. We'll talk more later" - Damascus He heads for Suleiman's office, noting Cxaxa lurking at the doorway on his way in. . "Miss much?" - Damascus "Mammon." - Mycroft "And congratulations, Provost. I wish it were in better circumstances" - Banneker "Hierarch" - Damascus "We were discussing Mammon." - Banneker "We need to find their Sanctum. Find the remaining Artefacts" - Mycroft They mull it "Okay.. Whiteboard" - Mycroft "Are you going to burn this one?" - Wolsey, wryly Banneker looks confused "Same way we found Anurati. Look for the secondary signs. The Minister will require Mana, a Hallow - maybe a Demesne. He'll need resources, somewhere his minions can go" - Mycroft "Money" - Damascus "Financial Districts, then. Is there anywhere where the Resonance has altered like that? Before Shiva, I mean?" - Wolsey "Speaking of the resonance, we have this theory about what Shiva might be doing to it" - Damascus He outlines the "as above, so below" theory. "I have an apparatus of sorts, in my own Sanctum. A ley-map of the city. I could use it to try to find such a thing, but... It would involve a spell going out through the leys" Banneker "Which would attract the Ochemata" - Damascus They're stumped. "Did you learn anything at Justin's house?" - Banneker "Nothing. Even their motto is just a motto." - Damascus "What motto?" - Banneker

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If Banneker seems to be leading somewhere with this, it's because I have been paying very careful attention to the Cabal's conversations with him. At no point until now did they *ever* mention "One World" to him. Strange but true, and good - I was hoping that this would maybe come earlier in this session, but this seems as good a point as any to get it done. The important point, of course, being that Banneker knows what it means. I said last time that I wanted the players to have the chance to figure it out themselves. It reads a bit quick here, but that "They're stumped" covers about five minutes of utter silence. In retrospect, imagining that they would figure out the link - that "One World" IS the Seer Sanctum, as in "It's Name", was a bit hopeful. Which is why it's Banneker getting this right, him being the most believable source for such a revelation. Having decided to make the Architect-Geomancer the source of the revelation, though, I thought I'd go the extra mile...

"One World" - Damascus "One world. One world... Where have I..? Let me think on this" - Banneker He absently gets up and leaves, leaving the Crucible and Bedlam behind. Wolsey looks, curious, at the door "Wait here a second" - Wolsey He goes out, to find Banneker staring out of the window. "It'll be dark soon" - Banneker Wolsey says nothing "I think I know what 'One World' is... Tom... I think this is my fault" - Banneker "How?" - Wolsey "I think it's one of mine" - Banneker "One of your Buildings?" - Wolsey Banneker nods, unhappily "I believe so, yes. If I'm right, it's a business campus past the beltway. I thought it was just another job. Made my usual corrections to the leys... God. If we're very, very lucky then the Seers won't know who I am either" - Banneker "Can you check?" - Wolsey "The blueprints would be at my office. As well as the ley-map. We need to get out there. Tom, I can't ask you to do this..." - Banneker "You want me to come?" - Wolsey "If anything happens, I need you to get the plans back here. We'll take one other. But we need to get there in one piece" - Banneker Damascus has quietly left the office, and heard the last line "Someone who can get you there through Twilight" - Damascus He leaves, off to see his constituents. "Go tell the rest of your Cabal. I'll ask Thursday to come with us" - Banneker

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Thursday just popped into my head at that point when Damascus mentioned needing someone who could cast Ghost Gate. Besides, I hadn't featured him yet this session, and it gave me the opportunity to have a last bit with the Bokor.

. Wolsey returns to the nearly empty room. "Where'd Damascus go? And where's Mycroft?" - Wolsey "Off seeing how everyone is" - Kali "Right. Well... I'm off out with Banneker and Thursday. If I'm not back in a few hours... It was... Yeah" - Wolsey "Good luck" - Kali "Thanks - and keep that Robe on. No matter what, alright? Bedlam... Can you watch Kali for me?" - Wolsey The younger Mastigos nods. Wolsey leaves, meeting Banneker (now wearing a very big coat) and Mr Thursday near the elevator. Thursday acknowledges Wolsey's presence wordlessly, and the three of them set off. . Bedlam is staring, quite intently, at Kali "You feel alone" - Bedlam Kali blinks "That's what he does. He makes everyone feel alone. Too much confusion." Bedlam "He's looking for me. The longer I stay, the more people are going to get hurt" - Kali "Is it you he's looking for? Or the woman who you're dressed as?" - Bedlam Kali tries to compose an answer, when there's a knock at the door "H..hello?" - Bedlam "David? It's Amanda. Can I come in?" - Cxaxa
Statistically, there should be a lot more Daves among the real names of the npcs, but I wanted to save my own name for the last one revealed.

Bedlam lets her in. "How're you doing?" - Cxaxa Kali starts to answer, but tenses up as she feels the Ochemata search for her again. Bedlam whimpers, screwing his eyes shut. "He's still out there. The Seers still have my Throne. Damascus is being a war leader. Wolsey's out getting himself killed. The usual" - Kali

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Cxaxa looks sympathetic "If you need anything... Forget about My and Tom's troubles - ask. Alright? We are... I am your friend" - Cxaxa "'We'? What's going on with that?" - Kali, gently "Since the fighting started, I've been using Her memories more and more.. Casting spells of Arcana I've never learned. I'm in control. I *am*." - Cxaxa "If you say so" - Kali, sadly "Your Throne? What's going on with that?" - Cxaxa "We think the Minister of Mammon has the remaining Artefacts. We need all of them to fulfil the Ananke's conditions, and we reckon it's that that Shiva's here to take part in. So until it happens..." - Kali "He's not going anywhere" - Cxaxa "That's right." - Kali "...Can I ask you a personal question?" - Cxaxa Kali tilts her head "...Are you still seeing Carl?" - Cxaxa She considers. "...I never thought I was. Not properly. But no, not for some time" - Kali "Why not?" - Cxaxa "It just didn't go anywhere. Just a bit of fun" - Kali "Is he with anyone else?" - Cxaxa, sympathetically "I don't think so" - Kali Cxaxa nods to herself
Duplicitous! Cxaxa was always fairly interested in Damascus, even before she split from the Cabal - he had considered 'going there' back after Sutterton Farms put paid to her and Wolsey's marital happiness.

. Banneker, Wolsey and Mr Thursday have shifted themselves into Twilight and are crossing the city in insubstantial form, navigating through the grey, ghostly form of the world visible in that state of existence. Reaching the lobby of Banneker's architect's firm, Thursday casts Ghost Gate and they re-solidify back into material form.

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The wind howling outside is getting worse. "It doesn't look like anyone's been here. We should hurry" - Banneker They enter the elevator, and it begins to rise. "The blueprints are all kept on disc in the data store - I'll point you in the direction when we get upstairs. You're looking for a file from 2004, on behalf of the Pyramid consortium. You two find the disc, while I take my readings of the ley lines." Banneker "If He notices what we're doing?" - Wolsey "Then you two run, and get the disc to Suleiman" - Banneker The lift reaches the top, and they split up. Wolsey and Thursday hurry to a long, dimly-lit room lined with stacks of files and DVD cases. They begin hunting through as their Unseen Senses note the start of Banneker's ley-scrying ritual.
Banneker's ritual is a extended-casting spell designed to scout out the ley lines in a very large area. It requires the use of his dedicated magical tool for the Prime Arcanum - his model / ley-map of the Diamond.

Almost immediately, the air begins to grow thick. "We must hurry" - Thursday, unnecessarily "GOT IT" - Wolsey, grabbing a DVD case and a blueprint tube. They run back to the elevator "BANNEKER!" - Wolsey Banneker's spell concludes, and they see the Hierarch leaving his office and heading toward them. And then Wolsey's legs turn to lead, figuratively, the blood rushes to his head and Thursday swears as the Ochemata materialises in between them and Banneker. "TOM! RUN!" - Banneker The Ochemata glances dismissively at Wolsey and Thursday, standing next to the lift, and casually advances on Banneker. Wolsey hammers the elevator "call" button "RUN!" - Banneker The Ochemata gestures, and Banneker begins to scream. The elevator doors open with a "ping!" behind Thursday and Wolsey, and they jump backward into it. Thursday says a harsh word in High Speech and disintegrates the elevator's cables. The car drops down it's shaft, emergency breaks doing their job and slowing the descent to bone-jarring but not fatal. They run out into the storm, and over the sound of the wind hear glass shattering up above. Banneker's body, limp, comes floating too-light down to them.

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Thursday kneels at Banneker's side when he comes to rest on the sidewalk, blood pouring out of his nose, tear ducts and ears. "I..." - Banneker "He's alive" - Thursday Wolsey looks up. The Ochemata, framed in the broken window of Banneker's office, looks right back down at him. Thursday grabs Wolsey by the collar and hauls him into Twilight "We need to go" - Thursday, hefting Banneker And they run. After a few minutes Wolsey looks back. The Ochemata appears in Twilight with a pulse of pressure, stares at their retreat and then vanishes. Gone. "Why'd it let us go?" - Wolsey
Banneker, being attacked by the Ochemata's agg-damage attack, smashed the window and threw himself out before casting a Forces spell to lower the effect of gravity upon himself. 'Feather Fall' for the nWoD.

He thinks. "It hadn't see that before. It's when we do something interesting" - Wolsey
Or just get out of it's way / stop doing whatever it was that aggravated it. Because here's the deal - the Ochemata regards the Fallen World, quite rightly from it's point of view, as a false world it's projected itself into. The inhabitants are no more real to it, than, say, the inhabitants of Sutterton Farms were to Wolsey. And *that*s why it doesn't break out with the wrath of god stuff, but goes for Mind direct damage spells. It's behaving exactly like Wolsey did during "The Only Place You Can", up to and including attempting to force Kali to wake up from the 'lie' whether she wants to or not. Sometimes, I'm just a shit with the parallels.

. Wolsey, Thursday and Banneker return to Suleiman's tower, where there is general industry and quiet panic at Banneker's appearance. The Hierarch is soon laid down and the finest healer they have (Fisher King, as Christopher is still at his own Sanctum) put to the job with Tass provided by Suleiman. As Wolsey puts Banneker down, the man grips Wolsey's arm and speaks, very quietly and sadly, into his ear. "This is all my fault... If I had watched what I was doing..." - Banneker He is taken from Wolsey by Fisher, and Wolsey goes to find his cabalmates in the hubbub "Shiva attacked us, but let us go when we ran" - Wolsey Banneker, now able to walk, calls for his Council. Ulysses, Fisher, Suleiman, Mary and Shore huddle around him. "What's that about?" - Damascus "I think yours isn't the only promotion this evening" - Wolsey

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Mycroft looks over at the group, where Ulysses is shaking his head quite emphatically "Banneker just resigned" - Mycroft Wolsey nods "Good. Good for him. We've seen what he can accomplish while being Hierarch as well - if left to his studies.. I think we know who the next Archmaster will be" - Wolsey "And the next Hierarch" - Damascus, looking at Ulysses "Come on. Kali's alone in there" - Mycroft, indicating Suleiman's office In point of fact, she isn't - Cxaxa takes one look at Wolsey and stalks off, though. Wolsey asks Bedlam if he can give them a minute, and Bedlam leaves too. "What did she want?" - Wolsey, a little too harshly "To see if I was okay. I'm holding up. Thank you for asking" - Kali Wolsey, frowning, fills the rest of them in on what's just happened. "So now what?" - Kali "Now we wait for Banneker to finish stitching Ulysses up, and then we see if there's anything on these plans" - Wolsey "And then?" - Kali "And then we quite probably go there and finish this" - Mycroft "I still haven't decided. Just so you know" - Kali The door opens. It's Banneker "Ulysses is Hierarch" - Banneker "Congratulations to you both" - Wolsey The new Councillor smiles, ruefully, and then winces. "Let me see those plans" - Banneker He sets looking through them. "This will take me a while... Maybe half an hour?" - Banneker "We'll leave you in peace" - Mycroft And the Crucible leave him to it. ...

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Outside, the Cabal join in the many congratulating Ulysses on magnificently giving in to being stitched up with the poisoned chalice of Hierarch. Kali bumps - literally - into Trace. Her co-leader of the House looks around. "Trace. It's me... Could you get the House together for me? Five minutes?" - Kali "Kali? I thought you were out of the city" - Trace "No. Still here" - Kali, forced-cheerful "What are you doing?" - Wolsey "House Business." - Kali . "I know I've not been in charge for very long... But I'm about to go off and do something pretty dangerous. Maybe fatal." - Kali "...But you're not going anywhere? Right?" - Shepherd Kali looks pensive. For those that can see her, anyway. "I don't know. Just in case - Trace will do a great job" - Kali The woman in question waits until the others have gone back to their Cabals before confronting her. "What's going on, Kem?" - Trace "Julia... I honestly don't know if I'm coming back from whatever this is. Or what state I'll be in when I do. I hope I'll see you again, and Samuel, but... He said he couldn't tell" - Kali "He came to you?" - Trace Kali nods "Just before this all kicked off. He said he couldn't see inside this month - that he couldn't tell what would happen. We're on our own" - Kali They hug "I'll come see you again before we leave" - Kali ... Back in Suleiman's Office, Banneker has set up a laptop and projector, showing the plans of "One World Plaza". The Crucible file in and take their seats, as Banneker runs them through it. "One World plaza is a business centre - a five-story squat pyramid set into a quarterblock campus of parkland and secure parking. The entire plaza is surrounded by a perimeter wall, with a security barrier at the entrance." (points) "The building itself is aligned along Leys and designed to produce an atmosphere conducive to commerce.

787

It was my understanding that space within the building would be rented out to small firms, and that does seem to be the case" - Banneker "With the storm, we can probably get over the wall unseen and cross the campus" Damascus "There will be security systems in place. Power enters the campus here" (points) "and I would suggest you cut it" - Banneker "They'll have a Ley-tap" - Wolsey "Most likely, but it should give you a few seconds" - Banneker "There's the Robe" - Kali "This isn't Harry Potter. We won't all fit" - Mycroft "And I don't need the Ring to cast Ring Sight any more" - Kali "The Robe's a Grimoire?" - Mycroft "Let's ask Cxaxa" - Kali (Cxaxa, just by chance, is lurking right outside. Almost like she was trying to listen in) "The pattern on the Robe, if you know how to read it, contains the Spells within it. It's why She didn't need it any more - she'd learnt them" - Cxaxa
'She' being Querephas

She sits down at the back, ignoring Wolsey's obvious discomfort "So we'll all be invisible to the Seers" - Kali "It's not perfect" - Wolsey "It's a start" - Damascus Banneker waits for them to finish, then continues "At my best guess, any Hallow would form here, roughly in the centre of the third floor. That's where the Minister will be" - Banneker Kali stares at the spot on the blueprints "What are the firms on that floor?" - Damascus "From their online directory... A temping agency called 'Mind & Muscle' , a realtor called 'Higher Ground', investment bankers named 'Myrmidon', and a private security firm called 'Aegis'" - Banneker
Remember that 'Aegis' has come up before, in Oboloii's memories

"That's them. That's the Seers - Bet you they're the four main Pylons" - Wolsey

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"Put any team together. Make it clear to whoever goes what this entails. You'll find many volunteer anyway. For my part, if I can do anything more, just ask" - Banneker He leaves, and the Crucible consider "Cxaxa. Could we have the room?" - Wolsey, impatient She leaves, meeting Kali's eyes and mouthing "talk to me" before she goes. "Who are we taking?" - Damascus "Are we taking anyone?" - Wolsey "I think we need at least a B-team on the outside, in case of emergencies, but I don't think a couple of extra bodies among the team that goes in would be remiss" Damascus Wolsey looks like he'd argue that. "The Sentinels. Ulysses. Shore. Thursday" - Damascus "Ulysses.. fine. We can ask - but he *just* made Hierarch. Which Sentinels?" Wolsey "Link's never done us wrong, and we do still owe him. Jude?" - Damascus "I'll ask Fisher King" - Wolsey "... But definitely Nimrod" - Damascus "We need to limit this to people we trust" - Wolsey "And I trust Nimrod" - Damascus "Kali?" - Wolsey "What?" - Kali "You're in charge here.. And this is, for better or worse, your show." - Wolsey "Ask them" - Kali And with that, she leaves the room. ... Link curses his injury, but says that he sadly cannot join the team (and as far as Damascus can tell he's sincere in his wish to go along if it weren't for his patternscouring). Nimrod is pleased to be asked and agrees. Fisher King, Shore and Ulysses, when Wolsey and Damascus ask them, say that they'll come along - and Thursday makes five. Kali, though, is talking to Cxaxa "I want in" - Cxaxa

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Kali looks undecided, so Cxaxa presses her argument "Please. I was there at the start, and a large part of this is my fault..." - Cxaxa "How do you figure that?" - Kali "I gave you that Robe you're wearing. That's on me. I was in Sutterton Farms with you. Kali, let me help you. You know I can make myself useful" - Cxaxa "Are you sure you can handle this?" - Kali "I... Yes, I'm sure" - Cxaxa Kali casts a divination, and sees Cxaxa's fate - she lies in the balance of Querephas and Amanda, but if she goes, there's a chance of... something. "You're on the B team, alright? With Ulysses" - Kali "You won't regret this" - Cxaxa . Unfortunately, Kali quickly *does* regret it... "No. Absolutely not" - Wolsey "I made my decision" - Kali "Well UNMAKE it! I hate to bring it to this but either she stays or I do." - Wolsey "She's my friend" - Kali "I don't care. Tell her you changed your mind" - Wolsey Kali is dumbfounded "We can't trust her any more. How do you know she won't go crazy again?" - Wolsey "I read her future. This could lead to the best outcome" - Kali "She's not in the Cabal" - Wolsey "And the others *are*?" - Kali "I didn't want to invite anyone else. I was overruled. Fine - but I don't see why you want her along. This is OUR Cabal's business" - Wolsey "Maybe it's sharing" - Kali He gives her a Look. "We made those decisions as a group - we didn't just say Yes to anyone that asked" - Wolsey

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"I should have just said No to her, then? To Amanda?" - Kali "You only say No to people IN the Cabal. That's the problem. You ignore EVERYTHING that we..." - Wolsey "You mean that you say. YOU PUT ME IN CHARGE. YOU PUT ME IN CHARGE. Why should I take *YOU*, Wolsey? Why should I take ANY of you, when it's me Shiva wants?" - Kali "If that's what you think, then just walk off" - Wolsey "No. I don't want you to get to call me duplicitous" - Kali "Her or me." - Wolsey Kali paces, furious. "This could be good for her." - Kali "Or it could get us killed" - Wolsey Damascus coughs, interrupting "Do we know for certain why she wants to come along?" - Damascus "She feels part of this. She was involved this far" - Kali "Before she left the Cabal" - Wolsey "Wolsey..." - Kali "Make your decision, Kali. Who do you want along?" - Wolsey "I MADE that" - Kali "Well, you can't get what you want. You don't get to choose both" - Wolsey "... Fine. But YOU go tell her. And Wolsey... Never. EVER try to give me 'advice' again. And remember this conversation" - Kali She storms off. "You get it, right?" - Wolsey, to Damascus and Mycroft Mycroft looks helpless. Damascus indicates without words how he feels sympathy for both arguments but yes, he understands where Wolsey is coming from. Wolsey leaves to break the news to Cxaxa "You know why Cxaxa wants to come along, don't you?" - Mycroft "Er.. Not really, truthfully" - Damascus "She's in love with you" - Mycroft, clapping him on the shoulder

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Silence. "WRONG time to tell me that, man... I'm about to go into certain death and you tell me THAT?" - Damascus
Heh. Almost as bad as announcing your retirement...

... Wolsey is doing the deed "You're out" - Wolsey Cxaxa takes a moment to react to that "...I'm sorry. I mistook who was giving orders around here. Yess'm Masser." - Cxaxa "You shouldn't have quit the band" - Wolsey, somewhat viciously "It's not your band, Tom" - Cxaxa, dangerously "Yeah, well.. You reap what you sow. You're Out" - Wolsey She swears, turns and marches off.
Mark is best capable of explaining Wolsey's thinking in this whole sequence, so... Over to Mark... MARK: It's simple; Wolsey doesn't trust her. She's an unknown - and the whole plan was that we'd wait until the crucial point to tip the whole situation - She could have brought everything crashing down. Fundamentally Wolsey was in a position, somewhat unfairly, to push her out - so he did. He couldn't see why the others were willing to take the risk. Of course, the interesting thing is that Kali fits the 'unknown' definition too - so the question is, would Wolsey have tried to push her out if she hadn't been so a) pivotal or b) in the cabal? We'll never know. And, lest us not forget, Cxaxa chose to leave the cabal is the most spiteful way she could - even if it was part of the ploy, it still hurt. Why would anyone let a person who'd do that back in?

. Kali, meanwhile, is in the washroom. Swearing an oath. "I will destroy or banish the Ochemata. I will not abuse the... abuse the power of the Throne. And I will see Samuel again - more than once" - Kali The spell takes, she feels the oath solidify in her Fate. "Okay. Here we go..." - Kali . "Do you need anything else?" - Suleiman "Got blizzard-proof jackets. Got shotgun. Got sidearms. I think that's about it for our urban combat needs" - Mycroft

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"Damascus. One thing that may be of use" - Suleiman The Councillor opens a cupboard, inside which is a stunted iron object d'art. "You never know when a connection will be handy" - Suleiman
The sculpture is one of Damascus' - this means he can have his Resolve 7 stat for the first part of the assault on the Seer Sanctum at least.

. "Where've you been?" - Mycroft "Bathroom. One minute" - Kali She goes to find Trace "Trace... we're off now." - Kali "Good luck" - Trace, hugging her again "Yeah... you too" - Kali
Kali, by this point, has well an truly made up her mind to go through with the Ritual, I think. For her, this is a goodbye.

And the A and B teams assemble. The night is yet young, the snow is still falling, and One World Plaza is a significant hike away.
Final phase of the session, and the chronicle, now - the assault on the Seers' Tower. Attack a deserted skyscraper at night during a blizzard? Anyone played through to the end of Max Payne? I lingered on the preceding scenes in Suleiman's Sanctum because I knew they were the last time we'd see most of the characters. It was now 1.30 am on the night we played this session, and none of us were getting any less tired. I was therefore pleased when Rafe came up with a cunning means of bypassing most of the tower's defences. For the uninitiated, this is now the point at which our chronicle has synched back up with "Reign of the Exarchs", having gone off on a mad tangent about the time the hungry Dragon showed up in "Nothing to Say". In the book, there's no Seer War and certainly no Ochemata on the loose - characters are drawn to the Tower after they confront an ever-increasing in potency string of encounters with Mammon Seers. As such, we've actually skipped right to the last scene of the sourcebook here.

The Nine weary travellers have gathered on the outside of the One World campus wall, next to the power substation. Ladders have been put up against the wall, and goodbyes are being said "with luck, we won't need you to come after us" - Damascus "A thought that keeps me going" - Ulysses "Been good knowing you, sir" - Damascus Ulysses shakes his hand, then Nimrod and Fisher King cast disabling spells at the substation. All the lights go out for a block radius. A few seconds later, the third floor of One World lights up again. "What do you know? They *do* have a ley tap" - Mycroft

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Kali casts the Robe's spell of concealment on the Cabal, and then they're over the wall and moving as fast as they can through the wind and snow towards the tower. . They don't go in through the lobby, though - led by Damascus, the four members of the Crucible head around to the fire exit door on the far side. Hunkering down next to the tower wall, they wait while Damascus examines the metal door. Damascus, considering, casts Plasticity and warps a gap into the door for them to crouch under and in. Once everyone's inside, he returns the door to it's original shape. Step One complete, the Cabal begin to head up the stairs. . "Can you open the door?" - Mycroft "It isn't a door" - Damascus The internal fire door on the third floor, leading into whatever horrors lie within, appears to have been welded shut and lacks such things as hinges or a handle mechanism. Damascus repeats his Plasticity trick, and ducks under the gap to enter the offices on the other side. It doesn't look much like the base of operations of an Exarch cult. It looks more like a temping agency. Hearing voices, the Crucible (who've all entered the cubical-strewn office) duck down while Damascus hurriedly removes the hole in the door. The voices turn out to be a group of security guards doing their rounds. As they pass, though, the Cabal feel something *enter* one of the guards with their unseen senses. The guard suddenly straightens from his slouch and looks around, peering at the places he's just passed. He has, clearly, just been possessed by a Profane Urim. The Robe does it's job, though, and he looks right through them before passing on. -This way- - Wolsey, via Telepathy
At this point, I shall reveal a little something about the Actual Play experience. You all (that is, you the thread readers and commentators) give us far too much credit - you see the end result, with none of the out of character digressions, my attempts to work Mark's collection of Transformers, the segues into UK politics or my complete inability to describe anything in an rpg, especially if it's important to have done so. We've been asked to do podcast or videocast Actual Plays before, and we always refuse. Because we don't want to spoil the illusion. But in this case, I feel I must. The use of Telepathy from this point onwards was distinguished from speaking aloud by the player so telepathising putting their thumb in their ear and wiggling the other fingers of the hand. I have yet to find out why.

Stalking through the cubes, they realise that the temping agency is roughly triangular, taking up one corner of the tower. Presumably, the other three offices are the same leaving a large area in the centre of the building free.

794

On their way out, though, they spot someone they recognise - sat behind the desk of an individual office next to the exit, cloth mantle of an Urim around his shoulders, is the man they saw in Tycho's memories as being Janus - Tycho's superior. -With magic?- - Wolsey Mycroft and Damascus nod, and the three of them simultaneously hit the unsuspecting Janus with Mind attacks. Wolsey's does the most damage, Damascus' pushes it into physical injury and Mycroft's finishes the job. Janus' corpse collapses forward with a thunk as the head hits the desk. Mycroft grimaces.
Literally - Wolsey filled up the Bashing track, Damascus pushed it further leaving Janus on four lethal and three bashing and then Mycroft got the last few successes, knocking Janus into agg damage and killing him within minutes. What's worse is that Mycroft then failed the Wisdom degeneration check. See what hanging around player characters does to you?

Leaving the body, the Crucible move on. Outside the exit doors is the central corridor of this floor, which from what they can tell wraps around a room or series of rooms that have a circular plan. -This wasn't on Banneker's blueprints- - Mycroft -You think?- - Damascus -Let's head to the next set of offices- - Wolsey Moving their way around counter-clockwise
I've always preferred 'widdershins', myself

the Crucible reach a door marked 'Aegis'. Pushing it open, they enter. There are three Seers inside, all sat around a desk. One of them is wearing an Urim, the other two look like they're taking a break. Getting into position, the Crucible try it again - one Seer each. This time, though, the initial blow isn't enough and the Seers react. Shielding spells are flung up, guns are pulled and a tense face-off (made more tense for the Seers by the fact that they can't see the Cabal right in front of them) ceases once one of the Seers hits an alarm button. At which point, everyone opens fire on everyone else. Kali - under an acceleration, gets out of the way but becomes nearly-visible doing so and draws the Seers' time long enough for Wolsey, Damascus and Mycroft to put them down. When the fighting is over there is the sound of running feet from out in the link corridor, the alarms are blaring and there are three dead seers on the table, blood pooling. Hurrying back out, the Crucible notice that everyone is going in through a doorway on the left-hand side of the corridor. Which means it goes into the centre. -Come on- - Wolsey 795

The air begins to grow thick, and Kali feels suddenly very inevitable. -The Ochemata! AND the Ananke! They're close...- - Kali And then she feels something else. Her coin just cast Save Point -What was that?- Wolsey -Samuel's lifeline Spell. This must be it...- - Kali They cross the threshold. Inside, the lights are dim as in Suleiman's Sanctum, except for works of art attached to the walls at irregular intervals. The art is all heavy stone carving, odd shapes reminiscent of High Speech worked into a yellowy stone material. It reminds Damascus of a museum reconstruction - shards of an ancient building stuck over the spot on the blank, modern walls they would correspond to. The few dozen late-night workers cluster around the Cabal. Kali draws the Sceptre, just in case. The snake-shape of the Sceptre suddenly animates, coiling around Kali's arm and hisses. She screams in shock. There's a flash of energy, and suddenly they're not in Washington DC any more. They're on Atlantis.
Surprise! In the sourcebook, the reconstruction of past events that now follows is the Ananke's doing, but I've been tying the stories from the book together much more than they are as written, and I figured that having shown the Sceptre to have this power once, I may as well do it again. Plus, it surprised the hell out of Sam. Kali's shocked, shrill 'eep!' was vocalised out of character as well.

"What the hell was that?!" - Wolsey "I... We're here" - Kali The carvings are now in the walls themselves, painted that beautiful blue-turquoise colour and inlaid with gold. The people all around them are dressed in toga-like robes, as in fact are the Crucible. The Artefacts all made the transition, though - Kali has the crown around her neck like a scarf, is wearing the Robe still and is holding the Sceptre. Damascus prods a wall "This is real" - Damascus "..Guys" - Mycroft Mycroft has found an open window, looking out over the countryside at the Dreaming Spire on the horizon.

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"This is my dream." - Kali, looking around, wide-eyed Not exactly, though - the Spire of Atlantis looks shattered and broken, like a lightningstruck tree. And there's something in the air above it. The sky is turning blood red, and while it is probably caused by the sunset, it might *not* be...
Which, for the player paying careful attention, pegs which of Samuel's three options this is taking place in - the Fall is under way, and the Silver Ladder has shattered.

"My lady!" - Security guard The speaker is one of the security guards they evaded earlier - but he is now wearing Hellenic-style armour and carrying a trident. "...Yes?" - Kali "Neotalba has made his intentions clear, my Lady! He intends to take the Throne!" Guard Kali looks at the others "I think I know who I'm supposed to be" - Kali No one other than themselves appears to know who they "really" are. "Samuel said. When I.. the other me.. got close to doing the ritual, people started to act like they were in Atlantis" - Kali "Did he mention about the whole hallucination thing?" - Damascus "No" - Kali "It must be the same thing as the Farms. The Sceptre creating a dreamworld for us..." - Mycroft Kali looks down at the sceptre, now comfortingly metal and solid again. "We need to get to the throne room" - Kali They hurry through the palace, following Kali's dream-memory. After a short while, they arrive at a pair of heavy doors at the end of a long flight of stairs. Waiting for them at the bottom, noting their arrival with obvious relish, is the Ananke. "My Lady! Lord Neotalba has seized the Queen's Throne, and intends to crown himself king..." - Ananke "Who are you?" - Damascus "Aldones, Talon" - Ananke, bowing "Then Who am I?" - Kali "You are her Majesty's heir, my Lady." - Ananke, confused "Of course I am" - Kali

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Wolsey is giving her worried looks: He theorised, they know, that this was in some way the same thing that happened to Cxaxa. That Kali would become the Dethroned Queen. And her being the Queen's 'Heir'... "Where is the Queen?" - Wolsey "Gone away, my Lord Voice. Gone away and left us" - Ananke, sadly
"Talon" and "Voice" being the Arrow and the Ladder. Atlantean versions of the Orders.

They climb the stairs and push open the doors, allowing access to the circular throne room Kali remembers. At the end of the room, backed by the open wall overlooking the Atlantean landscape, is the Throne of the Dethroned Queen. Hovering in front of it, transparent and insubstantial, is the image of a dark-haired woman Kali recognises as the Queen. Sat on the Throne is a somewhat long-faced, dark-haired man. Bland as anything to look at. He wears a metal circlet as a crown, a heavy chain (like a mayoral chain) around his shoulders and is holding the Ring of the Dethroned Queen. "Who's this? More confused shades?" - Rex Mundi "This is your rightful Queen, Priest. Bow down!" - Ananke The Minister of Mammon peers at them "Oh, ho! The Pentacle rabble! And the little Fate-Witch who's been collecting Regalia for me" - Rex Mundi He turns to the Ananke "Aldones! All of the Queen's affects are here. Give me the Ritual" - Rex Mundi "You have two. She has three. And she, Usurper, is the Queen's choice" - Ananke He scowls. The crowd seem evenly divided between the two sides - some are egging him on, some supporting Kali Kali undoes the robe with a smile. And then, almost immediately, the air grows thick "He's here! The King is here!" - Crowd The doors open again, and Shiva - looking exactly the same as before - enters. As he passes, the members of the Crucible feel a horrid pounding in their heads. He doesn't fry their brains, though. The Exarch looks at Rex Mundi, who fails to meet it's eyes and slides to his feet off the Throne. Then it turns to Kali "Here I am" - Kali Still unformed - Shiva

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"What happens now?" - Damascus, to anyone around him This is not the lovely prison. This world-form is an imposition, pushing the Creation aside - Shiva
They thought 'The Lovely Prison' meant the Fallen World. Shiva actually meant Sutterton Farms - the Sceptre's anti-theft spell.

"So... This is the Fallen World?" - Damascus The world-form grows. It will become too large to support itself and collapse, destroying everything assimilated - Shiva He looks at the door, which opens again. Five more figures enter. "My Lady! We came as fast as we could!" - Ulysses, waving his Trident "Oh, God... It's *spreading*" - Wolsey "How far will it go?" - Damascus Far enough to destroy your ant-city - Shiva "Can't you *do* something?" - Damascus The Exarch frowns, and Damascus feels very very small. His knees buckle. When She is rescued - Shiva And with that, he goes to stand by the window, looking out at the Spire with hands clasped behind his back. The Minister of Mammon, sensing no-one looking at him, decides to make a run for it. "GET HIM" - Wolsey There is a flurry of activity as the Minister is wrestled to the ground amid a mass of punching and kicking limbs from some members of the Crucible and lots of Atlanteans. "I have him, my Lady" - Thursday Kali bends down and takes the Ring. Wolsey retrieves Rex Mundi's circlet, which fell off in the melee. "Don't! Don't touch that!" - Rex Mundi Wolsey, naturally, checks it out. Not only does it have his Word of Power etched on the inside, but it appears to be a Soul Stone. Wolsey smiles, very nastily

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"Thanks! I'll take this" - Wolsey The Minister looks like he's going to try something, but Ulysses and Thursday's grip on him is firm "Try to cast, and I'll open your throat" - Ulysses Kali is now looking between Shiva - who's ignoring the noisome affairs of lesser beings behind him - and the Ananke. "What happens now?" - Kali "If you consent, my Lady, we will perform the Coronation" - Ananke "And if I say no?" - Kali "Then someone else must" - Ananke "Me! It should be me! You don't know what you're doing!" - Rex Mundi Kali hesitates. The doors bang open again, and Cxaxa - hair wild and stone eyes staring - enters. "Okay. It's growing really big now..." - Mycroft "How does this work?" - Kali The Ananke crosses the floor to her "There is a ritual. Each part of Her Majesty's regalia is activated and passed to you, sitting on the Throne. You speak the final part." - Ananke "That's it? What happens to me?" - Kali "You become the Queen" Ananke Damascus is now stood at the Throne, examining it. He looks at Shiva's still-turned back, and then back down at the others. On a hunch, he casts Grim Sight. "There!... It's faint, and I couldn't see it until they were all together, but.. there are pieces of a soul bound into the artefacts." - Damascus "Can you release them?" - Wolsey Shiva turns back around - whatever realisation Damascus has had evidently interests the Ochemata. Damascus looks the Enemy in the eye. "Kali, can I borrow that?" - Damascus, pointing to the Sceptre. She hands it over, half-expecting it to animate again. "Don't cross the streams" - Damascus, muttered

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He activates the Sceptre, pointing it at the Throne. A shimmering, translucent figure appears stood in front of the throne, equidistant between the artefacts. From the gasps of the crowd, it's the Queen. She fades away almost as quickly as she came. Shiva - who was gazing at the apparition with an unreadable expression - now watches Damascus. "Gone" - Damascus "So it's safe?" - Kali "We don't know that" - Wolsey "You heard Him. This thing is spreading. How long do we have?" - Kali, the last to Shiva A Briefness - Shiva, unconcerned "I've made my decision" - Kali "Then take your throne, my Lady" - Ananke Kali walks up to the Throne and - hands resting on the Sphinxes - takes her seat "I will require four participants" - Ananke The remaining members of the Crucible and Cxaxa - who appears to be some visiting noblewoman - step forward and take an Artefact each. -Kali- -Wolsey She closes her eyes, settling into the Throne -Kali, are you *sure* about this?- -Wolsey She opens her eyes and looks hard into his. Is this my fault? Does she go through with this because of me? - Wolsey, weeks ago Remember this conversation - Kali
That line was spoken way, waaaay back by Wolsey, sessions ago. And yes, it is and yes she does.

"Give me the Ritual" - Kali, to the Ananke "Then, in turn, repeat after me..." - Ananke She explains the Ritual, as the light in the throne room turns deep red from the sunset of Atlantis. The sound of the Fall can now be heard, like the noises from the Abyss when Damascus banished the Codex.
This overlaid reality will cease to exist when the Fall destroys the Throne room.

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. "DON'T!" - Rex Mundi The Minister's shouts are ignored, as the Ritual takes place "Gods work within the Fallen World we see. Our sharper eyes can see behind their lies" - Mycroft, handing Kali the Ring "Soulless slaves protect them ceaselessly. The virtuous oppose them in disguise" Cxaxa, handing her the Robe "Though higher powers enslave a world asleep, we shatter chains that fallen Gods have wrought" - Damascus, handing her the Sceptre with a bow -Final word?- -Wolsey -Amen- -Kali "...Awakening lost souls trapped in the deep. We reign despite the misery they've brought" - Wolsey, handing over the Crown Kali takes a deep breath "Arise to Heaven... We have eyes to see... Beyond the threshold of Eternity" - Kali She triggers the Throne, and gasps... The Artefacts all activate, and Kali arches in her seat, fixed to the Throne by her hands. The throng of 'Atlanteans' all watch, wide-eyed. The Crucible's reactions are more mixed. Rex Mundi sobs. . "...I" - Kemi She blinks and looks around. "What happened?" - Kemi The Ananke kneels before the Throne, bowing her head to Kemi, and slowly fades away, breaking up into colour and the feeling of Inevitability "Check" - Wolsey She looks at him "Check. Is it done?" - Wolsey She tries to cast a Divination. And fails "I... I can't. I CAN'T! I DID IT!" - Kemi, joyfully "It Was MEANT TO BE ME!" - Rex Mundi

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Wolsey whips around "She's the new Pythia." (despondent) "The Pythia Panopticon sought. A living oracle, channelling the words of the Gods. It was to be ME" - Rex Mundi Somewhere, Kemi knows, Kali is on a boat with Samuel There is a touch at Damascus' elbow. He turns around to see Shiva stood right behind him. Damascus realises he's picked the Sceptre up, and that the Ochemata has a hand held out for it. Gulping, he puts the Sceptre into the Ochemata's hand. The snake once more animates, this time flicking it's tongue in pleasure as the Ochemata strokes it. There is a moment of blurring, and then Atlantis is gone. Everyone is stood in the central room of the Seer Sanctum - and everyone seems to have regained their memories. "GET THE GIRL!" - Rex Mundi The lesser Seers of the Throne - now free of the Omniium - step to order. "Don't" - Ulysses, threatening the Minister Mr Thursday, Shore and Fisher King look equally threatening. The Seers put their hands up. "Better" - Damascus. The Ochemata moves at leisure around the Throne, picking up the remaining Artefacts and putting them away about his person with seemingly no impact on the lining of his clothes. Kemi jumps to her feet, and he picks the Throne up with one hand. What's more impressive is the way the Throne suddenly fits into the palm of that hand, and is then put away into a pocket. Damascus looks Kemi up and down, with Grim Sight "Your Soul's... Gone" - Damascus "You... Idiot" - Wolsey She frowns at him "You've just condemned us to a lifetime keeping you safe" - Wolsey She does not seem impressed by that "I just did what I set out to do" - Kemi I go to join my Queen - Shiva, making them all jump

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And with that, he drops dead. To Damascus' Grim Sight, the blazing light of the Exarch soul-shard leaves the host body. What remains is only a tiny thing - the Soul of the baby that he possessed and has now killed. Without mentioning it to anyone, Damascus watches the Soul neatly transfer into Kemi, stabilising the wound in her pattern. "Damascus?" - Cxaxa He turns to her "Am I late?" - Cxaxa "You're exactly on time" - Damascus, smiling. "We won?" - Cxaxa "We won. Listen, Cxaxa... Would you like to do lunch tomorrow?" - Damascus
This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

. There's a familiar Inevitable feeling, and Wolsey detects Anurati scrying on what's going on. Irritably, he dispels her scrying conduit. . "What will happen to me?" - Kemi, to Rex Mundi "Your Soul has Ascended - gone to the Heavens. When your body dies, the two halves of you will rejoin at the Exarchs' side. Until then, you will sense what occurs There. Your Ascended self will pass omens, prophecies and insights to you" - Rex Mundi, hollowly Kemi nods "But I'm not a Mage? I'm a Sleepwalker?" - Kemi "Looks like" - Ulysses Kemi smiles. "I can go home" - Kemi, with relief.
And now - for the first time - something that *didn't* make it into the Session! Because there are no player characters present, you see?

Somewhere Else "I feel different" - Kali

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"You are different, your Majesty" - Samuel Kali - her skin now truly jet-black, not painted - bares her fangs in a smile and lets him punt the boat onward down the River. "What do you remember?" - Samuel "I waited too long. Too long. My husband, he took the Ritual straightaway. Went to the Caves in the deepest Temples of the Spire and cast the Ritual. I hesitated - did I really want this?" - Kali "...And then you were lost" - Samuel "Dethroned. Ripped apart. The Ascension Ritual did not work without the Ladder. My Soul was pulled apart" - Kali "Some of you went into the Artefacts. Most of you reincarnated. Your body..." Samuel "Was left behind. Alive but powerless for a short span until it died of the plague on one of the refugee ships" - Kali "I'm sorry" - Samuel "And then I was Kemi" - Kali "If anyone else had performed the Ritual, it would have done to them what it did to you originally. But Damascus loosened your bonds - he set the remaining pieces of you free to rejoin the whole." - Samuel "It's finished?" - Kali "No. You're still not fully Ascended. You won't be while Kemi is alive" - Samuel "But when she dies?" - Kali "All of you will finally be Supernal. And your husband's rescue mission will be complete." - Samuel "The Ananke?" - Kali "Cast by your advisor, Aldones, to ensure someone freed you. Question is, how did she know to?" - Samuel Kali reaches into her Robe with her third arm and fishes out the Nickel, shining. She looks at the Archmaster and flicks her wrist, sending the Nickel flying into the water. "I will not be an Exarch. I *hesitated*" - Kali "I know. And you will only fully Ascend on death - yours is not the living Godhood of Him and His cohorts" - Samuel "What will happen to the Girl?" - Kali "The Seers will try to find her, no doubt. She'll be guarded. I'll see her - more than

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once" - Samuel "They know her name" - Kali He shrugs "I'll change it" - Samuel The water is becoming still, the landscape on the banks hazy, dark and indistinct. In the distance, far ahead, a blazing silver light grows. "And this is where I get off" Samuel ONE YEAR LATER True to Samuel's word, Sympathetic Magic using Kemi's real name mysteriously stops working. The Archmaster does not see fit to reveal what he's altered her True Name to *be*. Ulysses takes his post as Hierarch of Washington DC. Upon hearing Damascus' testimony of what Malakaii said - and upon Mara finally believing that truth - he pardons Anurati of her Exile, and changes her sentence (which was gained for manipulating the city's Mages, remember) to being the primary guard on her own creation - the Oracle with the body and memories of her daughter. Kevin's memory is slowly but surely restored with time, patience and hard work. Kemi's family is together again - a little strange, but together. Kemi herself finds that her Legacy Attainments still work, but Trace makes an excellent leader of the House of Ariadne anyway. She only rarely talks about what she feels her 'Goddess self' is doing and feeling, and only in private to her closest of friends. Cxaxa - not Amanda any more, and not Querephas, but Cxaxa - does not rejoin the Cabal. She and Damascus do begin a relationship, however, and she helps him rebuild the South-West City, rocked by Gang War and the blizzard. Wolsey and Ebony are not together in that way, but in July of 2007 set off around the world, looking for Meaning. Mycroft opens his detective agency, and both Kemi and Virgil work there. Banneker becomes a great Mage and wise teacher, now freed of the shackles of rulership. And at Christmas 2007, Damascus, Cxaxa and Mycroft teleport to India. They are joined there by Trace, by Shepherd, by Blaise, by Katherine and by Bedlam. And by Samuel. And Kemi Simone - Awakened, Ascended and unAwakened, has her first birthday celebration.

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Appendix 1: The Characters

Wolseys Background
Wolsey/Thomas Dean History Thomas was born and raised in Massachusetts. Hes been involved in politics since his student days, but his passions cooled more quickly then his colleagues he soon became more interested in the results, rather then in the cause. In short, hes a perfect dealmaker. As such he made the perfect fixer his one to one skills made him good in making deals, and he had a flair for media and people relations work too. Joining a cult was just one more thing to improve his business (which he set up himself). While he couldnt directly join the cults that the big players were involved in (Hes an aid to powerful, rather then one himself and he wanted one he could join on his terms, rather then be a powerless initiate at the mercy of the people he worked for), he did find one that was relatively open and advantage for one who relied on his face to face skills. Thats where he met his wife-to-be. Ala The Constant Gardener, he was bewildered and charmed by her spirit, her belief (In this case in the cause of the cult). Theyd been married for about 6 months (and known each other for a bout a year and a half) when she disappeared. And thus Wolseys shadowplay began. He became obsessed with the cult, and bent his mind to getting as far in it as possible (It turning out that the cult had a lot of hidden layers as opposed to its public seeming unlike the other more prestigious cults, this actually had occult knowledge). The culmination of this was him signing his name on the watchtower in a bizarre ritual signalling that he had learnt all the cult had (How much of it was real or not is still a ropey subject). It was after this that he learnt that there was no sign of Amanda, and he began looking for signs of her in essence, his choice to get as high in the cult as possible was probably the wrong one. One of the questions this all raises is does Wolsey really believe in anything? Or does he simply go through phases of belief, before his passions cool again? One theory (Which is Wolseys) is that before awakening he was doomed to never realise any dreams he had because he was made flawed that way by the Exarchs. The awakening freed him of the flaw (or he overcame it in the act of awakening) or thats what he hopes. The Shadow Name He chose Wolsey as a shadow name as a warning; no matter how clever or safe you think you are the path he takes is one that relies on others for power, and as long as that is the case, then your fall can be but a day away. The Plan to find his Wife From the information he found out in Massachusetts, he thinks he has located the

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cult to one in DC, though he knows very few details. Instead of joining that cult directly (Which he thinks would be too dangerous) hes joined a third cult (And has the goal of being known to many of the cults in the city) in order to find out as much as he can about the actual cult before he makes his move. One of the issues is how much he actually cares about her anymore he realises that hes no longer the same person he was, and significantly he doesnt need the inspiration his wife used to give him. He hasnt really thought about it much, but when he does he settles on finding her would be a good thing anyway and they still may get on (While he realises he could lie to her and keep her happy by guile, he doesnt really want to). On the other hand, hes accepted that he may never find her. Secretly, he believes the best case is that her initiation into the cult caused her to awaken, and that she disappeared into her own Shadow life as a mage. This is the best because not only is it the only way he thinks they could relate to each other anymore, it also proves his theory that cults are a good way to awaken people. The Big Plan His interest in Christian theology/History goes a bit further then his Shadow name. He really does see the cults (and, by extension, mages in general) in early Christian terms small cults that are fighting a larger empire. In some ways, this is quite a dangerous, as following the analogy, one of the most significant reasons for the expansion of Christianity, was the presence of large public symbols that inspired others. Thats what Wolseys fantasy breakthrough is and the plan as soon as the Guardians (And probably the Seers) are out of the way (At least neutralised, even for a moment) is to have a huge, spectacular event that can only be explained as magical. Obviously, he intends to use the attainments (or otherwise) to lower the disbelief of all those watching. However, he realises that it might be dangerous, and perhaps even fatal. Its no coincidence that the way that most of the early Christians made their spectacles was by martyrdom. Wolseys hoping to avoid this, but acknowledges that it might be the only way. In a lot of ways, Wolsey sees the Guardians of the Veil as a bigger threat to his plans then the Seers of the Throne (Probably a mistake but hes hoping to take them by surprise). Or it could be a combination of familiarity with the Guardians and the feeling of annoyance that theyre supposed to be on the same side.

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Carl Damascus Washington: A Background

Birth Date: August 17th, 1983 Family & Similar Father: Jerome Washington, born December 12th 1958, current employment: driver for long-distance road-haulage firm. Mother: Tonya Washington, ne Jackson, born April 4th 1961, current employment: supermarket cashier. Brother: Richard aka Ricky, born August 4th 1982, current employ: none. Sister: Amariyah aka Maree, born October 14th 1984, current employ: trainee hairdresser (the training being partly funded by Damascus) Children: None known to him. Religion: Raised Catholic, Carl has in recent years returned to the Church (although some of the fine points of theology have been given a bit of private hammering to better fit with life as a mage), and his relationship with Ulysses is that of priest and congregant as well as mentor/apprentice. Education: Dropped out of high school before graduating, and his attendance had been somewhat indifferent prior to that point. He had, nonetheless absorbed somewhat more than many during his times in class, and as part of his apprenticeship, Ulysses pushed Damascus through adult education classes, and he recently passed his GED. Criminal Record: Arrested at the age of 16 on charges of drunk and disorderly and possession of an offensive weapon, Carl spent two months in a Juvenile Offenders Institution. Gang Membership: Carl was a member of the Alley Razors a small neighbourhood gang at its best, the incident that led to Carls awakening has rendered it extinct, with an approximate breakdown of its ex-members at current as: 30% dead, 30% in jail, 30% absorbed into other gangs, 10% Carl. Awakening: Carl experienced a mystery play Awakening, after another gang made a move on a drugs stash and he was shot in the abdomen and left for dead. He remembers slumping against a wall, as the blood began to spread across his shirt, and more shots rang out. When he opened his eyes, he was in a place he later learnt to be Stygia. Drawn to a Tower he could see on the horizon, he made his way across an uphill landscape towards it, hindered by the fact that his clothes seemed to grow heavier and more restrictive the further he went. He would not have made it up the hill if he had not realised in a flash of inspiration that if he was dead, then it was up to him how much his clothes weighed, and transmuted them to a much lighter material. In that moment, he found himself in front of the Tower of the Lead Coin, and pushing open the door saw the wall of names. He traced his own name on an empty brick, and watched it etch itself in letters of fire, before fading. Everything then went black, and he awoke in a hospital ward, with Ulysses sat next to his bed.

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Appendix II: Legacies

Sons of Imhotep A geomantic Legacy of aged pedigree, having crossed from Egypt into France during Napoleon's time and from Paris across the rest of the western world. An offshoot became the Vampiric bloodline "Architects of the Monolith", and a further offshoot the Vampiric bloodline "Koldun". The Legacy is open to members of the Silver Ladder or Obrimos, and has Prime as it's primary Arcanum. Attainments duplicate, in order, "Primal Flow", "Ley Shift" and "Ley Flow". In DC, the senior Son of Imhotep is Banneker, the hierarch, who has spread it to his apprentice Elizabeth and her apprentice Marion.
The Sons of Imhotep are one of the three original legacies for this setting - they're named after the Egyptian priest who designed the first Pyramid and was deified. Architects of the Monolith are from Bloodlines: The Hidden, and the Koldun are from my own Vampire setting in the game-that-should-not-be-recapped. The Paris branch of the Sons makes up a sizeable faction in my one-off so far second Mage setting, which will be recapped here time permitting.

House of Ariadne A large Legacy in the city, the House of Ariadne are a worldwide family of citydiviners, who use Cities as the basis for Divinatory magic and believe that the cities they exist within are on some level alive and aware. The House is drawn to DC by it's schizoid nature - the local House members claim that DC has two conjoined and coterminous "city souls" rather than one, something usually only seen in places like Berlin and then only temporarily before the two merge. The leader of the House is the near-Archmage Samuel, his second (and recently Provost) is the second-attainment "Weaver" Trace. The ranks of First-Attainment members are spread out across as many of the city's cabals as possible - Shepherd, Katherine, Kali and Blaise.
The House of Ariadne can be found in Legacies: The Sublime.

Bearers of the Eternal Voice A Legacy based around the concept of persuasion and oratory, the Bearers of the Eternal Voice accept, traditionally, Mastigos or members of the Guardians of the Veil, which order they're increasingly identified with in the modern age. Their attainments are based around beguiling those that listen to them speak - at higher levels they can cancel Sleeper's disbelief, rewrite memories with their words or sway entire crowds. They are assumed in DC to be the creation of Malakaii, deceased Epopt of the Guardians, but as our characters have discovered Malakaii learnt the Legacy from a Cabal of Guardians based in India, who were later all killed in mysterious circumstances. The defection from the Pentacle Orders of Beckett and Seraph - one to be independent, one to the Seers - has spread the Legacy even further. Malakaii being obliged through loyalty to his old tutor to take that man's granddaughter, the Adamantine Arrow Mastigos named Mara, as an apprentice has led to yet another splinter faction of Bearers, this one still within the Pentacle. Other than Malakaii, Beckett, Seraph and Mara, the Bearers in DC consist of Mara's various apprentices - Roriko stayed in the Guardians and was taught the second attainment by Malakaii, Tybalt also stayed loyal to Malakaii but only achieved the first. Lastly, Wolsey learnt the Legacy through studying Malakaii's Soul Stone after his death. Without anyone of the third attainment, the Bearers are now stuck - no-one exists to teach Tybalt the second attainment should he get that far, and when he reaches the third Beckett is more than likely to develop his own completely different to Malakaii's. The offshoot of the Legacy in the Seers of the Throne are in a similar situation - Seraph will probably have to wait until he's powerful enough to make his own Second Attainment.

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The Bearers, minus the Indian background, are from Guardians of the Veil.

Claviclarius The infamous Legacy devoted to Goetic magic and the study of inner Demons, the Claviclarius are a tight-knit group of Mastigos interested in Demons, Goetia and the mastery of the inner self and the darker side of human nature. Their leader in DC is the Mystagogue Suleiman, named after Solomon, the legendary figure the Claviclarius take as their founder. The members of the Claviclarius are comparatively more powerful, magically, than other Legacies, and they have more members of the second Attainment - Shore, in the Defenders, has even nearly reached the third. Members in DC are Suleiman, Shore, Bedlam, Promethea and Henderson.
The Claviclarius are mentioned in the Awakening corebook, and written up in Legacies: The Sublime

Bokor This Legacy of houngans and zombie-masters are traditionally members of the Silver Ladder in their countries of Origin, but in DC the two examples are senior members of the Free Council and Guardians of the Veil. Known for a practical, no-nonsense approach to magic, a somewhat fearsome demeanour, their zombi servants and rather less known for their avowed hatred of Ghosts and their efforts to police the Spirit World, the Bokor in DC are Dantor and Mr Thursday, who after the latter's apprenticeship at the hands of the former appear to have fallen out in some way. The Legacy is close to being considered Left-Handed in some circles.
The Bokor are from Tome of the Watchtowers

Bearers of the Stone Book Also called "Stone Scribes" or "Nametakers" (the latter actually being a Left-Handed offshoot of the Legacy), the Stone Book - never "Bearers" in DC, to avoid confusion with the Eternal Voice - are a Legacy of Moros dedicated to capturing the essence of a person on the moment of death, recording their life's experience encapsulated into their name into a permanent archive. Legacy mistress Mary and her apprentices Francine and Valkerie are all three within the history-minded "Recorders" Cabal.
The Stone Book are also from Legacies: The Sublime

Shadowmen A Guardian of the Veil Legacy originating in the Faceless philosophy of that Order and based within the Government Agency faction which in DC is expressed in the Cabal called "Project Twilight", the Shadowmen are based around the anonymity of public office. They differ from the better-known Subtle Ones in that while that Arabicdescended Legacy is known for not being remembered at all, the Shadowmen use their suits, their badges of office, their odd vocal tics and a series of habits and gestures designed to be as disturbing as possible while also being innocuous to distract the attention away from the person beneath. All a witness pressured into staying quiet remembers is a Man in a Black Suit, who seemed... "odd". The Shadowmen in DC are limited to their Cabal: Pool, Nimrod, Tick and Wash.
The Shadowmen are the result of me reading Mage the Awakening and realising, to my satisfaction, that certain elements of the old Technocracy could, and should, be included in the Pentacle. They are my attempt to reproduce the New World Order's Men in Black as Guardian Legacy.

Uncrowned Kings An Alchemical Legacy based on the true meaning of Alchemy - the perfection of the soul, expressed through the Great Work. The Uncrowned Kings believe that external

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action is indicative of internal process, and use the things they create, build and do as a means of gaining knowledge about - and improving - themselves. Within DC, they are limited to John Dee and his Apprentice Damascus.
The Uncrowned Kings are in the Corebook

Perfected Adepts An Adamantine Arrow legacy based around the mastery of the body as a means of enlightenment - the stereotypical Perfected Adept is a warrior-monk of the Shaolin type, but in DC they are represented by the Athlete-Mage Marathon, who has taught the Legacy only to Link so far.
Perfected Adepts can be found in the Corebook

The Eleventh Question A Guardian of the Veil Legacy of ancient background and dubious reputation, especially within the Order they are all to a man devoted to. The Eleventh Question (the Legacy is named for the philosophy that each Arcanum is the answer to a specific question) are hyper-specialised Detectives and observers of human nature, who use the Time Arcanum to perform uncanny feats of deductive logic - a Questioner can look at a person and glean information about who they, are, what they do and where they've been from their appearance, look at a list of possible suspects and divine the culprit and at the very pinnacle not only magically know who "done it", but also why. The only Questioner in the city is the Crucible member Mycroft, who hasn't quite reached those heights yet.
The Question - a personal favourite Legacy of mine - are from Guardians of the Veil

Ascepulons A minor Legacy of Healers, with various palliative spells as attainments, the Aescepulons only have one member in the city - the Disciple Christopher, who learnt the Legacy in Baltimore.
The Ascepulons are of my own design, and have not yet featured in the Chronicle, as no one's talked to Christopher.

Thrice-Great An old and respected Silver Ladder and Obrimos Legacy, the Thrice-Great study the symbolic weight of the stars and planets, interact with the planetary spirit courts and seek the means by which they can rebuild the Silver Ladder and reach the Supernal upon this final test, some Ascend, some achieve Archmastery and some return to the Fallen World bearing ancient knowledge. They have a reputation for assuming they know better than other Silver Ladder mages (they are both old and actually dedicated to personal Ascension) and tend to assume authority. Individual Cabals are often coloured by the revelations the last member of their lineage to reach the Supernal brought back - and the Thrice-Great in DC are no exception. Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar are the keepers of an ancient scroll which, they believe, shows the route to Ascension for the Diamond Orders.
The Thrice-Great are in Legacies: The Ancient. I have taken liberties with them, excused by the Ascendants Cabal being an offshoot with some pretty strange ideas.

Tamers of the Cave The smallest and most mysterious of the five "Elemental Masters" Legacies, that were based on non-Atlantean magical traditions, the Tamers of the Cave study the Soul itself. In DC, they are represented only by the lone mage Bethune.
The Tamers of the Cave are also in Legacies: The Ancient

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Appendix III: The Pentacle (and Independent) Cabals of the Broken Diamond and their Members
The Bringers of the Utopian Design
The Bringers of the Utopian Design ("Utopians") are Silver Ladder and Mysterium mages who believe that L'Enfant (the sleeper architect who saw DC in a dream) was influenced by the Oracles but that the combination of L'Enfant's mortal memory and interpretation, combined with the city not following the plan exactly enough, has left flaws in the design that create the "sinkhole" areas. The Utopians are dedicated to figuring out what the missing parts of the design are and correcting those mistakes their members are architects, city planners and stockbrokers (for funding) in their day jobs, and experienced geomancers when acting as Mages. Banneker Silver Ladder Obrimos, Sons of Imhotep Gnosis 7, Master of Prime, Adept of Space and Forces The Hierarch of the City, senior Son of Imhotep and former Councillor for the Silver Ladder, Banneker inherited his position from the previous Hierarch - a respected Acanthus who taught both Suleiman and Samuel. Compared to his forebear, Banneker is a "weak" ruler - he's not the most powerful Master in the city, and is a long way from being the most respected, but relies on the support of others to govern. His detractors say that it's made him focus on being a politician first and a inspirational leader second, his supporters note that he's much more focused on what the majority of Mages in the city want than even Samuel is - he has to be in order to Survive - and that he's a good Manager, something that's rare in Supernal communities. He passionately believes in the goals of his Cabal, and that the "Washington" areas of the City are flaws in the "DC" areas that can be healed - he tries to cover it, but looks down on Mages like Dantor who willingly stay in the flaws. His viewpoint is informed by his own career - born poor, he made it to college, to wealth and to a career as an Architect before he Awakened (He's named after Benjamin Banneker, who's story he finds Inspirational), and thinks anyone could do the same if they tried. Banneker does his utmost to maintain his Sleeper family despite the strains of his Shadow life - his wife and his children are all Sleepers and know the mages of the city that visit him as a succession of clients and people working for his firm. His real name is Isiah.
I've written about Banneker quite a bit in the thread so far - politician, family man, manager. He goes from acting counter to the Cabal's wishes one minute to being their best friend the next, and in his own mind tries to be the second more than the first. To everyone - which is why the first happens. I wanted someone that had enough flaws for Wolsey to work off, someone that Wolsey would want to replace in his rise to power, but someone who was sympathetic and realistic without being a Tyrant. He's very hard to play, balancing all of that, but because he's been in the chronicle since the second story and is so important, he shows up quite a lot. Banneker, in my mind, is played by Danny Glover.

Frohman Silver Ladder Obrimos Gnosis 3, Disciple The last Mage to Awaken and join the Consilium before Damascus, Frohman is notable for being the straw that broke the Camel's back - young (He went to the

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Aether aged only 17), talented and eager to learn, Frohman was meant to be apprenticed by Mary in the Recorders before Banneker stepped in and persuaded him to join the Utopians instead. The resulting protest led to the formation of the Crucible as a holding area for Initiates. Frohman himself got the poor end of the deal - Banneker is too busy to act as a very good tutor, and Frohman hasn't yet learnt the Sons of Imhotep Attainment, due to lacking the Arcana prerequisites. Frohman took his Shadow name following Banneker's example - Philip Frohman was the architect who completed the design for the Washington National Cathedral - and is currently in his third year at Georgetown University.
Frohman's an odd un - events he was central to led to the formation of the Player's Cabal, but they've never spoken to him. That may change now that Damascus is at the same college as him.

Elizabeth Silver Ladder Moros, Sons of Imhotep Gnosis 5, Adept of Matter Banneker's ex-Apprentice, now an accomplished Magus of her own right, Elizabeth is the lynchpin of the Cabal while Banneker focuses on his duties to the Consilium. If he could have a Provost, she would be it, but the position of Hierarch comes with no such provision. She's achieved the second attainment in the Legacy and performs most of the day-to-day mapping and adjustment of leys with her power to redirect ley lines. By day, she works in the city planning office. All of this means that, except for in the very first story when she was present as an emmissary from Banneker at a meeting, the Crucible have never interacted with her at all.
Elizabeth's the serious, suited woman at the meeting with Mara in 1.2. Except for that, she's been a background extra.

Shepherd Mysterium Acanthus, House of Ariadne Gnosis 4, Disciple Shepherd is the money-man for the Utopians, and by extension for the Consilium as a whole. He's also the unofficial ambassador and middleman between Banneker and Samuel. He's a future's trader and stockbroker, working by remote (DC isn't one of the world's financial capitals) and keeping watch for the Seers of the Throne.
Shepherd's not quite the polar opposite of Kali (that would be Katherine), but he's a pretty far-flung character from her in the House of Ariadne's circles. He's intended in the chronicle to be the answer to "where do they get the money for all this?", and only really turns up in group scenes of the House.

Hoban Mysterium Obrimos Gnosis 3, Disciple Blond, square-jawed, blue-eyed and built like a quarterback, Hoban is the son of a retired senator. Born rich and idle, he Awakened to the Aether and now serves as a Herald and the Consilium's enthusiastic, cheerful Scribe. When the DC Consilium needs someone to visit another city, it's usually Hoban that they send (Francine covers the other three cases in ten) so one of the other Heralds is often called upon to sub for him as Scribe in official matters.

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Hoban was first seen when Wolsey took the other Heralds out for a drink (Wolsey drank Cranberry juice, while Hoban happily chugged away at the beer) and has turned up occasionally since up to the last session.

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The Seekers of One Soul

The Seekers of One Soul ("City Souls") are Silver Ladder and Mysterium mages who take the middle ground in the geomantic argument and who believe that the two facets of the city must be united and the pressures dispelled by homogenising the society of DC. The majority of the Cabal's members take the tactic of working in the Shadow first - thinking that by halting the war of the spirits, they can cure the wounded soul of the city. Others work socially, breaking down the barriers between the grid and the rest, and seeking to reconcile the destructive energies in most of the city with the more "civilised" regions. Suleiman Mysterium Mastigos, Claviclarius Gnosis 7, Master of Mind and Space, Adept of Death Suleiman is a lawyer, quite a good one at that with his own practice and a respected win record. He's also a demonologist, an anthropologist and an amateur psychologist. The polymath second-degree Master *should*, a sizeable minority of interested onlookers agree, be the Hierarch of the city; he isn't thanks to a deal he did with Banneker on terms neither of them will discuss. To this day, Suleiman is Banneker's main supporter. He has a fearsome reputation - not the same way Dantor does, but for his sheer inhuman intelligence. Suleiman has a way of looking at people that unnerves them, and his Nimbus is not a reassuring one.
Suleiman and Mara originally had opposite Shadow lives - Suleiman was the psychologist and Mara the lawyer. They switched by accident, first time the Cabal visited Mara at home in 2.1, when I misremembered. He would have shown up more in the Chronicle if Rafe had played a Claviclarius, and is the most distant councillor to the Cabal. Suleiman is the only npc to have used the capability of Gnosis above five - his fearsome mind is the result of having a natural Intelligence of 7.

Christopher Silver Ladder Thyrsus, Aescepulons Gnosis 3, Disciple A doctor at a free clinic in a deprived area of the city, named for the patron saint of travellers, is the only dedicated Supernal Healer in the city. As such, Christopher gets a slow but steady stream of people in need of his services, interrupting his work with their demands. He isn't yet at the stage of resenting it, but maybe soon...
Christopher has never really shown up - he's a Disciple of Life, which means he can only heal wounds of a certain level. He was one of the people assisting when Amanda was maimed - and it was the City Souls Sanctum she recuperated in.

Katherine Silver Ladder Acanthus, House of Ariadne Gnosis 4, Disciple The rising star of the House of Ariadne (or at least, in her own mind) Katherine is a socialite and party-girl, her outward airheadedness in public covering a seriousminded, methodical mage. Katherine approaches the House of Ariadne and it's divinatory method as it's own end - a magical work that is illuminating, steady and above all serious. She thinks she should be more important in the House than she is, but hasn't somehow realised that her style and her demeanour are completely at odds with Samuel's.
Katherine's the "posh girl" in the House, that Kali tries her best to be ingratiatingly nice to. Katherine hasn't really realised that she's the only person Kali tries consciously to be nice to. If she did, she'd be more appreciative of such a rare occurrence.

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She was designed to make Kali bond with Trace.

Heinrich Mysterium Thyrsus Gnosis 2, Disciple Heinrich is an odd name for a female mage, and people seeing lists of Consilium members are sometimes surprised that the City Soul's Hallow-keeper and Spirittalker is a tall, dark-haired woman. Most Urban Shamans focus on the streets. Heinrich likes to describe herself as a "glass-tower mage", communing with the spirits of electricity, concrete and glass that make up the urban Shadow.
Heinrich has only ever been seen as a background extra.

Ebony Mysterium Thyrsus Gnosis 4, Disciple Promethea's apprentice and assistant, Ebony is the Mysterium's dealer in Items of Interest and "collections agent" for the Order's DC Athenaeum Storehouse. She's highly active in Sleeper Occult circles, which leads to tensions with the Guardians of the Veil, but Promethea tries her best to keep them off Ebony's back. Life was easier when Promethea and Mara were strong allies, but in the months following Malakaii's death Ebony has for no fault of her own been the main recipient of the Guardians' newly focused zeal.
Ebony has only ever been seen as a background extra - the Cabal has dealt with Promethea on the occasions they need the Mysterium storehouse. She's prime candidate to get added to our narrative, though, thanks to her position in the Order Kali's trying to get more involved in and her current troubles.

Promethea Mysterium Mastigos, Claviclarius Gnosis 5, Adept of Mind and Space Knowingly and self-acknowledgingly antinomist, Promethea (together with her apprentice Ebony) runs an occult store that is the centrepoint of most of DC's Sleeper dabblers in Magic. Promethea is a Claviclarius of the old school, embracing her own negative impulses and acting on them as often as possible in order to deny them control of her mind, which makes her a figure of rumour and some ambivalent feeling in the same way as Thursday and Dantor's Legacy makes them slightly suspect. She doesn't care.
Promethea, as well as being a deeply unpleasant person, is the one who actually runs the Mysterium while Suleiman has his vast mind on other things. This makes her the sort of antagonist that players must work with in order to achieve their goals, taking small comfort in the fact that she treats everyone as badly as she treats them. She was introduced into the chronicle in the second story as Amanda's other part-time tutor, and met during the arc following Malakaii's death.

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The Defenders of the Forgotten

The Defenders of the Forgotten ("Defenders") are cabal of Adamantine Arrow and Free Council Mages based in, and dedicated to, the overwhelming majority of DC's population - the forgotten mass of people who live off the grid, preyed on by predators of an urban and supernatural nature. The Defenders fight off demons, drive out possessions, slay Vampires and argue that the Grid is the cause of their problems to unfeeling ears. They are a "muscular" Cabal, in terms of power level, numbering several Masters, two Councillors of the Consilium and one Provost among their number. Now that the Cabal has a shared leadership between Dantor and Ulysses they've shifted to become more of a gathering-point for like-minded Mages that have done enough book learning and want to do something useful as opposed to "Dantor's Private Army", an accusation that used to be laid at their feet. Thanks to the sanctums of the two leaders of the Cabal, some wags have started to call them "The Cabal of Two Churches" instead of their proper name. Dantor Free Council Moros, Bokor Gnosis 5, Master of Death, Adept of Matter Lion-mother of the Defenders Cabal, warrior-mage of the South-East city and brutal opponent of the Seers, Dantor makes her Sanctum in a deconsecrated church in the heart of gangland, defended by multiple rings of Sleeper and Sleepwalker gang members backed up by restless dead that Dantor has restored to vitality. Dantor is possessed of the second most notorious reputation in the Consilium (the most belonging to Beckett), and popular rumour would have her killing Mages that displease her on the spot. It's mostly a calculated act, Dantor being far sharper than she lets on, but she doesn't have any time for fools, time-wasters or pacifists in the war against the Seers. Dantor has seen her star fade a little over the last year - her Prefect is now her equal, and outsiders invariably prefer to deal with Ulysses rather than her. She is mystified by the Gatekeepers - allies of hers despite her falling out with her former apprentice Thursday - splitting, and the movement by the Defenders to rebuild alliances and get back to the business of keeping people safe(ish) in the city has been led by Ulysses not her, giving the impression that Dantor is either honestly confused by the whole affair or criminally negligent.
Dantor first appeared in Story Two, where she lay into Kali for being a part-timer and a fake before giving Damascus a mission. She last appeared when the Cabal thought, for perfectly innocent reasons, that she was planning to attack them. Fun fact - Dantor was originally based on Anaconda from Boston: Unveiled, and indeed still has that name on various very old notes of mine for Broken Diamond. Her final Shadow name is taken from Ezili Danto, the Voudou Lwa of Motherhood not a woman to be trifled with.

Ulysses Adamantine Arrow Obrimos Gnosis 5, Master of Prime, Adept of Forces The second Councillor in the Cabal, until recently Dantor's Prefect, Ulysses fulfils the Father role to Dantor's mother. A Catholic Priest, his faith undiminished (and even increased) by his Awakening to the Aether, Ulysses cuts an unconventional though highly respected path in the Consilium. He's known for wise counsel, for a forgiving nature, for steely devotion to his "flock" and for his refusal to follow the easy path. He's been known to publicly speak out against the prevalence of Legacies, the use of Soul Stones and other Magics he feels are unwise, regardless of any offence his "betters" might take. His real name is Peter Joyce.

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Ulysses - in my mind - is played by James Pickens Jr. He's named after the novel. He's a priest for a few reasons; Rafe wanted Damascus to be a Catholic, sure, but Ulysses was designed before that player character, and is intended as half of a double-act with Dantor. That dichotomy required a Father figure that was nonsexual, to counteract Dantor, calm where she was quick to anger and reasonable where she was instinctive. That all said 'priest'. Anyway - the character in the Chronicle has been the lynchpin of the player Cabal's allies, the wisest of the friends and the most-listened to giver of advice. Mara was damaged and Samuel has his eye on his own Ascension, but Ulysses has been their protector and friend since he was introduced in the second game session.

Shore Adamantine Arrow Mastigos, Claviclarius Gnosis 6, Master of Mind Born in a deprived neighbourhood, all but raised by Ulysses, Gareth Banks struggled to achieve a voice. Awakening relatively young to Pandemonium, he devoted his day life to local politics to fight off the mundane predators on his home community, and his nights to fighting off the other predators. Now an experienced Demon-Hunter and Claviclarius in his Shadow life, Shore holds local office in the DC Government and struggles daily to improve conditions and get "his people" the vote every other citizen of the US has: to choose their own governor. He supports other Mages in community work - funding Christopher's clinic and Ulysses' church, for example - and is expected to be taught the final Claviclarius attainment soon by Suleiman, whom he forwards 'interesting' pro bono work to.
Shore was conceived as a Daredevil-type character - originally an attorney-turned-demon-hunter, he became a local politician instead when I realised that I needed a character to slot into that niche. He's someone that the Cabal are just starting to get to know, after his involvement in the post-Malakaii arc and his new appointment as Dantor's Prefect, and first turned up as one of the Mages hunting the spirit along with Damascus during the first Reign of the Exarchs story. As an aside - the inhabitants of DC only got to vote in Presidential elections relatively recently, and DC was governed by an appointment from the Senate rather than by a normal Governor. Both states of affairs are still the case in my World of Darkness: Kali and Damascus aren't enfranchised members of society, because they grew up in and live within the Diamond.

Bedlam Adamantine Arrow Mastigos, Claviclarius Gnosis 4, Disciple Bedlam was institutionalised long before he Awoke as a Mastigos, his experience only recognised by Mara by accident when she performed a site visit. Other Mages were quick to write the young, earnest man off as one of The Mad, but Mara and Shore insisted he could be trained and inducted him into the Adamantine Arrow. Bedlam is still in the institute, but now watches for unseemly influences and things preying off the vulnerable for his Order. It is possible, with mind magic, to make Bedlam's symptoms subside but as magic cast on a living being can't be permanent his natural state reasserts itself eventually, and after several such attempts the Adamantine Arrow resists any rash attempts to "cure" him as being unnecessarily cruel - the last time he was lucid, he expressed a desire to either be cured permanently or left alone. He's been trained as a Claviclarius by Shore, who hopes that the attainments of the Legacy can do what magic can't.
Bedlam was intended to show one of the limitations of Awakening magic - no permanent effects on life forms, which means any debilitating condition that's part of your pattern will never truly go away. The same point is made nowadays by Amanda, who is in a similar (if nowhere near as harsh) situation with her own disability. After I created him, a remarkably similar character showed up in Reign of the Exarchs, so I've deleted that npc and am just going to use Bedlam instead. So far, Bedlam turned up when Wolsey sought a consultation on the scribblings of the Juncture.

Beckett Apostate (ex Guardians of the Veil) Mastigos, Bearers of the Eternal Voice Gnosis 6, Master of Mind, Adept of Spirit and Space Demon-summoner, attempted murderer, presumed Nefandus and all-round bad egg,

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Beckett is now finally free of his self-imposed House Arrest after the death of his intended target, Malakaii. The two fell out over Beckett's belief that those who use magic to limit the Sleepers serve the same ends as the Exarchs clashed with Malakaii developing the third memory-controlling attainment in their shared Legacy. The fallout saw Seraph - Beckett's apprentice at the time - defect to the Seers and Beckett try to kill Malakaii using an Acamoth. Now (mostly) a reformed character (the Consilium hopes), Beckett is the Consiliums foremost expert on the powers of darkness and the use of Abyssal energies in magic; the idea being that it takes a (former) thief to catch a thief. He's egotistical, prone to grandstanding, somewhat manipulative, very charming and milks his notoriety for all the shudders he can get from Initiates. He's got a certain sociopathic tendency to smile one second and then decide to got all-out for the jugular the next without betraying any outward sign - so far he hasn't attacked a Pentacle mage, but give him time. He works his aggression mostly out on Seers of the Throne who unwisely try to recruit him. Most of them, he sends screaming into the Abyss.
Beckett is a magnificent bastard with a very punchable face, and has been in the Chronicle from the starting point. His current freedom is a victory for the player Cabal, who were his only (sort of) friends and the only people who would associate with him despite his incarceration. Let's hope he doesn't flip out and kill anyone they like, huh?

Link Adamantine Arrow Acanthus, Perfected Adept Gnosis 3, Disciple A Perfected Adept, a warrior and a Sentinel of the City, Link has to live under the considerable Shadow of his Cabal-mates. It's always been his problem - Link prefers to think about things before acting, to focus on his own studies rather than gain political favour and to be judged on his own actions rather than try to build an exciting reputation. Which means he gets hosed, politically, and he's been the unfortunate collateral damage in one scheme too many. When he's not being the guy the slick guy steps on on their way up the ziggurat, Link is the "reliable" Sentinel for the city, the one who'll take his time but get there in the end. Which again means that the jobs no-one deems "sexy" are the ones that he gets assigned.
Link (who's original Shadow name was 'Chain') is the guy who the Cabal keep accidentally screwing over. He'll become more important as Damascus acts as a Sentinel more and more - he was supposed to be heading the investigation in Who Benefits. but the Cabal blew him off, solved it themselves and took the credit. He still hasn't forgiven them

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The Recorders of Living History

The Recorders of Living History ("Recorders) are the largest Cabal in the city, and like the City Soul Cabal "neutral" in the division between the Utopians and the Defenders. The Recorders aren't so much interested in "fixing" the unusual resonances and nature of the city, or "curing" whichever half of it they don't happen to like - they see the entire thing as being worth studying, reasoning that if a divided urban landscape like this happens so rarely then it's worth studying. They're named after the idea that the other Cabals let too much slip past them - the Utopians and the City Souls are focused on their preferred futures, the Defenders, Gatekeepers and Wardens on their own small patches of the present, such that no-one is bothering to pay attention to the *city* as it is. This viewpoint is obviously informed by the House of Ariadne's philosophy, but encompasses more than the House. Each member of the Recorders has their specialised "turf" - the aspect, geographical part of other division of the city that they're interested in and record for posterity in the Cabal's archives. Samuel Free Council Acanthus, House of Ariadne Gnosis 9, Master of Mind, Time and Fate, Adept of Space and Spirit Samuel's leaving. Everyone knows it, except maybe Banneker. Once he knows who the Spider is, he'll be off - maybe not that day but as soon as he can wrap up his affairs afterward. Being an Archmage means leaving your politics behind, going into hiding so you're not a target for the Exarchs, moving your game onto a whole new level. Samuel started out a contemporary of Suleiman's, a rather dorkish young man with a prodigal talent for the Time Arcanum. Samuel looked at the dichotomy of the city, and the disagreements it led to over those who thought "washington" was the truer form or "dc", and applied lateral thinking to the problem. If a disagreement existed about what L'Enfant intended the city to look like, or about who or what was inspiring the man, then surely the best course would be to find out exactly what he was thinking? A magical career spent focused on Post and Pre-cognition led to other avenues. By the time Samuel had Mastered the Mind Arcana so that he could properly understand the minds of people he projected into (before he projected into the first of them) the other Pentacle mages had realised that he was not exactly like the other children. By the time he was regularly time-travelling, even in the limited form possible under Mastery, he was acknowledged as the most gifted member of the Consilium. The idea of proving Banneker or Dantor right or wrong got lost along the way - Samuel now travels for his own curiosity, to answer questions that other members of his cabal run up against and for the practice. Distinguished as his career is, he knows that it's just the run-up to when he finally achieves the Imperial Practices and can walk bodily in the past. Samuel has a very relaxed leadership style in the Cabal and Legacy he's the head of - he tries to be as hands-off as he can be, trusting that the younger mages will come to him if there's a problem they can't solve by themselves. He's not above using his political or magical power as a big hitting stick on behalf of someone that asks him, and adopts a calculated disinterest the rest of the time. In conversation, he's overenthusiastic, prone to lofty thinking that ignores the daily realities of less powerful mages and - lately, as his archmagedom draws even closer - has a perpetual air of being distracted by weightier thoughts and more important matters than whatever's going on. People outside his circle interpret Samuel's behaviour as exasperation at

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how much people rely on him (which is at least partly true) and how much time he has to "waste" on the Consilium that would be "better" spent on his transition. The transition has been hardest on Blaise - Samuel decided that he no longer needed either a lover or a Prefect that wasn't up to actually shielding him from the Consilium's constant buzzing. As for Kali - destined according to Samuel's spells to provide the missing key he needs to unlock his second Awakening - she's starting to realise that her role isn't one that she can back out of. Or rather, one that Samuel will *let* her back out of. Gaining the Imperial Practices is more important to him than her feelings. Or her safety.
Samuel's dorkish, friendly and completely driven - he shoved Blaise aside to train Kali himself, he casts prophecies without asking and he is marching Kali at gun-point down the path she's on - but he's one of the few Mages that the Cabal trust, about the only one Kali respects and is still thought well of by everyone. Partly, his reputation hasn't caught up with his recent actions, but partly because he's grateful and rewarding to younger mages after he's forced them to assist his inscrutable studies - a courtesy they're not always used to. In fact, he's so accommodating and such a personable teacher that I made him explicitly homosexual to stop Wolsey and Damascus speculating about how someone could have tamed Kali. His real name is Daniel, as revealed by Banneker, and he will leave before the end of the Chronicle.

Francine Mysterium Moros, Bearer of the Stone Book Gnosis 4, Disciple Francine is a short, curly-haired woman with a studious demeanour and thick spectacles. Most mages only encounter her in her capacity as a Herald, though she leaves anything beyond simple opinion-gathering and bulletin dissemination to Trace. As a Stone Scribe, she has a keen interest in recording lives, and works in both her day and shadow lives as a Biographer, ghost-writing thick (and virtually unpublished) tomes for politicians, senior lawmen and the like. And secretly recording their lives for the sake of their inevitably sudden death.
Francine should be played by Amy Acker, I reckon while we're still on dream casting. She turned up in the very first story and has appeared variously since then, often fielding people trying to find Samuel.

Evelyne Mysterium Mastigos Gnosis 4, Disciple The Cabal's librarian, Evelyne can't seem to escape from the indexing of books - her day job is as a librarian at the library of congress. A Cabal this size dedicated to research produces an awful lot of notes, thought, so she's kept busy cataloguing. As a result, Evelyne - poor, overlooked Evelyne who would never be missed should she disappear - is the best-informed Mage in the city about supernal and mundane happenings.
Evelyne hasn't shown up in the Chronicle - she remains an extra in the few occasions the Recorders are all seen together.

Blaise Mysterium Acanthus, House of Ariadne Gnosis 3, Adept of Fate Lazy, prone to dropping his commitments and not worthy of the offices bestowed upon him - that's how most people think of Blaise. A crusty hippie and street busker, Blaise's territory is the Mall, and his study is the flow of people from one significant spot to another, like water on a prayer wheel. It's one he's very good at, and a useful one for anyone judging the route of a new ley line through those significant central

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parts of the city. It's just everything else that he can't seem to get along with. Samuel's partner for four years, they broke up when Samuel finally grew frustrated by Blaise's attitude. Blaise lost his job as Prefect on the same day, and he's retreated to the mall he knows and loves, comforting himself with the one thing he does well.
Blaise is named after Merlin's bardic teacher, and is loosely based on an Archaeologist I used to know who could talk a good talk about setting the world to rights but who was lacking when called upon to do anything other than what he knew best. He was never actually intended to be Kali's mentor - from day one, Samuel was going to step in and take over, but I couldn't apprentice her to the archmage straight away and had to show the failure of her original mentor first.

Mary Free Council Moros, Bearer of the Stone Book Gnosis 6, Master of Death, Adept of Spirit and Mind Future Councillor (when Samuel leaves) and Cabal head (ditto), Mary has been waiting patiently in the wings for several years now, building up her power and enjoying the peace to do her own work while it lasts. She has time, and the patience of the stereotypical Moros. Mary calls herself a "gravetender" - she takes as many Names as she can, but most of her night is spent guarding the dead against interference. The World of Darkness is full of Vampires, Necromancers and Restless dead that would wreck the ordered disposition of the dead, and Mary and her team of sleepwalkers counter them. Not out of any inherent piety or belief that the remains are somehow special, but out of a strong sense of what the dead in their graves represent - a person, reduced to a name on a stone and filed away with thousands of others, fixed in time where future generations can find them. Arlington and the other vast cemeteries of DC are vast libraries-cum-storehouses to Mary, containing thousands of individual stories. As a Bearer, Mary knows all those stories, and will share them if asked.
Mary is named after the last rightful owner of Arlington house, who fled the area during the civil war and left it and it's grounds - now the cemetery - to be claimed by the federal government. Thanks to the emphasis of the chronicle, she's the most powerful mage the characters have never met, which is a shame, I think. I reckon Damascus would get on with her.

John Dee Free Council Moros, Uncrowned Kings Gnosis 5, Master of Mind, Adept of Matter Irascible, irritable John Dee - named for the Elizabethan alchemist - was until recently the only member of his Legacy in the city, mostly because people couldn't stand to be around John for very long. A Lecturer in Chemistry at Howard University, he has the duty of being one of the few Pentacle mages embedded within academia, which the Pentacle in DC have all but ceded to the Seers. He has no time for fools or sloppy thinkers, and finds them everywhere - his personal faults are legion, but transformed by his Legacy-given self-knowledge into secret strengths. John knows how off-putting he is, and does it deliberately. Now with apprentice in tow (Damascus is performing "about as well as can be expected") he publicly turned down the job of Samuel's prefect, wanting nothing to do with the 'government' of the Pentacle.
I always try to make room for one crabby old bastard - they're the characters I usually end up playing on the rare occasions I get to play a game rather than GM. My love for Spider Jerusalem, Gregory House and other magnificent bastards of their ilk makes me put them in. In truth (and my internet persona covers this quite a bit) *I'm* more like that in real life. I'd like to be Samuel, but I admit I'd probably be John.

Cerberus Mysterium Thyrsus Gnosis 5, Adept of Spirit

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The Smithsonian is the largest collection of artefacts in the western world bar the British Museum, spread out across the Mall in the form of several museums. It produces Spirits. The "Mall" which they line - the T-shaped park between Lincoln's memorial, the White House and the Capitol - is one of the most famous places on Earth, visited by tens of thousands. It produces a lot of spirits. Cerberus - named for the guardian of hell - is the zookeeper. A tiny, bespectacled man with a balding comb-over and a harried expression, it is Cerberus' careful duty to combine his mundane job as a security guard in the collection with being the Spiritual zookeeper. Most Cabals would couch his role in terms of border police, but Cerberus will happily (if wearily) point out their mistake the Recorders philosophy is that the entire homogenous city is worthy of study, and they wouldn't deny the spirits the chance to feed. In fact, it is Cerberus' special privilege to be the one who feeds them. Some spirits in the Institute are old and fat, lurking dematerialised in the museums feeding from the resonance of the visitors topped up with Mana Cerberus provides on his rounds. In exchange for being studied, measured and recorded, the spirit escapes from the Darwinian hell of the Shadow World.
Cerberus should be played by Armin Shimerman. I created him long before "Night at the Museum", I assure you - though that's the sort of thing I was going for. At night, the exhibits in the Smithsonian are alive, and Cerberus tends to them. He showed up in the "Damascus vs. the Spirit" arc early on in the chronicle.

Valkerie Mysterium Moros, Bearer of the Stone Book Gnosis 5, Adept of Death A nurse in a military retirement home, Valkerie keeps watch over old soldiers. She hears their tells, takes their confessions, eases their pain and takes their Names when they finally die, recorded diligently into Evelyne's records. She's just recently achieved the second Stone Scribe Attainment.
Valkerie has only ever been an extra in group scenes.

Marion Silver Ladder Obrimos, Sons of Imhotep Gnosis 4, Disciple The last member of the Recorders - and the second-to-last mage other than the Crucible to come through the Pentacle's system - Marion should, by rights, be in Banneker's Cabal. She wanted to branch out, though, and convinced Elizabeth - who became her partner after being her mentor - to recommend her to Mary and Samuel. Marion is a gardener and park-planner, applying the same Geomantic techniques that her fellow Sons of Imhotep use on tower blocks and streets to woodland areas and streams. Parks are a large part of DC's design, both in the original plans by L'Enfant and in the modern day, and Marion has brought an understanding of how they affect the resonance flows of the city around them to her new Cabal. She's still tempted to interfere and "improve" things, but has an agreement with Mary that she'll record the status quo first, then seek advice.
Should have mentioned that she and Elizabeth are lovers in Elizabeth's entry, but forgot - like Samuel and Blaise, the gay couples are treated as matter-of-factly as the hetero couples like Mara/Proteus and Marathon/Henderson. Marion hasn't been met by our characters on-screen, but it was her that was selected to take the Mana rush from the Washington Monument on the 4th July, during story three.

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The Gatekeepers
The Gatekeepers are the predominantly Guardian of the Veil Cabal dedicated to spotting - and stopping - interference in US politics by supernaturals. As the "normal" Guardian Cabal (the other being Project Twilight) they suffer from a lot of mission creep, attempting to administer DC's complex Labyrinth of special interest groups, cults and secret societies (Twilight handle the parts of the Labyrinth tied into the government and intelligence agencies) and policing the other Pentacle mages while also trying to maintain their core mission. It was only just possible in times gone by because their leader - Malakaii - made the Labyrinth much easier to tend while also cutting down on abuses from the other Pentacle mages out of their paranoia that he would always be watching. With Malakaii gone, the mission has become much harder, and Mr Thursday is attempting to focus them on the core brief. When the truth behind Malakaii's death came out, that it was caused by a member of the Cabal, a rift grew until the new "Wardens" Cabal (consisting of Mara - who committed the manslaughter in question - and her supporters) split off from the Gatekeepers entirely. That new Cabal has yet to declare their remit, but Thursday is keenly aware that anything the Gatekeepers find they can't do, someone else will be more than happy to take it - and the credit - off their hands. Mr Thursday Guardian of the Veil Moros, Bokor Gnosis 5, Adept of Death and Spirit New Epopt of the Guardians of the Veil, and new Prefect to Ulysses' new Councillor (a consolation prize if ever there was one), Mr Thursday is finding that high office is if anything harder than his previous position - that of City Interfector, the one who carries out punishments on the guilty. A former soldier and gulf-war I veteran from New Orleans, Thursday Awoke on his return from Kuwait and turned to religion voudoun - as a way of making sense of his visions of Stygia. He became apprenticed to Dantor, but found that the soldier in him wanted both a formal hierarchy (which the Free Council couldn't give him) and a clearly-defined and achievable mission (which the Silver Ladder couldn't). Malakaii persuaded his fellow Guardians to put the young Bokor through the Veils, and was not disappointed. A committed Guardian despite his Legacy, Thursday served quietly, competently and mercilessly as an officer of the Consilium until his second Mentor (and hero)'s death. Now Thursday is faced with a task to which he is wholly unsuited - being a politician. His real name is Jim.
Thursday has a quiet, rasping way of speaking that doesn't come across well in text format. In any case, he's in a long tradition of voudoun practitioners in modern pop-occult storylines - his real name is Jim after Jim Crow in the Invisibles. He first appeared in the chronicle when he arrested Kali, and was active in the Malakaii arc. I tend to use him as a sympathetic antagonist - the characters can feel sorry for Thursday, but his goals are the opposite of theirs and his ability to cause offence second-to-none.

Trace Guardian of the Veil Acanthus, House of Ariadne Gnosis 5, Adept of Time Herald, Prefect, second-in-command of the House of Ariadne and woman of intrigue, Trace uses her Legacy abilities to trace (hence the name) the complex webs of connection, deal, supposition and coincidence that trail in between the politicians in the Nation's Capital. Her efforts at maintaining a map of whom is allied to whom, who can be leveraged and who is looking suspicious allow the Gatekeepers to do their job in the "busy season" during the run-up to elections (elections themselves are

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normally dead calm in DC - everyone's out on the campaign trail, leaving only junior staff behind). Because of her connections, she's the Gatekeeper's ambassador to the rest of the Consilium at large, and she's close friends with many of their theoretical opponents. She's a political secretary during the day, and can usually be found in one hotel bar or another at night, keeping tabs on who is doing what do who.
Trace is the "good Guardian", the one that the Cabal like in an Order that they're disposed against - especially Kali, for whom Trace represents the closest friend in their Legacy. She first appeared in the very first story, and has popped up off and on ever since. As for actresses, I don't know - she's blonde and quite glamorous in her hotel-bar-lurking mode, but old enough to not be played by a starlet.

Sister Guardian of the Veil Thyrsus Gnosis 6, Adept of Life and Mind Sister is the Guardian's undercover agent, devoted to the Guardian doctrine of masks, wherein a Guardian takes on one of 49 stock "identities". She's so practiced that her Aura and physical appearance change with each role - not so much as to disguise her as someone else, but enough to notice. Until Malakaii's death, Sister was a member of the Recorders Cabal - she studied particular groups of interest by creating a persona that would fit in, joining and then extracting herself. Since Malakaii died, Thursday was able to successfully argue that her Order needed her more than Samuel and Mary did, and now her many faces and personalities are put to use spying on people Thursday finds troubling and steering Labyrinth groups from the inside.
Sister has only ever been a background extra. The stock personalities - and the philosophy of null-self that Sister follows are from the Guardian of the Veil Order book. There's 49 because that's how many Virtue and Vice combinations there are! I think the Guardians have a better excuse than the Ordo Dracul in Vampire, who have "discovered" the same artefact of the game system in-character. Her Shadow Name is an attempt to be evocative that probably doesn't work - the idea being that she's an everywoman, so "Sister" is appropriately bland while still identifying her gender.

Tybalt Guardian of the Veil Mastigos, Bearer of the Eternal Voice Gnosis 3, Disciple Mara's failed (in her view) apprentice, Tybalt was trained at Malakaii's insistence after the young man Awakened in DC's Labyrinth. He never got on with Mara, who resented blatantly being made to train someone to replace herself, and she threw him out as soon as he was experienced enough. Tybalt didn't care - he knew that he would replace her one day anyway, and began to look for Cabals. No-one would have him. Mara was popular enough - and Malakaii distrusted enough - that none of the Cabals would accept Malakaii's cuckoo into their midst. Tybalt was labelled as Malakaii's lackey and "mini-me" (the latter by the more culturally aware Mages) and shunned. He eventually gave up and practiced as an Independent, working his corner of the Guardian's Labyrinth and nursing dreams of revenge in which people would beg him to join their clubs. Malakaii's death at Mara's hands led to Thursday needing every warm body he could get, and so an invitation was tendered to Tybalt the day Mara took her supporters and left. To Thursday's chagrin, Tybalt took it as the "begging" he'd been waiting for. Nowadays, Tybalt is the Labyrinth-tender with authority over Cults, a matter which he takes most seriously and attempts to lord over his rival Wolsey. Wolsey didn't do anything consciously to Tybalt, but he was trained by Mara at Banneker's insistence to replace Malakaii - which to Tybalt (who considers himself Malakaii's heir) is a grievous insult.

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Otherwise known as Wolsey's Evil Twin (the scene where they were finally on screen together last session nearly caused an antimatter collision and an explosion of judgemental behaviour and secret handshakes), or as Kali would put it, Wolseys "Good Twin". Tybalt exists to be Wolsey's adversary - he's less powerful than Wolsey as of this very minute (Wolsey is an Adept thanks to the xp for story seven) but they race one another.

Farragut Guardian of the Veil Thyrsus Gnosis 1, Apprentice George Guardian of the Veil Obrimos Gnosis 2, Apprentice Helen Guardian of the Veil Moros Gnosis 1, Apprentice Farragut, George and Helen are the three brand-new Guardians, only Awakened within the last year and recently passed through their Red Veil, that Thursday has called to the city after cashing in a favour with the Epopt of New York. They are apparently permanent members of the Gatekeepers, though they have yet to be seen without Tybalt or Thursday's supervision.
All three are background extras, and a plot point in the last story when Hoban came back from his trip to New York trailing young Guardians

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The Wardens
The breakaway group of the Gatekeepers, the Wardens have yet to declare exactly what they're for and what they're against - old habits die hard, so they're interested in the safety from supernatural influence of the masses, but divorced from Guardian of the Veil ideology they're taking a much more "Adamantine Arrow" route, which touches on political territory claimed by Dantor and Ulysses. Right now, the Wardens are four disproportionately powerful (they don't have anyone less than an Adept) Mages licking their wounds, bonding as a team and - and this is the part that makes them watched by everyone else - available as hired guns for the first person to pique their interest and find a cause that they agree with. They themselves have their eye on the territories Thursday is having to give up as time goes on. In particular, given that two of the group are Sentinels, is the idea of somehow taking on the job of Policing the Awakened and hunting for Seers, while Thursday's crew go about their own business of hiding the Supernal from Sleepers. Watch this space. Mara Adamantine Arrow Mastigos, Bearer of the Eternal Voice Gnosis 6, Master of Mind, Adept of Space When Madhuri Dhawan Awakened, she was almost immediately found by Malakaii he had been trained by Madhuri's grandfather, he told her, and he owed a debt to the old man's memory which training her in turn would fulfil. A Psychology graduate, Mara found that the newly-revealed Gnostic world did nothing to contradict her rejection of her extended family's Hinduism. Atheistic to the core, Mara named herself after the dream-demon that tempted Buddha and even now believes the Supernal Realms, the Oracles, the Watchtowers and the Oracles to be nothing more than fictions conjured up by the human mind upon Awakening. She used her talent for Mind Magic, and her Legacy-given talent for persuasion, to become a psychiatrist. Where she fell out with Malakaii was her joining the Adamantine Arrow. Her choice of Order clearly disappointed him, and he immediately started looking for a replacement while grudgingly continuing to teach her out of his sense of obligation to her grandfather. Mara grew to resent him in turn, and hitched herself to Banneker's group. Banneker thought she was too deeply tied into the Guardians despite her Arrow affiliation, so just like Malakaii used her to train possible replacement Malakaiis - such as Wolsey. Mara doesn't do much - if any - fighting. Her service to the Adamantine Arrow is in the way of backup, of support and of counselling after the battle. The Arrow mages in the city see Mara as their confessor and advisor, and despite recent events still hold her in high regard. The stress of being trapped between Malakaii and Banneker led to her attempting to self-medicate with magic, altering her own mind. When that didn't work well enough, she attempted Goetia to remove her resentment of her situation. The resulting demon killed Malakaii, and led to her being forced to resign her Consilium position. Now, Mara's trying to keep her head down and stay out of Politics. The Arrow has rallied around her, to an extent she never thought would happen, and now she's trying to figure out a future direction for the Cabal that's formed around her.
Mara's been quite active in the Chronicle so far (since the very first scene) - and she'll be active in at least one future storyarc as well. Originally a lawyer, she turned into a Jungian therapist in session 2.1 when I got her confused with Suleiman for some reason. She's named after a friend of mine (It's pronounced roughly madge-or-ee). I created her before the player characters were submitted, but I was quite pleased at how she interlocked into Wolsey and Kali's backgrounds - her grandfather was in the Indian cabal that the pcs have found reference to. Lastly, Mara's one of the few characters to make

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racist comments about Kali, which in this case is a function of the two women's caste.

Proteus Adamantine Arrow Thyrsus Gnosis 5, Adept of Life and Matter Sister's brother, and one of the Sentinels of the Consilium, Proteus is a glowering, dreadlocked man who isn't especially.. communicative. He doesn't talk much, and is hard to get to know. A noted shapeshifter, he was apprenticed to Fisher King for a while but followed Marathon into the Adamantine Arrow and from their joined the Gatekeepers, who he served as a tracker - Proteus is the Sentinel chosen to keep an unobserved eye on suspicious sorts, following and observing them through shapeshifting, guile and stealth rather than an all-too-easily detectable scrying window. When the Cabal split, he followed his Order rather than his sibling's and ended up on Mara's side - though because of Sister being in the Gatekeepers, he is the most likely of his new Cabal to cross the barricades and deal with Thursday's crew.
Proteus has only been seen a couple of times, the last time hinting that he's "with" Mara. He'll show up more in Story Nine, as he's been tasked with hunting down Seraph's Pylon.

Jude Adamantine Arrow Acanthus Gnosis 5, Adept of Fate and Time Lanky, sarcastic, possibly alcoholic and bad-tempered, Jude is the other Sentinel in the Wardens and an accomplished combat Mage - he's an Acanthus, and he focuses almost entirely on the immediate possibilities of his Realm rather than what he calls "the fairy rubbish" of time-scrying, foretelling the future beyond the next moment and so on. Instead, he crackles with pre-cast effects, conditional triggers, speedenhancing rotes, "replay" rotes, fate armour and luck enhancements - all to deadly effect. He's no good at arresting people or sober investigation (leave that to Proteus, Damascus, Link - even Thursday) but is the man to have on your side when you want something improbable pulled off.
Jude is the red-haired man that's occasionally seen with Mara, or acting as a Sentinel, since the third ever session. He's named after Jude Thaddeus aka the second of the apostles named Judas - who's the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.

Roriko Guardian of the Veil Acanthus, Bearer of the Eternal Voice Gnosis 5, Adept of Mind and Fate Restaurant owner, nightclub owner, ex-Madame, bar owner... Roriko is an unusual case of a non-Mastigos being trained as a Bearer of the Eternal Voice - by Mara, at Malakaii's insistence. In the service of the Guardians of the Veil, she used her powers to network, to gather information and to watch out for Supernaturals, calling in the rest of the Gatekeepers when she found something untoward. The more illicit activities she was involved in - prostitution, the drugs trade, smuggling - provided a means by which Malakaii's group could get it's on hold on their subjects, and served a shallow area of the Guardian Labyrinth, providing ample distractions for the elite who would otherwise poke their noses into the occult. Roriko was always distant from the other Gatekeepers, though - her unique Enchantress take on the Bearers kept her apart from Malakaii, and the reactive nature of her work (and how busy she was) kept her away from the others. She especially disliked Thursday, who saw too much of Dantor in her and publicly 830

shunned her. He reaped his reward when the Cabal split, and Roriko chose loyalty to her Legacy tutor over continuing the thankless work for Thursday.

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Children of the Book

The Metropolitan area of Washington DC spreads out far beyond the Diamondshaped District of Columbia, into Maryland to the North and East and Virginia to the South and West. Most of this area is Suburbia, with occasional military and government bases. Arlington (and the National Cemetery within it) and the Pentagon are *just* over the border into Virginia. Mages know no arbitrary demarcation lines, though, and the Consilium counts two Cabals based outside of the Diamond as members - one in good standing, and one just joined. The Ascendants are in Virginia, based out of the town-cum-suburb of Alexandria. The Children of the Book are in Maryland, operating out of College Park. Well, mostly. The Children are a diverse Cabal without any major Order or Legacy affiliation, and aren't based on any kind of ideology regarding the city. As such, they're a little bit odd, and prone to getting ignored in the grand scheme of things. Because they're based outside of the Consilium's declared borders, their membership grows and shrinks as nomadic Mages come and go - the members presented here are the ones who have signed themselves up to the Consilium properly. The Cabal's spiritual home is the University of Maryland in College Park, the largest of DC's universities and the one that is "held" by the Pentacle, while all others are contested (Georgetown, Howard) or "held" by the Seers (Gallaudet, George Washington, District of Columbia). Marathon, Harper, Key and Jack are all active in and around the University, while Henderson lives in College Park proper. Marathon Adamantine Arrow Thyrsus, Perfected Adept Gnosis 5, Master of Life Marathon is the least-known Provost on the Consilium roll - a first-degree Master who rose to his position almost unnoticed, ex-student of the elusive Fisher King and democratically-elected head of the Children of the Book. A champion decathlete, Marathon Awoke to the Primal Wild on his national-record breaking run, and ever since has devoted his magical learning almost single-mindedly to the improvement of personal ability. He left Fisher King's tutorship to find and be inducted in the Perfected Adepts legacy, which he has since passed on to Link in the Defenders. He coaches athletics at the university, trying to inspire the youth of the Fallen World to break beyond their Exarch-given limits. He is married to the Mastigos mage "Henderson".
Marathon was inspired by "World Record" in the Animatrix - the idea being that the mental experience of pushing the human body that far can trigger the gnostic experience necessary to Awaken. Of all the characters in the Chronicle, I think Marathon is in the group (along with Cerberus, Mara, Samuel and John Dee) that I'd like to have as a player character. He has, however, not shown up in the Chronicle so far except as a overly-healthy man in the background of large group scenes.

Henderson Free Council Mastigos, Claviclarius Gnosis 4, Disciple An FBI profiler in a group dealing with violent crimes, Henderson Awoke to Pandemonium while trying to understand, as a child, why her brother was murdered, and gained too much empathy for the killer in the process - "Henderson" is his name, which she took after murdering him in turn before the police could figure out who did it. A Claviclarius in order to master the same internal impulses she recognises and hunts in others, she's now the Consilium's main point of contact with Project Twilight.

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Although Henderson would be a more obvious fit in the Gatekeepers or even the Defenders (or, for that matter, Project Twilight), she fell in love with Marathon upon first arriving in DC from Quantico. The two married last year.
Henderson was intended to be a contact point in the case of another mooted character being played - when the Chronicle was first designed, one of the guys was mulling the idea of playing a Moros CSI or Pathologist, who used their powers to get visions of who really did it and then had to guide the FBI to the real perpetrator without raising suspicion. For about a fortnight back there, the player cabal was going to be entirely based in Law Enforcement - CSI: Pentacle, as it were. I still think it's a rocking idea for a Chronicle.

Key Free Council Thyrsus Gnosis 3, Disciple When most people kick their computer, or swear at a device that isn't doing it's job, they don't really mean it. Key really means it. An Engineer at the University, Key keeps the campus systems and electrics working by the unique means of awakening the spirit of the device at hand and then intimidating it into submission. He even has an enchanted wrench which he uses as a post-modern ghost rattle.
Key was a character design by Andy - who played Nathaniel in Deliria, and Soul in Everway - for an abortive Mage: The Ascension game set in College Park. Andy later adapted the five-year-old and never-played concept and turned it into a Werewolf: The Forsaken character for my Alaska-set Forsaken chronicle. He appears here as an affectionate call-back to chronicles gone by.

Jack Mysterium Acanthus Gnosis 3, Disciple The youngest member of the Children of the Book, Jack is a Lecturer in socioeconomic History at the College.
And he hasn't ever turned up, even in crowd scenes.

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The Ascendants
New arrivals in DC, the Ascendants are a group of three similarly-minded Silver Ladder mages, united by a common purpose, a common Legacy (an offshoot of the Thrice-Great) and a shared belief in the truth of an ancient scroll that, they say, indicates that three Kings will arise among the Silver Ladder and lead the Awakened back to Ascension. As they independently chose their Shadow Names long before meeting, and as the prophecies in the scroll and those produced by Balthazar (their Acanthus) come true more and more, their certainty that they're those Kings only grows with every year. Melchior Silver Ladder Moros, Thrice-Great Gnosis 7, Master of Death and Spirit, Adept of Matter An Engineer before his Awakening, Melchior is of German nationality (he says he's an "East German", which would indicate how long he's been away from his mother country) and is the leader of the Ascendants - the one who travelled up the Ladder of the Spheres and met (he says) the Oracle "Aion" and received the Scroll of the Ascendants for his trouble. He's also the member of the Ascendants most often seen by the Consilium at large, which he now serves as Judge in trials of the Lex Magica. Balthazar Silver Ladder Acanthus, Thrice-Great Gnosis 5, Master of Time, Adept of Fate and Spirit A lanky black man from (by his accent) the South, Balthazar is assumed to be the true power in the Ascendants - Cabal policy is, they admit, set by a combination of the Scroll and Balthazar's Divinations, which the three magi have the utmost confidence in. He is usually seen whispering in Melchior's ear, confirming the wisdom of a particular course of action. Caspar Silver Ladder Obrimos, Thrice-Great Gnosis 3, Disciple The youngest Ascendant, who could almost be brothers with Hoban by their similarly WASP-ish appearance, Caspar is almost never seen in the Consilium, though is quietly sought by those that wish to get to know the Cabal for his inside perspective on the odd double-act of his two superiors. It is not known which of the two elder Magi is Caspar's Legacy Tutor - the suspicion is that it's both of them.
The Ascendants - named after the three Magi who attended Jesus - are the creation of Black_Hatt_Matt, and can be found in Reign of the Exarchs. Only, because WW generally don't give Legacies for characters, they're not Thrice-Great there. The group's Legacy affiliation (the Thrice-Great being a similarly lofty-minded Legacy open to all Silver Ladder mages who have the same ultimate goal as this Cabal) was added just before Legacies: The Ancient came out. The Scroll, in my version, is the result of Melchior climbing the Ladder to address Aion as per the Legacy - he returned to Earth with it and has recruited his Cabal to follow its instructions. Except as those who've seen Reign of the Exarchs know, the scroll's a fake and the Ascendants are dupes - it's been provided by Kali's mother, who controlled Melchior into magically Aging it. The scroll, and Balthazar's visions (which Anurati similarly controls) serve as a means of twisting the Consilium according to how Anurati perceives the Exarchs wish it.

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Project: Twilight
Twilight technically isn't a Cabal - they're a Faction. The name for the linked network of Guardian of the Veil Cabals within the Intelligence services of the US, Twilight are commanded by a powerful Guardian Master in Langley whose name remains a closely-guarded secret. Twilight has it's own Legacies, it's own rituals, it's own rote mudras - even it's own distinct Labyrinth in the form of the hundredfold conspiracies and secretive groups within their target audience. It is also, worryingly to the rest of the Guardians of the Veil, entirely separate from the hierarchy of the Order as a whole - Project: Twilight started off as a good idea, but is turning into almost a separate Order, and the Guardians are painfully aware how little they know about their "cousins" activities. They *say* that they're working to preserve the Veil just like other Guardians, but how much has it been turned into Control of their agencies for Control's sake? The Twilight "Cell" (they even have their own word for "Cabal") in DC is divided among the Agencies - one in the NSA, one in the CIA and two in the FBI.
The idea of Project Twilight is from the Guardian of the Veil book, though they have a different name there and are even more isolationist.

Pool Guardian of the Veil Mastigos, Shadowmen Gnosis 6, Master of Space The head of the DC Cell, Pool was one of the original conspirators when Twilight was conceived and is high up (maybe even second) in it's hierarchy. Outrageously (from a Guardian point of view) she holds a highly visible position - "Pool" is the Shadow Name for one of the Assistant Directors of the FBI. A serious, dark-haired woman with an unnerving demeanour (from her Shadowman Legacy), Pool almost never comes into contact with other Consilium members - preferring to send Nimrod to do the talking for her.
Pool has been described as "Scully's Goth period", which is about right. She hasn't turned up in the Chronicle.

Nimrod Guardian of the Veil Moros, Shadowmen Gnosis 4, Adept of Death An FBI Agent, Nimrod (named for the Biblical Hunter) is the member of Twilight chosen to interact with the rest of the Consilium. As a gesture of willing, he is deputised to the Consilium's Sentinels as a Sentinel for cases where his job, access and expertise are useful - usually high-profile incidents that have come to the attention of the Sleepers in some way. Even then, he acts first to cover up whatever's happened and to make any Pentacle mages safe *before* - and often instead of gathering evidence of what happened. He is referred to by younger, Tarantinowatching, Mages as "The Cleaner".
Nimrod first turned up in 2.1, having deflected FBI interest away from Kali as a courtesy. His services as Cleaner were later used by the Cabal in the Crack Factory incident and then again when Wolsey and Kali killed Seraph and Hera's host bodies during the Malakaii arc. As Wolsey says, the reason Twilight hold themselves apart from the other Guardians may be simply to get a moment's piece. Dour, sallow-faced Nimrod (who resembles the "G-man" in Half Life, even down to the stuttering speech) is simply too efficient.

Tick Guardian of the Veil Mastigos, Shadowmen Gnosis 5, Disciple

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Wash Guardian of the Veil Acanthus, Shadowmen Gnosis 4, Disciple The final two members of the DC Twilight Cell (that Nimrod has named in conversation) are even less seen than Pool. Tick is female and works, the Consilium believe, as an interpreter in the NSA. Wash is male and understood to be a CIA agent.

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The Crucible
Based in Anacostia, the borderland between the city centre, the military bases and the harder ganglands occupied by Dantor, The Crucible is an experimental Cabal chartered as a holding pen for Mages powerful and confident enough to be release by their initial tutors - the idea being that this way, the powerful lynchpins of the city couldn't grab all the apprentices for themselves. In practice, though, it's become an exercise in remote influence - Banneker (Wolsey), Suleiman (Amanda), Thursday (Mycroft), Samuel (Kali) and Ulysses (Damascus) all have their influence - or think they have their influence - within the new Cabal. In truth, the Crucible are out for themselves, seeing negotiating the pitfalls and attempts to control them as something to make them stronger, faster. Judging by their phenomenal advancement already, they may be on to something.
That phenomenal advancement being because three of them are player characters, and achieving xp in months that would take an npc years. From Disciples to having their first Adept Arcana within six months is possible within the bounds of the setting, but it's certainly notable. The Crucible are therefore "ones to watch", which serves to protagonise our player characters.

Wolsey Silver Ladder Mastigos, Bearer of the Eternal Voice Gnosis 3, Adept of Space Herald of the city, answerable to Banneker directly rather than a Councillor like his fellow Heralds, Wolsey seemed a shoe-in for the Bearers of the Eternal voice. Banneker took the serious-minded young man from Boston, manoeuvring his way through DC's Labyrinth in search of occult answers, and tried to make him into a "new Malakaii", someone with the same remit and abilities as Malakaii but loyal to the Silver Ladder and to Banneker. It failed. Malakaii rejected Wolsey's attempts to join the Bearers shortly before his death, and Mara turning out to be responsible for that death led to the collapse of Banneker's plans for Wolsey. The Hierarch hasn't dropped him completely, though, considering that a friend thrown away is a friend wasted, and is trying to keep him "on side" while he tries to think of something else to do with him. Wolsey himself is preoccupied by the steady disintegration of his marriage to his Cabal-mate Amanda, which does not seem likely to survive recent events.
((As at 7.2)) Wolsey achieved Space 4 with the xp from last session. It should be noted that no-one outside of the Cabal knows that Wolsey has Malakaii's Soul Stone and has used it to become a Bearer. If they *did* find out, Beckett would try to destroy it, Seraph steal it, Tybalt claim it, Mara buy it with favours of some kind and Thursday... Thursday would try to have Wolsey arrested.

Damascus Adamantine Arrow Moros, Uncrowned Kings Gnosis 3, Disciple Sentinel of the City, assigned to cases involving sober investigation and careful negotiation with witnesses, Damascus is a young artist from a deprived area of DC. Awakened to Stygia after being sent to prison as a youth, Damascus is now an Uncrowned King under John Dee's tutelage. His primary loyalty, in most opinions, is to Ulysses - the elder Arrow mage being Damascus' friend and mentor since his conversion to Christianity.

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Wolsey has a slightly higher *status* merit, but Damascus is the best-thought of member of the Cabal. He's inoffensive, and not obviously the Hierarch or Samuel's pawn.

Kali Mysterium Acanthus, House of Ariadne Gnosis 4, Adept of Time A young Mysterium mage and member of the House of Ariadne, not much is known about Kali - she was heavily involved in gangland, but after the Seers attacked her operations she's significantly scaled down her involvement in favour of concentrating on her Legacy and her Order. She's influential among the younger members of the Silver Ladder and Mysterium not for any great personable nature, but because of her perceived status of "Samuel's favourite". The near-Archmage has taken an interest in Kali, and she's seen with him sometimes when other Mages seek him out for some reason. Although she's too young to be his new Provost, she's expected to be Trace's second after Trace assumes leadership of the House of Ariadne.
Kali has almost no Consilium status to her name, but has Order status thanks to her position in the Legacy and reflected glory from Samuel

Mycroft Guardian of the Veil Moros, Eleventh Question Gnosis 3, Disciple The newest member of the Crucible, Mycroft is a Guardian of the Eleventh Question. Mistrusted by most mages for his insights, bumped from Consilium to Consilium, he's come to rest in the Crucible officially to be Amanda's sponsor and mentor in the Order. He's considered one of the candidates for Interfector, the role of "he who punishes other Mages found guilty of crimes" that Thursday has recently vacated, thanks to his Attainments and his already dubious reputation.
Mycroft was mentioned during the Malakaii arc, and showed up last story. His candidacy for Interfector is at Wolsey/Mark's suggestion.

Amanda Guardian of the Veil Mastigos Gnosis 2, Apprentice Youngest Mage in the city, "Avatar" Awakened in the service of a cult dedicated to the Seers of the Throne, before being trained by both Mara and Promethea. She was prematurely shuffled off the Crucible, where her husband Wolsey was Cabal Leader, due to Mara's involvement in Malakaii's death - and it was there that the ancient Silver Ladder Mage "Querephas" tried to possess her. Amanda (she took the shadow name of "Avatar" due to feeling like she was the modern incarnation of something, and has abandoned it after her ancestor tried to take her over) was left blinded, and her relationship with Wolsey rocked to an extent that it may not recover from.
Amanda's in search of a new Shadow Name - and there's a neat thing going on in sessions so far, where Wolsey never addresses her by name, as he won't put her at risk by calling her "Amanda" unless he's sure they're only with friends.

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Independents
Fisher King[/b] Independent Acanthus Gnosis 8, Master of Life and Space, Adept of Time and Fate Fisher King (often just called "Fisher") is a hermit-like wandering figure, so totally at ease with the city that he has no base of operations, no sanctum, no cabal and no home. He serves, as a distinction of his great knowledge, as one of the city's councillors, though he almost never attends Caucus, his chair instead being filled by a wooden icon representing him. Fisher is a believer in the ecology of cities - he thinks that DC is alive, and not in the metaphysical sense that Samuel and his followers in the House of Ariadne would think of it. Fisher honestly believes that cities are vast living beings, with organs, veins (roads) and nerves (wires), and that the human population is living symbiotically within it the same way all other life is. If he can be found, he can impart great wisdom - but his knowledge is all of a practical nature, rather than theoretical, and he sometimes insists on people staying with him for days or weeks of his homeless lifestyle.
Fisher King is named for the Arthurian Figure - and for the Robin Williams movie. He greatly resembles the Invisibles Tom O'Bedlam, down to the belief in cities as life forms.

Bethune Independent Obrimos, Tamer of the Cave Gnosis 6, Adept of Life, Death and Prime Bethune believes in the good of people. An independent mage on the fringe of the Consilium, she is a political lobbyist by trade, who works tirelessly to promote "good" (to her point of view) causes, to encourage the development of the soul in others and to heal wounds. She is regarded as an empty-headed idealist by the Gatekeepers, and ignored by most of the rest of the Consilium. Out of everyone, she has the greatest contact with Shore due to shared interests, but she is uncomfortable around him as a demonologist.
Bethune has only turned up (and in fact only been heard of) during the vote for Councillor at the end of last story.

Alexander Silver Ladder Mastigos Gnosis 5, Adept of Mind Alexander describes himself as tempering humanity - Awakened and otherwise - like steel, making them stronger and better able to resist the Exarchs. His means of doing, so, however, does not win him many friends, and he's muttered to be LeftHanded. Alexander goes out of his way, whenever possible, to increase tensions between people and groups - he believes that only through conflict are people perfected and made strong, so he should foster conflict wherever he can. After his application of this philosophy led to him being expelled by the City Souls Cabal he is too notorious for it to work on Mages, so he concentrates on Sleepers, moving in the shadows of the Guardian's Labyrinth to muddy the waters and create healthy resentment wherever he goes.
I very nearly called Alexander "Ozymandius".

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Appendix 4: Character Stats as at End of Story 9.

Thomas "Wolsey" Dean
Virtue: Hope Vice: Envy Path: Mastigos Order: Silver Ladder Legacy: Bearers of the Eternal Voice Intelligence 2 Wits 3 Resolve 3 Strength 2 Dexterity 2 Stamina 2 Presence 3 Manipulation 3 Composure 2 Academics 1 Investigation 1 Occult 3 Athletics 1 Brawl 1 Drive 1 Firearms 1 Expression 3 (speeches) Persuasion 3 Socialise 2 Subterfuge 3 (lying, spotting lies) Merits: High Speech, Unseen Sense, Consilium Status 2, Silver Ladder Status 1, Resources 3, Sanctum 1 Arcana: Life 1, Mind 3, Space 4 Gnosis 4 Wisdom 7 Willpower 5 16 unspent Experience 20 unspent Arcane Experience
Wolsey's Wisdom would be much lower, but he has the luck of the devil when it comes to degeneration checks. He didn't fill in the "concept" box on his character sheet.

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Carl "Damascus" Washington

Concept: Redeemed Warrior Virtue: Temperance Vice: Pride Path: Moros Order: Adamantine Arrow Legacy: Uncrowned Kings Intelligence 3 Wits 2 Resolve 3 Strength 3 Dexterity 2 Stamina 2 Presence 2 Manipulation 2 Composure 3 Academics 2 Crafts 4 (forging) Investigation 1 Occult 1 Athletics 2 Brawl 1 Drive 1 Firearms 1 Larceny 2 Stealth 1 Survival 1 Weaponry 2 (improvised) Intimidation 1 Persuasion 1 Socialise 1 Streetwise 1 (gangs) Merits: High Speech, Unseen Sense, Fame 2, Mentor 1, Adamantine Arrow Status 2, Resources 3, Sanctum 2, Consilium Status 2 Arcana: Death 3, Matter 3, Mind 3, Prime 2 Gnosis 4 Wisdom 6 Willpower 6 9 unspent Experience 21 unspent Arcane Experience Estimated 119 Total Experience Estimated 72 Total Arcane Experience

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Kemi "Kali" Simone

Concept: Destiny-Ridden Denialist Virtue: Charity Vice: Wrath Path: Acanthus Order: Mysterium Legacy: House of Ariadne Intelligence 3 Wits 3 Resolve 3 Strength 2 Dexterity 3 Stamina 2 Presence 2 Manipulation 2 Composure 2 Academics 2 Computer 1 Investigation 3 Occult 3 Athletics 2 Brawl 2 Drive 1 Firearms 3 Larceny 2 Stealth 2 Survival 2 Weaponry 2 Intimidation 2 (gang mom) Socialise 2 Streetwise 3 (undercover) Subterfuge 3 Merits: High Speech, Unseen Sense, Destiny 2, Language (Sanskrit), Mysterium Status 2, Gang Status 2, Resources 2, Mentor 2, Sanctum 2, Fighting Finesse Arcana: Fate 3, Space 2, Time 4 Gnosis 5 Wisdom 5 Willpower 5 6 unspent Experience 0 unspent Arcane Experience

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