Stranger in a strange land

Away and back again

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 20:59:49 GMT

During the summer, I'd been spending a lot of time studying the radioactive waste sample I'd traded some Sons of Ether for earlier. I suspected, if the local werewolves were going to be headed to Hanford eventually, they'd need protection against radiation. I was getting pretty good at shielding against and redirecting radiation by the end of summer, so I started experimenting with transmuting radioactive energies into other forms of energy: light, sound, kinetics, magnetism, gravity, etc. And then I experimented with /erasing/ radiation via the use of high levels of Prime magick.

Long story made short, I had to emergency teleport to outside Pavel's cave, yell for help, and he managed to prevent me from dying horribly. But I spent many, many months bleeding off radiation about half a mile away from his cave for the rest of the year. I killed everything that came within 10' of me, so it was best to stay in the desert and isolated. I ended up getting to study myself, with the occasional visit to Pavel so he could treat me for radiation sickness.

Fortunately, that's all in the past now and I'm fully recovered. I have had more cancer in the past four months than an entire cancer ward. I owe Pavel big-time. He has lots and lots of tass that's going to be headed his way this year. And that means heading back to St. Claire to harvest from my nodes.

Sure, it was a good learning experience, but there are clearly much, much, much better ways to learn.

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Being human is getting strange.

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 16:20:14 GMT

( A death in the family. )

( An unscheduled vacation in Baja, Mexico and Portland. )

( .... and finally back to Saint Claire. )

October, November, December, January, February: I think this is the longest time I've spent in human form in many, many, many years. The cougar form is... I barely notice it save for the initial transformation/transition.

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Come firewalk with me

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 21:59:08 GMT

( Towards a calculus of things worth saving. )

( Firewalking )

Now it is time to return to the sept to see who all wishes to become involved.<

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Warped speed/time

Sun, 19 Aug 2018 00:19:12 GMT

( Well, shit. That trip went waaaaaaaay longer than anticipated. )

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Navel gazing

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 17:07:48 GMT

( Grizzly bear )

( The Nothing, The Something, and Prime )

( Perspective-taking and dwelling upon responsibilities, priorities, and humanity )

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Mon, 18 Dec 2017 02:24:08 GMT

It's been a freaking whirlwind these past few months, so here's the highlights:

( Briar and Shade's Epic Gothic Throwdown )

( Star Wars with the Sons of Ether in the Phoenix )

( Pavel does what Pavel does )

So now I'm back at "home" in my little piece of remote wilderness, where there's a grizzly bear--with a wyrm spirit influencing it--that's been terrorizing the local wildlife. I immobilized them (both the spirit and the grizzle) so I could study it for the next day or two. Maybe I can fix this myself. Maybe I'll take it to the garou to see if they can fix it and let me see how they do it. But, in the meantime, I've got a too-tall hat rack in my sanctum.

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Checking on Ghost 2.0

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 17:20:38 GMT

Trust the Black Mage or trust Ghost's doppelganger? Get it wrong, the universe might end. Do nothing, the universe might end. Get it right, the universe might end.

Sometimes I miss the days when I was more concerned about using magick to pick "chance to win!" products at the grocery store that would net me a quick couple hundred bucks so I could pay for college textbooks. Today is one of those days.

I feel so sorry for Ghost 2.0. What a miserable existence. I don't know how to help her.

( I told Salem about how I noticed two connections to Ghost that I'd missed before, so he suggested we look to see if Ghost 2.0 had similar links.... )

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Stop me if you've heard this one: Two mages walk into a glade.....

Sun, 30 Jul 2017 01:05:49 GMT

( Giving Benedict some pointers on how to influence the Spirit world. )

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Edgewood chats, Fortune telling for Ghost, and inadvertently attracting a skull-thing

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 22:48:11 GMT

( Many problems without easy solutions. This is what keeps life interesting and cats curious. )

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Foot-in-mouth disease, a silver bell fetish, a moot of hat-changings, and two quests combined.

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 21:49:12 GMT

Short, sweet, and full of bullets:( Many bullets behind the cut. )

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Research. Favors. Underwater lairs. And a "vacation."

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 06:10:49 GMT

( Blah, blah, blah. )

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Settling in at the Mountain Bowl, and Fog and a Dog.

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 16:33:41 GMT

I've been settling in at the Mountain Bowl now that the warding is up and in place. My god, magick is so much easier to work at this node, and absolutely none of the precautions I'd need to observe at the Harbor Park glade or Osprey Circle's fountain. It's like suddenly having room to stretch out and breathe. This. Is. Glorious.

( Getting myself settled. )

( Creating nature's fog machine. )

( Appeasing the spirits, installing a talisman, and thinning the gauntlet. )
( Offering to act as host for the next new-moon moot and a preliminary showing to a new Shadow Lord. )

( Let's go bother the wizard so he can look at a sick dog that we can take care of ourselves. )

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Thu, 16 Feb 2017 15:40:43 GMT

Things have been going well. For now.

( Meeting Yael. )

( Moving and enhancing my wards under the light of a lunar eclipse and a comet. )

( I want to go home and rethink my life. )

Life is a lot easier to live if you don't have a moral code, but life is not always about taking the easy path. That way often leads to the Dark Side.

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Territory granted. Identity revealed to Thane.

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 04:07:16 GMT

( Meeting with Thane, finalizing the acquisition of territory, selling my cabin, buying a trailer, getting to know the Mountain Bowl area, and a biiiiig life change. )

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Jeremiah's Gathering/Funeral

Sat, 28 Jan 2017 00:59:44 GMT

( A cougar-mage walks in to a werewolf funeral and.... )Link to the log: http://trace-logs.dreamwidth.org/11451.html

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Resignation and talking with theurges

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 09:39:17 GMT

( I quit my day job, and then I spent some time with the wolves learning about nuances in dealing with spirits affiliated with the caern. )

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Now I have a node. Ho Ho Ho.

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 17:28:10 GMT

( Nick's thoughts. )

( It's l-o-g! It's l-o-g! It's big; it's heavy; it's wood! )

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Territorial scuttlebutt

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 13:27:56 GMT

( Always be willing to walk away. )

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Solstice tribulations and technocratic speculations

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 15:01:23 GMT

( Summoned to help out some mages in Los Angeles for the solstice. )

( When mages talk politics. )

( I'm taking all this as a sign to quit my job at Terminus. Sorry, Walkers and Fangs. )

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Tue, 13 Dec 2016 16:53:08 GMT

( Finessing some illusions; playing with Forces. )
( Discussing territory, respect, and death with Nolan and Ghost. )

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Rocks and which way the winds seem to be blowing

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 04:57:48 GMT

Now that I'm not traveling all over the western half of America for a couple months, chatting with a bunch of mages about black ooze, I've been spending more time at the caern. I'm amused that, now that I have the cougar ring back, I seem to have shifted my visual/kinetic remote representation of myself away from the jedi humanoid figure back to the cougar. I have heard from Slug and Jamethon, both saying they approved of me having territory. The former was not a surprise (as I did recently keep him from becoming a splatter of chunky salsa on the road when the Queen chucked him out of the penthouse's window), but I had not expected a Get (other than Emma) to be supportive. Huh.

Nolan shared that he and Jenelle and Derek went to the Blue Mountains to try and awaken and talk with the mountain's spirit about the anti-Nothing. They succeeded, but the mountain was too young to remember. Nolan claimed the mountain gave them directions to a rock--what remains now of a mountain. A group will be gathering to try and attempt waking this spirit from its slumber. I'm curious to observe how the garou perform this act.

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Teleportin' and tradin'

Mon, 07 Nov 2016 03:07:20 GMT

( In which Nick gets back his cougar ring and gains a new toy as well. )

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Head to Colorado

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 03:31:48 GMT

I dispatched Kargamis to Colorado to deliver a message to Pavel. See if there's any interest from him or (for a finder's fee of course) another mage willing to trade for the queen's severed head, one of her attacky bug limbs, and this comatose wraith I recently picked up. I imagine they'd be of interest to a seasoned Verbena, or certainly someone more advanced and interested in Life or Mind magicks. Maybe I could get a little something out of it, too. Regardless, I want to get rid of all of it.

Had a brief chat in the caern the other day with Nolan. He's irked that Thane didn't go after Peter immediately, despite Thane's claim that doing so might have jeopardized the attack on the queen's tower. I think I got him to see that Thane made the choices he felt necessary and that they might not have been Nolan's choices, but Nolan's not the one with all that responsibility--and that Nolan's plan might have cost the garou more lives, lost the battle for the queen's tower, and caused the caern to fall. It's easy to bitch about stuff in hindsight, but it's a hell of a lot harder--and riskier--to be the one making decisions for others without the benefit and clarity of hindsight.

Which is why I am damn glad I'm not in that position and when I find myself in a potentially morally compromising situations, I can typically just alert the garou and they'll go do what I have such great difficulty with. Mercy, hope, and kindness are my big strengths and weaknesses.

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A gamble, a glade, and a guardian.

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 19:32:19 GMT

At the new moon moot, I spoke up about being allowed to claim territory. Specifically the earthen bowl deep in the forest. The idea wasn't shouted down immediately, so that's something. And I think I made a pretty good argument that there's no one protecting it right now, so why not let an ally watch over and defend it in exchange for its use and some privacy. They're going to have an elders' moot to discuss it. Mentally sifting through who the tribal elders are right now, and what I've done for them in the past, it might actually be a possibility.

Being culturally sensitive/respectful is sometimes terribly tedious. It's taken me decades to get to this point and it might all be for naught. I can certainly better appreciate why some mages simply raid a node and move on.

Thane announced that the Queen had been defeated and Edgewood retaken. I think he was anticipating a celebration, but it did not happen. And then the garou got snappy at each other. Especially Nolan, directing things at Thane. They even come across as insufferable to themselves from time to time, I guess.

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Travels galore, then home to dethrone a queen.

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 01:47:41 GMT

( Travels with LOLcat and the Ooze. )

( Pre-battle prepwork, because you don't want to get sloppy with this level of Forces and multiple lives on the line. )

The attack on the queen? It went extremely well. Because it was staged in the umbra where there is no such thing as vulgar magick, levitating groups in and out was not a problem. I managed to deflect some blows that likely would have ended Salem and Nolan's lives, rescue Slug from being thrown out the top floor of the skyscraper, countermagick some nastiness the queen tried to inflict upon Thane, the sept's alpha, and then extinguish much of the fire the Black Spiral Dancers started--enough that the fire department could get it under control rather than causing the skyscraper to collapse.

It was only after I got home that I realized I had asked for and received one of the queen's legs and her entire head. Gross and gruesome, but I think I know a few people who might be interested in these.

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