This is probably not the best idea, you think looking up at Rosie's darkened window from among the rows of scientifically arranged begonias. Scratch that, it is is definitely not the best idea, but it's what she wants, what she needs. First the drugs then her parents basically locking her up, they had all just wrapped her in narrower and narrower circles. It is not like I'm planning to take her to a rave, you reassure yourself.
Thankfully the babysitter, a no-nonsense older lady who apparently does this for all the kids in the neighborhood out of the goodness of her heart, or to hear Rosie's half-brother because she hates fun, has settled in in front of the TV already watching old movies. Thus you rise on the silent currents of your own will all the way up to the window...
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/12
"Fuck! Molly is that you? What the hell!" You wince at the volume.
"Sorry, sorry... I was just surprised OK, you could have warned me. I had a rope and everything," she whispers guiltily.
"Didn't think about it." And what does it say about me that I don't consider flying anymore remarkable than walking?
That you are beginning to gain a proper grasp of your place in the universe Munificent Sovereign Without Malice, the demon in your head informs you.
"Is that a normal wizard thing?" Rosie asks as pick her up and float down.
"No, it's actually a me thing, it is a 'me being very weird' thing in fact." As Bob had explained it flight was very hard for wizards because normally wind capable of lifting a person off the ground would also lash out at everything around said caster creating basically localized hurricane conditions. On top of that even if one could manage the flight it would make air, fire and water based evocation basically worthless because all those transmitted through the air. The spirit had concluded with: 'maybe Merlin could do it but he probably had better things to do with his power'. You of course don't have to do any of that stuff. It feels like nothing so much as releasing yourself from the bounds of Earth, like this is your natural mode of locomotion and gravity's an imposition.
Looking in on the babysitter again you find her still on the couch though not quite where you had left her. Had she gone to the window when she'd heard Rosie swear? Well if she had she had missed you flying her down. You do not care how much experience someone has babysitting, they aren't taking that one in stride.
You bite back a giggle and when you share the thought Rosie has to muffle her own laughter.
"Let's... let's get out of here," you half-whisper under your breath, trying and failing to keep your composure.
So you do. While you can no longer cast that 'notice-me-not' spell you learned through trial and error, the veil as Harry and Bob call it there is plenty of camouflage in just being a pair of teenage girls out and about. You have a baseball hat to hide your hair, Rosie is wearing some slightly baggy clothes but otherwise you are home free... all the way to Black Rider.
"Woah Molly where'd you you get that?" Rosie sounds almost more impressed with the car than with the power of flight.
Rather than dwell on Katrina Holt and the parting of her head from her neck you just reply: "Police auction, I made some money with magic and he wasn't that expensive because..."
"Greetings Mistress," the spirit says in a vaguely James Dean flavored synthetic voice.
"You were not kidding about things being weird huh?" Rosie asks after a moment.
"Nope," you reply maybe a little smug, well OK a moderate amount of smug.
Not that Rosie lets the moment hang too long. "Mistress, what is this a BDSM thing?"
You are quite proud of the fact that you do not blush even a little bit as you roll your eyes. Now for the bigger question, where to?
[] Meet with Harry and Mouse for ice cream, or if Harry's not in the mood just with Mouse
[] Go looking for Rose of Autumn, two birds, one stone maybe you can introduce Rosie to someone new
[] Call Thomas, he is supposed to be your assistant right? He can assist you in finding a good time that's not too stressful on Rosie
[] Head to McAnally's Pub, sounds like a good place for both of you to meet new people and it's Accord Neutral Territory so even if someone nasty is there it's not like they can do anything
[] Write in
OOC: You almost got caught there which would have been an... interesting conversation. But lucky for you equal dice on stealth vs alertness means stealth holds.
Fun as it would be to just ride around for a few hours, something Black Rider for one thinks is just the bee's knees, or maybe the data spider's fangs, you do have a plan in mind for tonight. At least you did until a grumpy Harry answered the phone, obviously still half-asleep. Who is sleeping at a quarter past ten in the evening? The man in charge for prosecuting a war with Blood-sucking monsters across a not inconsiderable portion of North America, responsible-Molly answers all too quickly, she also sounds a bit too much like mom for your liking.
"Ok then can Mouse come out with us to get some ice cream?"
The grunt on the other end sounds vaguely approving so you swing by.
Rosie is surprised to see a woolly dog the size of a small bear waiting on the curb with an old-fashioned phone in his mouth, she us even more surprised when the dos squeezes into the back, drops the phone which proclaims in an artfully static-y manner:
"Greetings from myself and my Ever-watchful companion Creator, may this night in company be profitable and... joyous." The last is said rather dubiously as though Burny is not sure if wishing joy on another is entirely polite.
More immediately than explaining that to him Rosie has questions, she has a lot of questions. So you explain temple dogs, including not just where they come from in the abstract, but how Harry in particular had gotten Mouse. It takes a while for the giggling to stop once you get to the monkey shen with incendiary poo, but eventually you get to the 'helper spirits'. The term demon is not really that helpful to the conversation and in any case to the mind thinking in a broadly Western context it evokes a scale of malice that Burny or Black Rider could have never managed in their previous lives. Apart from Roise's questions the only interruptions are happy woofs as the wise and diligent scion of Foo Dogs sticks his head out the sunroof, tongue lolling out.
So you must make quite the interesting sight outside of Marge's Candies, the simple brick and mortar confectionery that looks like it would be a good background for Grease, if it weren't for late arriving tourists lingering nearby. Thankfully this close to closing there aren't that many people around the place... and they do not have a 'no pets' policy, Clippy had cheked while you were driving here.
Granted the servers look a little queasy at the sheer size of Mouse, but it's nothing you can't smooth over with a few words and an unseen ignition of Essence.
Lost 1 Essence, now at 10/12
The five of you, counting Burny and Clippy who are both out to soak in the atmosphere, step into the ambiance of old fashioned booths with tinny jukebox music filtering out of each one under the soft light of original, or more likely very good recreation, Tiffany's lamps. Even though you had primarily chosen this place so Harry could show off a bit of his magic to Rosie without blowing out the lights they also make really good chocolate-chip ice cream.
Even though Rosie settles into her cup easily enough you can see her shift in her seat uneasily, left hand tangled in the fur on Mouse's head set in her lap, he claims for space, though you think it is most likely to give comfort. She certainly seems like she needs it.
"There's this entire other world out here huh?" At your cautious nod she continues. "So is it like Harry Potter, do they have wizard banks and wizard cops, wizard schools and wizard hospitals? Could you... could I just vanish into it? Because I don't know if you noticed Molls but I really screwed the pooch in this world." She glances down at Mouse. "No offense."
When you do not answer at once, from sheer surprise, she continues. "I'm good at the dream stuff right and I learned fast, You said there is more stuff I can do if, when I get more experienced. Is this something you can make a living off, not being a PI like your Harry, I'd be terrible at that, but other magical things?"
What do you reply?
[] Well Rosie may not be a ghoul, but that does not mean she cannot use the help any less desperately, a fact which unlike with the ghouls is partly your fault. You could take her in
[] Counsel her that jumping into this headfirst is not the best idea, most people on the supernatural side keep a foot in both worlds
[] Write in
OOC: OK, toaster-written chapter is a go. Hope it does not have too many errors.
"Rosie..." Looking into familiar brown eyes you see determination, hope, not just for herself, but for the baby as well, but you see also the flare of desperation. She doesn't need detailed plans, not now not yet. "There might be wizard doctors and there might be wizard lawyers, I haven't met them, but there isn't a wizard world that way, too many other things crowding the Nevernever, gods and monsters, wonders and horrors. It's more Alice in Wonderland than Harry Potter I'm afraid."
As you talk you study her carefully, expecting, fearing really, that she would be devastated, marshaling arguments like soldiers ready to jump into the breach, but your friend disappointed certainly but not devastated as she digs into her sundae. Maybe she's read a few more old time Fairy Tales than you give her credit for.
"Or perhaps she is just stronger than you are willing to allow Majesty," Usum notes, a rare challenge in your thoughts.
"Oh well I guess I'll have to settle for not falling apart then, that's a useful skill," she says with feigned lightness, uncomfortably close to your own thoughts.
"Most people with talent live in both worlds, supplementing either their magic with mundane jobs, or enhancing their work with their magic..." you interject, your tone matter of fact, the impression intentionally flawed by motioning with an ice cream spoon to add a tinge of levity.
"So what I can be a magic shrink?" She sounds disbelieving, dismissive of herself without even bitterness, as though she isn't even worth that much and it pisses you off.
"Yeah, yeah you could be, I've seen you study we were in junior high together remember? I remember how you can get with stuff you are passionate about and that's not just magic."
Mouse takes the chance to nod approvingly under her hand.
"I don't know if I can be that girl Molls, scratch that, I know I can't be that girl with a baby." Her left hand reaches instinctively for her abdomen. Before you and answer to keep up the pep talk she nods once sharply to herself. "But I can try."
I Will Survive starts playing in the background, almost enough to get one to believe in musical serendipity, only... "Clippy is this your doing?" you tap into the phone.
"It seemed appropriate."
Approximately, but maybe that is the best any of you can do.
You get Rosie into her room just before midnight without drawing any more suspicion from the babysitter this time round and count this a night well spent and as you you curl up in bed an hour later your mind is already wandering to the next meeting you have planned. Partly so as not to think of the nightmares that are lurking just out of sight, but that too is alright.
How do you want to meet Rose of Autumn IRL?
[] Invite her to breakfast some place, breakfast is an ice breaker right?
-[] Write in stunt (Optional)
[] Ask her is she wants to go for a morning run
-[] Write in stunt (Optional)
[] Write in
OOC: Rather short because I could not think of a lead in that would not be jarring, especially if the introduction rolls happened to go poorly.
Sunday comes heralded by a sermon about loving thy neighbor, which may or may not be aimed at certain members of the congregation who still has not gotten over being told off by a kid, to judge by the way her eyes just sort of slide off you, like you are a mold stain she is trying not to draw attention to, though it's not like you pay her much mind regardless.
"Hey, how's it going? Long night?" You ask Daniel, resisting the urge to add a teasing edge to the words.
"You wouldn't think leaning about ghosts and ghouls would be so much like homework until you tried it," he sighs. "Lydia lent me some books but..."
"Not here," you shoot back. The good father does not need to hear about this stuff.
***
Homework is right, Lydia had lent out the kind of books that should probably be in a museum, bestiaries filled with fanciful and grotesque beings: from the mouscaliet, sporting the body of a hare, tail of a squirrel, teeth of a boar to the tharadrus, improbable horned master of shadows. They would almost be funny it is weren't for the fact that you know the former beast is an orchard-blight that causes sickness and famine with equal fervor and the latter a favored companion of warlocks for its dim wit, easily suborned and its ability to wrap its concealing magics around its master. Of course poor Daniel can barely read some of the text in the margins, not because whatever monk had scribed it in dusty years long past had done a bad job of it, but because it is in Medieval Church Latin and not the Classical Latin he knows. Lydia probably does not even notice the difference and according to Daniel 'he didn't want to look stupid'.
"Well you look really silly trying to work out the differences on your own," you point out motioning to the notepad, phone and ancient tome on his desk. "Here let me help you with that."
By 'me' you of course mean Clippy who has a lot more processing power to go through the text and work out how to transpose it using online resources, though 253 pages worth of pictures to work though it starting to test her memory storage, even with her taping the rest of the network for help.
"Thanks Molly..."
"Thank Clippy, she's the one doing the work, also keep that out of mom's sight or you are going put her in a bad mood all day." Bad enough as far as she's concerned that one of her children had dived right into the deep end of magic, but if Daniel keeps up these study sessions with Lydia, well mom might yet regret that 'study session' is not code for the usual activities a pair in their position get up to.
"Er... thanks Cilppy," your brother says vaguely at the phone.
Daniel Carpenter Gains 1 Occult -> Now at 2
It seems like everywhere you look one of your siblings is doing their best to take up new and... interesting skills. Matthew is getting a lot better with a sword, to the point that you can look at him training without wincing and regretting that you do not have any healing magic yet. Mom is even handing out pointers now. Part of you wonders if her newfound equanimity has something to do with the visit to Undertown this month, after all compared to taking over command of a clan of ghouls using hitherto unknown grasp of Sumerian just wanting to know how to protect himself must seem pretty tame.
Hope meanwhile has gotten a new toy, specifically a toy car for her birthday. It is pink, it is loud and it makes you miss the tea parties as well as consider the virtues of investing it with a cyber-spirit. In the end you decide that demonic binding is just a hair too extreme a solution to the issue of a overly loud toy. What is not too extreme is using your eldritch insight into the hearts of men to persuade her to go play outside.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/12
OOC: Previous vote still open, this is just something that popped into my head since we have not heard from the family in some time.
Your dad holds open the door of the shawarma place as you follow Lydia inside, the chill of the room a pleasant counterpoint to the late August heat outside. You grab a table and sodas as Lydia looks over the menu, her expression thoughtful. Simit, balık-ekmek, souvlaki and sweet baklava for desert, all of these pass over her tongue without a stumble, perhaps a taste of home. The faint clang of food being taken off the grill offers a pleasant counter-point to wordless music in a wistful minor key that puts one of a mind to other places: olive groves grown from the rocky soil by the sea and mist shrouded islands were the epics of old were sung.
The woman who steps in after you a quarter of an hour later seems almost of a piece with the music, black is her dress despite the heat and black the scarf on her dark blonde hair. She's older than you and younger than dad, though where between that she lies is lost in the lines baked into her face by sun and worry,
At the moment she's feeling something a good bit stronger than worry, the click of her shoes stops abruptly as she takes in the three of you. Dad... dad she had been expecting even if they may not have met before, but when it comes to you and Lydia you have no idea what'a passing through her head, maybe you don't want to. She fumbles with something in her purse...
"Wait," you call out, carefully not raising your voice or moving your hand from your drink. "I'm say 'I can explain', but I have no idea what you are feeling right now. I'd like to explain though, I'd like to thank you." You sound sheepish as you do sincere.
"I... was not expecting... When you said you were a Carpenter I'd thought you were..."
"I'm new," you cut in, still smiling encouragingly. "In more ways than one."
Rose of Autumn gives a shaky laugh. "I can see that, if you are... if you have questions..." She motions to dad as if to ask 'why didn't you just ask him' then she visibly collects herself. "Ah, where are my manners, I'm Pauline... Pauline Moskowitz, it's good to meet you, and good to know you made it out of Cleaveland fine." she says the last few words at some point between you and dad.
"Oh we were better than fine by the time we got done with the people in Cleveland." Your tone is still low but it is sharp as steel out from under the whetstone. "Not to brag but I figured you would want to know, given your history with them, set your mind at ease while I get some kind of recommendation for among folk of good-heart and certain talents."
Pauline steps in and sits down gingerly, as though not quite certain of the solidity of the chair, or maybe of the whole world right now. "I cannot promise you answers you understand, not all of them are mine alone to give, but I'm willing to talk."
What questions do you have for Pauline Moskowitz?
[] What can she tell you about others like herself, the minor talents of Chicago
[] What's her talent
[] Write in
OOC: Got a bit distracted with Christmas stuff, but done now, here's your in.
"Well, first of all, what would you like to order? My treat." you ask, as you try to project the image - not one of a Dreaded Empress upon a Throne of Black Ice, but one of Molly Carpenter - the teenage church going girl, who is still very much a part of her community. "I wanted to ask about the local community. If I was your neighbor's daughter, newly come into her gifts, who would you introduce me to? What places would you recommend me to visit? Dad and Harry can explain geopolitics to me, but what's the local scene like? Oh, and if you want to ask me anything in turn, please feel free. I won't promise to answer everything, but maybe I'll be able to soothe some of your worries".
"You know it's not something that is done very often, answering that many questions." Pauline shifts uncomfortably on her seat not-quite-looking at dad .
Honestly does she think you need a minder or that you are about to eat her soul, one or the other. "Yes I know, but circumstances being what they are... I trust you not to use anything you learn against me. People who would help random strangers online don't just turn around and use secrets when those same strangers try to be... less strange. "
If you were not looking so intently at her face you would have missed it, nothing as obvious as Harry's tell when talking to Lasciel, but her intense blue gaze loses just a bit of focus like someone glancing at their phone in the middle of a conversation. That is when you realize another odd thing had sneaked up on you. You cannot feel the air move from your left even though you can hear the air conditioning. Experimentally you stretch out one foot under the table and yep, there is the air current.
"Alright, I'd like to know how you came into your... power, where it came from," Pauline continues.
So you tell her, not the details, not why you had come to be in Actis Tor in pain and doubt, that in that endless chill you had found a crown meant for a mortal brow, a weapon fit for your hand that wished to be wielded and by its power you escaped... but as you tell the tale you also lean a little back and you discover that your unseen windscreen is only a few feet wide. Getting up to signal one of the waitresses you discover it's only about four feet tall, It does not move an inch when it looks like you are going to walk in that direction either.
Spirit, you deduce, not humanoid, not particularly strong either or you would have felt its mark in something other than the movement of air, but given that it's willing to stick around... well you it has to be pretty devoted to Pauline.
"Well..." the lady in question finally speaks. "I do not suppose you need the usual introduction to the Mysteries, that is what I had come here prepared for."
"I would like to hear it though, to help me understand..." The words sound wistful in your own ear. If you had chanced upon Pauline online or off before you has misused your magic you never would have been in Arctis Tor most likely and the Crown would have laid there still.
"I for one am glad you did not encounter her mistress, I am a selfish creature," Usum notes.
The words come more quickly now, smoother, like something she had said a dozen times before: "We are all made in the image of the Divine, whether one sees that as One or Many, Male or Female, Manifest or Transcendent and we all seek to cleave to God by whatever Name we call Him, magic is not something you do, something you can choose to stop, no more than you can stop breathing, it is just that some of us make wider ripples than others, blessed with the power to touch the fates and hearts of others and cursed with the eye of dark things, things like he Pathfinders. This is a world at war and it has been so long before the White Council noticed that vampires are indeed terrible." She laughs, sharp and hollow. "The best any of us can do is keep our wits about us and support each other as we can, check up calls, common workings, that sort of thing."
"Us?" you prompt.
Pauline stops to think, weighing danger against opportunity and perhaps the presence of a Knight of the Cross against whatever you feel like to her spirit companion. "The Ordo Lebetis, I guess you could think of us as a coven,, though really the only common rede we have is 'Do as ye will, harm ye none'. It's like the way people would gather in the old days to build a house or some other meaningful task in a village."
"Call up the militia?" Lydia interjects, curiously.
"Heavens no, we are not a power, we would be ground to powder and cast into the winds if we tried that. Just knowing there are other people in the know around you is enough to keep off most predators and for those insistent or malicious enough to persist a strong ward and steady hands bearing their banes usually suffice. Strength in numbers basically."
A herding tactic, you conclude mentally. Enough to keep most of the members safe most of the time, but really only because it suits the predators as well, because it lets them more easily find the weak and the desperate. Part of you is touched that she had wanted to explain all this to you, perhaps make the offer to join as well, but mostly... you are just angry, not at her but at the world that would make her speak of being hunted so bluntly, like it is just another fact of life. Water is wet, fire is hot and we are at the bottom of the food chain.
Pauline continues to give what you judge to be as good advice as she can: when to call the police and what to tell them to scare off a vampire or opportunistic fey without coming off as a crank and losing the protection that the threat of exposure gives how to tell a truly malicious haunting from the merely bored antics of a spirit looking to get a rise out of you, when to stand your ground and when to run, hoping that distance will offer some protection by inconveniencing the hunter. The more she talks the calmer she seems to get, the familiar conversation soothing her worries maybe.
A screech, faint but growing louder fills the air, the sound of bending plastic... as you look down to see your fingers gouging into the table.
"Sorry, It's just..." How do you live like that? would be really impolite to ask, but it's the question you desperately want to pose. Lydia's militia sounds like a better idea all the time.
I could make it happen. You do not need Usum putting the thought into your head. I could help them, lead them, forge them into the power they had so swiftly dismissed.
Still you do not think Pauline would take a recruitment pitch well right now. "When is your next ward-raising. I can help. I want to help."
"Me too," Lydia pipes up. "I have some books from by dad, I have a lot of books and if you need someone to put the dead down I'm good at that, it's what I'm supposed to do."
"That is a very generous offer. " It seems you almost as if Pauline breathes a fresh sigh of relief. What did she think Lydia was, the head of the Kemmler Junior Fan Club?
"I will have to talk to some people, but we will keep the offer in mind."
That is as much as you get in that meeting, she does not even eat anything, instead taking a single coffee, taken in jerky gulps caught between the scylla of politeness and the charybdis of 'getting out of there as fast as she can'.
Lost 3 Essence -> Now at 7/12
***
25th of August 2006 A.D.
Restore all Essence -> Now at 12/12
Though you go home that day disappointed the next Thursday you get a message from Pauline, it seems the Ordo Lebetis had decided to take a chance on you, asking for your help in protecting the house of their newest member, a Mrs Helen Beckitt. From the way Pauline tells it at least half the reason for the meeting is to make sure everyone in the cover knows you are not a danger, though you have to wonder if they are still trying to feel out how much they can trust you.
How do you present yourself to the Ordo Lebetis?
[] As Molly Carpenter, inexperienced sorceress just learning the ropes
[] Try to set yourself up as someone they might trust in a leadership role
[] Write in
OOC: Rolls will be posted later, I'm still running a bit short of time.
The muggy late afternoon sunlight spills out over an apartment building with all the charm of a strip mall and seemingly all the permanence of a trailer park, chain links clanking under the hand of your host to the accompaniment of distant barks and whines from what might have been strays or perhaps dogs whose 'masters' has inconstant hearts. Be fair Molly they could just be poor, you tell yourself, though you note the lady in question seems to give lie to her surroundings. Helen Beckitt is wears a dark grey pantsuit like it is armor against the gazes of any who would look her way, a string of small pearls around her throat more like a collar than jewelry and most incongruous of all a silver watch around her wrist... stopped at two minutes past three. She's in her late thirties, early forties maybe, with that fine hand for makeup that can make a woman seem ageless, though any envy of her skills quickly dies when you look into her eyes. Hard they are and almost empty of emotion, like someone who is just making time, as though all the world were a vast ledger and she just adding up.
"I'm so happy you could make it Miss Carpenter, would you like a cookie?"
You nod automatically, turning away from Hellen's disquieting stare. 'Call me Abby' Douglas is as sweet a person as the treats she is handing out, specifically handing out here so that Helen would not be upset unless you miss your guess, though you really do not think she cares.
Out of all four women present Abby's power is the easiest to guess since she has a habit of answering things you are about to say. It was a little startling at first, but you got used to it. The fact that Abby had gotten an earful of several versions of your greeting to the Ordo might have something to do with why she is so friendly, at least that is Usum's theory. For your part you think he's not giving enough credit to regular old human niceness.
For her part Anna Ash, leader of the coven, had definitely not invited familiarity, she had returned your greetings politely and taken in your assurance that you are not some obscure sort of fiend with good grace but also with a measure of caution. You get the distinct impression that she has some kind of means to fight you, or at least hold you off lined up.
Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 10/12
Sadly you do not think it would do much good. Your first impression of the Order of the Cauldron is that Pauline is very much typical of their senior members and her guardian spirit one of the more potent personal defenses they sport. Of you spot a few charms and trinkets here and there, but it does not take Harry's Sight to tell they are small things, bound to this skill or circumstance. Any one of the four caught out alone in a deserted place, out of sight of inconvenient witnesses would have little means of protecting themselves. Well other than maybe Helen, she looks like the kind of person who would shoot an attacker between the eyes at the drop of a hat. So it is all the more odd that it's her apartment you were all here to ward.
Best as you can tell Anna is particularly worried about Helen having drawn the wrong sort of attention, but none of them respond to your gentle prodding as to what that is, not even Abby. Maybe she's involved with some shady magic, you know better than most that magic is not just black and white, but that between them lie whole vistas of things you would not want the average Warden to know about. Honestly if you were in their place you might be tempted to test those limits as well.
But as you climb the narrow stairs, more glad than sorry to find them poorly lit, you feel nothing in the dark. It does not press upon the mind nor steal the breath from the lungs. The dark and dingy stairway is... dark and dingy, the worst of the ward on apartment 16 a twinge of awareness running through your shoulders, like a sudden draft followed by some ethereal window slamming shut.
Of course the other side of the coin is... this place basically has no threshold. Not only is it newly bought but whoever had stayed here before did not think of it as a home or place of sanctuary. They had not even thought of it as a place of particular torment, which would have created its own kind of anchor... Thanks for that bit of trivia Usum.
Dismissing the silent apology with a shake of the head, it really isn't his fault, you turn back to the matter of how to anchor a ward to what is basically a safehouse for one... a safehouse for someone who is constitutionally incapable of feeling safe.
The others do not expect you to come up with the answers of course, they have their own ideas. Firstly Pauline could lay a curse across the threshold empowered by Hellen's blood. "Nothing permanent," she hastens to assure you. "Just debilitating, ill luck for one who would tress pass with ill will."
You shoot her a smile to assure her you don't think less of her for her arts. "Still less dangerous than a gun and I do not go around thinking of everyone who carries one of those as a potential murderer."
Abby giggles like you had made a joke... You decide not to tell her different.
Anna has a more straightforward, but also much more difficult way to guard the place, enchant the door to slowly sap the heat out of the apartment and then once it is 'charged up' blast all of it outwards in a flash of false sunlight. While it would not have the metaphysical weight of true sunlight it would be near enough the real thing to terrify anything vulnerable to the sun while also giving everyone else painful full body burns and unless they were very fast to shield their eyes temporary blindness.
Hellen herself is the most skilled ritualist in the group and she seems quite sure she can transmit at least some portion of your magic to whoever is working the magic, to empower the ward. You are not sure what it says about her that she does not seem the least perturbed to be working with your power.
Which of the methods do you think you can help with most?
[] The curse, you have a feeling your essence would make a hell of a knot of any enemy's fate
[] The false-sun ward. You feel there is an affinity there, though it feels a little... unsteady
[] Something else
-[] Write in suggestion
OOC: So far so good, though the fun part comes next.
Pursing your lips, you cross the room to take a second look into the corridor outside, then come back into the room, stomping on the floor repeatedly. "Wooden floorboards, here and in the corridor. Wooden doorframe. Wooden doors too." you say to yourself. Ash makes an unladylike grunt of realization, but Pauline and Abby both look visibly confused. "Enough power to give people full body burns through their clothes" you continue, addressing the group "is going to be enough power to set that entire corridor on fire, and..."
"You can give someone burns without setting them on fire," Helen, damned if you are calling someone who gives you the creeps as bad as her Mrs Becket, cuts off your lecture coldly. "Flesh is not wood."
"And the person who comes in here might be made of green boughs and mistletoe," you counter calmly. "You cannot just assume you will be dealing with the mostly human shaped, or just with the ignorant."
"And how pray might they know?" comes the sharp question.
"Helen!" Abby gasps. "There is no need to insinuate..."
"My apologies for being impolite." It's hard to read her near toneless delivery, but she sounds like she means it. "But there are more important things at stake when dealing with the safety of us all, when dealing with one who burns the nose to catch even a whiff of."
You let the silence hang a moment, the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece eerily loud. "Impurity is not the same thing as evil. It is not even the same thing as being wrong, I could quote scripture about the sorts of people Christ chose to have at his table, but I do not want to make this about faith like it's..." a feather in my cap, you think but do not add aloud, sweaving away from what might seem to be false modesty at the last moment. Instead you decide to let Usum have his say. "There is a purity in hatred, in ruination and in spite of which I want nothing to do. I'm just Molly Carpenter trying to muddle along."
The answer seems to resonate with Pauline and even with Anna enough for the latter to unbend into a smile. "We understand this is difficult for you Molly, we do not choose the talents we have, or the talents that find us."
Helen just nods, somehow you do not think it was a lack of understanding that lead to the lack of trust.
Before things can get any more awkward Clippy goes off, for all the world like a normal phone, It's Lydia, her plan 'not to show off by arriving in a fancy car' had backfired when she had missed the L train and had to catch a cab across town.
"My friend will be here soon," you say stoutly swallowing a smile.
And so she is, looking faintly ruffled in a new white T-shirt and a plain black skirt that almost looks like the kind of thing St Agnes would have made you wear to class. Obviously 'local coven South Shore' isn't among the list of destinations she knows how to deal with and her father was not any great use either.
"Hi... is the dog...uh... there's a German Shepherd down by the curb, is it OK to feed him?"
"You shouldn't feed strange dogs," the words out of Helen's mouth are almost automatic, a weirdly familiar ring to them, but whatever you had heard is gone in an instant.
Lydia insists that she is good with dogs which gets her around to talking dogs breeds with Abby who has strong opinions on the matter, specifically on the habit of modern breeders of promoting dogs with serious health issues as 'cute'. It's probably a good thing she is a seer and not a pyromancer or Country Acres Puppies might go up in smoke one of these days with all the files and none of the dogs inside.
Still the time soon comes to deal with the matter at hand, the ritual.
From your understanding ritual magic is hard enough normally, since it is using the props of a magician as the proverbial metaphysical leaver to move what would otherwise be beyond the caster. Harder still when you mean to place a curse on something since that is basically giving magic a designated way to backlash and screw with you...
Bluntly but not inaccurately put, Gracious Lady of the Vardant Dawn, Usum notes
But that is when the actual cauldron in the Order of the Cauldron comes out, it is a plain cast iron kettle you would not gve a second look if you passed it in a window somewhere or spotted it as a curio in the back of a shop, looking like nothing so much as the sort of pot Gargamel would make his smurf stew. Only as you look more closely you see a pair of letters what might be the last part of a date stamped into the metal SM.. 88.
"Salem Massachusetts 1688, that is when it was forged with with a purpose too," Anna explains. "Not that we can claim an unbroken line going back that far, the Great Depression did more to lose my family's touch of the Mysteries than the Witch Trials, by grandmother didn't know what it was, but I figured it out eventually. Thought I'd put it to better use than moldering in the dark, that can make magic turn sour and dark you know."
Anna goes on to explain that the cauldron creates a sort of anchor point that allows what would otherwise be conflicting energies to find their level allowing the 'spinner' in this case Helen to and off a lot more magic to the 'cutter', the person turning the stream of power into magic manifest.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble, the lines from Macbeth rise inescapably to the forefront of your mind as salt water and hearth ash, bull thistle and dandelion seeds are added to the pot each with a turn of the stirring paddle.
How much of your Essence do you attempt to invest in the task?
[] Just 1 Essence, you do not want to mingle too many sorts of eldritch power in this, old Cauldron or no
-[] Write in stunt
[] 1 Essence from you and 1 from Lydia, that way you can both contribute
-[] Write in stunt
[] 2 Essence from you and one fron Lydia, that is... proportional and if you time it right three is one of the numbers of great significance
-[] Write in stunt
[] Write in
OOC: The pot is in fact decently enchanted, 'subtly magical talisman' level of enchantment, but nothing crazy.
They were old and new the arts which had forged this cauldron, drawn forth from the lore of loche and moor from the whispers of the fairy folk and taken with trembling hands from those who had dwelt for ages dwelt neath quaking aspen, paper birch, oak and hickory. They were the arts of the interloper come with holy book in one hand and burning brand in the other to distant shores and yet they were the arts of folks who worried about the turning of the seasons and the coming of the rain, about the lives of their loved ones in places far off and about warding away the winter's grip. There was power in the forging, but it was a brittle thing, as the iron of the cauldron.
"Do you have a pair of shears and a sieve?" You ask suddenly.
Abby is intrigued, and little wonder this is her sort of magic, divination, though not of the future but of the present, the sieve atop a pair of shears was said among the cunning folk of New England to turn or fall when the answer to some burning question is positive, in this case the question is simple:
Will you sunder?
Slowly at first, then faster and faster as you speak the sieve begins to turn, drawn a raft set on in ethereal currents as words of old made new bubble from your lips:
"Expeller of evildoers,
loud is thy bark,
think not but bite,
balk not but strike!"
Verdant flame leaps from your hand into eldritch symbols that twist and devour the light all around, but lo that their shadow is not that of serpent, of dragon or wyrm, but a hound swift and sleek, with only its tail rising in alien semblance , the stinger of a scorpion.In verse that echoes younger days, still long past from memory to legend, mist shrouded tor and ghostly moor, speaks the daughter of Arawn, her soul like moonlit veil on the air, like the tears of the unquiet dead:
Let him be speechless, ghastly, wan, Like him of whom the story ran, Who spoke the spectre hound in man
And by that light you six you begin to turn, all six caught in a wild reel, with grace uncanny, with swiftness now of falling night. To argent beckons the hound now rises, mist and shadow ash and soot, of sweet thistle scented with eyes as white as rolling, blind to all but evildoers, them it sees past all deception
Green lighting dances though the silver fog that pours and pours from the depths of the cauldron, more than the iron can hold, more than mortal sorcery can bind.
"Don't...?" you begin to call out but Helen Beckit shakes her head, a pin flying from her tight but to clink on the floor unseen, hair flying wilder in the casting.
"I know my reach and my grasp."
So it seems she does as she draws through fingers adorned with gold and agates threads of grey mist that bind the shadow you had conjured from deathless essence and chants of old. She does not touch it as you feared she might. This was not a beast meant for petting, it could work naught but death and ruin upon all which it touched. yet it was still a dog and heart and not a wolf, to its master faithful friend.
Still dancing, still turning Pauline takes the threads in one hand and raises the other as though to cut, her words too soft to hear but not too soft to feel, in that all encompassing sight which allows you to spot even the most cunningly hidden of enemies, you see the danger before it can manifest.
"Don't cut it loose all at once, it does not have to be one curse, but many, that which the foe fears, but the master of the hearth does not, the hound at the threshold whose meat it fear, whose drink is warning praise. Make a..." thaunic focus point... geomantic spike, hollow heartstone socket. The words flow through your mind like water, but each one you know would cause more confusion than understanding. "A post, the length of the chain is your will and each link in the chain is a curse you want to work upon the interloper."
"But that's... you can't do...."
"Yes you can. Focus!" You shout, voice sharp with urgency. The chill around you grows until the mist of the cauldron falls down like sleet upon your creation, jet black hide turned grizzled with age and wisdom, in eyes of mist a spark of poison green now gleaming.
In the depths of your mind, among the alien gears of a power twice gifted, twice cursed, a voice, a recording, crackling with static from some far off flash whispers:
"Ig...iti...n"
Lost 4 Motes -> Now at 6/12
The sieve falls shatters as though it were made of crystal or ice as Pauline stumbles in her next step only for Lydia to catch her... and then the hound, the curse template speaks:
"Awaiting Instruction/Purpose/Meaning"
"Guard the house from all those of ill intent to Helen, warn her of danger and work mischief and misfortune upon the guilty matching each to their intent threefold."
The spirit... least god, something in you whispers, nods and melts into the floor.
Least God of the Threshold Created -> Constructive Convergence of Principles Charm discounted by 2 XP
Deathly silence falls in the wake of its passing, Lydia looks tired but exhilarated, Pauline shaken to her core, Abby keeps blinking owlishly as though trying to get rid of something in her eyes and Helen is still staring at the point where your collective... creation had gone. It's Anna who finally speaks:
"Did you mean to do that, whatever that is?"
Truth be told you had not, all you had been trying for was a flexible curse that would vary the amount of pain it inflicted according to the severity of the trespass, but, like someone attempting to make an alarm system and instead designing an AI, you had somewhat exceeded specifications. You bite back what might have been a somewhat giggle as you answer:
[] Yes, what better ward than a guardian
[] No, but this is even better than what you had envisaged
OOC: I had initially forgotten about Transcendent Lord of Flies which would have given you a more modest but still respectable 15 combined successes.... then I did a reroll with the proper DC and got 29.
"No, but this is better than I had originally envisioned," you reply after a moment's thought, no point lying just because things had gone a little sideways, or worse just because you can. Lying can be a habit that's hard to kick, you know that all too well.
"Better?" There is a whole novel's worth of meaning in Anna Ash's single word.
"Sure, I mean the real limits of a ward are how much power it can discharge at once and how much power is in there, easiest way to overcome it is run it out of magic juice, uh technical term," you flash a smile and almost in spite of herself you see Anna start to return it. "A list will do in a pinch don't hit the neighbor's kids with as much power as you would use on a zombie crashing in and that was what I was going to do make the power easier to partition, but make something complex enough and add and archetype template, hound for the protection of territory, scorpion for the sting of the curse like you saw, and you get basically emergent intelligence, turns out its easier to just get the stacks to sort themselves. "
As you give the pitch, like you are an advertising person in a room full of suits, you are dodging the elephant, or maybe better to say the god in the room. The proper name for the being you had made. In Japan they would be the Kami the guardians of each place or thing, in China the Yaoguai, strange spirits born of an imbalance in the chi, in Vietnam one might call this a form of Thành hoàng, a city or village god, though an apartment building is rather a more humble abode than such usually dwell in. There is a part of you that feels like every place should have them, every star in the sky, every blade of grass, every falling snowflake.
"You have to admit Anna that is a familiar look she is wearing," Abby teases the older woman gently, a joke often told from the tone.
Anna huffs, though she cannot quite manage to keep a straight face. "Jokes aside, I have never heard of someone accidentally coding up an AI before."
Surprisingly it's Helen who replies. "Magic isn't ones and zeroes. I imagine it wants to be alive more than any piece of code."
"Who says code can't be magic?" you quip back automatically, thinking of Clippy, Burny, Black Rider, the Beige Wagon and all the rest of your friends. "Magic is in all things, we are just better at recognizing it in older things because as a society we are more experienced with it."
"So you could awaken one of these spirits in any conceptual space?"
Well that's some blunt fishing for information, you think. Maybe she hasn't had much practice.
"What happened today was a consequence of all our efforts," you reply, honestly as far as it goes, but answering little.
"What's it's name?" Pauline asks.
Watchful Bane upon the Thirty Sixth Threshold, you know instantly, as you do what the number means, this had been the thirty sixth apartment sold in this building back when it was new-built and you also know that this is the least god's true name, one a wizard might conjure by as though it had been spoken from its own lips. It makes sense since I made it I guess, but that would be so easy to abuse.
Gained 2 Essence -> Now at 8/12
Thankfully when you recount the name it does not have anything like that weight and yet the spirit hears you, slipping back into reality from a rift in the air... no, coalescing. It had always been here and it will always be here. Over the next hour you learn a great deal about Bane, as you mentally shorten the spirit's name, some of it obvious, like the deadly poison that hides in its sting, some of it surprising, such as the fact that it possesses the equivalent of a high school education in most matters and knows how to operate the computer in the corner.
Helen seems particularly intrigued by the account of how Bane learns languages, being able to pick them out whole from the head of any mortal who speaks them and 'keep' two of them even when that mortal has left. Still you cannot help but think that if she is planning to use it as a translator she must have some really brave people in mind to test it out on. You can almost taste its will, its malice in the air able to twist the fortune of any within its domain to ill by a simple exertion of will able to inflict everything from bumps and bruises to serious even deadly peril. That alone would have made it more deadly than any curse the Order of the Cauldron alone could cast, but then you question Bane just a touch more...
"You can weave curses? Spells?" Pauline asks, as though she had not heard it aright. In truth she would probably prefer that.
"Yes," the godling proclaims without pride or prefabrication, recounting the sort of ill wishing it can lay which would cling to the foe far past the bounds of its domain.
Some more questioning by Pauline reveals the spirit is about as skilled in hexcraft as she is, though within the bounds of its domain which encompass the whole apartment building it is far more skilled.
Appearance: Slinking forth from the corners of its domain the spirit seems like a greyhound, its belly black as midnight, back and head grizzled as though from fallen snow. At first only its tail curved back like that of a scorpion gives lie to its canine form, but any who look into its eyes will see far more than they bargained for, swirling mist are the whites of its eyes and its pupil blazing green flame that promises death and worse than death.
Concept: Curse Wrought Guardian
Motivation: Guard my domain and its mortal inhabitants against all who would do them harm
Special Advantages: Accursed Sting: Your poison burns with caustic green flame, for each successful attack inflict three points of aggravated damage. This damage affects even those without a functioning biology like Black Court vampires or zombies, though not beings with a specific immunity to poison Alien Impression: A creature of elder days in death and misfortune reborn, no mortal who looks upon you could mistake you for anything mundane for more than a moment Aura of Malice: Your malice infects the very air in the presence of a foe. Creatures opposed to your feel compelled to flee your presence unless they spend a Willpower. Those who do suffer up to a +3 to all DCs in your domain while you are active. You may freely scale this effect. Darksight: You can see even in blackest night as though it were midday, the darkness holds no secrets to you. Divine Tongue: You share the language of any mortal being which enters your domain and converse with them freely. Of these languages you may select up to your intelligence in languages to keep, that is languages you can freely speak without access to any native speaker. You may read and write in any tongue you know Guardian's Curse: The Least God counts as possessing Path of Curses 3, it is always considered as posessing an item belonging to the victim if they appropriate anything from its domain Immortal: You are a god, bound to your domain, while it endures so shall you. Being slain simply sends you into deathhly slumber while you recover your strength. If you are slain by lethal damage you wake with the next sunset, whereas agravated damage requires nine days. Naturally Intangible: You are naturally and reflexively intangible beyond the reach of mundane weapons beyond the sight of those who do not possess mystic senses. To become tangible roll willpower against DC 6. Each success gives you an hour of material existence for the day Place-bound: You cannot leave the building which you were wrought to guard, though your influence can be felt beyond it, any curses you lay endure until they are broken or until the target perishes and your poison remains just as potent no matter where it is taken... or in whose veins it lies Telekinetic Touch: Can manipulate items in your environment as though you possessed hands, this power is too weak to use in combat.
Health Levels: 8/8
Willpower: 8
"You are not going to... hurt anyone are you?" she finally asks, obviously dreading the answer.
The godling's head tilts and its balefire eyes look at her almost quizzically. "No more than their trespass deserves. Have you forgotten the purpose you have given me?"
"No, it's just..." she shakes her head as the spirit departs once more, having reached the end of its explanations.
Pauline however is not done. "You realize that thing could kill everyone in the building?" What good she imagines the hushed tone does you have no idea.
Lydia clears her throat, still glowing faint silver. "So could I, easily doesn't mean I'm going to do it?" There is something about a fifteen year old, five foot two, ninny pounds soaking wet calmly proclaiming she can kill dozens of people that seems to catch everyone out short. "We all act according to our nature and to our choices most of all. To assume ability to do evil makes for an evil heart would make one no better than the people of a certain town in the seventeenth century." she glances meaningfully at the cauldron. "All Watchful Bane upon the Thirty Sixth Threshold wants is to defend its domain from interlopers, which is what we, yes all of us, not just Molly, made him for. The least we can do for that service is grant him the respect we would any other thinking being, powers or no."
She isn't talking just about spectral hound-scorpions, that much is clear.
"That's a good point you know he's given us no reason to mistrust him other than being strange," Abby pipes up. "I wonder would he like some gingerbread. I baked some for today?"
"It," you correct automatically. "Bane is genderless, though that might change in time." You get another of those vague impression about that being something you could have shaped if you were doing this with more refined conceptual tools. "They could work though it can be a little confusing since composite spirits are a thing."
"It then," Abby corrects. "Would you like some gingerbread Watchful Bane upon the Thirty Sixth Threshold?"
"No." A pause of about ten seconds follows the word then. "Thank you for the offer."
"So..." Helen says half an hour later over coffee and the aforementioned very nice star moon and sun shaped cookies. "Would you like to join, Lydia, Molly? The Ordo Lebetis that is?"
Pauline looks at her a little funny, but she does not say anything and neither does Anna, though it is hard to tell what she's feeling on the matter. Abby on the other hand looks downright enthused.
There is a lot of good you could do here, you know the order is a lot bigger than these three and they do not have any protection save that which they can afford each other, no distant sanctuary, no repository of ancient lore. The Order of the Cauldron is barely five years old this spring and you very much doubt it is because no one had this idea before the turn of the millennium. Others must have tried and by the fact that they are not around it must have ended poorly.
But would your presence help more than it would paint a target in their backs? Lydia looks like she is willing to follow your lead, but on the other hand you can clearly see that she would enjoy the companionship, the belonging..
What do you reply?
[] Yes, join the Order of the Cauldron
[] No, do not join the Order of the Cauldron
[] Write in
OOC: I ended up using mostly custom advantages, but I feel they are reasonably balanced. If you guys feel otherwise do not hesitate to say so.
