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I Walk in Dreams -- An Esoteric Journey Quest

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To be very fair, taking the Supernal Experience option allows us to reach 5 Power by burning two Trumps and all our Supernals, or burning all our Trumps and preserving one Supernal - it's not something to sneeze at if we expect not to see any more Pentacles in the near future?
 
[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.

millenials these days don't know anything about wise-dreaming, they only know eat dream-fruit and tapping away at smartphone
 
Yay for a mentoring opportunity!

[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

Honestly, part of me wishes the no teacher option has won at the start. It certainly would have been a unique experience.
 
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[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

Oh my god, this guy needs mentoring. Severely. Mechanically this option looks pretty great, but my first thought was "okay which of the options will let us teach" because dear god xD

...and we did just consider writing a better manual. And try to make friends. The cards are being really nice.
 
[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

This basically adds the cart to our Pneuma for free, and also is quite narratively satisfying to me.
 
quantum lurker said:
To be very fair, taking the Supernal Experience option allows us to reach 5 Power by burning two Trumps and all our Supernals, or burning all our Trumps and preserving one Supernal - it's not something to sneeze at if we expect not to see any more Pentacles in the near future?
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Not unfair, and if it weren't for the narrative considerations I'd be seriously tempted, but since we have 5 Power of any other kind locked down already I don't think it's mandatory.
 
Wiadi said:
[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

Mechanically the options are pretty close, since we don't have an Aura and would just be cycling the Supernal, but narratively I much prefer this option. Especially in light of our considered (if ultimately not currently adopted) goal of helping better exposit the process of the Ascent.
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We also already HAVE an aura of the suit of pentacles, making a second one less valuable.

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[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring
 
Dreaming Circuit said:
Personally I'd rate the skip and WP options roughly equally.
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Can't say I'd agree with that - 2 Power for 1 WP is still a good rate, especially since as quantum noted it'd get us in striking range of completing another trial on Pentacles, and as you say the Aura is of very little value to us right now.

(moot point anyway since we're agreed on the best option I suppose)
 
[:V] Walk around the corner, then back again, starting the conversation anew.

[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
 
[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
 
[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.

You think Ash is lucky for drawing all those face cards? What about this guy? Started wise-dreaming with no knowledge, and his first or second draw is a face card that explains how the dream works.

...which face card is Ash, I wonder? Page of Wands? I think we're a Page a Wands, considering how similar we were to the Page of Wands we encountered.
 
mathymancer said:
You think Ash is lucky for drawing all those face cards? What about this guy? Started wise-dreaming with no knowledge, and his first or second draw is a face card that explains how the dream works.

...which face card is Ash, I wonder? Page of Wands? I think we're a Page a Wands, considering how similar we were to the Page of Wands we encountered.
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I would have thought the Ace of Wands, or maybe the Fool? But Page also works.

[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
 
[X] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
 
mathymancer said:
You think Ash is lucky for drawing all those face cards? What about this guy? Started wise-dreaming with no knowledge, and his first or second draw is a face card that explains how the dream works.

...which face card is Ash, I wonder? Page of Wands? I think we're a Page a Wands, considering how similar we were to the Page of Wands we encountered.
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My take? To this guy you're either a Knight of Wands or a Knight of Pentacles, depending on what you do, and you chose to be Wandsy at him, so.

(Part of what makes the Pages Pages is that they're novices that you're in a position to help. Knights are more peers, and as such are likely to exceed you within their specialty, the way Frank is more of an explorer than Ash is.)

That said, I could even see the argument for a Monarch of Wands, given how far above this guy you are in knowledge. Though maybe table that until you've seen an old monster for yourself.

Anyway: voting closed, writing has begun.
Scheduled vote count started by picklepikkl on Apr 30, 2024 at 10:24 PM, finished with 21 posts and 15 votes.
[ascent]
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So far meeting people has been better than meeting critters or places. I wonder if the Monarchs will break that trend.
 
Shard said:
So far meeting people has been better than meeting critters or places. I wonder if the Monarchs will break that trend.
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I'm expecting something high-cost (and possibly high-risk)/high-reward, personally. I doubt they'll be purely negative but it probably also won't be as simple as "choose between two nice efficient trades."
 
Wiadi said:
I'm expecting something high-cost (and possibly high-risk)/high-reward, personally. I doubt they'll be purely negative but it probably also won't be as simple as "choose between two nice efficient trades."
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Could be chose between two boons if we're more like a monarch to this novice. We're giving him free stuff, after all.
 
AlexScribler said:
Could be chose between two boons if we're more like a monarch to this novice. We're giving him free stuff, after all.
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Eh, pickle explicitly stated that that was more about relative level of knowledge, and that we should wait until meeting a true Monarch to really consider that comparison. I don't think we should treat this as in any way predictive.
 
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The Fifth Night -- Part Four
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    • [*] Spend one Supernal Insight or Aura of the suit of Wands, providing a crash course in basic occultism: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Insight.
    [*][ASCENT] Keep exploring

    Tally

    "OK," you begin. "First things first, buddy -- actually, wait, thing before the first thing. What should I call you?"

    "Brilliant? Witty? Devastatingly handsome?"

    "No," you say flatly. "Tell me your name before I give you one you won't like." You know he thinks he's dreaming, so you're going to cut him some slack, but you're taking time out of your Ascent to help him out and being aggravated with him will make that harder.

    "Fine, fine," he grumbles. "Ridley."

    "Great. Ridley: you're not dreaming. Or, rather, you are, but you're not only dreaming. You've projected your mind into... another layer of reality, I guess. Nobody really knows what it is. But other people come here. I'm a real person, not someone you've dreamed up."

    He squints at you, scratching his chin. "Hunh. OK. Well, if you're real, can you..." You nod as you wait for whatever test he's thinking up. At least he's taking this seriously. "...factor the number 31,411?"

    You sputter. "What? No! Why would I be able to do that? What sort of test is that?"

    "Ah, well, you see, I mentally multiplied two numbers I knew were primes, and factoring is harder than multiplying, so if you can do it, then-"

    You interrupt him. "Wait, but you started out knowing the factors? That's a garbage test! If I were your dream, I would know everything you know, so I'd just be able to give the correct answer!"

    He considers that for a moment. "Yeah, good point. OK, since you can't factor that-" a portion of your spirit protests that you could probably work it out if given any time to think about it, and the rest of you tells that portion to shut up "-then I guess I'll provisionally accept that you're real. So what?"

    You rub your temples. "Ridley. Magic is real. You used magic to get here, somehow, without knowing what you were doing. And the thing I am worried about is that you will not know how to get back, particularly if you encounter something dangerous by wandering around without knowing anything. So I am going to teach you how to safely wake up from the dream so that I don't have your incurable screaming madness on my conscience. But first you are going to give me some means of contacting you, so that we can have the rest of this conversation in the waking world, in which context, hopefully, we will both find the other less annoying. Got it?"

    "Wait, how could you tell I was annoyed? Actually, wait, I'm annoying you?"

    "Your email address, Ridley."

    "Fine, fine," he says, and recites it. "I guess if this is just a weird dream there's no harm, and if it's real then I'll know it because you can email me. You won't, like, sign me up for spam lists or anything, right?"

    "Don't give me ideas. OK. Sit down, and do some steady breathing for me." You look at him and relent slightly. "You can finish your apple first. Dream-fruit is one of the best parts of coming here."

    After he finishes his apple, he obligingly sits down and follows your directions, learning how to feel the connection between your dream-self and your body in the waking world and to pull himself back into it. You can tell it works when he disappears, fading away over the course of a few seconds: not becoming more transparent, but blurrier and more indistinct, until finally he is gone and there's nothing there. You stay seated in the orchard for a little while, doing some deep breathing of your own, and then grab an apple for the road.


    QUEEN OF SWORDS

    After finishing the apple, discarding the core, and wondering a little about what will happen to it, you start the laborious process of climbing out of the valley. It is slow going, and your legs return to their previous identities as Pain Ovoids. But it feels good to be ascending again, and that's worth the cramps in your spiritual legs.

    All the same, when you see a building tucked against the mountainside, you make a beeline for it. You like having an opportunity to walk on smooth floors instead of up steep inclines, and it's not like there's been any reason to not explore the structure you've come across in the dreaming-realm.

    (Well, there was the Escherian nightmare manor last night where you were hopelessly lost until you ran across your hostile mirror-self who wanted to take your place in reality. But, honestly, that one worked out pretty well, so long as you are willing to take the stance that the potentially-permanent change to your perceptions in the waking world and the sensation of burning in your heart are good things.)

    (...you know what, you're going to be cautious when exploring this one. Just in case.)

    You call out as you enter, but there's no response, and the rooms you look into are devoid of life. Unlike the ornate structures you've seen before, this one is fairly utilitarian. It's hard to give it a better name than "building" -- there are a number of empty rooms of no obvious purpose, one with a bunch of chairs around a table, a large space with couches and low tables... it doesn't feel like a house, or a place of worship, or anything else you can name. It's just... a bunch of stuff, like a community center but without the community.

    But then you descend stairs into a basement, and what you see before you drives all thoughts of holistic identification out of your head. You're standing on a balcony -- there are stairs at the end to take you further down to the floor, but you have absolutely no intention of taking them at the moment. The walls are covered in bookshelves, with those rolling ladders you've seen in libraries to enable the highest volumes to be reached. If that were all, you'd count it an incredibly impressive library, but this room is an alchemical laboratory.

    A great circle lies upon the floor. Spaced equidistantly around its circumference are seven symbols in seven metals: the alchemical symbol for the Moon in silver, Mercury in quicksilver (and how the creator prevented it from running over the floor you have no idea), Venus in copper, the Sun in gold, Mars in iron, Jupiter in tin, and Saturn in lead. Inscribed within it is a triangle, with further items at the points. You struggle to discern them until you realize that the mercury is doing double duty, and then it clicks: these are the three primes, salt, sulfur, and quicksilver. Inscribed within the triangle is a square, and at each of its corners is one of the Minor Arcana of the Tarot, which are also the four classical elements: a sword embedded in the floor for air, a staff standing upright without apparent support for fire, a shining disc with a pentacle on it for earth, and a goblet for water. Inscribed within that square is another circle, and around it are the twelve symbols of the zodiac drawn in what you suspect are powdered gemstones, and in the center of that circle is a woman.

    She is powerfully built, and would be tall were she standing instead of kneeling. The word that comes to mind is "statuesque," and indeed she is like a statue, kneeling there with her eyes closed, without movement other than breathing perfectly evenly. She doesn't appear to be doing anything else just yet, which gives you the opportunity to look over that which surrounds her and conclude that you are wildly out of your depth. It's not only the most impressive ritual magic setup you've ever seen, it's the most impressive ritual magic setup you've ever heard of. You've spotted the most obvious elements, but you are certain that all of the details, from the precise width of the lines in the geometrical figures, to the substances those figures are drawn with, to the choice of where the cycles "start," are all extremely purposeful and chosen for reasons you would have to study for years to comprehend. Normally one would use other people to help power such a thing, which means not needing quite as much in the way of foci, but you have to imagine that someone this capable has her reasons.

    All of a sudden, without the woman in the center doing anything visibly different, you can feel the energies in the room begin to flow with purpose and take shape. Looks like you're about to find out if you're right or not.


    It begins, as most things do, with fire.

    The woman stands, rising to her feet in a smooth motion that betrays no stiffness of limb, despite how perfectly still she had kept for as long as you watched and an unknown time before that. Flames follow her, rising to knee-height out of the floor itself. They dance around her, but she is not burnt. Not physically, anyway: you behold an aura rising around her, like a metal changing color as it heats up, and the symbols and lines in her diagram begin to glow, from the outside moving in. They proceed slowly and methodically, all the while the aura comes more into focus. It is dim, though; you suspect you might not have been able to see it, before the dreaming-realm wrought upon your perception whatever changes it has.

    The glow reaches the innermost circle. The sign of Aries shines bright, and the aura snaps into your view, turning from mere colorless presence into inky blackness.

    In steady progression, each symbol in turn begins to shine. As more and more light up, her aura changes: from its present state to brilliant white, then to a glorious yellow, then finally to deep perfect red, growing brighter and more powerful all the while. Eleven signs of the zodiac are fully illuminated: as you watch, the sign of Pisces slowly begins to shine, pulsing like a lightbulb with a dodgy power supply. Her aura brightens and holds... and then, with a feeling you can only describe as a metaphysical exhalation, the lights all go out, the fires die, and the aura fades. Fades but does not disappear: the redness still clings to her, if you look for it.

    She looks up at you without seeming surprised. So she had noticed you, and just hadn't acknowledged you. "It is now safe for you to come down," she says, her voice carrying without the strained quality of a shout. "However, do not disturb my circles."

    Well, then. You walk to the end of the balcony and take the stairs down while she extricates herself from her diagram, walking with casual precision across the lines and past the implements without smudging or jostling a single one of them. Your paths intersect near the base of the stairs. You look up to meet her steady, unflinching gaze. "Hello," you say, a little awkwardly. "I'm Ash, an aspirant on my Ascent."

    "Joy to you," she says. "I am Neria."

    You note the lack of any stated purpose, but, then, given what you've just seen, you'd have to be completely ignorant to not guess it. "You are an alchemist, I see. I was watching your ritual. Did you... that is, have you..." you swallow anxiously as the magnitude of what you're saying sinks in. "Was that the Great Work?"

    "Not quite," she replies. "But I am almost entirely through rubedo, now. The magnum opus is a very small distance away. I shall achieve it upon my next purification." She speaks of the incredible achievement, not with braggadocio or pride, but with absolute ringing certainty, like she's talking about the way to get to the grocery store.

    "That's... wow. Thank you for letting me watch. Not that I understood it, really, but..." You're babbling. New topic. "What are you going to do with it?"

    "'It'?" She cocks an eyebrow at you. "Ah. You are thinking of the Philosopher's Stone as something external, a physical object. A common misconception. The base matter that is transmuted to gold is the alchemist's own self: body, soul, and spirit are all made perfect and incorruptible. And I shall bring that strength and wisdom from this world to the material one. The people will prosper when their rulers are good."

    You take a moment to process that. "You want to take over?"

    She inclines her head. "My own city, at first. Then, after things have been adequately improved there, I will seek further temporal power. It will be the work of a lifetime."

    Well, she's being awfully... philosopher-queen-y about it... but you suppose you've heard worse reasons for getting into politics. "OK, well, it's been fascinating meeting you, Neria. I've learned a lot about how far I still have to go, so I probably should-"

    "Do you wish to try it?" she interrupts.

    You pause. "Try... what?"

    "Reshaping yourself. Purifying yourself. The whole world benefits whenever any one achieves greater excellence."

    You have ten thousand questions, but the one that springs to your mouth is the most facile one. "You stood within a fire. Will it harm me?"

    She shrugs, and the motion is as elegantly controlled as everything else she does. "The fire will not mar your body. It permits you to change, in accordance with your will. Whether it burns away your dross or your gold... that is up to you to know the difference, and to consider yourself perfected or harmed thereby. It is only a fire."

    You hesitate. Neria moves on, with only the smoothest of pauses. "Or, if you prefer, and have the time to spare, I would appreciate help testing the changes wrought in me, so that I might see how far I have come, and what still remains to be perfected."

    How will you interact further with her?

    [] Move on, saying only a few words in passing, or nothing at all: Gain this card as an Aura.
    [] Spend one Willpower, aiding her in testing her alchemized power: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Force.
    [] Spend one Supernal Force or Aura of the suit of Swords, changing something of your own nature with her guidance: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain the winner of the [TRANSMUTATION] vote.

    [][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Insight
    [][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
    [][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Connection

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


    Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
    Night-specific information: 4/max 6 Explorations, Pentacles Aura
    • I continue to not be able to fucking believe your court card luck.
    • Sorry that this took longer than usual, but every time I thought "maybe I could start wrapping things up?" Neria gave me a Look and then a few hundred more words happened.
    • Similarly, I'm fairly busy LARPing tomorrow, so the next update will likely not come until late Sunday or sometime Monday.
     
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    • [X] Spend one Willpower, aiding her in testing her alchemized power: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Force.

    This is pretty lucky, yeah! We don't have a Swords Aura, so I suppose we spend the Willpower.
     
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