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Salem called to let me know he'd gotten his hands on some awakened alcohol and had arranged a meet-up with Naomi in the wooded spot off an improvised dirt road that I'd discussed as an ideal spot for doing the ritual. I told him I'd be hanging out a couple miles away waiting for his call if/when she opted to drink the "potion prepared by Mouse" and passed out.
I don't know how it went down initially, but I finally got a text from Salem saying she was out. I quickly drove out there (and marveled again at just how well the Porsche Cayenne handles in both off-road and on-road conditions) and joined them. I moved fast and didn't explain all that much what I was doing because, well, limited working window. I spent perhaps a little more time than I should have on the exam: I'd missed things earlier half a year ago, so I wanted to take it slow, take my time (as much as possible), and scrutinize the magick affecting Naomi. It seemed.... kind of similar to the magick in the knife. Especially the resonance. But more successful. More advanced. Maybe like the knife was an earlier attempt at a weaker effect? Or someone mimicking the effect used to mess up Naomi? This could be a master-apprentice situation, I suppose. The big difference between the two was that this effect didn't try to power itself using the garou's energy to essentially render them powerless. No. This version was more efficient. It skimmed power off Naomi to keep the effect powered /and/ transferred surplus energies remotely to.... elsewhere. Likely some kind of tass-collection battery, like I use with pennies taken from the fountain-nodes locally. The Prime-Correspondence effect was similar to what I'd seen before when Nightfall Chantry was linked to all the nodes in St. Claire--save for the garou's caern--over a decade ago. What was done to Naomi was both clever and insidious. Instead of jest harvesting tass from her and killing her in the process, some mage did a "catch and release"--turning her into a takes-care-of-itself battery charger that's loose in the wild but always working at the same time. I hope this knowledge doesn't spread least mages start tapping garou as, essentially, really weak, self-sustaining alternatives to nodes. Dangerous as hell with the initial setup, but zero maintenance afterwards.
There was a problem with the Correspondence aspect, though. It might be possible to track Naomi, but it doesn't look like that was built in to the effect. Like whoever did it simply didn't care what happened to her or where she went. That might have lessened the ability of others to track the magick back to the mage who performed the magic, too. I warned Salem of the possible danger and told him that if anyone teleported in from out of nowhere in the next bit, to just kill first and ask questions later. Not an ideal solution, no. But if whatever mage did this showed up, he or she was going to be hostile--and there's no telling if Salem or I'd get turned into batteries, too. Or just killed for tampering with Naomi-node. To help shield her from detection, I hastily made a minor wonder by smashing my iPhone, gutting the GPS aspect from the circuitboard, rewriting the circuit on the fly with a little Matter and Forces magick, and then imbuing it with power by converting a unit of tass I had stored in one of my lucky pennies into the circuit board. Salem--thankfully--had a length of metal wire on him to complete the necklace. (I am not going to ask what Salem carries metal wire around for because I am pretty certain I would not like the answer.) Ta da. Necklace of Location Obfuscation made from a wire and a circuit board. (That looks sufficiently Glass Walkery, though that's actually kind of a coincidence. Coincidence? Okay, you know what they say about mages and coincidences. Maybe it wasn't so coincidental afterall.) I put it on Naomi and told Salem to tell her to never take it off unless she wants that mage to find her. Also, the power will run out in about a month, so I'll have to create and charge a new one.
Then I asked Salem to pin Naomi down while I tried unworking the magick. I was afraid, if I was able to tear down the effect separating her from her wolf, that she might frenzy like she did in her dream earlier. I set to work, first dismantling the Correspondence/Prime aspect of the effect. It took some effort, but I managed to break that down eventually by strangling the Prime effect that was "trickle charging" the larger effect. Cutting off the flow of power seemed to weaken the magick slightly, and that gave me the opportunity to start looking for weak spots to bang on. (Hurray for a little Entropic effect! I might not have been able to spot these weak areas otherwise!) It was tough, hard work. I was definitely straining myself, but I was making progress. Finally it got to the point where I felt like one good push might topple the whole thing. I gave it all I had. It didn't budge at first, then suddenly the whole thing collapsed right as I was thinking I might need to spend even more time trying to weaken parts of it.
I got back from Naomi, in case she frenzied, and immediately started heading for my car--eyes peeled the whole time in the event I needed to blast a mage who suddenly teleported in to see what happened to his 'organic node.' No mage, but Naomi started shifting. I ran, full out, for my car. Jumped in. Hit the headlights and high beams to blind anyone looking my way, and explored how fast I could drive the Cayenne in reverse down a dirt road at night. (Pretty damn fast. Thank you police training and thank you Porsche for making such a fine vehicle!) Skidded out onto the adjoining cement road and took off.
Hopefully--hopefully--Naomi didn't have her wits about her and didn't notice me (a good possibility she didn't) or identify my car (likewise a good possibility she didn't), though I would not be surprised if she noticed that a car--about a football field's worth of distance away--had left the area when she'd been coming to. Although I've heard that sometimes garou do not recall what happened or what they did when they frenzy. Assuming she frenzied, that is. I have no idea what happened afterwards.
I think I'd gotten a couple miles down the road when I'd glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed my eyes were glowing a radioactive cobalt blue color--the same color of light that appeared when I was rewiring the circuits for that necklace pendant. Shit. I pulled over and put on a pair of one-way mirrored sunglasses to hide that from any other cars going by. I also turned my Kindle on and put it in my lap for the rest of the trip home. That way the LED illumination from below masked the light leaking out from behind my glasses.
I hope this wears off soon or I'm going to have to postpone that date with Emma. Shitcakes.
And I hope that necklace is enough to keep Naomi hidden in the event that mage goes looking for her again.
I don't know how it went down initially, but I finally got a text from Salem saying she was out. I quickly drove out there (and marveled again at just how well the Porsche Cayenne handles in both off-road and on-road conditions) and joined them. I moved fast and didn't explain all that much what I was doing because, well, limited working window. I spent perhaps a little more time than I should have on the exam: I'd missed things earlier half a year ago, so I wanted to take it slow, take my time (as much as possible), and scrutinize the magick affecting Naomi. It seemed.... kind of similar to the magick in the knife. Especially the resonance. But more successful. More advanced. Maybe like the knife was an earlier attempt at a weaker effect? Or someone mimicking the effect used to mess up Naomi? This could be a master-apprentice situation, I suppose. The big difference between the two was that this effect didn't try to power itself using the garou's energy to essentially render them powerless. No. This version was more efficient. It skimmed power off Naomi to keep the effect powered /and/ transferred surplus energies remotely to.... elsewhere. Likely some kind of tass-collection battery, like I use with pennies taken from the fountain-nodes locally. The Prime-Correspondence effect was similar to what I'd seen before when Nightfall Chantry was linked to all the nodes in St. Claire--save for the garou's caern--over a decade ago. What was done to Naomi was both clever and insidious. Instead of jest harvesting tass from her and killing her in the process, some mage did a "catch and release"--turning her into a takes-care-of-itself battery charger that's loose in the wild but always working at the same time. I hope this knowledge doesn't spread least mages start tapping garou as, essentially, really weak, self-sustaining alternatives to nodes. Dangerous as hell with the initial setup, but zero maintenance afterwards.
There was a problem with the Correspondence aspect, though. It might be possible to track Naomi, but it doesn't look like that was built in to the effect. Like whoever did it simply didn't care what happened to her or where she went. That might have lessened the ability of others to track the magick back to the mage who performed the magic, too. I warned Salem of the possible danger and told him that if anyone teleported in from out of nowhere in the next bit, to just kill first and ask questions later. Not an ideal solution, no. But if whatever mage did this showed up, he or she was going to be hostile--and there's no telling if Salem or I'd get turned into batteries, too. Or just killed for tampering with Naomi-node. To help shield her from detection, I hastily made a minor wonder by smashing my iPhone, gutting the GPS aspect from the circuitboard, rewriting the circuit on the fly with a little Matter and Forces magick, and then imbuing it with power by converting a unit of tass I had stored in one of my lucky pennies into the circuit board. Salem--thankfully--had a length of metal wire on him to complete the necklace. (I am not going to ask what Salem carries metal wire around for because I am pretty certain I would not like the answer.) Ta da. Necklace of Location Obfuscation made from a wire and a circuit board. (That looks sufficiently Glass Walkery, though that's actually kind of a coincidence. Coincidence? Okay, you know what they say about mages and coincidences. Maybe it wasn't so coincidental afterall.) I put it on Naomi and told Salem to tell her to never take it off unless she wants that mage to find her. Also, the power will run out in about a month, so I'll have to create and charge a new one.
Then I asked Salem to pin Naomi down while I tried unworking the magick. I was afraid, if I was able to tear down the effect separating her from her wolf, that she might frenzy like she did in her dream earlier. I set to work, first dismantling the Correspondence/Prime aspect of the effect. It took some effort, but I managed to break that down eventually by strangling the Prime effect that was "trickle charging" the larger effect. Cutting off the flow of power seemed to weaken the magick slightly, and that gave me the opportunity to start looking for weak spots to bang on. (Hurray for a little Entropic effect! I might not have been able to spot these weak areas otherwise!) It was tough, hard work. I was definitely straining myself, but I was making progress. Finally it got to the point where I felt like one good push might topple the whole thing. I gave it all I had. It didn't budge at first, then suddenly the whole thing collapsed right as I was thinking I might need to spend even more time trying to weaken parts of it.
I got back from Naomi, in case she frenzied, and immediately started heading for my car--eyes peeled the whole time in the event I needed to blast a mage who suddenly teleported in to see what happened to his 'organic node.' No mage, but Naomi started shifting. I ran, full out, for my car. Jumped in. Hit the headlights and high beams to blind anyone looking my way, and explored how fast I could drive the Cayenne in reverse down a dirt road at night. (Pretty damn fast. Thank you police training and thank you Porsche for making such a fine vehicle!) Skidded out onto the adjoining cement road and took off.
Hopefully--hopefully--Naomi didn't have her wits about her and didn't notice me (a good possibility she didn't) or identify my car (likewise a good possibility she didn't), though I would not be surprised if she noticed that a car--about a football field's worth of distance away--had left the area when she'd been coming to. Although I've heard that sometimes garou do not recall what happened or what they did when they frenzy. Assuming she frenzied, that is. I have no idea what happened afterwards.
I think I'd gotten a couple miles down the road when I'd glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed my eyes were glowing a radioactive cobalt blue color--the same color of light that appeared when I was rewiring the circuits for that necklace pendant. Shit. I pulled over and put on a pair of one-way mirrored sunglasses to hide that from any other cars going by. I also turned my Kindle on and put it in my lap for the rest of the trip home. That way the LED illumination from below masked the light leaking out from behind my glasses.
I hope this wears off soon or I'm going to have to postpone that date with Emma. Shitcakes.
And I hope that necklace is enough to keep Naomi hidden in the event that mage goes looking for her again.
