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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Page 25: Her Best Fiend, part 2
Page 25: Her Best Fiend, Part 2

Miriam was a girl who could usually be counted on to realize things, eventually. Like that this was foolish and she really needed to plan ahead before taking the words of some bizarre demon aspect of Virginia's. It wasn't evil, necessarily, but then maybe it was? She looked at the other girl, older than the Virginia she knew, and more confident. Oddly, or perhaps encouragingly, her skin was no lighter than before. Her hair was still straightened, and the length of the skirt on her dress was not proper, but she was still recognizable.

The other girl looked over at her, appraisingly. Thought was in her eyes as she sat down, and Miriam moved right next to her, thinking, breathing. She ran a hand through her hair, and found it was still different. It was starting to come back to what she knew was normal and proper, but it was still straighter than she was used to, and her fingers glided through it. She glanced over at not-Virginia.

"You're her, right?"

"Yes, I am," Virginia said, and that was another thing. Her voice was entirely without even a trace of accent: which was to say, she was northern-ized, as it were. "I am as much a part of her as anything else, and she doesn't like me because of that. Hates me, in fact. But she can be convinced, she needs to be convinced. She can't' stay where she is, can't refuse one of the only ways she might be able to maybe crawl on up."

"One of the only ways?" Miriam asked, looking over, stretching a little. The wind blew through the trees, which seemed to sing. It was a beautiful day, and yet the words seemed cool, calculated. But the distance itself seemed almost artificial. "Is she really that....unconfident?"

"Of course she is! Look at you." Not-Virginia paused, "Really, look at you. Pretty and athletic and pious and smart, good with animals and not that bad at cooking, considering all of the other things you do with your life." She put her hands on her knee, as if posing, "The very model of what a young Negro girl should be. And if you're struggling, if you might not have a path forward, what about her? Her skin's too dark to be in show business, even if she was that sort, and maybe she is." The demon shook her head, the motion curt, and then she smiled, "She wants more than she can grasp, being who she is. There's no sin in ambition."

"As long as it doesn't lead to sins, no there isn't," Miriam said, nodding, "I...I guess I understand, but me, pretty? Virginia--"

Miriam paused, the words she was going to say sinking in. Virginia was much prettier than I am, surely she'd find a way. But...what kind of thought was that? A reasonable one, wasn't it, but it felt wrong to say it. Rude, and unfair, and more than that…

"I know. She underestimates herself...but her estimation of you is spot on," Not-Virginia said, and there was this odd accent that Miriam guessed was fake-British, "You really are amazing, you know that." She shifted closer to Miriam and said, "Understand that, if you're going to do anything. She's afraid of you, more afraid than she can say, because she knows that you're…"

Not-Virginia shrugged. "Closer to perfect than she is."

Miriam goggled, touching her arm for a moment, startled by the very idea. The wind went through the trees, the sky was blue, and someone had...really? "Does she view me like that? She shouldn't. It's only...it's only going to lead to disappointment." A thousand thorns, a thousand nails driven into her flesh. She hated when people expected nothing of her. She'd hated the way some of the teachers had looked at her with that startled puppy look when she got an answer right, she'd hated that...but the opposite? She didn't want to be an idol, because...it wasn't as if Virginia treated her like that.

She was playful, she was funny, she as irrelevant and constantly urging Miriam to try to dress up a little more. But did she look at her that way deep down?

"Don't talk like that." A hand rested on her shoulder, the nails white and long, impractical, soft looking. "People look up to you, and you like that, don't you? You always seemed to enjoy helping other people."

"I do," Miriam said, "It's just that…"

She tried to put it into words. Now that she had magic, now that she'd gone through a crisis and her ambitions, her dreams had suddenly grown larger, she felt like she'd inherited her mother's clothes. She'd felt perfectly fitted for the ambitions and goals of her life before: grow up, go to college probably, get married maybe or something (she hadn't thought much about that), try to advance the Race however she could, try to advance herself however she could, and remain in faith with the Lord until He called her home.

It wasn't a vision of her life that lacked scope, but now she was more than that, now she would do far more than that if she could only grasp it. Did she deserve it? She didn't know what one could even do to deserve it, really. "There's a lot more to do. A lot of pressure, and Sara…"

"Sara was...somehow cursed or something?"

"Yes. Her mind warped and twisted. She was going to befriend me to attack me, but in doing so...the person hurt her. They hurt her really badly," Miriam said, trying not to tell too much. "And I could do nothing. I'm not strong, not as a...root woman, I suppose you'd say. I couldn't help her, and it might be years before I could have. She was just my friend because someone wanted something from me, and it got my thinking, thinking that other people want things from me. You want to go to the Temenos, don't you?"

Not-Virginia's eyes were wide, and she reached out and grabbed Miriam's shoulder, "W-we don't have to talk about that now. If we just go to her, you can introduce yourself." There was an odd note of desperation in her voice, and Miriam nodded.

"So, do you want to go?" Miriam asked. "Can you lead me to her?"

******

It was a department store like none that existed. The place seemed filled with light, and there was a quiet feeling to it that only heightened just how empty it was. Of people, but not things. Dresses hung on racks, perfume bottles were strewn around on the floor, the whole place seeming filled with objects, with things. Some of the perfume bottles were open, and when you combined the smell of all of them, it was honestly sickeningly sweet.

She followed Not-Virginia through this chapel to consumption. This gallery of greed. A place to try what she could not afford in life, Miriam realized, trying to be less judgmental. Their footsteps echoed on the tiles, and their shadows bounced this way and that, the light shifting constantly, bright as it was.

They found her in front of a mirror, barely dressed, in her underwear and a bra, holding a dark blue dress in front of her. The look on her face was despairing, but it was a familiar despair: the kind of look she gave as she was working through some problem. "No, that's not quite...what?"

She turned around. Not-Virginia was walking first, and for a moment, that's all Virginia saw. "What are you doing here? The answer is no! It's always no, and in just a few years, you'll be gone!"

"Is that what you think? You can't believe everything you read in a book," Not-Virginia said, as Virginia saw her.

"What? You think bringing some dream version of my friend will convince me of anything?" Virginia asked, though she tensed anyways.

"Virginia," Miriam said, "I'm not a dream version. I...came to visit."

"What?!" Virginia half-leapt out of her skin, pulling the dress in front of her, looking around at the whole store as if trying to figure out what incriminating things she could hide, and fast. It would almost be amusing, but the desperation in her gaze, the animal panic, made Miriam sad. As if she'd really be that judgmental of a little indulgence in a dream?

"I...have the ability to enter dreams now," Miriam said, "Ever since I had a dream."

"The dream?" Virginia asked, "The ones you were having?"

"Yes. It's...there are other abilities associated with it, but it turns out that there is magic in this world," Miriam said, "I'm...very new to this, but I wanted to check on something with you. I was able to see that there was something different about you--"

"Different? About me? Not really," Virginia said, quickly, "I'm perfectly normal. I mean, there's her, but she's just an ab...aber…"

"Aberration?" Miriam supplied.

"Yes. Yes she is. Now, thanks for checking up on me but I'm fine you can leave now."

"Ha. Even now? It amuses me," Not-Virginia said. "It's just a department store, that's nothing to hide. Your best friend came to visit you in your dreams and told you she had magical powers and in fact knew more about me than I knew, and you're brushing her off?"

"No! Of course not," Virginia said, "It's just...I mean, it is my mind, right? While this would be a great place to help you develop a fashion sense and all, since it's all a dream and we can try on anything, that's for some other time."

"Develop a fashion sense," Not-Virginia said, shaking her head, "Why don't you ask her what she can do? I mean, you're a root woman, right? Can you mix potions?"

"My powers are more...mental. It's why I noticed something in the first place. You seemed to, when I tried to...read it, have a sort of split nature."

Virginia looked ill, "What else can you do?"

"Well, there's a lot," Miriam said, "I'm still just learning, and I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to tell you. Just...I have a few abilities and I'm working on others. Are you okay, Virginia?"

She didn't look okay. "I'm fine." She really didn't.

"Please, you can talk to me," Miriam said, "I just wanted to see. I was worried. And I shouldn't have been." She stepped forward, and drew Virginia into a warm hug. Virginia had been a cuddlebug when she was younger, and after a moment she hugged back. She was soft.

"Worried about what?"

"I'm, not sure how much I can tell you, but I suppose I could tell you more than I've told…" she began, and then glanced over at Not-Virginia.

"Oh, ignore me. You all do," Not-Virginia said with theatrical amusement. She tilted her head and her whole body, a girlish pout on her face.

"Well, you can listen in too, but it's not that much you didn't know, though there's one more detail I guess I could tell you, if you promised not to let it get out…"

******

"Of course you have a special destiny," Not-Virginia said, at the end of the explanation, "Do you know what it is?"

"No, I don't," Miriam said.

"Is there any way I can help?" Virginia asked.

"I'm not sure yet. There's a lot I'm not sure of," Miriam admitted. She stretched a little, "But...we'll figure this out, right?"

"Do you think…" Virginia began, and then looked away.

"What?"

"Do you think, if I embraced the powers or whatever she's offering, that I might be able to help you more? Do you know what they are?"

"You shouldn't think about it that way," Miriam said, "I'm not the…"

"I do. Can you answer my question?" Virginia said.

Miriam glanced over to see, as expected, a look of triumph upon Not-Virginia's face.

"Maybe. Maybe it would. I don't know the details, but there are beings called Demons in the collective unconscious. They are representations of what people see as sins or evil, and they sometimes grant their power or pass on some of it to a mortal. Sometimes they sire them, or...something, and then those people have the possibility to use that power," Miriam said, trying to give roughly what she understood for a second time.

"It's not wrong?" Virginia asked.

"I...don't know. I have magic, isn't that against the bible? But now that I have it, I feel like it can't be anything other than right. Just, know that I'm your friend."

"I know," Virginia said, her voice soft, "I know."

******

Miriam woke at midnight, and kicked and turned for another hour before she could, at last, give up trying to sleep. And so she read.

A healthy body, so the rotes promised, and that's what they promised. The first chapter talked of diet, of the way a healthy diet was the key to many religious practices. One fasted to show one's devotion to God, even if in these modern days, it was a matter of showing one's devotion to thinness. Similarly, one's understanding of the principles of health and exercise could be encapsulated in a single gesture, a clearing of the arm from one side of the body to the other, representing the flow…

It got hard to understand at that point, and into the next chapter, which talked about ancient practices and rituals from India, and only towards the middle finally returned to trying to explain this latest Rote.

She didn't understand it, and eventually she put it away and drifted off into sleep.

The next morning, she had even more training with her Uncle.

And she had some choices, some ways to approach things.

Tell Uncle about what she did?

[] No.
[] Yes.

Mind Training! What does she want to focus on? (Choose 2)

[] Influencing other minds.
[] Dreams, and the mental world.
[] Protecting the mind, and shaping it.
[] The Ruling Arcana.
[] The Veiling Arcana.
[] Write-in.

******
If she had Life, she just got a Purge Toxin Rote out of it, and a second Rote that she's struggling with, slightly. She doesn't, but keep that in mind.

I could: 4 (Power)+5 (Best Friend)=2 sux
Could: 4 (Power+5 (Best Friend)=4 sux
Half: 3 (Not-Virginia's Power)+5 (Best Friends)+1 (Bonus)=3 sux

Willpower +1

Real Virginia: 4 (Power)+5 (Best friend)-2 (Home Invasion)+3 (Willpower in, willpower out)=2 sux

Real Virginia, Try two: 4+5-1=3 sux

Please Talk to me: 4 sux

Sleep Deprived Reading: 0 sux

******

A/N: And there we go. It ends for now...but only for now.
 
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[X] No.

[X] Protecting the mind, and shaping it.
[X] Influencing other minds.

Protection seems like a really basic thing, and a combination of shaping and influencing gives us more direct ways to act?
 
[X] Yes.
[X] Dreams, and the mental world.
[X] The Veiling Arcana.
 
[X] Yes.
[X] Dreams, and the mental world.
[X] The Veiling Arcana.

I think it was rather silly to go into the her mind without telling our Uncle, so yes is an obvious answer. We particularly need to do so now that Virginia's more inclined to explore Temeros, and we should want for her to do so safely and with adequate knowledge.

For the options Dreams and the Mental world for obvious reason, and the veiling arcana so we can more easily hide given we're just a newbie mage at this point.
 
[X] Yes
[X] Dreams, and the mental world.
[X] The Veiling Arcana.
 
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[X] Yes.
[X] Dreams, and the mental world.
[X] The Veiling Arcana.

Yeah, newbie mage's shields are like tissue paper. But if they don't see you, they don't target you.

Admittedly Mages tend to be good at the whole Seeing thing, but there's the everything ELSE out there.
 
[x] Yes.

I think we have reached the limits of what we could toy with, unsupervised. It is time to seek counsel of our more experienced peers.
We will probably be taking Virginia in Temeros if Jack does not come up with sufficiently scary reasoning as to why we should not.

[x] Dreams, and the mental world.
[x] The Veiling Arcana.

I rather like our dreamwalking.
 
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[X] No.
It's none of his business.
[X] Dreams, and the mental world.
[X] The Veiling Arcana.

Shouldn't it be The Veiling/Ruling Practice, instead of Arcana?
 
Tally incoming.
Adhoc vote count started by NemoMarx on Mar 29, 2017 at 3:36 PM, finished with 1645 posts and 14 votes.
 
Also, now that it's getting closer to done, I can reveal that I spent...a considerable amount of money on some art for this fic.

...and might spend some more, because I'm liking what I'm seeing so far, and I have another idea, actually.

You'll see it...soon enough.
 
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