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It's been kind of busy these last three weeks. April 15, I got a call from Tyler--the Akashic Brother (from that chantry down in San Fran that I helped stave off an attach from a group of Nephandi earlier last year). It was cryptic, which is Mage-code for "I don't want the Technocracy buttfucking me this evening, so one of us needs to pack up a car so we can talk face to face." And he wasn't coming to me. Yeah, I am pretty sure he still blames my playing defense instead of offense (against those Nephandi last year) for Evelyn's death.
Fast forward 2 days and just shy of 1,000 miles: I roll into San Fran and meet up with Tyler. He'd gotten word through one of his contacts -- in Billings, Montana -- that an Orphan mage was in trouble. The caused-by-a-werewolf kind of trouble. Tyler said the chantry was tied up with business, but he thought he'd do me a favor by letting me take point (or, rather, go solo) in helping out a couple Orphans to take out a garou who was threatening them and their node.
Balls.
Also? Tyler didn't know where the Orphans were located, but he did have his contact's information. Yay! Another road trip! (That's sarcasm, BTW.)
Fast forward 2 days and 1,200 miles: I met up with MC X (aka "Jerry Walters"), a Cult of Ecstasy mage who creates trance music for the local nightclubs. (He's not bad, either. He uses magic to find beats that people just naturally want to groove to.) Well, it turns out that MC X received a psychic distress call--a trance-induced vision of sorts from what I gather--where the Orphan mages called out for help from The Universe rather than use contacts. Weird, but... hey, mages. MC X did have a location for me, though: Casper, Wyoming. Only 300 miles away, so I squandered the evening at the rave MC X was spinning that night.
300 miles feels like 3,000 when you have a hangover.
I arrived in Casper, tooled around a little bit, located the general area the Orphans were supposedly in, and did some scrying to make sure it wasn't some kind of setup. Didn't look like it, and it didn't feel like it. Turns out it wasn't. They had a low-grade node out in the woods just a ways: the source of a small, pure spring. I announced my arrival, told them I wasn't a threat, and that I was responding to their call for help.
Long story short: Three goths. All sisters. Madilyn, the youngest (17), was an Orphan who'd never made contact with another mage. She had some mild talent with Entropy and Time (which she used for divination for the most part) and just an inkling of knowledge about Prime and Spirit. The middle sister, Alice (20), had no magical talent at all, but participated in the divination rituals the sisters engaged in. I guess she's kind of like a consort? (I know some mages have them, but I've never met one personally.) The oldest sister, Miranda (24).... Not a mage per se, but she seemed to be capable of using a kind of static magic to lead the group's divination rituals. A witch, seer, sorceress, magician, I guess. The divination ritual seemed to be some kind of focus for Madilyn's magic, and might have been enhancing Miranda's efforts. It's a little different, but it clearly worked for them.
Miranda explained that in their vision, they saw a young woman arriving, There's an argument about something--it's unclear in the vision--and then the woman turned into a werewolf and killed the three sisters. That's why they sent out a call for help so someone could kill the werewolf. After some discussion with the trio of goths, and not sensing any negative spiritual entropy about them, I assessed that it was probably sniffing around in search of their node. (I could see it did have some glade-like properties on the spirit side.) We ended up doing another foretelling ritual--with me leading--to see what might happen if the sisters agreed to avoid the area. It looked like the garou (looked kind of like a Black Fury) was interested in the node and not the sisters--and seemed unsure if the node/glade was there or not.
We had a week before she was supposed to arrive, so we vacated it to give it a chance to look like it was unoccupied. When the garou showed up, I pulled some Mind magic on her from afar. I confirmed she was indeed searching for a node/glade but was uncertain of its location or if it even existed. I tweaked that doubt, amplifying it a little, and.... She used a gift when she found the spring's source, and I countered it. She moved onwards after a second attempt, heading off in a completely different direction. I could taste the dissatisfaction in her mind: she'd found nothing.
The sisters and I worked another divination, and it looked like they would not be bothered by that garou ever again.
While not masking the sisters' mini-glade from a nosey, aggressive garou; I spent some time talking mage stuff alone with Marilyn. How her magic really worked. How she could do more than she thought she could. How she wasn't limited by the well-worn groove of static magic. I showed her a few tricks with Entropy that she could do, warned her about overdoing it--and the Technocracy and vampires (which is important for goths to know). I also made her a pair of "lucky pennies" from their spring using some Prime magic as Madilyn watched, and I demonstrated how they could be used to fuel magical effects. I also let Madilyn briefly cross over to the spirit world and then come back using my cat's eye talisman. She seemed pretty excited about her future magical workings.
I think I made some friends. Not very powerful friends, but friends nonetheless. And they seem to think I'm some ultra-powerful mage. (I guess, maybe, from their perspectives. But I don't feel like a powerful mage. There's so damn much I can't do.)
It's another 1,100 miles back to St. Claire. I think I'll hang around a bit longer, give Madilyn a few more lessons on Prime magic, and then head back.
Fast forward 2 days and just shy of 1,000 miles: I roll into San Fran and meet up with Tyler. He'd gotten word through one of his contacts -- in Billings, Montana -- that an Orphan mage was in trouble. The caused-by-a-werewolf kind of trouble. Tyler said the chantry was tied up with business, but he thought he'd do me a favor by letting me take point (or, rather, go solo) in helping out a couple Orphans to take out a garou who was threatening them and their node.
Balls.
Also? Tyler didn't know where the Orphans were located, but he did have his contact's information. Yay! Another road trip! (That's sarcasm, BTW.)
Fast forward 2 days and 1,200 miles: I met up with MC X (aka "Jerry Walters"), a Cult of Ecstasy mage who creates trance music for the local nightclubs. (He's not bad, either. He uses magic to find beats that people just naturally want to groove to.) Well, it turns out that MC X received a psychic distress call--a trance-induced vision of sorts from what I gather--where the Orphan mages called out for help from The Universe rather than use contacts. Weird, but... hey, mages. MC X did have a location for me, though: Casper, Wyoming. Only 300 miles away, so I squandered the evening at the rave MC X was spinning that night.
300 miles feels like 3,000 when you have a hangover.
I arrived in Casper, tooled around a little bit, located the general area the Orphans were supposedly in, and did some scrying to make sure it wasn't some kind of setup. Didn't look like it, and it didn't feel like it. Turns out it wasn't. They had a low-grade node out in the woods just a ways: the source of a small, pure spring. I announced my arrival, told them I wasn't a threat, and that I was responding to their call for help.
Long story short: Three goths. All sisters. Madilyn, the youngest (17), was an Orphan who'd never made contact with another mage. She had some mild talent with Entropy and Time (which she used for divination for the most part) and just an inkling of knowledge about Prime and Spirit. The middle sister, Alice (20), had no magical talent at all, but participated in the divination rituals the sisters engaged in. I guess she's kind of like a consort? (I know some mages have them, but I've never met one personally.) The oldest sister, Miranda (24).... Not a mage per se, but she seemed to be capable of using a kind of static magic to lead the group's divination rituals. A witch, seer, sorceress, magician, I guess. The divination ritual seemed to be some kind of focus for Madilyn's magic, and might have been enhancing Miranda's efforts. It's a little different, but it clearly worked for them.
Miranda explained that in their vision, they saw a young woman arriving, There's an argument about something--it's unclear in the vision--and then the woman turned into a werewolf and killed the three sisters. That's why they sent out a call for help so someone could kill the werewolf. After some discussion with the trio of goths, and not sensing any negative spiritual entropy about them, I assessed that it was probably sniffing around in search of their node. (I could see it did have some glade-like properties on the spirit side.) We ended up doing another foretelling ritual--with me leading--to see what might happen if the sisters agreed to avoid the area. It looked like the garou (looked kind of like a Black Fury) was interested in the node and not the sisters--and seemed unsure if the node/glade was there or not.
We had a week before she was supposed to arrive, so we vacated it to give it a chance to look like it was unoccupied. When the garou showed up, I pulled some Mind magic on her from afar. I confirmed she was indeed searching for a node/glade but was uncertain of its location or if it even existed. I tweaked that doubt, amplifying it a little, and.... She used a gift when she found the spring's source, and I countered it. She moved onwards after a second attempt, heading off in a completely different direction. I could taste the dissatisfaction in her mind: she'd found nothing.
The sisters and I worked another divination, and it looked like they would not be bothered by that garou ever again.
While not masking the sisters' mini-glade from a nosey, aggressive garou; I spent some time talking mage stuff alone with Marilyn. How her magic really worked. How she could do more than she thought she could. How she wasn't limited by the well-worn groove of static magic. I showed her a few tricks with Entropy that she could do, warned her about overdoing it--and the Technocracy and vampires (which is important for goths to know). I also made her a pair of "lucky pennies" from their spring using some Prime magic as Madilyn watched, and I demonstrated how they could be used to fuel magical effects. I also let Madilyn briefly cross over to the spirit world and then come back using my cat's eye talisman. She seemed pretty excited about her future magical workings.
I think I made some friends. Not very powerful friends, but friends nonetheless. And they seem to think I'm some ultra-powerful mage. (I guess, maybe, from their perspectives. But I don't feel like a powerful mage. There's so damn much I can't do.)
It's another 1,100 miles back to St. Claire. I think I'll hang around a bit longer, give Madilyn a few more lessons on Prime magic, and then head back.
