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The younger detective Mage of the two listens calmly to the sounds of nature as they walk. Less chatty perhaps than historically known to be and more focused instead; completely silent, actually. When Brings' asks the question, Benedict simply nods, knowing that the other will catch the gesture in some fashion.
Brings-the-Pack arrives at the center of the glade--his glade--and casually hops the 4' height onto the boulder-table in the center. The motion seems almost effortless for the cougar. "When you last came to visit, you were very excited about your seeking. Were you successful?"
Benedict watches the lithe movement of the cougar body and considers it intently, almost distractedly until it seems that the question makes a second trip through his mind and he snaps out of the study. "Y-yes," he offers and his eyes lose some of their intensity as he seems to look at Brings more conversationally than as a point of interest. He continues with a calm and peaceful tone of voice, "I do not know how personal seekings are to you. Is it something that the Awakened discuss?"
"Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. And probably best not discussed with non-mages. My avatar? 18th Century male schoolteacher. Exacting. Driving. Always pushing me to challenge comfort zones and learn and grow. We did not get along very well for quite a number of years, and we rarely speak. Perhaps half a dozen to a dozen times per year. Less some years. Typically in dreams. We still disagree at times. Even antagonize one another occasionally. But," he says, getting back on topic, "You had a successful seeking. Did you gain a greater understanding of a sphere in the process?"
Benedict has a slight quirk of a smile touch his lips and then after considering this, nods. "Very well," he continues, "It started with a case. A kidnapping. Woman left her abusive boyfriend and took their baby with her. Very simple except he was the one that reported the kidnapping so as far as the SCPD knew, there was only one side to the story and it didn't look good for the woman. To make a long story short, there was some Magick involved in tracking them down and finding the evidence that put him in jail, awaiting a court date." He intakes a sharp breath and lets it out slowly, then swallows. "My avatar is King Arthur. The avatar itself believes him to be the real and true King Arthur but I often think of him more as Don Quixote. He is brash, reckless, and only lives to quest vicariously through me. He is loud when I sleep and typically a quiet buzzing insistence while I am awake. As I sought out this woman and her child, he was a louder buzzing. This mattered to him. In dreams I was slaying a dragon to rescue a damsel in distress. Or I was riding through the forest on a gold-laden horse with lance in hand towards a burning green light in the distance with him always at my side, calling out and whooping in joy for the hunt. In life, I was not moving fast enough for him. I was stuck in mundane methods of investigating, as far as he was concerned. But there were clues. I used life magicks to analyze the blood from the wound and combined that with correspondence to track down the knife in the home that caused it. But I needed evidence and the knife was cleaned." That night, I dreamed again and it was different. I slept too easily. The dragon was the light and I knew it was there but could not make it real enough to fight. I traveled into the flames and heard His voice telling me that these secrets were not hiding from me. They were not aware of me. They simply were. They could not reveal themselves anymore than any but he could draw the sword from the stone. There was this strange wisdom there... I traveled for days in this dream, and noticed that the light had curvatures within in it. It had recesses that darkened and swirled and pieces that jutted out with startling brightness. I was within a great and purposeful pattern. Once I realized that, I started to bring the pattern into focus. I could then pull the recesses out and push the edges in. I created the dragon that I must fight, and instead of slaying it... after what was a lifetime of work in a moment, I became the beast. I felt raw power like the Prime I sensed before, but this time I was able to touch it, instead of only allowed it to touch me. I awoke with a startling headache..." Benedict takes a long breath once more and continues, "Again, to shorten the story... I knew what to do. I got to the station at four in the morning. I was able to enhance the husband's fingerprints on the handle using aspects of Magick related to Forces and Matter, fueled with Prime to make the pattern stronger so it could be picked up with the fingerprinting tape. I got a complete fingerprint that had been illusive to us. His story unraveled. We tracked her down and she will be testifying against him in court."
Brings-the-Pack lifts his eyebrows at the King Arthur bit, but they come down as Benedict indicates he sees through the illusion/delusion. He looks pleased at a few points in the tale, but very much so at one part, which he then speaks upon. "You could sense, but then suddenly you could touch and influence. That is the key to taking your next step with Spirit magick." He steps off the boulder-table and gestures towards it. "The talisman here should help you. It thins the gauntlet so as to make the distance between here and the spirit world thinner and easier to touch. It is currently about as thin as the gauntlet at the caern, but without the prying eyes. And I can help thin the gauntlet here even more, until it is so sheer you can see through to it without the knowledge of magick. This should facilitate your learning. Your next step is to be able to touch things in the spirit realm. Your avatar sounds impatient and might want you to do more and faster, but a tower needs a solid foundation and will collapse without one that is adequately fortified."
Benedict seems bolstered by his own telling of the tale, as if the occurrences described became more real to him in the vocalizing of them. The younger will-worker allows himself a full smile and nods as Brings-the-Pack speaks to him. "Then as the gauntlet thins, there will be a point where I should be able to connect with what seemed ephemeral. I know that Spirits exist. They are clearly beings. The Spirit world has properties different to the Matter world, but is no less real." He runs his tongue over his lips and looks intently at the stone, "My avatar is impatient for the lessons to begin, but once they have seems to be willing to take time to absorb them. As long as there is a Quest," and you can practically hear the capital Q in the word there, "He is satisfied. Arthur prefers quests to have innocents to defend or villains to defeat. So I often feel I have to frame my path towards a case to solve. It will be interesting how the Spirit manifests in my work."
"I think you'll find a good deal of utility in combining what you already know with Prime with what you could know with Spirit. In particularly, you could take a knife, use your knowledge of Prime to imbue it with quintessence and make it a greater embodiment of a knife, and then use what you already know of seeing and detecting spirits to track down harmful ones from this side of the gauntlet. If you can learn how to touch the spirit world, you can then reach through, with the knife, to hurt evil spirits--and their means of striking back is often very limited, as most spirits cannot cross the gauntlet without help. I suspect that might open doors for new quests for you."
Benedict reaches out to touch the boulder that contains the talisman and there is definitely a quirk of a smile as Brings-the-Pack suggests a good purpose for the sphere. "My child was touched by evil when she was born. I have sought, since she came into my life, to unmake that evil. Through the help of others I have destroyed the bonds back to the Spirals that carved into her and sought to raise her as a monster. She isn't though. Almost three years old now and loves to talk about such happy things. She tells me that she dreamed about big puppies that led her to beautiful trees." He has a wistful expression that tinges his smile as he says this, "She will one day be a big puppy, I suppose... but I want her Spirit to be healthy and strong when the time comes. So for now I monitor her and our home and my office. I try to keep the places I live and work as spiritually healthy as possible. Easier to do at home than at work, but with what I understand now, I am doing my best. I practice what Feng Shui actually seems to have an effect in directing spiritual energies and emotions towards a positive and calming end. The walls are painted with healthy colors and blessed incense burns with smudging that I try to imbue with purpose. The burning things seems to be a little bit of woo-woo right now... but I feel like that is only because I am not doing it right. Like I'm missing the understanding of how such things should interact with the Spirit world." He pulls his hand back from the stone and gives a huff of a sigh with a shrug, "Work though? The station? That's a losing battle... that I keep fighting anyways. So much horrible things there. Ghosts and dark beings that either ride in on the pathetic souls that are brought there? Or live in the station to feed on the desperation and hopelessness that pervades the building. I fear if I brought such a knife as you describe in there, some of the things would very likely be able to lash back across. They are strong and bloody and so full of rage. I stopped bringing my daughter to the office the moment I began my path on the Spirit sphere and saw what was under the surface of this supposed reality."
Brings-the-Pack listens carefully, and then offers some advice. The first bit of advice comes as one former SCPD detective-mage to another. "Police officers, and detectives, spend a lot of time face-to-face with the worst of humanity. A lot of law enforcement officers, the ones who care or perhaps care too deeply, often retire early by trying to eat their own gun. As a mage in such a position, we can see that much of the time, it's humans--and humans uninfluenced by spirits or the supernatural--who do horrible things on a day-to-day basis. The worst of the worst is often fueled by something supernatural, but.... Even then, not always. I think there is an even greater danger to mages who work at these jobs. I know working as a homicide detective, seeing what had been wrought by human influence alone, was eating at me from the inside and filling me with despair. No hope for a future. I had to walk away. I was no strong enough to face that every day. Maybe you are. But if you feel yourself sinking, come talk to me. There are other professions. There are other ways to make a living, especially with magic as an aid." He then offers some spirit-related advice. "You mentioned a number of techniques for warding against spirits, expelling evil spirits, and attracting good spirits. And you said they feel a little 'woo-woo.'" He lifts your exact wording, putting into context, and perhaps intentionally making it feel a little silly. "All attempts at influencing the spirits instead of sensing them. They may not be working because they are, in fact, woo-woo. Take a step back. How do you currently extend your senses into the Spirit realm?"
Benedict listens intently as his mentor speaks and nods at several places where Brings talks of the spiritual dangers of his job. Then the question and he answers, "First. I care about the good I do, the little bit of it that feels like a stone in an ocean sometimes, but at least there are ripples. It gives me more joy than the horribleness of it all gives me despair. If that ever changes, I will of course talk to you about it." Here he pauses and looks from the stone towards Brings, "At first I used mushrooms, and they worked really well... but those take a while to kick in and I'm not in my right mind as it's happening. I've tried the visor that I use for other aspects of Magick but it didn't fit to the Sphere. Now, I use a brief meditation with a harmonizing crystal to bring myself in tune with the Spirit. If I keep my focus, I can stay in that state of awareness for a while. It is definitely distracting from the Realm, as the puppies call it... and I'm sure it makes me look more aloof to everyone else."
"You're an Orphan, so you may find that what you use as foci may change as your understanding of magick changes along the way. You are not beholden to the foci that Tradition mages typically are, but don't let that steer you away from what others have found useful. The path already walked is the easier and faster one, though not necessarily the shortest possible route." The cougar-mage advises, "If the visor doesn't feel as if it is working for this sphere for you, don't use it. If a crystal and meditation works for you, use them. I used to use crystals and a red-hued glass marble. Over time, I realized the crystal was not as critical as I thought it was. And over more time, I realized even the glass marble was unnecessary." He offers, "Experiment. Try sensing with only the meditation. Try sensing only with the crystal. See if one of those items is distracting you and holding you back. Each may work, but I suspect one of them is the more arduous path through the forest than the other."
Benedict gains a sardonic edge to his smile at being called an Orphan again, but lets that fade from his expression. "The crystals seem to always be the first step for me. Like they are with Life and were with Prime. They then evolve as I realize why the various crystals helped my accomplish a task. I understand." He now looks back to the stone and asks with that earlier calm returning to his voice, "May we begin then?" Benedict reaches into a pocket, rummages a bit in it, and takes out a rich and clear blue azurite crystal. He sits on the ground, cross-legged and sets the stone off to the side for now, clearly holding off on its use until perhaps later. Benedict's hands rest on his knees, palms open and turned upwards, and his eyes look forward and unfocus.
"Meditation seems to be a popular focus for many mages for a number of spheres, and I suspect that is simply because working one's will--and particularly the effort and time that goes into learning something new--often requires a good deal of though, patience, and introspection. Those are often mistaken as being synonymous with meditation." The cougar caps that observation with a caveat. "Personal theory, though." He turns on the ground, paces a few steps to a just-so spot facing the boulder, and settles back onto his haunches. "I'm going to thin--attempt to thin--the gauntlet slowly. Down to the point where we can just start to see across. The spirits will be able to us too once this happens. I haven't encounter many hostile spirits loitering around in the area, as the Wyld spirits tend to run them off. There should be minimal danger. Feel free to observe the process I use. Later, when you are more familiar with it, we can try working the ritual together so you can get a true feel for it."
Benedict nods with understanding in a very subtle fashion once at the explanation of his thoughts that Brings gives, then again at the plan. There is a sense of Benedict beginning to work his will, eyes open but resting. His attention is on the other Mage, but more reaching out with metasenses than looking directly at the cougar-body.
The more seasoned mage takes it slow, occasionally all but stopping as he explains a nuance here, a past mistake he'd made there, an efficiency here, a problem area there. Over the next 15 minutes, the gauntlet does thin to the point where the two worlds seem to touch. Rather than the garou version of words touching through a reflective surface, the cougar-mage's version of bringing the two worlds together is less about bringing worlds together in a two-dimensional reflective surface (like the garou do) than it is showing how these two realms overlap in three dimensions--spirits moving around and sometimes moving unimpeded through the mages. They are both interacting in the same space--at least at this particular juncture--but normally unaware of one another's presences. With the gauntlet thinned and the ritual held in stasis, the cougar-mage offers, "Take some time poking around. Keep in mind you are not poking through something in a two-dimensional plane. That way lies limitations that I struggled with for some years. Instead, realize it is all around you already, and no gateway exists if your will and spirit are strong enough."
Benedict occasionally allows himself oscillate between using his body's senses and his Magick to observe the changes. As Brings-the-Pack teaches, it is a focus that Benedict uses to reach out and touch upon the Spirit realm that overlaps the Material. He asks a few questions, and makes a few statements at some pivotal points like, "Did you ever play D&D? I think... it makes me think of a gelatinous cube. A large monster made of solid slime that things got stuck in. You could not even notice it... see right through it until you stepped into it, if you weren't careful. It is like the gauntlet is not a membrane, but an ocean we are swimming in and if we could survive the depths, we could go deep enough to see what is in the midnight zone."
