Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
I'm hoping we get a TradWiki epilogue for the sidestory.
The real question is, will mraa show that he actually respects WWW as an opponent/has a tiny bit of human decency, or will he get himself cursed into the next century for being an asshole?
The real question is, will mraa show that he actually respects WWW as an opponent/has a tiny bit of human decency, or will he get himself cursed into the next century for being an asshole?
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Aaaaaand somehow Kratos now looks like an upstanding father and parent.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huh... and if ti does show up on TradWiki, then that ifno flows into the Technocracy pretty quickly... which might or might not make it to Donald.
Alternately, it's entirely possible he'd find out through Spy's Demise contacts. They were both pretty significant in that effort.
Janice XXVIII - Epilogue III: Spring Birth
Janice XXVIII - Epilogue III: Spring Birth
But life goes on and time passes. In New Salem they bury the dead and endure the attention of outsiders. Senators and representatives and the president show up to be photographed looking serious, and there's talk about new laws to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
Nothing happens, of course.
Eventually the news moves on and the world forgets that New Salem exists, which is just the way they want it. The ones of them who don't know about the old gods just want to be allowed to grieve their losses, while those who do are keeping well away from the watchful eyes of a world ruled by grey men in grey suits.
Under a thin and watery March sun, Chris carries a pair of canvas bags of groceries back from the store. When she sees herself in the mirrors, she's looking disgustingly domestic. Her winter clothes cover up her scars, both vampire and self-inflicted, and she has her demonically-possessed black glossy hair pinned up and hidden under a wooly hat.
Yes, it seems likely that whoever came for Janice was the same one who blew up her old hideout, but it's better safe than sorry. She's keeping clear of NYC for a while. And that means that she has to spend time looking like the girl she would have been if she hadn't got involved as a blood doll.
She stops by at another shop. Liam's widow is there behind the counter.
"Heya Mary," she says.
"Oh, Chris, how are you doing?"
"Good enough, good enough." She rubs her eyes. "Sorry, not running in much sleep right now."
"Well, that's what you get from being in a house with a baby. Trust me, I know. She's still not sleeping nights?"
"Not all of them. Two in the morning is her favourite time to get hungry," Chris says with a long-suffering expression.
"Things will get better."
"I hope so."
"Anyway, what can I do for you? More eggs?"
Chris nods. "Yep. Don't worry, I'm making sure Selene's eating lots of them. The baby's feeding better this week…"
"Oh, good, that's a problem with premature babies."
"Yeah, but I don't think Selene would eat enough if I wasn't there to bully her." She grabs a few bags of seeds and takes them to the counter, reaching for her purse.
"Oh, no, no, I can't charge a witch," Mary says automatically.
"But I want to pay." Chris has lived in New Salem on and off for a while now, and she's still not used to the moneyless economy that the cult works off. Everyone knows everyone and remembers the favours to go around - and if they don't pay things back when someone else needs something, everyone finds out. Sometimes she'd rather just hand over a few dollars, but she does appreciate things when her stashes of cash stolen from vampires are running low.
"And I don't want you to. So there," Mary says, smiling as she bags things up.
Leaning against the counter, Chris touches her eyelids and looks at the auras of the room. The dark grey haze clinging close to Mary's skin is under the other layers of her soulform. Her smile isn't entirely real. "Is everything fine with you?" she asks softly.
The other woman shrugs. "We're surviving," she says. "And spring is coming. Things'll get better then."
"Well, if you need any help, just talk to me. Or Selene, but I'm handling some things for her until she's getting more sleep."
Mary looks her in the eye. "I will," she says. "Thank you, Chris."
Taking her bags, she heads back out to the snowy streets. Chris makes a note to remind Selene that there are issues brewing here and fix them. Whispers and rumours mean people are starting to realise that Liam was linked to the attack on the town, and they're blaming his widow. Selene can handle that, but she'll need to know about it and as a new mother she's distracted.
Chris has her own guilt there. She was the one who unintentionally introduced Liam to the people who led him down his dark path. She has her own debt to pay off here - and she will.
Loaded with bags, she makes her way back to Selene's house. She stomps off the snow from her boots on the mat, and lets herself in. "Hey, Sel, are…"
A tousled, silver-haired head looks up from her books and glares at her from one of the armchairs by the fire. Deliberately, Selene places one finger on her lips, one hand on the cradle next to her. Janice's black cat Seth snoozes, sprawled out by the fire.
"Oh," Chris says softly. With overblown and exaggerated caution, she sneaks through to the kitchen and the icehouse and starts putting things away. With that done, she creeps back through to the main room, entering through a different door. She wraps her arms around Selene, prompting a muffled squeak from her girlfriend.
"Your arms are cold," Selene whispers.
"Yeah, I was just outside. It's cold out there," Chris says, kissing her and slinking over to perch on the arm of the chair. "Did she finally doze off?"
"Finally, thank the gods," Selene says with an yawn. She sighs. "I wish Mother was around. She'd know what to do."
"Mmm." Chris had never known Selene's mother, but from what she'd heard, she's not so sure that the older woman would have been such a good influence. She was the one who'd left a too-young Selene in charge when she went off to fight the Technocracy, and never came back alive.
She peers over into the cradle. Baby Lilith is sleeping. A little too-red, too-small face is visible among the blankets, a few wisps of silvery hair growing from her little crumpled head. Chris has her doubts about the name, but it's traditional. When you're born as the heiress of a witch cult that came over to America at the same time as the Puritans, some things are expected. It was too much to expect Selene to change too fast.
But things are changing in New Salem, and Lilith Janice Mason is proof of that. She's healthier than she was when she was born - so painfully prematurely - and their magic has strengthened her, but she just needs time to grow. She's still smaller than a full-term newborn would be. But Chris is going to be there, and provide her with a viewpoint outside of the somewhat conservative and reclusive New Salem coven can.
Chris leans in, and kisses the baby on the forehead, then slumps down in a chair closer to the fire, warming her hands. "What're you reading?" she asks softly.
Lifting it up, Selene shows it's one of the books that made up Janice's notes. "I've been trying to sort through them," she says. "She didn't keep them in very good order, and she seems to have made up some of the notation herself. The bits she didn't steal from Hermetics, anyway."
"Yeah, pretty much." Chris stares into the fire. "She always used to say that we didn't always have the best way of recording things."
"And then there's the bits in computer symbols. The books on computers arrived this morning. I hope they can teach me enough to understand what she was writing enough that I don't need to have a computer in the house. You can't trust them."
"Hah. Yeah. She called herself 'Wicked Witch of the Web' online. I can't help you there. She studied with the Virtual Adepts too, you know." The flames consume the logs. There's a flicker in them, but Chris can't resolve the image before it's gone. She sighs. "Why're you doing this, Sel?"
"Doing what?"
"You're putting way more effort than usual into recording her things. You usually just store them. You're trying to understand them here."
Selene sniffs. "It isn't much use to anyone else if everything's just written in the bastardised mix of things she stole from everywhere. If they're going to be useful for the Verbena, I need to translate them into a more normal form."
Chris just stares at her.
"In addition, what if the way she's being so casual with the names of gods offends them? That'd be bad."
Chris raises her eyebrows.
"And… and… and," Selene trails off. "Stop looking at me like that."
Shaking her head, Chris fixes Selene with a stare. "Cut the crap. You're bullshitting."
"Don't swear in front of the baby," Selene says automatically.
"She's a) asleep, and b) too young to know what the words mean." Chris rubs her hands together. "Jan was my friend. You owe her at least enough to be honest with me."
"She wants to know how to use that magic," Seth says, lazily opening his eyes and yawning a feline yawn.
Selene scowls. "Treacherous cat," she says darkly.
"I'm not your familiar. I was hers."
"Sel?"
"Fine." Selene lets out a sigh. "Don't make it any harder than it is. Chris, she called a goddess to the world. She gave her life for us all and a goddess answered. The gods approved of her. I… I couldn't call a god like that. I'm not strong enough. And I'm having to teach five new people who awoke to the Gift and… and I feel like a fraud. Because I always frowned on how she did things, but she did so much for us." She bites her full lips. "I owe her, so I need to understand what she did. And… and it's like these dratted books are written in a language that I can't understand and… and…
Selene takes a deep breath. "It's a reminder that she went places and did things that I've never had the chance to. She'd been all over the world. The furthest I've ever been is New York, for Convocations - and they make me nervous. And there's just enough of the things in her notes from places like Mexico and Thailand and Japan that I can recognise that… that I can't give up on it. There are witches out there I know nothing about and I can see we have things in common with them, in the little bits I can understand,"
"Mmm," Chris says sympathetically. Because Selene isn't done yet.
"And I… I couldn't have saved us from that killer machine. Even if it hadn't been killing my people, Mother didn't teach me everything she knew. She left before she taught me all the curses and war magics. We've lost them," Selene says bitterly. "I was born to protect these people and keep our knowledge safe, and I can't do either. I'm no use as a loremistress. No wonder she hated me. And…"
Chris rises, and quietens Selene's monologue with a hug. "There there," she says, pressing her nose to Selene's. "That's probably just post-natal depression speaking. That and survivor's guilt. Trust me, I know. I've been torn up inside by the fact that she died before I did. It… it wasn't meant to be that way. I was meant to go down first killing vampires. I… I knew I didn't matter, as long as I got revenge on them. For what they did. But now she's gone and I have to be the adult. It sucks. Luke just wants to grow his plants. And… and she'd have wanted me to live well and not throw my life away."
"Quite right," Seth agrees. "You're being ridiculous, Selene. Janice didn't hate you. She found you very irritating, but she didn't hate you. She knew you both had a place in the world."
"Yeah," Chris agrees, hugging her to a shoulder. "And Sel, you should have told me that you didn't have time to handle all the new people. And I should've realised earlier. Being responsible is new, but I gotta try harder. You're the one with the baby. If you want me to take over some of the teaching, I've got time. I prob'bly won't teach them like you would, but I'll try my best."
"Thank you," Selene says, her voice muffled.
"Jan taught me some of her notation. We can go to the study and I can help a bit, if you want."
"I need to watch Lil-"
"She's asleep, and we'll hear her if she starts crying. Come on, we'll probably argue about bits, so we don't want to do it around her."
Selene stretches. "I suppose so," she says, rising stiffly. She leans down and kisses Chris on the lips. "Thank you. I… I really appreciate you taking over those things."
Chris shuffles her feet, embarrassed. "Well, the bitchy snake said I needed to learn to be more responsible before it'd trust me with more power," she muttered.
"Ah ha," Selene said fondly. "If you go make us some rosehip tea, I'll get the fire lit in the study."
"Yeah, I could do with that," Chris says, with a nod.
The two women leave the room after putting on the fireguard. Seth the cat jumps up to take the warm seat that Selene has vacated. There's noises in the distance, and a whistle and a hissed "Chris, the kettle, I swear if you wake Lilith…".
But the baby is asleep when Selene checks on her, and she leaves her where she is, snoozing in the warmth. Selene shuts the door that leads to the study behind her. For a while there's just the crackle of the fire, the breathing of the cat and the baby, and the very distant sound of voices.
Then Seth stretches, arching his back, and climbs up onto the arm of the chair. He pokes his head over the side of the cradle, staring down at the baby. "You can stop hiding," he says acidicly.
The baby remains asleep.
"Oh, come on, I know you're in there," he says. "And I know you were listening and gloating. I'm sick of playing your games and I've only got so long, so let's talk."
"You're awfully demanding for someone whose poop I had to clean up," Janice says, sitting in the chair Chris vacated.
The cat isn't surprised. He just settles back on the warmth of his chair. "You're looking well," he says.
Janice rolls her eyes, and examines her clothes in disgust. She's wearing a robe that looks vaguely like a gi, and she doesn't seem entirely sure where it came from. "For a dead woman, you mean?" she asks.
"You're not dead anymore. Isn't that the point of reincarnation?"
"You know what I mean."
"It was really rude hiding from me," Seth says. "And if you don't like your clothes, believe them to be otherwise. Perk of the job."
She frowns, and now she's in something much more like she usually wore. Crossing her legs, she sits back in the old chair, cushions squeaking under her weight. "It wasn't really intentional," she admits. "It took a lot out of me."
Seth swishes his tail about. "Ah ha, and you were dying for a rest?"
"That was bad taste."
"Too soon?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact." Her glower is replaced by a slightly foolish grin. "Did you hear Selene?" she gloats. "I didn't think it was even possible to shake her conservatism. I mean, it took me dying, but still I'd have thought she'd have kept on as she was until the sky fell in."
Seth chuckles. "Well, you are looking well. I wonder; was it your choice to be born as this girl?"
Janice doesn't answer immediately. She rises, and steps over to the cradle. Lilith has woken up, though she isn't crying. Her eyes are an uncanny violet, and they reflect the light of distant stars. Since she's only a baby, they're only vaguely focussed on her past life. "Goddess, I'm an ugly baby this time," she observes. "I mean, yes, I'm horribly premature, but premature babies are ugly."
"So is that a yes or a no?" Seth demands.
"She approved," Janice says, curtly. "Of my choices, of what I did here, of my reasoning. She… she decided my soul would be a good one for this place. That it needed a leader like me. Someone who could end the old ways and so make sure they survive in a new life. She said I'd be able to make sure the good survived when the world finally catches up with New Salem. There was a choice, but it was very clear what she wanted." Janice brushes her fingers through the short silvery fuzz of the baby's hair. "I hope that isn't a mistake. I wasn't Ami. She won't be me. I'm meant to guide her, but… I don't know if I can do it."
Seth arches his back, then sits down to wash his ears. "Well, good luck with the job. I'll be heading back to my lady's side soon. I might see you around if you do well here and she decides you're a good influence to help resolve troublesome incidents."
Janice blinks. She stares at him. "You… you were my god-guide?"
"Or avatar or familiar spirit or assigned servant of Heaven or psychopomp or keter soul or whatever, yes," Seth says with a sharp-fanged yawn. "There's a lot of names for creatures like me… well, like us, now."
"I tried to contact you so many times!"
"You were poking around in dreams when I was right next to you."
Reaching out, Janice deliberately ruffles his fur. He stalks off irately, tail up. "It was meant to be a lesson for you," he says, sniffing. "I was sent to your ungrateful self because your fate was a tangled ball of suffering and tears. Caused to a large extent, I might add, by the actions of Miss Ami Shirai, who was this close to Falling. And the bits she didn't cause came from your lives before that, who were similarly awful people. The Eye has had its… well, eye on you for hundreds of years."
"How much of my life were you controlling?"
Seth yawns, rolling his eyes. "Controlling? Hardly. I'm a cat, idiot. Controlling your life would have been too much work. I just nudged things occasionally. Made sure the Progenitors missed you after you Awakened so you could choose your own path. Kept you out of the orbit of other people the Eye was watching, as best I could. Sabotaged the ritual you were using to try to talk to your past life back right when when you were a little baby witch - and that was meant to fail entirely. You managed to get more of it working than I wanted. The nightmares are your fault, not mine. I was very put out about that."
Janice slumps down. "Yeah. Thank you for that. I don't know how things would have gone if I'd had to deal with her as a silly twenty-something."
"Badly, of course."
"Mmm. You're not wrong." Janice sighs softly, as Lilith grabs her finger and holds on. "I can already predict the future. I don't need to scry it. There's going to be some absolutely vicious rows between her and her mother. As cutting as anything between me and Selene."
"You don't want that?"
Janice grins, an unguarded expression. "Of course I do. Selene needs someone to shake her out of her complacency and belief she can sit aside and let the world go by. It took me dying to do that. Hopefully I can do better next time." She cracks her knuckles. "Hey, Seth, you've done this before, right? What's a good age to guide her to finding my old books in Selene's library? I'm thinking… oh, eight, maybe nine? Old enough she'll be able to read them, but young enough that it can have a formative influence."
"I wouldn't presume to lecture you," he says haughtily.
"You're just too lazy to explain."
"That too." He looks at her. "Things'll be different," he says. "You didn't find witchcraft until you were in your twenties. Things will be different with her. You're already awake so it won't be long now. That's their pact with the moon; they let no stranger's blood taint their line, and in return they're always witches - and young. At least they took up cloning rather than incest."
"Yes, that's something. And If I wanted easy, I wouldn't have said yes to the offer," Janice informs him. "Or done a lot of other things that I did in my life. Since I did say yes, it'll be a learning experience for both of us."
"That's the spirit."
"Hah. Don't worry, I… I know who not to be like. I'm not going to control her life. It wouldn't be right. I might have shed my karmic burden, but she deserves her chance to be a little girl too."
"That's right. Just one last question," Seth says, curling back up and preparing to go to sleep. "What happened to Ami?"
There's a distant look in Janice's eyes. "Ami's not here," she says. "And she's… I'll… the baby'll never have to worry about that past life cropping again. The goddess asked both of us what we wanted. I wasn't sure, and sat down to think. But she had her answer straight away. The goddess gave her what she wanted. An ending."
"Mmm. Maybe when it comes down to it, we all get what we want," Seth says. "Did she deserve it?"
"Maybe it's not a question of deserve," Janice says. "It's all a mess." She worms her finger free of Lilith's grasp, and pats the baby on the head. "Did she deserve everything that happened to her that made her the really horrible woman she was?"
"Who could say? Well, obviously I could, but I don't think being judgemental would help anyone." He yawns. "And would get in the way of naps."
With a ghostly chuckle, Janice is gone. Seth curls up, and goes back to sleep.
Next to him, Lilith stares at the fire with wide, babyish eyes. Her head lols to the side. The flames roar high, burning a bright blue. She screams in delight.
And when Selene and Chris come running, they find a chortling baby staring wide-eyed at a witchfire. Strange images flit through the flames and dance around the walls of the room, reflecting off the mirrors like long-forgotten constellations.
"Oh," Selene says weakly as the fire dies down. "Mother said I was a year old before I started making images appear in the fire." She picks up her daughter, hugging her close. "You are a special little girl, aren't you? You're going to be my little troublemaking prodigy, I can just tell."
Exhausted by her first magic, Lilith closes her eyes and goes to sleep in her mother's arms. There's a quixotic smile on her tiny face.
JM SIMULATION STOPPED
PROGRAMME RAN TO COMPLETION
ENDING GRADE: GOOD
THE END
But life goes on and time passes. In New Salem they bury the dead and endure the attention of outsiders. Senators and representatives and the president show up to be photographed looking serious, and there's talk about new laws to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
Nothing happens, of course.
Eventually the news moves on and the world forgets that New Salem exists, which is just the way they want it. The ones of them who don't know about the old gods just want to be allowed to grieve their losses, while those who do are keeping well away from the watchful eyes of a world ruled by grey men in grey suits.
Under a thin and watery March sun, Chris carries a pair of canvas bags of groceries back from the store. When she sees herself in the mirrors, she's looking disgustingly domestic. Her winter clothes cover up her scars, both vampire and self-inflicted, and she has her demonically-possessed black glossy hair pinned up and hidden under a wooly hat.
Yes, it seems likely that whoever came for Janice was the same one who blew up her old hideout, but it's better safe than sorry. She's keeping clear of NYC for a while. And that means that she has to spend time looking like the girl she would have been if she hadn't got involved as a blood doll.
She stops by at another shop. Liam's widow is there behind the counter.
"Heya Mary," she says.
"Oh, Chris, how are you doing?"
"Good enough, good enough." She rubs her eyes. "Sorry, not running in much sleep right now."
"Well, that's what you get from being in a house with a baby. Trust me, I know. She's still not sleeping nights?"
"Not all of them. Two in the morning is her favourite time to get hungry," Chris says with a long-suffering expression.
"Things will get better."
"I hope so."
"Anyway, what can I do for you? More eggs?"
Chris nods. "Yep. Don't worry, I'm making sure Selene's eating lots of them. The baby's feeding better this week…"
"Oh, good, that's a problem with premature babies."
"Yeah, but I don't think Selene would eat enough if I wasn't there to bully her." She grabs a few bags of seeds and takes them to the counter, reaching for her purse.
"Oh, no, no, I can't charge a witch," Mary says automatically.
"But I want to pay." Chris has lived in New Salem on and off for a while now, and she's still not used to the moneyless economy that the cult works off. Everyone knows everyone and remembers the favours to go around - and if they don't pay things back when someone else needs something, everyone finds out. Sometimes she'd rather just hand over a few dollars, but she does appreciate things when her stashes of cash stolen from vampires are running low.
"And I don't want you to. So there," Mary says, smiling as she bags things up.
Leaning against the counter, Chris touches her eyelids and looks at the auras of the room. The dark grey haze clinging close to Mary's skin is under the other layers of her soulform. Her smile isn't entirely real. "Is everything fine with you?" she asks softly.
The other woman shrugs. "We're surviving," she says. "And spring is coming. Things'll get better then."
"Well, if you need any help, just talk to me. Or Selene, but I'm handling some things for her until she's getting more sleep."
Mary looks her in the eye. "I will," she says. "Thank you, Chris."
Taking her bags, she heads back out to the snowy streets. Chris makes a note to remind Selene that there are issues brewing here and fix them. Whispers and rumours mean people are starting to realise that Liam was linked to the attack on the town, and they're blaming his widow. Selene can handle that, but she'll need to know about it and as a new mother she's distracted.
Chris has her own guilt there. She was the one who unintentionally introduced Liam to the people who led him down his dark path. She has her own debt to pay off here - and she will.
Loaded with bags, she makes her way back to Selene's house. She stomps off the snow from her boots on the mat, and lets herself in. "Hey, Sel, are…"
A tousled, silver-haired head looks up from her books and glares at her from one of the armchairs by the fire. Deliberately, Selene places one finger on her lips, one hand on the cradle next to her. Janice's black cat Seth snoozes, sprawled out by the fire.
"Oh," Chris says softly. With overblown and exaggerated caution, she sneaks through to the kitchen and the icehouse and starts putting things away. With that done, she creeps back through to the main room, entering through a different door. She wraps her arms around Selene, prompting a muffled squeak from her girlfriend.
"Your arms are cold," Selene whispers.
"Yeah, I was just outside. It's cold out there," Chris says, kissing her and slinking over to perch on the arm of the chair. "Did she finally doze off?"
"Finally, thank the gods," Selene says with an yawn. She sighs. "I wish Mother was around. She'd know what to do."
"Mmm." Chris had never known Selene's mother, but from what she'd heard, she's not so sure that the older woman would have been such a good influence. She was the one who'd left a too-young Selene in charge when she went off to fight the Technocracy, and never came back alive.
She peers over into the cradle. Baby Lilith is sleeping. A little too-red, too-small face is visible among the blankets, a few wisps of silvery hair growing from her little crumpled head. Chris has her doubts about the name, but it's traditional. When you're born as the heiress of a witch cult that came over to America at the same time as the Puritans, some things are expected. It was too much to expect Selene to change too fast.
But things are changing in New Salem, and Lilith Janice Mason is proof of that. She's healthier than she was when she was born - so painfully prematurely - and their magic has strengthened her, but she just needs time to grow. She's still smaller than a full-term newborn would be. But Chris is going to be there, and provide her with a viewpoint outside of the somewhat conservative and reclusive New Salem coven can.
Chris leans in, and kisses the baby on the forehead, then slumps down in a chair closer to the fire, warming her hands. "What're you reading?" she asks softly.
Lifting it up, Selene shows it's one of the books that made up Janice's notes. "I've been trying to sort through them," she says. "She didn't keep them in very good order, and she seems to have made up some of the notation herself. The bits she didn't steal from Hermetics, anyway."
"Yeah, pretty much." Chris stares into the fire. "She always used to say that we didn't always have the best way of recording things."
"And then there's the bits in computer symbols. The books on computers arrived this morning. I hope they can teach me enough to understand what she was writing enough that I don't need to have a computer in the house. You can't trust them."
"Hah. Yeah. She called herself 'Wicked Witch of the Web' online. I can't help you there. She studied with the Virtual Adepts too, you know." The flames consume the logs. There's a flicker in them, but Chris can't resolve the image before it's gone. She sighs. "Why're you doing this, Sel?"
"Doing what?"
"You're putting way more effort than usual into recording her things. You usually just store them. You're trying to understand them here."
Selene sniffs. "It isn't much use to anyone else if everything's just written in the bastardised mix of things she stole from everywhere. If they're going to be useful for the Verbena, I need to translate them into a more normal form."
Chris just stares at her.
"In addition, what if the way she's being so casual with the names of gods offends them? That'd be bad."
Chris raises her eyebrows.
"And… and… and," Selene trails off. "Stop looking at me like that."
Shaking her head, Chris fixes Selene with a stare. "Cut the crap. You're bullshitting."
"Don't swear in front of the baby," Selene says automatically.
"She's a) asleep, and b) too young to know what the words mean." Chris rubs her hands together. "Jan was my friend. You owe her at least enough to be honest with me."
"She wants to know how to use that magic," Seth says, lazily opening his eyes and yawning a feline yawn.
Selene scowls. "Treacherous cat," she says darkly.
"I'm not your familiar. I was hers."
"Sel?"
"Fine." Selene lets out a sigh. "Don't make it any harder than it is. Chris, she called a goddess to the world. She gave her life for us all and a goddess answered. The gods approved of her. I… I couldn't call a god like that. I'm not strong enough. And I'm having to teach five new people who awoke to the Gift and… and I feel like a fraud. Because I always frowned on how she did things, but she did so much for us." She bites her full lips. "I owe her, so I need to understand what she did. And… and it's like these dratted books are written in a language that I can't understand and… and…
Selene takes a deep breath. "It's a reminder that she went places and did things that I've never had the chance to. She'd been all over the world. The furthest I've ever been is New York, for Convocations - and they make me nervous. And there's just enough of the things in her notes from places like Mexico and Thailand and Japan that I can recognise that… that I can't give up on it. There are witches out there I know nothing about and I can see we have things in common with them, in the little bits I can understand,"
"Mmm," Chris says sympathetically. Because Selene isn't done yet.
"And I… I couldn't have saved us from that killer machine. Even if it hadn't been killing my people, Mother didn't teach me everything she knew. She left before she taught me all the curses and war magics. We've lost them," Selene says bitterly. "I was born to protect these people and keep our knowledge safe, and I can't do either. I'm no use as a loremistress. No wonder she hated me. And…"
Chris rises, and quietens Selene's monologue with a hug. "There there," she says, pressing her nose to Selene's. "That's probably just post-natal depression speaking. That and survivor's guilt. Trust me, I know. I've been torn up inside by the fact that she died before I did. It… it wasn't meant to be that way. I was meant to go down first killing vampires. I… I knew I didn't matter, as long as I got revenge on them. For what they did. But now she's gone and I have to be the adult. It sucks. Luke just wants to grow his plants. And… and she'd have wanted me to live well and not throw my life away."
"Quite right," Seth agrees. "You're being ridiculous, Selene. Janice didn't hate you. She found you very irritating, but she didn't hate you. She knew you both had a place in the world."
"Yeah," Chris agrees, hugging her to a shoulder. "And Sel, you should have told me that you didn't have time to handle all the new people. And I should've realised earlier. Being responsible is new, but I gotta try harder. You're the one with the baby. If you want me to take over some of the teaching, I've got time. I prob'bly won't teach them like you would, but I'll try my best."
"Thank you," Selene says, her voice muffled.
"Jan taught me some of her notation. We can go to the study and I can help a bit, if you want."
"I need to watch Lil-"
"She's asleep, and we'll hear her if she starts crying. Come on, we'll probably argue about bits, so we don't want to do it around her."
Selene stretches. "I suppose so," she says, rising stiffly. She leans down and kisses Chris on the lips. "Thank you. I… I really appreciate you taking over those things."
Chris shuffles her feet, embarrassed. "Well, the bitchy snake said I needed to learn to be more responsible before it'd trust me with more power," she muttered.
"Ah ha," Selene said fondly. "If you go make us some rosehip tea, I'll get the fire lit in the study."
"Yeah, I could do with that," Chris says, with a nod.
The two women leave the room after putting on the fireguard. Seth the cat jumps up to take the warm seat that Selene has vacated. There's noises in the distance, and a whistle and a hissed "Chris, the kettle, I swear if you wake Lilith…".
But the baby is asleep when Selene checks on her, and she leaves her where she is, snoozing in the warmth. Selene shuts the door that leads to the study behind her. For a while there's just the crackle of the fire, the breathing of the cat and the baby, and the very distant sound of voices.
Then Seth stretches, arching his back, and climbs up onto the arm of the chair. He pokes his head over the side of the cradle, staring down at the baby. "You can stop hiding," he says acidicly.
The baby remains asleep.
"Oh, come on, I know you're in there," he says. "And I know you were listening and gloating. I'm sick of playing your games and I've only got so long, so let's talk."
"You're awfully demanding for someone whose poop I had to clean up," Janice says, sitting in the chair Chris vacated.
The cat isn't surprised. He just settles back on the warmth of his chair. "You're looking well," he says.
Janice rolls her eyes, and examines her clothes in disgust. She's wearing a robe that looks vaguely like a gi, and she doesn't seem entirely sure where it came from. "For a dead woman, you mean?" she asks.
"You're not dead anymore. Isn't that the point of reincarnation?"
"You know what I mean."
"It was really rude hiding from me," Seth says. "And if you don't like your clothes, believe them to be otherwise. Perk of the job."
She frowns, and now she's in something much more like she usually wore. Crossing her legs, she sits back in the old chair, cushions squeaking under her weight. "It wasn't really intentional," she admits. "It took a lot out of me."
Seth swishes his tail about. "Ah ha, and you were dying for a rest?"
"That was bad taste."
"Too soon?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact." Her glower is replaced by a slightly foolish grin. "Did you hear Selene?" she gloats. "I didn't think it was even possible to shake her conservatism. I mean, it took me dying, but still I'd have thought she'd have kept on as she was until the sky fell in."
Seth chuckles. "Well, you are looking well. I wonder; was it your choice to be born as this girl?"
Janice doesn't answer immediately. She rises, and steps over to the cradle. Lilith has woken up, though she isn't crying. Her eyes are an uncanny violet, and they reflect the light of distant stars. Since she's only a baby, they're only vaguely focussed on her past life. "Goddess, I'm an ugly baby this time," she observes. "I mean, yes, I'm horribly premature, but premature babies are ugly."
"So is that a yes or a no?" Seth demands.
"She approved," Janice says, curtly. "Of my choices, of what I did here, of my reasoning. She… she decided my soul would be a good one for this place. That it needed a leader like me. Someone who could end the old ways and so make sure they survive in a new life. She said I'd be able to make sure the good survived when the world finally catches up with New Salem. There was a choice, but it was very clear what she wanted." Janice brushes her fingers through the short silvery fuzz of the baby's hair. "I hope that isn't a mistake. I wasn't Ami. She won't be me. I'm meant to guide her, but… I don't know if I can do it."
Seth arches his back, then sits down to wash his ears. "Well, good luck with the job. I'll be heading back to my lady's side soon. I might see you around if you do well here and she decides you're a good influence to help resolve troublesome incidents."
Janice blinks. She stares at him. "You… you were my god-guide?"
"Or avatar or familiar spirit or assigned servant of Heaven or psychopomp or keter soul or whatever, yes," Seth says with a sharp-fanged yawn. "There's a lot of names for creatures like me… well, like us, now."
"I tried to contact you so many times!"
"You were poking around in dreams when I was right next to you."
Reaching out, Janice deliberately ruffles his fur. He stalks off irately, tail up. "It was meant to be a lesson for you," he says, sniffing. "I was sent to your ungrateful self because your fate was a tangled ball of suffering and tears. Caused to a large extent, I might add, by the actions of Miss Ami Shirai, who was this close to Falling. And the bits she didn't cause came from your lives before that, who were similarly awful people. The Eye has had its… well, eye on you for hundreds of years."
"How much of my life were you controlling?"
Seth yawns, rolling his eyes. "Controlling? Hardly. I'm a cat, idiot. Controlling your life would have been too much work. I just nudged things occasionally. Made sure the Progenitors missed you after you Awakened so you could choose your own path. Kept you out of the orbit of other people the Eye was watching, as best I could. Sabotaged the ritual you were using to try to talk to your past life back right when when you were a little baby witch - and that was meant to fail entirely. You managed to get more of it working than I wanted. The nightmares are your fault, not mine. I was very put out about that."
Janice slumps down. "Yeah. Thank you for that. I don't know how things would have gone if I'd had to deal with her as a silly twenty-something."
"Badly, of course."
"Mmm. You're not wrong." Janice sighs softly, as Lilith grabs her finger and holds on. "I can already predict the future. I don't need to scry it. There's going to be some absolutely vicious rows between her and her mother. As cutting as anything between me and Selene."
"You don't want that?"
Janice grins, an unguarded expression. "Of course I do. Selene needs someone to shake her out of her complacency and belief she can sit aside and let the world go by. It took me dying to do that. Hopefully I can do better next time." She cracks her knuckles. "Hey, Seth, you've done this before, right? What's a good age to guide her to finding my old books in Selene's library? I'm thinking… oh, eight, maybe nine? Old enough she'll be able to read them, but young enough that it can have a formative influence."
"I wouldn't presume to lecture you," he says haughtily.
"You're just too lazy to explain."
"That too." He looks at her. "Things'll be different," he says. "You didn't find witchcraft until you were in your twenties. Things will be different with her. You're already awake so it won't be long now. That's their pact with the moon; they let no stranger's blood taint their line, and in return they're always witches - and young. At least they took up cloning rather than incest."
"Yes, that's something. And If I wanted easy, I wouldn't have said yes to the offer," Janice informs him. "Or done a lot of other things that I did in my life. Since I did say yes, it'll be a learning experience for both of us."
"That's the spirit."
"Hah. Don't worry, I… I know who not to be like. I'm not going to control her life. It wouldn't be right. I might have shed my karmic burden, but she deserves her chance to be a little girl too."
"That's right. Just one last question," Seth says, curling back up and preparing to go to sleep. "What happened to Ami?"
There's a distant look in Janice's eyes. "Ami's not here," she says. "And she's… I'll… the baby'll never have to worry about that past life cropping again. The goddess asked both of us what we wanted. I wasn't sure, and sat down to think. But she had her answer straight away. The goddess gave her what she wanted. An ending."
"Mmm. Maybe when it comes down to it, we all get what we want," Seth says. "Did she deserve it?"
"Maybe it's not a question of deserve," Janice says. "It's all a mess." She worms her finger free of Lilith's grasp, and pats the baby on the head. "Did she deserve everything that happened to her that made her the really horrible woman she was?"
"Who could say? Well, obviously I could, but I don't think being judgemental would help anyone." He yawns. "And would get in the way of naps."
With a ghostly chuckle, Janice is gone. Seth curls up, and goes back to sleep.
Next to him, Lilith stares at the fire with wide, babyish eyes. Her head lols to the side. The flames roar high, burning a bright blue. She screams in delight.
And when Selene and Chris come running, they find a chortling baby staring wide-eyed at a witchfire. Strange images flit through the flames and dance around the walls of the room, reflecting off the mirrors like long-forgotten constellations.
"Oh," Selene says weakly as the fire dies down. "Mother said I was a year old before I started making images appear in the fire." She picks up her daughter, hugging her close. "You are a special little girl, aren't you? You're going to be my little troublemaking prodigy, I can just tell."
Exhausted by her first magic, Lilith closes her eyes and goes to sleep in her mother's arms. There's a quixotic smile on her tiny face.
JM SIMULATION STOPPED
PROGRAMME RAN TO COMPLETION
ENDING GRADE: GOOD
THE END
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You deserve all the awards for this @EarthScorpion its a lovely conclusion. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
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Hey! There are certain cases where Kratos is basically the best of all possible dads... like, say, if you're being personally threatened by some horrible creature out of myth and legend. Anyway, he *is* trying, which counts for a fair amount.
semi-pertinent random link:
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things » The last time he hugged his family was a very traumatic experience, he's gotten rusty at it
There's a *lot* of stuff that could give that hometown what it needs. Almost any dedicated moderately friendly not-actively-hunted mage presence *at all* would be a big step up, almost regardless of paradigm (nephandus would be abjectly terrible, extremist would be unfortunate, and marauder is probably not best, but other than that, yeah).
VanusDraco
Special Projects Division
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Isn't a reliable way to ensure awakening a incredibly big deal in Ascension? Even with the drawbacks, this is really really powerful.
Putting this sentence right after talking about computer language and Virtual Adepts is pretty mean. I took me quite a bit of rereading and wondering until I finally realized you were referring to wooden logs here.
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There are many ways to secure an awakening, you can reliably produce them with primers and time invested. They just tend to come with drawbacks or other restrictions like this, it's in Awakening, where it's nearly impossible to ensure it.
(This has always amused me; in Ascension, the nature of what ascension is, is nearly never engaged with, and awakenings can be secured reliably; in Awakening, the nature of what ascension is, is not detailed, but how to reach it is outlined, whereas awakening is mysterious and ineffable.)
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Now she too, has joined the ranks of people allowed to call other people "grasshopper."
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Past life-avatar-familiar hybrid?
VanusDraco
Special Projects Division
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I will go look for a source after work but I am near certain that is not correct. Primers help increase the chance of awakening, and can possibly shape your starting paradigm. But it is by no way guranteed. There are a lot of consors and extraordinary citizens on both side who are not awakened/enlightened even with extensive access to primers. My remembered impression is that only a small amount of people who read the primer awaken. If studying a book enough time guaranteed that you would become awakened/enlightened, the setting would look very different. Basically, primers CAN cause awakening, but it is in no way reliable.
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notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Yes, but this is in contrast to Awakening, where nobody can ever cause an Awakening, ever.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
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This is probably some sort of massive blessing mojo that was put on the line (with significant costs) enough generations ago that the verbena had that kind of mojo to throw around. Even so, it's still not as useful/powerful as the ability to consistently awaken existing fully adult people would be.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
It also depends on whether their tendency to have only one child is part of the deal. Also, they probably have some Correspondence related issues, where they all count as the same person for the purposes of Correspondence.
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Mechanically, this is not actually correct. Primers basically rely on you fulfilling X amount of criteria, and if X=true, you get an awakening. @MJ12 Commando has written a few examples, and so have I. For example:
Note, that they do not have to pay the XP for the increases in Enlightenment and corresponding spheres, however. You say that the setting 'would look very different', but this is because primers were a fairly late-setting addition in Forged by Dragon's Fire (along with most other magical item classifications and rules), and you were, as such looking at early revised edition, which was essentially nearly fallen apart at the seams, where primers weren't the kind of things you went about making as much as things you found in old, abandoned sanctums. Now, in the context of Panopticon Quest, primers are explicitly stated to not be reliable in-and-of themselves but something that can be repeated time and time again, as stated here by Emjay because he hates fun and everything good.
However, he has, as far as I know, not provided any mechanics for them that allow them to fail other than not fulfilling the requisite conditions, which would mean that as reliable as they look to us from an out-of-setting mechanical standpoint, they would seem fickle and unreliable in the setting itself. However, it should be noted that in the original writeup of primers in Mage: The Ascension - Forged by Dragon's Fire, they did actually have pretty high requirements, requiring at least two dots of Arete/Enlightenment higher than what you want to teach (which means you can't make them unless you're Arete 3), a week for every dot of the primer, as well as the expenditure of a permanent dot of Willpower to make and manufacture.
No not really. If you had a reliable way to ensure awakening that was relatively cheap, on the other hand...
Part of Selene's bargain is probably that they can have one child, no more, who is gifted in the mystic arts. It also probably costs her a lot to have even that single child, and as you might have guessed required her to start working from conception.
Like, pretty much all the EXEMPLAR candidates are Awakened because both sides can reliably create mages in small numbers. The thing about using Primers and other tools like magic tutelage is that this is far cheaper than making a single mage. (The side effect here is that when the Technocracy creates actual guaranteed mages, they tend to augment them up to the nines in the first place because you're already investing a ludicrous amount into one person).
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Speaking of manifestation of Saturn and Exalted-as-prehistory, what happened to that Solar Exalt in Afganistan? Did Panopticon get him?
IIRC, because we never really followed up on the Exalted links, the whole "Exalted-as-prehistory" thing isn't really true - there are thematic links and recurring elements, but that's about it. As such, the guy was something other than a Solar Exalt, because there's no such thing as a Solar.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
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...and I find myself wondering about the quest that could have been, if we'd gone for the folks who were into ancient artifacts, and followed up on all of the Exalted references, and just not been quite as concerned with that whole "panopticon" or "threat null" thing.
Though then we wouldn't have had *this* quest, and this quest was certainly awesome enough in and of itself.
Though then we wouldn't have had *this* quest, and this quest was certainly awesome enough in and of itself.
I thought there was the thing is a lot of these methods end creating a lot of maruders though from a lot of duds?