Nick's IC notes on Monday night.

[nick_garou]

Salem, Val, Mouse, Jacinta, and Emma,

I'm writing these notes down to help recall and record what I saw and experienced the other night. Hopefully this will be of some use to you and the sept.

The documents I used to track the original author to when they were written (in 1963 a couple weeks apart from one another) were clearly produced by a mage who, at the time, resided in Saint Claire. He's still alive--or alive in the stream of time itself--as he was able to hijack my attempt at scrying into the past. I did catch glimpses of the Enola Gay, the WW II B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, and I also felt a cold cement wall covered in grime and with a large capital "B" on it (reactor? bunker? military warehouse? I don't know); however, I'm not sure if those were glimpses of the past, glimpses of the mage's past memories, or imagery pushed into my head by the other mage.

Ultimately, we're dealing with a very powerful mage with significant command over Time (he can probably stop it completely in small areas) and--at the minimum--some command over people's minds. Think god-like power. Don't cross this guy if he ever turns up. (I don't think bowing down and worshiping would do any good, either.) He doesn't seem to be aligned against us, so there's that. But his thought processes are complex to the point of being nearly alien--like he's dumbing it down for us.

We had a brief conversation. I included notes (asides) within to provide a bit more context and thoughts to ponder.

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Mage: "You are mistaken. It does not begin. /You/ are mistaken. You are looking for an origin. A beginning. It does not begin. It never begins."

(Aside: I'd initially been trying to look to the origins of two writings in the hope of reading the mind of the person who'd written them as they'd been writing these notes. My intent was to see if this had cause the Nothing to be created. It seems I was wrong.)

Me: "What is the significance of this place and this time?"

(Aside: I was trying to find meaning in the conflicting images of the Enola Gay, a cold cement wall with a large "B" on it, and the sensation of being in a hot, dry desert all at the same time. I wasn't sure if it was the LSD talking or a mental hijacking, which I think is more the case now that I've had time to reflect and clear my head.)

Mage: "Hanford begins. It came from here, you know, all the misery to follow. They came to that place by the river. Called? Coincidence? Only two tiny farming towns in the way, and only the Indians beyond that. Perfect, except for the people." (Faint chuckling. Joke?) "They created factories fit for the devil in secret. Oh, so many secrets. Shipped it far, far away to the desert, and then across the ocean. You know this story, if you think. It poisoned everything, but it poisoned here first."

(Aside: These are clearly references to the displaced, out-of-time, out-of-spatial-location images I saw or that were forced upon me.)

Me: "I know this story. This may not be your beginning, but it is a beginning. A doorway. Which is in itself a beginning of sorts."

Mage: "You ask. The significance of this place and this time. Significance is a matter of perception. You exist in it, among it; it is significant to you. Home. To your pet, significance lies a little further, yes? Once, once, there was significance in the mountains near Hanford. No longer, except to me. They were going there, looking for allies. Spirits. Banes, as they are called. Possessed Sleepers. So ignorant, like repulsive clawed children. The Not took a few of them. They took a few back. Brought them to your city, your significance. Ignorant, as I said. Now it is eating, eating away. But that is not the /significance/ for it."

(Aside: I'm not sure if "pet" here refers to LOLcat or Salem.)

(Aside: "Sleepers" is a slang term for humans who are unaware of the supernatural elements around them.)



(Aside: "Repulsive clawed children" may refer to fomori, black spiral dancers, or garou in general. My suspicion is that if the mage was aware of pre-nuclear Hanford, he might have known about the garou there, likely Uktena/Wendigo, who were displaced and had a caern in the area. My suspicion is that the negative tone came /after/ the nuclear site was established, which indicates there could have been a positive opinion of the clawed children" beforehand. It's entirely possible this mage was an ally of theirs, perhaps weaker and unable to help them when the government came. Or not.)

Me: "Is The Not another universe that is negating this one, The Is? Tell me what the significance is."

(Aside: I have a working theory that this reality may be being negated by links (black ooze) to an anti-reality. I phrased my question poorly. Maybe dropping LSD was a bad idea in hindsight.)



Mage: "'Universe' implies physicality. Being. Substance. Existence. I would not call it that. But how can I know?" (Chuckle.) "Walk into the mouth, and tell me sometime. The significance. Sig-nif-icance. Can you feel the world's tilt and turn? The rotation of the galaxy? The slow march of the universe to inevitable solitude? You are aware of the Not because you have seen some of its effects, but there is something so...much...larger. Something significant to it, perhaps. Old and tired, but waking up. It woke us up. It...oh. But you /have/ felt it. The Not is always hungry; there lies a feast. Pulling. Pushing."

(Aside: It would seem like The Not is only a minor aspect of what we're dealing with here, and we can't seem to deal with The Not. If that's the case, we're all fucked. It's just a matter of time. Although that time frame may be glacially slow.)



Me: "You speak of the void. Not the emptiness of space, for the emptiness of space comes with the knowledge of the absence of matter, spirit, time, life, and energy. Those things, moved into the emptiness, slowly begin to fill it. But the void is the absence of existence itself. That is what The Not is. I've felt it. I've even fed it, though feeding it is pointless--even if consumption is all it seems to desire. What is it that is waking up, and what are you?"


Mage: "I cannot see most of it. Far too large, far too old. I know that it is waking, stirring. Very slowly, to your perception. I know that the Not did not wake it; it woke us. More awake than when the dogs lost their Caern for good. I can only perceive a fragment. Power, yes. Chaos and life. It feeds the mountains, the forests, the rivers. It once fed even the dead Caern. Once. Once. As for me? What.../am/...I? A good question. Your author. A seeker. But not a voice out of time, no. You touched my mind. I have felt others, distantly, in the past year. Others from your place, meddling where they should not, trying to steal what does not belong to them. All's well, yes? No more whispers in the dark. Not from me."



(Aside: I have no clue what he's talking about initially in this response. Not a clue.)


(Aside: "it woke us." I'm not sure who "us" refers to. Mages? Supernatural entities? The entirety of existence?)
 

(Aside: Re: Meddling. I would not bother attempting that Rite of Dreaming that some garou have. You're out of your league with this mage. It's also possible he was talking about the Spirals in the area being interested in the caern or... something else we've not put our fingers on yet.)

(Aside: I suspect this is the source of the mysterious writings on the walls/windows/mirrors. And I suspect we won't be seeing those any more.)



Me: "You are not the Not, and you are not the thing the Nots seek to wake. You are the author and a seeker. A fellow seeker? A world warper? A will worker? A mage like myself? I and the local wolves received several whispers in the dark. I understand the value of whispering in the dark as it helps to communicate information that is sensitive while hiding one's identity. But without clarity, whispers in the dark tend to be nothing more than what they are: whispers in the dark."

Mage: "It does not want to wake this thing. This thing is already waking. Why? I do not know; the reason did not come from Hanford. Considering what has already happened; your...tremblings and rumblings, I do not think it would be beneficial to anyone for it to fully wake. That was a twitch. A snort, a blink. Metaphors can only go so far, I'm afraid. But yes, if you like. A fellow seeker. A mage. The name meant something to me at one point. Go with that. One little favor, fellow seeker. A direction, if you will, though I don't think you will enjoy following it. A word that you've missed. Would you like it, before I sleep?"

(Aside: This thing has that is awakening seems to have been awakening for some time, and it's not the Not/Nothing. It sounds like The Not doesn't want to wake it either. I have to wonder if the black ooze is something they're using in hopes of containing the Hanford radiation that might otherwise wake this thing up.)

(Aside: Why does this mage need to sleep for super-extended periods of time?)

Me: So naturally I said "yes."

Mage: *Laughter, then silence.*

Upon returning to the here and now, I noticed the word "Hilliard" had been burned into the floor.

(Aside: This could refer to the old Hilliard Memorial Hospital (maybe there were artifacts of some kind buried in the rubble and/or recovered from the rubble?), the Hilliard Corporation here in town, and/or the Hilliard family itself. These seem like good areas to poke into next--according to both me and someone far more powerful and knowledgeable than me.)