Of Those Best Forgotten
3rd of January 2007 A.D.
"Who are the members of the organization she's talking about," you fling the question into the ether... and promptly go bug-eyed in shock when two of the names that come back are Lara Raith and Thomas Raith Odin the Wise Wanderer.. Some part of you is a little offended that Thomas didn't say anything about this.... whatever this is called. He's supposed to be my vassal. "Right, we can't talk about this here," the words come out sounding
only a little strangled.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 13/15 (Crown Question)
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 15/15 (Secret Discovered)
"I'm assuming that's a yes," Tiffany says, amused, over the rim of her now empty cup.
"Not here, somewhere we can't be overheard as easily."
Holding hands in the car while trying to meditate is a little awkward but the windows are tinted dark enough that you do not think the green flash was seen very far so you are away and as secure as any place you can make, one of the palace lounges not far from the throne room and the freezer which you simultaneously do not want to introduce to Dad and do want to introduce to Lash.
Lost 3 Essence -> Now at 12/15 (Transporting Passengers & Occult Excellency)
"OK so what's this about?" you ask eagerly
Lash takes a seat with an easy grace, not the least troubled by the mutable design and begins her tale: "There is in this world a war older than the White Council, older than the Courts of Faerie as they are not manifested, older indeed that this age of the world, this turn of the Wheel you would say, the war against Those Beyond of which He who Walks Beside is merely an officer of some repute. Mortals when they could speak of them at all and not rip out their eyes and plug their ears with bloody fingers called them gods for in the long night of ignorance they might as well have been, the Old Gods, the first gods, the
[Anathema onto the Real]." She says the words not in English and it sends a shiver down your spine, though you know not why.
A thought comes to you. "Wait a second, I wanna try something." Turning to your father, voice resonant with power focused down to a painfully narrow point, not sharp but searching.
"[Is this Sound with Meaning?]"
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/15 (Source Code Compliance Protocol)
"[Sound with Meaning Unexpected, what is Meta-Truth of Meaning flowing from Self? Minor disconnect and bleed-over of senses over arc of perception.]" Dad certainly looks like he didn't expect those sounds to come out of his mouth. To be fair some of them are probably impossible to form with human vocal cords and others you are pretty sure are not even sounds in the sense of vibrations in the air.
"[Anomalous points in sufficient numbers create hyper-normal curve. Weary approval of Status Quo tinged with situational amusement]," Tiffany says, briefly closing her eyes in thought. "It is a language close to though not analogous to Encochian ancestral in a way that does not play well with linear time. Still a damn sight better than any human language if we are going to talk about the Old Gods. You are getting better at that by the by."
[Cyclical communication/practice. Present form is to Communicate/Project] you reply, a little smugly.
As she said makes the Lash's tale go a lot more smoothly. In her understating things worshiped as 'Old Gods' are half shaped shards of meaning, the detritus of past ages now 'unmade' yet refusing to perish or things that have always been alien to the universe, husks and shells. As they exist outside the laws of the universe they could grant onto man boons seemingly beyond their dreams, in truth they grant nothing and take everything for they warm them selves upon the Light-which-is-onto-Divinity in each mortal soul and with their chill snuff it out, like a parasite wasp laying her brood into the body of its prey or a spider liquefying the innards of its next meal.
"[Each to one, husk and shell, is rooted? Death and False Making? One lays brood, the other devours? Devours Dreams?]"
You feel the truth of that, there are two forces Outside, united in purpose yes, not in nature , but the once demon hisses in frustration to more than match your own: "
[Imperfect insight. Memory severed to purpose, only relevant to Harry because of Atavistic nature.]"
[Clarification?] The sudden worry for Harry makes whatever that was.
"[Mortal man spans the spiral, rooted in thread at heart. Older than stars. Some are born under old stars, fated/chanced with power over/affinity with the Qliphoth-Things, power to serve, power to break. Once priest guide bridge, then hand with flame/sharpness]."
Lash falls silent and taps her ear, almost like she is trying to get some water out of it. "Now that we are inside time as mortal languages were meant to model it is probably best to use one, instead of trying to puzzle out each other's accents. At a time right around what archeologists call the Neolithic Revolution seven Starborn each wizards of great power, chanced to meet, or perhaps it was not chance at all, and between them found that each looking upon the masters of the other could see their true foulness which had been hidden. In understanding that they had been deceived, sheep leading sheep to slaughter the magicians reacted in with the two most
human of emotions, fear and rage... I
suspect, not from knowing, but from feeling out the jagged edges of its absence that
messengers were sent onto them with aid, each after their own manner and so the Old Ones' influence in the world was less for a time, but they were Timeless and ever in the dreams of men while the Starborn were, for all their arts, mortals. So they set the foundation of a great task to break the very masks which had deceived them and their people into the service of the Old Ones. After all no man would worship formless dread and call it forth, a war not of matter, not even of magic, but of meaning, the Oblivion War."
The word hangs heavy in the air, replete with ancient triumphs and tragedies, but she who was once a Shadow of Lasciel is not done.
"How the Seer came to be I do not know, but I know she is a weapon of that war, she who does not see the future but the present and the past she recalls. Kallimachos of Alexandria called her the Archive and it is rumored loved her, or at least the woman in which she was invested as a flower loves the sun. Mother to daughter down and down and down though the ages the knowledge the insight passes to know all that is writ by mortal hands, scratch on stone, ink on paper, electrons and light in wire dancing. She will know when men make marks of the forgotten and she will know other marks they make and send onto those who make it a reckoning and when a mark is gone, utterly vanished from all but her own memory."
"She forgets it," Dad interjects. You are relieved to see he sounds pretty normal, not utterly unaffected of course, but more like a fisherman who had been spearing sharks all his life getting a detailed break down of their evolutionary history from a marine biology.
"She keeps it in mind for decades, sometimes centuries, just to make sure it does not pop up again, remember she reads what is written not thought, but yes one assured that all other knowledge of that trespasser's mien is forgotten and it is as a mask set to flame. The Archive directs, but does not control a coalition of many beings, some mortal some not whose interests are to consign the Old Gods to Oblivion once and for all. I do not know who all of them are, I do not think my progenitor herself comes close to knowing all of them but..."
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 13/15
"I do, I looked, back at the Starbucks," you interject.
At this Lash laughs... and laughs and laughs for half a minute straight, starting again whenever she looks at you or your dad. "Turnabout is fair play I guess. I was about to say they hide among the Ventori, those were and still are the most likely to attempt to induct Harry, but I would be surprised if some among the White Council do not also ahve some affiliation with the fight."
"Crossreferncing the list of White Council wizards that's six including one on the Senior Council, the Gatekeeper. And..." Eyes of flame flare all around you. "Huh, no traitors in their ranks, that's new."
"Anyone trying to infiltrate the True Ventrori has to deal with a form of intelectus in its own way as unfair as your own," Tiffany points out darkly. "Perhaps those precautions hold."
"Or maybe good news is just good news, that has been known to happen from time to time," Dad points out mildly. "The question now is what do we do with this information, given that we have stumbled over what seems to be an attempt to forge a new mask for one of these forgotten horrors? I'd say we should contact these new allies of ours at once and inform them of the danger."
"We do not know if they consider themselves such and of the three of us you alone Sir Knight would seem trustworthy to strangers, better to deal with the maggots in the Big Apple ourselves then present this as cause for how we know of those who dwell in the Summer Court then bring another unpredictable factor into this."
What do you think?
[] We should contact the Ventori, they are natural allies and experts in this kind of thing
-[] Write in how
[] Better to deal with this ourselves, just contacting them out of the blue is likely to twig every suspicious bone in a body that has two hundred and six of them
[] Bring in Harry, he is uniquely equipped to deal with these things
[] Write in
OOC: There you go, in a manner emblematic of his luck Dresden is specifically powerful against Outsiders as canon tells us and... he would also make the very best Outsider Cultist there is. Hope you guys like the lore, I know this was a rather long. 
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