Well, Ridley definitely needs a primer on "how to not fuck yourself up while Dreaming". Item # 1: treat everyone you meet as real. If you're right, you avoid making an enemy, and if you're wrong, those are the ones who can really fuck you up.
This is a narrow one, but I think that the refining process is not really Ash's thing.
[X] Spend one Willpower, aiding her in testing her alchemized power: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Force.
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
I know we've only got one Supernal Force, but this gets us another Swords card in our Pneuma we can use for future Power clashes. So on net this gains us another card in our Pneuma for zero cost. As for choosing Supernal Experience, we're low on Pentacle cards currently.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Willpower conservation!
So the Monarch cards are definitely quite a bit above us.. Probably we'll reach around them around the endpoint of the quest.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Oven if this was worse mechanically I would definitely want to do this, like it seems like it would be really cool.
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?"
Good thinking, Ridely, but you need way more digits for this to be an effective test.
So...I do want to take this card into our Pneuma, but we are pretty low on Willpower. The alternative means leaving us without Supernal Force, which I'm really not a fan of...but it sounds really interesting, so it gets my vote anyway. I'm going to go with the transmutation, but I suggest Insight rather than Experience; we already expanded most Pentacles power in our confrontation with Rowan, and one Supernal Experience will still probably leave us too low on it to win a second one, and we are already flush with Cups, so Insight it is.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Insight
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Can I just say that I love the fact that the very first lesson that Ash gives Ridley, their crash course in the most essential aspects of what to do in the Dream, is "go away"?
Can I just say that I love the fact that the very first lesson that Ash gives Ridley, their crash course in the most essential aspects of what to do in the Dream, is "go away"?
Another way to look at it is that the first thing Ash gave Ridely is a lesson on how to stop what you're doing and do something else for a little bit, which is a lesson Ash could've really used in their former life.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Insight
Insight is the wand equivalent and Ash has a wand ambition. I feel like we should focus on that.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Ash promised itself (pronouns, humbug!) that they'd "more assertively try to get contact information for anyone you meet in the dreaming-realm." Ash should try to get the Queen's email or whatever.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Insight
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Supernal force will allow us to mitigate the need for trumps in a subsequent swords challenge. Losing a Supernal Force honestly seems detrimental, since if we have to pick between swords or pentacles again we're going to be in a worse way. It would also mean that if we need a supernal force or aura of swords in the future we're not likely to have it.
[X] Spend one Willpower, aiding her in testing her alchemized power: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Force.
[X] 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.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[X] Spend one Willpower, aiding her in testing her alchemized power: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Force.
This is a tough one but I think I'd rather stay fully stocked on Supernals. Now, if we were to meet the Queen of Cups...
Also, I stand corrected, looks like at least the Queens really are still just safely positive. By symmetry I'd bet on the Kings letting us turn any other Supernal into their matching type, though it's also possible that we're high enough up for such symmetries to start breaking down.
Also also, be honest @picklepikkl - had you already drawn this card when making that comment about waiting to meet a real Monarch?
The card we just drew can convert Auras to Supernals. If King cards can likewise do so, than there are more cards than can convert Auras to Supernals in our Ascent deck than there were at the start (8 face cards when we started, compared to 9 face cards now). If Kings don't offer such an opportunity, then there are still 5 face cards that can turn Auras to Supernals (3 Queens, 2 Knights), and I wouldn't call that "almost out".
Speaking of which, it seems we are witnessing someone who is about to reach a Swords Supernal Finale here?
[X] Spend one Willpower, aiding her in testing her alchemized power: Add this card to your Pneuma. Gain one Supernal Force.
[X][TRANSMUTATION] Supernal Experience
[X][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
Yes. I (or rather, my wife the deckmistress) draws the next card at latest when I am closing the vote so I can update the Character Sheet accordingly. Often if the vote is one-sided we draw early so I can start at least thinking about the next card and what I want to do.
On which subject: voting closed, writing begun.
Scheduled vote count started by picklepikkl on May 3, 2024 at 1:34 PM, finished with 20 posts and 14 votes.
[X] 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.
[*] 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 Experience
[*][ASCENT] Keep exploring
"I'm interested in trying," you cautiously advance. A fair chunk of the last year has been the process of reshaping yourself, after all. Doing so in a more direct and literal fashion... has its appeals. "But I should mention, I am no alchemist. I've only learned enough of it to recognize some of what you were doing and what principles you were invoking. If the work requires a deeper understanding, I don't think it's a good idea."
Neria waves her hand. "If you were attempting to progress through the stages of the Great Work, or if you needed to create a diagram such as this from scratch, then you would need to be a true alchemist or risk disaster. For a straightforward transmutation of the soul? Deep understanding is required, but of the self, not of alchemy."
You are unsure how to deal with the phrase "straightforward transmutation of the soul"... but when it comes to self-knowledge, you think you have that on lock. Your mind flashes to Rowan, and that brief but incredibly significant meeting. "Deep understanding of the self I've got," you say with a level of confidence that you possess at least eighty percent in truth.
She nods. "That seemed likely to me. If you did not, you would have fallen by now, or else are sure to do so soon." While you're processing that, she turns and surveys her diagram with a critical eye. "For a proper progression into nigredo, aspects of this would need to be entirely recast to suit you. Every magnum opus is different. There is no preparation that works for all. However, for a simple thing..." She turns back, looks you up and down, then walks out among the figures on the floor. Every now and then she barks out a question, seeking some piece of information: some of them make sense (such as the time and place of your birth, which she appears to be able to convert into astrological terms without needing any charts or references), some of them seem like they might conceivably matter (your blood type), and some of them seem like complete trivialities (whether certain kinds of food are enjoyable or upset your stomach). You answer honestly. If an expert decides to mess with you, then you will resign yourself to being messed with, but you know full well that a large part of expertise is knowing where significance is to be found.
In the end, she makes only one change: she rotates the signs of the elements one quarter-turn counter-clockwise. She refuses to say why, which is fine, because you would almost certainly not understand it. She exits the diagram, and as you prepare yourself to enter it yourself, you quickly run through the mental shortcuts for leaving the dreaming-realm that you have so recently taught Ridley. If it turns out that she's done all this to entrap or harm you, or if she was wrong about the fire and it behaves like fire should, you want to be able to bail out immediately, and whatever consequences arise from an interrupted rite can be managed. Then you cross the lines, circle to triangle to square to circle, and align yourself with the exact center as best you can.
"I'm ready," you say.
It begins, as most things do, with fire.
Then you can't say for sure how things go after that, because the only thing in your perception is fire. Oh fuck it hurts. Neria had said it wouldn't harm you physically, and it doesn't appear to be, but neglected to mention how incredibly painful this would be.
...then again, there's never been a reordering of your self that wasn't painful, so maybe she thought it was just too obvious to mention. Or maybe if you were more enlightened it wouldn't be hurting so badly. In any event, you scream a bit, but don't pull the plug: you can feel the fire as an agent of change. It's just currently burning you in a sort of undifferentiated way.
So what if you give it something to burn up?
With a sort of mental/spiritual flexing that is impossible to describe, you push aspects of yourself toward it: ambition, competitiveness, pride. Not all of it: not by a long shot. You're not crazy enough to throw an entire portion of your soul on the flame and, besides, you don't want to be rid of that. But maybe you could be less of that. Maybe it's holding you back from being the sort of person you want to be. Maybe you could be more at peace with the world if you were shaped less like a sword and more like other things.
Maybe maybe maybe. You can't know how this is going to turn out. But you've decided, and here and now, especially in the dreaming-realm and especially within this ritual diagram, your will is sovereign. You hold part of yourself in the fire, and watch as it is burnt away. And, governed by that same will, new aspects of yourself emerge. Or, rather, old aspects given new strength. Wood burns and becomes ash: within this circle, ambition burns and becomes wanderlust; competitiveness becomes desire; pride becomes openness.
There is so much in the world to see and do and be. You will not stand in your own way.
Finally, the patches of soul that you wanted to be rid of are gone, and other things are in their places. You come back to yourself, and it is the easiest thing in the world to make the flame go away, now that its work is done and you don't want it anymore. The cessation of pain comes as a bit of a shock, and you stagger a little before you catch yourself. It would be rude of you to disturb Neria's circles, after all.
"How do you feel?" you hear her ask. You locate her, after a confused moment of remembering how to pay attention with your body and not just your soul, and look her in the eye.
"Better."
XV THE DEVIL
After you extricate yourself from the diagram, give Neria your profoundest thanks, and catch her hint that maybe you should sit down for a few minutes while you recover from the spiritual ordeal you put yourself through, you depart from her... building which you still don't have a good name for. Whatever. There were other priorities. You set out on your way, eager to see what you might see next. Soon enough, you come to a fork in the road. One path goes more directly up the mountain, and the other is a gentler way that appears to lead to, or at least pass by, a distant fairy-tale-looking castle. While you pause and debate, something sets off your magical senses. Not something far-off: something on your person.
After a bit of searching around, you realize what it is: the half-pendant that you got from Aiglan what feels like so long ago, and which you had half-forgotten, is glowing more strongly. You do some experimenting and realize that the strange stygian blue, that impossible color that this realm makes possible, is stronger as you move toward the castle. The thing it seeks is that way. Brieta, Aiglan's lost love who suffered some unknown terrible fate on her Ascent, is that way.
Well. All right then. Nothing to it. You're just going to go and beard the lion in his den. Sure, this is an unknown peril that has already gotten at least one person and which might similarly turn you into a vegetable, but your strength is as the strength of ten because your cause is true, right?
You realize you're working yourself into an anxiety attack and force yourself to sit on a rock and breathe deeply. You remember reading once about the sons of Ares in Greek mythology, after whom the moons of Mars are named: Deimos and Phobos, the two kinds of fear that rule the battlefield. Phobos is panic: the instinctive terror reaction from finding yourself in a dangerous situation. But Deimos, dread, is who currently has you in his grip: the creeping stomach-churning horror of the knowledge that a dangerous situation is ahead of you.
(The metaphor occurs to you so strongly that you actually look around to see if some Greek-looking being is nearby and actively doing things to you. It's the dreaming-realm: it could happen.)
You let the fear pass through you. You remind yourself that if this peril has caught one person, it's probably caught more than that, and maybe your risk is for the sake of many others. You remind yourself that you have faced down your own self and emerged triumphant. You remind yourself that even if the worst happens, Hana will be fine.
And then you remember that you're being a complete idiot. Your pendant is half a pendant. It's not just linked to Brieta, it's linked to its other half. And with just a little work, you can use it to contact Aiglan, and let him know where you are, and pull together a plan of action.
Your lips curl into a smile. It wouldn't do to be overconfident, but this might actually be fun.
It is one thing to concoct a plan that involves boldly springing a trap so that you can strike back at the trapper, and another thing entirely when you are at the sharp point of that plan, viz. being the poor bastard to actually do it.
Well. Cats aren't going to bell themselves.
The trap itself is pretty well-crafted, you have to admit. As you approached the castle, wards became active layer by layer. First suppressing your sense of caution and accentuating your curiosity. It's subtle: if you hadn't been looking for it, you never would have noticed, better magical senses or not. Then, closer in, directional senses become confused, and finding your way away becomes more difficult. Still closer and there are magics meant to shut down communication to the outside world, and the final layer is heavy suppression of offensive magic. You remind yourself that this is all according to plan and continue on into the castle. Once inside, you start exploring. It is a lovely place. It is comfortable and tastefully decorated, and there are all sorts of diversions and entertainments in the rooms: books, gamerooms, places to recline and relax.
It takes a while for the mistress of the castle to come greet you. By then, you've found your first long-term resident, and any attraction this place has for you has vanished.
"Welcome to Sweetsickness Hall," the witch says. She might be the most beautiful woman you've ever seen: neither young nor old, and garbed both in fine silks and her overwhelming power, and she looks at you like she can see from your face straight to the bottom of your soul. Maybe she can.
You incline your head. "Ma'am. You have much here that does not belong to you."
She laughs, like the purest sound of bells. "And who ought they belong to? Themselves? Hardly. They are not qualified; left to their own devices, they throw themselves at the Ascent and destroy themselves in droves. So I catch up those I can, and give them a comfortable and pleasant life here -- and I know that you have seen that this place contains many comforts, and much pleasure -- for as long as they endure."
"Endure is the right word for it," you grind out.
She smiles at you, and her smile is full of promise.
This is a great trial of the Ascent.
A terror of the dreaming-realm threatens to destroy you.
Claim Victory
[] Be cunning and forceful. Engineer an escape, or hold your own against the witch long enough to get away.
-[] Write-in spent resources totaling four Swords Power, plus one additional Swords Power for each Triumphant Initiation you have
[] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[] Write-in spent resources totaling four Cups Power, plus one additional Cups 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: Held in Thrall.
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: 5/max 6 Explorations, Pentacles Aura
Alternate threadmark title: picklepikkl And The Congenital Inability To Ever Shut The Fuck Up
I am genuinely surprised that after my extremely suggestive comment about updating the Character Sheet at the same time I close the votes, nobody wandered into the Character Sheet to check what we had just drawn (or if they did, they didn't mention it). The Tower might be the most obvious "this is a peril" card in the deck, but the Devil is a close #2.
Because I know that people will care about this: whether you solve it with Swords or solve it with Cups, Aiglan will be involved. You should not feel that you have to pick Cups if you want to see him or rescue Brieta. Depending on what you pick, your offscreen call to him will have retroactively gone differently.
Remember that you have one Triumphant Initiation already, so your target number is five instead of four like it was last night.
I knew we shouldn't have burnt the Supernal Force, but oh well:
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
Alternatively, because 6 Power is hard to meet but Cups and Pentacles can pass the required criteria already:
[X] Be cunning and forceful. Engineer an escape, or hold your own against the witch long enough to get away.
-[X] Three, Eight, Queen of Swords, XIX The Sun and 0 The Fool
Whatever part of you that keeps telling you to frequently put yourself down, you might want to consider casting it into the fires of transmutation.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
I really like that on the approach, Ash is confident that they've got this. Anyways, not familiar enough with the Tarot to know which card to pick, but IIRC we should avoid spending Aces unless we have to, and we'd have to do so (or spend Trumps) if we used Swords.
Yeah, I miscalculated earlier: Burning Cups now allows us to emergency burn all our Trumps to pass any non-Cups Suit if we have to; though avoiding the Tower using scrying if possible would be wise.
If only meeting Aiglan earlier gave us 1 Narrative Power for this though
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
Any thoughts on the Glory Cards? Sounds like a Supernal Finale to me - we won't last much longer before we start losing Aces, so choosing wisely seems important here.
[X][GLORY] X The Wheel of Fortune
[X][GLORY] XX Judgement
Well, that was... transformative. (And a very well-written transformation, too.)
In honor of that transformation, I like going for Cups.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
For the Glory card, I think I prefer Judgement, insofar as it reflects discernment and choosing what is Right.
[X][GLORY] XX Judgement
