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I Walk in Dreams -- An Esoteric Journey Quest

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The Seventh Night -- Part Three
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    • [*] Take a breath, and move on: Gain this card as an Aura.
    [*][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

    Tally

    The magic ring is tempting... but the Ascent has taxed and taxed you. The last oath you swore on this mountainside risked your freedom, life, and very soul to fulfill. The prospect of making another oath, and not even for the sake of comforting someone and promising aid for his worthy cause but just to get an awesome ring, wholly fails to appeal. Your soul is flagging, as the nights stretch on and the great powers of the Ascent cross your path. If you wish to make it to a summit, you have to harden your heart and not jump at every opportunity that passes in front of you.

    Still. You feel bad for the Red Ringsmith. She cannot really exert agency in any way other than through demanding these bindings, if she can't stray far from the workshop. She occupies somewhat of an awkward midpoint in the spiritual hierarchy of beings here in the dreaming-realm: more individual than something like the omen vulture or Tragoudion, but less free, and not as potent or as symbolically central as the greater dreaming-entities. You can't bring yourself to not care about that. Being trapped is hard, even when it is by your nature and love for something.

    You shake your head. "I am sorry, but I cannot bind myself. I have to jealously guard my strength, and I cannot tie some up in an oath. However, if you have no objection, I would be happy to sit a while here, resting my legs from the climb, and tell you about my journey, and keep you company while you work."

    She rubs her chin, then grins broadly at you. "That sounds most agreeable."

    So you pull up a stool and sit nearby while she works, hammering the metal with perfect arcing form that is a pleasure to watch. You give her a brief amount of context for your waking-world life and how it brought you to the study of wise-dreaming -- she is fascinated by your stories of the waking world, but also curious about what you saw in the dreaming-realm and in what order. She is unable to explain how it is that her home can be found in different places by different dreamers at different times -- indeed, she finds the fact that geography is (relatively) immutable outside the dreaming realm just as strange as you find the reverse. One thing she does say is that the nature of her workshop's location never changes. "Be it low or be it high," she explains, "you cannot come to my door except through crags and rough going." That feels significant; you nod and add that to your growing understanding of the dreaming-realm's nature.

    Finally, your legs are feeling fully recovered, and as pleasant as this is you have more ambitions for your night. You get to your feet and wish the Red Ringsmith well. She, in turn, hands you a hammer. "It is a thing of this place and so will not persist in your hands," she says. "But until you are called back to your awoken life, please take this. Perhaps it will be useful, and if not, it is still a token of my thanks."

    You clasp hands with her warmly, and then set off, winding your way past the crags and on to a path once more, seeking out your next steps up the Ascent.


    QUEEN OF WANDS

    You ascend the rugged footpath that snakes up the mountainside, each step bringing you closer to the summit and further from the world below. The air is thin and crisp. As you round a bend, the difficult terrain abruptly opens up to reveal a clearing, dominated by an enormous vine tree. The tree stands as a natural cathedral, its gnarled branches twisting and turning in on themselves and its leaves casting dappled shadows on the ground.

    At its base, you notice her. An older woman, you'd guess somewhere in her forties or fifties by the silver streaks in her hair, sits cross-legged on the dirt beneath the tree. Her eyes are closed and her hands on her knees in perfect posture. As you approach, you can see that her lips are moving. She practically radiates power: not in the same way Neria did, but at the same time there is something fundamentally similar about them.

    You pause awkwardly, not wanting to disturb her in her meditations, but also not wanting to just leave and abandon whatever it is you might learn from meeting a fellow occultist. You wait for a while, observing the perfect evenness of her breathing and struggling to make out whatever it is she is saying. It always eludes you, even when you think you might have heard something clearly: a sure sign, if you needed one, that she knows secrets and words of true power. But finally, she opens her eyes.

    "Aspirant," she says to you. "You have climbed this far in search of truth, if you are wise." She pauses, expectantly.

    You shuffle your feet awkwardly. "I don't think I am particularly wise about it, ma'am. I'm just... consumed by curiosity, I guess. I really want to know things, and I want to share what I learn with others."

    She smiles at you, her eyes crinkling, and it is almost luminous. Inner light is not just metaphorical, in the dreaming-realm. "Curiosity is not wisdom, but it is a precondition for it, for all wisdom has its root in the apprehension of one's own ignorance. I have spent years in meditation, both here and in the outside world, seeking truth. The truth: the one that undergirds all of creation. To touch the mind of God. I have learned lesser truths, during that time -- lemmas, if you will -- and use them to focus myself in my quest. You might find them of value; other Aspirants have. But even if not, there is always room under the tree for another seeker after the truth, if you wish to meditate in company."

    You take a moment to think about it. That would explain what you observed earlier, if mantras based around lesser divine truths drip from her lips as she works in pursuit of enlightenment. That's certainly appealing: you do hunger for knowledge, both out of the practical value of knowing mighty incantations and the raw desire to understand. At the same time... there's a part of you that rebels at her plan of action, that sees something fundamentally misguided in this sort of enlightenment-seeking approach, curtained off from the world in a tower of abstraction. The same part of you that misliked the offer the Lamplighter made. Maybe, despite her clearly vast esoteric insight, you might be wiser than she along certain dimensions.

    But then, maybe a real seeker after truth would walk on by, ignoring that which was not the true and final goal after which they sought.

    [] Move on, saying only a few words in passing, or nothing at all: Gain this card as an Aura.
    [] Spend one Willpower, meditating alongside her in search of the light she seeks: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
    [] Spend one Supernal Experience or Aura of the suit of Pentacles, speaking to her of the small beautiful truths of existence: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Experience.

    [][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
    [][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.


    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 3/max 6 Explorations, Swords Aura
     
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    • The Seventh Night -- Part Four
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    • [*] Spend one Supernal Experience or Aura of the suit of Pentacles, speaking to her of the small beautiful truths of existence: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Experience.
    [*][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

    Tally

    "I do seek the truth," you say. "I'm just unsure of the best means to do so. I'd like to talk about it with you, if that's fine."

    Her face lights up -- again, more literally than you are used to. "Certainly! By all means, let us exchange questions and insights and grow together. I'm afraid I have no hospitality to offer you, but come and have a seat beneath the tree with me. I am Inanna."

    You note the mythic provenance of her name as you lower yourself to the ground, but it's fairly common for esoteric practitioners to use chosen names in occult contexts, generally laden with some sort of symbolic meaning. Or maybe that's literally her normal everyday name, you're pretty sure some people are just called that. It's not like you have any room to throw stones. "Ash. Thank you." You settle into position as comfortably as you can make yourself, rather than a meditative position like hers. "So. Inanna. You've been doing the contemplative thing for a while, I take it?"

    She nods. "Many years. First in the outside world, and then, when I learned the path here, the inner world."

    You watch as she breathes deeply, her posture immaculate and serene even in the midst of a casual conversation. "So, you believe that by turning inward and contemplating, you can find the ultimate truth?"

    Her eyes meet yours, clear and unwavering. "Yes. Through contemplation and the repetition of mantras, I quiet the mind and connect with the cosmic truth. It is in the stillness that I find clarity, and perceive the shape of further mantras that connect to deeper truths. And so I progress."

    You lean back on your hands, feeling the dry dust beneath your palms. "I get that. But... you spoke in mathematical terms earlier, calling those intermediate results lemmas, so I'll make a mathematical analogy and you can tell me if I'm saying something stupid. Have you considered that grand cosmic truth might be fractal in nature? Small, beautiful truths self-similar to the capital-T Truth."

    Inanna tilts her head slightly. "You speak of a path of experience."

    "Sure," you say, thinking for a moment. "Have you ever watched a sunset and felt like the world was telling you a secret? Or seen a piece of art that was expressing something that you've never had words for but have felt all your life? And action is part of it too: when you know how to do something, really understand it down to the bedrock, you don't need to think about it. You just do it, and for me at least it feels like touching on something eternal and true, because you've perceived the underlying shape of the world and responded accordingly."

    She closes her eyes, as if trying to absorb your thoughts. "I understand what you mean. But I've never been able to hold onto them to my satisfaction, the way I can hold onto a new mantra I've found. You find lasting value in them despite that?"

    "Maybe holding onto them is impossible," you admit. "And I'm not saying I go through life finding wonder and glory in everything. A lot of stuff is stupid and useless; for every transcendent moment there are a million meaningless ones with no value. But..." you shrug helplessly. "I've got to see stuff, and do stuff. When I learned about the inner world, as you call it, I couldn't be content to sit still and think about it. I needed to go get my teeth into it, and I started my Ascent possibly foolishly quickly."

    Inanna's eyes open, and she smiles broadly at you. "You noticed something valuable and you seized it with both hands. A most admirable attitude towards that which is sacred." She hums for a moment. "There is much that is banal within the contemplative life as well. Many hours where insight cannot be found, and every time the conscious mind rises to reflect, one feels quite dull and stupid. But those times when the soul alights on something, and a new sliver of enlightenment is there to be grasped..."

    You get it. You grin at each other, and continue in this vein for some time. She's never going to make a stylite out of you; you're never going to make an adventurer out of her. But by the time you rise to your feet to depart, you think you've made friends of each other. You ask for her email address, but she demurs, saying that in the non-meditative time she spends in the waking world she has better things to do than look at screens, and you have to admit that you see her point. But she does give you her actual address, so you can send physical mail like it's two hundred years ago and telecommunications aren't a thing.

    Honestly? You're into it. You make a mental note to get a fountain pen and some appropriate ink so you can write longhand without your hand cramping up and, more importantly, with flair. You've heard fountain pen writing is a skill, and you're interested in picking it up and seeing if you find there another little pointer to enlightenment.


    I THE MAGICIAN

    You walk along the trail, feeling pretty good. After some winding around rocks and scraggly trees, and then a moderately terrifying segment where the way narrowed at the edge of a cliff, things flattened out and became easier. You now have a straight shot through a little gently-sloping gully, and then it looks like the path beyond that is fairly straightforward. The vibes are great, you think to yourself, and then instinct sends you diving to the ground as a rock crashes against the gully wall where your head had been.

    You're under attack.

    You roll behind the largest rock you can see nearby for cover, getting into a crouch. You bit your tongue in the fall, and the inescapable taste of blood is somehow more distracting than the pain, but you push it away and focus your power. Earth to steady you, air to speed you -- holding the opposed forces in balance once would have taken all your concentration, but now it falls into place with ease, and as the magic settles into place you run, speeding out of the gully and away from your assailant.

    Only to come up short when stone slides out of the ground, sealing your escape away. You turn away, heading back for cover, and narrowly avoid planting your foot into a disguised spell diagram.

    This isn't just an opportunistic strike. You've been ambushed in a prepared killzone. Hunted.

    Blades rain from the sky, and in desperation you press yourself against the gully wall and ask the rock to shelter you. It shapes itself around you, forming a small hollow with an overhang, and you are safe there for a moment but know it cannot last. You scan the area with your spiritual senses, trying to find the monstrosity that assails you...

    Horror grips your soul. There's another human nearby. They're coming into danger unawares. You have to warn them -- and, maybe, they'll be able to help you?

    You burst out of your shelter, running up the slope. You see a figure in the distance, coming this way. You raise your hands and shout, the wind carrying your voice: "Dream-entity! Dangerous! Look out!"

    They raise their own hands, and you have a moment to think yourself saved, that another wise-dreamer is here to fight by your side, and then a gout of flame billows forth. At you. And that would have been the end, but part of you was on guard, and that part raises a wall of ice in a barest instant. Yet that still isn't enough to save you from the heat, as your own defense vaporizes and the steam scalds you.

    Still, through the pain you have the presence of mind to try subterfuge. With an incantation and a strain of spiritual effort, you seemingly vanish, blending yourself into the billowing clouds and hopefully buying yourself a moment to think. Your horror has faded, transmuted to rage. Another human is attacking you like this. Another occultist; a fellow wise-dreamer who has betrayed everything that means, who has rejected the fraternity that unites initiates of the hidden world. You remember, too late, Idra's warning of some days ago, that attacks had happened; it seems like the stories were true. You'll be sure to tell her, if you make it out of here.

    Your assailant stalks forward. He is a handsome man. Your age, perhaps a bit older, perhaps a bit younger. The sort of person you wouldn't think twice about seeing in your day-to-day life. But his face is twisted into a mask of fury, and his eyes glimmer.

    "I know you're there," he says, turning this way and that. "Hiding like a coward. Come out and face me. You think yourself worthy enough for the Ascent, don't you? Come out. Test yourself, and we'll see who the worthy one is."

    There is tremendous bitterness in his voice, but you can't think about that right now. Your illusion will fade in moments, and you need to decide on a course of action.

    This is a great trial of the Ascent.
    A terror of the dreaming-realm waking world threatens to destroy you.    ​

    Claim Victory

    [] Call upon weapons and tools, arts and sciences, that are the equal of his own in battle.
    -[] Write-in spent resources totaling four Swords Power, plus one additional Swords Power for each Triumphant Initiation you have

    [] Reveal higher occult secrets, beyond even his own knowledge, which he cannot resist.
    -[] Write-in spent resources totaling four Wands Power, plus one additional Wands Power for each Triumphant Initiation you have

    Accept Defeat

    [] You escape, but are scarred. You cannot remain as you were. Lose the Ace associated with your Aspiration. Immediately write a new Aspiration, associated with a different Ace still in your Pneuma.
    -[] Write-in a new Aspiration, which must begin "I aspire to" and be associated with Swords, Pentacles, or Cups

    [] End the quest in Tormented Finale: At the Hands of an Enemy.

    If you won:
    • Gain one Triumphant Initiation.
    • If you have at least two Triumphant Initiations, search the Unseen for the winner of the [GLORY] vote and shuffle it into the Ascent Deck.
    [][GLORY] VI The Lovers
    [][GLORY] X Wheel of Fortune
    [][GLORY] XX Judgement

    Win or lose:
    • Lose this card.
    • Immediately end the Night.

    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 4/max 6 Explorations, Swords Aura

    Well, you've seen three perils in four nights. On the one hand, moderate oof. On the other, you now have several datapoints to learn from about how they work, and how many more can there be, anyway?
     
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    • The Seventh Night's End
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    • [*] Call upon weapons and tools, arts and sciences, that are the equal of his own in battle.
    -[*] Aura of Swords, Ace, Three, Eight, Queen of Swords, VIII Strength
    [*][GLORY] XX Judgement

    Tally

    Your skin is throbbing where the steam scalded you, and the pain is just getting worse. You're already tired and wounded, and there are an unknown number of other traps and tricks set up in this ambush area. Your foe has experience hunting and fighting other adepts, whereas all your fights were special cases.

    You don't care. You're not scared, you're pissed. This renegade motherfucker is an offense against everything you love about the hidden world. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs you, you're going to stop him from hurting anyone else.

    Besides. He's the least scary thing you've fought so far.

    The illusion drops. He, no fool, had another blast of fire ready to go. But you had guessed that his reflexive attack would be one he'd already used, and so you already had your counter prepared -- a shield of spinning air, deflecting the flame and protecting you from the convection that would otherwise cook you, while you take advantage of the blaze obscuring you from his vision to run directly at him, and when the assault ceases you are just a quarter-second away from punching him as hard as you can.

    A quarter-second is almost enough. He manages to begin his wind-assisted leap backwards to safety, so you don't land a clean hit, but it's enough to send him spinning as he flies away and collapses in an inelegant heap on the ground. To his credit, he rolls to his feet almost instantly, looking even angrier than before.

    "You struck m-" he begins, before your own fire cuts him off.

    "Heard it before," you say, panting.

    Now he's hurt too, and the fight is on more even grounds. However, you quickly realize, as you exchange elemental techniques with him, that he's better than you and stronger than you. The former isn't that surprising: for obvious reasons, he has more practice with actual fights against other wise-dreamers than you do, and he is clearly smart enough to pick his targets. However, the latter goes against the laws of magic as you understand them. Gross elemental manipulation runs into a human ceiling pretty quickly: there's only so much power a human can channel, and it doesn't take that much work to reach the limit. Doing so quickly, skillfully, intelligently -- that's all technique. But your enemy is throwing around more power than he should be able to, manipulating more of the four elements at once than is normally possible.

    Which means he's cheating, somehow, and if you don't figure out how, you're done.

    You begin fighting more defensively, occasionally throwing out big obvious attacks he can easily deflect: the very picture of a combatant on the ropes and desperate to land a lucky hit. He does the obvious, textbook thing for that situation and plays it safe, defending against your Hail Mary strikes and whittling you down slowly with his own attacks. What you're actually doing is using the cover of those big attacks to look around for whatever it is that he's cheating with. Despite having preparation time, he's not attacking with bound spirits, and he's put in a lot of work to control the physical space of the fight, so if you're right...

    You're right. You spot a locus of elemental power, a focus of some kind that he's using to enhance his abilities. It's disguised: you'd never have seen it if you weren't looking for it. So you keep fighting defensively, but drifting bit by bit, step by step, closer to the focus, hoping he doesn't twig to your subterfuge, until finally you give up the act, throw out a deadly assault of icy needles with much less windup than your previous attacks had, turn on your heel, and run straight for what you spotted. It's an obsidian disk with a pentagram engraved on it, and you reach into your pocket and grab the hammer the Red Ringsmith gave you and swing with all your might and it shatters and you hear a tortured scream from behind you as a spray of pebbles and dust hits you in the back, remnants of an earth strike you disrupted.

    It was that close.

    Shielding your face and eyes from any last bits of debris, you turn. Your assailant is collapsed on the ground, struggling to get to his feet. You're unsurprised: to have been able to enhance his ability with the elements so naturally, these foci must have been linked to his power directly. You didn't just take away his extra power, you kneecapped his earth magic in full. You could just run, now: with the respite you have been given, you could wake up. You're badly winded, bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts and one deeper one, and your skin is streaked with burns. Every breath you draw brings awareness of a new part of you that's hurting. But you dismiss the thought immediately. You're not done yet.

    You take advantage of his moment of weakness to bind him with hands of stone: normally easy to avoid, but with the backlash tormenting him, he didn't catch them before it was too late. And he won't be able to directly dispute the magic with his own mastery of rock: he'll have to use other techniques to get free, and that buys you time to find the others. You look around, extending your perception to the fullest, quartering the horizon, before you spot the next one. A staff, hidden among a copse of trees. You sprint there, your body protesting but the breeze aiding you, and once again break it.

    Another scream.

    Now you have two points, and you turn at a right angle from the line you just defined and start running, and soon your perception highlights a sword floating just above the ground. You grasp it by the hilt, stab it into the dirt, and with your other hand swing the hammer a third time -- not nearly enough force to shatter steel, but the Red Ringsmith's nature is to bind and to break, and mere magecraft cannot withstand her work, and the shriek of twisted metal is echoed from behind you.

    One more to go. You jog toward the last point of the square -- your legs flatly refuse to outright run, now -- and as you do so, you see the sorcerer, still restrained by your working. He's struggling no longer, and his face is no longer a rictus of hate. Instead he seems... resigned. And, high above him but descending as you watch, you see the circling form of the omen vulture, whose long-awaited meal is finally ready. You reach a goblet, lying on the grass: his final un-shattered focus. The cup is the sign of water, of emotion, and of connections. You bend down, reaching to hold and steady it.
    In the arena, the gain of the victor cannot equal the deprivation of the defeated.
    And then you straighten up, dismiss your binding magic, and toss him his last symbol of power. It lands in the dust next to him, as his wide eyes flick between it and you.

    You are so, so weary, and between the adrenaline and the exhaustion and the pain you can't think of anything to say. So instead you just shrug, close your eyes, and unwind yourself back to the waking world, hoping that your action is message enough.

    HERE ENDS
    YOUR SEVENTH NIGHT    ​

    • After multiple updates in which I evaded the necessity of writing a fight-scene-qua-fight-scene, the deck (and your votes) refused to let me wimp out yet again. Well, I did my best.
    • I hope my fellow Americans had a good holiday weekend. Will shoot for the Day tomorrow.
     
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    • The Seventh Day
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    • After facing your first peril, you woke up feeling fundamentally and deeply wrong. After facing your second, you woke up feeling horrified as you processed everything that had happened and everything you had risked.

    After facing your third, you wake up in agony.

    It is so, so much worse than the headache you had after your first night on the Ascent. Your bones feel like they have lava instead of marrow, and icy knives dance over your skin, and your head is in a vise.

    You can't make your way to the bathroom to sit in the shower like the other night. You can't get up at all. Instead you just curl up, hugging your knees to your chest, and shake.


    Pain happens to you.


    After an impossible-to-judge amount of time, the pain has abated enough that you have room in your consciousness for anything else. You haven't vomited, which you are glad for. You are dimly aware of warmth at the small of your back, and eventually your beleaguered neurons identify it as Hana, and that more than anything makes you feel better, and gives you the strength to breathe deeply and let yourself rest more. The world will still be there when the pain goes away.


    The pain becomes more bearable, and the world is still there.

    You manage to sit up, eventually. Cruelly, while this modern era has made it possible to order all sorts of things delivered to your front door, they won't take the important following step of delivering it to where you lie in bed, and so if you want a refreshing sweet drink for morale purposes you will have to shift yourself -- even if they were willing to, your door is locked, so there's no dodging the necessity of getting up and moving around. But eventually you manage to drag yourself to your trusty living-room armchair, which will serve as a staging area while you paw ham-fistedly at your phone through half-open eyes and hope that you pressed the right buttons in the right order to cause iced coffee and a sandwich to eventually appear outside your apartment door.

    So. This is what it feels like to get the absolute shit kicked out of you in the dreaming-realm and then return to your body. Can't recommend. And you won that fight.

    You manage to fall asleep in the chair, and only the sound of Hana scratching the front door stirs you. "Bad cat," you mumble, "you have a perfectly good scratching post." She gives you an affronted look for reminding her of such a perfectly obvious fact that has no possible bearing on the situation and stalks away, and then you realize that she was probably lured over there by hearing someone in the hall, and an ungainly minute or so later, you have breakfast.

    That helps. With the dregs of your iced coffee, you wash down the maximum dose of both Tylenol and Advil, under the reasoning that even if the pain is wholly psychosomatic, the placebo effect of taking painkillers should help, right? Whether by one mode of action or another, about half an hour later you feel about sixty percent of the way toward being a person again, which is honestly pretty good given where you started.

    Now that you have room for other sensations besides pain, you notice that the spiritual furnace is, as expected, burning more strongly within you. You don't notice any dramatic changes to your vision, though you think that maybe they're more intense around Hana specifically than they were before. A thought occurs to you: Inanna surely has experience with the Ascent, and she invited you to write to her. Maybe she can give you a better explanation than your books had to offer? You reach for your laptop -- then pause, remembering that you had intended to get a nice fountain pen to write a letter with -- then finish reaching for your laptop, because you don't know a damn thing about fountain pens besides the facts that they exist and are easier on the hand for longform writing than ballpoints, but one thing you know for certain is that the Internet will have opinions on everything you need to know.


    The Internet has so many opinions.

    You learn about papers that are better or worse for fountain pens, which you discover are not the same thing as dip pens. You learn about nib thickness and ink wetness. You learn about cartridges and how to make your own out of non-cartridge inks. You are utterly engrossed by a deep dive into a certain corner of community drama; seeking out gossip to gawk at might not be very spiritually enlightened of you, but you'll say this for it, you did not notice your various aches and pains while you were giving it rapt attention. Only after all that do you think to check if there's a store that sells all this stuff nearby, but as luck would have it, there's one about two miles away. Ubering that distance feels silly, but you're not going to walk it in your state and getting a Zipcar for one trip is even sillier, so after a nap and a shower you feel up to making the adventure. Once back with your haul, you do some practice doodles and such to get the hang of it before writing out a physical letter with fancy ink and paper and sealing the envelope with colored wax, which honestly does more to make you feel like a wizard than all the literal magic you've been practicing.

    You're not about to resume your wise-dreaming while feeling this bad, so you spend the next few days resting and recuperating. Even when the pain is mostly gone, your energy levels are low, so following the same principles as when getting over the flu, you take it easy and sleep a lot. Hana offers professional criticism regarding this endeavor (headbutts, meowing) to which you respond with dignity (scritches, throwing a squeaky mouse across the room). You stay in touch with the people you've been talking to, of course, but keep things vague, just saying that you're under the weather but on the mend.

    On the third day, though, Idra finally writes back. Bad night dreaming, she writes. Want to talk about it? you write back.


    "I couldn't fight it," she says, over the video call. What you can see of her living space is basically what you'd expected: Spartan in its functionality, with the main touches of personality being the shelves of occult volumes in the background. "It was... it wasn't dinosaur big, or skyscraper big. It was city big, mountain big. You can't fight that. But I couldn't figure out what else to do, so I ran." She sighs. "After I woke up... I needed to rethink some stuff. I'm still rethinking some stuff. I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't just a scary monster, it was... the scary monster. And I ran from it."

    You're not sure what to say, but she's brooding, so you clear your throat. "It sounds like you took an L, and I won't minimize how much that sucks and can rattle you. I get it. But I'm really glad you took the L and didn't get squashed or eaten or whatever."

    Idra makes a huffing noise. "Thanks." She shakes her head. "I can't believe you were worried this punk drive-by shooter had gotten me. I mean, I appreciate the concern, but you'd think that after I kicked your ass-"

    "Excuse me, I tapped out rather than risk either of us getting hurt-"

    "-after I kicked your ass, you'd have more faith in my abilities," she finishes, undaunted. "I'd have his guts for garters, no sweat." She gives you a look. "I still might have to."

    You shake your head. "I know. And I don't even think it would have been wrong to finish the job. It's just..." you search for words. "The sense I got, from stuff he said, is that the Ascent didn't go well for him. Maybe he failed and he's bitter, maybe he just didn't like what he found up there, it doesn't matter. He started tearing people down. Fine. That's ample reason to strip him of his power, as much as possible, so he can't hurt anyone else. But I don't think he's all that much more dangerous as a quarter of a sorcerer than he is as zero of a sorcerer, and... I wanted to leave a door open for him. Like, look at the conversation we're having now, having a gripe session after the Ascent proved nastier than expected."

    "Are you saying that if I'd taken more of an L but didn't have your email I might have gone psycho and started mugging initiates who barely know their ass from the Ascent?" Idra says. Her words are jocular, but there's some real heat there.

    You throw up your hands in frustration. "No! Definitely not, I wasn't saying anything about you. If it's about anyone, it's about me. Not that I'd start hurting people, but I'd do something foolish and self-destructive. Until quite recently, I spent a long time totally unmoored from real human relationships, and it's bad for you. So... maybe now he'll lean into that, and get better."

    "Or maybe he'll find people who will enable him in his spite."

    You sigh. "Maybe."


    The talk with Idra eventually wraps up. She's planning to continue her Ascent, once she's certain she's got a handle on things. You wish her the best of fortune.

    As for you, on the fifth day you wake up without pain, and going to the gym goes completely fine, and you are eager to get back into things yourself. But the United States Postal Service has a surprise for you, and you sit down and read it. Inanna's calligraphy is effortlessly beautiful, which only ruffles your competitive spirit insofar as it gives you an example of what to shoot for. And she does have interesting things to say about the growing spiritual furnace.

    "What you perceive is common among those who have attained the higher reaches of the Ascent. As we rise towards heaven, we face tribulations along the way. Those tribulations challenge us to the utmost, and each one you conquer brings your soul into greater and greater harmony with the divine mysteries, allowing like to call to like. The 'spiritual furnace' is simply the accumulated potential energy of your spirit, growing mightier and burning hotter as it draws nearer and nearer to glory. As you've discovered, that energy can be called upon in various ways. The dream entities you met have techniques for doing so. Those of us who did not attain the highest heights, like me and presumably this Neria of whom you write, find other outlets for that energy, paths of mystical achievement that do not rely on the supernal powers atop the mountains.

    But you, my young friend, are still climbing. No one fortunate enough to behold the face of God returns unchanged. Make no mistake: if you continue along your path, then eventually you will be called upon to make of yourself not just a furnace, but that which is tempered within it."

    Night after night, you climb higher; night after night, you approach the greater powers of the dream. You may or may not be ready for them, but they draw closer, regardless...
    Cards added to the Ascent Deck: V The Hierophant, XVII The Star

    [] No change to Aspiration
    [] Write-in a new Aspiration, which must begin with "I aspire to" and include the Aspiration's suit in parentheses. It must correspond to the suits of Wands, Pentacles, or Cups.
     
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    • The Eighth Night -- Part One
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    • [*] No change to Aspiration.

    Tally

    The clouds are even more beautiful from above than they were last time. Maybe it's just that several real-time nights away from the dreaming-realm has dulled your memory. Maybe the changes that are even now being wrought in you have opened your eyes to more subtleties that escaped you before. Maybe it's just a really nice day for cloudgazing.

    The clouds feel like a curtain between worlds. You've stepped past them, and what you found on this side... proved to be broadly similar to what you found on the other side. Fellow occultists, odd and unique spirits and places, something trying to knock you off the mountain figuratively and/or literally: you've been there and done that. But that doesn't change the way that everything feels different, now that there's nothing hiding the peaks from your vision. Tense, steeped with promise: the sort of thing that makes you want to hold your breath.

    Though, of course, last night put aspects of the Ascent into perspective. Based on Inanna's letter, it sounds like many of the mighty dreamers you may meet up here are those who gained these heights during their own Ascents, did not achieve whatever lies at the very top, but made their peace with that and continued as practicing occultists, following their own paths. Based on your interpretation of a few shouted words and facial expressions, the attacker who ambushed you is another who made it up here, failed, and chose to channel his talents into spiteful violence instead.

    You're getting tired: whatever is in you, the determination that saw you embark on this Ascent when you were genuinely not yet ready for it and has brought you this far, is running short. Everyone has their limits, and you aren't at yours, but they're in sight. You have to seriously consider the possibility that you will not make it to the top, or that you will but won't be satisfied with what you find up there. So, what then? You don't know, but having examples of different approaches does help. That being said: just because you need to think about what it might be like to not achieve your aims doesn't mean you aren't still trying to achieve them. Corporate life has a lot of doublethink involved, but "consider multiple levels of outcome" isn't doublethink, it's pure practicality, and it's something you did all the time.

    It does feel different when it's not just a company's quarterly earnings reports but your own spiritual ambitions on the line, though.

    The paths tonight seem open and gentle, to start with at least. There are a number of ways that seem like they might lead you to your goal. You take a while to consider, then pick the one that seems likeliest and start walking.

    You'll take it as it comes.


    V THE HIEROPHANT

    The walkable trail meanders, back and forth and up and down. It does not, it turns out, take you straight up the mountain, but you're used to that by now and just pleased that it seems to be taking you higher, on average. After a number of sharp switchbacks that you aren't too proud to use your hands to help you climb, you fetch up outside a structure: a long building with steps leading up to a double-door entrance. The whole thing is surrounded by a chest-high wall with an opening instead of a gate, and both wall and building are whitewashed, almost blinding in the bright light this high on the mountain. The whole effect is rather quaint and charming. You pass the wall, and inside the courtyard it defines is a little fountain, inscribed with words you cannot read. You take advantage of it to rinse the dust off your face and hands before climbing the steps and opening the door.

    The hall within is significantly larger than the building had been, and the darkness within is lit by high windows that you are pretty sure did not appear on its exterior. Incense fills the air, visible in its thickness, but not oppressive or cloying to the nose despite its sharpness: the olfactory equivalent of a steady breeze. And, of course, there are the inhabitants: dozens, perhaps hundreds, of dark-robed and high-hooded figures, standing in rows facing the end of the hall. They are silent and still, each indistinguishable from the rest.

    The one whom these anonymous monastics face is anything but. His robes are fine, but simple. His rod is a shepherd's crook, a herald's caduceus, a pilgrim's staff. He looks like a bearded old man, but there is an impossible depth of faith and understanding in his face. He is giving a sermon, but his gaze is fixed firmly on you, and when he speaks, it is like he was waiting for you so he could begin preaching. Maybe he was.

    "We all learn from our own trials. Wisdom is the ability to learn from other people's trials.

    "It is the natural condition of humans that each one imagines himself to be the hero of the great cosmic drama. Each one knows in the pit of his heart that he must go out, alone, to find the hidden truth of the world.

    "But the truth is known. It has been known for a very long time, and it is not hidden; it is there in the pages of books, and in the mouths of teachers, plain for all to see. The prophets have had their revelations, and the philosophers have written their commentaries. It is doctrine. It is scholarship. It is all the endless knowledge won by those who came before."

    His eyes bore into yours. He's at the end of the hall, but it is as though he is right in front of you, speaking to you alone. "Will you attend, and learn?"

    [] Spend one Willpower, discussing truth without accepting his expositions of doctrine or him as an authority: Add this card to your Pneuma.
    [] Spend one Willpower, listening to the Archimandrite's sermon and trying to learn what he has to teach: Add this card to your Pneuma. Search the Unseen for any one of the following cards -- VI The Lovers, X Wheel of Fortune, XX Judgement -- and shuffle it into the Ascent Deck.

    [][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
    [][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.


    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 1/max 6 Explorations

    I swear that I did not know this card was coming when I wrote Inanna's letter.
     
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    • The Eighth Night -- Part Two
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    • [*] Spend one Willpower, listening to the Archimandrite's sermon and trying to learn what he has to teach: Add this card to your Pneuma. Search the Unseen for any one of the following cards -- VI The Lovers, X Wheel of Fortune, XX Judgement -- and shuffle it into the Ascent Deck.
    [*][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

    Tally

    You're briefly tempted to step out and speak to him after his sermon -- there's a part of you that likes winning insights and wisdom for yourself, that likes climbing up the mountain under your own power -- but you instead elect to stay and listen. Study has been the root of a lot of your success, and even if received wisdom is often imperfect, you're reminded of a maxim about the virtue of reading old books: even if they are caught up in the mistakes and blind spots of their eras, those will generally not be the same mistakes and blind spots of your era.

    After enough time for you to have left if you wanted to, he begins.

    "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. So the wisest of kings has written, and so I repeat to you.

    "Time is fundamentally illusory. There is no linear arrow; there are cycles, and there are epicycles. To those with limited perspective, this creates the appearance of novelty, much as the movements of the planets seem riotous when compared to the steady turning of the fixed stars, and comets wilder still against the stately dance of the planets. But those who would be wise must step back and perceive the whole, just as all celestial bodies are ultimately governed by the same laws and can be predicted with certainty. History shows this. The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been. And as below, so above. The same principles which govern mortal affairs are those which govern the cosmos itself, from the waking world to the dreaming-realm to places stranger still.

    "The only constant in life is change, but the eternal return is the stability that underlies every change. The wise understand that innovation and progress are but the rediscovery of ancient truths, clothed in new garments. This understanding brings both humility and insight. Each generation believes itself to be on the cusp of unprecedented discovery and transformation, facing down the eschaton. They are correct and yet incorrect, for each iteration of the world lasts for but an eye-blink before dying, and a new world shall rise from the waters. Wisdom lies in recognizing these patterns and understanding that the essence of our experiences is timeless: in understanding yourself part of a great chain, stretching not from past to future but linked back to its start."

    He continues in this vein for some time, returning to the subject of historical narrative: its patterns, sub-patterns, and meta-patterns, and how the perspective one takes in the active present, the perspective one takes looking upon the fixed past, and the perspective one takes when looking upon the uncertain future are all flawed in different ways. Everything he says kind of makes sense. It is, after all, occult, and that word literally means hidden. You gripe and groan about the more unreadable books in your library, but you know just as well as Inanna that revelation, when it comes, is personal. Some things can't be explained: enlightenment has to be grasped by oneself or not at all.

    Turns out that, even if you're just reading and talking rather than going on a dream-quest, understanding the highest supernal truths is hard.

    Still. He's given you things to think about. There's something there, and you think you'll recognize it if you ever see it again. Ultimately, that's all you can really ask for at this level. When he finishes, you incline your head to him and leave the hall, squinting in the light as your eyes adjust. Then, you continue on your way.


    IV THE EMPEROR

    As you walk, you think about the things that the Archimandrite said, chewing them over and trying to extract the wisdom within them. It's like a toothache in your mind: you just kind of keep poking at it. As such, you aren't paying as much attention to where you're going as you should be, which is probably why you look up from your musings and find yourself, instead of on a steep mountain-slope, on a vast expanse of level ground upon which stands a massive... temple? Palace? Big-ass building. There are towering columns flanking enormous doors outside of which are tremendous steles and if this keeps up much longer you're going to run out of synonyms for "large."

    You walk inside. Once again, you find yourself inside a hall. This time, though, it's not filled with monastics. It is nearly empty: the only one here besides you is the god.

    Lord Ammon has been syncretized with Zeus, and Ra, and all manner of kings-of-heaven; and looking upon him, it is not hard to see why. His power is the ruling-power, and all around him, the dream bends with the gravity of his authority. He wears a crown of ram's horns, and sits upon a throne of cedar. His face is old and stern, but there is something kind in his eyes, even so.

    He protects. He provides. It would be the most natural thing in the world to kneel before his feet, to ask for his aid, to pledge yourself to good conduct.

    You do not, even as you approach his throne. It is not a case of heroic resistance: you can perceive, with your magical senses, that his power is withdrawn from the area around you. An act of courtesy, that he acknowledges your right to be here as a wise-dreamer without subjecting yourself to him. That act of courtesy is a major factor preventing you from simply turning on your heel and leaving, because there is no faster way to incense you, at this point in your life, than to assert dominion and control over you unilaterally. But he recognizes your self-sovereignty, and so you will hear what he has to say.

    When you reach a comfortable distance, you stop, and only then does he speak.

    "If you would seek a blessing from me, then be prepared for its rigors. My blessing is nothing more or less than this: instruction, and guidance, and training. I can teach you the old ways. I can make you canny and strong. I can prepare you to rule, as I rule. You are worthy of it, if you have the will. I have seen what you are, and judged. I have faith in you.

    "Do not imagine that it will make things easier for you. Knowledge and power have never made things easier. They only make it possible for you to walk a harder road."

    [] Spend one Willpower, discussing your skills, determination, and readiness with Lord Ammon: Add this card to your Pneuma. During this night only, you can Explore up to three additional times (to a maximum of nine instead of six).
    [] Spend one Willpower, accepting ritual initiation into his priesthood and the burden of speaking with royal authority: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Triumphant Initiation. Convert any number of Supernal resources you have into any other Supernal resources.
    -[] Write-in what Supernals you are spending and what you are gaining.

    [][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
    [][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.


    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 2/max 6 (9?) Explorations

    The deck has a Theme tonight and we are helpless in its grasp.
     
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    • The Eighth Night -- Part Three
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    • [*] Spend one Willpower, discussing your skills, determination, and readiness with Lord Ammon: Add this card to your Pneuma. During this night only, you can Explore up to three additional times (to a maximum of nine instead of six).
    [*][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

    Tally

    You must be honest with yourself: you respond well to praise from authority figures, even as you are uncomfortable dealing with them. Lord Ammon's words, simply spoken, are made more meaningful by the throne on which he sits.

    But that doesn't change the fact that you aren't going to kneel before him.

    "Lord," you say, because that is his title and politeness costs you nothing, "I'm honored by your appraisal of my worth and willingness to teach me that which you have to teach. But if you have seen me and watched me, you know that I've already struggled mightily in my Ascent, and won insights and power thereby. I have initiated myself into the mysteries that lie in the heights, and I prefer it that way. Counsel and guidance are one thing," you've already accepted it tonight from the Archimandrite, for that matter, "but... I have no desire to bow my head before you or anyone, or to become a ruler in my own right. Or, at least, not in those ways. A teacher is not a king, and a prophet is not a god."

    He inclines his head at that: a nod of acceptance and understanding. He does not seem upset or offended, you think, though that steady expression is difficult to read. "Fairly spoken. I did not think you would choose this path. But you had earned the right to be asked."

    Well. That's pretty cool, honestly. You could leave it at that and just leave, but... a positively-inclined greater dream entity is not an opportunity to be wasted. You clear your throat. "If there is nothing else that requires your attention, lord, I would still be interested in discussing the Ascent with you, before I depart."

    "By all means," he says gravely (but with a hint of warmth?), and gestures. A chair appears beside you; you cannot tell whether it was simply transported here by his power, or whether he created it for you, or whether there's even a difference in the dreaming-realm. It is smaller and less grand than his throne, but that is appropriate: you are, after all, a guest in his court.

    You sit, and consider where to begin. While you're thinking, your mouth opens and you speak more honestly than you had planned. "I worry that I'm running out of time." He wordlessly invites you to continue, so you do. "I've seen and done... really quite a lot, so far. But it's tiring. I don't know how much longer I can last up here before I have to admit defeat. I don't know what I'll find before then."

    "Do you intend to compromise on your goals, then?" His voice is smooth and deep.

    You shake your head. "No. Or, at least, I can't speak to the future with certainty, I can't say what I might do with new information, but I've had two opportunities to turn aside. I didn't take either of them, despite my sense of... flagging, you could call it. They weren't..." you grope for words, "they didn't answer the sort of thing that I had come to the Ascent seeking resolution to. Triumph, yes, but not the kind that feels consonant with what I value. But I don't even know what I'm looking for, properly, let alone what might be atop the mountain to find, let alone if the two match in any way at all."

    The god leans his scepter of office against his throne and folds his hands in his lap. "Aspirant," he says, "there are ways to surmount the weariness of which you speak, but I do not think that is your deepest concern. You worry whether the prize is worth the effort. To that I say: the supernal is found in many forms. No two who have come down from the peaks have been changed in quite the same way. And you know by now that becoming Ascendant is not the only glory available to you. The high reaches are littered with those who did not attain the summit, but who come anyway to work toward other goals. Spiritual work is never done: not in your world nor in this one. Will you permit me a word of instruction, not from master to servant but from sage to seeker?"

    Put like that, you can hardly refuse. You nod.

    "There are different kinds of spiritual advancement. There is the methodical work of the day, where you know what virtues you wish to inculcate and which vices you wish to expunge, and there is nothing to be done but the doing. And also there is the revolutionary leap, the moment of enlightenment that redefines and transcends the self entirely. The nature of the latter is that it is in darkness to you until it is not. It may be fair to you, or it may be foul. I do not counsel you to drink foulness for the sake of quenching thirst. But what waits atop the mountains will undoubtedly be a strange draught, the likes of which you have not tasted, for it is not to be found in your world."


    II THE HIGH PRIESTESS

    You leave strangely energized. That was better than you had any right to expect, and to be honest, the chance to give your legs a rest was almost as good as getting a pep talk from a literal god-king. You feel... not at peace, precisely, because you don't want to be at rest, you want to move. Open, perhaps? You're not sure, but rather than thinking about what it is you're feeling, it seems better to feel it and keep going.

    So you follow the best available paths, and you aren't too aggravated when the paths begin to consistently dip downwards. Whatever the Ascent has to show you, it will show you; it doesn't mean you're regressing.

    You can't help but suppress a sigh, though, as you are led to another temple. So it's going to be one of those nights, huh. This one, in contrast to the last two, is set directly into the mountainside, and as you pass through the outer gates you notice that it feels different. The walls are lined with images and glyphs that... loom, somehow, in your perception. The halls continue to lead into the mountain, transitioning from edifice to cave, and your steps are once again taking you lower. Far from the eremitic monofocus or stately grandeur you'd previously encountered, this feels vaguely sinister. Primordial. Chthonic.

    And then you reach the sanctuary, and behold the temple's attendant.

    The sibyl, sitting on her tripod between a pillar of black stone and a pillar of white stone, is impossibly beautiful. Beautiful in the ethereal way that only dying things can be beautiful. She is gowned in white, and it's slinky and diaphanous, and even so it reminds you of a shroud. The floor beneath her seat is a grate. Thick clouds of vapor, heavy with moisture, swirl all around her. You can smell the poison in the gas from where you stand.

    You have met an Oracle once already. Now you see that of which she and her sisters are made in the image and likeness. Your mind races as you consider whether to ask her to point your way and, if so, to what.

    She looks at you with impossibly knowing eyes and smiles. "My wisdom comes from below. That's the trick of it. But surely you knew that already. At the heart of creation, a dragon gnaws at the foundations of the dream, for hunger and for hate. He knows everything, because he is coiled around the origin of everything, and it all unfolds before his ancient eyes. This is his temple. I am his chosen prophetess. The vapor that surrounds me is his breath, and it carries with it all his knowledge and all his venom.

    "I can tell you what lies in wait. I can tell you who you truly are. My understanding does not come from the light of reason, or from a grasp of the supernal; it comes from the oldest horror, from the poisonous monster that lies at the very root of you. That is my gift, and that is my doom.

    "Do you understand? Will you hear?"

    [] Spend one Willpower, talking to the sibyl about your hopes without asking her to prophesy: Add this card to your Pneuma.
    [] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.

    [][PROPHECY] Write-in a card currently in your Ascent Deck

    [][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
    [][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.


    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 3/max 9 Explorations

    THE DECK HAS A THEME TONIGHT AND WE ARE STILL HELPLESS IN ITS GRASP.
     
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    • The Eighth Night -- Part Four
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    • [*] Spend one Willpower, asking her for a prophecy: Add this card to your Pneuma. Put the winner of the [PROPHECY] vote on top of the Ascent Deck.
    [*][PROPHECY] VI The Lovers
    [*][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

    Tally

    It is weird and distressing and uncomfortable that she is talking openly about how being the dragon's voice is killing her. But you don't seriously consider turning aside on her account: she's clearly enthusiastic about it, eager for it even. This, for better or for worse, is what she has chosen, insofar as that term means anything when talking about greater dream-entities. No, your mind is abuzz with the question of what question to ask. A dozen possibilities race through your mind: faced with the promise of oracular wisdom that could tell you anything, you immediately start thinking about everything you conceivably want to know.

    One thing floats to the top. You search around, trying to find a way to say it. You clear your throat.

    "I understand, and will hear," you say, and her smile broadens. You continue: "If it please you, Lady, there is a subject on which I would seek your guidance."

    She nods and spreads her hands. "The dragon undoubtedly knows the truth of what you seek. Perhaps he will share it with his servant; I cannot promise."

    Well, you'll take what you can get. "After I helped engineer an escape from the witch of Sweetsickness Hall, my friend and his beloved were reunited. There was something there that I noticed. Something that was... the shadow of something glorious, or a pointer to it." Magical intuitions are difficult to express in words, but an advantage of dealing with a notionally omniscient being is that presumably he will know what you mean. "I want to find the thing that I was sensing an echo of in that moment."

    Her lips curve into a smile. "A worthy goal, Aspirant. Let us see what the depths have to say." She closes her eyes and inhales, taking a deep breath of the miasma that surrounds her. You fancy you can see what it's costing her, see the life-force extinguished, but as you extend your senses, something

    shifts

    and while you're trying to figure out what the hell just happened, the priestess opens her eyes, looking through you. She extends a hand to point. "If you depart through that passage, and you do not let anything stop you from climbing up, you will reach it."

    Your stomach does a flip. After everything you've been through, to finally be so close... "That's where I'll find what I'm looking for?"

    Her eyes refocus on your face, and she looks at you like you're an idiot. "You'll find what you asked about."

    Well, you suppose you deserved that. You incline your head to her politely and speed on your way through the indicated passage -- holding your breath as you walk near the cloud of vapor.


    VI THE LOVERS

    The passage leads you through a long unlit tunnel of bare, unworked rock. You spend a while in the darkness, just walking and breathing, before light starts filtering in from up ahead and you emerge blinking on a cliffside. There is very little here: no plants, no dirt even, just a treacherous route up the mountain. But there's nothing to it, so you climb.

    And climb, and climb. The cloud cover is thin here, for whatever reason, and the dreaming-realm is stretched out before and below you, a vast and dizzying patchwork of distant geography. The higher you rise, the more you see. It plays on your mind, but you refuse to let yourself be distracted.

    Eventually, the route narrows and steepens too much to walk it. This is normally the part where you would turn around and find some other way. But the dragon spoke to you through his voice, and so you begin to really properly climb the mountain, carefully pulling yourself up the Ascent. Previous times you'd tried this, you'd always run out of climbable face before you got anywhere, so you stopped trying, but this time there's somehow always another handhold, and your progress is slow but never wholly thwarted.

    Finally, you pull yourself onto a gentle slope, and walk a little up it, and... you're there. On top of the mountain, the fabled goal of wise-dreamers.

    There... really isn't much. There's an enormous tree, branches drooping with fruit. There's a boulder, underneath it. That's all. It's hard to imagine this being a great supernal treasure of any kind. Have you been pranked?

    You look around, anyway. The view is staggering. It feels like you can see everything, from up here. The tree's fruit is out of reach and you don't fancy more climbing, but it reminds you somewhat of an apple and somewhat of a pomengranate and somewhat of more exotic fruits. The boulder...

    Now that you look at it closely, it's not uniform. There's a fracture girding the entire thing. It's not one solid rock: it's two pieces. You lay your hand on it, and get a better look at it with a cantrip of earth magic, and you perceive that it's not simply sliced down the middle: each half is incredibly jagged and irregular, and yet they fit together so well, in their complex intertwinement, that with the naked eye it looked like a single object at first.

    Your hand drops away.

    You see how the boulder fits together.

    You see how it all fits together.

    You are perfect and complete. You always have been. You know everything that you will ever need to know. You can have every trait and every talent that you will ever need to have.

    It is simply that you are separated from yourself. Your soul is broken in two. Life has taught you that you are this-and-not-that, and so every element of... that... gets hidden behind a wall of occlusion. Such is the human condition.

    (You are reminded of esoteric commentaries you read, claiming that the Biblical first human was created two-headed and eight-limbed, and that God divded them into the first man and first woman; there is a similar story in Plato of primordial humanity, mighty enough to threaten the gods and therefore divided by them. And so your kind was separated from itself, and dwindled into mundane mortality.)

    But your other-half is there to be found. You just have to open your eyes.

    It is your anima, or your animus, or -- whatever word you want to use. Your ideal lover, your complement, who is everything for which you yearn, and who yearns for you in an equal and opposite way. The beauty for which you have always secretly hungered. The wholeness that you have always lacked.

    Here, in this place, at this time -- you could realize that dream, undo that ancient hobbling. You could take that other-self fashioned from all the parts of yourself that are not-you and yet still you and make them real, calling them into external existence, demanding that the waking-world make a place for them, and then nothing could stand in the way of your reunion. It would be solipsistic after a fashion, to be sure: one soul united in fullness, rather than different souls reaching out to one another in their brokenness. But it would not be the facile fantasy of a servile puppet that suggests itself, either. That would not be a true complement.

    And together, you could do anything.

    This is a revelation of supernal grandeur.

    It may be the apex of the Ascent. It may be the glory for which you have sought. Depending on your point of view.

    [] Let this revelation flow through you, without really believing it or letting it affect your outlook: Gain this card as an Aura.
    [] Spend one Willpower, incorporating this revelation into yourself without acknowledging it as the supernal prize for which you have quested: Add this card to your Pneuma.
    [] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again.

    [][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
    [][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.


    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 4/max 9 Explorations
    • Those of you who predicted the game structure may award yourselves cookies.
    • Feel free to ask questions if aspects of this are unclear.
     
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    • The Eighth Night's End; Epilogue
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    • [*] Finish your dreaming-quest in triumph: End the quest in Supernal Finale: Never Alone Again.

    Tally

    You think about it. A lot. You knew, intellectually, that what you would find atop the Ascent would be strange and different, something other than what is found in the world. But this -- you're deeply conflicted. It does feel solipsistic, to say that the deepest and most profound emotional relationship in your life is going to be with yourself. It's a turning-inward at a time when so many of your energies are bent on turning outward.

    At the same time, though... this isn't a clone. You are not Narcissus, falling in love with your reflection. Rowan was, ultimately, your conscious self, albeit one who had made different choices. This shadow-self is composed of the parts of you that you have hidden from yourself. Parts the world had convinced you that you'd lost, or shouldn't have, or never had in the first place. And it's been very, very hard, these last few weeks, to reach out and engage with others, to present yourself as someone-with-value-and-worthy-of-care, when you have the habit of looking at yourself and turning away in contempt and dismissal.

    Well. No more of that. You will be yourself -- you will be all of yourself -- and you will do it without self-hatred. You won't let you.

    So you close your eyes and reach into yourself, exploring the bounds of your own soul, and when you reach the boundary of the light at which you would reflexively turn back you instead step forward, into the unlit and forgotten corners, and clasp hands with what you find there. "I love you," you say to it, then draw it up and out, and then do that again, and again, and again, until you have found all the pieces of the other half of your heart and brought them tenderly into the world to be realized, and then you push them into the waking world with a tremendous effort of your power, the power that you have won through boldness and cleverness and trial. Through the course of your Ascent.

    You open your eyes. The mountaintop looks the same as it did before and yet completely different, because you have changed. You walk around the boulder, admiring it, and the tree, and the dreaming-realm spread out before you. You sigh. You're going to miss this -- the journey, the climb, the uncertainty of what lies around the next turning of the path. But hunger is meant to be sated, and yearnings are meant to be fulfilled.

    Besides. It's not like you're leaving this behind forever. You haven't plumbed every secret; you haven't decoded every mystery; you certainly haven't put any of that into a form that makes sense outside your own head. You have plenty left to do. But, now, you'll have someone to do it with -- and you don't even know what projects and goals and aspirations they might have for which you are the perfectly-suited complementary helpmeet.

    You pause in your perambulations as a glint of light off something on the ground catches your eye. You bend down and pick it up.

    It's the chain that held Aiglan's locket, which you left as an offering at the Shrine of Celestial Winds on the very first night of your Ascent, honoring the powers of divine passion, returned to you now at the last. You never met the dream-entity that you called forth with your oath and your prayer, and so you hadn't spent much time thinking about it. Has its power limned you, nonetheless? Has your commitment to the course of love been recognized, yet again? Even now, Ascendant though you are, questions multiply shamelessly, dancing outside the limits of your understanding.

    You look up at the sky. "I'm going to figure you out, you know," you say conversationally, and then with a well-practiced mental twist you send yourself back spiraling back to your body.


    You awaken in fuzzy pre-morning light. You've seen a lot of sunrises lately; no knock on them, but you hope that this will be the last you see in a while. Still, you swing yourself out of bed and pad over to the window to admire what rosy-fingered Dawn has done with the sky this morning. It's beautiful. Typical.

    You notice, without much in the way of surprise, that the dream-colors that had accentuated your sight as of late are gone. A quick check determines that the spiritual furnace is gone too. That's consonant with what Inanna had written to you, that spiritual potential energy has been building up within you, waiting for... well, for what you just used it on, you suppose. And now that it's served its purpose, it's not burning inside you anymore. You allow yourself a moment to miss it, even though the colors will still be there, in the dreaming-realm.

    Besides. There is something else inside you, where the fire used to be. A feeling; an intuition; a sense of direction. You're pretty sure you know what it is, but you're not going to do anything about it right this second because the sun has yet to properly rise and whatever the manifold faults of your upbringing, "lack of manners" was not one of them.

    So, instead, you sit and watch the sun come up, and then you take a long shower, and then you have breakfast, and then because it's still far too early in the morning you spend some time playing with Hana before pulling out a brush and going to work on her, a procedure that she possibly loves and possibly hates. Strong feelings are definitely involved, in any event. You give her a treat and then look at the clock. The last time the hours passed this slowly, you were in economy seating on a transatlantic flight and the person in front of you had cranked their chair all the way back from minute one.

    Finally, you hit a time you judge civilized enough for your errand and head out the door. You follow your new sense: it takes you the better part of two miles, but it's a pleasant morning and the walk is good for burning off nervous energy. You climb up a house's exterior staircase to a second-floor door, clearly the entrance to a separate apartment, and knock. You hear footsteps from inside, and then the door opens.

    "Hey," you say.


    You introduce your partner to your friends, of course -- virtually, at first, and then in person. Now, after your Ascent, you feel a lot more comfortable making plans beyond a limited horizon, and traveling to visit is a task long overdue in some cases. It's good to see people; it's good to mend those relationships that need mending and solidify those new friendships that you'd like on firmer ground. People give you a hard time, of course, for not mentioning you were seeing someone, but then that fades quickly, because the two of you, well, fit. The dynamic is as natural as breathing; your friends claim that it quickly seems strange to them to imagine a time when you weren't always together.

    You find a new equilibrium-of-being. You find a management position at a nonprofit: the pay is less, of course, but they have use for your skills. Project management is project management and balance sheets are balance sheets, and finding ways to ever-more-efficiently convert dollars raised into dollars for your beneficiaries is a task that both challenges your ingenuity and satisfies your soul. There are a few others like you in the ranks, people who took the same sort of path you did from the private sector. It makes you glad, to not be special in this respect. Your partner, perhaps unsurprisingly, is an artist, and becomes great friends with Jagoda. They plan a collaborative project, which you look forward to with great interest.

    The two of you practice magic together. The dreaming-realm does not give up its mysteries easily. But you can range over all of it, now; you are Ascendant, a rare distinction, and the dreaming-realm knows its own. Occasionally, dreamers on their own Ascents run into you, just as you once did. The two of you do your best to teach them things, to prepare them for what lies ahead; sometimes, they teach you something. Being on the other end of that is strange, but you accept it with as much grace as others showed you. The humility is good practice for the textbook you're writing together.

    There are challenges, of course. Life hasn't stopped being arbitrary and frustrating and difficult just because it's been born anew by magic. But your other half, your heart's wholeness, guides you and comforts you and inspires you, and you do likewise like the matched set you are. Together, you understand so much. Together, you are so brave and wise and strong. You don't feel like a broken thing with missing pieces, because -- you're not, anymore.

    You are a couple in the world, living lives like anyone's lives. You eat. You sleep. You stare at screens. You have friends, old and new. You go to work, and museums, and whatever.

    But, at night, as you sleep, you blaze with glory.

    HERE ENDS
    YOUR ASCENT    ​


    And that was I Walk In Dreams.

    Special thanks are in order. First and foremost must be to Warren Tusk, the writer of the solo journaling game off of which this quest is based and a dear friend of mine, for making this game and giving me permission to do this at all. Secondly to my wife, who has been this quest's #1 fan since its inception and who has provided support in the form of beta-reading, deck-management, and "driving while I write an update in the passenger seat" on top of that moral support. And, of course, to you all: everyone who voted, reacted, or simply read the quest. This quest may have stayed pretty little throughout its lifespan, but that made your support all the more precious.

    Now, for the shameless plugs. As mentioned, this game draws on the mechanics and text of a solo journaling game: essentially a one-player RPG, where a rulebook gives you instructions about what to do and prompts about what to write in response to the mechanical events that take place. The similarity to the quest format is what gave me the idea to do this in the first place. You can get a copy and play it for $5, if you want to explore it yourself; this quest only saw about half the endings and Trumps, and there are several Minor Arcana you never met at all, so even though you'll be going in with the advantage of structural knowledge, there's still plenty to discover, and of course a non-Ash character may certainly approach the same cards wildly differently. If you think solo journaling sounds awesome but don't want to just run back the same game again, I will strongly recommend the work of @mirror_lock, my best friend, whose work as a game designer is the chief reason why my friend group got into them in the first place. Her game Galatea, in particular, is one I think will resonate with a lot of people here (though it is, alas, less suited for the quest format).

    I am happy to field questions people have, though I am going to avoid publicly answering "what does card X do," to avoid spoiling people reading the thread who might want to play the game themselves without more information. And if I ever kick off a new project on SV (such as resurrecting Hellgate Hotel, or writing something else entirely) I will post a link in this thread. But, by and large, this is it, I guess, so: goodbye, and I wish you well, and I'll see you around SV even if I don't in here anymore.

    And, once again, thank you very much for the gift of your time and attention. I hope to have treated them with the respect they deserve.
     
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