Character Sheet
Name: Miriam Green
Shadow Name: Morata
Age: Sixteen.
Gender: Female

Path: Mastigos.
Gnosis: 3
Mana: 4/12
Wisdom: 7

Arcana: Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 1, (In Progress) Spirit 1

Aspirations: Unlock the Secrets of the Fire.

Obsessions:

Virtue: Faith
Vice: Curiosity

Health: 8/8
Willpower: 7/7
Defense: 2
Destiny (Merit): 4/4

XP: 0
Arcane XP: 1

Attributes:

Strength 3, Dexterity 2*, Stamina 3
Presence 2*, Manipulation 2*, Composure 3*
Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 4

Aspects:

Promising High School Student (4): She's smart and well liked around school. In fact, she has a pretty good grasp of not merely the basics of high-school learning, but even the things that are up to the senior year. Beyond what a person might learn in a she's a little lost, and so there are limits as to the kinds of things she'd know about, but if it can be found in a textbook she might have read, she's probably read it. As well, she knows how to plan her time, to get along with other people at school and not get into fights, and otherwise do well in this respect. She's best at history.

Preacher's Daughter (3): Growing up with a father who tells the gospel word, you learn how to mimic the way he gives sermons, quote the bible chapter and verse, and know more than a little about how to interact with people and their religions, faiths, and how churches function. Whether it is mingling after church, being a sounding board for her father's sermons, or playing games that involve reciting long passages of the bible from memory, she is good at it.

*A Bit of a Tomboy (2): She's really at the age where you're supposed to outgrow this sort of thing, really. But she still likes climbing things, she still likes running around the school, she still knows a little about getting into a scrap, even if she hasn't actually gotten into a fight since...well, a few years. She's keen, athletic, and very, very interested in baseball (boo, Kansas City Monarchs, boo!) which she read about, not having a radio, and that being fledgling besides. In any wise, it certainly isn't fading with time, and it's given her a set of interests and hobbies that meshes quite interestingly with her obvious piety and (reasonably, mostly) obedient nature.

Breaker of Chains (2): Abraham Lincoln was a swell guy, in her opinion. Her own father's involvement in the NAACP and her engagement in High School history has made it so that she's actually surprisingly knowledgeable on race issues, and quite talkative about them in the right circumstances. She knows how to keep her mouth shut, of course, around older white men or the like, but she has her opinions and she wears them on her sleeve, and that includes knowing a lot of things most girls her age wouldn't know about, academically and otherwise.

A Practicing Mage (2): While Morata has a lot to learn, and has only been practicing magic for a short time, she is now fully settling into magical society. She knows the Orders, and more than that she is starting to understand both the personalities and how magic truly works. It is a long journey, but she has taken another step forward.

Can We Keep Him? (1): She has had dogs and cats before, and currently has one of each, which she of course does all of the work taking care of, because her mom said that if she had to deal with that, she'd throw them out. She has a bit of a way with animals, and after the third or fourth stray, also with people and convincing them to go along with her quite innocent and well-meaning requests.

Problem Solver (1): Kids in her neighborhood and at school tend to trust and like her, or at least she's tried to be liked, and even go to her for help sometimes, whether of an academic nature or just to see what she has to say. She's not exactly a local guru or anything, but she's clever and tends to be able to help people with minor problems, or dispense advice, even if that advice is often enough 'Really, you should tell your parents, they're gonna find out, you know, and if they find out and you didn't tell them, they'll cane your hide raw.'

Sneaking The Cookie Jar (1): She's not a dishonest person, but being someone with a lot of friends means that you sometimes know how to lie for them, and more than that, that you know a little about sneaking an extra quarter here and there. Whenever caught she's full of contrition, and more than that she's not a fundamentally dishonest person, but...well, she knows plenty of people who deserve an extra cookie every now and then.

Mother's Teachings (1): Her mother has tried to at least teach her the basics of cooking, cleaning, and keeping house. The logic that she'll probably need it if she goes to college has been pretty persuasive, and while there are gaps, she's quite self-sufficient when it comes to balancing a budget or all of the other things a modern woman is expected to do, as far as it goes. She's best at cooking meat, and her recipes are all pretty simple, but it's food that'll fill a belly, and that's the most important thing.

To Dream A Dream (1): Morata has become a truly expert in the magic of dreams, and indeed has begun to truly explore what Demons and other denizens of the Astral can and will do. This is merely an extrapolation of what she can already do, hence the discount. Special: Can use Arcane XP for this.

Powers--

Mage Sight (Peripheral, Active, and Focused): She seems to be able to see something that others cannot. Magic itself, and her eyes seem especially attuned to distances and the spaces between things, as well as the minds of other people.

Mage Armor: Mind, Space

Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 2 (In Progress up from 1)

Spirit 1 (Will complete in two weeks)

Rotes--

Dividing the Mind (Mind 1): A rote to divide the mind in two, this means that it has extra reach to add to duration and so on, and that there is a two-dice Yantra that can be done to add to the power of the spell. Involves imagining the split in her mind to enact it.

Scholar's Little Helper (Mind 1): Scholarship is hard work, and it's often difficult to sift through a five-hundred page book on Astral adventures for the single passage on a threatening Goetic demon that's currently ripping the rest of the Cabal apart. Plus, cross-referencing other works can be difficult. Through this tiny little rote, the caster can input a word, phrase, or topic, mentally, and essentially search the book just by holding it up to the light, copying knowledge of what was said in those passages and the passage surround it into their brain without having to search. It does not grant perfect understanding, and sometimes the section requires context to make any sense, but it can save weeks on a big scholarship project. (Rote Mudra, Promising Student, +4) Reach: With each additional Reach, you can search an additional book in the same spell; You can absorb the entirety of the contents of the book, if not always parse its meaning, as if you read the entire book in the instants it took to cast the spell, cover to cover. It may take some hours of thinking and consideration to fully parse the contents, and of course at times understanding and applying it can be more difficult: but an entire book read in less than a second is still something.

Strengthen Mind (Mind 3): It does not, obviously, only effect the intellect, but any aspect of one's mind can be made sharper, as can one's social abilities. The key to doing this, or rather the Mystagogue form of it, involves closing one's eyes and pressing one's fingers against your forehead, as if trying to stimulate thought by motion. When you open your eyes, the spell should be cast. You cannot improve your mind or social abilities to superhuman levels (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4), Reach: You may divide the 'Potency' of the spell, eg: Potency 4, enhance Intelligence by 1, Wits by 2, and Resolve by 1; spend a point of Mana: temporarily, for as long as the spell lasts, Attributes can reach supernatural levels.

Scholar's Protection (Mind 3): Adapted from a famous Silver Ladder rote, this grants protection ot the humble scholar. They make a sign with their hands as if their hands are books, their palms pages, and then so long as they neither attack or order an attack, others struggle to gather up the will to attack them. If they do order an attack, or attack themselves, the spell automatically fails… but only for the target, and not any others. Automatons, or beings without thought are immune, but this potent spell makes it so that anyone with a Resolve less than their Mind +1 cannot bring themselves to attack. Those that can still feel hesitation, and it is as if the Mage has two points of Armor. Supernatural beings have an advantage: if they have a supernatural trait, they get +1 to the comparison of Resolve versus Mind, if it is equal to the Mage's, they get +2, and if it is greater, they get +3… even then, a weak-willed but powerful supernatural being might find themselves frozen in fear and doubt. (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4) Reach: Spend 1 Mana, the spell may now last for an entire day; You may spend Reach to increase the difficulty of overcoming the Protection, once; Attackers lose 10-again on rolls to attack someone, if that person has willpowered through the magic.

The Dedicated Will of the Just (Mind 3): A spell taught to her by her Uncle, it is in some ways an extension of previous spells. By touching the forehead and spreading one's fingers across it, yours or others, when someone grits their teeth and uses their will, they find it stretching out, like hitting a high note and holding it for longer than a single action, based on the power of the spell. (Rote Mudra, Preacher's Daughter +3) Reach: Willpower when spent can add +2 to all resistance traits; Willpower spent both increases one's ability to endure, and one's ability to 'act'; By spending a Mana, the caster can imagine the benediction and thus enact it in a single breath on themselves or any target, as fast as the speed of thought.

Determined Will (Mind 2): The Mystagogue must go through many hardships for knowledge. Whatever a materialist thinks, anyone experienced in Mind magic knows that willpower exists, and so by a series of invisible taps against either their own or--imagined--someone else's skull. By doing so the Mage can make sure that when they, or others, gather their will for a great task, as long as it isn't magic they will get a bonus to the will-enhanced roll (9-again.) (Rote Mudra: Preacher's Daughter, +3: Inspire others and inspire yourself), Reach: The bonus can be increased; the bonus might be able to be used even to enhance magic, strengthening the will that brings itself to bear in casting a spell.



The Bonds of Fate (Fate 1): It is one thing to look at someone and see them, it is another to be able to look at them and see the destinities, the curses, the broken oaths and more that mark their soul and their persons. Mystagogues imagine a cobweb of connections and strands of fate itself, and carefully reach out a finger to tap at the edges of the cobweb without breaking it, to see what creeps up. (Mudra: Can We Keep Him? (+1), the spider spins its web.) Reach: The Mage can know when someone is possessed, mind controlled, or otherwise has their destiny majorly influenced; the Mage can tell someone's Destiny and Doom, can know when the curse they're affected by will be lifted, or so on.

The Unusual Path (Fate 1) : Fate itself can sometimes intervene in small ways. Through this spell, a Mystagogue can state a goal and then receive omens, sometimes faint and contradictory, on how to begin working towards it… and can even allow them to match strength with strength: subtly twisting fate so that their talents are just the right ones needed to advance upon the goal. Miriam uses it to occasionally leverage her way through a tricky social situation. The Mudra involves tugging on strands and pulling them in with a flip of a hand, as if examining something. (Rote Mudra: Problem Solver, +1) Reach: Can substitute any skill needed while under the spell for another within the same category, e.g. the character's religious passion turns out to be just what it might take to convince the homeless person to tell you where the body is hid, instead of a skill involving the streets or crime; Can, if taken further, substitute any skill for any other skill: your athletic prowess intimidates the homeless man, your knowledge of petty trivia charms the high society lady you need to steal from.



] No Shackles For The Scholar (Space 2): A Mystagogue cannot be stopped merely by a locked door, or being chained up above a pit of sharks while a villain monologues about how the Secret of the Amazon will die with them. So by imagining their own escape, and circling around that thought a few times as fast as possible, they can affect it. Any one barrier: locked door, handcuffs, barred window, or so on is fine… though it cannot get one through a bouncer or through fire. It can also be cast on an object, such as if you want to push a macguffin through a locked door and then face the enemy yourself. (Rote Mudra: Breaker of Chains, +2), Reach: Can pass through even shackles or objects they could not move through, such as being chained up, or trapped in a coffin, or anything else; subject can squeeze through narrow gaps that they should not physically be able to make it through: you can in fact drive a car through an open front door half its width if you cast this spell on it.
Merits--

(**) 'Profession'--Student
1--Gain 9-again on any roll that can be justified as having to do with one's profession.
2--Gain two dots of Contacts related to one's 'profession.'
3--+1 to rolls against any mental, physical or social stress that might get in the way of performing one's profession.[1] This cannot create a positive bonus.

4--8-again on rolls.
5--One special bonus based on the nature of the 'profession.

[1] Okay, in this case, imagine the college student who is good enough at class that he can show up hungover and still get something out of class, or the athlete who can go out not feeling 100% and still actually manage not to fuck everything up forever, even if he's not putting in his best performance.

(***) Parents: It may seem absurd to say it, but having parents in the picture who can help solve moderate problems is a boon. Obviously the drawback is that if they get involved and it's over her head, it could end badly, and that more than that, they obviously are sure they know best, but asking Mom or Dad is totally an option available to her, and one that can enlist their aid and ask their advice.

(***) Contacts:

She has contacts with both People She Knows At Church, a broad group but in some ways self-selecting, and among those kids she knows around the neighborhood, as well as People At School. People are willing to talk to her, ask her advice, and that goes both ways, doesn't it? If she wants to ask around, she could certainly do worse than asking when she's at church, with someone inclined to see her well already.

Egregore--Mysteriorum Arche (•): In a teamwork spellcasting roll in which the character is participating, she does not suffer the –3 penalty to contribute without the necessary Arcanum rating, and adds an automatic success if a full participant. All members of the ritual team must possess this Merit.

(*)Language: Latin

She knows Latin, read and spoken.

(*) Order Status (Mysterium)

She has been initiated in the first mystery of the Mystagogues.

(*) High Speech

She can use High Speech as a Yantra in spellcasting, and knows enough to be (roughly) conversational outside of the very formal language of Spellcasting.

(*) Egregore

1) In a teamwork spell in which she participates, she doesn't take -3 to the roll if she couldn't cast the spell on her own, and if she can she adds an automatic success to her dice roll for the purpose of granting the ritual leader the bonus dice. However, everyone involved in the ritual must have this level of Egregore. This represents her connection to magic, and through it, others of the Order.

(*) Resources:

She has a little bit of spending money saved up. Not much at all, but it's something. And it's more than a lot of people have, and so she knows to be grateful for it.

(****) Destiny

Effect: Miriam does not yet know the specifics, but she is destined for greatness and yet also doomed in some way.

Currently at 4/4.

(***) Astral Adept: Can enter the Astral far easier, by paying just a WP and meditating.

(***) True Friend (Virginia)

Effect: Miriam has a true friend. True Friend represents a trusting relationship that cannot be easily breached. Unless Miriam really does something to deserve it (really, really) Virginia will not betray her, and I, the QM, has to go easy on her in terms of throwing her into danger. Slightly kid gloves with her, as part of an implicit contract, though that does not mean that Miriam's mistakes or actions might not involve her in deeper problems than she should be facing. And any roll, natural or supernatural, that has the purpose of influencing Virginia against Miriam takes a 5-dice penalty. Additionally, once per...let's say week, Miriam can regain a point of Willpower by having a meaningful/heartfelt/important interaction with Virginia.

Consilium Status (*): Consilium--Increasingly she is a known entity, someone whose existence is no secret at all and whose fame is even harder to deny.

Contacts: Vampires (1)--Her work with vampires means she has a greater awareness of where she can go to talk to them, especially once she thinks through what she saw.

Allies (1): Guardians of the Veil--In the aftermath of yet another Interview with a Vampire, she has been contacted by the Guardians of the Veil, who are curious and who are willing to trade curiosity for curiosity.

Trained Memory (1): She has trained her mind to be something like a steel trap, though perhaps rather more effective than that, all things considered: steel traps can rust, because outside of stressful moments she never needs to roll to remember anything… she just remembers, and without Magic at all.

Minor Elements:

--Having studied a Spirit Bestiary, Miriam is now more able to tell some common spirits apart, even without using magic, and can call up basic facts about said common spirits.
--Has the Memories of a vampire in her head, which can be examined/considered later.
 
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Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Go with Meadowlark and talk about spirits and see some demonstrations of Spirit and the like.
No. of votes: 12
Kelirapc, mori, Neptune, Nevill, Indivisible, Andelevion, Unstorpable, Zeitgeist Blue, Generalissimo, Vanguard_D, veekie, notanautomaton

[X] Go via the Streetcars to Fort Dearborn to meet with whatever skeleton crew of Adamantine Arrows are there, and their spirits that guard the location that shouldn't exist at all.
No. of votes: 5
djd, NemoMarx, Broken25, pantherasapiens, Romv
 
That, and identification. Like, they identify themselves with their cars, and the people it's talking about in this particular case are black people for whom a car is a big status symbol. So the cars have 'black skin' stretched over the metal, as it were. Spirits are weird. :p
It's little touches like this really bringing your setting to life!
 
Page 11: The Beginning of an Education
Page 11: The Beginning of an Education?

Three people walked down a street, and all three of them must have been thinking. Miriam was thinking about the light. That was something she hadn't expected. It was called the Shadow, and so a part of her, an obvious part that interpreted things almost literally ,had expected it in some way to be darker, dingier. And it was true that there were ruined husks of cars here and there, or bottles that rolled down the streets, their labels unreadable.

It was in fact a very bizarre place, though at the moment nothing stood out to her as particularly wrong.

But it wasn't dark. In fact, there was something like a sun in the sky. Or rather, there was light coming down, and it was approximately evening as she looked at Meadowlark, and then back at her Uncle...and then, trotting along, Sunclaw. They were headed uptown, away from the business districts, towards what were probably quite decent houses in the real world. Here they were a little different, though. Some were normal, while others seemed older, more decrepit, and notably…

The first thing she'd seen since she'd gone on her way that almost made her stop. One of the houses, a plain white one, was stretched out, and there were handprints on the windows, bloody ones. She could hear something like music coming from the house, something from a music-box, and she shivered.

"That...that's not a house you want to go in," Meadowlark admitted, looking back at Miriam as the girl paused right on the sidewalk to look at it. "It's a house that's had a lot happen to it. And in it. People have died there, and things that have a resonance in the real world have a resonance in its Shadow."

"The more the better. Some guns you find here are just the image of guns, no insides...and not everything here is a Spirit. Most of those buildings are just the reflection of human awareness," Jack said, waving his hand. "Only with little odds and ends changed."

"Yes, that is true," Meadowlark said. "Be wary about what is and isn't a spirit. Even the weakest spirit can be dangerous. Though they can also be allies. The world of Spirits has existed side by side with humanity as long as we've existed, and understanding them is important."

"Are there spirits of…" Miriam frowned, trying to formulate her thoughts. Because thus far most of the spirits she'd seen had been questionable, or at least strange. "Are there spirits that cannot form? Are there types of spirits that are less hostile to humans than others?"

"Anything at all can be a spirit. There are spirits powerful enough that they are worshipped as gods," Meadowlark said, gesturing around, "Too powerful for us to bind, often too powerful to fight. Not that we would. It's a delicate ecosystem that we need to maintain, because it really is the world. You could even in theory travel around the world in Shadow and then exit in Shadow. Each place connects to its location, if it has one, on earth." She smiled, a soft, grandmotherly smile, her face pale, brushing back her hair. "Though I would know far less about movement than Dancing Shadow would."

She smiled, softly, and Sunclaw yawned. Her smile turned into a frown.

"Is she interested in this?" Sunclaw asked, "I'm sure she wants practical information too! Like what spirits are around here."

"I'm happy learning anything you'd like to teach me, ma'am," Miriam said, politely. She glanced over at the other woman. Her old face still felt unfamiliar in other ways. The air felt heavy, and yet she didn't doubt that Meadowlark meant well. What she didn't understand...okay, she understood the tone actually, but it was still bizarre to her.

Hard to place.

"Well, if you want to know, the city has city spirits, obviously, but also, us Folk and others have been working on trying to keep Spirits away from certain areas."

"How do you do that?" Miriam asked, frowning as they walked down the street, which seemed particularly lonely.

"Well, there's only so much you can do on one side of it." Meadowlark shook her head, "Conservation efforts have to run into the fact that ultimately spirits aren't predictable. That house...it looks just normal on earth. Bad spirits, or at least spirits that are out of control, crop up everywhere, and any spirit that starts out relatively harmless, if let outside of its ecosystem or left to grow too wild, can be dangerous. Happiness is a good emotion, and yet a spirit that feeds on the happiness of drunks becomes what it eats. Something that encourages people to drink."

Miriam wrinkled her nose and thought it through. That meant that on the human side of things, every possession…

Every possession. "So objects can become spirits, right? So what decides what they mean?"

"What people think they mean. The gun that someone uses to murder people in gangland warfare means death and power," Meadowlark said, tapping her staff on the ground and pausing.

Sunclaw began to circle around her as the woman spoke. "It means hatred, too. There are spirits of hatred just as there are spirits of love, of faith. Go to Jerusalem and you can find faith spirits on every corner, everywhere in the Twilight and growing in number endlessly, as Zionists immigrate, as the world shifts its balance. So, on the side of humanity, what can we do?"

She shook her head, and now Miriam could hear something in the distance. Birds singing, and the smell of the first flowers of spring, and Meadowlark said. "So we work here. We can know what weaknesses a spirit has. All spirit has things it cannot do, and things that harm it. A spirit cannot act against its nature. A spirit of superstitious dread might not be able to step on a crack or walk under a ladder. You can also make certain things harder to feed on."

Her eyes were hard as she looked into the far distance, at something Miriam couldn't see. "You could make it so that a person was impossible to gain essence from. If you did it carefully enough, suddenly the wrong sorts of spirits are starving unless they change, unless they start eating things that change them. Hopefully not for the worse. And spirits like anything can be made to sleep."

"I feel," Miriam began, and then paused, flushing and looking down. Suddenly she was aware that she might have interrupted something.

"Go on, speak," Meadowlark said, sounding annoyed. Annoyed at being interrupted?

Miriam hesitated.

Sunclaw trotted over to her and looked up at her. "What is it that spirits can do? You said they feed on essence of the type that they are?"

"And that which is close to them," Meadowlark. "A dog might feed on dog essence, but they might try to feed on cat essence, but it wouldn't be as...nourishing. And it changes them, grants them a new nature. A dog that is like a cat, or a car that is like despair after its owner kills itself. They have the power to influence and act via their nature. Rage can make rage, or weaken it, fire can make more of itself...and they have to eat or they die. Every day they hunt, and every day plenty of spirits are eaten, for spirits have essence too, or die. They live short lives, most of them, without being much or doing much." She shook her head, "For every spirit that lives, many others must die. It's a natural cycle, for something…"

"Supernatural," Jack supplied.

"People can make spirits, or change spirits. It is all a matter of having the skill and knowing this place." Meadowlark shook her head, "I have studied the Shadow for over a decade. Sometimes you stroll down a street and nothing happens...and sometimes…"

She paused, and a figure moved from around the bend, stepping onto the sidewalk, each step careful. It was a strange figure. It looked like a bird, but it was taller. A bird in the shape of a man, and yet taller still than that, with a white breast but huge, blue wings that seemed to spread out as it walked on its feet. And a beak that seemed open in a song that didn't seem to stop. It just kept up, and hearing it, Miriam felt something light and...powerful move through her.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt as if, what? As if she could truly learn about the Shadow, as if, however confusing this was, she would prevail.

The song was low and sweet, without words but seeming not to need it, and the eyes of the creature...it had no eyes, Miriam realized. It stepped forward as if it could see though, and moved right towards her.

"Hope is a thing--"

"The thing," Jack corrected.

Meadowlark frowned, "The thing with feathers, that perches in the soul."

Every step it took forward made its song louder and louder, and Miriam's head seemed to explode with ideas, with thoughts, as it approached. It trilled a single note and then leaned in, towards Miriam, who hesitated.

"It will not kill. It cannot kill, only create," Sunclaw hissed, "It is a strange thing. The Mages protect it so, they feed it so. I'm just a familiar, and a cat, so of course they ignore me."

She reached out, and touched its head, barely able to stand, so full and swollen was her heart with emotions. Hope. This was a spirit of hope. Or something like it. She felt her mind swell with ideas, with ambitions. Of making the world better, of all she could do with an education, for her race and for her country and for her religion. The thoughts tumbled one after another, as she stroked the head of the thing.

It was soft, and downy, and its song seemed to grow louder as it looked at her.

Jack, oddly, seemed tense, or at least she saw him moving, stepping forward.

Her knees did buckle then, and yet somehow she didn't fall. She saw that Jack had his arm on her shoulder, and yet she still continued to stroke.

With each moment, the emotions grew, the ambitions. She could go to college, and then what? For a moment she imagined political offices, a thought so absurd as to be insane, she imagined the good she could do, and churches, ministries, social work or study into the nature of the world. The thoughts all came tumbling out, her ambitions growing more and more; all the things she could do for the world, all of the things she could do in the world.

She could explore the world, going to distant places to see what beauty lay there, and she could help the people there. She read of poverty here, poverty everywhere, and as a Mage, surely she had the power to help others. It was...it was useless if all it could do was amuse her. And she could learn, she could learn what these Archmages were, she could learn what Mages could do and what she could do as a Mage and--

It pulled away, and Meadowlark gaped at her. "Not a...huh. Those are some ambitions."

The thing turned, still singing that song, and walked off, its tail feathers flicking back and forth as Sunclaw hissed at it.

Only then did she collapse to the ground. The hope just as quickly slipped away, or at least it reduced itself to sanity. Her, a Senator? She was a negro. Her, to feed the whole world? She was one woman. Her, to be a great discoverer of new ideas? She was a woman. Every hope crashed down at once, so unstable was their edifice. So unlikely their aims.

It almost hurt, that feeling.

"Some ambitions?"

"It is tasked to punish people," Jack said, "Just as it rewards. It makes hopes run wild. A starving man hopes for a crust of bread, and that is well and good, but it has been taught morality, and so it watches, it feels, that hope turn into a desire for a feast, for a thousand feasts, no matter who might starve. And so it pecks them, just once, it hurts for a while, but…"

Jack shrugged, "Many say it's worth it."

"My hopes, they were proud," Miriam admitted, "And many of them were selfish. Exploring the world, becoming a better Mage? Even if...even if I meant some of them to good purpose, there was still my own--"

"I don't doubt it," Meadowlark said, "It isn't human, and Hopemore has learned only what people can teach it.[1] I don't know you, but I do know that hopes such as that, ambitions such as that...their dark sides do not register with a being like that." She nodded to herself and said, "You meet spirits like that."

"A person can be drugged on hope," Jack said, "Just like anything else."

"Maybe so," Meadowlark conceded.

"Boring...show her some magic," Sunclaw said, giving a cattish yawn as they finally started walking down the streets.

*****

Lying in her bed, Miriam could not sleep. Or would not sleep. She had seem some impressive and strange things, some of them done to spirits that were rolling cogs on the ground, or gathering balls of lightning or smoke. Some of which looked like people, but without mouths, or like dogs, but with far too many teeth. Strange things, and stranger magic. All of it left her heart racing. All of it excited her in a way she knew it shouldn't. Or rather, she knew that watching bits of spirit be shaped into new forms, watching spirits be held back or hidden from view, watching all of it and playing close attention...it was all so fascinating, and yet.

And yet she...well, she didn't feel bad for the Spirits, so much as she felt as if she were on the edge of a precipice. Like this was something she didn't understand, and couldn't understand.

And so she barely slept and woke tired to the last Thursday of the school year. The weather really was nice, the sun shining down with such brightness as she walked through the halls. Were their spirits of hatred here? Spirits of knowledge and learning? Spirits of a thousand kinds? She couldn't see them, if they existed, but she could imagine them. She could fill the vision in her head, in the spaces of this school--spaces she knew better than ever before, down to their exact dimensions. This twilight, this...everything.

It was amazing, and yet there was nobody she could talk to it about. Nobody she could share with as the classes finished up. Nothing was going to be done on the second to last day, though there would be an assembly on the final day.

So she waited, and at last the class rankings came. Not important, in one sense. It wasn't something that mattered except perhaps as a senior, and even then...but Miriam had been waiting for this, half her mind bent towards it.

First in the class. "At least among negroes," a teacher had whispered when she turned her back.

First, still. That was something, she thought, taking a breath. If she was the sort of person who got angry that easily, she would have never…

Still, it was frustrating. Dickens came up to her with his solid fourth, smiling at her, and she tried to smile back. And that's what she'd heard. Respect. Not that there weren't some teachers here that respected her, but the inflection of Meadowlark's voice had been...unexpected. For someone like her, at least.

Dickens didn't seem to care, seemed glad for what he'd gotten and how he'd done in the entire large class. He clapped her on the shoulder, a rather more effusive gesture than she was used to from the short boy. Not that he couldn't be highly emotional, but she'd never seen him go to a ball game, except when she dragged him along.

"And so school is almost done with," he said, "Freshman year."

"Yes, Freshman year," Miriam said, nodding to herself.

"This is just the start, you know," he said, leaning in close to her. "Once I graduate high school I'm going to go to college, even if I have to work my way through it with backbreaking work--"

"Might want to start now, then," Miriam said, teasingly, "Or maybe exercise a little, so your back doesn't break."

Dickens chuckled, "Maybe so." He frowned. Money, money was always an issue. But he was smart, he could...well, she could too. There was a thought, and one that had not occurred to her
even in the height of the excessive hope, because it took a little looking at the situation from a different angle. Could Mages use their magic to make money? It seemed almost profane in a way to think about, but if Mages could control spirits and minds and teleport...well, there were any number of uses that all of that could theoretically be put to. A trader could cross a great distance with his goods in no time at all, though then again wouldn't people ask how he'd--

Well, it was a lot to think about. Certainly, if she had money to throw around, she'd want Dickens to be able to go to college, and there were all sorts of other things money could get. Things money could do for her. So she went home after talking to Virginia a little more, and kept on thinking.

*****

She thought into Friday, when they assembled for speeches and goodbyes, when the entirety of the school was ready to leave. The teachers, the students, everyone had a summer ahead of them, and summer plans, and she was one of them too. She was going to become a Mage, she was going to learn more about this...about everything.

About Spirits and about the world, and summer meant she had time for it. And yet, she also hoped she had time for her friends, for the people who meant things to her. She hoped that she could do everything, and wished she could do more than that.

It was a fine, fine day, the sun shining high as she ran home. Ran, for that's what she felt like, full of energy, the heat not bothering her any, the wind blustering as she ran.

She reached home ready for a drink, her mouth dry, and opened the door to see...Uncle Jack?

She had been thinking when she'd mentioned going to a baseball game, when she'd stepped out back into the world, that he meant Saturday.

After a moment's reflection, standing at the door, she realized he had said Saturday. And yet he was here, him and his ugly carpet bag.

Mom was bustling around, nervously. Glancing at him every so often. The nerves weren't anything directly to do with him, it was more that she didn't like Jack, and that meant that her every move was careful, as if he was judging her.

She didn't like him, and Mom was someone who was always careful about how social impressions formed. Miriam knew her mother well enough to know she suspected the feeling was mutual.

And maybe it was. If so, then it was also clear that Jack wasn't bothered any by the fact that he didn't like his brother's wife, wasn't insecure, could joke about it. As he had. It was hard sometimes to see through his mask.

Miriam was not someone with that much of a mask, not compared to him. When he looked up, the shock registered in her face as she stepped forward, smelling cooking roast as she did.

"Uncle," she said. "I thought you said Saturday--"

"I did, but there are games today, too, if we hurry on, aren't there? Or perhaps we could wait on that."

Miriam frowned, remembering what he'd said. He'd talked about how it was one thing to know the Shadow, to know a few of the various powers and ways that spirits could interact with the world, but seeing them in Twilight, seeing the way the world shifted and moved, would be more important. Exploring the Shadow, he'd said, was something that most Mages didn't do, while all Mages had to deal with spirits in Twilight whether they liked it or not.

And here it was.

"What is this about?" she asked, "Is it--"

"We can talk upstairs."

"What fool thing are you involving Miriam in now," Mom said. She had one hand on her hip, though she was too busy with the cooking to really come over there and do anything.

"Nothing," Jack said.

Miriam's face probably gave away that it was far more than nothing, but she couldn't help it. She was trying to figure out what was going on.

*****

Upstairs, he sat on her bed and stretched his legs out, running a hand through his short hair, as if trying to arrange it. "So, I've figured out what the other thing I saw was."

"Oh?" Miriam asked.

"There is a place called the Astral. It's a layered realm. Dreams, the inside of one's mind, the mind's of all of humanity, the mind of the world...a place of thought and form." He shook his head. "Some people naturally have a resonance with it. It reflects in them, and they can access such places easier. Some people learn how to gain it, though it is not an easy task. Without this resonance, it takes access to special locations, and considerable expenditures, to get there."

"And I have this resonance?"

"Yes, you do. So, I was thinking: we could go to a game now, and I could show you how spirits influence people in the here and now, show how they can drive people. I think that would be a worthy lesson. Or we could try to see if you could enter your own mind."

"Now?" she asked, startled. She didn't know much about psychology, besides that it existed. The beliefs of the people involved, other than a few names, were a blank page in her knowledge. It wasn't something she'd ever thought to look at.

"Now. Either way, I wanted to see which you were interested in. I think that both lessons are valuable, but I also have...there are things I'd need to do tomorrow anyways, and Sunday as well."

"Does it involve the Abyss and these...spirits?" Miriam asked, frowning.

"Yes. It seems that Mages might be involved. Or perhaps other, stranger creatures. They were doing something to spirits involving paradox, and plenty of the spirits in the area, even those not corrupted, are agitated. Angry. They're on a very minor warpath, in fact, so we're going to try to sooth tempers, and so I don't know if I'd have time tomorrow, either way."

It sounded very, very important, and so Miriam nodded. She thought about it. Inside her own mind...and yet, there was also the temptation to see how spirits lived in the world.

She thought. She decided. School was over...it was time for a different sort of education.

Which does she choose?

[] Watch spirits in the ballpark. And more than that, watch her uncle influence spirits in order to demonstrate their uses on people. But will he be the only one there with an agenda?
[] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?

*****
[1] Later, her Uncle said. "Don't let it make you too proud. It sees purity of motivation, not rightness of it. And it misses a lot of moral quandaries. It doesn't understand people." And she appreciated those words, because she hated the idea of someone else simply...telling her that she was good, especially when the pride and the ambition displayed there could as easily lead her wrong.

******

Hope's Test:
Reward: 1/5th XP (Most Mages take it at least once for the sweet XP, so it's a local tradition)

Spirit Lessons: 1/5th Arcane XP
+In the Shadow (The Most Dangerous Option): 1/5th Arcane XP.

Conversation: 2 (Presence)+1 (Likes Cats)+1 (Wants Good Impression=2 sux

Learning: 4 dice (Intelligence)-1 (Untrained penalty)-1 (Untrained MAGIC penalty in a non-Path area.)=1 sux

Learning 2: Failure

Luck 1: 1d100=92

Conversation With A Thing: 2 (Presence)+1 (Can We Keep It)+1 (Familiar)=1 sux

Conversation, Other 2: 2 (Presence)+1 (Likes Cats)=1

Learning 3: 3 dice=3 sux

Conversation with Friend: 3 sux

Untrained Magical Thinking: 4-1=3 dic=1 sux

A/N: So, the front page has been updated with the secret Merit unlocked. Yay! Also, sorry it took so long to update.
 
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[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?

If we get to take two tutorings for one area and one for the other, I'll vote to put the second into Spirit because I prefer that one, but we should not leave Mind unexplored. Especially if we have a merit helping it as well as it being a favored arcana.
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
"Boring...show her some magic," Sunclaw said, giving a cattish yawn as they finally started walking down the streets.
I love this cat. I'm biased to appreciate disdain in feline creatures, but that's a cat person for you. Also, all that hope, bruh......What a rush, just reading it!! Great descriptions.

Yeah, I'm interested in the Mind stuff, sorry baseball! :D
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
What's that inside?

[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?

I don't know, let's find out!
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?

God, this was a hard choice.
 
[X] Learn to access the inner realms of her mind. Her Oneiros, as he will soon teach her to call it. But in one's own mind, what will she find?
 
Could Mages use their magic to make money? It seemed almost profane in a way to think about, but if Mages could control spirits and minds and teleport...well, there were any number of uses that all of that could theoretically be put to. A trader could cross a great distance with his goods in no time at all, though then again wouldn't people ask how he'd--

Having access to the spark of God on earth makes bootlegging a lot easier.
 
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