On Wings of Night
18th of November 2006 A.D.
Passing from the climate controlled corridors of the Palace of Sublime Majesty back Chicago Illinois is not like opening a door it's more like rising out of a warm comfortable bath, strange as you haven't been able to have a warm batch since that day in June and also you are not pushing up, but
out in every direction, or maybe none of them, like a spiral reaching for the sun that's there and not, like a memory coming into focus.
It is memory becoming song, not old and deep, nor dark and cruel not high and soaring synth symphonies, familiar as evening shadows and light they lie upon your brow.
Trying to make things work
Trying to make things right
Trying to make things work
The verses catch imagination and they hold it, like fish baited on the line and as the swaying dancers move, some to show off, some to seduce, some to unwind and lay down life's burdens and inhibitions just for an evening you wonder if there is deeper meaning in the lyrics after all, then the music answers:
Without serendipity in my life
It's just a song you like, who knows maybe that makes it a fated thing all on its own, you had seen stranger things.
"Stay still," Harry whispers urgently "I'll try to raise a veil"
"No need," you heft Iris mainframe as though it were some hollow prop festooned with repurposed Christmas lights. "We can just bullshit our way out. This is the Skull and Crossbones. I know the owner and the bouncers too!"
"From all the times she tried to get in..." Izzy starts to tease you, realizes dad is here and mercifully shuts up.
Essence is swimming in your veins, essence is thrumming in your head. It's only now that you are back on earth where the air is so thin and poor with it that you realize running errands in the palace filled your reserves as fast as if you had been swimming in bleach.
Essence now at 15/15
It does not really make sense if the inside is your soul, all the Essence in there is yours already, but then Usum's voice, slotting at the back of your mind as though he had never left whispers:
"While you were gone the flame of your soul did not have to manifest a presence, a body incarnate upon this mundane plane"
"Cool, cool, cool..." It's almost funny the kind of things one is able to take in stride after delivering a speech to several billion people as their long awaited ruler.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 14/15 (Excellency)
You lie like you breathe and you breathe like someone who has gotten a ten ton weight of her chest. Nothing unusual here, just five people you do not remember letting though the door, none of them dressed for clubbing. It's all for a challenge you see... yes the boss knows we are here. thanks for looking the other way when we came in very convincing.
By the end you actually have Jonah the bouncer half convinced that he had let all of you in. It only takes Black Rider fifteen minutes to make it to you and fifteen more to the tunnel entrance and he can of course fit Iris in the trunk. after all he has fit things bigger than a human.
torso inside before. Alien mainframe safely stowed away if not yet connected to grid or network you deliver your friends back home and Harry to his apartment frowning at a bag of reagents and a blank tablet like they are some kind of weird sandwich he is about to take a bite out of.
"Don't try to eat that you hear, it's bad for you," you giggle.
There is still a monster who wants you to be his hunting buddy out there and you owe it a very bad time indeed, somewhere in the world is the vampire who put on the hit, but for right now you are feeling fine. In fact you are feeling a little...
Different.
Arc Eight Complete
Triumphs
- Making your own headphones because you were bored at school and dealing with Rosie's Parents 1 XP
- Saved Doctor Jackson and discovered White Court conspirators 3 XP
- Dealt with the aftermath of a body in your car and a SI lieutenant interested in the Order of the Cauldron 1 XP
- Captured 'Ants of the Lord' without victims 2 XP
- Reading Vito 1 XP
- Public Humiliation of Charles Barrowill 2 XP
- Bore witness to the truth of the White King 1 XP
- Slew Matrigal Raith 2 XP
- Slew a Walker 3 XP
- Guard knelt to you rather than fight 1 XP
- Learned a title of ancient import and something of its meaning 2 XP
- Beating Marzhan and Alina in a race by making friends with Rodolph 1 XP
- Lydia looks though rites written down half a millennia ago and first performed before men learned how to forge bronze 1 XP
- Monoc crafting (Only the mundane elements; arcane improvements lead to Constructive convergence of principles discount below) 2 XP
- Made a good impression on Odin 1 XP
- Defeating Hank (Would have been worth 2 if you figured out how to turn him or take him prisoner alive) 1 XP
- Made it back to Chicago in record time 1 XP
- Convinced a Naagloshii to surrender his prisoners unharmed, by his metric at least and got him to turn on Arianna Ortega 4 XP
- Navigated Ascending your throne with grace and skill 1 XP
- Kept Harry and Michael from freaking out 2 XP
- Safely woke up Izzy and Alec without any undue side effects and procedures 1 XP
- Conversed with the Exarchate and the public setting up a good foundation 1 XP
- Persuaded Harry to keep an open mind 1 XP
Total XP: 6 (Unspent) + 36 (Earned this Arc) -20 (The King and the Kingdom, the Thousand and First Hell) = 22
How do you spent your Experience?
Special
[] Alchemy: The Art of transmutation, not merely of matter, but mind and spirit. To all you have learned from Bob, all you have read in Harry's books the insights of an elder age are added, as steel is alloyed from charcoal and iron (Cost 3XP/Dot)
[] The Sight, birthright and peril for all who are born with a wizard's depth of understanding (Cost 13 XP Discounted by 2)
Mus study with Harry before you can make use of it
Constructive Convergence of Principles costs -5XP due to god and weapon platform crafting
[] New Ability 3xp
[] Ancient sorcery spell 10xp
[] Attribute current rating *4xp
[] Ability current rating *2xp
[] Caste Ability current rating *1xp
[] Caste or Favored Charm Charm rating *3xp
[] Other Charm Charm rating *4xp
[] Willpower current rating
[] First dot of a Sorcerer Path 4xp
[] Follow-up dots in a Sorcerer Path current rating *3xp
[]Merit current rating *4xp
[] Buy down Touch of Frost
-[] 2 XP to remove
[] Buy down Nightmares (4 XP)
[] Write in
OOC: Third update of the day, don't think I will be able to keep up quite this rate every day, but you guys should have quite a bit to debate with this much XP even after the kingdom charm. 
