[Mage] The Avatar Pentagram

[Sammael99]

Herein I will be posting a narrative of the Mage campaign I have started running a few weeks back. Comments are most welcome. I will undoubtedly be using elements of backgournd and details developed in the Magical Paris thread.

Comments are most welcome !!!

Warning : I should have mentioned this before, but there's bound to be fairly adult material mentioned here and now in this narrative, and I'm not going to hold any punches on the language either. So if that's likely to offend, please forgive and pass your way !

[DeusIrae]

Cool. Looking forward to it; I'm terribly curious about how other people's Mage games look.

[Sammael99]

“Hey, don’t I know you from someplace ?”, the hobo said while pointing a shaky finger at Bob. Bob Martin was sitting in the packed subway wagon between St Michel and Cité (1). As usual, his large frame occupied more than a single seat so no one was sitting newt to him. The man stepped a little bit closer, the smell of dirty clothes, urine and alcohol wafting towards Bob.

“No, man, I don’t think we’ve met…”, Bob answered with just a hint of menace in his voice. He wasn’t being aggressive, but he didn’t want the guy to settle down and annoy him for the rest of his journey. Also he hadn’t smoked for a good couple of hours and it was starting to grate on his nerves. The man stood uneasily in the corridor between the seats, looking at Bob in an odd way.

“I remember now !” the half-drunk stranger said excitedly. “Hepaximandios ! That’s when we met !” Pleased with himself, he started moving forward towards the end of the wagon, leaving a baffled Bob wonder what the hell the man had just said…

In the next car, Charles Seltibus looked incredulously at his mobile phone. It had just rang in that characteristic tone that indicated a short message had just been received. “We’re at least 50 meters below ground level”, the scientist in him mused. “There’s no way the network would reach so deep…” He checked the message, wondering who could write to him, half expecting yet another advert for international roaming services he had no use for and couldn’t afford. The originating number meant nothing to him, and the message was cryptic and odd : “PROTECT YOURSELF FAST !”

Further up the subway train, Louise Vidal-Naqué was correcting her students papers, her large-tip red ink pen scratching furious comments. Her students suspected that she corrected their works when she was in the worst moods, but they could not suspect the inevitability of her anger : correcting papers systematically plunged her in the abysses of bad mood. A man at the end of her wagon started shouting : “We’re gonna blow up ! We’re gonna blow up !” She looked up, like most passengers. He was standing with his hands grabbing the two vertical bars designed to help people stand when the subway was in movement. He had wild hair and dishevelled clothes. He also had an insane grin on his face. “It’s coming now !” He shouted.

Then the subway entered the station at Cité. And all hell broke loose…

The man Louise was staring at suddenly started to glow pure white and the light suddenly exploded outwards in a destructive wave. Windows shattered, people screamed and wailed. Pieces of metal were torn from the sides of the subway car as the seats and their occupants were ripped to shreds by the force of the explosion.

Charles heard an unbelievably loud explosion coming from the further end of the car he was in. He turned around just in time to see a flurry of bits of metal, bone and blood flying at him and all the people standing next to him. He lifted his arm protectively and closed his eyes, while the subway lurched wildly. The sound of screaming and metal scraping mingled to an almost unbearable level.

It was the drunken hobo who had blown himself up, Bob realised, at about the same time he realised everything had shifted to slow motion. Everything ? Well, not exactly. He was moving normally, it was just all the chaos and mayhem around him that seemed to be slowed down. He crouched protectively, dodging a large metal bar that would likely have otherwise skewered him. He didn’t take time to try and make sense of what was happening. Although he avoided most of the large bits of debris that could have hurt him, he was still cut by the shower of glass provoked by the windows exploding outwards and covered in blood, most of it not his.

The subway was still sliding into the station, the only source of light remaining being the thousands of sparks generated by the carcass scraping against the edge of the platform. Bob stood up as best he could, and decided he should get out of the wagon before it slammed into the entrance of the tunnel on the other side of the station. Easier said than done. The windows had shattered, true, but their were vicious shards of glass still attached to the frame.

While Bob was wondering how he would manage to get passed these without being shredded to bits, he lifted his head and noticed an old black guy dressed in a dusty flower shirt standing on the platform looking at him. The man extended his hands through the window, and yanked Bob out.

He must’ve underestimated the motion of the subway carcass though, because when his feet hit the platform he fell and rolled for a while before stopping. He stood up. Around him, dozens of people were staring in shock at the subway in flames. A thick smoke filled the station and made breathing painful. Bob ran to the nearest alarm signal, broke the glass and pressed the button. At that precise moment, the slow-mo effect stopped and Bob was deafened by the sudden wall of noise and screams that had been but a low hum for the last few instants. A siren blared. Bob looked around, but the old black man who had helped him out was nowhere to be seen.

Charles opened his eyes slowly. All around him, the horribly mutilated bodies of his fellow passengers were twitching in pain. There was blood and human bits everywhere, he could see it in the flickering light of the platform. And yet here he was, unharmed, with only a sticky coat of dust all over his clothes and skin to account for the rain of debris that had showered him only three seconds ago. Before he could ponder this strangeness, his mobile rang again. Mechanically, he checked the message. It said “HOLE ON THE FLOOR BY YOUR LEFT FOOT !”

Charles squatted down he couldn’t see anymore. The smoke from the crash and continuing fire of the train was obscuring all the lights from the station that hadn’t been blown by the explosion. He put his hand forth where the message was supposed to be, and indeed, he felt what seemed at first to be a small hole. However, as he was groping around to delimitate it, he realised it was much larger than he originally thought. In fact, he had the odd impression that as he was feeling around the whole it was growing bigger, as if his hands were pushing it back. He decided that he should try and get out through the hole. He slid down through it, reassured that it was just big enough to accommodate him. He was now under the carriage and tried to find an exit back to the platform between two cars.

Louise was dying. A metallic bar had slammed into her neck, cracking something in there and the pain was unbearable. She’d seen the wave of destructive light and then had been slammed on the floor by the power of the explosion. Now she was struggling to remain conscious but deep down, she felt she couldn’t survive. She drifted into an unconsciousness that felt like oblivion... It seemed to her that she was gently moving down a large corridor, gliding rather than walking. It felt a little bit like being ushered to an operation room in a hospital, like that time when she was eight and had had her tonsils taken out. Time went by, as she slowly moved forward. There was a bright light at the end of the corridor, welcoming and warm, and she longed to reach it…

Suddenly, she felt as if someone had grabbed her by the collar and pulled back real hard, except she didn’t feel it in her neck but rather near her solar plexus. She opened her eyes, the excruciating pain washing back, her ears deafened by the silence that followed the thunder. Fleetingly, she thought she saw a dark shadow leaning over her protectively, and then a small light, like a torch, illuminated her eyes. She couldn’t move her neck, but there was enough blood and pieces of flesh sprayed on the walls and ceiling for her to understand that there weren’t many survivors. A man was now leaning over her. He looked young and unhurt.

“There you are”, he said. “Where are you hurt ?” Louise rolled her eyes in pain and breathed out “neck”. He slid his hand behind her head and briefly felt for her neck. “It’s not as bad as it feels”, he declared. Louise felt the pain subside a little, as if to confirm his diagnosis. “Still, it’s better if I carry you. You need to come to safety with me : they’ll probably be here any minute.” She couldn’t protest and didn’t feel like it. The prospect of proper medication and an ease to the horrible pain in her neck was enough to motivate her. The man lifted her gently and carried her away. The darkness and smoke obscured her vision and when he finally put her down on the side of the platform, she thought she must have fainted, because she didn’t quite remember how they had got out. It didn’t matter though. She was safe now, medics were bound to arrive any minute.

Bob was walking back slowly towards the wreckage, hoping to rescue some survivors, when he was an odd looking man emerge from between two carriages. He helped Charles up and noticed he was unhurt, if a little dusty. The smoke was clearing a little bit and the distant sound of sirens could be heard. Bob turned round towards the main exit from the platform and indeed, he spotted a number of firemen who had just run in. More surprisingly, he noticed two tall gentlemen wearing black designer suits with black shirts and matching ties and hats. They seemed to be scanning the platform looking for something. At that point, he and Charles noticed another man standing opposite the Men in Black waving furiously at them. Bob understood the signs to mean that they should hide back under the carriages. He didn’t stop to think about it and, grabbing Charles by the arm, he jumped back where Charles had just emerged.

They walked down under the wreckage for about ten or fifteen meters when suddenly a trap door opened in front of them. A ray of light filtered through and the same man who had waved at them from the platform emerged. “Follow me this way”, he said. They both crawled into the trapdoor and ended in some kind of maintenance corridor under the railroad. “Who are you ?”, Charles asked the young man. He was clean looking and wore trendy casual clothes. He had an oddly shaped bag strapped on his chest. “Call me Pi”, he answered, gesturing for them to follow him down the corridor.

They tool a left turn, then a right, and ended up in front of a door. Pi seemed to fiddle with his front bag for a second, and then promptly opened the door. They were back on the platform and near where Louise lied, breathing shallow to avoid further pain. Pi didn’t give them much time to relax. He seemed to be looking for something on the platform or in the subway wreckage, but finally gave up after a few seconds. “We can’t run the risk of being found out”, he said, “we need to go.”

Louise looked up in sudden terror. “We must wait for the medics to arrive, I need to go to a hospital !”, she moaned. “Sorry, but that’s not an option”, Pi answered. “But you don’t need to worry, there’ll the best medical attention you can get North of the Loire (2) where we’re going.” While he was talking, a flicker of light allowed the three survivors to notice that Pi was again fiddling with his bag. In fact, the unzipped bag looked like a miniature portable computer with a flexible screen and an odd keyboard. Pi was typing faster than most secretaries, looking intently at the screen. “A good thing the RATP (3) doors all have magnetic control, isn’t it ?” he said, before opening the same door they had emerged from.

He picked up the still protesting Louise and walked briskly inside. Charles and Bob, unsure of what to think of all this, followed reluctantly. This time, they wandered for a while. “Are you sure you know where you’re going ?”, Bob asked Pi. “Don’t you worry”, the answer came. “I tend not to get lost…” When finally they stopped, the three men and the injured woman were standing in front of a banal looking wooden door. A faint ray of light glowed under it, and as Pi prepared to push the door with his elbow, he issued an odd warning : “Try to look inconspicuous”, he said…

He pushed the door. It opened onto a narrow street, the evening light still bathing the cars and passer-by. Down below, a bateau-mouche (4) was leisurely advancing towards the Pont Neuf (5). They were standing by the side of the Seine.

“Wait a minute !” Charles exclaimed. “We can’t be here, we didn’t even go up a flight of stairs !”

Pi shot him a furious glance. “There’s my car”, he said quietly, pointing to a grey 305 (6) a few meters away. “As soon as these guys have gone past us, we all get in there !” Louise started protesting again, and Pi handed her over to Charles while fiddling for his keys. “Don’t take me with him !”, Louise whispered to Charles, who was now starting to get very frightened as well.

Pi reached his car. He turned round to beckon the others forward, but Bob decided things were getting too weird. He started running in the opposite direction. Charles didn’t know what to do, and hesitated for a minute, but he couldn’t run with Louise in his arms and he had seen too many strange things already not to want to understand them. “We might as well go with the guy who seems to know what’s going on”, he said to Louise, and walked to the 305. Pi helped him lie her down on the backseat and only then noticed that Bob was running away. It was too late to catch him up.

“Don’t do anything stupid !” he shouted behind the wannabe rastaman. “And avoid the Men in Black !” He then quickly jumped into the driver seat while Charles sat into the passenger seat.

TO BE CONTINUED...

*********************************************

(1) St Michel and Cité are two successive stations on the Line 4 of the Paris Subway. St Michel is on the left bank of the Seine and Cité is on the island of the same name (Ile de la Cité). Since that portion of the line goes under the river, Cité is very deep in the ground.

(2) The Loire river cuts France in half roughly. North of the Loire and South of the Loire are expressions used to delimitate areas of France.

(3) RATP : Régie des Transports Autonomes de Paris, is the public company that runs the Parisian public transport.

(4) A bateau-mouche (literally “fly-boat”) is the name of the tourist boats that go up and down the seine, from the Tour Eiffel to the Pont de Bercy, roughly. Whether they get their names from the numerous windows that makes them look like fly eyes or from the fact that tourists stick to them like flies is unknown.

(5) The Pont Neuf (literally "New Bridge") is, paradoxically, one of the oldest bridge in Paris and the first stone bridge of Paris.

(6) A 305 is a popular mid-range Peugeot model. By American standards, it’s a small car !

[Sammael99]

Pi’s 305 passed the Place du Chatelet and headed North towards Gare de l’Est (7). There was a fairly heavy traffic at this time in the evening, and they saw several fire trucks speeding in the opposite direction towards the Ile de la Cité. Pi was driving carefully, and Charles reflected that although he was possibly trying to avoid any additional pain to Louise, he also seemed to be intent not to attract any unwanted attention. Charles turned back and looked at Louise who had dozed off lying on the back seat. “I didn’t realise she was so short”, he thought, looking as she fit from head to toes between the two back doors of the car. And then he realised there was something odd there. The car was wider than a standard 305 model by far, and yet it looked perfectly normal from the outside...

He was about to ask a question when Pi opened a flap on the dashboard, where the CD player would normally have been, except there wasn’t one : in its place, a dark screen with no apparent commands. Pi touched it and the screen lit up, lines of computer commands flashing faster than Charles’ eyes could follow. After a few seconds, Pi, touched it again, and the screen flickered into an image. It was a wide shot of a square surrounded by old stone buildings, probably in the centre of Paris. There was a thick black smoke everywhere in the picture. Pi touched the screen again and the picture focused on the source of the smoke : the entrance of the Cité metro station.

“Who are you ?”, Charles asked again. “James Bond ?”. Pi’s lips curved into a smile, as if he found the comment not only amusing, but slightly flattering too. His attention remained focused on the screen though, to the extent that Charles started worrying about the driving. But Pi was still driving impeccably, even though he only glanced at the road occasionally... On the screen, the square was now invaded with firemen, medics and police officers. It was hard to make things out but suddenly, Pi let out an expletive. He touched the screen again and the image zoomed towards a group of people emerging from the station. Several police officers were protecting an odd trio : two of the men Charles recognised. They were still wearing their black suits which, strangely enough, were spotlessly clean. They were escorting a third person out of the station, an old man in a rumpled grey suit.

“Shit !”, Pi shouted. Louise woke up with a start. “I knew I’d felt more than you three ! And now they’ve got him, we’re gonna have to go through hell to get him back...” Charles and Louise were again frightened by the intensity of Pi’s implication, especially considering they didn’t understand a thing of what was going on. “Errr... Could you explain what this is all about, please, Mr. Pi ?”, Charles asked worryingly. “In a minute”, the young man answered. “We need to get back to my place and get some help for your friend first.”

***

Meanwhile, Bob kept on running or, more accurately, jogging, since his numerous cuts and bruises were starting to hurt. He headed for the left bank of the Seine, gave the Ile de la Cité a wide berth, and headed for the nearest Pharmacy (8). As he entered the shop, the pharmacist let out a sharp cry at the sight of him. She was staring at him, eyes wide with fear. He spotted his reflection in the mirror behind her, and understood why she was so frightened : his clothes were torn to shreds, he was covered in blood and grime. In addition to the deplorable fear that some Parisians had of blacks, it wasn’t surprising that the sight of him would scare her out of her wits. “Look”, he said, “all I want is to clean my cuts, they sting like hell ! I can pay. Can you do that for me ?” He was staring directly in her eyes, and saw her hesitating, wavering. “Ok”, she said finally, as if surprised at her own daring. She picked up a pack of cotton and a bottle of antiseptic and started washing away the blood and cleaning the cuts.

Ten minutes later, he left the pharmacy. He didn’t look much better, but his cuts didn’t sting as much. An auspicious beginning. Bob looked for a bus that would get him back to the XXth arrondissement where his extended family lived in a run-down building. While waiting at the stop, he heard a few laid-back chords played on an acoustic guitar on the other side of the road. He searched for the origin of this sweet music and spotted an old black man playing a beat up guitar, his back to the wall, in a small side-street. He wore a wide straw hat and Bob couldn’t make out his features, but he was somehow sure that it was the same man who had helped him get out of the subway. The man started to sing :

“You’ve blown it this time, it’s the end of the line
The black and white men follow you to your den
You’d better make sure they don’t bust down your door
While you’re flying miles high on that sweet ganja pie…”

Bob went to cross the street, but several cars and buses blocked his view for a minute. When he reached the other side, the man had disappeared. Somewhat dispirited and only now realising how much odd stuff had happened to him in the last few hours, Bob climbed on the bus and rode home.

***

Louise and Charles arrived at Pi’s house. It looked like a typically small suburb house, and the garage door opened automatically as the car pulled in the alley. Pi parked the car in the spacious basement and helped Louise up the stairs. She was still looking very scared. “Please, don’t harm us”, she kept on saying. “I have no intention of hurting you !” he said, somewhat defensively. They reached the top of the stairs, and Pi opened the door onto a wide living room that looked like a cross between a TV lounge and a high tech lab. There were screens and computers everywhere, but especially a very large flat one that occupied the most part of a wall. They helped Louise lie down on a comfortable couch, and Pi asked them if they wanted something to drink.

“I. Want. To. Go. To. A. Hospital !”, Louise answered in a harsh whisper.

“Don’t worry, I’m calling in the best healer I know. Believe me, he’s good !”, Pi answered, grabbing a cell phone.

“Healer ?”, Louise wailed, looking at Charles reproachfully.

***

Bob finally reached the derelict building where his “tribe” had settled down a few weeks back, against all rules and regulations. It would probably be a few more weeks before the police came in to kick them out, and in the meantime they lived as if this had always been their home. Bob’s favourite pastime when he was home was to sit in front of the building and strum his guitar, sometimes composing songs for his band, sometimes just noodling around. This time, though he headed straight for the back porch of the building where he knew his grandmother liked to stay on her rocking chair, peeling away vegetables or telling stories about the old country to the young’uns. And there she was, smoking a Gauloise Maïs (9) that made such acrid smoke that Bob’s eyes started stinging.

“How can you smoke those horrible ciggies, Grand Maman ?”, Bob asked for the thousand time.

“When you get to be as old as I am, you need pungent stuff to excite your sense”, she answered. “How is my bog boy doing ?”

“Not so good, to tell you the truth… I’m wondering if I’m not in a big kind of trouble…”

“Tell your Grand Maman, Robert”

“Aw, don’t call me Robert, you know I hate it…”

And Bob proceeded to tell Grand Maman everything that had happened since the explosion in the subway. In particular, he asked her if the figure of the old black guy reminded her of anything, but she remained evasive :

“There are lots of old black men in the big city, you know… Was he handsome?”

“Errr… Not particularly, I don’t think…”, Bob answered.

“I probably don’t know him then”, she concluded in a laughter. “Go fetch me the chicken bones, we’ll see if the spirits have something to say about this !”

Bob went inside the building and picked up a small basket lying on a colourful apron. It contained Grand Maman’s special blessed chicken bones, that she used to consult the spirits. Bob had never before paid too much attention to this mumbo jumbo, but right now he was willing to believe anything… Grand Maman grabbed the basket and mumbled a prayer before carefully picking out the polished bones. She tossed them on the floor and stared intently at the result while singing softly.

After a few minutes of silence, she looked up to Bob. Her air was deadly serious, contrasting with the playful conversation that they’d had only a few minutes before.

“This is serious stuff, Bob… The spirits tell me that there are bad men after you. I think you should leave…”

Bob was aghast, but he was not the kind of man to shy away from the obvious, no matter how painful. He climbed up a flight of half collapsed stairs to grab his guitar and change his clothes. He packed a few things in a bag and swing it over his shoulder. He convinced himself that he would soon be back, it made things easier to accept. As he was heading back downstairs, he thought he heard some odd voices at the front of the ground floor. He backed up a little and peeped through a hole in the floor.

Downstairs, by the entrance, two men in black suits were talking with one of his cousins. They showed him a photograph of Bob, his face covered in cuts and dirt, probably taken inside the metro station. “Shit”, Bob thought, “they’re good !”. But his cousin didn’t loose his cool :

“Who are you, man”, he asked in an amused drool.

“Never you mind !”, one of the men, blonde-haired, snapped. “Tell us where to find him !”

“Hey man, I don’t know him… You know how many people live here ? I can’t know everyone !”

Bob realised that his cousin was well on his way to stall the men for quite a while, and decided to make himself scarce. He climbed down the back of the building and ran away towards the outskirts of Paris.

***

Charles, Louise and Pi were sitting in Pi’s high-tech living room in an uneasy silence. Pi’s amusing robot waiter had failed to lighten the atmosphere. Louise’s pain had started to flare up again, and Charles was starting to wonder why he had agreed to follow a complete stranger into his home. Apart from telling each other their names (and Pi still insisted on being called Pi…), the conversation hadn’t gone anywhere. Finally, the heavy atmosphere was disturbed by a knocking on the front door of the house. Pi stood up and went in the entrance to open the door. He and the newcomer exchanged a few words and Pi came back into the living room followed by a scruffy looking young man wearing baggy army clothes , thick blond dreadlocks coming down to his waist. He carried a soft cloth bag in a strap and flashed an engaging smile at Charles and Louise. Louise’s panic went up a notch…

“Charles, Louise, please meet Keltos, a good friend of mine and an expert healer.” Pi said.

“So you’re injured”, said Keltos, kneeling next to the couch. “Let me touch the area where you’re hurt and I’ll see how I can cure this.”

There wasn’t much Louise could do to stop him from feeling her neck with his hands. His touch was gentle, though, and felt professional despite his appearance. After a while, he stood up and opened his bag. He extracted several small jars and little cloth bags from it and started mixing ingredients in a glass that Pi had provided. He spoke as he slowly stirred the concoction.

“I know what you’re going to say, Louise : ‘No way am I drinking this’. You’ve got to trust us. I know you don’t know Pi or myself and a lot of weird stuff happened to you today. I remember my Awakening, and even though it was a lot less traumatic than yours, it was pretty weird nonetheless… But Pi hasn’t hurt you or done anything but get you out of harm’s way, so you’ve got to trust us a little.” He turned round, the glass in his hands. “Drink this he said”, helping Louise to gulp down the brew. She thought about resisting for a minute, but finally gave in. A little more weirdness wasn’t going to change anything now…

It tasted of honey with various herbs mixed in that she couldn’t identify. Even though the mixture was cold on her lips, it warmed her stomach with a great feeling of well-being. The pain subsided immediately, and Keltos held her hand towards her. “Stand up, now”, he said. She did so, and found out she could walk and twist her neck. It was as if she’d never been injured.

“See !”, Pi said, the tension between them evaporated. “I told you it wasn’t as bad as it felt !” He dragged a table to the centre of the living room and set up five chairs around it. They all sat at his invitation, and the robot waiter (who looked like a much improved Japanese dogbot) rolled in to propose another round of drinks. A long silence floated as Charles and Louise tried to make sense of all that had happened since the explosion a few hours ago. Finally, Pi broke the silence : “I know you probably have more questions to shake at than the technos have labs, but I think you should wait a few minutes while I try to find your rasta friend. I’d rather not have to go through all this with him again…

He grabbed a remote control and the flat screen that was fixed to one of the walls flickered to life. Images flashed in quick succession. They looked like stills from security cameras, but with an incredibly high quality. After half a minute, the picture finally stabilised. The street depicted was dark and not well maintained. Most of the street lamps were blown, but what little light was left was enough to see Bob walking briskly, his guitar strapped to his back. He looked worried and kept looking back to see if he was followed.

“Okay”, Pi said. “Stay here a minute.” He went back to the entrance, and they heard the door slam.

Keltos, Louise and Charles looked at each other, feeling a little bit awkward. Charles turned to the young man and said : “Who are these guys that Pi keeps mentioning ? He says they got ‘another one’ back in Cité, and told Bob to beware of the Men in Black. Who are they ?”

“That’s a lot of questions, and I’m not sure I understand what he means when he says they got ‘another one’. In a very simplistic manner, let’s just say that they are the bad guys and we are the good guys. I know, that’s not even convincing, but it’s true, to some extent at least. ‘They’ are the Technocracy, an organisation whose aims are to manipulate the unawakened, the so-called ‘Masses’, into believing that the world is as they want them to believe it is. Their vision is mechanistic, and denies individual freedom of thought. We stand against that and fight them despite the fact that they are a lot more powerful than we are…”

He let that answer sink in, and was about to continue when Louise intervened :

“Look at the screen ! Pi is in there !”

Indeed, on the screen, they could now see Pi talking with Bob, trying to convince him to come along. It didn’t take much : Bob was tired, a little sad and a little worried about his family, and he wanted to understand what was happening to him. Pi led him to the side door of a building nearby, and opened it. They walked through the door and emerged… in Pi’s kitchen, through the door to the broom cupboard.

Charles and Louise were simply dumbfounded. Bob hadn’t quite realised what had happened. “Wow, isn’t it the greatest luck that I stumbled onto your neighbourhood like that ?”, he asked nonchalantly. “Nice place”, he added…

(7) Gare de l’Est is one of Paris’ five main stations, serving Eastern France and Germany.

(8) In France, medicine are sold through specialised shops called Pharmacies. Unlike Drugstores, they only sell medical supplies, and can only be sold there.

(9) Gitanes is one the only remaining French brands of cigarettes. The infamous Gitane Maïs is a pungent cigarette associated with the working class in France that makes your teeth and fingers go yellow faster than you can say lung cancer…

[Nefilim306]

Pi('o'pah) and Hapexamendios ... I can see slight influences of Imajica ;)
Promising start for the campaign and a good read (and those annotations about Magickal Paris are very much welcome...)

Later,
aS

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Nefilim306
Pi('o'pah) and Hapexamendios ... I can see slight influences of Imajica ;)
Promising start for the campaign and a good read (and those annotations about Magickal Paris are very much welcome...)

Later,
aS

Thanks !

Well I have been re-reading Imajica recently, but it's more the names than anything. Actually Pi was more in reference to the movie Pi (also seen recently) than Imajica.

But you're right, there's probably a little bit of that in there too ;)

Another update tomorrow if time allows, and the prologue will be over when we play again tomorrow night.

Thanks for reading.

Comments most welcome !

[DeusIrae]

Neat stuff! I like the use of magic immediately after the PCs Awaken; good mix of subtlety and power. Did the players come up with those effects on their own? Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by DeusIrae
Neat stuff! I like the use of magic immediately after the PCs Awaken; good mix of subtlety and power. Did the players come up with those effects on their own? Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

The whole prologue was run (well, is run, since it's not technically over) diceless. Two of the players were new to Mage, so I explained all the traditions and their philosophies to them, and asked them to design sleeper character concepts that could fit into one of the traditions later on.

On the whole, I "designed" the effects although in the latest session (to be narrated this afternoon if all goes well) they started trying stuff themselves.

[Nefilim306]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Actually Pi was more in reference to the movie Pi (also seen recently) than Imajica.
Pi is a great movie, probably the best Mage movie I have ever seen and a perfect example of an Awakening/Ascension (depending on how you read the movie) gone wrong - and it illustrates quite nicely the pressure that can be exerted by fanatic factions of the Order of Hermes and the Syndicate when they want to recruit somebody into their ranks ...

Later,
aS

[Sammael99]

WARNING : Mature Content

Louise was now back in the saddle. Her normal decisive personality reasserted itself and she decided she wanted answers and she wanted them now :

- “Will you please tell us now what all this is about”, she started.

- “Where to begin…”, Pi mused… “Alright, I hope you all now of Plato’s Cave ?”

Louise nodded, Charles had vague memories of an old philosophy class, and Bob showed the extent of his classical culture by saying : “Never heard of that joint… Is it any good ?”

Pi looked a little bit embarrassed. He’d hoped that the analogy would save him some trouble…

- “Alright. Briefly, and not doing the old man any justice, Plato’s Cave is an analogy, but it’s a good one. It states that men are like sitting at the bottom of a cave, with a fire behind them. They are chained so that they can’t turn their heads round. Behind them is a huge fire. All that men see of what happens is the shadows projected by the fire on the cave wall, they don’t see reality straight on. According to Plato, a rare few men throw away these shackles and turn around, facing the truth by the force of their will. I guess that’s us. You, Keltos, me.”

- “Man, you’ve smoked some heavy stuff…”, Bob said after a brief silence.

- “I wish I had”, Pi said. “But deep down you know it’s true. You’ve seen too much weird stuff today not to realise that reality is more than you knew yesterday…”

- “True, we have seen weird things, but what’s that got to do with us ? It just happened, we didn’t do anything …”, Louise said, uneasy.

- “Didn’t you ? Charles, how come you don’t have scratch ?”

- “I don’t know”, Charles said… “It was weird, now that you mention it. I saw all this stuff coming at me, scraps of metal and all, I shielded my face with my arms and when I brought them down, I was covered in dust, but I didn’t have a single cut…”

- “Bob, how did you get out of the train ?”

- “Well, when that guy exploded, you know, everything went slow. Well, not everything, everything but me… I jumped out the window like in those Jacky Chan movies, you know ? And there was this old guy who helped me out. And then when I slammed the alarm signal on the platform, everything went back to normal…”

- “What you guys have been doing today”, Keltos intervened, “is shaping reality. You’ve done it unconsciously, but you’ve done it nonetheless. That’s what we mages can do…”

- “Mages ?”, Louise and Charles shouted at the same moment. “No way,” Louise continued. “I haven’t ditched a wacko to get involved with more of them !”

Pi looked at Keltos reproachfully.

- “You mustn’t put too much weight to that word.”, he added. “It’s just an inherited terminology. I certainly don’t feel like a ‘magician’ in the old sense of the word, although I know a few who would fit the bill…”

- “And the other guys, the ‘bad’ guys you mentioned”, Charles asked, “can they do stuff like that too ?”

- “Yes, although they try to be subtle about it… They are trying to eradicate the idea of magic or, to put it in a way that may shock Louise a little less, they are trying to make sure the Masses don’t believe that reality is ‘flexible’.

- “So why were they after us, then ?”, Louise asked brusquely.

- “Well you see, there aren’t that many awakened. They must have sensed, like I did, that something very odd happened down in that subway. These weren’t regular bombs that blew up. In fact, I suspect they weren’t bombs at all. There were guys in there, charged with quintessence. I’ve never seen quintessence used this way, but what they did must have attracted a lot of techno attention. That’s why the Men in Black were there so quick. It’s lucky I was there, or they would have quickly rounded you up and taken you in.”

- “And what would they have done ?”

- “Fed you their usual propaganda, and tried to enrol you.”

- “Isn’t that what you’re doing now ?”

- “Yes and now. I am giving you our side of the story, that much is true. But what we’re fighting for is freedom of thought. Which is why I’m honest about the fact that I’m biased. I don’t think you’d get so much leeway from them…”

- “And what if we’d refused to join them ?”

- “They are very persuasive. Have you read 1984 ? That book seems to have been written just to describe who they are and what they do. 1984 is their Brave New World, pun intended…”

A heavy silence floated around the table.

- “How did you know we’d awakened ?”, Charles asked.

- “Well, you see, Mages can store quintessence.”

- “What is quintessence ?”, Louise interrupted again. “It’s the second time you mention this.”

- “Quintessence is the primary energy, that feeds every being or thing. It’s kind of like the oriental Chi, if you see the analogy. Mages are good at storing it and can use it to mould reality. The guys who blew themselves up were so charged with Quintessence that your patterns, your Mage selves, if you will, stored some of it during the explosions. Since I know how to see Quintessence, I immediately spotted you guys.”

- “In the car, you said that they’d got ‘another one’. What did you mean by that ?”

- “Well, down in the metro station I sensed a fourth charged pattern, but I didn’t have time to track it down. I hoped the technos wouldn’t find him, but I was wrong…”

Louise, Bob and Charles asked a few more questions about the powers they had manifested, and the conversation continued well into the night. Bob told them about the Men in Black dropping by his place, and Pi explained that the technos had very sophisticated surveillance systems, and that they really should be feared.

- “So”, Louise said finally, “what happens now ?”

- “Well”, Pi answered, “I think it would be good if I could put you guys in contact with people you have affinities with, so they can at least teach you to harness your new found powers. Unlike the technos, we don’t have a rigid organisation. There’s no training camp to send you to, but then I believe that’s rather a good thing.”

- “Why do you keep saying ‘we’”, Louise asked suspiciously.

- “Well, we is, I suppose, the sum of those who oppose the Technocracy. Some like to call us “the Traditions”, as if naming it made us a formidable an opponent as the Technocracy. The truth is we’re rather a bunch of loose guns, who usually congregate alongside common views of things, reality, how it can be affected, etc. I’m part of a tradition that calls itself the Virtual Adepts, or VAs for short, and Keltos here is part of a tradition called the Verbena, although he’s steered pretty far away from the stereotype.”

- “You can say that again…”, Keltos added. “In fact I don’t frequent Verbena at all, they give me the creeps. But I was trained to use the same techniques they do, so that makes me one. This is how loose our organisation is.”

- “What I suggest”, Pi continued, “is that you go back to your homes and jobs for a few days, think all of this over, and then call me back once you want to do something about it. But in the meantime, be very careful of the Technocracy. It can take many guises…”

- “Considering what happened back at his place, I suggest that Bob should come with me”, Keltos said. “Plus there’s a few people I know that I think would very much like to meet him…”

Bob agreed. He couldn’t think of anything better to do. On the whole, he was coping the best. Pi proposed driving Louise and Charles home. They were silent for most of the way, until Charles finally said :

- “You know, I don’t have a day job anymore, and the way things are looking, I’m not going to have a home for long either… I really don’t know how I’m gonna cope with this on top of that, if you see what I mean…”

- “What was your old job about ?”, Pi asked.

- “I’m a chemist originally, and I worked as a lab assistant in an important laboratory. They didn’t appreciate it when they found out I was using the lab rats for my own experiments…”

- “I can think of somebody who might be interested in hiring you, then. I’ll call him tomorrow and let him know who you are.”

Pi then dropped Charles and Louise near their respective flats. Louise, now that she was alone again, realised that she wasn’t sure she liked it… Facing the events of the day on her own was not an appealing prospect. She made sure the door of her flat was locked and even blocked it with a chair, then lie down, trying to find an uneasy sleep…

***

- “So, where are we headed, man ?”, Bob asked Keltos.

- “A friend of mine has a place where a lot of people meet up, I’m pretty sure she’d be interested in meeting you.”

- “Is she hot ?”

- “You could say that… Maybe hotter than you can handle !”, Keltos said with a laugh. “We’ll stop by a place I know in the meantime, I need to fetch…something.”

- “Some gear, you mean ?”

- “Yeah. Some great mushrooms I grow myself.”

They walked for a while. Bob was pensive. He worried that the Men in Black knew where his family lived… He asked Keltos whether he thought they were at risk…

- “Well, its not like they’re gonna blow the place up or something, they usually try to be discreet”, the neo-druid answered. “But if I were you, I’d warn them to maybe find another place to lie low for a while…”

Bob borrowed Keltos’ cell-phone and called his Ma. He didn’t fill her in on any details, but told her that the people who had enquired about him would probably be back with reinforcements. She knew what that meant and they decided together that it would be a good idea for them to go “on vacation” east of Paris, where another family of “cousins” lived.

Bob’s mind was a little more at ease now. After a while, they stopped by a suburban house and Keltos entered a shrubbery, telling Bob to stay and check that nobody could see him get out. He emerged a few minutes later with one of his cotton pouches in his hand. It was bulging full…

A few minutes later (they’d been walking roughly an hour since they’d left Pi’s house and Bob was hopelessly lost by now…) they arrived in front of a building. Keltos rang at the intercom and a female voice answered.

- “Yes ?”

- “’lissa, it’s Keltos. I got a friend here I think you’d like to meet…”

- “You know I like to meet all of your friends. I’ll open up…”

“I knew she would say that !”, Keltos said, opening the door. He laughed quietly as they went down the corridor and up a couple of flights of stairs. Keltos rang at a door, and a handsome black girl opened up. Keltos looked at her and said :

- “Hello, I don’t think we’ve met…”

- “We haven’t”, she answered in a purr, “but it’s never too late…”

Bob was slightly embarrassed. He peered above their shoulders and noticed a big lounge with several men and women lying on the floor surrounded by cushions, in various stages of undress… He didn’t dare enter without an introduction though, so he tapped Keltos on the shoulder.

-“ Eh ? Oh, sorry man, I was getting carried a way here… You see the petite redhead over there ? She’s Melissa.”

And he went back to his “discussion”.

Bob went forward a bit hesitantly. He spotted the redhead girl talking with another girl in one of the corners of the living room. He walked there, all the while looking at the orgy in the making that was spread in front of his eyes. It was like walking on one of his fantasies… When he reached the corner where Melissa was, she and the other girl were snogging each other. He stood sheepishly for while, waiting for someone to notice him. Finally, Melissa unglued herself from her partner and spotted Bob.

- “Hey, you must be Keltos’ friend”, she said. “I can see why he said I should meet you ! What’s your name ?”

Bob gave his name, and was introduced to Karine, and soon involved in his first ever triangular kissing session. Not that he was complaining. However, after a while, he figured that there must be more about Melissa than just sex preludes. Reluctant though he was to break them up, he needed to talk with someone who knew what was going on. And he liked the idea that it could be that woman (by now, he’d realised that she was older than first met the eye, probably 30 or something…)

As if sensing his malaise, Melissa whispered something in Karine’s ear and she got up to find another partner. She licked Bob’s ear as a goodbye token, the promise of a future opportunity to know each other a little better… Bob was now face to face with Melissa and she started taking his shirt off. Bob didn’t feel too prudish but he did glance around the room to see if others were looking at them. They weren’t, busy as they were in their own sensual endeavours. In fact, by this stage in the evening, people who still had clothes on rather stood out…

- “So, you wanted to talk to me ?”, she asked gently.

- “Keltos told me you were… awake was it ?”

- “Awakened. Yes, and I guess you must be too, or he wouldn’t have talked about this with you. Are you one of the guys Pi picked up earlier ?”

- “Yeah. You know Pi ?”

- “A little. He’s too shy for our company, I guess. A shame, geeks are cute… So do you want to just talk or do you want to talk and… do stuff ?”, she asked, playfully fiddling with the hair on his chest.

- “Option number two sounds fine…”

In between caresses and kisses, Bob told Melissa roughly what had happened that day. She didn’t comment, just listened. She seemed acutely aware of the parts of the story that disturbed him the most, and always accompanied those with a soothing word or a playful kiss. After a while, they were interrupted by Keltos carrying a plate displaying some half dried mushrooms. Melissa picked one up and split it in half? She gave half of it to Bob and ate half of it herself.

From that moment on, Bob’s memories of the evening become both hazy on the whole and extremely precise at times. They started making love, Melissa sitting over him and guiding him. It seemed to Bob that it lasted for hours, which it may very well have. After a while, however, he felt in communion with her in a way that he’d never experienced with partners before. At one point, he realised that they must be sharing thoughts and sensations, because he occasionally felt like he was her. Once he’d hung onto that thought things got a little clearer.

- “Can you hear me ?”, he voiced in his head.

- “Of course, I can”, she answered.

- “Is if the mushroom ?”

- “Not only. It’s you as well. It’s great having a partner who can do that !”

He tried to extend this perception outwards and was soon picking up thoughts and sensations from the other people in the room too. It was a lot less focused though, and he could soon feel a headache coming on, so he focused on Melissa again.

The sensations he was going through were incredible, and as their lovemaking progressed, he felt like he was cut away from the world, as if he was lifting from the ground, higher and higher. Sometimes, he felt like a single fondle lasted for hours, then he felt aspirated in a whirlwind of frenetic thrusts. He could not know how long this went on for, and he no longer cared.

As Bob edge closer to orgasm, he suddenly felt very calm, very “in control”. He felt like he was reaching higher and higher, his senses encompassing the whole world, the whole universe. Then his orgasm struck him like a thunderbolt, and for a second, one little precious second, he felt like he understood it all. He felt connected. Then the feeling subsided and he collapsed on the floor, wrecked and exhausted. He soon fell asleep and didn’t even feel it when Melissa put a sheet over him so he wouldn’t grow cold.

***

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Nefilim306
Pi is a great movie, probably the best Mage movie I have ever seen and a perfect example of an Awakening/Ascension (depending on how you read the movie) gone wrong - and it illustrates quite nicely the pressure that can be exerted by fanatic factions of the Order of Hermes and the Syndicate when they want to recruit somebody into their ranks ...

Later,
aS

I didn't so much see it as a Mage movie as an interesting indie movie. But it's given me a good interpetation of the VA paradigm. Even though I'm not putting too much emphasis on paradigm.

Off to play !

Comments Welcome

[Sammael99]

I realise I've forgotten a small episode in the last part of the narrative, and unfirtunately it's now too late for me to edit it, so here it is. This should come just after the paragraph where Louise bolts her door and before the section whre Bob has fun...

Charles was rather more excited. Even though he didn’t see how this new event would help him, the prospect of discovering new powers was quite thrilling. Keeping in mind some of what Pi had said, and in particular the idea that he must have somehow disintegrated the debris that should have ripped him to shreds during the explosion, he attempted to try something. He had an old wooden table in his small flat. He sat at the table and, concentrating, he willed his fingers to go through the table. At first, nothing happened, and then he felt as if the table was melting under his fingertips. He took his hand off and there it was : five neat holes in the wood. He smiled and went to bed, happy as a child who has been given a new toy…

New update most likely tomorrow. The prologue has now been played in full. Next Thursday should be the first adventure, swiftly followed by an all-day session next monday, hopefully. (Man, I do like this 35-hour week sometimes even if it's fucking up the French economy ;))

[Sammael99]

Sorry for having been away for so long. Between the housemove, the job alterations and the coming baby, finding time to write what is already an excessively detailed narrative is turning out to be tough...

Again, comments are most welcome. The Prologue was actually a lot longer and lot more unusual than I had originally planned and since I don't wish to betray the spirit of it, I've tried to narrate as much as i could.

The forst scenario per se has now been run, and we're playing again next Sunday...

[Sammael99]

Louise had decided to try and ignore the questions that assailed her mind ever since the events of last night, and she thought that the best way to do so was to go on with her life. She went to her morning lecture, in a large Sorbonne amphitheatre. As usual, only half the students had bothered to show up, but these were the more dedicated ones.

Halfway through the lecture, as she looked up to answer a question on an obscure 13th century Italian heresy, she noticed a man in a cream-coloured suit sitting on one of the benches at the top of the Amphitheatre. This unnerved her a lot, even though such visits were not unknown. The fact that she had never seen this particular visitor didn’t reassure her, though, and she had trouble finishing her lecture. When she finally did, the man was still there, and he slowly walked down the aisle as the students were leaving the amphitheatre.

“Michel Weisenberg”, the man introduced himself, extending his hand.

Louise remained cold and kept her arms folded.

“Do I know you, Mr. Weisenberg ?”, she asked in as cold a voice as she could muster.

“I believe you don’t and I see that your reputation is not usurped !”, he answered, smiling. “You don’t know me but I have long been interested in your work, although I only recently learned that you lectured here. I would have come to meet you sooner, otherwise.”

“And how exactly do you find my work interesting ?”

“Let’s just say that we share views on a number of issues (10) although you have been a lot more direct and vocal about them that I may have been, a fact that does you credit…”

Louise finished packing her books and papers and cut the conversation short :

“Well, it was a pleasure talking to you, sir, but I have a meeting with one of my students, so if you don’t mind…”

“Of course not, please go ! I’m sure we’ll meet again soon !”

Louise was badly shaken. She couldn’t help but think that this man was somehow related to her discovering her “new” condition. She walked straight to the teachers’ room and asked a colleague of hers if she’d ever heard of Mr. Weisenberg :

“Oh yes I have !”, the woman answered, her eyes fluttering. “As you would if you took the slightest interest in men ! We’re all dying for him to take notice of us, he’s so cute !”

“Well he just contacted me and I don’t like it one bit”, Louise snapped.

“That’s so unfair…”, the colleague whined mockingly. “Seriously, Louise, what’s wrong ?’

“I don’t know, he gives me the creeps. Is he a professor here ?”

“Sure ! One of those who has all the renown and barely ever lectures… He’s a specialist in Renaissance history. Did he mention why he was interested in you ?”

“He said he was interested in my work. Which seems strange, since I’ve rather been told not to be too vocal about my work ever since I came back here…”

Louise had a light lunch and tried to forget about the morning’s events. She then went for a walk, making sure to avoid the Ile de la Cité where the explosion had taken place. She kept turning round, checking whether she was being followed, and although she couldn’t know for sure, she had the impression that someone was tailing her. She ended her stroll, as often, in a small bookshop specialising in history books and other university thesis. She purchased several works she’d been curious about lately and, on a whim, went to ask the shop owner if he had any works by one “Michel Weisenberg”.

The man had written several books but the shop only had one in stock, entitled “The Roots of Atheism”. She purchased it as well and walked out the shop. Just as she was turning round the corner, she bumped into a man. The commotion sent her pile of books flying, and she turned round to yell at the man. She stopped dead in her tracks : it was Weisenberg.

“I apologise profusely”, he said in his mellifluous voice. He picked up the fallen books and only then seemed to recognise her : “Mademoiselle Vidal-Naqué”, he said, mildly surprised. I didn’t know it was you. I’m all the more confused since I just noticed you had the curiosity of purchasing one of my books… Please allow me to make amends and invite you for a coffee…”

Louise hesitated, but her curiosity got the better of her. She accepted.

Altogether, the afternoon ended up being interesting although not as reassuring as she would have liked. Weisenberg was obviously a scholar, and a knowledgeable one at that. He more or less shared Louise’s views on the evil of religion, although he argued that it was a factor of strong cohesiveness until the XIXth century and as such played a role, however misguided, in allowing for the advance of civilisation. Louise felt that a number of his opinions were a little too right-wing for her tastes, but he himself acknowledged that and said that a uniformity of thought amongst scholars was surely not to be encouraged.

There was, however, a whole part of the conversation which put Louise ill at ease, considering how close to her current preoccupations it struck. They were discussing the role of the historian, and it was obviously one of Weisenberg’s pet subjects :

“It may seem presumptuous, but I really do believe that us historians have a duty to shape reality”, he said.

Louise jumped in her seat and regained her composure only after a few seconds. He seemed not to have noticed her reaction.

“How so ?”; she said hesitantly.

“Well, you often hear novice historians saying that History is all about truths. That is forgetting that whoever presents “the truth” gives it its own bias. I much prefer to see our role as that of reality shapers. If, as many like to say, our present is the result of our past, then surely altering the past is a sure way to shape the present.”

“But how can you alter the past ?”, Louise asked suspiciously.

“You can’t alter the past per se, of course, but you can alter the perception of the past. In fact, that is what every historian does every time he publishes his findings : his own bias influences the way he presents the facts, and hence the way the facts are perceived by his audience. I believe it’s much better to accept the bias and shape knowingly rather than do it blindly, pretending to oneself that the facts as presented are “the truth”.

“You deliberately alter the facts to meet your own ends ?”

“That’s a very obtuse way of putting it”, Weisenberg answered with a laugh. “In your controversial thesis, you aimed at demonstrating how the Catholic church has repeatedly hindered social and technological development throughout the middle ages. Do you truly think that’s purely fact, that your own opinion, your own vision does not influence the way your present your findings ?”

“Of course not, but I don’t intend to mislead deliberately”

“Again, you use a tainted vocabulary : you intend to change the way people perceive the Catholic Church. It may or may not be deliberately misleading, but the end result is that if people believe in your results, they will view the Church in a different light. And you would think that to be a positive result, wouldn’t you ?”

“I guess…”, Louise answered hesitantly.

“So in effect, you shape reality by altering people’s beliefs. That, I believe, is the true role of historians.”

Louise didn’t answer. Weisenberg pressed his advantage :

“I am part of a group of intellectuals who share these views. I would be very interested if you agreed to meet with them, and possibly join the group if you find it to your liking, which I have no doubt you will…”

The conversation ended cordially enough, although when Weisenberg had left, Louise felt very ill at ease…

***

That morning, when Charles woke up, he felt rather cheerful. He was eating cornflakes when his eyes noticed the five neat holes he'd dug with his bare fingers in his table the night before... "Ugh...", he thought. "Pi told us about not being blatant... What can I do to correct this ?"

He fished out some plaster paste in the bag in which he kept a few tools for DIY and filled the holes. He then polished the surface, concentrating on the wood. When he finished, his table was as good as new. Charles smiled, quite pleased with himself...

He showered and decided to go for a walk. He could barely open his door jammed by all the adverts and bills there. He didn’t bother picking up the mail and just left. He was strolling along the Canal de l’Ourcq (11) when his mobile phone rang. He picked up.

“Hello ?”, he said.

“Er. Hello. You are Monsieur Charles ?”

“Yes, I guess…”

“I... Errr. Your name was given to me by Pi. He said you were errrr... looking for a job ?”

“I am !”

“What exactly do you do ?”

“I was a Lab Assistant at Pharmax Technology, but they fired me when they discovered I was using the rabbits for something else than what they were supposed to be used for...”, Charles replied. Only then did his mind register what he’d said and he kicked himself silently. It didn’t seem to bother his correspondent :

“Good, good ! When can we meet ?”

“Anytime !”

“How about this afternoon ?”

“Great !”

The man gave Charles his details. He was called Edgar Merrin, and worked for a company called “Sellocrème”, in the north of Paris. Charles headed straight for a hairdresser, and after that spent his last few Euros on a new shirt. By four o’clock, he was standing in the lobby of Sellocrème :

“Yes, sir, can I help you ?”, the woman at the front desk asked.

“Hmm... Sure ! I’m here to meet Mr. Merrin ?”

“Merrin ? Who’s that ? No one here by that name...”, the woman answered.

Charles didn’t know what to say or do... That wasn’t in the plan.

“What’s he supposed to be doing ?”

“He’s a scientist. R&D ?”

“Oh ! The R&D guy ! So that’s his name. What a weirdo !”

Minutes later, Charles was led into Edgar’s office. There were several workbenches full of chemical paraphernalia, and a small desk covered in loose paper. Charles sat down in front of the man, who opened a drawer and extracted a strange metal contraption. He flipped an old fashion switch on the foot of the device, and it started whirring in a slightly annoying fashion.

“I call this the ‘Silent Wheel’”, Edgar Merrin said. “It’s still experimental but usually efficient. It sends random infrasound waves that garble sound beyond a radius of one and a half meters, roughly. Just a safety measure, you understand !”

“Wow ! Great stuff !”, Charles blurted...

Charles and Edgar spoke about science and their respective endeavours for nearly an hour. Charles was finding this whole thing fascinating. He had been struggling to prove theories that interested him for years, performing experiments that he would never have been allowed to work on secretly in the labs in which he was an assistant, and never had he met someone who had ideas even wackier than him and could actually make them work !

Needless to say, at the end of the afternoon, he had a job, starting the next morning.

“We have to do a little work for our employer, of course”, Edgar pointed as Charles was leaving, “but these little chemical experiments leave us with more than enough time to work out our own research !”

***

(10) Louise has written her University Thesis and several books analysing the doings of the Catholic Church and concluding that it is no different from any other sect. Needless to say she had to tone down a little to get her teaching position at the Sorbonne...

(11) The Canal de l'Ourcq is one of several canals that connect the Seine with rivers upwards of Paris. It's also set in one of the seedier areas of Paris, where Charles happens to live.

[Sammael99]

Louise headed home and sent an e-mail to the address Pi had left her. He answered quickly and gave her an icq number on which to talk :

“How you doin’ ?” Pi wrote.

“Not good. I think I’ve been contacted by someone who is… like us.”

“A techno ?” Pi added a worried smiley.

“Maybe… I need to know more… about who is who…”

“You wanna meet up somewhere ?”

“If we have to...”, Louise hesitated

“Thanks for being so kind…”, Pi said with a sour faced smiley

A few minutes later, Pi was knocking at her door. He led her to a quiet café, and they talked. A lot...

“I need to understand what makes you the good guys”, Louise asked after the waiter had served them their drinks.

“Oh man, one of those metaphysical discussions, is it ?”

“It’s not funny, Pi”, Louise said...

“OK, look, I realise you’ve been hit hard by your Awakening. I can understand that. It wasn’t easy for me either, and I guess most Trads would react the same. Your friends probably aren’t as shaken because they were marginals already, they’re used to being on the other side of the fence. Not so with you...”

There was a pause and then Pi said :

“Basically, what we’re involved in is a war to control reality. Or rather, to be exact, a war between one faction who wishes to control reality and one factions who wishes to stop the first one from controlling reality. The Technocracy, of course, dresses up its actions in a rhetoric that sounds a lot less ruthless than that. But deep down, this is what it’s about. You know by now that reality is flexible, bendable. Call it Magic, call it Reality Shaping, call it whatever you want, at the end of the day, reality isn’t a static as most sleepers believe it is. But the Technocracy doesn’t want them to know that. By keeping the sleepers ignorant, they maintain control.”

“The Traditions don’t want that kind of world. We’re a lot less unified than our common denomination would suggest. In fact, I’m sure you’ll agree that there isn’t much traditional about my own brand of Magic, for example. Basically we’re a number of groups who have decided to fight against the Technocracy’s plans. Our reasons are varied, but what it generally comes down to is that we believe the static reality the Technos want means an end to Magic as we know it and the end of Freedom as we know it. If you want to simplify things a little bit, you can say we’re the Freedom Fighters. It’s certainly not an easy position to be in, but we do what’s got to be done...”

“But you’re talking about an organisation here, who leads it ?”

“In theory, there’s a governing body called the Council of Nine, where one representative member of each Tradition sits. In practice, these guys are just politicians, and their infighting only serves the Technocracy. In practice, there’s no real leadership, just people doing stuff. Some do it right, some do it wrong...”

“So who are the Traditions ?”

“Well, keep in mind I’m biased. I’ll try and point when I think my views are skewed, but you’re warned. Let’s start with me. I’m part of a loose group called the Virtual Adepts. Once, not so long ago, we were part of the Technocracy ourselves, believe it or not. But we quit when we realised that the ideals that had prevailed early on, to improve the lot of mankind, etc. had been long lost... We’re heavily into computers and technology, as you may have figured already. Another Tradition originally comes from the Technocracy, although they left earlier than we do. They’re called the Children of the Ether, and they explore the possibilities of scientific principles in a mutable reality.

“Then we have a number of groups that more accurately deserve the moniker of “traditions” : Dreamspeakers follow the teachings of African shamans, Akashics are zen masters of old, Euthanatos are Indian mages with a death fetish, Verbena are the inheritors of European witchcraft, Hermetics are the followers of esoteric traditions like the Kaballah and Alchemy. Then there’s the Celestial Chorus, who believe that Magic is a miracle from high above. And that leaves just the Cult of Ecstasy, which I believe your friend Bob has already become a member of. They believe in taking pleasure out of everything, don’t ask me how that’s magical !”

“And you think I should join one of these groups ?”, Louise asked in disbelief. “They all sound like those weirdoes you can find in the Yellow Pages of Sects and Nutcase Religions...”

“Thanks !”, Pi said. “And some are my friends too !”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean you, Pi”, Louise apologised, “but I’ve been fighting scientologists and other sectarians ever since I...”. She paused. “I’ve been fighting them forever, and now you’re asking me to join them...”

Another long silence floated between them...

“Look, I’m not asking you anything. The truth of the matter is that, in my experience, Awakened who don’t join one side or the other have a hell of a time... If not worse... Now since despite their PR, I know for a fact that the Technocracy is the wrong side, I’d rather you joined one of us than you joined them...”

Louise sat there thinking for a long time. Finally, Pi broke the silence again :

“There’s someone I think you should meet”, he said. “He’s a scholar, like you, I even think he teaches at University, and he’s roughly in the same position you are. Planck's Constant knows we don’t see eye to eye on many things, but I believe he’s fundamentally a good guy, and maybe he’ll be just the one you need to meet. He’s an Order of Hermes...”

***

And so it was settled. Pi contacted his friend, Reginald Meunier, and a meeting was organised. Louise and Reginald met in a quiet Japanese restaurant rue Sainte Anne (12), and indeed, Louise realised very quickly that she could probably get along with him. He was fairly cynical about the Ascension War, calling the Traditions the “better of two evils”. His position was basically that he belonged to a Tradition because it was better than being unaffiliated, and he had to confess some love for the magic theories of the Hermetics. Joining the Technocracy was out of the question, since he strongly disliked their worldview and methods...

“Pi hinted that the Technocracy could make my life really difficult if I kept on teaching”, Louise asked. “How do you manage ?”

“Master Pi didn’t lie...”, Reginald said. “It has been tough. I applied a couple of years ago, when the Truce was announced. At first, the Technos didn’t add two and two, and things went well. I tried to keep a low profile and do my job as best I could. Later on, of course, they realised who I was, we’ve had our... disagreements in the past. I was barred from promotion ever since, and they make an administrative nightmare for me, of course... But on the whole, as long as you don’t yank on the rope too hard and start demonstrating vulgar magic in front of your students, they won’t move directly against you... They’ll just annoy the hell out of you !”

“How about your Order ? How are they ?”

“Oh, some of them are just as bad as the Technocracy, and our history isn’t entirely glorious, either. But the theory is gorgeous, and should really appeal to you as a historian...”

The conversation proceeded into Esoteric grounds. Reginald started by detailing the Sphere system, then moved on to the Spirit Realms, the Hermetic Paradigm, etc. By the end of the evening, Louise was pretty much reassured she was making the right choice...

***

The next day, after a day’s work at the university, Louise was walking back home when she had the distinct feeling someone was following her. She started walking faster, taking turns right and then left. She couldn’t exactly see who was behind her, but she was sure she hadn’t shaken the tail... She decided to quickly move to a more thriving street, where it would be herder for anyone to follow her and do her any harm.

Twenty minutes later, she entered a cyber-cafe near Odéon (13) and went straight for a PC. She logged onto her yahoo account and sent an e-mail to Pi :

“I’m being followed, please help me !”

“Where are you ?”, the answer came, a few seconds later.

“The Café Neutron, near Odéon”, she answered.

“OK. I’ll ring up your pals and we’ll be there in twenty minutes. Try to stay somewhere public in the meantime ! Oh, and by the way, you need a better e-mail server. This one is sloooooooooow...”

Louise waited killed time, pretending to surf the web. After a few minutes, she turned around to order a drink. That’s when she saw Weisenberg sitting in the booth next to hers. She nearly yelled in surprise...

“We have a knack for stumbling upon each other in the oddest locations”, he said, totally deadpan.

Louise caught her breath, and answered in a voice as menacing as she could muster : “You’re following me, you bastard, and I hate that !”

“I’m not following you. I have people following you. Much more convenient.”

Louise paled at the implications. Weisenberg made a sign at the waiter, and order two whiskies. He then took his large fountain pen out of his pocket and turned the tip with an audible click. The sound level around them suddenly went down.

“A convenient apparatus. We haven’t spread it out to the masses yet, but it should only be a couple of years now...”

Meanwhile, Pi had quickly called Bob and Charles. He told Bob he’d pick him up and suggested Charles make his way towards Odéon ASAP. Charles worked quite a way away, so he asked his boss if there was any way to get into the center of Paris faster...

“Well, there’s this old scooter I designed when I was but a youngster, it should be in the backyard. Nifty little contraption, really, it uses fluid mechanic calculations to ensure that you take only the roads where the traffic is optimal and it optimises the runs of red lights through etherwave controls. Try not to wreck it, it has sentimental value...”

Charles hopped on the old scooter model and darted towards Paris. Meanwhile, Bob was getting the ride of his life in Pi’s little car. Pi had shown up in front of Keltos’ building only seconds after he’d hung up, and he launched his car at high speed into a maze of small streets. Suddenly, he spotted a dark cul-de-sac where the street lights didn’t seem to work. He sped up, and Bob gripped the door handle with all his might :

“Nooooo !” the rasta singer shouted as the car went to crash in the wall that blocked the alley. Bob closed his eyes, his whole body tightening...

In the Café, Louise had decided to keep Weisenberg busy while she waited for the Cavalry to show up.

“Why do you follow me ?”, she asked.

“Frankly ? Because you’ve been talking with the wrong people. You show promise. A lot of promise, and I can’t just resign myself to see this promise wasted by you siding with retrograde two-bit occultists so old that if you scratch past the dust there’s nothing left.”

“And why would you be any better ?”

“Don’t you realise that all they want is freedom to do their own mischief ? This is not about collective freedom, it’s about going back to a time when Mages ruled the masses through oppression and idolatry. You of all people should do all that you can to oppose this...”

“Since when does your organisation exist ?”, Louise sidetracked.

“In its current form, the early 19th Century. Before that, it was a looser group with similar goals, that can accurately be traced back to the 13th century.”

“And you’re against organised religions ?”

“On the whole, yes. They promote needless superstition and cause many societal disruptions, from obscurantism to full-fledged wars. I’m sure you don’t disagree !”

“There’s one thing I fail to understand though. You told me yesterday that you were the shapers of reality, you tell me now that you are against religion and that you’ve been around since the Middle Ages. So why is Religion still here ?”

Weisenberg hesitated for half a second :

“There are many reasons, some good and some less so. First of all, you must realised that although we’re as united as organisations come, there are different theories held and different courses of actions proposed by the various factions that constitute our Union. Amongst these factions, some would gladly help the natural decay of the Church, seeing it as an outdated and counter-productive organisation. Others point to its importance in developing countries and suggest that it could be dangerous from a societal point of view to meddle with it too soon.”

“OK. That’s now. How about then ? When the Inquisition was burning innocents by the dozen ,when women were pushed back in a subservient role by the male dominated dogma ? How about then ?”

“First of all, you shouldn’t over emphasise the active role of the church in the witch hunts. For the most part, it was secular powers that abused the dogma to their own ends.”

“I know that very well, thank you. If you’re trying to pretend that the obscurantist views on witchcraft held by the witchfinders didn’t originate with the Church, you’re on a slippery slope...”

“You are right, of course. But the Church’s importance in maintaining social cohesiveness had to be taken into consideration. Furthermore, at the time, a number of our members were themselves part of the Catholic Church and actively promoted catholic dogma in our midst. It was only in the late 18th century that we as a whole perceived how erroneous these views were and we... excluded them.”

“So you’re telling me you could have prevented all or most of the Evils the Church caused directly or indirectly, and you did nothing. And this is the organisation you’d want me to join ?”

“Look, I”m doing my best not to hide you any of the facts. I can’t pretend that the Technocracy is perfect, because it’s not. But our goals and our ultimate objective are for the betterment of mankind, whereas your friends have had their hands in the most egotistical occult ploys to plague mankind ever since the 7th century AD. They want to use their powers for their own ends. We want Enlightened Science to help humanity advance as a whole.”

“Where’s the fourth person who awakened in the explosion.”

Weisenberg looked surprised.

“You know about that, do you ? Well, I said I wouldn’t lie to you and I won’t. He’s in one of our medical research facilities, and frankly, he’s not in a good condition...”

“Why ? What have you done to him ?”

“Nothing. We have taken him into our care, but he soon lapsed into a coma. Slowly, his body is rotting away, and we don’t exactly know why. He’s currently in assisted cryogenic treatment to slow down the decay until we figure out what’s wrong with him. I can take you there right now, if you want...”

The expected crash never came. When Bob opened his eyes, Pi was deftly driving in the centre of Paris, his speed now more reasonable. They soon arrived Boulevard St Germain (14), and parked opposite the Café Neutron. The whole thing had taken no more than 10 minutes. A few minutes later, they were joined by a hilarious Charles :

“This bike is awesome !”, he said, taking off a helmet that had gone out of fashion in the 50s... "I haven't ever crossed Paris so fast without giong over the speed limit once !"

Pi had already opened his flexible laptop and typed a few quick commands. On the screen, a floorplan appeared with several dots moving around :

“I’ve hacked the security cameras”, he said, “and reconstructed a top view of the Café Neutron. This here”, he added, pointing at a red dot, “is Louise”.

Pi took a deep breath and laid out the plan :

“Charles, you should go in front of the Café. You’re inconspicuous enough, unlike Bob. When Louise comes out, get her here pronto. Bob, I want you to be on the look out for cops and other shifty looking guys. I’ll need to concentrate. Everyone get in position.”

Charles crossed the street and stood nonchalantly by a lamppost. Inside the Café Neutron, Louise and Weisenberg were still talking when, at the back of the shop, one of the screens blew up. People screamed as the lights went out and a fire started by the defective equipment. Louise got the idea and quickly walked towards the exit. She just had enough time to notice that she could see as well in the dark as if it was broad daylight. Outside, Charles grabbed her by the arm and they crossed the street running.

Just at that moment, Weisenberg emerged from the Café, looking furious. He waved at some people and suddenly a number of them walked towards Pi’s car.

“Oh oh”, Bob said, pointing at the guys. In the distance, he could hear some police sirens.

“Jump in the car”, Pi shouted. They all did so, rather quickly. Pi floored the accelerator and took off in the busy Parisian streets while the first police lights flashed in their direction. “You guys need to make sure that the lights are all green when we come through”, Pi shouted.

“How do we do that ?”, Louise asked in a strained voice.

“My bike can do it, I’ll try to replicate the effect !”, Charles said, concentrating.

It seemed to work rather well. Finally, Pi pulled the same trick he had pulled on the way in. He did a handrbrake turn into a quiet alley and looked like he would slam the car into the wall. Louise and Charles screamed, everyone closed their eyes reflexively, and when they opened them, they were somewhere else, in the suburbs. Bob smiled smugly : “He did the same thing to me on the way in...”

“Are you crazy ?”, Louise yelled at Pi.

But Pi didn’t look too well. He was pale and his eyes twitched. Louise’s voice changed immediately :

“Pi, are you OK ?”

“Paradox”, (15) he breathed. “You guys owe me big time...”

***

(12) Rue Sainte Anne : This quiet street is close to the Louvre and features mostly japanese restaurants and shops.

(13) Odéon : Odéon is the name of a square and by extension, the area around. It's dead in the center of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine and there are many Cinemas, Restaurants and Cultural Shops around. It's very busy until late at night.

(14) Boulevard St Germain : The Boulevard St Germain is one of the longest streets in Paris, renowned for its jazz culbs in the 50s and 60s. It crosses the Place de l'Odéon at the Odéon metro station.

(15) Paradox : As will probably be apparent soon, I've changed the Paradox rules following suggestions made on rpg.net. Suffice it to say that the manifestation here is that of accumulating Paradox, not expending it...

[Sammael99]

Is anyone still reading ?

I apologise for not updating more often, but work and family have eaten much time recently.

The Prologue is finished (at last !) and the next bit will be the first actual adventure. Yay !

[Sammael99]

Two months elapsed.

Charles started studying under the direction of Edgar Merrin. It would have been largely excessive to say he tutored Charles, though, since he mostly left the young Etherite do his own stuff, only occasionally answering questions and suggesting directions. Charles ordered a number of lab rabbits and resumed his experiments on extending life expectancy...

Bob found himself his own dump to live in, although he stayed close to Melissa’s place and often met with Keltos. Melissa taught him the basics on the Spheres and the Traditions, but she spent a lot of time organising massive rave parties, during which Bob met a number of members of the loose organisation he had become a part of : the Mystic Ravers.

Louise kept on teaching, fearing everyday that she would be fired or that the administration would crack down on the contents of her lessons. However, apart from occasional file losses on the central computer system, nothing serious seemed to happen on that side. She started hoping that Weisenberg had simply forgotten about her. She spent most of her free time studying with Monsieur Reginald, aka Cartaphilius of House Ex Miscellanea. The contents of her library evolved somewhat, and she started frequenting book fairs.

All in all, the three of them adapted rather well to their new lives. Things were quiet until one day...

Coming Next : Return of a Madman

[johnnype]

I'm reading. I like this sort of thing since it helps me understan a game I know little about. Keep it up.

[Elemental]

I like these write-ups greatly. Nice style, and it makes Mage accessible, not an easy feat. I wonder when the first Nephandus will come sniffing around? :eek:

I look forward to more.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by johnnype
I'm reading. I like this sort of thing since it helps me understan a game I know little about. Keep it up.

That's the idea : the players are new to Mage as well, so this was actually played over three 4-hour sessions, diceless and all...

Originally posted by Elemental
I like these write-ups greatly. Nice style, and it makes Mage accessible, not an easy feat. I wonder when the first Nephandus will come sniffing around? :eek:

I look forward to more.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It's hard work doing these write-ups, so encouragement is always a good motivator.

[Sammael99]

Louise woke up on a drizzly autumn morning feeling a little odd. She switched the radio on and let her mind wander while she was slowly waking up. Strangely enough, she kept on thinking about Bob and Charles, and how she hadn’t seen them in quite a while... She decided to call them later and organise a get together. She didn’t have any classes today, and maybe they were free for lunch...

Later, just after she switched the water on in her shower, she felt a sharp pain in her lower back that immediately subsided. She got out of the shower and looked her back in the mirror. There, just above her left buttock, was a symbol, or a tattoo, colourful, the size of an old 5 Francs (14) coin. The mark wasn’t painful anymore, it just felt slightly sore. Intrigued, Louise grabbed her digital camera and did a close shot of it (framing it so that the area of her body wouldn’t be apparent), then edited it on her computer.

It looked like a five leafed symbol with intricate lines joining the five sections and circled in black. The artwork had some oriental feel to it and it reminded Louise of something. One of the ‘leaves’ looked faded, and the other four were vivid.

She dressed up, and while she printed the photo in the highest resolution available, she checked a couple of the books on Asian Mysticism she had recently acquired. She quickly found the section she was looking for. The mark looked like a Tibetan Mandala of some sort.

Louise decided to go and find one of her colleagues specialising in Asia Studies, and presented him with the printout. He confirmed that it looked like a Mandala, but there was something odd about it. However, Louise declined to leave the printout with him, pretending that this was the only one she had.

Perplexed, Louise went for a walk along the Seine despite the drizzling rain, and took the opportunity to call Charles :

- “Oh hi !”, he said to her when he picked up. “I was just thinking about you and Bob this morning. We should meet up sometime and have a meal together !”

- “How about lunch today ?”, Louise asked.

- “Sounds fine to me ! Let’s meet at ‘La Casbah’, it’s a nice and cheap Algerian restaurant near Barbès (16)”

- “OK ! Do you call Bob or do I ?”

- “I’ll do it.”

Louise hung up and went on walking. Suddenly, an idea struck her. She muttered a few words in an odd language, just as Reginald had taught her, and she concentrated to try and perceive the flows of Essence around her. The colours shifted, and she could see the strands of brilliant white all around her. She looked at the mark on her back, and noticed it pulsated slightly. There were three fine, precise strands of Essence emerging from it, then plunging in the web of Essence all around her. She didn’t know what to make of it, but it definitely sounded odd...

***

[Airclair1]

New to rpg.net but just finished reading through this great narrative, I'm definitely going to incorporate some ideas into my new campaign :)

To echo a poster above, you really make Mage accessible, which is very tough to do, plus it's a great read.

Keep up the good work!

-Michael

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Airclair1
New to rpg.net but just finished reading through this great narrative, I'm definitely going to incorporate some ideas into my new campaign :)

To echo a poster above, you really make Mage accessible, which is very tough to do, plus it's a great read.

Keep up the good work!

-Michael

Thanks Michael. Part of the reason for posting this as a narrative rather than a log was that I wanted anyone who read it to be able to relate. It's been tough writing, to be honest, but now that most of the underlying concepts are understood by the players, it'll become slightly easier, I suspect.

[Sammael99]

They met around a pleasant Couscous (17) and recounted what they had done in the last few months. As the meal ended, they ordered Mint Tea (18) and Louise took the printout of the mark to show it to the others.

- “I found something odd this morning : I’ve got this mark on my back, and it looks like this.”

- “Far out !”, Bob answered. “I’ve got the same one on my shoulder !”. He rolled up his sleeve and showed them. The colours looked darker on the backdrop of his black skin, but it was undoubtedly the same mark, although its orientation was different.

- “You’re not gonna believe this, but I noticed this morning that I had a similar mark on the inside of my ankle !”, Charles said.

Louise was speechless. After a few questions, it became obvious that the mark had appeared on all three of them that night. Louise then told them about the filaments of Essence emerging from her mark, and, on a hunch, she whispered the Enochian formula she used to focus her sight on the Prime energy. As she suspected, two of the filaments went straight to Bob and Charles’ marks.

- “It seems like we are somehow linked”, she said.

- “What do you mean ?”, Charles asked.

She leaned and whispered, so that no one else could hear :

- “Well, there are filaments of Essence connecting each of our marks, and there’s a filament leaving each of our marks too and going in that general direction.” She pointed towards the north of Paris.

- “Cool !”, Bob said. “Wait a minute !” He took a flask of alcohol out of his pocket and took a swig. He winced. “Genepi (19)”, he said, his voice hoarse. “Keltos distillates it himself...” Then his eyes lost their focus and he started looking around.

- “Wow, you’re right !”, he said. Then, after a short silence, he added : “Hey, your mark is on your ass, Louise !”

Louise blushed and told him to shut up.

- “Don’t you think the world looks really cool that way ?” he asked, turning around and scanning his surroundings.

Before Louise could answer, however, Bob’s expression suddenly changed. His face turned grey, and he quickly lowered himself down under the table.

- “Bob, what’s wrong ?”, Charles asked.

Bob’s sight had regained his focus. He peeked out the window, and whispered in a frightened tone :

- “Duck ! It’s the mad guy from the metro, he’s gonna blow up !”

He was pointing towards a long haired hobo who looked like he was sixty. He was wearing rags but had a big smile on his face. He walked as if he was alone on the sidewalk, and people tended to avoid him.

- “What the hell are you talking about”, Louise asked.

- “In the metro, just before it blew up, two months ago. I saw that guy. He even talked to me, asked me if I remember Paxithingy or something. And then he turned all white and exploded...”

Charles and Louise blanched. Louise stood up and walked towards the loo, hoping to protect herself from the coming explosion. Bob crouched under the table. Charles just sat there, undecided...

Nothing happened. The old man just walked on. Then, suddenly, Charles shouted :

- “He’s walking towards Tati (20). He’s gonna blow the place up !”

All the patrons in the restaurant turned round to look at Charles. Nobody moved for a minute, but the tension could be felt in the air. Suddenly, Louise walked back towards the exit, grabbed Charles by the arm and, with an apologetic smile to the owner, she dragged the Child of Ether outside. “Bob, you pay”, she shouted to her Rastafarian friend, just before the door slammed.

***

(16) Barbès (From the Previous Update) : Barbès is an area south of the XVIIIth arrondissement where lots of immigrants of various nationalities, mostly African and North-African, reside. It's a very lively and noisy place with people in the streets at all times and heavy traffic all day round.

(17) Couscous : Couscous is a North-African dish based on semolina and vegetables with various meats (spicy sausages, roast mutton, chicken, etc.) It's very popular in France, due to the presence of many Algerian and Maroccan expatriates.

(18) Mint Tea : At the end of meals in North Africa, and indeed at most times of the day, you can drink Mint Tea which is in fact more of an herbal tea with mint and lots of sugar. It is poured from high above into small decorated glasses and drunk very hot.

(19) Genepi : Genepi is a very strong distilled alcohol (around 80-90°) popular in the Alps. The alcohol if flavoured with various herbs and tastes horrendous. It is usually distilled by farmers or herders and only sold in medicinal bottles with a drop. It's common to have a bottle with you while moutaineering, and usually you just pour a few drops on a sugar and eat it to warm yourself up.

(20) Tati : Tati is a very large department store specialising in very cheap products, especially clothes. There was a real life terrorist bombing of a Tati store near Montparnasse in the 80s. At the time of writing (but not when we played that session), Tati has gone bankrupt and filed for the French equivalent of Chapter 11. The Barbès Tati store is just by the aerial railway station Barbès Rochecouart (Line 2), in the middle of the cosmopolitan Barbès area.

[Sammael99]

Charles followed the old man at a distance, while Louise ran to a phone booth. Bob paid the restaurant owner who didn’t look too happy, and got out on the street. He moved swiftly through the unsuspecting crowd towards Tati, caught up with the old hobo and grabbed by on the shoulder :

- “Hey man”, he said. “Remember me .?”

The old man turned around and smiled...

- “Oh yeah... We know each other, don’t we ? Didn’t we meet in the court of Hepaximandios ?”

- “I think we did”, Bob answered, winging it, “but I can’t quite remember when...”

The old man started thinking as if struggling to remember some distant memory. That’s when Bob realise that he and the man were all alone in a deserted street. There were no cars. There were no people. There was no noise except the faint whistling of the wind. All that was left was him, and the old man, standing on the sidewalk near a completely deserted Barbès...

Meanwhile, Louise picked up the phone and called the police :

- “Yes, Hello”, a male voice answered.

- “I’m standing in Barbès near Tati and there’s a man...”

- “Just a minute”, the man said. He then proceeded to talk to a colleague for long seconds. Louise was getting increasingly furstrated. Finally the man picked up again :

- “Sorry, you were saying ?”

- “There’s going to be a massive explosion in Tati near Barbès any minute now. It’s the same guys who blew up the metro in Cité two months ago.”

Then she hung up.

Bob was trying to stall the man. He couldn’t figure out where all the people had gone, but he guessed that things weren’t safe just because he had the feeling he and the hobo were alone.

- “What’s your name again ? I can’t seem to remember”, he asked.

- “Scopique. That’s my name. What were you called again ?”

- “My name’s Bob’, Bob answered.

- “Oh no, no, no ! That’s not your name. You name is...” He seemed to think again... “Your name is Xenophon, you used to be Hepaximandios’ court wizard, didn’t you ?”

Bob was somewhat surprised by this response, and Scopique, after looking at him for another half second, picked up his pace and started walking the last twenty yards that separated him from the stairway in front of Tati. Bob heard like a popping sound, and all the people around him suddenly reappeared. The noise was deafening after this eerie silence, and he stood, slightly stunned, until a man bumped into him and grumbled...

Louise had caught up with Bob. She couldn’t see the hobo, so she asked him where he was. Bob pointed to him in the crowd. He was starting up the stairs. “Stall him ! He’s called Scopique and he’s a raving lunatic !” Bob shouted. “I’ll get them to evacuate the store !”

Louise ran towards Scopique and called his name. He seemed not to notice at first, and then he heard her and turned around. He was halfway up the stairs, and she could see dozens of customers walking up and down the stairs, and hundreds more inside, besides the glass doors.

The real world vanished around Louise. She could faintly hear the noise of the crowd, distantly, as if she was separated from it by a wall of dense cotton. The only person still there was Scopique. He looked at her, and she noticed that the colour of his eyes swirled.

- “Hello, young lady”, he said in a somewhat high pitched voice. “Can I enquire as to how you know my name ?”

- “My friend Bob told me. Why do you want to kill all these people ?”

- “Kill who ?”, Scopique said, surprised. “There’s no one here but you and me ! All I intend to do is purge this rotten city and bring it back to its natural state...”

- “No ! There are people, everywhere around us, you just can’t see them !”

- “Young lady, I’m afraid you are delusional... You should go and see a psychiatrist !”

Meanwhile, both Charles and Bob were, each in their own way, trying to minimise the consequences of a likely explosion. Bob ran up to the security personnel at the top of the stairs. The man looked at him with a suspicious frown.

- “You need to evacuate the store ! I just saw a man loaded with explosives, he’s gonna blow the place up, man !”

The security guard hesitated for a second, and then answered :

- “This is very unfunny, sir. You’re gonna have to follow me.”

- “It’s not a joke !”, Bob shouted. He concentrated a little, caressing his crotch with his hand inside his pocket...

The security guard hesitated again, then took his walkie-talkie and informed the others that the store should be evacuated, there was a bomb threat. He stayed near Bob so that he wouldn’t go away, and a few seconds later, they heard an announcement that the store should be evacuated and that people were to remain calm.

All hell broke loose. Bob was soon separated from the security guard by the mob of panicked shoppers coming down the stairs and strangely avoiding Scopique. Louise could hear that something was happening in the “outside world”, some sort of commotion that she couldn’t clearly identify. She kept on trying to stall the madman by engaging him in a form of conversation.

Meanwhile, Charles was heavily concentrating, trying to suck out some of the Essence that Scopique was holding inside of him. He clutched in his left hand the piece of unknown metal he had synthesised in his lab a couple of weeks back. He found it helped him focus when he needed to channel Essence. After a few seconds, minute strands of Essence started leaking out of the madman’s body and veering towards Charles, but the amount was infinitesimal compared to the volume of raw essence that seemed to be contained in Scopique’s body. Finally, Charles gave up. He just didn’t comprehend the sphere of Prime well enough to do something worthwhile.

Bob, deciding that the evacuation wasn’t going fast enough, ran to an alarm system and broke the glass. The blasting wail of the siren nearly deafened him. Meanwhile, he picked up a flask in his coat pocket and took a swig. He winced, and seemed to look intently at the front glass doors. Gradually, less people started using these doors, as most headed for the other exit, away from Scopique.

Scopique himself had started his way up the stairs again. He was heading for the inside of the store, quite intent on his destination. Louise snapped back in the real world and turned around to see police cars approaching. She wondered for a second at their surprising ability to cross the notoriously jammed Barbès junction. A couple of the cars skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, quickly followed by a sleek black 607 (21). Louise concentrated hard on the sound of the siren and attempted to reshape it into a force that could hinder Scopique, but it turned out to be beyond her ability.

The mad man had finally reached the top of the stairs. He turned towards the street, closed his eyes and slowly stretched his arms outwards. Bob, seeing that, ran inside the store for cover. Charles backed down the stairs. Louise unwilling to give up, changed her tactics and focused the sound of the siren directly on Scopique, amplifying it tenfold. He shuddered for a second and opened back his eyes, visibly disturbed.

At the bottom of the stairs, policemen equipped with machine guns had emerged from the two cars and pointed their weapons towards Scopique and Louise. A couple of men in grey suits jumped out of the black 607. One of them went to open the boot of the car while the other one signalled to the gunmen. Louise saw what was going to happen and threw herself flat on the stairs, rolling down as the machine guns erupted in a wall of sound and lead. Scopique closed his eyes again, and his body glowed for a fraction of a second, but then the bullets hit, repeatedly, and he seemed to dance like a puppet under the impacts.

Charles slipped on his dark glasses and looked at the blobs and filaments of Essence around Scopique. It was an odd sight... With each bullet that hit him, a ball of Prime energy erupted, and it looked like it would explode, but instead, it was sucked into the trunk of the black 607 by two square “boxes”. Charles lifted the glasses and tried to see these “boxes” in more detail. They looked like huge car batteries.

Scopique’s body went on twitching for a long while. When the firing finally stopped, after what felt like minutes even if it had only lasted seconds, an unearthly silence settled on the street. The policemen approached Scopique’s body diligently, picked him up, and threw him in the backseat of the 607. The man who had been supervising the strange essence batteries flicked a few switches and closed the trunk The other one walked back to the car. He looked extremely pale, his face twitched, and he couldn’t seem to open the door by himself. One of the policemen helped him in the passenger seat, while the other man went for the wheel. The car quickly departed and got lost in the traffic flow.

The stairs were riddled with gun shells. Strangely enough, none of the glass doors had shattered and not a single bullet had hit the walls surrounding the entrance...

***

(21) 607 : The Peugeot 607 currently is the French car for officials. They all go around in tainted window black 607s. Just check the news, it's true !

[Sammael99]

Who wants to play "spot the coincidental effects ?

It's a bit of a giveaway actually, considering I've insisted on the foci a lot...

[the lord triky]

Realy enjoying reading this so keep up the good work:)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by the lord triky
Realy enjoying reading this so keep up the good work:)

Thanks !

Last night, we played the second part of the episode following the one narrated above, and each of the characters had a seeking. I will narrate the whole lot in due course, but chances are the Story Hour will then be on hiatus for a while since the imminent birth of my second son is likely to put a damper on roleplaying for at least a couple of months !

[Gully Foyle]

I am thoroughly enjoying this narrative. I definitely plan to play M:tA in the future. Keep it up!

[Elemental]

Samael, your username finally set off a light in my mind. Did you write up a Fading Suns story on the ENWorld boards?

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Elemental
Samael, your username finally set off a light in my mind. Did you write up a Fading Suns story on the ENWorld boards?

Yep, that was me.

That campaign was, unfortunately, short lived. I tend to play with people who have job lives and personal lives at least as complicated as mine, and sometime last year, organising rpg sessions became such a nightmare that I had both my rpg groups (d&d and Fading Suns) fall through in a matter of weeks.

So I now have only one group, with only three players including a childless couple and a single guy, we play Friday nights instead of weeknights, and we manage to play roughly three hours every other week. Thank Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle that Mage isn't a combat intensive game (or, indeed a system intensive game at all.)

Amazingly enough, we do more in these three hours than we used to do in four and a half playing D&D. I think that's the last my D&D rulebooks will ever see of me...

Glad you read me here as well, and I hope you enjoy what little has happened so far !

[Sammael99]

It looked like fate had flagged Louise’s account in more ways than one ever since the subway incident. Whenever things happened, they seemed to start with her. It was a couple of weeks since the trio had successfully stopped Scopique from blowing himself up, killing dozens if not hundreds of people. The next day, Louise had contacted Pi and suggested they had things to tell him. As usual, he had obliged, and the four of them had met in a quiet bar. They had told Pi the story of what had happened, and he looked both suitably impressed and slightly worried…

- “Why is it worrying, Pi ?”, Charles had asked.

- “Well, these guys in grey suits were obviously technos… They have a way of finding out stuff, and I suspect they’ve monitored unusual displays of Essence ever since the subway ‘bombing’. They may have missed you in the heat of the action, but they won’t miss you when they review their videos, look at every angle of every detail to see exactly what happens. So this is potentially bad, unless they’re 100% certain that you were trying to stop the guy and not help him.”

- “So, what should we do ?”, Louise queried, a worried edge in her voice.

- “I guess the first step is letting the Truce Council know you were involved…”

- “What the hell is the Truce Council ?”, Bob asked.

- “Remember how I told you guys how technos and trads used to fight it over ? Well, they still do in other parts of the world, but for some reason, the technos have concluded a Truce with the trads in Western Europe. Maybe they got tired or fighting, or it’s just a ploy to find out who we are and where we live. I dunno. In any case, when they announced their intentions, there was a big gathering of Tradition mages, and a Coucil was elected, to act as representatives of the Traditions with whom the Technocracy could speak. They meet regularly.”

- “Who are they ?”

- “Old geezers with attitude and hidden agendas. At least that’s my take. But I hear that there was heavy suspicion when your subway blew up. There are number of rogue trads who may not be that far from doing this kind of act just to blow the Truce up to smithereens. In fact, it’s very possible that they have similar wackos on the other side too… From what you’re telling me, I suspect neither of these scenarios are correct, but in any case, I believe that the technos will soon turn ‘round to the Council and ask who you are and what you were doing.

“ I have some contacts with ‘insiders’ to the council. I’ll let them know who you are and what you did. That way the council can at least have a first level of response when the technos ask the tricky questions. But I suspect they’ll want to see you…”

Following this, they ate in relative silence until, some time later, Louise asked Pi a question that had been nagging her for a while :

- “Pi, did you ever find out something about that fourth person who awakened during the subway explosion ?”

Pi looked reluctant to answer, but ultimately, he was even more reluctant to face Louise’s sarcasm if he didn’t…

- “I have found… some stuff. It’s a weird situation. Apparently, your friend”, he looked at Louise, “didn’t lie. The man was, or is, in a bad situation physically. But they’ve moved him. I couldn’t find out where he is being kept now…”

- “How do you know all this, Pi ?”, Charles asked, impressed.

- “Well, I’m part if a tradition that has a knack with information… Plus, I have a number of ‘contacts’ with the other side… There are ways to gather information with such people.”

- “But, wouldn’t it be incredibly dangerous to meet such people ?”

- “Did I ever tell you about the Digital Web ? No. OK. It’s a place that one of our kind conceived. It’s a kind of virtual space where everyone can be more or less incognito. And considering we have a headstart on its conception and implementation, it’s kind of our home turf. A number of disgruntled or curious technos also frequent the place. That’s where I meet them…”

“Anyway, if I find anymore about the ‘fourth awakened’, I’ll let you know. I’m unravelling a number of threads right now but I don’t know if any of them will bear any fruit…”

[TheBrassMonkey]

This is all good stuff. I'm really enjoying the read, keep up the good work! :D


The Brass Monkey

[Sammael99]

I like to do this once in a while. Here are the readers who have dared to speak their mind :

- Deus Irae
- Nefilim306
- johnnype
- Elemental
- Airclair1
- the lord triky
- Gully Foyle
- TheBrassMonkey

Thanks for the support, people !

Now on ENWorld, I had started a tendency to integrate my readers' names or logins in the story. However, I can see that it's going to be tough in this one. Still, I'll try and find amusing or interesting connections.

Anyone else care to put their name forward ?

Anyway, coming next, is the last adventure we played. i'll be spreading that one a little bit because the upcoming birth in the family leads me to believe that we're not going to be playing again for a while. It will be followed by the first series of seekings.

Hopefully I'll manage a first installment of "Looking for Pi" this week.

[Elemental]

Originally posted by Sammael99

Now on ENWorld, I had started a tendency to integrate my readers' names or logins in the story. However, I can see that it's going to be tough in this one. Still, I'll try and find amusing or interesting connections.


Well, if someone has Spirit 2 or better, it's not too hard to have an Elemental show up. :) Alternatively, my IRL name is Paul Gibbon.

Also, I've added this thread to my sig. Hope that helps some.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Elemental
Well, if someone has Spirit 2 or better, it's not too hard to have an Elemental show up. :) Alternatively, my IRL name is Paul Gibbon.

Also, I've added this thread to my sig. Hope that helps some.

Wow !

Thanks Paul !

You're now number one in my list of names to integrate. Don't be too impatient, it's unlikely to be befotre the new year...

;)

[Sammael99]

It was a large room bathed in a greenish light. There was no apparent source for the light, it just suffused the place. A Parisian cataphile (22) would have had little trouble in identifying the brick walls as those commonly used in the late XIXth century sanitation corridors, deep below the city surface. These walls, however, were in a surprising state of conservation, as if time had had just enough effect to make them look old, but not actually enough to wear the bricks and mortar out.

The fact that the room had no apparent door made the likeliness of such an observer remote, however. There was an additional paradox, therefore, in the fact that had such an observer been present, he would also have marveled at the presence of someone, or something else in the room.

Its silhouette was tall, dressed in flowing dark blue clothes reminiscent of traditional middle-eastern fashion and human in all appearances. Anyone who knew the creature in question, and they were few and far between, would have laughed at the very idea that it could be called human.

The silhouette was bent over a large stone basin filled with a dark red liquid. It stared intently at the slow ripples on the surface of the basin, and pondered. Once in a while, the creature dipped a long, desiccated finger in the liquid and watched it drip from his fingers, forming new patterns to observe and interpret. The way the liquid dripped, its particular thickness, was reminiscent of the way blood flowed. That would have been one way to explain the three pale corpses lying on the floor next to the creature...

Then the silhouette spoke. It spoke to itself, presumably, its voice low and toneless, somewhere in between a whisper and a hiss.

- “There are two many unknowns”, it said. “The eggs have hatched, but it seems that I cannot account for the full litter as of yet...”

There was a long silence. Finally, the silhouette stood to its full height. It spoke again, slightly louder this time :

- “This blood isn’t potent enough to divinate any further. Still, the matter will need renewed attention, sooner or later.”

It walked towards one of the walls. There was an intricate pattern there, a round maze of dark lines, which made one dizzy just by looking at them. The creature spoke louder still, its voice harsh and commanding.

- “In the meantime, Lord Triky”, it said, “get me rid of this refuse.”

A dark shape emerged from the shadow, a repulsive, misformed primate made of grey shadow, with eyes black as pitch. It was hard to believe that it could have been hiding there moments before, considering its size, and yet it seemed to have heard the command. It approached the corpses, and a large mouth opened below the eyes, matching their darkness. The mouth got larger and larger still, and then suddenly, the arms grabbed one of the corpses and pushed it in the mouth whole, without a bite.

Again, it was a good thing that no one could have witnessed this repugnant meal, for surely no man or woman living could have watched it and maintained his or her sanity. The other two corpses were dispatched in a similar fashion. The tall commanding silhouette observed, its eyes a dark shade of red. It seemed unperturbed by the scene, as if such horror happened morning, noon and night, every day and all-year round.

Our hypothetical and paradoxical observer, had he had managed to look at the tall creature after the gruesome scene that had just taken place, would have noticed the dark red eyes. Such was their intensity that they glowed through the bandages that covered the whole face. And he would have shuddered, for the cruelty in this baleful look was beyond that of the worst despots Earth had ever known...

The green light slowly faded, and everything was dark again.

***

(22) Cataphile : The Paris catacombs go beyond the known ossuaries and connect a huge network of sanitation galleries, sewers, underground passages, metro maintenance shafts, etc. The Parisian catacomb fans and explorers are usually called "cataphiles".

[DeusIrae]

Been a while since I've checked in, and it looks like lots of intersting stuff has been going on. I like the idea of the "Truce Council" -- it's an elegant way of letting the Trads and the Technos interact without getting rid of the conflict inherent in the different worldviews.

Er, and correct me if I'm wrong, but is Bob's Mind focus his genitals? If so, that's hilarious. If not, I admire his dedication to scratching himself when things get stressful :)

Very much looking forward to the seekings, and congrats on the coming/recent birth of your son!

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by DeusIrae
Been a while since I've checked in, and it looks like lots of intersting stuff has been going on. I like the idea of the "Truce Council" -- it's an elegant way of letting the Trads and the Technos interact without getting rid of the conflict inherent in the different worldviews.


If anything, it can add another layer of trad-trad conflict, as will become apparent when we resume play !


Er, and correct me if I'm wrong, but is Bob's Mind focus his genitals? If so, that's hilarious. If not, I admire his dedication to scratching himself when things get stressful :)


Actually, it's more like "sexual gratification". A simple effect like this doesn't require much "action", but presumably, higher level effects might require more *spectacular* undertakings :D

(I suspect he'll ditch that focus, or at least make it occasional, as Arete gows u