Winning Plan: Plan Mystic Growth
You decided to do some research this week in addition to your planned ritual goals. Clay had popped into your head as one of your potential mediums for inscription. It held images and baked into largely permanent shapes when introduced to fire. Perhaps it would give you a permanent cultivating material?
Rolling out the artisinal clay you had purchased specifically for this purpose. You took a pen deprived of it's ink reserve and began painstakingly carving the intricate symbols into the flattened brick. It took longer then you perhaps would have liked, a momentary cramp had ruined a portion of the clay, which caused you to reroll the clay and start from scratch. But eventually you had the clay square inscribed to your exacting standards. With a now customary prick of the finger you let fall a single drop of blood.
The results were impressive to say the least.
Your lonely Ember ignited with a furor approaching but not quite matching your initial... ignition. Your body warmed with the intensity, curls of smoke (or maybe steam?) roiling off of your exposed skin as your core temporarily transformed into an oven. When the heat and pressure died away, you felt two new Embers resting inside your core where you had expected one to linger.
Momentarily overcome with joy at discovering a more effective cultivating material. You consider adding a second drop of blood to the clay square to see if you could add more Embers to your braizer. But upon closer inspection you see that the Clay has changed form. Changing color from it's normal sallow yellow to a coal black exterior. The inscribed symbol remains un-marred, but strange, glassy veins spiderweb out from the inscribed symbol. Weirdly enough you can tell that the Clay is empty. Perhaps it could hold an Ember outside of your brazier?
Something to test later. you've expended your clay for now so you proceed to inscribe a sheet of printer paper with the same symbol and add a fourth ember to your Brazier. You'd expected some measure of consequence for creating more Embers then the usual two you made, but it felt like you had only made one so far. After igniting your third Ember, you decided to test a theory and pulled out the spare inscribed sheet you'd made several weeks ago and considered igniting a fourth Ember. Only to feel the familiar sensation of warning.
Interesting. So the medium may allow you to ignite multiple Embers, but you can only undergo Ignition twice in a seven day span. You'd have to either Temper your body or find a way to store Embers outside of your body to take full advantage of this discovery
(Clay revealed to allow the Cultivator to ignite two Embers compared to Paper's one. New {Experimentation} option unlocked. Three embers created, no damage done to Stats.)
Preparing the Bowl to receive the Sacred Flame was nearly an exercise in futility. You spent a great deal of the time you'd set aside and some of the time you'd initially set aside for igniting Embers fruitlessly searching through the occult stores, second hand stores, and hobby shops looking for a fireproof bowl that was big enough to serve as physical brazier as described in the book. If it hadn't been for the featherlight touch of the Water Elemental you'd inadvertently summoned, you might not have found an acceptable bowl.
Now it sat before your Typhonian Altar, the cedar wood anointed with blessed oils and the bowl itself painted with a phrase written in the Ionic Alphabet, asking Lord Typhon's aid in seeing clearly any sight glimpsed beneath his holy Storm clouds. Igniting the wood with a match. You began to chant in Ancient Greek. The pronunciation guide the Hidden Fire provided had been a lifesaver in that. As you continued to chant, the air within your apartment began to thicken, the air pressure spiking as you drew a sliver of the Divine Beast's attention back to your apartment. You feel in that indescribable way that Lord Typhon is smiling on you.
The merrily crackling fire flared hard as you reached the crescendo of the chant. The smoke fading from existence as the fire shifted in hue before your eyes, shifting from a light orange to a deep red.
Testing it, you asked the flame to show you your father. For a moment you thought you had created a strangely hued fire. But you have the grace to feel a little bad for doubting as the flames shifted to show a figure walking across a familiar lawn, pushing a lawn mower.
"I love magic." You say softly as you watch your Father work. Tears lingering in your eyes before you turn away to focus on your next task.
(Unlocked a form of Divination! You can ask basic, unspecific questions at no cost. With more specific questions offering you more detailed information at the cost of Favor. How much favor a question may cost depends on how specific the question is. Be warned, mystically potent individuals may either have anti-scryer defenses in place or might be able to strike back against you if you ask a question pertaining to them. Furthermore some information is forbidden by Divine decree, asking such questions will shorten the time you have before the Angelic kill team finds you by a number of weeks related to the specificity of the question, you will have to expend Embers to strengthen the Sacred Fire enough to gain information on forbidden topics. For the QM's sanity, you have a limit on the number of questions you can ask per week (three questions per turn). )
The Rituals continued. Your nose fully overwhelmed by the multiple sticks of incense you were burning in preparation. You inscribed the upper right chamber of the circle with the Alchemical symbol for fire. With runes of Kenaz, Sowilo, and Nauthiz etched alongside the outside edge of the chamber. The Lower right chamber of the circle was inscribed with the Alchemical symbol for Earth. With the runes of Inguz, Uruz, and Jera inscribed along it's outer edge.
The visualization of a crackling fire and a towering mountain in rapid succession is surprisingly difficult for you to manage. But you pull through. The visualized fire begins to jump and sparkle in it's quasi-seen state without mental input from you before taking the form of a genderless, human shaped mass of fire that acknowledges your attention with a nod before taking up a spot in your oven. The mountain respectively undergoes a surprise rockslide, spitting forth a vaguely male shape made out of granite that tumbles into your kitchen which similarly to the salamander nods in recognition of you before you hear the sound of something moving amongst your pots and pans.
Ritual fatigue is setting in at this point. The mental exercises you'd been running were exhausting in their own respects. Only one elemental spirit, the spirit of air needed to be invoked before you could consider this ritual complete.
(Gained Spirit ally: Salamander and Spirit ally: Gnome. Much like the Undine, these spirits grant an additional dice of Yellow Bile and Black Bile respectively to one Occult or Ritual action per turn.)
You knelt before the Typhonian altar. Ready to invoke the presence of a Daimon to aid you in a more direct manner. You had settled on a Daimon of Knowledge, you needed every edge in your occult Research after all. But how much were you willing to give up? And how much did you expect in return?
Pacted Spirit Negotiation: Spirit Allies choose to help you. Pacted Spirits will follow the letter of the negotiated agreement in exchange for something from you.
The Daimon of Knowledge expects one windfall worth of offerings in exchange for it's aid as a minimum.
The Daimon of Knowledge as a baseline offers 1 untyped dice that can be spent on occult or ritual actions per week.
[ ] Offer the Daimon of Knowledge additional offerings in exchange for more aid. ( 2 additional Windfall cost per month per additional untyped dice.) (Mutually exclusive with Demand options)
- [ ] Specify how many untyped dice you wish to gain.
[ ] Offer the Daimon of Knowledge services in exchange for more aid. (Sacrifice an action per additional untyped dice) (This is not a loss of a weekly action. Merely an indication of how many services you wish to perform for the Daimon each month. Not completing the promised services before the end of the month can be considered a breach of contract.)(Mutually exclusive with Demand options)
- [ ] Specify how many untyped dice you wish to gain.
[ ] Demand the Daimon of Knowledge aid you more and be satisified with the experience. (Expend three favor with the Typhonian Current per additional untyped dice. Adds Favor cost to monthly maintenance based on demands. Favor spent this way cannot be regained by [ ] Tend the Altar) (Mutually Exclusive with Offer options)
- [ ] Specify how many untyped dice you wish to gain.
[ ] The initial offer is acceptable. (gain no additional untyped dice beyond the promised one. Incur no additional costs) (May select no other options when taking this option)
(Voting moratorium until 3am CST.)
